Mr.

Turner (12A, 150 mins)

Director: Mike Leigh

4 stars

Bathed in a light that's just like one of his paintings, this sumptuous account of the last decades in the life of J.M.W. Turner opens with the artist looking for inspiration in an idyllic Holland.

Timothy Spall lands the part of his career with his performance in the title role, as Turner returns to the well-appointed London home where he lives with his elderly father.

We're plonked down in the middle of his life and into the drawing rooms and studios of pre-Victorian England, as all notions of the standard biopic get thrown out the window.

That's to do with the film being largely stripped of context, and director Mike Leigh certainly isn't going to hold our hand through it in terms of dates or people.

Instead we get snippets of Turner's life and work, each building towards a fuller picture of just who he was. It's not so much an attempt to get inside his head though, as it is a representation of the man and his work and his world.

On those terms it works very well indeed, warm and welcoming as we sink into these beautifully crafted episodes.

This is a warts and all portrayal that gives Spall nowhere to hide, as the snarling, corpulent artist spits on his canvases and realises there's a possibility that his powers are diminishing as the years pass.

Spall throws in the odd display of raw and powerful emotion, but for the most part he's generally very restrained, getting much of his communication across through growling and grunting.

Turner is not so bothered with much of the fancy conversations of his contemporaries, but in his own subtle way he says just as much. The language has its own unique style, with everyone very formal towards each other, and it's the basis for many an engaging exchange.

Mostly this is an exploration of Turner's relationships with the people in his life, especially the women in his life, and how he treated them.

There's the mother of his children whom he rarely sees, and frequently denies their existence. There's the lodging house-running widow he meets when he visits a seaside town to work under a pseudonym.

And there's his housekeeper, whom Turner has a tendency to grope, a character who unfortunately veers towards the Pythonesque at times.

For the most part this is sublime filmmaking, though there's plenty of it, and at times a bit less wouldn't have hurt, especially in the final hour.

Yet it never feels like any points are being laboured or lingered on, and it really doesn't feel like a two and a half hour film. The occasional scene may seem superfluous, but rest assured there'll be another wonderful one along in a moment.

See it if you liked: Topsy-Turvy, Girl With a Pearl Earring, Effie Gray

Nightcrawler (15, 117 mins)

Director: Dan Gilroy

4 stars

A gaunt, hollow-eyed and haunted Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this blistering drama as Louis Bloom, who drives around by night through the streets of Los Angeles, stealing scrap to get by.

Things change for him when he sees a camera crew filming at the scene of an accident and realises there's money to be made from this racket.

So he teaches himself how to be a cameraman and gets a good enough film of a shooting that he manages to sell it to Rene Russo's TV news producer, whose channel wallows in sleaze and degradation - and the richer and whiter the victim is, the better for her and the more money Bloom can make.

As he graduates into increasingly unsavoury methods in order to get the juiciest footage, Nightcrawler develops as a vicious lampooning of the sensationalism of television news, while working just as well as a gripping thriller.

Gyllenhaal is superb as the fast-talking, quick-learning Louis, who's very smart but most probably a psycho himself and his ambitions make for a hugely compelling character, with Bloom standing toe to toe with De Niro's great sociopaths, Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin.

See it if you liked: Network, Taxi Driver, Drive

Extraterrestrial (15, 98 mins)

Director: Colin Minihan

2 stars

Without a hint of irony, a group of deeply irritating students head to a cabin in the woods.

There have been some strange goings on round those parts recently, but after a brief prologue, the first 30 minutes or so concentrate on their dull personal interactions.

But the title of this dreary sci-fi is a bit of a giveaway, and they soon stumble on what seems to be a crash-landed spaceship, albeit missing its occupants.

It starts to take on some horror elements from here, though in poorly written and unsurprising ways, and the low budget is a hindrance.

But it rescues a smidge of credibility with a mildly subversive third act, and there's always a slim chance that it's actually supposed to be funny, even if you'd be better off sticking with The X-Files.

See it if you liked: Dark Skies, The Fourth Kind, Skyline

The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (15, 103 mins)

Director: Fredrik Bond

1 star

Charlie Countryman (Shia LaBeouf) is a directionless young man who up sticks to Bucharest following the death of his mother.

In a film that's as aimless as he is, Charlie meets a musician (Evan Rachel Wood, going full Bela Lugosi with her accent) and her dangerous husband (Mads Mikkelsen) and gets involved in various episodic scrapes and adventures.

This bitty approach and lack of focus would be bad enough, but the story doesn't make sense for a moment, and Charlie offers nothing for an audience to invest in, even if LaBeouf puts in a committed turn.

Rupert Grint and James Buckley from The Inbetweeners turn up as British tourists and provide some welcome relief from the tedium, but it's nowhere near enough.

See it if you liked: Hostel, Eagle Eye, Odd Thomas

Horns (15, 120 mins)

Director: Alexandre Aja

3 stars

Daniel Radcliffe takes on his most adult role yet with the lead in this passable if somewhat confused dark fantasy.

He turns out to be perfectly solid, if never quite devilish enough for what's required of the part, playing Ig Perrish, who is suspected of murdering his girlfriend (Juno Temple).

The whole town, including his family, thinks he did it, but when Ig wakes up with horns growing from his head, people all of a sudden are unable to stop themselves from telling him the truth about everything.

There's a certain potency and even poignancy to this idea and a reasonable amount of intrigue, if not exactly surprise, in the murder mystery, and it's certainly an original enough premise.

It develops in very dark ways indeed, albeit with good and hope shining through, but rules are never properly established and it's never quite sure if it's a horror or a comedy.

It also doesn't know when it's on to a good thing, going on forever and throwing it away again, but it's rarely dull, and there's generally something reasonably entertaining or interesting going on.

See it if you liked: Life After Beth, Max Payne, Drag Me to Hell