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Halle Berry is a single mother living in an isolated house deep in the woods, together with her sons, played by Anthony Jenkins and Percy Daggs. Oh, and their dog.

From the first it's plain that their existence is a battle for mere survival. Each day they go into the woods to forage, in the hope of finding enough food to stave off hunger. Each time they venture forth, they maintain their link with the house by means of ropes secured round their waists. If they should become detached, then they risk falling prey to evil forces that are abroad, in the form of ghosts or visions which haunt and taunt Halle Berry in particular.

It's an old familiar trope: humanity's last survivors after an apocalypes/zombie outbreak/alien invasion/whatever. In such a crowded field, a film needs to find at least one shred of originality to stand out.

That's not to say this film doesn't try. One of the boys starts to wonder whether the evil out there is real, or the product of his mother's deranged imagination. After a chance encounter, which ends badly, he becomes almost certain of the fact.

Unfortunately, the film rather loses its way at this point, and fails to stay true to its internal logic. The evil can be revealed to be either real or imaginary, but the film tries to have it both ways. This doesn't work. The ending is memorable, but doesn't redeem what's gone before.

Ben & Louise (Scott McNairy & Mackenzie Davis) are on holiday with their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler). The meet another couple (Paddy & Ciara, played by James McEvoy and Aisling Franciosi) and their mute son Ant (Dan Hough). The couples get on, the kids get on - and when they return to London, Paddy & Ciara invite Ben & Louise to stay the weekend in their isolated farmhouse.

Then things get a bit strange. The behaviour of Paddy & Ciara becomes increasingly creepy, and it becomes plain that Ant is a very disturbed child - though his attempt to explain himself to Agnes fails through his inability to communicate.

Ben & Louise are constrained by British rues of politeness, which means that they're unable to say "F You" and just leave. This leads to a violently bloody climax.

This film is not a masterpiece by any stretch, but it's an above-average thriller with good performance throughout. McEvoy is good at being creepy without quite doing anything overtly sinister; McNairy convincingly portrays someone you just want to slap some sense (or backbone) into; Davis and Franciosi give good value; the two juvenile performers should go far.

Helen (Louise Brearley) lives a seemingly hopeless life with her (ex?) husband Gary (Celyn Jones) his girlfriend, thier baby and Gary's bed-ridden and dying mother (the excellent Sorcha Cusack), for whom Helen is the principal carer, and who is the only one in the house who treats Helen with any decency. Neither Gary nor his girlfriend work, and Gary takes most of Helen's wages.

Helen works in a chicken factory, and it's only her friendship with a group of co-workers that keep Helen from despair.

As an aside, if chicken factories are really like that, I'm never eating chicken again. I assume (hope?) that it was budgetary constraints that were responsible for the minimalist set.

Helen's life is thrown into turmoil by the return of Joanne, daughter of Helen's recently-deceased next-door neighbour. Helen had a lesbian crush on Joanne when they were at school together, though she never had the courage even to talk to her.

Joanne, it seems, felt the same way. Now she draws Helen out, and she experiences simple pleasures and the first moments of true happiness for many years. Now she has to decide between her old life and a potential new one.

The whole film is beautifully observed, from the dreary street that doubles as a prison for its occupants to the earthy cameraderie of the factory women. A few musical numbers are worked into the narrative, to great effect.

The Zone of Interest told the story of Rudolf Hoess, the family man. Hoess was the commandant of Auschwitz and was - in the words of his grandson - responsible for more murders than anyone else in history. Hoess lived with his wife and children in a beautiful house just outside the camp. This film centres mainly on his son, Hans-Jurgen, who was seven or eight years old when the war ended.

He obviously has a child's memory of the camp, recalls his father as a loving parent, and considers his childhood a happy one. Pressed by his own son, Kai, he says he didn't know what was going on over the garden wall. Kai asks if he's repressed his memories out of self-defence. The old man doubts this, but it's difficult to believe that he hasn't. He seems to have spent most of his life avoiding questions about his father. Frankly, I don't blame him.

