Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile review - pedestrian Ted Bundy biopic

Another rehash of a legendary serial murderer's killing spree

Why make a feature film about Ted Bundy, the notorious 1970s serial killer when you’ve already made Conversations with a Killer, a four-part factual series for Netflix about him? A charitable explanation would be that it offered documentarian Joe Berlinger a chance to explore aspects of the story that could only be told with drama.

Minding the Gap review – profound musings on life

★★★★★ MINDING THE GAP Profound musings on life

Don’t be deceived, this skateboarding documentary is a heartbreaking classic

Where would you go for a devastating study on the human condition? The home movies of teenage skaters would be very low down on that list. But most of those movies aren’t filmed, compiled and analysed by Bing Liu, the director of Minding the Gap. Perfectly balancing perspective and curiosity, it’s perhaps the most unexpected achievement on the year.

Strike Back: Silent War, Sky 1 review - bullets, bodies, baddies and a stolen atom bomb

★★★ STRIKE BACK: SILENT WAR, SKY 1 bullets, bodies, baddies & a stolen atom bomb

Mac McAllister and Section 20 are back to do what they do best

Some things never change. About 60 per cent of this first show in Strike Back’s seventh series consisted of Mac McAllister (Warren Brown) and his intrepid Section 20 squad mowing down members of a Malaysian triad gang with automatic weapons.

Crackdown 3 review - spectacular super-powered action that was great fun many years ago

Nearly a decade has passed since the last incarnation but little has changed in this stagnant shooter

Did you play videogames back in 2010? If you did, there’s a reasonable chance you played Crackdown 2. Only a reasonable chance as the game was just on Xbox 360 – this was back in the days when there was a lot more console-exclusive titles. But if you did play, you would know just how much fun this sprawling open world run, gun and mega jump game could be.

Beast on the Moon, Finborough Theatre review - drama of familial displacement packs a quiet punch

American play from mid-'90s resonates afresh today

In the history of early photography in the Middle East, it was the Armenian Christian traders and their descendents who became the pioneers of the new technology. Their numbers include the Armenian-Turkish photojournalist Ara Güler, "the Eye of Istanbul" who died last year and was famous for his signature images of the city.

Counting Sheep, The Vaults review - visceral recreation of an uprising

★★★★ COUNTING SHEEP, THE VAULTS Viscereal recreation of an uprising

Revolution is about youth, music, anger, and - frankly - sex

Is there a connection between revolution and theatre? The answer has to be yes – a visceral one. The supremacy of symbols, the collective strength of a crowd, a sense that some kind of pressure valve is being released to challenge the dominant social narrative. The Ancient Greeks understood this – it was from such impulses that theatre had its birth. So how does that work amid the populist turbulence of the twenty-first century?

Destroyer review - Kidman shines in middling crime drama

A cliched script and grim aesthetic sours a powerhouse performance

Destroyer. It’s an apt name. Like the film, it's grandiose and blunt. Nicole Kidman is almost unrecognisable (a requirement when aiming for nominations) as Detective Erin Bell, a damaged survivor of an undercover heist gone wrong. When her target resurfaces after 17 years, she must pull her life together to hunt him down and finally close the case, whatever it takes.