Harold Pinter's script sometimes suffers from awkward, even implausible dialogue; but careful pacing and casting make for a film that, while directed with cool discretion, is sensual and shocking in its casual evocation of erotic violence, emotional manipulation and moral torpor.

Even in those well-executed gnarlier moments and winky character beats, Scream VI feels a lot more dated than the genre it’s deconstructing.

The fine cast takes the movie as far as it will comfortably go, until Bahrani gets a case of Great American Play–itis.

Renner and scientist Rachel Weisz are sympathetic enough (although lacking in Matt Damon's all-American approachability), and the movie flies along briskly.

Hollywood loves these apocalypse-soon stories, however, because they function as blank canvases for ruin porn, and if nothing else, Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium gives us the realistically trashed tomorrow we suspect we deserve.

Tiresome.

The new recruits have standard issue hilarious-style problems - route marching, press-ups, food, the local brothel - but most of all they have psychotic, cruel-to-be-kind drill sergeant Walken. Why Walken plays him so dulcet and limp is beyond comprehension.

More of a clever comic parody than a jokey pastiche, this lively kiddies' horror pic delivers frights and laughs which are rooted in a sure and sympathetic grasp of Monster Movie mythology.

It works well if rather stiffly for a while, with excellent performances (Wycherly and da Silva are outstanding), but blows up into absurd histrionics and naive propaganda.

“Stories heal, stories hurt,” we hear in voiceover, and while any horror film would unavoidably literalize such a claim, this one can’t hold a candle to the power of the page, as read by a thirty, ghoulish mind.

It exists in fits and starts: a Blade Runner–esque moment of rainy contemplation on a hotel balcony; some weird sexual tension with a lizard girl (statuesque Svetlana Khodchenkova) who steals away Wolverine’s healing powers.

Del Toro is the Ernest Hemingway of screen badasses: the less he says the better he is – he does his most convincing work while looking like he’s about to nod off. ‘Sicario 2’ sets up a future instalment centred on him: that sequel will be a must.

Given the dreck we’ve seen this summer, it’s nice to be reminded of the virtues of clean storytelling and cultural curiosity.

Fennell has captured something real about these unreal people and the world they live in. Her film slices with a scalpel, peels back the layers and finds only hollowness beneath. Maybe that’s the real twist.

There are some nice comic moments though; in fact relying as heavily on its disquieting black humour as on images of physical disgust, the whole thing works far better as comedy than horror.

As history, I’d take this account with a pinch of salt – it feels too enamoured by certain elements of its antihero’s story and blinkered to others – but as an exercise in capturing the man’s self-engineered legend, it’s energetic and engrossing.

A messy, meandering script ensures that, despite stylish camerawork and sturdy acting, this lengthy indulgence succeeds neither as jazz movie nor as cautionary tale.

From its title on, Come Undone is as dully generic as is imaginable.

This aesthetically undistinguished yet still engrossing documentary follows the emotionally charged lead-up to the vote on Question One, a 2009 Maine referendum that put the marriage rights of gay and lesbian couples on the state ballot.

With Ustinov's energetic impersonation of Poirot and Anthony Shaffer's traditionally structured script, Death on the Nile offered a fair recreation of Agatha Christie's world, but this time Christie herself would rightly have disowned the film.

Grab your nan, put the kettle on and enjoy some exceedingly fine thesps hamming it up royally.

It works because we haven’t seen this story a thousand times before, and because it leaves behind the grim-dark posturing of ‘Suicide Squad’. It’s nice to see a joker who doesn’t take herself too seriously.

If Jaffe's previous production credits aren't sufficient warning that this is one for Sensitive Drama suckers, the opening shot's a giveaway.

Rewriting the narrative through an anti-colonial, Black and feminist lens, Purcell bestowed a First Nations background and the moniker Molly Johnson on Lawson’s unnamed protagonist. Delving deeper into Molly’s troubles in the novel of the same name, this film marks her third spin at the material. It’s still riveting.

