Brad Wheeler

In the original Jumanji, young characters are caught inside a board game come to life; in the new sequel, it's a video game they adventure within – a rigid construct of one-note humour, special-effect shenanigans, relentless quest-based action and sledge-hammered messaging.

Nerve looks fabulous and the pace is evenly adrenalized, which makes up for clichéd characters, a concocted premise and commentary that is a bit on the nose.

While the gender-based farmhouse siege is suspenseful and bloody, director Daniel Barber weighs in too heavily with extended silences that slow down the goings-on of a film that has darkly lit tension, lovely scenery and fiercely presented ideas on feminism.

The low-budget effort from Vancouver writer-director Scooter Corkle is earnest and methodical, with a tone-setting murkiness to it.

The plot finds loopholes as it rambles ahead semi-plausibly to its conclusion. Audiences will no doubt applaud this entertaining film, but the case is under appeal.

Best of all, it’s tight at 81 minutes, which means a 7 p.m. screening gets you out of the theatre while it’s still light out, thank God.

There's a spunky charm to the Scream-meets-Groundhog Day thing, and the film is well-built. The problem is its chipper message.

A bittersweet salute, appraisal and explanation of the early-nineties Saturday Night Live troupe mainstay.

Scratch off Lewis as a contender for the new Bond actor. As for McGregor, he may have failed his audition as well. Our Kind of Traitor is tense enough, but lacks lustre and pizzazz. Perhaps a better-utilized Harris could have popped things up.

Facial prosthetics, Inside Hoops humour and "Barbershop"-styled trash talk ensue. Pepsi is one of film’s producers, but painkiller Aleve gets better product placement. Spare some for the arthritic plot, please.

The melodrama is uncomfortably high; the checked-box plot is manipulative.

Directed by veteran "Chariots of Fire" filmmaker Hugh Hudson, the semi-compelling Finding Altamira is let down by ordinary acting, way too many scholarly adages and a perplexing level of inaction.

A fantastical adventure, dandy ode to weirdos, and accessible anti-war allegory for all ages, especially 10-year-old boys.

While thoughtfully done, the entertainment value of this sombre scare fiesta isn’t high. It’s about life’s paths taken and the rituals (and fears) we submit to.

A film that is touching in a clumsy, boyish way that adults will understand and may even applaud.

Although it’s a kick to see the rough conditions and the full-on roughhousing of old-world golf, the scenes on the links are repetitive. And while the ending takes a severe dogleg turn to soft-focus sentimentality and the soundtrack hounds us to take this thing seriously, the movie is easily resistible.

An exercise in naive commentary and globe-trotting magical realism, the film dares viewers to take it seriously.

For all the talk of Smith’s strong performance, one wonders if the subject matter couldn’t have been tackled with less sentimentality and heartfelt biography.

The intrigue is high and the action is furious, but a sort of meta subplot is also at work: Sextagenerian action-film hero Chan against onetime 007er Brosnan.

So, is Yesterday a one-trick Dig a Pony or did renowned British screenwriter Richard Curtis and the great British filmmaker Danny Boyle turn a cute hook into something meaningful? The answer is that the duo tries for the latter, but doesn’t quite nail it.

It’s a genuinely fun affair – let’s not write it off as a cult classic just yet – with the smirking air of a confidant and mischievous filmmaker.

Knuckleball does not flutter; its pace and tone is lean, mean and eerie. Luca Villacis plays the home-alone little hero, a Rambo MacGyver Jr. in the making. Not all the kid’s ingenuity and wits are plausible, though, and a late-plot throw-in is a bit much. Still, there’s Ironside and enough cold-weather tension to make Knuckleball a swing-and-hit deal.

Typical themes (redemption, forgiveness) are laid out with little imagination.

Other than keeping Hamilton’s name out there and giving her brand exposure, Unstoppable stops short of making a compelling case for itself.

The result is an irreverent, kinetic presentation with snappy dialogue and a hammered-home message that is graspable to even those with cup-shaped hands: One's true powers are internal, not external devices.

The message of the film is that life throws surprises. While that is true, this predictable film itself is not one of them.

Bushwick is an unpolished work, but there's an adrenalin charge, sure thing. It's close combat and it's closer than most Americans might wish to believe.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds and others float around one another for an intense but spark-free 103 minutes, their characters barely sketched.

It is still by no means a great film, even compared against the standards of contemporary superhero cinema, which is bleeding any sense of individual artistry and purpose each passing year. But it is a wild, invigorating experiment to experience.

Reiner is no Oliver Stone, but he does stir things up by presenting Bobby Kennedy in the villain's role as a serious jerk and crafty underminer.

Entanglement suffers from an unsureness in tone, somewhere between quirky and sombre.

A modest, winning comedy that overtly sneaks in its wisdom about life, worries and what really matters.

Journeys more often than not are not what we expected. And neither is Cook's unpredictable and reflective work, set to a brooding solo-cello score and filled with whatever metaphors you need. We are alone on this trip – take it, and this marvellous film, at your own pace.

What follows is excellent, uncomplicated and well-wrought house-of-horrors fun, complete with a message about self-blame and the real things that haunt us. Gary Dauberman is a first-time director, but don’t worry, Mom and Dad, your kids (and everyone else) are in good hands with him.

Because it’s emotionally manipulative, unashamedly contrived and outrageously sentimental. Lead actor Oscar Isaac doesn’t care a damn about that, mind you, giving a memorably heart-wrenching performance anyway.

The film is dialogue-heavy, easily imaginable as a two-hander for the stage, but watching the ice-thawing process between the two enemies is less compelling on screen.

