If it's all a little too crowded with characters, Branagh’s pacy direction keeps the story zip along to a conclusion that’s tense even if you remember whodunnit.

Tonally, it might feel a bit like a ’70s Disney movie, but visually, it’s absolutely up to the minute.

The approach is pretty conventional, but the characters – from unassuming singer Ibrahim Ferrer to wonderfully glamorous Omara Portuondo – are so brilliant you’d struggle not to be swept up in it all.

In short, the raw materials are there for a fun – if throwback – genre piece of the kind that kept ’90s cinema stocked with stiffs. Alas, the tension dissipates in a tangle of muddled subplots, sluggish pacing and some strange decisions from director Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). The result isn’t a Bone Collector, never mind a Se7en.

It’s slightly frustrating that Winslet’s character Alex is nearly always the one who needs looking after, but the chemistry between them is good, the suspense sufficient and the ending gives you a gentle tug on the heartstrings.

Much of the challenging discomfort of the play is replaced with the easier, quicker wins of revenge, sex and redemption. It remains a daring project ­– but you’re better off reading the play.

Social media has never been so scary.

Even Dench, while adeptly highlighting the vulnerabilities of age and the loneliness of power, can’t distract from the soft treatment, which leaves little room for the harsh realities of prejudice which must have made this a more painful and ugly chapter for many involved than this film ever dares suggest.

This gets an extra point for an exciting action finale, but loses several for a hero who may try your patience well before then.

Liman mines the story for familiar but fun comedy...though it never reaches the comedic heights of rise-and-fall classics such as Goodfellas or The Wolf of Wall Street.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard is not exactly killing it, but coasts on the charisma of its central stars.

In its atmospheric soundscape, cinematography, taut characterisation and storytelling, this is a very involving genre thriller.

The Wall isn’t a terrifically exciting thriller, but it’s thoughtful and fitfully suspenseful – a lean, character-driven and quietly rewarding film.

Narrated entirely by its subject – no famous faces popping up to tell us what a ledge he is – the film is intimate and crisply told.

The film is let down by thin characterisation, struggling to generate much empathy with its square-jawed, tough-yet-troubled special-forces warrior heroes.

While MacLaine and Seyfried do the best with what they’ve got, The Last Word is pedestrian and predictable. It is harmless, though, too. You won’t believe a single minute of it, but you might, despite better judgement, find yourself caring by the end.

Fleischer handles a heavy script and most of the acting like no one should handle a melon; but he really soars into competence at moments of tension, car chases, and general cinematic escapism.

Attenborough's very traditional biopic is a disappointment. Downey has captured the idealism and the melancholy, but not the sentimentality of the comic.

So duff that you wonder why they didn't ask Roger Moore to star.

A wishy-washy, sanctimonious plea for tolerance, directed with Kramer's customary verbosity and stodginess.

It's impossible to deny the virtuosity of his non-stop delivery, but the relentless macho onslaught sadly lacks the saving grace of Richard Pryor's self-irony. Even if Murphy doesn't mean what he says (and he probably does), laughs are forestalled by the feeling that it's all too mechanically manipulative.

It's very silly, of course, but Hanks' fine timing is matched by a strong supporting cast, and thanks to Dante's wicked, comic-strip view of the world, the movie achieves an admirably wacky consistency as it debunks American mores and movie clichés, from Hitchcock and Leone to Michael Winner and Tobe Hooper.

The characterisation is paper thin, and Landis' timing as sloppy as ever; but if you enjoy brainless slapstick that allows space for irrelvant absurdities like a singing bush and an invisible swordsman, it's entertaining enough.

The filmmaking is solid, the performances strong and the tunes are pretty terrific. But this is too wary of controversy – and too ‘respectful’ of the fans – to treat its subject to the hard-headed analysis Tupac’s legacy deserves.

Despicable Me 3 suffers both from a lack of new ideas – there are no memorable gags or action set-pieces, just a lot of flying about and yelling – and from an assumption that the audience is already invested enough to care about what happens.

The whole thing is boring and phony, with just a couple of lines of dialogue that feel sharp.

Some prior interest in Berger would help, but even newcomers should find this an infectious portrait of independent thought and living.

This is an unapologetically fluffy film that never digs deep into its characters’ lives. Its pleasures are patchy. Keaton offers an endearing performance, even if her chemistry with Gleeson (not on top form) is weirdly lacking.

All in all, a most unlikeable film.

The mix of fact and fiction is a little confusing, but a strong sense of warm enquiry pulls it through.

There’s nothing to really hate about Rock Dog, just a creeping sense that – from the writers to the animators to the voice cast – no one’s really put much effort in.

Cox is rudely magnificent, capturing not just the wilfulness of the man but the nagging self-doubt at his inner core. But the film is just too bloodless to be fully convincing.