Hawn, atypically cast and supported by all-round excellent performances, proves that she can act. But still this bitter-sweet concoction is very much Demme's: not only in the warming celebration of friendship and community values (the unsentimental generosity extended towards the characters positively glows), but also in the assured handling of period, place, music and mood.

Often very funny in its topsy-turvy comments on racism, the script unfortunately has to battle against a director determined to use every gaudy trick in the book.

An experienced SNL staff writer might have infused the script’s basic nostalgia with deeper knowledge. But when Reitman does take chances, it’s an exhilarating success.

Camp is everywhere, humour thin; and the soundtrack is very contemporary for a movie which in the pre-publicity boasted of its jazz origins. The whole film is an example of the strange influence of pop promo mentality on cinema. All that noise, all that energy, so little governing thought.

A smoothly efficient variation on the 'frightened lady' thriller.

The Amicus studio is better known for omnibus horror films like Torture Garden and Tales from the Crypt, and this flaccid feature suggests they would have done better to stick to that winning formula.

Stunning, eerily atmospheric.

Dan Stevens turns in a vibrant comic performance as Charles Dickens in this drama about writerly inspiration that plays like a smarter Shakespeare in Love.

With his first movie for a major studio, Meyer simply did what he'd been doing for years, only bigger and better. That's to say, he turned the homely story of an all-girl rock band's rise to fame under their transsexual manager into a delirious comedy melodrama, soused in self- parody but spiked with dope, sex and thrills.

It's blackhearted fun, but eventually the spurt runs dry, and all that's left is a pallid corpse.

You’d call it Tarantino-esque but for the pacing and lack of a soundtrack. (Even Tarantino might have cut a couple of these baggy subplots.)

It's an interesting example of how a stock Western plot can assume some fairly explicit political ramifications once it is transposed to a modern setting (not that that is any recommendation).

Based on a Charles Gaines novel about the rootlessness of the so-called 'New South', it has its slack spells, but Rafelson's sure feel for the inexpressible subtleties of emotional relationships is evident throughout.

Thunderously patriotic (the navy is wonderful) and sentimental (kids are wonderful), it's heavily dependent on Kelly's charm and Sinatra's supposed little-boy appeal, the combination of which fuels the running gags and almost saves the scenes with Grayson.

For memorable gags and fun but wildly implausible plot lines, it’s a ride.

This can't be a faithful facsimile of the literary phenomenon currently turning soccer moms into Scandinoir crackheads. Nor can ethical journalist Mikael (Nyqvist), an uncoverer of conspiracies, actually be the dull, Windbreakered nonaction hero onscreen.

Documentarian Jon Foy spent a decade following both the phenomenon and those who've tried cracking the code, and while his film offers little in the way of answers, it says volumes about delusional obsessives.

The most "Naked City"–worthy aspect is the film's temperature, fixed precisely between cool posturing and broiling anomie. Its vision of contemporary Thailand is recognizable as another society undeserving of redemption, but worthy of poetry.

The fifth Pink Panther effort might seem marginally disappointing even to diehard Clouseau fans, with slapstick gags for the pratfalling clown hung very loosely on increasingly implausible jetsetting plot antics.

Everything becomes one long car chase, and in the end it's just a matter of the fat bald bully getting his comeuppance at the hands of the not-so-fat toupeed hero.

Nothing jells at all - least of all the central conceit of the hero becoming shaggy (sometimes the dog's a dog, sometimes a man with fur). It's also not much fun seeing Jones, Pleshette and Wynn getting older and older, staler and staler, playing the parts they've been stuck with for years.

It turns out it’s okay to cross streams: Here’s a summer movie starring a girl squad proud of its big brains and tacky jumpsuits. You could call that a supernatural event in itself.

Sure, Raimi’s latest Marvel entry is a theme-park ride, lighter on character development and heavier on gnarly sh*t that may signal a shift into a darker, more deranged phase of superhero storytelling. But it’s one hell of a ride.

There are almost endless holes you could pick in its logic and storytelling, but it gives you few reasons to want to. This Friday’s freakier, but it’s kind of… funner too.

