Sometimes you find yourself wishing for an alternative version of the film unfolding before your eyes. ‘Belle’ is a good-looking and exceedingly polite film where perhaps a more complex one with less good manners would have been better.

Rather than letting the CGI do all the graft, Hardy unleashes a beautifully handcrafted army of puppets and animatronic demonic creatures. Too many, too soon, really. It’s overkill and pretty quickly you’re suffering from fiend fatigue.

Using home-video footage and talking-head interviews, Dinosaur 13 dramatically depicts the thrill of archaeological discovery. But the overbearing soundtrack and shots of weeping palaeontologists do feel a touch manipulative.

The film can feel truncated, as if only a longer film or TV series could do proper justice to the details of the story. But it’s a sensitive and moving tale nonetheless.

This super-gargantuan historical drama may not be much of a movie, but it delivers Hollywood spectacle of the sort we’ll never see again.

A Hijacking’ is gripping in the way the best Danish TV is – in its no-frills authenticity.

Folman’s vision is just too personal and obtuse, and the result can feel rather like watching someone else drop acid, enjoying their giddy descriptions of all the pretty colours but unable to fully engage.

A film with a fistful of memorable moments—most of them involving Bridges hurling insults at people—but not a great deal new to say.

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.

Hallström's finally struck a chord with the Americans, though it's much the same cocktail of whimsy and worry, the eccentric and the banal, that he's been mixing all along.

It’s a broader, starrier project than either of Nichols’s previous films, and he handles the transition to the major league with relative confidence.

You’ll be left scratching your head wondering what a naked girl draped in a purple net curtain in a cemetery has got to do with frocks. Not many revelations here.

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

Nobby is hardly a character for the ages. He's a basic fool. The movie, too, is chaotic and crude. But its lack of sophistication, like its odd mix of souped-up action and base comedy, ultimately feels like a badge of honour.

Riz Ahmed is superb as Changez (pronounced Chan-Gez, not like the Bowie song),

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.

The 3D effects are dazzling, but the script creaks and the characters are thin.

It has a rigorous, even unrelenting, grey, green and brown palette and, narratively, it’s tough to penetrate.

The opposition of good and evil is devoid of any subtle shading, so just sit back and enjoy the spectacular dogfight over downtown Los Angeles.

It’s a wild, at times exhilarating watch – but an exhausting one.

The film is frantic and silly and our biggest gripe is that all the penguins look the same.

There's no escaping it: Money Monster is a basic, silly movie. But it has on its side a top-notch cast and an entire absence of self-seriousness.

If you’re a fan of the classic streets-to-stardom formula, this is a solid rendition.

It’s disappointing when Starred Up begins to lapse into soapy cliché.

There are some funny-sweet observations about pets and our projections on to them. And the animation is expressive.... But the manic pace, piling on the action sequences, is exhausting.

The plotting may be a little ropey, especially towards the end. But ‘ID2’ has smart things to say about identity and social class, and strides confidently through the minefield of British racial politics.

A charismatic performance from Downey Jr and the growling presence of Duvall makes up for a multitude of sins in this big and brash family drama that puts the heavy emphasis on drama over family.

This is a solid take on the material, but it could have done with a little less narrative incident and a little more cinematic sparkle.