Helen T. Verongos

Yes, The Princess Switch: Switched Again is syrupy, and no, beyond its central gimmick, there is little substance to be found. But the same could be said for many a beloved romance film or holiday movie.

While the sisterhood in Easter Cove is indeed powerful, the secrets that bind its members prove to be fairly simple, and the result is intriguing enough to make you wonder what these writer-directors might accomplish if they applied their vision to a more expansive canvas.

The movie becomes a cavalcade of tired gags — less com than rom.

The tantalizing clues, occasional laughs and lapses in reality are not enough to hold this film together.

As one Syrian character tells another, “Timing is everything in this business,” and timing is only one flawed aspect of this uneven movie.

Overall The Gardener is flat and lacking in soul, a word that comes up many times in the movie.

We get a brief dip into his family’s past and emigration from Israel, but the filmmaker never digs deeply enough to reveal any other substantial dimension of this man, or her theories about what shaped him.

A mild film, Drawing Home could use an electrical charge, or an undercurrent of urgency. The pacing is uneven, and the movie feels slow in spots and too long overall, even though it lacks detail that would have enriched it. An internet search offers a fuller idea about the real lives of the subjects.

It’s easy to fall in love with the animals in Sled Dogs. It’s thornier to sift through the words of the handlers and mushers — many of whom seem to genuinely care for the dogs — and determine how pervasive abuse is in dog-sledding ventures.

Over all, this is an exciting film if not a completely cohesive one.

Without the benefit of theatrical devices that might clarify the order of events, its time warps undermine the plot.

Mr. Church fully inhabits the character, making the most of Willie’s dented moral sense and his many limitations. But the film constructs some too-perfect solutions to problems and manipulates our emotions.

The Wild Life is pretty to look at, with its skies and ocean, calm or stormy, and it has a driving soundtrack. But the story lacks that extra layer of complexity and meaning that parents can appreciate.

We bend over backward to find joy in this movie, but, like eager yogis striving to achieve an impossible asana, we just can’t do it.

While the beauty of the setting is nourishing, without a narrative structure, the disjointed scenes raise questions.

This ambitious documentary, by Ferdinando Vicentini Orgnani, is largely pleasing to the eye, and it pays close attention to the eloquent activists at its core. Journalists of every stripe provide context, perhaps more than we can digest.

Bob Yari’s Papa: Hemingway in Cuba is more artifact than art.

The tale, ripped from the headlines, is stirring, even if the repeated rally scenes and aerial views of the region grow stale.

Its tightly shot scenes never reveal much context, and the rather cryptic subtitles can lead a viewer to mistaken conclusions until the identities and motivations of the characters click into focus.

If you can endure the messy slaughter, with a body count in double digits, the plot is not without its rewards.

The tidbits we learn are wrapped in an unabashedly promotional tone that overestimates the global emotional attachment to this car’s muscular mythos. It’s difficult to believe that this tribute comes from the director who showed such delicacy in his appreciation of Jiro Ono’s art.

The screenwriters, Ariel Kleiman (who is also the director) and Sarah Cyngler, have cut their story loose from any real significance, leaving us with Gregori, who has no discernible political views and no unifying beliefs, even delusional ones.

Perhaps because it tries too hard to be too many things, the movie loses its punch.

The film, pleasing and inoffensive, often amuses as it wrestles with the nature of familiarity as well as the question of where beauty resides.