The real star is Rafie, the golden pup that plays Quill; dogs can be taught to sit or lie down, but they can't fake the sort of connection he makes with the people around him.

Apart from the disastrously miscast Deschanel's dithering switch-hitter, the film's extended clan of uptight urbanites rings true - though their course-corrections don't.

An underrated attempt to scrutinise the immature American screen hero, which simultaneously works as a fine belated addition to Hollywood's recurrent romantic fascination with flying.

Sobering stuff for an animated movie that pitches itself somewhere between cutesy children’s entertainment and hectoring Grimm’s fairy tale. The problem with 9, though, is that it lacks a consistent tone.

By the time the film takes a glib turn into role-switching farce - as Muslims become Christians and Christians become Muslims - the overall toothlessness of the satire becomes damningly apparent.

The trial scenes are scripted and played with electrifying skill, as every turn and twist is amplified through Close's emotions. But it is much more than a courtroom picture. These days it is almost unheard of for a movie to keep you guessing until the last frame, but this one does, partly because Marquand plays it so beautifully straight.

Sachs allowed his actors to develop situations and dialogue through improvisation, giving the film a meandering, naturalistic feel. When plot does assert itself, in the abrupt closing scenes, the effect is truly disconcerting.

Seeing as how Kill the Messenger comes down firmly on the side of Webb’s truth, it’s unfortunate that his discoveries are only confirmed via the end credits. Missing from the action, too, is the merest hint of our hero’s demise by suicide in 2004. These aspects should have been better showcased; as is, it’s not the whole story.

White’s revelation-free, nostalgia massage of a film works the archivals with genuine fondness.

As is, this semi-improvised feature comes off as a willfully vague exercise that, like its dimwit protagonist, presumes that profundity and enlightenment will emerge from the morass eventually. Er, maybe - or maybe not. Kinda like "Signs;" only much, much worse.

Swinging it to compelling are irresistible performances from Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce.

Barkin and Henriksen perform with relish, Whitaker and Freeman are pleasantly understated. Rourke tries harder than ever to minimise, nay obscure, his good looks, a process which merely serves to emphasise them.

As the film reminds us, this Kentucky city included a world-class philharmonic, one that became the first to actively recruit new works from contemporary composers.

Roger Corman's production, following up on his own Bloody Mama, is something of a delight. Although covering the familiar ground of bank robbing during the Depression, the film persistently and boisterously treads its own path.

Forget Jones' rustic English (Kentucky? Australian?) and the melodramatic clichés (boots trampling posies): the haunting, dreamlike consistency recalls that other fairy story of innocence and menace, The Night of the Hunter.

They're not doing themselves any favors by letting this oldie out of the vault.

This animated sequel is tighter, funnier and sillier than its predecessor. It’s worth chicking out.

Learning to fit is what this dodo of a camp is all about, showing that the American Way is big and blowsy enough to take a few off-the-wall-style persons, once the ol' sexuality is straightened out.

American Casino tries to connect the big picture regarding a major problem to a human pulse and comes up lacking on both sides. It’s a gamble that simply doesn’t pay off

Trumbo goes for a tone that’s more scrappy and inspirational, as this ousted ex-A-lister enlists his kids as couriers, builds a network of collaborators and wins two Academy Awards undercover.

For those who’ve never seen The Sopranos, or don’t remember it vividly, this may leave you feeling a little adrift. There is a dense, potentially very rich story here, but a two-hour movie gives it too little space to unfold.

The movie belongs to Hugo Weaving and David Wenham, both playing what one newspaper dubs "the lost children of the Empire," men broken by the appalling conditions that met them in their new homeland.

It's one thing to call a film about homophobia and human rights Any Day Now; it's another to actually have your character sing "I Shall Be Released" in full at the end. The intent is righteous. The dramatic overkill is deadly.

Visually dull and intriguing in only the most generic sense, but still a showcase for the twin talents of Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie.