Hans is also reunited with his older sister, now living in America (and who, for unexplained reasons, he's not met for more than fifty years). She is equally certain that she didn't know the truth at the time, and doesn't want to talk about it now. Confronted directly, she finds it very hard to say a bad word about either of her parents - though it's notable that her mother's grave (she died in 1989) just says "Mutti" (German for Mummy). The Hoess name is absent.

A second strand of this film concerns Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, now ninety-eight but still with sharp wits. She survived Auschwitz because she was wanted for the camp orchestra. She's remarkably stoic, and discusses the past reluctantly, and with a lack of passion. Her daughter Maya, however, is a restless soul who wants to know about the family history. Though born and brought up in Britain, she wants to move "back" to Germany - even though her parents' home town is now in Poland. She also visits a memorial to her grandparents (and others).

It's significant that it's the younger generation - Kai and Maya - who feel a need to learn the truth, whilst the older generation needs to have it teased from them.

At the end of the film, Hans and Anita meet. It's strangely anti-climactic. But then, what could either of them say? What could anyone say?

Are the sins - and the sufferings - of the parents to be visited on their descendants? It seems that here they are. It's been eighty years, but World War Two hasn't yet claimed its last victim.

This film, which seems to have been made on a budget found down the back of someone's sofa, is the surprise hit of the year. It's in black and white, has no dialogue, and is achingly funny.

The plot, such as it is, concerns an applejack salesman forced by circumstance to become a trapper in a wintry North American landscape. The style can best be described as live action Looney Tunes, with gag after gag after gag - some of them slapstick, others with a slightly darker tone. The animals (beavers, rabbits, wolves and a skunk) are played by human actors in costumes that wouldn't look out of place in a nursery school play. It's absurd, subversive, wickedly creative and riotously funny.

Where do you go after Poor Things? Yorgos Lanthimos' answer to that is this portmanteau film consisting of three separate chapters, all featuring the same cast, headed by Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe.

Simply calling these stories weird doesn't come close to describing them. The first concerns a man whose life is controlled in stifling detail by his sinister boss, and who seeks to rebel when he's asked to go too far. The second features a man whose wife was feared lost at sea, and is unconvinced that the survivor who turns up is really her. The third deals with a strange water-fixated cult, one member of which is searching for someone with very specific qualities and a unique talent.

Each story is nasty (in a good way) and blackly comic. How much kindness is on display is open for debate, but each story is mesmeric - albeit short on rational explanation. This last is not a criticism; the film is nothing if not gripping, and will stay long in the memory.

A special mention must go to the score, by Jerskin Fendrix (who also worked with Lanthimos on Poor Things) which is jarring, atmospheric and wonderfully suited to the film.

Scarlett Johannson is a confidence trickster who can sell anything to anyone. Naturally, she ends up in advertising, and is recruited to "sell" the moon programme to Congress, the US public, and anyone else willing to open their wallet. Quite why the moon programme needed such a hard sell isn't explained, but this isn't the sort of film where logic is of primary importance.

Channing Tatum is the dedicated but naive NASA flight commander who's alternately charmed by Johannson and appalled at her machinations. She, in turn, is appalled by Woody Harrelson (clearly having a ball playing a sinister government fixer) who insists on a contingency plan of filming a fake moon landing in case the real one goes wrong.

She recruits Jim Rash (also having a ball as an outrageously camp and self-centred director) and they set up in a disused hangar on the Cape Canaveral site. What could possibly go wrong?

Conspiracy nuts can get over themselves at this point. This film is a comedy, and gives us several laugh-out-loud moments and a nice, feel-good ending.

The cat was great, too.

The story of the American west is an epic one - of drama, tragedy, deeds good and bad, and many millions of human stories. Exactly how many of these stories Kevin Costner will be trying to tell in this series of films (rumoured to be four) isn't clear.

The phrase "will be" is important. This film - all three hours of it - is just the opening act. The scene (scenes?) is being set, characters introduced, story arcs launched - and nothing is concluded. Presumably these story arcs will converge, but for the moment we have a lot of questions and no answers.

