The first **Pacific Rim movie is a very unique film, born of the very specific niches that director Guillermo Del Toro has been a fan of since he was very young. Equal parts Gundam, Godzilla, and Power Rangers, it was a one-of-a-kind cocktail that didn’t generally prove to be a roaring success at the box office. Our friends in China, however, ate it up, and it was due to its tremendous overseas success that a sequel even happened. ...

Hopes have been high for **Tomb Raider, the reboot of a potentially very lucrative franchise, largely thanks to the star power of Academy Award winning leading lady Alicia Vikander – but there’s been plenty of cynicism too, as video game-to-movie adaptations have a far from successful track record. Tomb Raider is loosely based on the recent reboot in the gaming franchise in which Lara is portrayed as vulnerable and reckless, but also intelligent and strong. Her character arc sees gain her strengths and learn from her weaknesses through the progression of the story, and the film has drawn from that aspect very well. Tomb Raider acts as an origin story for this reimagining of Lara, in that her discovery of her potential is the big pay-off for her character. ...

As we rejoin hooligan-turned-superspy Eggsy (Taron Egerton) in **Kingsman: The Golden Circle, he’s enjoying the Kingsman life and getting to grips with meeting the regal family of his new girlfriend Princess Tilde (Hannah Alstrom) – who you may remember from that controversial and clumsy ending of the first film. After the world of the Kingsman comes under major fire, him and Merlin (Mark Strong) are forced to head to Kentucky and team up with the whisky-brewing Statesmen, their American equivalents, to bring down psychopathic drug cartel owner Poppy (Julianne Moore). ...

The Shape of Water is a fantastical love story from acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, **The Devil’s Backbone). It stars Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, Richard Jenkins and Michael Shannon – and was the big winner at this year’s Academy Awards, taking the little gold statues for 4 Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture. Elisa Esposito (Hawkins) is a lonely mute cleaner at a secret government research facility. Working alongside her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer), they stumble upon the facility’s new asset, a mysterious aquatic creature that the scientists and its captor, Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), intend to use in the Space Race between the US and Russia. Elisa begins to visit the creature in secret after discovering it is in fact a humanoid amphibian, capable of communication and empathy. They soon develop a unique bond, and Elisa vows to free the creature from its inevitable and unethical demise. ...

The recently released Netflix comedy drama **Everything Sucks was tipped as the new show to fill the **Stranger Things void we’re all currently experiencing until season 3 hits our screens. But does it live up to the Duffer brothers’ cultural phenomenon? Everything Sucks is a parodic view of high school in the 1990s, set in the appropriately named town Boring, Oregon. Starring a group of strong child actors, you can see the parallels with* Stranger Things*, but that’s really all that those two shows have in common – better comparisons would be Freaks and Geeks, or My So Called Life, but this comes with much less impact. ...

Based on his life, **The Big Sick follows Kumail Nanjiani(playing himself) back when he was trying to break into the comedy industry. He meets a girl called Emily (Zoe Kazan) at a gig and falls in love, but his Pakistani family values cause a rift between them. When Emily falls mysteriously ill, Kumail waits by her bedside and grows closer to her parents as they hope for her recovery. This is a romantic comedy, but with none of the sickly sweetness or try-hard attempts at humour that you might expect from that genre. The Big Sick is one of the most beautifully understated depictions of two people falling for each other and facing challenges in their relationship ever shown on screen, full of laugh-out-loud peaks (Kumail’s breakdown at a drive-through springs to mind), and troughs that will have you mumbling about something in your eye. ...

‘In times of crisis, the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers’. Picking up shortly after the events of his father’s death in **Captain America: Civil War, **Black Panther starts with T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) on a recon mission ahead of the ceremony to crown him as the King of Wakanda, and solidify him as its protector – the Black Panther. Meanwhile, ex-soldier Erik ‘Killmonger’ Stevens (played by Michael B. Jordan, and so named because of his effectiveness at ending lives) helps Andy Serkis’s South African menace Ulysses Klaue to steal an artefact dripping in Vibranium, the strongest material in the world and native to Wakanda, from a London museum. ...

Live action anime adaptations have a checkered past to say the least. Whilst there are some legitimately good adaptations (The Rurouni Kenshin trilogy being the gold standard), there are far more flops than hits for sure. Enter **Fullmetal Alchemist. A Netflix original picture based on the beloved franchise, which is considered by many to be one of the best anime series of all time, Netflix certainly had big shoes to fill. ...

After a bank robbery goes wrong and his mentally handicapped brother Nick (Benny Safdie) is caught and imprisoned, Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) has a hellish night doing everything he can to get him free. Driven by an obsessive need to set Nick free, Connie uses everything from charm, to violence, to sheer luck, pushing on through the night to evade capture and find a way to make enough money for his brother’s bail. ...

The **Cloverfield films are no stranger to odd marketing campaigns. The first film’s trailer didn’t even have a title attached to it, leading to all kinds of speculation – some even believed it was to be a live action version of Voltron. Add to that viral marketing campaigns, and the fact that the sequel **10 Cloverfield Lane wasn’t even revealed to be connected to the original until way down the line of production, and it is clear these films love experimenting with how movies are advertised. ...