Impeccably liberal in its orientation to 'issues' - the power and responsibilities of the press, the impact of misinformation - this avoids the excesses of Stanley Kramer-like telegraphy, only to come up looking aesthetically wet.

This is a busy, moderately entertaining slice of family-friendly fluff. It’s flatly directed and functionally acted.

Too many obnoxious relatives, evil critters and weak gags at the expense of fat kids and foul-mouthed old ladies.

What Hooper fails to do is get to grips with sexual identity in any way that's intellectually or emotionally provocative or surprising. That makes for a cold, pretty, delicate movie – one that too often relies on scene-stealing production design or the overwhelmingly insipid score for its otherwise strikingly absent emotional power.

When played for laughs, this works well, while the action scenes generate an atmosphere of paranoia and menace; but failing to explore the pathos of Nick's predicament, the film becomes an inflated lightweight comedy whose shortcomings are all too visible.

There’s little we haven’t seen before, including farting elephant seals.

By the end, even Hanks looks a bit bored.

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.

Despite the Falling Snow is held back by stylistic choices.

If you loved the game, you might enjoy watching the script contort itself into ever more zany shapes to incorporate the necessary elements: giant slings, teetering towers, boomeranging toucans. But it’s not enough to counteract the tiresome, sub-Lego Movie snarkiness of the script or the bright, busy and unengaging animation.

Ultimately, the film amounts to little more than a consummate study of suspense technique, all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Suspension of disbelief might have been possible had this been a ripping good yarn; but the kids are just plain silly, and it's a toss-up to decide which is more unconvincing, the shark or Scheider.

In the plus column there’s a small handful of decent gags, a clutch of welcome cameos (Eddie Izzard, notably) and at 85 minutes it doesn’t outstay its welcome. There’s also a fairly solid moral about free will and personal desire. But nothing else here really clicks.

There are laughs, but they’re tinged with the sadness of watching a beloved elderly relative making a bloody old fool of himself.

Clarke directs fights in weird slo-mo and is generous with scenes of himself in his undies.

It’ll most likely keep the smaller kids diverted while parents capture a few zzzs.

Pacino wears a vest and bandanna and moons through the part. Pfeiffer plays dowdy. Marshall directs as if Marty had never happened.

This limp, sometimes lifeless business-trip comedy can’t decide whether to aim for teenage boys or their fathers. So it plumps for – and misses – both.

With some dire blue-screen effects, dizzying tonal instability and a total absence of suspense or originality, "Wolverine" is something of a disaster.

Kids still experiencing World Cup withdrawal symptoms may be entertained by this animated oddity from Argentina.

Beneath the well-tuned atmospherics lurks a schlocky, fairly ludicrous and pretty distasteful yarn that ultimately puts the stress in all the wrong places.

Bloody, shallow and oh-so-smug, Deadpool is so eager to offend that it’d almost be sweet if it wasn’t so, well, relentlessly annoying.

DiCaprio (Rimbaud) and Thewlis (Verlaine) provide dynamic if mismatched performances, though there's no excusing Hampton's own laughable cameo, nor the protracted coda with DiCaprio doing a Peter O'Toole in the desert.

The film looks nice but unoriginal (blue light, dry ice, flashing instrument panels); the model work is okay but laboured; the acting is stunningly mediocre.

It's the fashion designer's second movie after his 2009 debut A Single Man, and this is a far more ambitious film, with its sprawling cast, various periods, layered storytelling and musings on life and art. But it's also far less endearing and coherent, and feels almost unbearably cruel and cynical.

Connery lectures at length on his favourite subject, which wouldn't be so dull if the suspense was more adroitly handled, but Kaufman, regrettably, gets the pacing all wrong. Blowup-style video detection scenes provide a modicum of interest.

Extreme cinema aficionados will doubtless get major kicks from Moebius. For others, the cumulative shocks are likely to induce weariness and boredom.

Terminator Salvation isn’t the gritty, futuristic blitzkrieg for which fans of the first two films have been salivating. It isn’t even the slick, entertaining Hollywood blockbuster most were realistically expecting. It is a shambolic, deafening, intelligence-insulting mess, a crushing failure on almost all counts.