Ed Frankl

The provocativeness in Sparta is not necessarily in Ewald’s actions, but in the sympathetic, or at least non-judgmental, view that the film shows toward its main character. The film’s villains instead are more plainly the children’s absent, abusive fathers or the system that neglects these youngsters to the extent that they fall willingly into the arms of a would-be predator.

Folman is best in the family-entertainment mode when he’s breathing visual life into Anne’s flights of imagination.

The final third, especially, is by-the-numbers plotting. It’s a pity, as the film starts off promising some interesting overarching themes, especially Sibyl’s underhand ethics of mining her psychological examinations for fiction. As a metaphor for artistic invention, it’s an interesting, but unsuccessful one.

A sterile arthouse drama that rather muddles its conceit. ... Hausner and co-writer Géraldine Bajard never really get to grips with the potential for psychological terror at the center of what remains a genuinely intriguing premise.

Director Adler has made a very talky film, full of interior scenes and far flung from the hard-edged spy thrillers of Bond or Bourne.

Set in the picturesque Portuguese city of the title, the film demonstrates first-time fiction director Gabe Klinger’s eye for visual storytelling, but his script, co-written by Larry Gross, feels undeveloped for anything further than glib, Instagram-like testaments to cherished moments in time.

It’s a generational drama anchored by three great performances, but it feels rather distinctly average — and it’s hard to make Isabelle Huppert look average.

The film’s pitfalls lie in the style-over-substance route that has befallen many films that have such an annoyingly gimmicky framing device at its center.

It feels more that Gemma Bovery goes through the motions of the novel, restricted by its own pretensions to meet high-brow literature.

Its stately pace doesn't preclude Mr. Holmes (2015) from being a delightful romp all the same.

The dark heart of In the Courtyard makes its comedy ever more piquant, while Deneuve and Kervern are exceptional as two lonely souls finding solace in each other's company during the twilight years of their lives.

Gerard Johnson's sophomore feature might look on the outset like the type of London crime thriller usually populated by Jason Statham, but it's more emotionally complex than its outset gives it credit for.

Little Accidents may be a little too sober, lacking the occasional spark that would make it more than just a film about moral decision points - but it's a likable small-town drama all the same.

Its narrative might reach cliché towards the end, but powerful performances carry this fine fable of the American Dream lost in heartbreak.

When you're pining for Bill Paxton and the relative emotional realism of Twister, you know you're in trouble.

When push comes to shove, A Walk Among the Tombstones carries its B-movie thrills with aplomb.

Even if Murdoch's directorial style is at times off-putting - the dance routines oscillating wildly from charming to naff - it's hard not to be taken in by trips into Glasgow's backstreet gig venues and the type of Victorian splendour seen on screen too rarely.

For the most part, Dinosaur 13 is highly absorbing - some of the decisions that come against Larson are truly shocking - but it does lack in places as a piece of documentary journalism.

So much is thrown at the wall that some of it's got to stick - comedy for comedy's sake, if you will - and while that doesn't make for a great film necessarily, it certainly doesn't make for a bad one.

Nothing quite competes with the blistering opening scene, but The Salvation's cast of characters mean it's never less than a fun watch.