The opening scene is captioned 1859. Within a few minutes we have someone carving the date 1862. The rest of the film presumably takes place in the mid 1860s, although there's no mention of the American Civil War. Several characters are introduced briefly, never to be seen again. Others come with a lot of baggage and back-story, which will hopefully be explained later.

Unfortunately, however, this doesn't cut it as a stand-alone film. The acting is good, the cinematography first-class, the action gripping - but after three hours the audience is left asking, "OK, then what?" The final montage (flash-forwards to scenes in subsequent instalments?) merely adds to the lack of understanding.

In my opinion, rather than being released as four three-hour films over three or four years, this saga would've been better as a TV series of twelve one-hour episodes.

A Quiet Place was one of the best films of 2018. A Quiet Place Part 2 was nearly as good. Now we have the third film in the franchise, which I watched with great expectations, which were sadly not lived up to.

This prequel takes us away from the family in the first two films, and centres round Samira (Lupita Nyong'o) who's a resident in a hospice in or near New York. She joins a day trip into the heart of the city on the day the monsters arrive.

To start with, their arrival was already handled (much better) in AQP 2. Worse, the palpable sense of tension which was such a feature of the first two films is almost totally absent. A few explosions, some flying debris, lots of people panicking; but there's nothing to inch the viewer towards the edge of the seat. Worst, those not killed by the initial impact seem to know almost instantly that silence is the key to survival. Yes, the audience know this from watching the first two films, but not having people in this film taking time to work this out - that's just lazy film-making.

Samira teams up with Eric (Joseph Quinn) and together they try to - get their hands on a pizza. Clearly, they have their priorities straight. They don't seem to have a plan until the deus ex machina of the last scene.

Nyong'o is excellent as always, which is no mean feat given the standard of writing and directing. Quinn comes into his own in the film's one good scene, in which he performs a card trick. Characters are introduced and discarded almost at random. The monsters are no longer scary.

Oh, and there's a cat called Frodo. He starts the film with nine lives and uses up seven or eight whilst being treated in a manner that no cat would stand for.

This franchise should've called it a day after two films.

Four wandering sasquatch traipse through backwoods America. They encounter signs of humanity, but no actual humans.

They forage for food. They have sex. They perform a summoning ritual by banging on tree-trunks. They communicate in grunts and gestures. The seasons turn.

And that's it. I think the final scene is supposed to be a joke, but by then the viewers' patience has been sorely tried, and the joke falls flat.

The scenery is interesting, the cinematography is good, and the make-up might be awards-worthy; but this is nowhere near enough to justify a run-time of an hour and a half. A fifteen minute short would've been much more fitting.

There's a place for shaky, hand-held camera-work. The opening scene to Saving Private Ryan, for example, is a masterpiece. Here, however, it's merely annoying. For much of the film it takes the viewer out of the narrative, as they struggle to work out what exactly is going on. I might add that the shaky camera-work even makes a pointless return for the closing credits.

Set in the near future, when most of humanity has been wiped out by an unspecified cause; and where the few survivors are obliged to barricade themselves indoors during the hours of darkness, as they are under attack from strange alien creatures, the film centres on Nicholas Cage, who lives with his twin teenage sons (Jaeden Martell and Maxwell Jenkins) and survive by foraging and subsistence. Another, larger, family group lives a short distance away. Both families keep livestock, which seem to be immune from nocturnal attack, for no apparent reason.

Cage fades from the narrative for a long stretch, and the film is carried by the two boys plus Sadie Soverall as the daughter of the neighbours. All three turn in solid performances, but are done no favours by the tissue-thin (and hole-ridden) plot, listless dialogue and woeful camera-work. Quite apart from the shakiness, it's often difficult to work out what exactly is going on. Yes, most of the dramatic scenes take place in darkness, but there are ways of making it possible to follow the action.

As an aside, a quick check of the the current ages of the juvenile leads, compared to their on-screen appearance, suggests that this film was shot at least four years ago, and has spent most of the intervening time in post-production hell, as the editors tried to get something coherent out of what they had. I presume they did their best.

