Cert – 12, Run-time – 1 hour 39 minutes, Director – David Robert Mitchell

The Platt family (Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery) fight for their lives, trying to find a way to escape their neighbourhood when overnight it’s transported to an unknown location surrounded by dinosaurs.

What makes something a summer blockbuster has changed over the last 51 years since Spielberg’s Jaws was labelled the first. Then, audiences seeking the cinema’s air-con literally queuing round the block to see whatever was on. Fortunately, they were met with thrills, action, a fear factor, maybe some chuckles and an all-round entertaining film.

With occasional coming-of-age themes Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment would create a mould for the summer blockbuster that provided family entertainment into the 80s. Sat in a cool cinema the nostalgic feeling of David Robert Mitchell’s 80s-set The End Of Oak Street washed over me as his own Amblin-esque tale played out.

The concept sounds ridiculous, it is. A family (Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery) finds themselves fighting for survival, and escape, when their neighbourhood is transported via solar flare to an unknown location with dinosaurs running through it. Screams run through the street in contrast to the laughs and chatter of the summer street party taking place in the opening scenes. There’s plenty of thrills and tension on display as chases unfold, characters use what they can get hold of to fight back and one snake-like creature proves immensely unsettling.

Hathway and McGregor fully commit to the film, selling Mitchell’s various ‘reaction then action’ shots, with the former giving one of her best performances this year. They create just as much tension as the prehistoric threats, matched with Michael Giacchino’s John Williams-style score; matching the maestro’s notable brass-force style throughout without feeling like a copy.

And neither does Oak Street itself feel like a copy. The film is dedicated to Mitchell’s late father, and it feels like the kind that he may have grown up watching with him at the cinema. A personal hint at the finale of this entertaining ride, where viewing environment could play as much a role as the tone of the film; one that with its 12 rating doesn’t shy away from intensity whilst still standing as family viewing.

For 99-minutes, with things getting out just as they threaten being drawn out, I was utterly thrilled and entertained. Summer 2026 has been a big deal for cinema; Spider-Man and The Odyssey helped break records for the biggest weekend ever at the US box office, the first week-and-a-half of August alone in the UK saw over half the amount of admissions that the entire month saw last year. There have been plenty of great, acclaimed films, but sometimes you just want to walk out the cinema smiling. The End Of Oak Street did just that for me through pure enjoyment.

Stepping past the fact it could so easily start and continue as nonsense, The End Of Oak Street is a nostalgic callback to the cinematic escapes that it emulates. Thrilling summer entertainment in one of its truest forms. 

A throwback to the Amblin blockbusters of the 80s, The End Of Oak Street has fear, thrills and lashings of fun. Pure nostalgic entertainment from start to finish.

Cert – 18, Run-time – 1 hour 26 minutes, Director – Eli Roth

When a mysterious ice cream man (Ari Millen) arrives in a quiet town, overnight the kids turn to kill all the adults in the area.

As children race around, screaming and giggling as they disembowel one of their teachers beneath the jungle gym I sat truly confused as to whether Eli Roth wanted me to find the grisly 18-certificate images on screen funny. He seems to find amusement himself in the sight of children possessed by evil ice cream caving in a face to the point where it more resembles jam, or perhaps in this case strawberry sauce, but the degree of the violence and rough CG imagery contradicts this with suggestions that there should be a darker impact.

The idea of Ice Cream Man feels at home with cheap yet enjoyable 80s slashers such as Chopping Mall, a mysterious ice cream van (driven by Ari Millen’s silent titular figure) turns up one day in a sleepy town, seemingly with enough supply to cater to the entire child population and some adults, and overnight the children wake up and start to kill the adults. It’s up to young, lactose intolerant Jared (Charlie Zeltzer) and fellow pupils Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman) – whose reasoning for not being possessed is unfortunately “I’m a 12-year-old girl, of course I know how to make myself throw up” – and Tommy (Shiloh O’Reilly) to find out what’s happening and try and break the curse before they, too, get turned.