At least there’s plenty from Whitney herself in incredibly poignant TV interviews where she talks about her struggles with fame and addiction.

The result, despite an uncertain start, is in the end a surprisingly intriguing and affecting movie.

The film’s bouts of slapstick and sentiment sit slightly oddly with its downbeat tone, but if Wilson isn’t entirely consistent as a character, Harrelson is consistently funny – and if anyone can make a sociable misanthrope believable, he can.

This is a fresh and un-stuffy period drama mostly, but it could have done with a pinch more danger.

The film also touches on Bell’s work for the British government, drawing up the boundaries of Iraq after WWI – which was to have consequences still felt today.

The result is just a bit cringey.

For the first hour, this is masterful slow-burn melodrama, eking out the details of John’s crime and playing expertly with our sympathies. But as ambiguity is stripped away the film becomes less interesting, and the finale is weak.

As storytelling, it’s pristine: it moves like a reptile playing the long game. But its cruelty is tough to bear.

It ends up as a sweet-enough movie, and one that’s full of joy and invention – but also one that feels like a lot of effort has been put into serving a tale that maybe doesn’t fully deserve it.

Unfortunately for everyone, Captain Jack Sparrow is still slurring and staggering around the Caribbean. Whatever charm and charisma Johnny Depp once had in this role is well and truly lost at sea.

It’s all a bit heavy-handed at times, but this is a sweet story honestly told.

The creature effects are charming.... But the pig-chasing antics and cartoonish corporate nastiness that dominate much of the film become seriously grating.

Kooler is a very likeable lead, and Michal’s battles – with loneliness, ageing, family, religious doubt and her own indecision – are smartly, sympathetically sketched by writer-director Rama Burshtein.

Too much of the humour derives from Emily’s insatiable appetite for booze, food and sex, while the central mother-daughter relationship is predictable.

Frantz is a slightly over-polite and overly careful, and the black and white palette is unappealingly washed out – more like a collection of greys. But the sense of festering postwar anger and pain is strong, and there are intriguing questions here.

Really, this is David/Walter’s show. For reasons too spoilery to give away, Fassbender is electric, giving a spectacularly skin-crawling performance.

Directed by Gillies MacKinnon, this new version lacks the mischief of the original and feels like a sluggish museum piece.

This low-rent ‘Bourne’ clone has been sitting on the shelf for two years now, which explains why there’s a photo of Barack Obama still hanging above the CIA director’s desk. It might also explain why Unlocked feels so choppy and uneven, like it needed a lot of knocking about in the editing room.

It has the power to tug at your heartstrings like a puppy at a postman’s trouser leg. But ultimately its message is muddled and manipulative rather than meaningful.

The characters are still fun to be around, the one-liners are still sharp...and the soundtrack is, of course, terrific. But there are only so many times you can slap on a Fleetwood Mac toe-tapper and expect it to paper over the cracks.

This is a valuable companion piece to other accounts and a vivid collage of in-the-moment imagery.

Crisply photographed, thoughtfully plotted and sharply soundtracked, The Transfiguration is a solid slice of US indie horror.

Overlong but slick, this still gets away with simplistic dialogue and characters, perhaps because it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

City of Tiny Lights is always entertaining, and proves a great excuse for Ahmed to confirm his newly minted matinee-idol status. If only it had the confidence to shrug off its influences and do its own thing.

Overall, there’s a sense that ‘Fast and Furious 8’ knows exactly where it wants to go and won’t bust a gasket getting there: you might ask for a little more character work here, a few more plot surprises there, but on the whole this rattles along just fine.

The gags here ought to have been put out of their misery and the we’re-all-in-it-together bonding between the kooks of table 19 is just painful.

The Boss Baby is one of those snarky, post ‘Shrek’ cartoons that desperately wants to appeal to parents as well as kids, but its snappy, pop-culture-referencing script feels workshopped to death.

Despite the Falling Snow is held back by stylistic choices.

Overall, this is an enjoyable, compelling small-scale shocker.

A handful of tense moments and some neat Gravity style effects just about keep Life ticking along. But the direction by Daniel Espinosa (he of the dire Child 44) is seriously shoddy – there's a moment towards the end when everything seems suddenly to happen at once, and not in a good way – and the total lack of originality is disappointing.

It’s badly paced, has too many plotlines crammed in and gives Joan’s character one-liners that come off as mean rather than Alexis-sassy.

As drama, The Salesman wanders, meanders and searches, mostly pleasurably, until it hits an over-engineered final chapter.

The absolute seriousness with which the band regard themselves – particularly drummer-songwriter Yoshiki, who’s so famous that Stan Lee turned him into a superhero – is never questioned by Kijak, resulting in a fitfully enjoyable but rather pompous fan film.