The creatures themselves are great when they're unseen or only hinted at. When they make a fuller appearance, however, they're very disappointing.

A watch-and-forget film.

I don't pretend to be clever enough to fully understand AI, but I believe creation by AI involves a trawl though the interweb to find out what's been successful before, and to fuse these elements into a narrative framework - also based on what's worked in the past.

In other words, string a load of cliches together and hope for the best. I'm not saying this film was written (and directed) by AI, but it might just as well have been.

And here we are. Group of kids (yup) creepy house (yup) strange artifact (yup) Are you sure this is a good idea? (yup) oh dear, we've been cursed (yup) death is stalking us all (yup) let's split up (yup) gruesome deaths (yup) elderly sage who knows the back-story (yup) the only way to survive is to do this (yup) enough twists to make it interesting...

Well no. On the last point we get a resounding nope. This is dreary, predictable, formulaic and dull. Not even the jump-scares work. None of the cast are talented enough to make a bland script sound good; everyone else involved was either out of their depth or on autopilot.

The International Space Station is a beacon of international co-operation. Jointly operated by Russia and the US, it enables scientists to better the lot of mankind, apparently, thought it's probably more important as a symbol than as a laboratory.

Dr Kira Foster (Ariana DeBose) is making her first trip into space. When she arrives at the ISS, she completes a crew of three Americans and three Russians - two men and one woman from each nation. She settles down to her science project, which seems to involve noting how mice react to Zero-G (not well).

Then nuclear war breaks out on Earth. The governments of both nations instruct their compatriots to take control of the ISS by any means necessary. The rationale behind this isn't explained. Unless a bombardment of confused space-mice could tip the balance of the war, the ISS is weaponless and - one would've thought - a long way down the list of priorities of both warring nations.

Nevertheless, paranoia kicks in, and seemingly unimportant things like working out how they're going to survive without support from Earth take second place to sabotage, lack of trust and outright murder.

The premise for this film is a very good one - a space station ought to be a perfect closed-room setting. Unfortunately, the execution is poor. Ariana DeBose, who has an Oscar from a musical under belt, is presumably trying to extend her range. She doesn't convince. Of the rest of the cast, Masha Mashkova and Chris Messina are adequate, no-one is good - though in fairness, the script doesn't do the cast any favours.

The Zero-G effects compare unfavouraby with Gravity (and, frankly, 2001) The direction lacks imagination; true tension is lacking.

This is by no means a bad film; but given the premise, it is a disappointing one.

Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O'Connor) are eighteen-year-olds seeking to break into the world of professional tennis. They're also best friends, having been room-mates since they were twelve.

At once tournament they encounter Tashi (Zendaya), another rising star. They both want to date her, and since the boys are due to play each other the next day, Tashi says she'll date the winner. This turns out to be Patrick.

Thirteen years later (the film flips back and forth in time) Art is married to Tashi, who is also his coach, having suffered a career-ending injury before she made it to the big time. Art has had a successful career, but wants to win the US Open to finish on a high. Unfortunately, he's lost his mojo, so he enters a Challenger (second tier) event to rediscover his winning ways.

Patrick has been less successful, scratching around the circuit, often reduced to sleeping in his car. He enters the same event, and the two former friends meet in the final.

This film is a study of how friendships and relationships end, how they may (or may not) be re-kindled, and how much baggage people carry down the years.

The three leads are all excellent, and the writing and directing make this a complex and multi-layered tale. Each character does things that make the viewer root for them, and other things that make the viewer want to give them a slap. The ending is delightfully ambiguous.

A cerebral and rewarding film, which is about a whole lot more than just tennis.

Boy (That's his name) witnesses the murder of his family at the hands of goons who work for the dysfunctional crime family who run a dystopian city at an unspecified location and date. Boy is rescued by the Shaman, who subjects him to a brutal regime of martial arts training, so that he grows up to be a lethal killing machine (Bill Skarsgard), whose sole purpose is revenge.

