Director Luc Besson treats his protagonists as likable cartoons yet never provides a single reason to view them as anything less than remorseless, repugnant psychos.

Innocence is lost - as well as 90 minutes of your precious, precious time.

Though the fallout is utterly predictable, director Steve Rash at least brings an engaging fluidity to the high-energy sports scenes.

Maybe art does demand something profound of us all, but here the big, interesting ideas have been chipped away in favour of subpar scares, leaving this film’s own cult appeal looking rather limited.

John Travolta breaks the braggadocio meter in the latest tightly wound actioner from "Taken’s" Pierre Morel.

Jaglom can craft a scene and stage organic conversations, but if his saps and suckers never wander beyond a hermetic view of the real world, then so what?

Writer-director Will Slocombe preaches the values of laying resentments on the table, but with no true wisdom or novelty to offer, he’s merely served an instantly forgettable slice of cinema de dysfunction.

All the problematic aspects of the Hollywood bad boy's filmography - reactionary rah-rah patriotism, sneer 'n' drool female fetishization, callously detached bloodletting - remain in soul-shattering force.

This is a lazy, obvious film, functionally directed and crudely characterised, which testifies to, rather than criticises, the power and influence of advertising. John Malkovich, originally cast, walked out on the project. Now there's an actor who knows when to make an exit.

Jones may be a charismatic comedian, but no amount of her skilled mugging, Britpop tunes or help from supporting stars (Brooke Shields, Bill Nighy) can transform this derivative ugly duckling into a comic Anglophile swan.

The writer-director-star still hasn't learned to smoothly blend broad comedy and family-values sermonizing.

It goes off the rails early and often. You almost have to give it props for how resolutely batshit it is. Almost.

Despite borrowing from sources as diverse as Frankenstein and The Producer, it all falls apart after an hour.

Although based on the real-life tale of nine underage underdogs from Monterrey, Mexico who swept the 1957 Little League World Series, this Cinderella sports story rings false from first pitch to last.

Once a scarred shark hunter (Liev Schreiber) enters the fray, the film’s tone shifts from madcap to maudlin, and the narrative from being merely grating to actually galling. Artistic inspiration can be close to madness, but Mental is just plain nuts.

This ludicrous CGI extravaganza, based on the comic horror novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, can stand proudly beside the best-worst of Ed Wood and Uwe Boll.

Kershner's direction is never more than adequate, and the story seems full of unfulfilled promise and tangled threads. It's also deeply, disturbingly violent in a way which is more manipulative than gory; unlike the original, with its prophetic vision of the future, this sequel seems to spend too much time glorying in the very horrors it has outlined.

Pacino can do you a volatile, middle class intellectual with one hand behind his back, and along with his streetwise brood has all the best and funniest lines.

Reynolds and Curtis (in a disposable role as Charlie's permanently aghast best pal) race at full speed through reams of dud dialogue, while Minnelli amuses himself colour coordinating costumes and set decorations. Based, very noticeably, on a stage play (by George Axelrod).

It’s not that you can’t see what Von Trier is getting at, it’s just you wish he’d get there quicker and without all the desecrated bodies. For most of its hefty runtime, The House That Jack Built is just a slog.

The movie misses the Hughes sensitive-raunch sweet spot, though a game supporting cast hits bull's-eyes on lesser targets.

The satire rarely stings, as first-time feature directors Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod give a polite Masterpiece Theatre gloss to this most impolite of tales.

Earnest to a fault, this tale of vengeance and retribution strives for Faulknerian pathos, but never rises above amateur theatrics.

The cast - Douglas as a frantically visionary senator, Mitchum as the veteran trail scout, Widmark as the leader of the settlers - is fine, and William Clothier's location photography impressive. But the script meanders badly, even taking time off for a bit of teenage romance involving nymphet Sally Field in her film debut, while McLaglen's direction is simply lacklustre.

There is something watchable about this melodrama in which shocking events force others into being, and in which Huppert is delightfully rude to everyone in a clever way as this literary fraud plays out.

The whole film pinballs between reverence and poop jokes in a way that feels far more blasphemous than anything Monty Python ever did, while a cloying R&B soundtrack further cheapens the tone. Unless you have tiny religious children, it’s probably best to avoid it.

It all feels so rote and old-school, especially during such an exciting era for the genre (thanks to Jennifer Kent, Ari Aster, Jordan Peele, Rose Glass and co). Never mind the fact its once-sturdy beats have been spoofed, homaged and riffed a thousand times. In the era of Netflix’s Fear Street and The Haunting of Hill House, big-screen horror surely has to work harder than this.

Uncourageously, the plot gets a case of cold feet, looping back to half-written family members left in the dust. But when it’s being wild, the drama has nearly enough character to pass for distinct.