Mirren, of course, smooths over most quibbles with a character who begins in pure camp and enjoys a cheeky nod to her off-screen ex-beau Liam Neeson in Taken, and then gradually evolves into a serious, stony-faced sleuth.

The film is a hoot, possibly the most gloriously macho cop movie since the writer-director Joe Carnahan’s previous cop movie Copshop (2021), or his breakout cop movie Narc (2002), or the cop movie he wrote for Edward Norton, Pride and Glory (2008).

The film is too talky and play-like to properly satisfy as cinema, but if you can roll with the dramatic slenderness, the pairing of McKellen and Coel never ceases to be delicious.

The film bounds ambitiously through fifteen years of the Baranov-Putin alliance.

Arguably the most heroic character in the film is the city. And Blitz is, instantly, one of the great “London Movies”.

You just want to punch the air and shout, “Yes, this is what it was like in the before times! With actual acting, crafted lines and plot!”

Erivo is extraordinary as Elphaba. Although she is known and rightly celebrated for her vocal prowess, her best scenes are wordless. She carries whole set pieces, and the wounded essence of the entire project, in her haunted looks and her mood of quiet despair.

The ending, like the best BDSM experiences (they say), is slightly contrived but very satisfying.

The ending’s a bit iffy, the action so-so. And yet the genre-mashing audacity (part horror, part historical epic, part musical) is so assured, the characters so rich, and the flights of fancy so ambitious that it’s impossible not to be moved.

There’s more of everything. More narrative convolutions, more subplots, more supporting characters, more one-liners, more slapstick, more musical interludes, and even more tear-jerking finales.

MacKay and Turner acquit themselves handsomely with many silent stares, tortured looks and grimaces. Like all Jenkin’s films, it looks extraordinary and the deliberately “tinny” post-sync sound only adds to the sense that you are watching something ancient, meaningful and quite magical.

I’m not convinced that we have the moral right to watch some of these scenes and to witness a tiny traumatised boy at his most bereft and alone. Still, it’s an outstanding, provocative film that is bound to inspire debate. Watch it and discuss.

The narrative arrives in clumsy self-contained chunks that don’t always gel.

Sam and Mother Mary’s chemistry is the film’s big sell, and the impeccable Coel and imperious Hathaway prove the ultimate dynamic duo.

It is not the greatest Frankenstein ever. It’s not even an especially good one. It’s just, in the end, serviceable.

It’s knotty stuff for a first film but Lighton finds a delicate balance between disturbing, funny, sweet and sad.

Insolia and Riondino, meanwhile, are quite perfectly cast. Their characters have soul chemistry and their scenes together are the film’s best.

And then, saving the best till last, literally (of the entire franchise), there’s a helter-skelter biplane chase along South Africa’s Blyde River Canyon that’s simply one of the most extraordinary and apparently death-defying stunt set-pieces that anyone, let alone an A-list megastar, has ever attempted to put on film. And for this, Tom Cruise, we salute you. Mission accomplished.

It’s unashamedly derivative but also entertaining. Butler and Kravitz are charming together and dripping with chemistry.

The film builds to a magnificently sad climax, with Clooney breaking the fourth wall and delivering probably his best screenwork ever.

Sorry, Baby is of a different order of achievement. Walking a tonal tightrope between comedy and tragedy with an exquisite balance that recalls Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain of last year, the film manages to address a difficult, dark subject with a blunt candour that is also slyly funny.

It’s Hugh Grant, returning as the ageing, inveterate “ladies’ man” Daniel Cleaver, who steals the show.

Hollywood finally delivers a worthy successor to The Wizard of Oz with this musical adaptation, starring the superb Erivo as Elphaba and a startlingly good Ariana Grande as Glinda.

There is, initially, some heavy slapstick here (the first murder is a calamitous mess) but the bite of the film resides in the richness of its characters and how it delves into the protagonist’s home life.

Howard makes a fine straightwoman, however, in a film powered by the gaucheness of Mohammed and the ridiculousness of Bloom.

A heartwarming coming-of-age story about a raw boy slowly ripening to manhood, this impressively mature debut is earthy, compassionate and never too cheesy.

There are no solutions offered here, alas, other than a call for awareness, and the film instead remains a beautifully photographed and elegiac depiction of a lifestyle that’s slowly fading even as the women within it burn bright.

It’s a testament to Nayyef’s ingenuous performance and the mesmerising sense of place that the film is always compelling and sometimes bleakly funny, although there are no happy endings.