So far, so seen-it-all-before, so yada-yada-yada. Boy Kills World, however, brings enough originality to the old tropes that the viewer is happy to go along with things as they take increasingly-bizarre turns. To start with, Boy is a deaf-mute. He can read lips, and hears a voice-over in his head. He's also haunted by the ghost of his younger sister, who acts as his guide and moral conscience.

Naturally, he embarks on his elaborate revenge, leaving a trail of bodies killed in inventive and extremely bloody ways. There's a lot of John Wick, and a big slice of The Running Man. There are also a surprising number of laughs, with great comedic performances from Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, Sharlto Copley and Andrew Koji. Gotta love June27 as well.

As you'd expect, there's also a twist at the end, but it's twisty enough to pack a punch.

This is not high art. This is not a film that rewards analysis. Nothing about it is outstanding, and its plot-holes have plot-holes. If, however, you can switch your brain off and go long for the ride, it's a wild and satisfying one.

Two mothers (Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway, both of whom give stellar performances) are next-door neighbours who lead seemingly idyllic 1960s lives. They each have an eight-year-old son; the boys are best friends.

Then a tragic accident occurs, and one of the boys dies (not a spoiler, it's in the trailer). The rest of the film is about the way in which the women, and their husbands, and the surviving boy (newcomer Eamon Patrick O'Connell, who is excellent) deal with the aftermath of the tragedy. The answer is: Not well at all.

We see the expected stages of grief, but overlaid with finger-pointing and suspicion, leading to a descent into madness. But just who is going mad? The film very cleverly wrongfoots the viewer, first suggesting that this is a simple tragedy, then that there might be something sinister going on, then that there might not be...

The result is a wild ride, with an ending that will live long in the memory.

Civil war grips America. The states of California and Texas (hardly natural partners, I would've thought) are in rebellion. Florida might be as well. The reasons for this war are not even touched on, other than the fact that the president is a sleaze-ball (well, he's a politician, so what's new?)

Kirsten Dunst is a veteran photo-journalist. Wagner Moura is her reporter side-kick. Stephen McKinley Henderson is the father-figure of journalists. Cailee Spaeny is a wannabe photo-journalist. The four of them embark on a road-trip to Washington to net a scoop by covering the Battle for the White House.

That's basically it by way of a plot. Along the way they meet a succession of gung-ho morons with assault rifles (that's everyday America, isn't it?) - via a surreal encounter in a clothes shop - until they arrive at a military encampment.

Once there, they just announce themselves as Press, and are allowed to follow the action from a suicidally-close range without anyone asking the questions which ought to be obviously necessary.

Then there's a big shoot-out. Not all of our quartet survive, but no-one seems to mourn (or even care) about those who don't. Then the film just ends.

This is a film for people with learning difficulties: who can go along with shooty-shooty-BANG sequences, without bothering themselves with big words like "Why?"

Given the state of the USA, this could've (ought to have) been a thoughtful film that asked important questions. Instead, it has the intellectual heft of a shoot-em-up video game.

It's one of the worst films of the year.

We've got James Bond, we've got John Wick, we've got Ethan Hunt. We've got Denzel Washington's Equalizer. We've got Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel in their various guises. From an Indian perspective, we've just had Yodha. The action genre is a crowded one, and a film needs to *really* stand out if it's going to be noticed.

Monkey Man is clearly a passion project for Dev Patel, who is writer, producer, director and star. That's a lot of hats to wear at once. He plays a wrestler who wears a monkey mask in the ring, and who has a grudge against a certain corrupt police chief and a certain false guru, yada yada yada, seen it all before.

The result is not, by any stretch of the imagination, bad. Unfortunately, it's not original or memorable enough to truly recommend. Trying to link the film to the legend of Hanuman isn't enough of a USP.

Hot on the heels of Immaculate, we have another American would-be nun (Nell Tiger Free) travelling to an Italian convent to be initiated. As in Immaculate, things seem off from the start; as in Immaculate we have creepy nuns, a creepy cardinal, spooky visions and a death.

