Five star - Latest 1 Star Film Reviews from the Guardian

The School for Good and Evil review – Netflix’s Harry Potter rip-off is a disaster
An adaptation of a YA favourite about two opposing fairytale schools is overlong, bland and utterly devoid of magic - Charles Bramesco
Purple Beatz review – 90s drum’n’bass London gets the Hollyoaks treatment
The ‘z’ in the title was a warning, the script the clincher – this wannabe gritty tale of 90s London is like a CBBC show with swearing - Sammy Gecsoyler
Halloween Ends review – horror franchise finishes not with a bang but a whimper
Jamie Lee Curtis and a handful of other legacy characters are still hanging around Haddonfield in the uninspired 13th and (one hopes) final film in the slasher series - Peter Bradshaw
House of Darkness review – Neil LaBute’s creepy-mansion revenge horror goes nowhere
LaBute’s quarter-baked script tries but fails to satirise male attitudes, letting down his actors Justin Long and Kate Bosworth - Peter Bradshaw
Cages review – hologram rock musical is a dreary dystopia
An overreliance on technology and a doomy score can’t replace old-fashioned chemistry in this emotionless offering - Ryan Gilbey
Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. review – megachurch satire isn’t worth praise
Sterling K Brown and Regina Hall are left stranded in a disappointingly blunt and consistently unfunny attempt to ridicule religious hypocrisy - Andrew Lawrence
Blackbird review – Michael Flatley’s fabulously bad spy tale is a classic of egosploitation cinema
In various rakishly-angled hats, the Riverdance star wrote, directed and stars in a jet-setting Bond knock-off that plays out like the unsexy bits of a mid-80s porn film - Peter Bradshaw
The Misfits review – feeble heist tale wastes actors’ time and yours
Pierce Brosnan and Tim Roth are among the actors cheapening their reputations with half-baked tale of noble robbers in caricatured nation of ‘Jazeristan’ - Leslie Felperin
Fisherman’s Friends: One and All review – enough sea shanties already
This sequel to the 2019 singing Cornish fishermen drama casts its net into all manner of subplots but fails to land a viable new angle - Wendy Ide
Easter Sunday review – comic Jo Koy’s family comedy is an unfunny mess
The standup might be selling out gigs across the US but his labored attempt at movie stardom is a regrettable disaster - Charles Bramesco
DC League of Super-Pets review – a dog’s dinner
Dwayne Johnson voices Superman’s best friend in a mirthless mess of an animated superhero spin-off - Wendy Ide
Where the Crawdads Sing review – Daisy Edgar-Jones wasted in terrible southern Gothic schmaltz
Normal People star deserved a better Hollywood debut than this solemnly ridiculous film and its outrageously evasive cheat ending - Peter Bradshaw
Persuasion review – a travesty of Jane Austen
Theatre director Carrie Cracknell’s ham-fisted adaptation misses the naunces of the author’s writing and opts instead for romcom sassiness - Wendy Ide
There Are No Saints review – Schrader script is schlocky revenge thriller
An attempt to resuscitate a Mexico-set Paul Schrader crime movie – complete with a dodgy Tim Roth cameo – fails miserably - Peter Bradshaw
Jurassic World Dominion review – time to drop the dead dino
A dead-eyed Chris Pratt presides over this convoluted mess of Bond-style villains and toothless action that even the original cast can’t save from extinction - Peter Bradshaw
Shark Bait review – human chum bucket jeopardy thriller sinks without trace
It doesn’t help that there is more charisma in the shark’s cold dead eye than in the entire cast - Phil Hoad
Firestarter review – soggy Stephen King remake struggles to ignite
Zac Efron tries his best in an otherwise regrettable retread of the horror author’s tale of a girl with superpowers - Benjamin Lee
Marmaduke review – Pete Davidson-voiced Netflix animation is a real dog
The SNL breakout gets an easy check cashed for voicing a calamitous mutt in a shoddily made adventure for undiscerning kids - Charles Bramesco
