Oliver Lyttelton

Most importantly of all: it’s funny. Really, really funny, consistently and constantly.

It makes a deeply human experience, and one that’s frequently both educational (the film’s main purpose: a copy will be given to every school in Britain) and moving. In fact, it’s not so much individual faces or interviews that leave the most lasting impression so much as it’s the cumulative impact of all the faces.

It’s not a terrible time at the movies, but after Coogan & Pope’s previous collaboration on “Philomena” proved to be such a genuinely satisfying example of this kind of drama, it’s hard not to feel like there’s something of a missed opportunity here, a film truly deserving of the excellent performances at its centre.

Those looking for a substantial meal or an Oscar contender are probably going to be left lacking. But so long as you’re prepared for some rousing medieval action and not all that much more, Mackenzie proves here he can work on a significant canvas with a film that must rank as one of Netflix’s more satisfying bigger-budget ventures to date.

It’s a cast full of the sort of faces that regularly pop up on ones-to-watch lists, and it’s the biggest thing that Been So Long has going for it. “Chewing Gum” fans will know how talented Coel is, but she’s particularly good here with a role that’s more adult and serious than her breakout turn (while still letting her have some fun occasionally).

Pulling off an ambitious mash-up of genres like Good Manners is no easy feat — that Dutra and Rojas pull it off so successfully suggests we’ll be hearing a lot more from them down the road.

There’s still a lot of pleasure to be had here, whether from digging your fingernails into the armrest early on, to Freeman’s sly comic performance later.

Journey’s End is about as good an adaptation as you can imagine of the material, and a film with compassion and humanity that goes far beyond its perhaps uncompromisingly prestige-y exterior.

It’s the pair’s bond that helps to make the film more interesting than just a study of wealthy murderousness (though it’s great at that too). It’s also a portrait of female friendship that, despite the dark places it goes to, proves to be oddly touching.

The film is very, very funny, consistently.

It isn’t just one of the best debut films of the year, but one of the year’s best films, period.

For the most part, the breadth of its examination of the subject is welcome, and by the end, it ends up feeling like as definitive a film on comedy and the Holocaust as you could ever want.

Lord knows the superhero genre could use some fun poked at it and we were psyched to see the film, but while there’s some fun to be had, it can’t help but feel like a missed opportunity.

It ends up feeling like going to a festival headlining date by a reunited Britpop band. It’s great to see them back together, they look pretty good for their age, and there are transcendent moments when they play the hits. But the set goes on a bit long, and the new material’s a bit forgettable, and they’re sloppier than they used to be, and in the end, you start to wonder if it had been better if you’d been left with your memories from back in the day.

It’s an engaging film in many respects, but one that exemplifies a lot of the problems that have trailed Zemeckis across his career.

Even if the film isn’t entirely to my taste, it’s a provocative and powerfully made piece of work.

The bad news, for anyone over the age of eight, is that it’s at its best disposable, and at its worst really, really annoying.

The filmmaker has a real gift for getting into the political context of her stories while never neglecting the personal, and seeing the Khamas gradually win over his people, while still battling the British establishment, is gripping, rewarding and eventually moving.

Bidegain certainly scores points for ambition with his first film, and in scenes or snippets...you can see what he was aiming for. Unfortunately, by the time it’s done, Les Cowboys feels like a missed opportunity.

Given how good the cast often are elsewhere, it doesn’t seem unfair to put this at Armstrong’s door, and the film has a very first-time-director feel to it.

At its best, the film becomes something winningly subversive.

Unfortunately, while Husson clearly has talent to burn, her film is something of a case of all talk and no trousers.

There’s very little in The Huntsman: Winter's War itself that is actively bad. Compared to some of its blockbuster rivals, it’s reasonably watchable, never offensive, and mostly coherent.

Bercot's setting out to make both a character study of a troubled young man wasting his potential, and an examination of a system trying desperately to do right by its charges, despite the immense difficulties and occasional bureaucratic red tape that tie their hands. It's more successful at the latter than at the former.

A film as mercurial as this can be an impressive thing, but the back half is so filled with half-baked metaphysics, pseudo-Lynchian maybe-dreams, and a sour, cheap conclusion that feels nihilistically cruel to at least one of its characters, that even the pleasures of watching the actors on screen start to fade away.

Unfortunately, it proves to be as disposable as the snack it revolves around.

As well-handled as the set pieces are, the connective tissue doesn’t pull you along, and then collapses completely in a messy, unsatisfying final act.

The tale of Choi and Shin is a true stranger-than-fiction one, as good a piece of material as a filmmaker could help for. It’s just a shame that, for the most part, The Lovers And The Despot feels like it’s giving you the Cliff Notes version of the story.