When the best one can say about a movie is that it’s pyrotechnically impressive, something important is missing. In this case it’s tension, originality and memorable characters.

Chases on foot and four wheels keep the thing moving, but apart from a thematic wrinkle where Besson’s clearly siding with the hood rather than the lawmakers, it’s all pretty predictable.

Unfortunately, Arnaud de Pallieres’s film succeeds neither as a decent adaptation of the book nor as a rewarding movie in its own right.

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

It lacks internal logic and relies on the audience’s familiarity with its cartoon serial source.

As the determined but fragile son, Reynor has a strong presence, but Collette’s character is too thinly sketched to make much sense.

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

There are a couple of decent jumps and a few giggles, but nothing armrest-clenchingly scary about The Quiet Ones.

This is tame, lifeless stuff.

If you make it as far as the obvious, disappointing denouement, you might be left asking yourself if the filmmakers’ abstract style is better suited to short films.

This anime feature takes an intriguing premise and does little with it. The detailed Ghibli-esque visuals are decent enough, but this is disappointingly bland.

As the sexual, financial and criminal shenanigans get ever more complicated, absurd and melodramatic, the film becomes increasingly tiresome; it’s not even possible to enjoy its excesses in a ‘so bad it’s good’ way.

Granted the producers wanted to repeat their success, but taking the same stars and copying the same jokes merely makes for a thin rehash.

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

Refreshingly, Mariachi Gringo looks beyond the usual cartel/corruption/bloodbath take on modern Mexico, but the result is altogether stronger on sincerity than emotional engagement.

This turgid return papers over the previous film’s narrative, but creates little in the way of a fresh character arc.

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.

All told, ‘Winter’s War’ is not the fairest sequel, but it’s not so terrible that it deserves to be taken out to the forest and finished off.

This enjoyable-despite-itself horror flick has precisely nothing new to offer - with the arguable exception of a monster in a miniskirt, which may be a first.

They do make 'em like it any more.

Crichton's adaptation of his own novel falls badly between genres, never quite making up its mind whether it's aiming for comedy or suspense, and not succeeding very conclusively at either. The characters stay largely undeveloped, while - despite superficially peculiar features - the robbery is stripped of the ingenious exposition of the novel to become just another heist.

The top-notch cast keep calm and carry on, but this TV remake is a waste of everyone’s time.

Overall, the film just feels too much like an obligation, as though everyone involved had spent too much time and money to back out, so they forced themselves to grit their teeth and get on with it. You may feel the same.

Worth a try, but without his Art Dept clothes on, Bond is like the naked Emperor. Look, Ma, no plot and poor dialogue, and Moore really is old enough to be the uncle of those girls.

Futuro Beach is realised with such undeniable visual panache that the sheer beauty of the coastal landscapes or the moody images of urban isolation cast their own spell. But without much emotional connection to the central couple, it’s all a bit academic. Exquisitely lovely, confoundingly dreary.

The Immigrant promises rich territory to explore, but in the execution it’s overly stately, dreary and unconvincing.

All in all, a most unlikeable film.

The problem is that it all feels like a sixth-form production of the Bourne series. Still, if you’ve ever fantasised about a Luther-Robb Stark crimefighting duo, look no further.