Instead of captivating us with swagger, McConaughey chooses to go grim and dogged. Director Ross does the same.

I like the way McLeod handles the genre. The easiest thing to do would be for her to write Feore’s Elon Musk-y space-or-bust character as a villain, thus making it impossible not to root for her protagonist (who warns of a potential load-bearing problem with the space-plane’s runway). McLeod resists that urge though.

In the role, Lawrence dominates. Red Sparrow is stylish and tense enough, but the writing is run-of-the-mill and the film lacks the soul of something like the Nikita movies. The watchability comes from Lawrence.

The colourful film of course is allegorical: Peace is tough and tedious; war is an easy solution. And while the kids’ enthusiasm for battle wanes, pint-sized audiences will likely remain engaged.

Director Maggs tells a tough, sympathetic story in an imaginative way that makes Goalie feel like a war story.

A modest, hard-faced film, offering a nervous study of humanity and civil disobedience in a societal-bullying era.

What we have here is an honestly simplified film for teen audiences that gently breaks barriers and embraces diversity, LGBTQ sexuality and pure romantic love. It's nothing close to a great film, but neither is it something young audiences see every day.

Though compelling in the acting and cinematography, Triple 9’s plot is by the numbers and about nothing.

The chipper tale is admittedly interesting, though not “fascinating,” as self-advertised.

Most of the film’s action happens at night, so we really don’t get a good look at the colourful city. Why hire New Orleans as a location if you’re not going to show it off?

What doesn’t go in Skyscraper is watching Sawyer and his family face staggering calamity and danger with barely a concern raised or a sweat broken. As for the actors portraying them, they’re the brave ones. And if they were scared, they didn’t show it.

The victory of The Accountant is in the tone. The title character isn’t presented as a superfreak – this isn’t "Rain Man," in which autistic gifts are presented as powers for parlour tricks – but as a prototype and a beautiful mutant, maybe even a superhero.

The scriptwriters did Perry no favours. Lengthy swaths of dialogue are consumed by tedious exposition on vampire types and the ways they can be killed.

Ironically, Middle School’s message is about encouraging kids and grown-ups to think outside the box and yet, the filmmakers themselves do precisely the opposite.

There’s enough action to keep things moving along, but the drama is ho-hum, juiced up with a turgid soundtrack and sirens howling in the night. It’s all just so average.

Is it much of a movie? Not really. It’s more of an experience – a passive sort of virtual reality – that uses a bare-bones narrative as a vehicle for a big-time body count.

I’m not sure audiences are getting what they deserve with this plodding, so-so action-thriller, but they’ll get what they’ll pay for: Washington as a relentless old-man on a moral-code mission of setting things right (and sometimes setting things on fire).

Midnight meets madness in a surrealist exercise in existentialism and deft satire that will unsettle the average viewer while exciting those with freakier tastes.

Gudegast, a first-time director who wrote the script to Den of Thieves (and who has probably watched Michael Mann's "Heat" more than once) attempts to comment on humanity's complexities. But all he does with his soulless, hollow characters is make a solid case that men are violent sleazes.

The result is a metaphor run amok, with a limp plot, implausible action and three barely sketched characters played drearily.

The cast has chemistry, but Little is marred by plot holes, a strange fixation on donuts and at least one inexplicable scene.

Played adroitly by Patrick Sabongui, this guy wouldn’t hurt a fly. Or would he? A couple of nice plot twists overshadow the predictable sound-of-sorrow ethnic wail that closes the film.

The quirky romantic comedy The Tomorrow Man relies on the believability of their late-in-life love in order for the film to work. Which it does, to some degree – that degree being small-story preciousness and the simple pleasure of eating popcorn while watching Blythe Danner and John Lithgow watching television as they eat popcorn.

As for who’s the cat and who’s the mouse, that’s easy: Filmmaker Campbell is the former and we’re the latter. The Protégé plays with its viewers – if one is up for the game, there are worse ways to spend 109 minutes.

The photography is elegant, but nothing else is. With action that is standard and not at all tense, the melodrama is much higher than the reward.

Stately, handsome and ferociously romantic, the new biopic of British high-fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, though there is some excellent tea drinking to be had.

At the heart of the problem with this period piece is an absence of a riveting scene or a memorable slice of dialogue.

No clichés are avoided in the pleasant, if relentlessly adorable ensemble comedy Dog Days.

The problem is that somewhere around the middle of the film, one begins to realize it probably isn’t going any place worthwhile.

Perhaps a better name for Marc Abraham’s well-crafted biopic would be His Cheatin’ Heart, for this motion picture concentrates on the marital distress between a philandering Williams and his flat-singing wife (played with vibrancy by Elizabeth Olsen).

In real life, of course, nobody can be hypnotized against their will. To be mesmerized is to willingly succumb. Just keep that in mind when you head off to see something like Now You See Me 2.

The film’s writing is unambitious; there’s little to cause adults to smile knowingly.

It is a fun, serviceable, family-oriented exercise in reprise that counts on nostalgia as it brings history and present day together.

The plot is simple, the character development is lazy and the use of the oh-my-God-there’s-someone-right-behind-you device is tiring. Still, the premise is sound. Evil in the church – who would have thought? Duh-duh!

The look of the film is sterile and monochromatic, as is the acting and the mood. And while fans of the genre will absolutely appreciate the surreal gloom, for most others Level 16 will come in at a level below an average "Twilight Zone" episode.

The makers of The Meg may have gone to school on Spielberg, but the big-budget deep-sea thriller is nothing but bloodless summer filler. Unsure if he wants to have some fun and jump the Sharknado or make a seriously gory fish fest, director Jon Turteltaub has surfaced with nets empty.