Faye review – single-performer horror show jabs at influencer culture
Kd Amond’s cabin fever tale about a self-help author suffering from writer’s block mostly features one character who talks too much - Phuong Le
The Bezonians review – Vinnie Jones cameo can’t lift Homer-inspired crime yarn
Don’t let the references to the Iliad fool you – this small-time gangster story is irritating, self-indulgent and stupid - Leslie Felperin
I Love America review – a clunky, corny, cringey mess of a romcom
There’s no redeeming this unfunny LA-set comedy starring Sophie Marceau, about a divorced woman’s return to dating - Peter Bradshaw
Morbius review – insipid Marvel misfire
Jared Leto and Matt Smith vamp it up in an incoherent superhero bore - Wendy Ide
Morbius review – ludicrously pointless Jekyll and Hyde vampire-monster yarn
Jared Leto and Matt Smith are an outstanding doctor and his evil nemesis respectively, both grappling with the power to change into an evil demon - Peter Bradshaw
Homebound review – country trip goes very wrong, as does the film it’s in
This feature debut draws on spooky genre tropes but fails to develop its plot and atmosphere - Phuong Le
The Nan Movie review – brutally unfunny outing for Catherine Tate’s sweary old lady
Belated cinema adventure for Tate’s sketch-show character and her grandson Mathew Horne is depressingly terrible - Peter Bradshaw
Sideshow review – Les Dennis’s washed-up psychic can’t see he’s in a terrible movie
Dennis plays a heavy-drinking mind-reader in this dire comedy that ends with a bang, but only after 95 minutes of ropey dialogue and offensive gags - Peter Bradshaw
The Incarnation review – haunted-house horror with a property-greed edge
An affluent young couple awaken a vengeful spirit in a by-the-numbers chiller conceived under pandemic conditions - Leslie Felperin
Aline review – think twice before you watch this scary Céline Dion biopic
Valérie Lemercier directs and plays both old and young versions of the Canadian singer in a bizarre film that digitally superimposes her face on to the head of a young girl - Peter Bradshaw
Studio 666 review – what possessed Dave Grohl to make this frightful gonzo grossout?
The Foo Fighters try to purge themselves of writer’s block with a retreat to a haunted house in an insufferable vanity project of a horror-comedy - Peter Bradshaw
Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It review – infantile grossout horror-comedy
Kazakhstani caper sends Dastan off for one last fishing weekend with his mates before the baby arrives, but horror descends in more ways than one - Cath Clarke
Marry Me review – Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson are odd couple in bland romcom by numbers
Jennifer Lopez is radioactively humourless and Owen Wilson is robotically bland in this stinker - Peter Bradshaw
Help review – dizzying psychodrama that gets domestic violence all wrong
If the drama wasn’t bad enough, a dog dies in this poorly conceived thriller that suffers from wooden acting and turgid pacing - Leslie Felperin
Book of Love review – charmless romcom is a waste of potential
Sam Claflin plays an uptight novelist on a Mexican book tour in a romantic comedy short on romance and comedy - Benjamin Lee
Moonfall review – Roland Emmerich’s bad moon rising… and I mean really bad
Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson are astronauts trying to save Earth from the falling moon in this gibberish big-budget folly - Peter Bradshaw
Fatal Attraction review – stage thriller is an affair to forget
The 1987 revenge movie returns as a play, with Kym Marsh starring as a blandly monstrous ‘bunny boiler’ spurned by her married lover - Ryan Gilbey
Killing Field review – Bruce Willis murders his own reputation once again
A smug-faced Willis takes down his own star status and an assortment of drug smuggling villains in this painful, unoriginal action thriller - Leslie Felperin
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania review – undead franchise finally expires