There’s territory for a dark, twisted film with the children performing the killings, but Roth consistently feels as if he’s trying to create a laugh that he’s in on but not the audience. Cue a succession of kills followed by another succession of clues a few feet away followed by even more just down the road, after extended sight of the normal everyday the narrative soon stretches into a set of attack sequences where each kill is too brief to actually have an effect, simply moving on to the next as quickly as possible to show off a new idea. The focus for Roth’s screenplay appears to have been how he can push things and what potentially shocking or ridiculous way he can create bloodshed next.

It all becomes quite bland quite quickly, almost as uninspired as the AI images cropping up throughout, particularly in cartoons with a jingle that seems to hypnotise the children the day before they turn. A tonally jumbled cycle that never feels certain as to whether the audience is meant to find humour in the gore or not. Mix in bursts of on-the-nose dialogue in one of the years clunkiest scripts and the whole thing starts to feel like an exercise in clumping a story around a succession of bodies, where even the director’s amusement starts to feel uncertain.

Focused on a succession of tonally confusing kills, joined by some truly basic dialogue, Ice Cream Man’s a cold, flavourless 86-minutes that feels like an inside joke exclusively for its director.

Cert – PG, Run-time – 1 hour 35 minutes, Director – Charlie McDowell

Young Sophia (Emily Matthews) spends the summer on a small Finnish island with her father (Anders Danielsen Lie) and grandmother (Glenn Close), each quietly dealing with the loss of Sophia’s mother.

The last time we saw Glenn Close in grandmother-mode was in 2020’s Hillbilly Elegy. The standout scene of the uninspiring early-life biopic of future Vice President JD Vance and his family saw her character telling her grandson that “there are three kinds of people in this world – good Terminator, bad Terminator and neutral.” The Summer Book, releasing in the UK almost two years after its London Film Festival premier, sees her adopt a quieter, wiser and warmly curmudgeonly grandmother role.

With some make-up still used to transform her, Close’s performance is so much about how she ages herself by simply holding her posture, slow looks and movements – each done with thought and consideration. There’s plenty of thought throughout The Summer Book. A family, daughter (Emily Matthews’ Sophia), father (Anders Danielsen Lie) and grandmother spend the bright summer days on a Finnish island, each coming to terms with the passing of Sophia’s mother. We don’t see her, or know how she died, but the characters convey a feeling of loss that none are quite sure how to deal with beyond briefly speaking about trying to deal with things and move on.

Much like the location, the summer is a gentle one reflected in the slow pacing. The film gives its scenes time, sometimes a bit too much in the gentility of things, as we travel via rowing boat to other island areas to first of all sit down and recover from the journey.

In these moments the differences in how characters talk to each other depending on age shine. Sophia and her grandmother talk freely and inquisitively about the world around them, if not directly about grief. Whilst her father seems unable to properly talk about much, as Close’s character observes at one point breaking away from the childlike brightness of the film. The tone of a storm sequence has an almost fantastical tone that still slots in with Sophia’s view of the world; on the initial surface less shaken than those of her older family members.

There’s a calm escape, and sense of occasional, as mentioned, childlike joy. Yet, emotion starts to do more than tinge things for the family. Much of it comes across in small gestures and expressions, particularly from Close. Everything about the film feels intentionally restrained and it helps to get across the internalised feelings on display, but at the same time does mean that it can feel a bit too calm to land a full effect.

Yet, there’s still an embrace and warmth amongst the cold surroundings. A sense of given time and understanding conveyed through Charlie McDowell’s direction and the overall quietness of the film. I sat welcomed in to the surroundings and characters’ thoughts, brought in for a calm look at different perceptions of grief.

A gentle, if sometimes too much so, look at generational conversations and responses to grief with some great subtle performances, particularly from Glenn Close, matching the calmness of the environment. The Summer Book could just do with a bit less calmness when it comes to the overall emotion.

Cert – PG, Run-time – 1 hour 35 minutes, Directors – Lauren Montgomery, Steve Ahn, William Mata

A now grown up Aang (Eric Nam) reteams with old friends in order to locate a powerful magical staff that, if fallen into the wrong hands, could lead to disaster and his kind being wiped out.

