Sheer novelty powers this confrontational curio, up to a point. But the nastiness cuts both ways.

It's hard to imagine now just how astonishing it was to interrupt the action with a sun-lit frolic on a new-fangled bicycle as the whimsical Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head burbles away in the background.

Howard’s film is a paean to the courage and canniness of the seasoned non-professional: subterranean heroism has never looked so down-to-earth.

There’s so much distinction here, and maybe just a slight vagueness about theme as Husson nears the finish line: it’s a tough ask to end a film well which is so given over to memory, and this becomes a bit of a waft in the general direction of closure.

Kim rattles you with this family’s bizarre and pitiful plight, and only then, from a place of agonised discomfort, does the laughter follow, in great whoops and roars.

Fanaticism – even in one so young and theoretically still savable – is a uniquely bad match for the brothers’ methods.

The whole package is so sleekly watchable, if risk-averse to a fault, that I can’t recall a recent time at the cinema where I learned more by thinking less.

The headline draw remains the headline draw – and sometimes it’s enough for two lead actors to animate, complicate and enrich a project by lending it all the mysterious gravity you could ask for.

Sincerity and conviction are now rare qualities in the blockbuster field, but this is a film that puts its monkey where its mouth is.

In the grizzled spectacle Gibson willingly makes of himself, it has a B-movie equivalent of that A-plus Mickey Rourke comeback, delivered with just enough clout to count as a step in the right direction.

The film is immaculately cast, and the chemistry between its four heroes holds your eye with its firework fizz.

If you're a fan of hers, you've heard it all before. Still, if you're a fan of hers, there is plenty here to enjoy.

Needless to say, Armstrong’s script is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the zingers, and you could spend an enjoyable evening in the pub debating your favourite gags, but it would all amount to nothing without Mountainhead’s unsparing psychological insight.

As a feat of adaptation by Max Porter, from his 2023 novella Shy, it’s quite fascinating.

With its uncompromising commitment to gross-out injuries, nerdy pop culture in-jokes and inappropriate touching, Deadpool 2 was clearly made to cater to existing fans with every innuendo-filled moment (they should stay through the credits for some important story points that are very nearly thrown away).

So what’s to dislike here? Hardly anything – it’s finding things actively to like that poses more of a problem.

Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed) doesn’t make images pop like the Coens, but he knows how to get a plot simmering, and he can milk a sit-down to perfection.

For the most part, Rob Marshall’s film hews painstakingly close to the original in style and structure. But it comes to life thanks to its own consummate artistry and rafter-rattling gusto – watching it feels like reliving a classic, rather than merely retreading it.

The premise sounds morbid but the execution couldn’t be sunnier: think Snoopy does RoboCop.

It’s not a peak for the doughty franchise so much as a reverential goodbye. Jollity is also served, when it’s not straining for misplaced importance.

But in its best moments, there’s a yarn-spinning intimacy to it too – an old war story told around a spectacular campfire.

Pike and Oyelowo have a hearty, wholemeal chemistry together, and play their small moments with sincerity and a light elegance.

Wright is both a gifted stylist and master technician, and Soho moves as smoothly as a Maglev train, gliding on an invisible cushion of its own meticulous craft. Its pristine pop-art finish occasionally feels at odds with the grit of its milieu; as it barrelled along, I felt a constant contact-high, yet little contact grubbiness. But the high is rich and giddying, and the weaving of allure and horror gleamingly assured.

It’s all impeccably pleasant, just a tiny bit bland.

Staying Vertical is a script by a hot talent never quite getting round to being fully written, and instead disappearing down a series of suggestive dead ends.

Amalric transcends mere dishevelment here: in some scenes which flash back to the start of his relationship with Sylvia, the former Bond villain looks like a pile of leaves with a coat thrown on top. [Cannes Version]

Stars at Noon is at its best when it has Trish and Daniel suspended in horny limbo, with Denis building an atmosphere of sultry languor that makes the film feel as if it’s constantly stretching and circling, like a sleepy cat.

The Butler might bite off more history than it can chew, but it packs a sustained emotional punch, more than a pinch of wit, and a superb performance from Whitaker as a man burning with passion beneath his immaculate, repressed exterior.