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Super Troopers 3 (15, 104 mins)

Verdict: Not super at all

Rating: One out of five stars

The drought afflicting our once green and pleasant land has spread into the multiplexes: this week's only major release (for grown-ups) is the woeful Super Troopers 3.

The original film came out in 2001 and the second in 2018, so I really don't know why another has been inflicted on us so soon – or why the mighty Brian Cox agreed to reprise his role as a (now-retired) police captain.

What I do know is that it's exactly 100 years since legendary screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, on arriving in Hollywood, cabled his friend Ben Hecht to say: 'Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots.' A century later, it sometimes seems as if the idiots have prevailed.

By 1926, incidentally, those heroes of clunky slapstick, the Keystone Kops, were done and dusted. The single joke – that a bunch of policemen might be hilariously incompetent – was no longer considered worthy of sustaining an entire feature film.

Yet here we are in 2026, saddled yet again with the same asinine squad of Vermont state troopers and another set of mostly unfunny misadventures, written by the Broken Lizard comedy team.

This time, Senior Trooper Ramathorn (Jay Chandrasekhar, who also directs) is doing his utmost to stop his sister marrying his dense colleague Rodney Farva (Kevin Heffernan), while at the same time the troopers are trying to catch whoever is attacking maple-syrup trucks.

The humour is as broad as your average state highway: race, sex, drugs and Canada, especially Canada, are targeted in a barrage of crass gags, only about five per cent of which warrant a smile, let alone a laugh. Honestly, it's desperate stuff.

The original film came out in 2001 and the second in 2018, so I really don't know why another has been inflicted on us so soon

The Summer Book is adapted from a 1972 novel by Tove Jansson, who wrote the Moomin books for children. Pictured: Glenn Close as grandmother and Emily Matthews as Sophia

The Summer Book (PG, 90 mins)

Verdict: A Close-run thing

Rating: Three out of five stars

The Summer Book is as unhurried as Super Troopers 3 is frenetic. It is adapted from a 1972 novel by Tove Jansson, who wrote the beloved Moomin books for children. Yet this is very much a story for grown-ups, and patient grown-ups at that. It's one of those films in which, almost defiantly, Nothing Much Happens.

At its core, though, is a charming performance by Glenn Close as a formidable Finnish granny, spending the summer on an island in the Gulf of Finland with her son (Anders Danielsen Lie) and nine-year-old granddaughter Sophia (nicely played by newcomer Emily Matthews).

A pall of sadness hangs over the family. Sophia's mother has died, and although we never learn how or when, the father's anguish is still raw, inhibiting his relationship with his daughter.

He suggests to his mother that 'the stink of grief' might be repelling visitors to the island. 'Or self-pity,' she asserts. She's what Americans would call a tough old broad.

Anyway, it is left to Grandmother (neither she nor her son are named) to spend time with Sophia, imparting wisdom and being as much fun as her creaking body permits.

White hair either coiled into a bun or hanging in long plaits, Close gives a wondrous performance, and if you ever see anyone on the streets of Helsinki looking more like a Finnish granny, I won't believe it unless you send in a picture.

Admittedly, there's no narrative arc as such in The Summer Book, more of a narrative flat-line. But if you don't mind that, then Charlie McDowell's film is a touching study of family dynamics and how they are affected by death.

Love Me Tender (15, 134 mins)

Verdict: Sensitive French drama

Rating: Three out of five stars

Love Me Tender a French-language film, starring the ever-splendid Vicky Krieps as Clemence (seen), a separated mother of an eight-year-old boy who shares custody with her former partner

Love Me Tender is another family drama, anchored by more superb acting.

It's a French-language film, starring the ever-splendid Vicky Krieps as Clemence, a separated mother of an eight-year-old boy who shares custody with her former partner, Laurent (Antoine Reinartz).

The pair have an amicable relationship and when she tells him she's now dating women, he takes it in his stride. 'I just want you to be happy,' he says.

But he changes his tune, poisoning the child against his mother and igniting a complicated legal process which, partly as a consequence of institutionalised homophobia, keeps her from seeing her cherished son for 18 months – or as she heartbreakingly measures it, two Christmases, one birthday and one Mother's Day.

It's a true story, lifted by writer-director Anna Cazenave Cambet from an autobiographical novel by Constance Debre.

The novelist's grandfather Michel Debre, incidentally, was once the prime minister of France, and is considered the 'father' of the modern French constitution. What an irony that it served his granddaughter so badly.

All films reviewed here are in cinemas now.

Also showing

Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie (U, 88 mins)

Verdict: More pawesome than pawful

Rating: Three out of five stars

By Peter Hoskin

A summer Paw Patrol movie is a blessing and a curse for parents. It's something to distract your overheated, understimulated little darlings in the holidays; but you've got to go with them and waste an hour and a half of your precious adult time in the company of squeaky-voiced search and rescue dogs.

Except: this Paw Patrol movie, the third spin-off from the children's TV series, is… quite good, actually. I enjoyed it not much less than my five-year-old son, who adored it.

This Paw Patrol movie, the third spin-off from the children's TV series, is… quite good, actually

The pleasant surprises start early, as the all-action pups save a family from a burning boat. The dad is voiced by Snoop Dogg! The mum by Paris Hilton! But it's their cat who steals the laughs – as it emerges soggy and grumpy from the sea.

Then in a storm the USS Paw Patrol runs into an uncharted island. Could this be where the dinos of the title live? Yes, it could.

The doggies have only gone and found Jurassic Park, except the dinos here (below), seem to have existed by themselves for millions of years. The public-spirited Paw Patrol invite scientists in to research them. But some less respectable sorts are drawn in, too, by the promise of diamonds…

The worst part of the film is that its baddie, Mayor Humdinger (Ron Pardo), looks too like KFC's Colonel Sanders to be scary.

But you'll have forgotten him by the volcanic climax. Will the firedog Marshall be able to put out the biggest conflagration of his life? Parents already know the answer. If only Marshall were able to cool off our overheated children, too.