One of the biggest cinematic shames of 2026 will be the fact that Paramount never fulfilled their initial intentions of giving Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender in cinemas. After the film was leaked earlier in the year the studio brought the barely-promoted streaming release forward, with Academy-qualifying run in the States. Watching it at home it’s clear that the mix of hand-drawn characters with CG effects and backgrounds was made to be seen on the big screen. There’s awe at the expansive colourful action on display from the small screen, watching in a cinema may well have, visually, run close competition for The Odyssey.

A continuation of beloved Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender – which itself has been remade in live-action films and TV series, with other animated series directly spinning off from it – Avatar Aang marks the start of a new world of Avatar productions, the debut of Avatar Studios. As a reintroduction to this world, with a now aged up Aang (Eric Nam) reuniting with old friends; and meeting new faces such as Dave Bautista’s fellow airbender Tagah -there’s a feeling of perhaps one too many characters overall – there should prove a solid continuation for fans, likely to be absorbed almost instantly to the world and its style. As an introduction, for newcomers (such as myself, completely clueless to anything in the original series and everything linked to it) there’s plenty in the visuals, however the narrative may not be packing the same punch.

As the characters travel around various locations, each one attempting to be a big sequence, trying to locate a powerful staff before a tribe that threatens to wipe out Aang and his kind can get hold of it, and possibly destroy the world, dialogue reminding us of what’s happening and catching us up on the details of the plot and characters can often feel quite on-the-nose, or simply clunky. While the animation is polished to beyond a shining glow, the screenplay feels in need of another once-over, or two. Both in regards to more conversational scenes whilst on the way to the next setting, or simply interactions in otherworldly realms. Not always helped by an individual feeling to certain sequences that feel like they could do with a stronger bridge between each one so they feel less chaptered.

The action bursts from the screen thanks to the colours and visuals, and simply in terms of style and overall execution it proves engaging in its own right, especially in the climactic stages. However, there’s a feeling that the narrative build-up to these events doesn’t match the scale and spectacle on display, which again was made to be seen in the cinema but unfortunately this will only be the case for very few people. Perhaps a better return to the world, characters and sights of Avatar than introduction, there’s an overall likable if not always emotionally engaging journey through the various details of this world, one which the film feels intent on revisiting as much as possible of.

While visually stunning there’s not a narrative to match in Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender as on-the-nose dialogue occasionally emphasises the individual nature of sightseeing sequences between striking action setpieces.

Cert – 12, Run-time – 2 hours 25 minutes, Director – Destin Daniel Cretton

Having been forgotten by the world, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) lives his days alone, wishing to reconnect with old friends, until an anonymous body-hopper and strengthening spider-sense cause chaos in New York.

Alongside great power and great responsibility, Spider-Man is often a character defined by those around him, and a sense of loss. Both have been battled in the MCU trilogy focusing on Tom Holland’s iteration of the character, particularly 2021’s No Way Home which confronted the cost of being Spider-Man from a multiversal angle.

Now, with Destin Daniel Cretton taking over the director’s chair from Jon Watts, having been forgotten by the world Peter Parker has spent four years in isolation. A montage shows us he truly is the street-level friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. After facing universe-ending threats there’s a sense of fun seeing him combat, albeit powered, villains whilst swinging through the streets of New York City and casually communicating with police captain Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas).

However, loneliness affects his spidey-senses as they intensify, leading to bursts of anger and mutations amidst taunting from a mysterious figure jumping between bodies they possess whilst threatening the city’s safety. Half character drama, half Marvel flick there’s a maturity to both aspects as an older and bruised Spider-Man, and Parker – both of whom Holland has effectively played as one for a decade now – starts to lose his place in a world that only knows the mask.

