Bloodshot

Mildly avoids being by the numbers by virtue of ... doing the by the numbers thing for the first twenty minutes before putting a twist in there. It does mean that the opening still feels super-cliched, and the twist only ends up improving things a little. Vin does his Vin thing down to spending a chunk of time in a white singlet, the supporting cast mostly gets not-a-lot to do, and the fight sequences sometimes feel quite messy (though the ending battle has a few good bits). This is at least pushing a little beyond the usual nonsense, even if it doesn't always get there.

Queen and Slim

This is an interesting near-miss for me - there's an interesting vibe between the two leads, set up as two people on a date that is probably not going to go anywhere, until a police encounter sees them stuck together on the run. There's an intriguing sense that the two of them are non-mythic people who are suddenly being caught up in something a lot bigger than themselves, and the performances of Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith in the leads really do centre this well. But there are sequences that drag a bit, and the fact that until near the end they're not really running towards anything so much as just "away" does mean that there isn't quite the plot-engine underlying everything to keep things moving - sequences sometimes play as seperate bits that rise or fall on their own energy rather than part of an overall film.

Dark Waters

This is familiar oscar bait but elevated just a tiny bit by Todd Haynes direction. Even if we haven't seen the specific DuPont water poisoning movie before, we've definatley seen the lawyer from the corporate side of the world finding a cause to believe in, fighting it in the face of his partners and even his own wife - his slick city values contrasted with the victims country innocence. Except this takes the demonstration of water poisoning far further than most of those - we see the illnesses and mutations dead on - and we see the mental effects this begins to have on the lawyer in the middle. And there's a deliberate attempt to show just how long and stretched out this case ends up being (material cover about 15 years, with title cards covering a further five). Anne Hathaway's wife character is trapped by the cliches, she does attempt to fight a little against them but .. well, she's 15 years younger than Ruffalo, and ends up having all the standard "wife tries to stop the male lead from doing what the movie is about" stuff that should be permanently retired but somehow still isn't.

Military Wives

A just-about-strong-enough version of British-inspirational-film by numbers, in this case about the wives left behind at a base while their partners are serving in Afghanistan. It never entirely reckons with the tougher elements of the material, although it seems apparent if the script wanted to go there then Kristin Scott-Thomas and Sharon Horgan absolutely could make it happen - but instead the strange culture of a military base where the wives somehow inherit the rank of their husbands in social positioning only really gets a surface-level examination. The singing is beautiful, Scott-Thomas does the stiff-upper-lip-concealing-acres-of-pain thing well, and Horgan is reasonable given the underwritten character she's left with (none of her struggles really feel like very big struggles, and her multiple subplots kinda just pile up rather than informing one another). Yet it still pays in an inspirational finale.

Honeyland

This is an intriguing documentary, done with no commentary and through just observing a honey gatherer in a small Macedonian village, and how her business is affected by new arrivals with a different philosophy. I must admit this wasn't quite up my alley - it takes its time to draw things together, and, in all honesty, I do feel that this might be open to accusations of not playing entirely fair with its subject (in particular, the father of the family of new arrivals never really gets a balanced portrait, it seems if there was any footage of him not behaving like an arsehole, it never got used). But I appreciate the underlying metaphor and the time and dedication taken - even if I don't utterly love this.

The Invisible Man

A clever look at the oft-told tale, this version completely forgrounds the experience of our invisible douchebag's victim, played by Elizabeth Moss - first seen fleeing his house, we get the creeping sense that he hasn't left her behind (despite his apparent death), as strange experiences start to pile up. Director Leigh Whannel is one of those, formerly known best as a screenwriter, who knows how to bring a strong visual sense to the table, and this one is great at letting long lingering shots play out as we are constantly disconcerted by what we can't see. The build up to vicious mayhem is ratcheted carefully, with Moss' post-traumatic figure surviving worsening odds, with a suitably bold finale. This is excellent work well worth catching.