A credible, if slightly limited, prequel that recaptures the atmosphere if not the originality of Rosemary’s Baby.

Damon’s sturdy presence just about holds it together, while Breslin shows some impressive chops as the daughter who is too aware of his failings to see him as her saviour. By the end, though, the still waters McCarthy seeks to navigate don’t run deep so much as dry – a consequence, you suspect, of trying to cram too many genres into one star vehicle.

Perfectly respectable, but it won’t linger in the memory like Luhrmann’s.

Snyder’s passion project risks becoming subsumed by its own self-importance, but delivers bombastic mayhem and grandiose visuals by the bucket-load.

One of the strangest films you’ll see this (or any) year, it unsettles, bores, elates and amuses in equal measure. Not for everyone, but there’s plenty to chew on.

An impressive study of guilt, responsibility and the bad things that happen to good people.

Respectable. Boyega adds real bounce and DeKnight delivers spectacle, even if the plot doesn’t strain too far from the original’s crash-bang formula.

Muschietti directs confidently, notably in an opening sequence that betters both Justice Leagues for fun. What’s less persuasive is the CGI, an eyesore that’s particularly gaudy when the finale’s ‘secrets’ drop.

This is not, we’d wager, the film its director intended. Yet it’s worth watching, if only to see Caine and Kingsley together for the first time in 25 years.

Exuberant when it’s in the ascendence but empty on the way back down, this well-crafted cock and balls story is – for the most part – filthy good fun.

Far too many characters are vying for screen time in this predictably plotted sequel, but thankfully a weird, wild, and utterly brilliant central performance from Jim Carrey makes this a fun watch. A fine, wheel-turning instalment in a continually burgeoning franchise that will no doubt continue for many years to come.

Entertaining enough but inessential, Kingdom offers spectacle and thrills but lacks the ambition, smarts, and gravity of its immediate predecessors.

Creepy, jumpy, if somewhat samey, it's set above the spooker norm by its strong visuals, grief-steeped period setting and lingering ambiguity.

Don’t be put off by the long wait. This is a little slimline but a lot of fun.

Fresh cast, fresh ideas and full-on action gives Taylor’s reboot momentum, even if an overloaded script threatens to topple it at times. Doesn’t touch Cameron’s two movies, of course.

Ritchie makes a solid return to his wheelhouse with a crime yarn that turns the air so blue you can swim in it.

Watching these famous monsters share the screen for the first time since 1963’s King Kong Vs. Godzilla, in a series of expertly choreographed battles, packs real wallop, even if you can’t help wishing that screen was 30ft high at your local cinema.

There’s no questioning Skarsgård’s commitment to his character’s descent into depravity, while the gifted Goth is fearlessly uninhibited. But just because Infinity Pool looks good on the surface, that doesn’t mean it has hidden depths.

Disposable, overly long fun best enjoyed with BFFs and a bevvie.

Two immensely enjoyable central performances and some of the best race sequences yet filmed fuel an otherwise standard sports movie.

A valiant effort that never quite scales the dizzy emotional heights required, running out of oxygen in the final act. Visually, though, it’s stunning.

What could have been an exciting experiment in telling a new tale in a beloved universe in a very different way feels heavily compromised.

A serviceable blockbuster falls short of being truly fun by swapping the Grid for a real-world setting. Despite a good lead performance from Greta Lee and a great score, Ares lacks the charm and silliness of its Tron predecessors after one upgrade too many.

Though closer in quality to Morbius than Venom, Kraven is far from a catastrophe and serves up a decent helping of bloodthirsty, globe-trotting action. Taylor-Johnson makes a muscular if self-satisfied protagonist in a film that would have been better off standing on its own shoeless feet than cravenly (or should that be, 'kravenly') cleaving itself to its comic book brethren.

A little more anger would not have gone amiss in this well-acted but strangely remote slice of Oscar bait

Despite Five Nights at Freddy's 2 slightly bettering its predecessor in terms of scares and impressive animatronics, the sequel fails to understand that less is more. By stuffing as many storylines and characters as possible into its relatively brief runtime, the sequel feels messy and inconclusive, leaving FNaF fans shortchanged.

Not disastrous but disappointing all the same, The Conjuring: Late Rites commits the ultimate sin of not quite being bold or memorable enough for a final chapter.

In a summer hardly starved of comic-book properties, this redundant extension of a series that ran out of gas a decade ago doesn't need a neuralyzer to be forgettable.

An uninspired and unnecessary sequel that won’t leave you spellbound. There’s neither enough Maleficent or genuine magic to make it worth a revisit.

