Jim Slotek

People expecting plenty of Laurel & Hardy style laughs will be disappointed, obviously, given the movie’s comedy-lions-in-winter theme. But this thoughtful portrait of a long-lasting professional marriage rings touchingly true.

Unfortunately, the director who came in too early for the superhero craze may now be revisiting it too late. The genre now monopolizes the multiplex, and it seems as if everything about comic books and superpowers and misanthropy has already been said. But Shyamalan still says it, in an unfocused movie with some interesting ideas, and so much expositional dialogue in place of action, it’s sometimes more of a lecture than a thriller.

Capernaum is a movie with a lot of dramatic ideas and plot-points, worthy of a miniseries at least, squeezed into a two-hour sausage of misery.

What can be said about series director Wes Ball is that he has a flair for noisy gun and air battles, pyro, fights, destruction, pursuit and escape. But it signifies nothing if there is no plausible reason for pretty much anything that happens.

A big dumb acid-trip of a super-hero movie, Aquaman is relentless, noisy, entertaining nonsense – particularly in 3D IMAX - as overlong as any of them, but not boring, and as I say, at times trippy.

At more than two hours, Blaze is a meandering tale of genius and futility, tender, but overlong and wallowing, given that we know how it ends.

[A] crazily imaginative, hilarious and frenetic animated feature that’s practically a palate-cleanser for comic book earnestness.

As an impressionistic portrait of the man, it works, mainly because of the intense vulnerability Dafoe brings to the role.

It’s hard to imagine a lovelier fly-on-the-wall experience than Nothing Like A Dame – a documentary that basically intrudes on a regular, wickedly-funny get-together of four octogenarians who’ve been friends since they were barely more than precocious schoolgirls.

The Cleaners is a doc of remarkable access and a feast for thought.

Ralph Breaks the Internet is everything that made Wreck-It Ralph enjoyable, painted on a canvas as big as the Internet itself. The satire is sharp and the pace is relentless, a can’t miss combination for a kid outing.

Green Book is not the deepest depiction of racism, but it is a funny and heartwarming depiction of a friendship, forged in a car.

Grindelwald is a movie that seems to want to recreate the Potter universe and does it in the most plodding way, crowding it with characters and plot points, many of which go nowhere.

As a first-time filmmaker, Barinholtz is on training wheels, shooting almost entirely in closed-space interior, the better to concentrate on his words. To that extent, The Oath is (at first anyway) a scarily realistic depiction of the argument feedback loop that seems to be ripping society apart. But the denouement allows him to slip away without a realistic premise for how one would leave that loop.

In Sharkwater Extinction, we also get a glimpse of the sanguine approach Stewart brought to coming face-to-face with the extermination of the creatures he loves.

As with Carpenter, build-up is the thing (Michael is mostly talked-about for the first half-hour), and producers Blumhouse’s trademark jump-scares are a nice stylistic fit.

What distinguishes Knuckleball from other thrillers involving children is the seeming reality of the peril portrayed.

The good in the movie is overwhelmed by its by-the-numbers approach to its story. There’s not enough in Bigger to make a fan out of non-fans of body building, and there’s enough wrong to turn off the real fans.

Colette is ultimately a feminist tale, but never one that wallows in self-pity or seriousness. It is also carried along lightly by a script with a streak of wit.

Considering the (pardon the expression) glacial pace of much of the lead-up, Hold the Dark’s eruption into massacre-level violence is jarring. Once it takes hold, it is relentless and grueling.

Assassination Nation may be empty calories as social satire, but it’s a dark, wry, of-the-moment story of run-amok panic that will entertain horror fans.

Director/co-writer Shane Black, indulging his tendency towards glibness, brings an outright comic touch that turns the latest interaction between humans and these dreads-wearing extraterrestrial big-game hunters, into something of a bloody romp – as inappropriate as that sounds (and often is).

I will give The Nun this, it has an utterly outrageous ending that pretty much brought the house down at the advance screening I attended.

The Last Suit has its narrative flaws and leaps of faith. But the sheer force of its central character’s untethered voyage of discovery – and the acting behind it - overcomes all.

A kind of gothic, ghostly mash-up of Downton Abbey and Grey Gardens, The Little Stranger is as mannered, tattered and morose as that marriage of premises suggests.

Even as a reboot, it remains both scenically beautiful and an ordeal at the same time.

There’s enough promise in The Happytime Murders for it to possibly work as a short-lived, gimmicky Comedy Network series. But the effort that’s put into stretching this gag over the length of a feature film is more painful than funny.

City-dwellers may go their entire lives without realizing that the greatest movie screen of all is above their heads, telling billions of stories.