It’s not bad exactly, but like many film-makers, Clooney is at his most interesting when he’s not afraid to make enemies.

If it’s a love letter, it’s the kind tinged with the grasping anguish and stab of bitterness that comes from knowing that the object of affection is almost certainly eyeing up a new favourite.

Amid the screenplay platitudes (“The crash is not going to define who you are; how you respond to it will”) and shameless advertising riffs (unabashed spiels about PlayStation democratising motor sports), there’s an intriguing story of alien worlds colliding that somehow seems tailor-made for Blomkamp’s preoccupations.

It may not be as significant to the Marvel canon as, say, Black Panther but the skittish wit and playfulness wins us over.

Denis’s usual panache with mood and imagery doesn’t mitigate that awkwardness, nor does it alter the feeling that, although both leads individually portray impassioned suffering brilliantly, there’s little chemistry between them.

One for the buffs. [17 Feb 2008, p.3]

The film has a cold, abstract beauty.

After four decades of diminishing returns, the fact that a guy in a mask can still take an entertaining stab at a somewhat jaded audience is oddly reassuring.

Whether Irresistible is the movie we “need” in such testing times is open to debate, with some already accusing Stewart of having gone soft. But as a non-partisan response to the craziness of “this system, the way we elect people” (which is indeed “terrifying and exhausting”), it gets my vote.

While the title seems to promise a dual focus and fresh blood in the form of Gaga’s Lee Quinzel, in practice, she is very much a secondary character who earns next to no screen time on her own and suffers from thin writing and cursory characterisation. It’s a testament to Gaga’s weapons-grade charisma and star quality that despite all this, Lee’s scenes are electrifying and she lands every last line like a punch.

At the very least it’s a fascinating historical document. However, the fly on the wall songbook approach is draggy and repetitive – this remains a flawed and slightly frustrating music documentary. [2024 Restored Version]

The film tackles issues of race, sexual violence and the low-level simmering cruelty that is a fact of life for those hardy individuals who make a life in the bush in the late 19th century.

The Champions ensemble takes this to the next level, showcasing a host of rising talent, with particular plaudits to Tevlin and Iannucci, both of whom have scene-stealing charisma and note-perfect comic timing to spare.

It’s functionally good-natured rehash fare, bogged down by some watery CG and a few uncomfortable dips into “uncanny valley”, yet buoyed up by Bailey’s winning titular performance.

The film is best when it sticks to children’s caper mode, jostled along by gentle toilet humour, bad-tempered barnyard animals and a scene of two kids driving a van across Manhattan.

Offbeat flashes of humour punctuate this stylishly enigmatic, Jean-Pierre Melville-inspired crime picture, but the momentum flags a little in a convoluted final act.

Kechiche is quite brilliant at using stretches of time to create space for actors to let their characters breathe. It’s a sleight of hand that makes the intimacy on screen seem as though it’s unfolding organically, deployed to particularly dexterous effect in one sequence that takes place in a bar.

It’s all perfectly inoffensive kids’ entertainment, but aside from the well-meaning but slightly jarring BLM messaging, it’s ploddingly predictable stuff.

It’s pleasant, frothy, unapologetically by-numbers stuff.

The film is obsessed with deconstructing good screenwriting, the way a line lands, and ensuring clear character motivation.

This is subdued storytelling that, while it drags a little in its pacing, asks tough questions about society’s relationship with elderly people.

It’s a solid, sensitively handled study of the aftermath of a trauma, elevated by tricky, unexpected revelations about Park.

Mya Bollaers is a magnetic presence in this Belgian-French film that approaches the story of an adolescent trans girl and her estranged father with good intentions but a thuddingly unsubtle directorial approach.

It’s enjoyable, if familiar.

The film spends scant time exploring the implications of these darker themes, and doesn’t attempt to understand the root of Dreykov’s god complex. Instead, it’s more comfortable in comedy mode.

This kind of horror storytelling is only as successful as its final act. And, unfortunately, Never Let Go drops the ball, along with the bloodstained machete, just when it should be ramping up the tension.

As anyone who saw The Woman King will know, Davis has a formidable screen presence and serious action chops; for all its silliness, there’s plenty of fun to be had watching her slaughter the bad guys amid a diplomatic hail of bullets and canapés.

While DeBose is impressive, the contrived plot of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s movie hinges, somewhat preposterously, on rational, highly trained scientific minds devolving overnight into paranoid, murderous maniacs.