Brad Wheeler

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

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.

With too much salutation and not enough action, this is a (fine) companion to the album but not a freestanding film.

Eerie and unpredictable, Strangerland holds attention, even if traditional suspense tricks are avoided like they were dingos at the daycare.

For all its tense entertainment, Fake Blood's production values and acting levels aren't high – getting what you pay for being just another ice-pick-to-the-eye reality faced by indie filmmakers.

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

Young Joan is played by Sophie Cookson, magnetic in the role. Dench is underused, though. The film’s suspense is waiting on the world-class actress to bust out some chops. It never happens. The spy who bored me, rather.

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.

The film hums to tepid indie-pop and is sentimental to a fault, but the cast is a soulful bunch (including Toni Collette and a wonderful Ted Danson) who breathes life into a film that is all heart.

Unfortunately, the script is held together with something much less adhesive than, say, Amy Adams’s "American Hustle" blouse tape.

A few plot contrivances aside, the unspectacular Bad Samaritan is tense and disturbing enough, and worth its weight in popcorn.

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 film is a popcorn-crowd pleaser, but a “yippee ki-yay” or two away from something more memorable.

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.

We’re not sure what sister and brother ultimately learned about their much different sibling, and one is left with the feeling the trip was more in service of the film’s narrative than a dream-fulfilling jaunt for Tom.

Norm of the North will occupy the attention of young audiences while getting a message across to them about the dangers of humans going where they don’t belong. Older audiences are less well served; they’ll just have to grin and bear it.

Not once does anyone question the war or their involvement in it. We can't depend on big answers from filmmakers, but to not ask big questions seems like a dereliction of duty.

The acting is uniformly strong and the camera work is winningly claustrophobic, but the film is one note.

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.

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).

Perhaps Howard’s dutiful obligation to Brown’s treasure-hunt oeuvre will end here, with the temperate Inferno sparking a resurgence to follow. Dante wrote that “The poets leave hell and again behold the stars.” Here’s hoping that Howard has some shine left in him.

Made for ironicists, Turbo Kid, in its endearingly goofy way, says good things about the power reserves of our childhood – an inner superhero we can call upon when needed.

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

Why is she a problematic pop star? That’s the premise, but I’m not sure we get the answer here.

At times the film seems like a horrifying Nancy Drew story or a more sophisticated Scooby-Doo episode without the dog and with a face full of spiders.

Baby it’s a wild film, but not Murray’s best and not Levinson’s either.

Ultimately the film is as much about the mother and parenting as it is on the hot-plating Doogie Howser. It’s good food for thought, even if the film doesn’t quite come together.

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.