ICOULD NEVER GO VEGAN TBC

★★★★★ OUT 19 APRIL CINEMAS

Thomas Pickering’s excellent doc tackles the most common objections to turning vegan – the cost, the tastiness of meals, baking without dairy – while also highlighting the reported benefits: increased life expectancy, less disease, improved animal welfare and a reduction in the rate of climate change. Harrowing sequences at UK slaughterhouses will also give even the most ardent carnivores pause for thought, though the real success is in how Pickering dissects the evidence to build a case that is thoughtful, provocative and ultimately persuasive.

FANTASTIC MACHINE 15

★★★★★ OUT 19 APRIL CINEMAS

With 500 hours of ‘content’ being created every single minute, filmmakers Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck were definitely not short of material when they came to make this treatise on how the photographic image has shaped (and warped) human behaviours over the past 200 years. A call for improved media literacy in a world where perception is all, this nimble documentary (exec-produced by Triangle of Sadness’ Ruben Östlund) draws a line from the first snaps to today’s 24-hour news cycles, revealing en route both how far and how little we’ve travelled in the interim.

OPPONENT TBC

★★★★★ OUT 12 APRIL CINEMAS

An outstanding lead performance by Payman Maadi (A Separation, TV’s Westworld) lies at the heart of this powerful, slow-burning drama from Swedish-Iranian filmmaker Milad Alami. Claiming to be a victim of political persecution, Iranian wrestler Iman (Maadi) has sought asylum in Sweden with his wife and children, and is now existing in limbo at a refugee centre in the far north of the country. The desolate snowbound landscapes are contrasted with the visceral indoor wrestling sequences, as the volatile Iman is painfully torn between familial duties and forbidden desires.

THE BOOK OF CLARENCE 15

He’s not the Messiah…

★★★★★ OUT 19 APRIL CINEMAS

The Hollywood biblical epic was always ripe for parody - and so it came to pass in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979). Four decades on, writer/director Jeymes Samuel (The Harder They Fall) has another stab at pricking the genre’s pomposity, with amusing but muddled results.

It’s great fun watching Jerusalem deadbeat Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) try to dodge a gambling debt by attempting to become Jesus’s 13th apostle and, when that fails, setting out his stall as a messianic miracle-worker. Meanwhile, Samuel has a ball crafting a hip new spin on Roman Judea, in which shisha pipes turn their users into floating stoners, a stern John the Baptist (David Oyelowo) combines slaps with immersions, and a chariot race is staged on the same Matera thoroughfare that Daniel Craig used in No Time to Die.

But anarchic gusto gives way to po-faced reverence as Clarence gains a conscience and, confusingly, preternatural powers. And in a puzzling tonal blend, a Da Vinci-esque Last Supper is milked for laughs while a mass crucifixion is played bloodily straight.

Stanfield, on double duty as Clarence and his twin brother Thomas, is a charismatic lead in a cast that boasts more than one enjoyable cameo. Yet you can’t help concluding that Samuel’s laudable ambition to give his mischievous comedy a deeper resonance was too heavy a cross to bear.

THE VERDICT An inclusive riposte to Gospel truth that ultimately loses the courage of its satirical convictions.

MAX BEYOND TBC

★★★★★ OUT 22 APRIL DIGITAL

This so-so animated action thriller employs Unreal Engine, the same tech used in games like Fortnite. The big-eyed humans have a ceramic-doll quality, but the apoca-futureworld (collapsed economy, riots, war) is effectively rendered. It’s a less compelling story inside a facility, where imprisoned ‘asset’ Max (Cade Tropeano) has visions of his older brother Leon (Dave Fennoy) dying in a rescue attempt. Using his ability to surf the multiverse, can Max find the one dimension that offers escape? Here’s hoping that the upcoming, same-titled video game offers a more involving experience.