FANTASTIC FOUR (12A)

2 stars

We’ve been down this road before. A decade ago, a pair of Fantastic Four movies came along that failed to excite audiences, even if they were bright and fun enough in places while seriously lacking anything to make them memorable, not helped by a rather insipid cast.

This was also the days before Marvel ruled over all cinema, and with a Fantastic Four and X-Men crossover already mooted, the day will probably come when every comic book character ever invented will share the same screen.

In the meantime this reboot is back to basics stuff, all origin story and pretty much nothing else, with no apparent reason to exist beyond getting the titular quartet together.

Spearheading them is physics geek Reed Richards, who has been tinkering since he was a kid with inter-dimensional teleportation. When he grows up into Miles Teller he is discovered by kindly scientist Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey), who has also been working on the technology and together they build a machine that can send people instantly to another planet.

Alongside him are Storm’s children Johnny and Sue (Michael B. Jordan and Kate Mara), plus Jamie Bell as Reed’s best friend Ben Grimm. Also joining the team is Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell), but surely there’s not much chance of him turning out bad with a name like that.

At first there’s a lot to like about the set-up, the strength of the characters and their motivations. There's a bedrock of friendship and credibility here and the first time they teleport it's because they're drunk, which actually works quite well.

But for unexplained reasons they come back from the so-called Planet Zero with mutations and abilities, and Victor doesn’t come back at all. Reed gains stretchy limbs, Sue can turn invisible, Johnny becomes the Human Torch and Ben the Hulk-like Thing, only nowhere near as fun.

And still it holds together thematically, with Ben resenting Reed for turning him into a monster.

The Thing and Human Torch get used by the military and Reed goes on the run, but no-one actually threatens to do anything interesting at any point. Victor fancies Sue, but this is never explored and once he turns bad his motivations go out the window.

On the one hand the film is to perhaps be admired for attempting to approach the genre in a way that’s at least mildly different, with not one of them doing anything remotely superheroic throughout the entire film.

But after the solid set-up it gives in to the necessity to become a comic book action film and the result is a truly appalling third act that jettisons all notions of sense or coherence for the most basic and underwritten fight scenario imaginable.

If a story emerges that the filmmakers wrote it and shot it last week because they suddenly remembered the film was opening on Friday it wouldn't be the least bit surprising. And in the end comes the realisation that the entire thing is all just so much groundwork for the ghost of movies yet to come.

Director: Josh Trank

Running time: 100 mins

THE GIFT (15)

3 stars

When well off couple Simon and Robyn (Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall) move back to California and a new home, they meet Gordo (Joel Edgerton), an old school acquaintance of Simon’s.

He starts showing up unannounced and leaving gifts, seemingly helpful and friendly and believing that they're old friends, though Simon is not enamoured by this.

Written and directed with a sure hand by Edgerton, this slow build thriller goes from normal to creepy like many of these films do, but unlike many films of its ilk plays it very measured, leaving little crumbs of doubt that maybe Gordo is just normal and helpful and it’s the couple who are unable to deal with their issues.

Though competently made and paced, there’s just not really anything out of the ordinary here, and it does stretch out a one note plot for a while in the middle.

But there’s an edge to Bateman that’s good to see as secrets from Simon’s past are dredged up, and Edgerton clearly has intentions of saying something beyond the standard home invasion psycho stuff before turning the tables in interesting fashion, making The Gift a cut above what it looked like on paper.

Director: Joel Edgerton

Running time: 108 mins

MANGLEHORN (12A)

3 stars

Al Pacino churns out another of his late-career grumps as the eponymous Manglehorn, a forlorn locksmith who pines for old flame Clara, writing unsent letters to her and longing to see her one more time.

A deep melancholy runs through this unassuming drama as we see a lot of episodes from his life: his work cutting keys in his little shop, his spare time and his lonely home life that mostly revolves around his cat.

Much of this seems unworthy of screen time but every once in a while it pulls something out of the bag and you often can’t help but sit and drink in anything Pacino does.

It’s a curious number, not immediately engaging and Manglehorn is a hard man to warm to, but the addition of Holly Hunter as a bank teller with whom he strikes up an uneasy friendship gives him and the audience something to reach for to hopefully shake him out of his misanthropy.

Director: David Gordon Green

Running time: 97 mins

THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL (18)

3 stars

Bel Powley, easily the best thing about recent dud A Royal Night Out, confirms that she’s definitely one to watch with her fine performance in this bold and refreshing coming of age drama, playing 15-year-old Minnie, who begins an affair with her mother's boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgård).

Shot in a fragmented style like it's Minnie’s memories we’re watching, her dream of being an artist is realised through drawings and animations that pepper the screen as she narrates into her tape recorder.

Though it's a thoroughly grown up film, it’s still adorned with her girlish doodles and she’s a well drawn character, full of emotional upheaval that though weighty, never lets us forget she's barely more than a child.

Looking for love and finding out something about herself along the way, it’s insightful and captures its characters without judgement and with just the right sprinkling of humour.

And though there’s just not quite enough to hang a whole film on, it’s always worth sticking with when the excellent Powley is at the centre of it.

Director: Marielle Heller

Running time: 102 mins