Luc Besson's clunky, space-bound actioner apes '80s B-flick excess but skimps on all the good parts. Fans of really bad science and pixelated CGI won't be disappointed, though.

Frustratingly, [Marcel's] movie maintains the issues of the first two films – ropey effects, muddy night-time action scenes, a determination to be family friendly at all times – and then undoes any goodwill its more successful components have inspired by including a mid-credits sting that renders the previous 109 minutes obsolete.

A serious subject receives a simplistic treatment in an ill-conceived thriller in which the emotive (and timely) issue of honour killings becomes just another plot device.

As implausible as the stars' gleaming choppers.

Sophie Lellouche’s slick debut is chock-full of Woody-com quotes and references, yet it remains an inconsequential, undernourished trifle that does sod-all with its potential.

The moments where you feel the cast are off-script and riffing are fun if not actually funny, but the most horrific thing on offer here is misogyny.

The strange thing about Grimsby is that it works much better as a Bond-spoofing actioner than it does as a politically incorrect rib-tickler.

Completely stripping the bold premise back, Nightbitch is one of the year's most disappointing releases, wasting the talents of the usually brilliant Amy Adams. This dark thriller is all bark and no bite.

Liam Neeson cuts a rather sorry figure in what’s less a final flourish for the series than a prolonged death rattle.

This voiceover is one of many perplexing elements in this ridiculously pumped-up military recruitment video, which intersperses brilliant and immersive combat scenes with excruciating comradely banter.

Such is the in-built disposability of this sort of lightweight streaming fodder that those who watch it will probably have forgotten it inside of five minutes.

Snyder’s sci-fi epic stumbles towards the finish line with an underwhelming Part Two that feels more like a Part One-And-A-Half.

Lopez takes admirable care of the story’s human elements, seizing opportunities to find emotion amid the weapons-grade pyrotechnics of the chaotic action sequences. But the effective (if minimal) world-building really just masks a thin plot, hammy characters, and the kind of questionable logic leaps you so often find in this sort of big, silly space movie.

The leads are fine, but the movie's about as fun as summer school.

Greater female input might have alleviated the film’s tiresome chauvinism.

Good performances, but it's difficult to give two hoots about Close's passion project when the story remains as pinched and hermetic as poor little Albert Nobbs himself.

Pete Davidson lacks the charm to make an insufferable protagonist likeable.

Philippe Le Guay’s comedy promises an intellectual satire on how actors mirror their characters. Yet it’s compromised by indulgent pacing and ill-advised slapstick – leaving a cosy, middlebrow showcase for its stars to practise theatrical verse and fall off their bikes.

Ponderous, pretentious and, most damning of all, just not much fun.

Giant brains with teeth, suburban mutant zombies, more bullets than a John Woo film festival, and hot girls in skin-tight S&M outfits pummelling each other to a deafening dubstep soundtrack. If you're looking for brainless, blood-guzzling carnage, you've found it.

Banal, blundering and at times downright ludicrous, 360 is a full-circle misfire that Meirelles' lively images can't salvage.

Star Trek: Section 31 doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a serious exploration of the criminal underbelly, a camp throwback to the noughties, or a tonally off combination of the two? Whatever it is, it doesn't work half as well as it should.

The Mortal Kombat movie excels when it lets the fighting do the talking. The rest of the time, it simply falls flat.

Tobin Bell’s comeback may please some, but it’s not a sufficient X-cuse to see Saw resuscitated.

3D has been kind to teen dance flicks and Step Up 4's better set-pieces take full advantage. Shame the movie's other attempts to tango with the zeitgeist are rather more flat-footed.

There are some decent-enough scares weaved in, including a powerful cold open and a pull-string set piece. But for a film about the power of imagination, it’s frustrating how little it trusts the audience to use its own. As such, there’s no real sense of dread or suspense.

A romcom that fumbles for heart in the gutter, and finds only glib gags.

The Nun 2 feels like an unnecessary sequel to a hoary offshoot that was hardly essential in the first place.

The Love Punch makes a virtue of its leads’ considerable charm and gorgeous French locations but is tonally wonky, comedically creaky and confuses light-as-a-soufflé with just plain silly.

Most of the gags fall flatter than a Knoxville belly-flop.

A western as inept as it is preposterous.

Sparkle isn't "Dreamgirls" – but fans of schmaltzy showbiz fairytales should enjoy it.

The cast’s likeable work falls right through the script holes.

While the film lacks Christina Applegate’s razor-sharp delivery (though she gets a LOL-worthy cameo) and most of the plot doesn’t make sense, the older ladies warrant a Bad Grans spin-off.

First too slow, then too silly, Vaughn’s well-cast but wayward romp fires off half-baked ideas without the focus needed to make them stick.

