Only the animation seems forced, with its comic-book style and melodramatic tone registering as manipulative next to the brute reality of the documentary images.

Ably welding dance numbers and plot, courtesy of light comedy director Potter, it overcomes its lack of '30s snap and crackle with lavish doses of elegance and charm to a tango or foxtrot rhythm.

There’s much to admire here, but with Legge’s keen eye for the technical side of cinema stronger than his narrative impulses, LOLA ultimately has to go down as an ambitious failure.

The tone balances realism and optimism with the accent on the latter; ultimately Patti Cake$ has the kind of uplifting, defiant-misfit mood that’s easy to compare with fellow Sundance hit "Little Miss Sunshine."

It’s a lurid psychological horror that’ll thrill midnight movie crowds.

Once the rote plot takes over - the tension brought on by the film's you-are-there verisimilitude quickly devolves into soapily overwrought theatrics.

Eventually, biting on a little more than it can chew, the film reverts to type. But in addition to Fishburne, it gives us a first-rate soundtrack, a clutch of splendid cameos, fine, grainy direction from Duke, and much pointed stuff about the hypocrisy behind the USA's so-called war against drugs.

When sitting through this detail-heavy documentary, nonaficionados may feel like they're watching paint dry, albeit in the company of an artist who savors each and every shade.

There's not much beyond all the fawning, but the effusively talented Channing more than deserves the gush.

In comparison with near-impenetrable Garrel efforts like "Regular Lovers" (2005) and "Frontier of the Dawn" (2008), Jealousy cuts straight to the heart.

There's probably a moderate little romantic comedy crying to get out here, but the film's vain striving for casual hip proves suffocatingly obtrusive.

The film is overcrowded with story lines and short on thrust, but fortunately, its protagonists carry the day with their candor and precocious poise.

For a movie defined by its restraint, this travelogue is remarkably physical; as a valentine to the rueful desire of grown-ups acquainted with both joy and disappointment, the film is a true rarity.

Frank Marshall has crammed the screen with plenty of knee-jerk thrills interlaced with black humour. Designed to reduce the audience to a squirming mass, the film yields plenty of grisly pleasures.

Too many movies come to us as preordained cult objects - this is the real deal.

So, sure, the plot is overstuffed, the cross-cutting is frenzied, and Pegg’s goofy asides are the only light relief from the underlying somberness. If you’re looking for flaws, The Final Reckoning definitely has them. But with action sequences this adrenalised, no one is leaving short-changed.

Lots of elements of the story feel familiar, but they play out in unusual and unpredictable ways here. We’ve seen the heavy-with-a-heart character before, but Jarvis gives Arm real pathos, even at his most violent.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has more going for it than those MCU B-sides, but it still falls a long way short of recapturing the exhilarating glories of director Ryan Coogler’s 2018 smash hit. The visual and storytelling flaws here are only exacerbated by the seriously unsnappy runtime (they’re really not kidding with the whole ‘forever’ thing).

There are hints of greatness in Chevalier, but it’s worthier of polite applause than a standing ovation.

If only the script had been content to stick with its let's-start-a-band verve. Like many a musical biopic, Nowhere Boy wants to explain away the man (as if a song like "In My Life" weren't explanation enough).

These women - performance artists, models, butch lesbians and transsexuals - expose their unique beauty under close scrutiny, and rather than simply chronicling a concert, Atlas incorporates candid interviews and playful banter to define his picturesque subjects.

Deitch is well served by Shaver as the teacher and Charbonneau as the young seducer. Best of all, however, is the way the movie dignifies all its characters.

It’s an unabashed celebration of a maverick talent, with all the highlights you’d expect from an extraordinary career.

Unlike recent, sharp-witted examples like The Lego Movie and Paddington, there’s zero interest in mocking or freshening up the material—think what Wes Anderson might have done with this—thus dooming the movie to nostalgic types only. It trudges along like that black, jagged stripe on our hero’s yellow polo: up and down, scene by scene.

Even if you can forgive the crude JAP caricatures (et tu Minnie Driver?) and the blatantness of the film's attempts to make you sob, you're still left with lovely actors stuck in a lackluster cover version of the real thing.

The movie is a coming-of-age story, but whose age is coming? That's the profound question we're left with, in a stellar adaptation that balances gore with black humor, ethical quandary, hope and—yes—plenty of brains.

If you think Donald Trump is a better POTUS than his predecessor, then fair warning: this is most certainly not the documentary for you. The problem is, if you’re of the exact opposite opinion and are, indeed, an irrepressible President Obama stan, you might just find it a bit hard to stomach too.

Hipsters is also a musical (in an intentionally naive "Absolute Beginners" vein), and while everything looks glinty and gorgeous, the story's political edge is dulled by excessive levity.