David D'Arcy

Spain’s J. A. Bayona is essentially stirring the same Jurassic pot here, with little that’s inspiring from his cast, unless you count the dinosaurs.

Both McGregor, close cropped, and Seydoux, in retro bangs, give tender performances, although there’s not much that’s new in the love story once you push the robotics aside. Tech-heads who rush to Zoe may leave the theater feeling under-charged.

There is not enough in the performances or the script to set it apart from the constant flow of indie crime dramas.

It’s ambitious, and she hits some of the right notes, but much of it ends up off-key.

Some of the most fun in Uprising comes from its elder statesmen, holdovers from Pacific Rim who play for laughs.

Even with uneasiness dripping from Smith as Adrian, the acting in 1985 is like the script – stiff. 1985 gets the notes right, and its foreboding look takes us back to a dark age. It’s a lesson worth remembering. Yet with all the prejudice and pain, the film still feels a lot like a sermon.

Silver infuses some novelty into his Perils Of Pauline narrative, thanks to an extreme performance by Burdge, who plays the credulous lovesick naif to the hilt.

The debut feature by Janicza Bravo takes on a perennial comic genre yet, like its main character, it’s best described as a work in progress.

Brian Shoaf does not break any new ground in Aardvark (besides featuring an actual aardvark in an independent film), yet his pairing of stalwart female characters with troubled men is a welcome twist of gender stereotypes.

No one says too much in this film’s underdeveloped dialogue, yet Ryan’s steely demeanor reflects the jumbled toughness and vulnerability of people dependant on land that isn’t giving them much.

Kelly’s film is a competent feature debut – elegantly filmed and paced to keep viewers with Franco on an improbable ride. Yet the script views Glatze from a distance, never really entering his head to penetrate beyond the character’s own apologia for a bizarre life change.

Fate is a blunt instrument here. Yet you still wind up asking for more depth from the characters for whom Hittman is asking you to feel something.

This well-meaning debut feature about following your dreams just treads water.

It’s a radiant debut for young newcomer Joe Alwyn, who plays a Texan war hero uneasy in his own land. It’s a shakier curtain-raising for Lee’s ambitious weaponising of new technologies.