Hurt and Dennehy are excellent, as ever, but Marvin is badly miscast as a ruthless smoothie; and the film as a whole, while never less than involving, seldom generates any real suspense as it moves towards a curiously muffled showdown.

Fightville doesn't pummel you with outsider viewpoints - it doesn't seem to display much of a point of view at all.

Before long, the film spills over into a far less intriguing, and somewhat questionable, portrait of one hysterical woman.

The impressively lean script by Alex Garland (28 Days Later) is shorn of almost all superfluity beyond a few dud Schwarzeneggeresque kiss-offs, while Anthony Dod Mantle's sensational widescreen cinematography harkens back to the tension-inducing inventiveness of early John Carpenter.

You outsmart the movie way too soon.

Inventive, incisive and full of affection for the originals, this is easily the most fun the series has been since Scream 2.

An adaptation of a short story from David Sedaris’s best-selling Naked collection, C.O.G. (short for “Child of God”) struggles from the outset to retain the snap of the NPR favorite’s hyperbolic humor while also grounding it in authenticity—a tonal disconnect that nonetheless serves to destabilize a potentially predictable coming-of-age tale.

For Pixar, which must surely have a Woody western in mind, it’s a wake-up call. Let’s hope they’re soon back on more fertile ground, because Lightyear feels like that horrible moment when you broke a much-loved toy.

Be prepared for blood, guts and gore. The violence, both in the high-octane opening scenes and the more monstrous body horror, is squirm-inducing at points, bolstered by Jed Kurzel’s thundering score. Don’t be fooled by its B-movie trappings: Amid all the carnage, Overlord has more to say than you might think.

The result is a fascinating, if somewhat scattered, meta attempt to straddle modernism and realism, creating an aesthetic purgatory oddly similar to the film's geographical one.

There are no surprises in the direction, and Abby Mann's screenplay plays the expected tunes, but there's enough conviction on display to reward a patient spectator.

Generation "Home Alone", now grown up and maybe with children of its own, will be amused in the moment, but the film’s heart isn’t as subversive as it wants us to believe.

Yet it’s rare that we get a movie this municipally minded and Chinatown-ish, and Norton invents new elements with a free hand, including a Harlem turf war, a skittering jazz undercurrent (the music is by Daniel Pemberton) and a love interest in Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Alec Baldwin, playing a powerful urban planner, makes for a ferocious Robert Moses stand-in.

Yes, he is at times hard to watch. But Fraser makes The Whale a deeply empathic and touching experience.

Once Pip reaches the big city, Newell starts losing the dramatic focus, piling on incidents and revelations with a bombastic force that makes it seem as if we’re watching a cheap 19th-century telenovela.

Warm Bodies wants us to believe in the transformative power of love, but what of Julie's poor, devoured boyfriend? There's Stockholm syndrome, and then there's cozying up to the monster who ate your sweetheart.

A horror movie that should have been a lot more fun.

It’s no heroic tale; ‘The Mercy’ is thoughtful, uncomfortable viewing.

There’s no escaping the fact that this is a nasty, vicious little film – the climax is startlingly unpleasant. But with its sharp dialogue, beautifully streamlined story and fistful of surprises, the Mel haters are going to have to find another brickbat for now.

Whatever the film’s virtues, subtlety was never going to be one of them.

Trauma from WWII haunts each character, but even the historical foregrounding doesn't keep Ben Sombogaart's weepie from being more soapy than serious.

Stillwater’s leap is admirable – it’s just a shame about the landing.

Just as Douglas discovers that he can go only so far along the extra-judicial path, so the film's line of reasoning twists part-way, falters, then ties itself into tangled and inconclusive knots.

This boppy biopic pushes a wealth of outrageous incidents while never making anything resembling a point.

So it's the story of a down-and-out bigwig vindicating himself by revising his crowning cultural moment. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

Sure, it gets a bit silly towards the end, and the promised post-credits scene is for the truly dedicated. But in a year when the cinemagoing experience could be categorised as ‘much too little’, you can’t really blame it for giving us a bit too much.