The first three films in this vampire family comedy franchise used up all traces of interest. Here’s hoping episode four is the last - Peter Bradshaw
The Commando review – Mickey Rourke stars in military-grade dross
Bloodthirsty villains brutalise a young family in their hunt for loot in this reprehensible addition to the home invasion genre - Leslie Felperin
Gulliver Returns review – warp speed Lilliput in maddening take on Swift’s classic
A kids’ version of the 18th-century satire could have been ripe for laughs – but this is subpar knockabout stuff - Cath Clarke
Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman review – pointless portrait of a serial killer
This voyeuristic drama about the FBI hunt for Bundy makes his victims indistinguishable and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth - Cath Clarke
Apex Predator review – chipper Bruce Willis is getting hunted for kicks
Cheap and cheerless sci-fi action thriller pits cunning prisoner Willis against wealthy hunters in dreary genre retread - Leslie Felperin
Highway One review – lo-fi indie movie gets lost on way to the party
Jaclyn Bethany’s tale of a New Year’s Eve shindig sets up promising storylines that go nowhere in laborious and muddy fare - Peter Bradshaw
Red Notice review – Netflix’s biggest film to date offers little reward
Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and a spectacularly annoying Ryan Reynolds quip and steal in a disposable, and ludicrously expensive, action comedy - Benjamin Lee
Every Last One of Them review – cliches reloaded in revenge potboiler
Overfamiliar story of dad wreaking vengeance on the baddies who have despoiled his ‘little girl’ is not helped by ponderous action and risible dialogue - Leslie Felperin
Hypnotic review – schlocky Netflix thriller will send you to sleep
This cheap, deeply silly, film about an evil hypnotherapist relies on too many smart people acting stupidly - Benjamin Lee
After We Fell review – Harry Styles-inspired romance is stupendously wooden
Fans of the YA After series should find something amid the tangled mess of plot, daytime-soap acting and inanimate passion – everyone else should look away - Cath Clarke
Ghostbusters: Afterlife review – a slimy, stinking corpse of a sequel
Jason Reitman takes over his father’s franchise and immediately tanks it with a tonally misjudged blend of fan service and bizarrely played-straight spectacle - Charles Bramesco
The Addams Family 2 review – frightfully awful
The only scary thing about the second animated feature of Hollywood’s eternal ghouls is just how bad it is - Wendy Ide
Diana: The Musical review – a right royal debacle so bad you’ll hyperventilate
This filmed version of the Broadway show, with its accidental comedy and cringeworthy lines, is a guilty-pleasures singalong in waiting - Peter Bradshaw
Seance review – mean girls meet mean spirits in high-school horror
Simon Barrett directs with lurid video lighting and comically bad gore effects to deliver what looks like a cheap Italian horror film - Leslie Felperin
Sacrilege review – an unholy desecration of women’s roles on screen
Debut writer-director David Creed falls prey to antiquated tropes in a stale folk-horror led by four vacuous final girls - Phil Hoad
Small World review – full-throttle trafficking tale goes off the rails
Polish director Patryk Vega’s usually slick technique fails him utterly here in this lurid story about a cop investigating a girl’s kidnapping by the Russian mafia - Mike McCahill
The Starling review – toe-curlingly embarrassing Melissa McCarthy drama
Netflix’s strange, sentimental film about a grieving woman who befriends a bird is a wildly misjudged mess - Peter Bradshaw
From the Vine review – laugh-free comedy of midlife Italian escape
Joe Pantoliano stars as a disaffected executive setting out to revive his grandfather’s vineyard in this tiresomely whimsical tale - Cath Clarke
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch review – colossal eco doc prettifies disaster
The visuals are impressive but, without giving them the necessary context, this ‘cinematic meditation’ on humanity’s environmental impact only serves to aestheticise destruction - Phuong Le
