This is a very stupid film. That's not necessarily a criticism - many of the injustices of the world aren't subtle, and being unsubtle can be precisely the right way to challenge them. The problem is that The Substance undermines the virtues of its stupidity by imagining that its audience is even stupider. You can't make blunt points while also holding the audience's hands and explaning repeatedly the very obvious points you're making, because the vigour you might have got…

Starts with a dry voice-over explaining mandatory Palestine, and doesn't really get any more interesting from there. The film never gets under the skin of any of its characters. It doesn't investigate the political ideologies that motivated them (we know the Irgun are fascists because characters keep telling us they are, but there's no discussion of what actually makes their ideology fascist; the discussion of alternative zionist political positions never goes beyond expressions of platitudes designed to show us their…

This is directed by the guy who made "Ali G Indahouse"? That was a funny film with a surprising amount to say about politics and social class. "The Menu" is neither of those things.

To its credit, it attempts something pretty difficult - it sets up a rigorous structure, then makes a swerve which wrecks that structure, leaving the problem of how to maintain the structure in context where it no longer makes sense. Unfortunately, the film completely fails to…