It’s the character drama, especially surrounding Peter’s attempts to maybe rekindle his relationships with Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya); dialogue-based scenes involving the three can be quiet and heartful or leaning into the character drama at hand without disturbing the louder action. Of which there is plenty. Enemies come in various forms, as seen in the aforementioned catch-up montage, and each brings a new kind of battle style, well captured by Cretton who was behind 2021’s Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings – a highlight of Marvel’s Multiverse Saga. A layered skyscraper battle following multiple characters, giving Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner time to shine, is a particular highlight

Marvel Studios has managed to base much of their Spider-Man films around the character. Homecoming was as much a coming-of-age teen movie as it was a superhero flick; Brand New Day also doesn’t forget the humour. That’s continued as we’ve followed Peter, MJ and Ned through the following stages of life and we see the weight that separation has on Holland’s character, watching them via Instagram reels. Character and superhero narrative continue to be well paired here from start to finish, allowing for the shift into further action in the third act to avoid a dip or major change in tone with the focus still on the mentalities of not just the titular hero but those he’s trying to help, too.

Saving the day is still high on the agenda for the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. It’s an isolating responsibility to carry, but that weight is effectively lifted in Brand New Day with engaging character arcs working in-hand with the swift-moving action.

A more mature character-driven venture, not without its chuckles, for Peter Parker, Spider-Man and co. Brand New Day features plenty of slick, web-slinging action amongst the engaging character dramas.

Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 53 minutes, Director – Christopher Nolan

With the Trojan War complete, Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his troops head home to Ithaca, an unexpectedly ten-year journey beset by the gods with monsters and disasters.

Borrowing from his Oppenheimer flashback-style of time meddling, Christopher Nolan follows a weary Odysseus (Matt Damon) trying to remember the events between winning the Trojan War and washing up on a beach, rescued by Calypso (Charlize Theron), years later. Yet, Oppenheimer had an aspect of heated interrogation fuelling the flashbacks, not present in the case of The Odyssey as we see Odysseus and his troops battling the forces of the gods through nature and monsters. Setting them off course and creating a ten-year journey home, where suitors are starting to demand that his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway, standing out in a large ensemble cast) move on and remarry so that someone new can finally take control.

While these figures, led by Robert Pattinson’s enjoyably disdainful Antinous, start to scheme we see Odysseus facing a succession of obstacles to flee, and occasionally attack. There’s a spectacle to them, designed for the big screen as Nolan clearly has classic epics in mind when making this, alongside feelings of beloved sword-and-sandals flicks. The tone, in this case, is intensified into a very mature and adult fantasy actioner. One that gets much impact from the sound department, capturing the chaos and yells as giants come round the corner and surround the men of Ithaca, or an army of the dead rises up. The sound erupting from the speakers with clatters and thuds creates a number of successful jumps and, at times, a darker tone for the film.

As for the sequences themselves, they do have a tendency to feel like a set of sequences in need of a tad more solid connection to feel less like stages. The Ithacan army trying to escape a towering cyclops in a cave is followed quickly by the meeting with giant soldiers, and I couldn’t help but feel a similarity in tone and style to the moments, as if a bit too similar in their basis. There’s still an impact in some of the suddenness, although not quite a punch. Much like the suspense, it’s scattered.

When the narrative is most direct, largely in the third act which while long is well tracked and has plenty to keep it moving, while the journey to it can sometimes simply feel long in the near three-hour run-time. There’s a sharp propulsion to the third act and just how Nolan escalates it. Capturing the tiredness and retained fury of Odysseus, a defiance that doesn’t quite seem to be as present or burning in the stages before. Perhaps it’s a final fight, personal and physical, stretching out, involving multiple faces we’ve seen scattered throughout the main journey – Tom Holland appears more consistently as the lead figure’s son, Telemachus, after having gone in search of his father with the film at one point feeling as if it’s forgotten him.

There’s a great many characters here, and, as has become the case for a Nolan film now, a very starry cast portraying them. Things don’t feel overly busy because of them, and no one feels like they’re fighting for space, with solid performances all round. But, you can sometimes feel divisions amongst the strands and who’s telling a flashback when it comes to the individual sequences. It’s easy to see and feel where one starts and ends without a full flow from one to the next.