Boy Meets Boy review – walking-and-talking romance never gets anywhere
Yet another Before Sunrise imitator – this time with two men who have 15 hours to spend together in Berlin – falters because of a subpar script and annoying characters - Phuong Le
Don’t Breathe 2 review – dull and dingy home invasion horror sequel
A follow-up to 2016’s sleeper smash reunites us with the murderous blind antihero yet fails to recapture even the slightest bit of tension - Benjamin Lee
The Unholy review – Satan continues to inspire the very worst films
A poorly made horror takes an interesting concept, from a James Herbert novel, and squanders it with ineffective visuals and a dearth of scares - Benjamin Lee
Off the Rails review – a new low for British comedy
Three middle-aged women go Interrailing in an ash-scattering own-goal for European diplomacy - Wendy Ide
Bye Bye Morons review – frantically misjudged French farce doesn’t travel well
Albert Dupontel stars in his own hectic romp, which tries and fails to be funny about disability and dying - Peter Bradshaw
Space Jam: A New Legacy review – garish and soulless sequel is a stinker
A follow-up to the much-loved 90s basketball adventure becomes a bizarre piece of commercial propaganda for Warner Bros - Charles Bramesco
Deception review – Arnaud Desplechin’s unbearably twee take on Philip Roth
The Cannes favourite may have worn out his charm with this insufferable story of the author’s multiple affairs - Peter Bradshaw
Stillwater review – fictionalised Amanda Knox drama is so bad it’s bad
Matt Damon is woefully miscast as a rash, violent loser in Tom McCarthy’s calamitous reworking of the notorious murder case - Peter Bradshaw
To Be Someone review – a Guy Ritchie ripoff two decades past its sell-by date
The Quadrophenia cast reunite for this claret-soaked mess of dodgy geezers shady drug deals and noisy guitar riffs - Steve Rose
Witch Hunt review – a downright offensive attempt at political horror
The latest in a slew of Get Out wannabes, this magical dystopia is neither clever nor scary - Phuong Le
Buckley’s Chance review – Bill Nighy’s bad accent fronts an onerous slab of outback flapdoodle
Family film conveys an old-timey, clichéd impression of life in Australia that has ‘exportable’ written all over it - Luke Buckmaster
Tyger Tyger review – spaced-out apocalypse chic in pandemic thriller
Rebels planning to liberate life-saving drugs to fight a future infection get lost in their own listlessness - Leslie Felperin
The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard review – a nausea whack
This action comedy sequel is even more cliched and crass than the original - Wendy Ide
Infinite review – Mark Wahlberg reincarnation thriller is stuck in the past
A musty attempt to start a new franchise about people with the ability to remember past lives is a misfiring melange of other better movies - Benjamin Lee
Awake review – Netflix’s Bird Box-lite thriller is a real snooze
Gina Rodriguez can’t save a silly and unintentionally amusing apocalyptic tale about a mysterious affliction that means people are no longer able to sleep - Benjamin Lee
Me, Myself and Di review – miserably unfunny romcom about Bolton’s Bridget Jones
What was probably intended as an affectionate social satire just comes across as a snide mickey-take of its working-class characters - Cath Clarke
Frankie review – Ira Sachs' bickering poshos bore us to tears
Isabelle Huppert sleepwalks through a film that proves even great directors are capable of crimes against cinema - Peter Bradshaw
Spiral review – Chris Rock’s Saw reboot is torturously bad
The comedian’s attempt to reframe the gory horror franchise as a detective thriller is an ugly and embarrassingly shoddy disaster - Benjamin Lee
Wild Mountain Thyme review – Emily Blunt in an awful Irish stew
This bucolic romance, co-starring bashful Jamie Dornan, is awash with whimsy, wonder – and laughable accents - Peter Bradshaw
The Resort review – inane horror film or a sophisticated meta-joke?