The action’s passable and Gillan makes a decent fist of an underwritten character. Otherwise, this Jumanji makeover’s a losing game.

By now you know exactly what to expect from a Transformers film: undeniably epic action spectacle at the cost of character, logic or genuine drama. Predictably formulaic.

This furiously bizarre follow-up deserves full marks for throw-everything-at-the-screen entertainment value, but none for execution.

Even the film’s key source of charm, its heartfelt allegory about tolerance, becomes a flaw when rare flashes of anarchy (notably a tribe of crazed rodents) are eclipsed by over earnestness.

A swollen budget, a mini-Big Lewbowski reunion, and top-notch digital effects fail to enliven proceedings in yet another ho-hum dragon chaser based on a YA novel.

Capturing Marley’s essence on screen proves an impossible task in a biopic that veers towards hagiography.

Within the first half-hour, all suspense has been punctured. Not only do you find out who the two men are, and why they and their jiggly testicles are galloping through New York, but you learn exactly who's chasing them and why. Worse still, like a flabby episode of Columbo, you get to know whodunnit right at the start of the film.

It’s no slam dunk for King James in a reprise that shows you can only spread Space Jam so far.

Set pieces play saviour in Netflix and Chris Hemworth's generic kidnap thriller.

“Prepare for Gar-mageddon!” Or worse: more Smurfs films.

Inventive camerawork and a creepy (crawly) monster can’t save this messy supernatural horror.

Despite some affecting moments, the lumbering Parkland feels more like a well-researched magazine feature than an involving drama. As Billy Bob Thornton’s lawman says: “This was not supposed to happen.”

What [Bekmambetov] doesn't do is offer us any respite from his 3D CGI barrage, an assault on the senses that makes the bullet John Wilkes Booth fired into the real Abe's noggin seem calming by comparison.

Reducing promising material to movie-of-the-week status, Aftermath is well meaning, but anonymously made.

It never quite comes alive, but what disappoints most is the acting: McGregor coasts on his natural charm, but Jennifer Connelly (as Levov’s trophy wife) and Dakota Fanning (as his unruly daughter) are wildly OTT.

A lot of talented people have done their utmost to make Hooper’s vision succeed. Sadly, it doesn’t.

Rather than getting us on the ropes and landing some telling blows, Grudge Match keeps its distance and tosses meek jabs. Cheap sentimentality can’t disguise the crashing cynicism on display.

Neither a satisfying treaty on diversity and 'race' wars, nor a fulfilling fantasy, it derails at the end of the first act with a confusing moment of anti-heroism, and never recovers.

The best bits of Kingdom come when Jules Verne-esque technology like Manta’s Octobots collides with Atlantis’ psychedelic bioluminescence, a colourful contrast that gets to the heart of this watery franchise’s trippy appeal.

Some entertaining bicker-banter, but you may feel like Venom craving human heads: undernourished and angsty for what could’ve been.

Jackass Forever has laughs and thrills and will goose your nostalgia, but it’s like a modern-day Rolling Stones gig – the hits are replayed but satisfaction is elusive.

Immaculately poised but almost completely pointless, it moves from chin-strokingly pretentious to profoundly depressing.

Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck give their best poker faces but ultimately fail to convince you to gamble your cash away on this limp, unoriginal story of a man out of his depth.

Undeservedly controversial comedy lacks both laughs and nuance. The best bit they could come up with is Seth Rogen shoving a rocket up his bum.

A semi-successful slice of Southern gothic panto. 


A so-so Christmas romance undercut by some baffling choices, musically and narratively. A wasted opportunity.

Too witless to be a decent comedy, too charmless to call itself a parody, this messy adap of Shannon Hale’s novel groans under the weight of a predictable plot and explosive overacting, although Bret McKenzie wrestling awful dialogue at least brings a touch of adorability as the resort’s elfin stable lad.

By the numbers even by Sparks’ standards.

As noble as his ideals are, watching a series of interminably lengthy conversations inside a car makes for stultifying viewing. And the abrupt ending, which highlights the fictional nature of the whole enterprise, is mystifying.

Maudlin, glum and distinctly cheap-looking, Angel brings the curtain down on a trilogy that should have never got this far.

Mostly, this is empty, ugly and pretentious.

An outdated oddity.

A handful of sparky leads can’t help this superhero reboot find an appropriate tone. No no, Power Rangers.

True, Hendricks has fun with her role as a good girl with a bad streak, while Shauna Cross and Johnny Rosenthal’s script fires off a few zingers. But with Thornton surprisingly disengaged and the robbery plot formulaic, it’s a limp dick of a sequel.