Yes, there’s spectacle and likable elements in each instance. An intensity that comes through, but I couldn’t help but feel the run-time during the journey with the decision to draw a number of these sequences out to really get across the scale and struggle of the odyssey faced itself. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but with the effect that they have (I realise I’m in a minority here) I found myself not always in awe or immersed in what I was seeing – despite the detailed production and costume design.

Again, when letting ideas breathe together in the heat of direct battle, as a true sense of weariness and personal stakes is felt and Nolan looks more at Odysseus’ reflection on the past and learnings of himself, and what the gods may have thrown at him for his actions, I found a more intriguing emotional aspect for the characters, largely confined to Hathaway and brief side-characters until the burst of the extended confined battle which leads towards the film’s ending. One dealing with more than the deadly fight at hand and with an overall better flow. Perhaps a re-watch will bring more appreciation for what’s been pulled off here by Nolan, it’s certainly an ambitious film; arguably his biggest to date. But sometimes that grandness means that bigger emotional stakes and effect are left until much later.

While there’s scale and effect in the technical aspects, bringing in some stakes and suspense, much of the tension and emotional connection with The Odyssey is found in its third act, once the various sequences of the main, somewhat lengthy, journey itself is almost over.

Cert – PG, Run-time – 1 hour 55 minutes, Director – Thomas Kail

Teenage Moana (Catherine Laga’aia) ventures across the ocean to find demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) to help her restore a stone heart that will bring life back to surrounding islands.

While I continue to say that Disney’s live-action remakes are becoming too similar to the original films I worry that my reviews of them are becoming even more similar. It reflects a series of films that themselves are starting to blend into each other in tone and style, caught in a growingly stale formula where they’re becoming hard to differentiate from each other, let alone their original films.

Moana, released just months away from exactly ten years of the original film – and just over a year-and-a-half from its sequel – feels so afraid to steer away from the legacy and memory that the 2016 animation has that it feels more copy and paste than ‘reimagining’ (as Disney continues to label these remakes). The songs are still great, the jokes largely still work, Dwayne Johnson and Jemaine Clement give roughly the same performances returning for their characters; and the film itself is perfectly fine. But, I couldn’t help reaching the hour mark and starting to feel bored. I’d seen this film ten years ago and it was better, and looked better, too.

While there’s enough live-action to justify this as a live-action take there’s a lot of CG scattered throughout, and a number of shots showing the characters amongst a green screen ocean feel very artificial. Yet, one of the best moments of the film is a brief flicker of joy. Just a few seconds in the middle of highlight song You’re Welcome, as demigod Maui (Johnson) starts to spin a tale of self-glorifying wonder to the titular teenage future-island-chief (Catherine Laga’aia, who gives a confident performance, striding with the songs) who’s demanding he help her restore the stone heart of an island, which could help restore life across the ocean – after her own island is impacted and crops start to suffer. A burst of colour erupts onto the screen, a break into bigger fantasy through an animation that matches the spirit of the song. Unfortunately, it’s only a few seconds before going back to the more limited sets trying to capture an in-between of the animated world of the original and live-action one of the remake without quite sitting comfortably in either.

There simply feels to be little imagination on display. Too much reliance on the original and how well people know it while having to make elements that are so well suited to an animated form fit into this new setting. The ocean being its own character, even simply waving or nodding to Moana, looks better in a completely animated world than here where it still does essentially the same thing. Aside from a couple of tweaks to the words of songs there feels almost nothing new here. If you’ve never seen 2016’s Moana then 2026’s will likely be likable viewing, if occasionally a bit clunky with visuals. For those who have seen it, however, it feels as much of a repeat as this review. Displaying an eventually tiresome lack of imagination that its ‘perfectly fine-ness’ starts to feel bland.

Because of how similar it is to the original film this Moana remake is largely fine, but despite the same great songs and a hugely likable lead there’s such little imagination on display that it all starts to feel boring, and in need of an animated spark.