Perhaps the director and his pals fancied a free holiday in Hawaii or wanted to make a calling card for a gig making episodes of Love Island - Leslie Felperin
Beast Beast review – insultingly shallow take on gun violence
Story of multi-ethnic Gen Z-ers in the southern US seems more interested in checking off a list of liberal talking points than lending its characters depth - Phuong Le
The Reckoning review – witch movie descends into misogynistic torture ordeal
At first, this horror about a woman accused of witchcraft is merely bad. Then it becomes unwatchable - Cath Clarke
Original Gangster review – hitman thuggery misfires
Steve Guttenberg hits a career low in this shallow, brutish London crime drama that portrays women with contempt - Cath Clarke
A Week Away review – out-of-touch Netflix play for Christian audience
A cloying new sub-Disney Channel teen musical, packed with unremarkable performances and forgettable songs, feels oddly of another period - Adrian Horton
Nemesis review – geezer cliche compilation with a charisma bypass
The Bill’s Billy Murray is a cockney hardman whose ordeal of a family dinner party gets inflicted on us too in this terrible thriller - Cath Clarke
Feedback review – Eddie Marsan thriller on the wrong frequency
Marsan plays a lefty radio presenter under siege – but there is an awful lot of unconvincing plot and incongruous violence here - Peter Bradshaw
Nest of Vampires review – a bloodless bid for the title of worst film ever
This horror story about an MI5 agent and a gang supplying girls for ritual sacrifice is on a par with the monumentally terrible Plan 9 from Outer Space - Phil Hoad
Locked Down review – Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor's pandemic stinker
Undeniable movie star charisma can’t save this torturous misfire about a couple who plan a heist during the London quarantine - Benjamin Lee
Hellraiser: Judgment review – diminishing, misogynist returns for classic franchise
Pinhead is still lurking, but the iconic series’ once-interesting eroticism has degenerated into nasty titillation in this sorry sequel - Leslie Felperin
The Stylist review – an insipid thriller three decades out of fashion
With its vast plot holes, wooden acting and wanton violence, this serial killer tale has the feel of a straight-to-video flop - Peter Bradshaw
Shadowland review – hopelessly inept Highlands horror
The antics of an evil creature on the loose in an abandoned military base are stymied by impenetrable storytelling - Leslie Felperin
The Sinners review – inept teen horror dead on arrival
A cultish clique of teenage bullies commit a sin against cinema’s first commandment to show, don’t tell - Ellen E Jones
What Lies Below review – a dire coming-of-age horror with a fishy twist
A perplexing erotic storyline isn’t the worst thing about this sci-fi mystery, which is marred by wooden acting and poor judgement - Cath Clarke
Music review – Sia's tone-deaf treatment of autism
In the singer-songwriter’s simplistic directorial debut, a cartoonish portrayal of autism clashes with a tale of addiction - Simran Hans
Anti-Life review – ropey Alien-lite romp with Bruce Willis
Truckers-in-space realism dominates in this low-budget sci-fi about people escaping a dying Earth only to encounter man-eating extraterrestrials - Cath Clarke
Breeder review – muddled torture porn horror
Gonzo violence brings down what could have been an enjoyably bizarre melodrama about a creepy eternal-youth biotech facility - Peter Bradshaw
Bliss review – epically bad acting in tiresome sci-fi fantasy
Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek star in a conceited mess of a movie with a guessable finish - Peter Bradshaw
Eye for an Eye review – Travolta goes sleuthing in Texas
Hardboiled private eye John Travolta tussles with corrupt casino owner Morgan Freeman in a thriller whose biggest mystery is its plot - Cath Clarke
Synchronic review – tiresome time-travellers going nowhere
Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan play a pair of New Orleans paramedics dealing with the casualties of a new designer drug in this hopeless sci-fi thriller - Peter Bradshaw
Stardust review – David Bowie biopic has no sparkle
This clumsy fictionalised account of Bowie’s formative first US tour is as pedestrian as its subject was remarkable - Simran Hans
Blithe Spirit review – Judi Dench presides over a deathly farce
Dan Stevens, Leslie Mann and Isla Fisher mug spiritedly but there is little life in this unfunny Noël Coward adaptation - Peter Bradshaw
Grizzly II review: long-lost George Clooney horror is truly unbearable
Laura Dern and Timothy Spall are among the stars-to-be in this abandoned project, now finished for a cynical belated release - Peter Bradshaw
Come Away review – an indigestible lump of kid-lit stodge
Combining elements of classic children’s books and starry cameos, this leaden family fantasy is flatter than an empty sweet wrapper - Peter Bradshaw
Smiley Face Killers review – a blunt blade from Bret Easton Ellis
The American Psycho author’s script, based on a series of real-life tragedies, fails the true-crime research standard - Ellen E Jones
Here Awhile review – assisted-dying drama weighed down by cliche
In a tale that veers between mawkishness and levity, a woman diagnosed with cancer heads back to her home state where euthanasia is legal - Phil Hoad