Unlike in Immaculate, we know exactly where this film is going (the big reveal can't have surprised more than a handful of viewers) but, to its credit, this film ties itself in neatly to the original Omen, and manages to do so with some style.

Despite the title pretty much giving away the whole plot, the film manages a decent level of suspense, and the visceral nastiness is well-handled. The performances are faultless throughout.

There's a surprise extra element to the ending, suggesting that a sequel is at least planned, though how this with fit into the Omenverse (everything's a Verse, these days) remains to be seen.

Franky (Vicky Knight) is a nurse who's badly scarred by a fire that happened when she was a child (Knight herself was burned as a child - the scars are real). She believes the fire was started deliberately by her mother's friend, who's now in a relationship with her (Franky's) father from whom she's estranged. Fifteen years on, Franky still dreams of revenge.

In hospital, Franky meets Florence (Esme Creed-Miles), the survivor of a suicide attempt. The two develop a friendship, and later become lovers, though they later break up. Prompted by Florence, Franky's quest for revenge develops into something more tangible.

The rest of the cast have their own stories to tell: Franky's mother, who spends her entire life on the sofa; Franky's sister, who's dabbling with Islam (she has a shawl and a prayer mat, but hasn't cottoned on to the fact that she's no longer allowed alcohol); Florence's grandmother (the excellent Angela Bruce) who has terminal cancer: Florence's brother, who has learning difficulties...

It can't be said that any character in the film is less than three-dimensional, but for me this added up to too many sub-plots and an over-crowded film.

As a depiction of British working-class life it's sharp and observant (without stooping to poverty porn) and the acting is solid throughout - as is the direction.

The ending is not the on the viewer expects, and might leave some disappointed by its slightly ambiguous nature, but I thought it worked well.

People are always drawn to the idea of a better life, and all too many of them are fooled (or fool themselves) into believing that all they have to do is to find their way to America or Australia or (as here) Europe, and they will have found paradise. Many thousands of people set out on these journeys of hope every year. What proportion of them make it? No-one knows, but it's unlikely to be that high. What proportion of those that make it think it was worthwhile? No-one knows that either.

Seydou and Moussa are teenaged cousins from Senegal who have come to believe in the dream. They've saved what they think is enough money, and set out without telling their families.

Then they face reality. Their journey leads from Senegal to Mali; to Niger; to Libya; and then across the Mediterranean to Italy. Or so they hope. What they soon realise is that the the people-traffickers through whose hands they pass are simply after their money. If some poor souls die along they way, who cares? The least brutal encounter is with a border guard who says "I recognise a fake passport when I see one. Fifty dollars to ignore it." The most brutal is very brutal indeed.

At one point the cousins are separated, and the film follows Seydou. He makes it to the shores of Libya via a stroke of luck that strikes the viewer as a bit too convenient. He is then reunited with his cousin via another all-too-convenient stroke of luck.

The last act of the film is the crossing of the Mediterranean, with Seydou tricked into skippering a boat that looks as though it's already been scrapped twice (hence the title, Io Capitano which means I am the Captain. Most of the cast speak a dialect which it took me a while even to recognise as a sort of Pidgin French).

The film is beautifully shot and the cast (largely non-professional as far as I could make out) are superb throughout. I do, however, have a problem with the ending. It's too optimistic, too upbeat. The mass migration of so many desperate people (and their ruthless exploitation) is the great crisis of our age. I'm not going to pretend I have an answer, other than the fact that the necessary first step is for as many people as possible to know what's going on. To this end, I would've thought a more brutal - even depressing - ending would've driven the necessary message home more effectively.

Still, this is a first-class film, which will live long in the memory.

Jack Delroy (David Dalmastchian) is the host of a 1970's late-night talk show, which is popular - but not popular enough to beat Johnny Carson in the ratings. In a bid to fix this, he plans a Hallowe'en special, featuring a medium, a professional sceptic (Ian Bliss, doing a nice impersonation of James Randi) and a possessed girl who was rescued from a Satanic cult. She is accompanied by her therapist, who is also her guardian. What could possibly go wrong?

