It falls short of enchanting but it's never less than fun and likable. Watch it through the eyes of your inner teenager and you’ll have a blast.

A sumptuous romantic epic that's too polished for its own good.

There’s a way to make this kind of trashy noir work beautifully—was Wild Things director John McNaughton somehow not available?—but Serenity is too blandly generic to stick its snout in the muck and luxuriate, barring the occasional jail-baity line of dialogue from Hathaway (“You said I was finally old enough,” Karen whispers, reminiscing).

This really is an incredibly cheesy remake—the original was already pretty cheesy—starring Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart, doing their best with a script that cranks out all the odd-couple movie clichés.

It’s both stupefying and a little sad to realize that this is the movie Shyamalan wanted to make.

Ben Is Back has seriousness in mind, but too much showmanship in the making.

A completely charmless, laughs-free experience.

An uneven but fascinating spectacle.

Destroyer is a movie that confuses Kidman’s unmodulated funk for actual depth. In fairness, a brooding depression may be the reality of much police work, but onscreen it plays like a two-hour murder of our patience.

Well-paced and directed with gusto, On the Basis of Sex finds an accessible, near-perfect tone, balancing serious courtroom drama and frequent legal jargon with tastefully Hollywood-ized emotional embellishments.

There are also juicy supporting roles for Shirley Henderson and Midnight in Paris’s Nina Arianda as the comedians’ long-suffering wives, Lucille and Ida. The film may be called Stan & Ollie, but it’s never more alive than when the four of them are onscreen.

Second Act is an aspirational Pinterest board of a film, too bland to make an impression. If only the world saw street smarts as equal to book smarts, Maya wishes on her birthday. It’s a nice idea, but Second Act doesn’t possess smarts in either category.

There are memorable cameos from collaborators (Josh Homme take a bow) and a triumphant coda, but most of all, the rather melancholy sense of a visionary struggling to stay relevant.

It's impossible not to see Son of Saul as a corrective to past stories that have imposed a neat order (or worse) on such incomprehensible events. Nemes does that too, of course, simply by making this film – but he does so in a way that makes us think of these events afresh.

The happy surprise, however, is that McKay has seasoned the meat in satisfying ways, salting it with wince-sharp performances and an almost experimental style of editing that creates an apocalyptic whirlwind. For those reasons alone, Vice feels particularly timely.

Sure, some of the plot twists are a bit labored, and there’s maybe a henchman too many—but, trust me, you’ll be too busy rooting for the superhero with a snout to care.

The resulting film is beautifully crafted and, despite what Hitch might say, definitely cinematic.

Glib, underdeveloped dreck.

Emily Blunt is hypnotically charming in the year's sweetest surprise—a big-hearted contact high.

Jason Momoa's surf-bro superhero is a welcome addition to a ponderously serious genre, but his movie as a whole feels waterlogged.

Mortal Engines really is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent slog, as characters leap unfeasibly out of planes on to bits of cities while a squad of rebel-fighter pilots straight out of Star Wars buzz around.

As a study of early midlife crises Tides is well performed and convincing, finding the loneliness in what passes for friendship. All four characters are hemmed in by their own self-absorption; trouble is, that also cuts them off from the audience.

Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali are masterful in this rousing period piece, alternating belly laughs with an unflinching view of a nation at war with itself.

Free Solo is about getting dangerously close to the edge, where some people feel most alive. We get to experience that thrill secondhand, and that’s enough.

The Old Man & the Gun plays like a long-winded joke with a sneaky punchline that warms you belatedly, like a shot of bourbon.

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

Perhaps the film might have survived the tortuous plotting, sub-sitcom jokes and drab direction if it wasn’t for Barnard’s woefully misjudged, wet blanket performance, but it’s highly doubtful.

This riotous, arcade-game-inspired sequel powers up with fresh ideas and some brilliantly-executed pastiching.