At just under two hours, the sheer relentlessness can become exhausting. But if you’re a fan of unfettered action, this will be a rare treat.

At the human level, this is shallow, and Chadha clumsily fuses political drama with romantic melodrama.

This forgotten chapter of history deserves to be better told.

The Great Wall is not exactly a good movie – but it’s a pretty enjoyable one.

The Space Between Us is mostly harmless. But it won’t come close to troubling your heartstrings, let alone the space between your ears.

It’s an important story, of course, but only mildly engaging as cinema.

After the bruising honesty of ‘Calvary’, it’s probably not surprising that McDonagh felt the urge to cut loose a little and make a movie with few ambitions beyond cheap violence and filthy laughs. Let’s just hope he’s got it out of his system.

The script can’t find the right tone, torn between hard-hitting satire on the pitfalls of capitalism and goofy, upbeat we’re-in-the-money clichés. It’s a fine line that ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ walked with ease – but Gaghan, sadly, is no Scorsese.

iBoy’ is a sparky film, embedded in London’s cheek-by-jowl world of wealth and poverty. It’s also a dark teen drama, peppered with brutal beatings, gang rape, drugs and dead bodies.

Denial cries out for a little more subtlety.

The relentless gloom can feel oppressive, but there’s plenty of ambition here, especially in the layered storytelling and woozy sense of time and place, with plenty of soaring aerial shots that nod quietly to the all-seeing eye of a computer game.

There are a handful of really interesting scenes.... But for the most part Passengers is so anodyne, so frightened of the ethically troubling opportunities inherent in the setup that it just ends up feeling forgettable and silly.

It’s a sad project, a testament to lives cut short and stories half-told.

The tone careens from high seriousness to easy parody in a way that makes the film slightly imprecise and slippery. Still, nothing else quite like it out there, that’s for sure.

The icky, well-teased, nightmarish climax is visually stunning for a low-budget project, though perhaps a touch too straight-up strange for some.

While it fascinates as much as it frustrates, the film’s saving grace is that it always feels honest and never cynical. It seems both relevant to us and personal to the filmmaker.

There are few surprises in Creepy. With the exception of a bleak, pointed ending, it all plays out as you’d expect. That’s not necessarily a criticism – it’s fun to watch the pieces click into place, and the film is never less than slick, well-acted and nice looking.

Allied attempts to balance joy with heartbreak, and never fully manages either. But fans of old-school entertainment are unlikely to leave disappointed

While the characters lack credibility, the social backdrop and texture of the performances certainly don’t, and Villeneuve manages to say more about the sorry state of the Middle East (Lebanon is suggested but never mentioned) through the bold, crisp way he shoots faces, buildings and parched, beige-brown landscapes. So let’s call it’s a strong film based on a weak story.

The strands don’t so much intersect as float into each other’s peripheries to basically inconsequential effect, despite attempts to tie them together.

There are sequences in Doctor Strange that could burn the top layer off your eyeballs, crammed as they are with some of the most unashamedly drug-inspired imagery since the ‘The Simpsons’ episode where Homer takes peyote. But problems arise when Doctor Strange tries to tackle the everyday stuff, like telling a half-decent story.

If Zwick’s film improves on Christopher McQuarrie's inaugural, incoherent 2012 entry in the series, it's not through any special initiative on the film's part. But it's efficient, unfussy, and doesn't try to think any faster than it can run.

[An] informative documentary.

Phantom Boy is frequently beautiful to look at, but the cops-and-robbers angle feels tired and the characters are thinly sketched.

Trolls is not break-the-mould brilliant like The Lego Movie or Toy Story, or a keeper like Frozen. But it’s a lovable and giddy guilty pleasure.

Origin of Evil takes a while to get going, and the demonic possession plot pretty much runs on rails. And yet there’s plenty to admire here: strong performances (‘ET’ legend Henry Thomas is a welcome sight as a kindly priest), top-notch jump-scares and some unexpectedly lovely, almost ‘Far From Heaven’-ish autumnal photography.

75 minutes isn’t really long enough to fully examine the Sky Ladder project, let alone an incident-packed artistic career. Still, as an introduction, this is entirely serviceable.

By the end, even Hanks looks a bit bored.

Fitfully entertaining, with some grabby trial scenes, the film struggles to find a proper, engaging focus.

Like a fridge whose door’s been left open overnight, the film doesn’t feel chilly enough. It’s not terrible, but fans of the book may well be disappointed.

Whether Rossi knows it or not, this is one of the most compelling discussions of appropriation and the ignorance of the fashion world in ages.

Accusations of tastelessness are bound to arrive, with some justification. If your priority is to respect the dead, why hire the director of Battleship?

Like four or five Harry Potter books squeezed into a single movie: it makes precious little sense.