Brad Wheeler

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.

For fans of horror maestros John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon, nothing fills a void like good, old eighties-fashioned gore. Which is what we get from the writer-director team of Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski, unabashed fans of Reagan-era blood, slash and goo.

The music’s evolution and crisscrossing pollination is explained well – Mr. Tambourine Man inspired Rubber Soul which influenced Pet Sounds which begat Sgt. Pepper’s – but why are we watching the randomly selected couch full of Cat Power, Regina Spektor and a catatonic Beck sift through old LPs?

Though visually sumptuous and a bunch of fun early on, Edgar Wright’s take on sixties and seventies horror eventually devolves into unsatisfying spoof.

The film is too long for the non-enthusiast. And we don’t learn much about the brothers’ personal lives – it’s as if they exist for the band and nothing else. But even if the music isn’t your thing, it’s hard not to admire the duo’s commitment to their creative impulses.

We learn a little about Jett’s activism, and hardly anything about her personal life.

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.

Keating’s flattery is sincere, and so is his wish to stylishly freak you silly.

Tireless, ultra-talented and exceedingly charismatic, he emerges as a survivor in a film that spends too much time on his accolades and not enough on deciphering what makes this treasure of an octogenarian tick.

With its jazzy score and drizzly nighttime moods, where The Comedian works best is as a salute to New York stand-up scene, with looks into the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village and the New York Friars Club.

The film's police-procedural action is unimaginatively presented, but Oyelowo is compelling.

A combination of state-of-the-art cinematography and old-fashioned documentary storytelling, this gorgeous film is 3D visually, but frustratingly two-dimensional otherwise.

McGuigan’s visually vivid Victor Frankenstein races to its lightning-storm finish, running over the solid (if not electrifying) acting of McAvoy and Radcliffe.

A post-tour lawsuit levelled against “motherly” Madonna by two dancers is barely dealt with; the Express Yourself singer herself isn’t interviewed. As a result, the affecting film is absent of the truth or dare it had the potential for.

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.

To Dust’s humour is of the one-trick kind – an odd couple on an odd mission – but there is soul and small pleasures to its fly-by 92 minutes.

This is a prequel superior to its predecessor – we’re not bored with board-game ghoulishness yet.

Franco’s outlandish Laird dude is fascinatingly unfiltered, either when it comes to his non-stop F-bombs or his love-seeking shenanigans. It’s all a bit rompy, with a touch of the-world-is-a-changin’ commentary.

If you’re up for mild startles and unchallenging entertainment, a trip into The Forest should be right up your alley, if not your path.

Although One Love is not a great music biopic, it serves as an acceptable portrait of the man.

The heart of the needlessly lengthy 140-minute film is Eilish’s support system, which is to say her family – a screenwriter mother, a construction worker father and her older brother/producer/songwriting partner Finneas O’Connell. They’re all grounded, thoughtful and dedicated to the protection of a self-loathing teen who is coming of age in front of the world.

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

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.

That feelgood story of a long dormant musical dream finally realized was enough to earn major press attention, but is it enough for a feature-length film? Probably not, which is why writer-director Pohlad piled on the melodrama and leaned into clichés.

A so-so remake of the low-budget 2010 film "Ghost from the Machine" that comes off as run-of-the-mill paranormal thriller. No electricity, one might say.

Owen Wilson cries, but audiences will more likely roll their eyeballs at writer-director Stephen Chbosky's outrageous emotional manipulations.

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

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.