The film is ostensibly that of the original broadcast, plus "found footage" of what went on behind the scenes during the ad breaks. Not having watched any TV in America I don't know if programmes of the sort really were three minutes of show followed by five minutes of "messages" (and, if so, how anyone found the patience to watch) - but this certainly helps the structure of the film.

Naturally, things go from weird to weirder, nasty to nastier. There's a lot of Exorcist, including one line delivered in a way that's laugh-out-loud funny; and in the last act the viewer has to wonder whether they're seeing genuine found footage or a series of hallucinations within hallucinations.

The cast give good value throughout, especially Rhys Auteri as Jack's side-kick and Josh Quong Tart as the producer who cares about nothing but dollar signs.

And, having lived through the decade, I can confirm that back in the seventies, sets were that tacky, and fashion choices that questionable.

New York is a city populated by anthropomorphised animals, including the central character, who is a dog called .. Dog. He's lonely, and decides to buy a robot.

After assembling his new friend, Dog shows him the city. The two hit it off and develop a simple but beautifully-observed friendship.

Unfortunately, the two are then separated. The rest of the film is told from two separate points of view, as they seek to reunite. Some of the scenes from the robot's point of view are revealed to be a series of increasingly bizarre dreams - and what better proof of sentience is there than the ability to dream?

The ending's not the one the viewer expects, but is nevertheless charming and life (and friendship) affirming.

The animation is simple (in every sense of the word) but incredibly expressive at the same time. It's amazing how much emotion can be expressed by two dots and a few short lines. There's virtually no dialogue, but again the animation makes this unnecessary.

I wouldn't go so far as to call this film a masterpiece, but it's certainly better - and more enjoyable - than many another animation with fifty times the budget.

Every country has its special forces, and I'm sure every nation on Earth likes to think that theirs are a bit more special than most. Yodha seems to be the Indian version of the SAS (whether they really are, or were made up for the film, I don't know).

Just about every film about special services centres round an inividual who's jolly good at killing bad guys, but whose disregard of protocol annoys his superiors. Then an operation goes wrong (not our hero's fault, but he's conveniently placed to take the blame). He's suspended.

Then the film moves to the main event. Our hero is drawn into something really big. Not only that, he's set up to make it look as though he's gone rogue, so that even his former comrades are out to get him. Yada, yada yada, shoot-out, big explosion, guess who saves the day and is reinstated?

It's a tried and trusted formula, which needs a certain amount of style to lift it out of the very ordinary. James Bond has this style; John Wick has this style; Arnie had it in his earlier films. Yodha doesn't.

The fight scenes are well-choreographed, but the pulse doesn't race. The twists aren't too difficult to see coming; the hero's relationship problems are a yawn.

This isn't a bad film, but it's formulaic, predictable and - for all its action sequences - pedestrian. Oh, and the villain's disappointingly short on charisma.

This is also the first film I've seen that had an actual interval in the cinema since Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

A film about fanatical beliefs and the horrors they can lead to.

Sydney Sweeney (who's certainly been busy lately. Anyone but You, Madame Web, and now this) plays Cecilia, a devout American girl who enters an Italian convent. From the start, it's plain that there's something creepy about the place. Admittedly, a cardinal only needs to put on cope and mitre to seem creepy, but there's clearly more to things that that. Some of those Cecilia meets there seem a little too friendly, others are downright hostile.

Strange and disturbing things happen, including a death. Then it's discovered that Cecilia is pregnant. The powers that be announce that this is The Immaculate Conception: the Sequel. They seem to be convinced of this rather too easily, but then we find out why.

In the last act, matters resolve themselves violently and nastily. I felt that credulity was stretched much too far here; Cecilia seems capable of an awful lot of physical activity for a woman in labour, for example.

Sweeney radiates a convincing aura of naive innocence (though it's probably time for her to stop playing teenagers) and the rest of the cast pull off the difficult feat of radiating nastiness without over-acting.

Short and anything but sweet.