Jordan Hoffman

Little kids will be bored, as there are only a few scenes with any action, and of those, only one, featuring an enormous skeleton with swords sticking out of its skull, has any oomph.

Barbershop: The Next Cut is hardly subtle, but it is more nuanced than you might expect.

The script may feature numerous wobbly passages in which everyone eerily states precisely what they are thinking (an unfortunate tradition that runs throughout the series) but if anyone can sell it, it’s Stallone and Jordan.

Age of Adaline, which starts off looking like a frothy series of excuses to put Blake Lively in some fabulously timeless gowns, ends up an emotional and even bold chamber drama. Its ending is ludicrous, but also perfect, and I’d be lying if I didn’t get a little choked up.

Despite the desultory nature of the film, it is sure to hammer home some key points.

Schreiber saves it to an extent with some unusual performance choices, but when you compare this ending to the emotional supernova of Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine” it comes way short.

It is a quiet, subtle story and, as is so often the case when an actor takes their first trip behind the camera, a showcase for terrific performances.

I give the odd, small film Maggie all the points in the world for experimenting with genre-blending and subverting audience expectations, but there’s just too much about it that fails to connect.

While there are some okay side stories (stuff with the daughters and daughters’ friends) it kinda feels like attending a dinner party and checking in on the first world problems of a friend you kinda like, but don’t like enough to ask any follow up questions.

It’s somewhat heavy material for a film aimed at children, but perhaps very necessary in an age where a beer-stained uncle might have ruined Thanksgiving wearing a Make America Great Again baseball cap.

Despite being about serious matters (labor relations, systematic oppression, racial microaggressions), Sorry to Bother You is slight and raggedy, but when it leans into its surreal, midnight movie instincts it proves engaging and amusing.

The problem with Finding Dory is it doesn’t know when enough is enough. Its believe-in-yourself message is pounded with the subtlety of a hammerhead shark and the final action sequence is really too far-fetched to fathom.

This movie is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, with no shortage of cringeworthy moments and an uninteresting lead performance.

Even though The Wave is fiction, there comes a point where it ceases to be nail-biting fun and just an exercise in voyeuristic cruelty.

What's unfortunate is that Toothless is starring in a toothless story.

Nothing Compares is simply more about the Sinéad you already know. But a critic’s original sin is to review the movie you want to see, not the movie that exists. To that end, with expectations managed, Nothing Compares is a quite engaging document.

Clearly there is entertainment value in this documentary, but it’s very much of a “behind the music” calibre.

The three leads draw you in. The pace gives these actors time to breathe, show nuance and make their characters human.

Yellow Birds goes heavy on the brooding, and even though a lot of it looks gorgeous and carries the whiff of great importance it is ultimately stunted by a central event that isn’t worth the mystery that surrounds it.

Southside With You uses our affection for the Obamas to add urgency in the otherwise simple script.

The Measure of a Man’s decision to keep its conflicts so microscopic in the service of realism is a real problem. Put bluntly, Brize’s touch is so light that it’s immeasurable.

What I like about Among the Believers, a portrait of radical Islam in Pakistan, is how the first two-thirds of the movie strives to remain as balanced as possible.

The world needs people like Foley, and this film argues that cameras are every bit as important as firearms in the current struggle. This movie, despite its somewhat simplistic form, acts as a fine tribute to the man, his work and the bravery of others who are called to his field.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny isn’t so much a continuation as a Xerox copy with cheap toner.

This movie is not particularly good. One seizes upon highlights from the sideline when what’s happening front and center is just so dull.

The first half of Straight Outta Compton, F Gary Gray’s two-and-a-half hour opus about the birth of west coast gangsta rap, is bursting with energy, exuberance and inspiration. The second half is immobilised by bloat and sanctification.

There is a sincere effort to get beneath the facade of what an extremely fit twentysomething firefighter’s life is like. There’s even a possibility that the film’s first act is intentionally distancing so that the later scenes will have a bigger payoff.

This is a case of good acting saving a movie from its own poor choices.