Stephen Dalton

A small-town coming-of-age story blown up to rock-opera dimensions, And Their Children After Them puts a roaringly romantic widescreen frame around some well-worn dramatic themes, but never quite hits the epic emotional high notes it strains to reach.

This very modern brand of post-Warholioan digital fame is a much-debated cultural phenomenon, and Wild Diamond adds nothing especially new or insightful to the discourse. That said, Reidinger does display a rare degree of empathy and understanding towards young women who pursue this kind of tabloid celebrity.

Most strikingly, for a murder thriller, Killers of the Flower Moon is fatally lacking in dread or suspense.

The scrambled narrative, listless pace, clumsy stabs at profundity and severe lack of humor will limit the film’s appeal to existing converts and cult movie connoisseurs.

The humor is broad, the satirical targets many, the overall effect mixed.

Of course, ravishing Malick-esque visuals cannot quite excuse muddled plotting, portentous dialogue and wobbly performances. But In Full Bloom is still an impressively polished debut feature, admirably ambitious and elegantly crafted.

Even if Werewolf lacks bite as an allegorical horror thriller, it works pretty well as a psychological study of tender young minds struggling to relearn their humanity after years of brutal mistreatment by inhuman adults. The unschooled cast are unusually natural and convincing for child actors, and technical credits are generally superior.

Pixie is a trigger-happy comedy road movie that relies more on boorish energy than wit or charm.

Plenty to admire here, if only this tasteful tearjerker lived up to its title with a few more explosive fireworks instead of settling for timid twinkles, ending not with a bang but a whimper.

While Sandoval's hard-working dedication is admirable, and her semi-autobiographical story full of latent dramatic potential, Lingua Franca is ultimately an underpowered, amateurish disappointment.

Handsome and intense, Ahmed is a reliably magnetic screen presence, while his punchy real-life chops as a rapper and lyricist also serve him well here. But his screenwriting skills are less assured, and Mogul Mowgli is strangely low on dramatic or emotional bite given its high-stakes storyline. Baggy editing, underexplained context and flat dialogue add to this muted effect.

Big on atmosphere but low on drama, DAU. Natasha is fascinating conceptually but weak cinematically.

There is enough rich narrative potential in The Corrupted for an ambitious state-of-the-nation TV miniseries in the mold of The Wire. Unfortunately, Scalpello and screenwriter Nick Moorcroft take the lowest common denominator route, falling back on tired mob-movie clichés, stock characters and leaden dialogue so generic it could have been written by an algorithm.

In its favor, Amanda boasts subtle, sensitive lead performances from Lacoste and Multrier, who has a rare easy naturalism for such a young performer.

There are teasing glimpses of artistic genius in A Dog Called Money, but eccentric choices and muddled intentions, too. A talent as strong and singular as Harvey deserves a more probing, less indulgent film than this.

Closely based on the director's own troubled youth, Farming is rooted in rich, complex, potentially gripping material. But Akinnuoye-Agbaje slaps this story together with so little subtlety, he ends up seriously diluting its dramatic power.

This solidly crafted Ridley Scott production is sprinkled with classy ingredients, including Alicia Vikander as headline star. But it is also a fairly flat treatment of over-familiar plot elements, and fatally low on the key psycho-thriller elements of suspense, surprise and dread.

Initially a caustic and somewhat programmatic checklist of alt-right obsessions, Cuck becomes more tonally and dramatically interesting after it shifts gear midway through, when Ronnie's story becomes a lurid psychosexual nightmare reminiscent of Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream."

This well-intentioned meditation of the banality of evil packs a modest emotional punch, but it might have been more powerful if it had shown us a little less banality and a little more evil.

It may lack the refined wit and revered pedigree of blue-chip animation franchises such as Toy Story, but it still ticks plenty of lightweight fun boxes for its prime target audience of younger children, with just enough adult humor to keep parents from yawning, too.

Despite its title, this mild-mannered feature debut from British TV actor turned writer-director Shelagh McLeod remains determinedly earthbound for most of its duration, more heart-tugging family saga than intergalactic adventure.

A charming exercise in low-key romantic realism that risks being too subtle for its own good.

Breezy and bright, with the stylized look and feel of a stage play, Honore’s bubbly bottle of cinematic champagne runs out of fizz somewhere around its midway point. Even so, there are still enjoyably shallow pleasures to be savored here.

The director's latest rise-and-fall chronicle suffers from a few structural problems that did not bedevil Senna or Amy. Most obviously, the subject is still very much alive, which may explain why this officially endorsed film feels more cautious and compromised than it might have been.

Though handsome in style and admirable in ambition, this sprawling neo-Western never comes together as a satisfying whole.

The Man Who Feels No Pain is a fun ride, unashamedly zany and eager to please, even if the humor is very broad and the sprawling plot too baggy for an action-driven piece.

While not exactly a misfire, Rodriguez and Cameron's joint effort lacks the zing and originality of their best individual work.

This unflinching yet compassionate depiction of marginalized misfits boasts a few pleasingly poetic flourishes, but it suffers from some common first-time director flaws, notably a listless narrative, thinly developed characters and a relentlessly somber mood.

Johnny English Strikes Again is an oddly mirthless addition to the series.

This prosaically competent comedy-thriller turns a rich true story into a tonally uneven blend of lukewarm laughs and low-level suspense.

Quincy is an unapologetically partisan insider's portrait. The material is rich and the cast list starry, but the overall package veers a little too close to gushing vanity project in places.

The intent is noble and the attention to detail admirable, but the overall effect is obstinately unmoving.

Unashamedly formulaic and relentlessly puerile, The Festival is no better than it needs to be, which may be as much commercial calculation as artistic limitation.

Sadly, Berk’s stale screenplay simply lacks the heft or depth to lift it above third-hand homage to earlier, better, smarter films.

The screenplay to The World Is Yours is sporadically hilarious though rarely subtle, relying a little too heavily on boorish stereotypes and slapstick violence for its broad humor.

As an experiment in collaborative, exploratory docudrama, The Dead and the Others is an admirably committed enterprise. Sadly, as a cinematic experience, it is flat and functional.

A banal and patronizing cautionary sermon for lovestruck ladies torn between heart and head, sexy-dangerous bad boys and dependably dull husband types.

While Angel brings little new to the lexicon of serial killer biopics, it hits the target as an effortlessly palatable aesthetic experience, more shiny period pageant than probing character study.

The premise is smart, the ingredients classy and the overall look stylish. But Niccol’s paranoid anxieties about the totalitarian dangers of cyberspace feel oddly glib and dated, light on thrills or narrative logic.

British director Sophie Fiennes certainly finds Jones a spellbinding subject in Bloodlight and Bami, securing intimate access to the veteran diva over several years without ever quite managing to spill her secrets.

Somewhere in the murky depths of this modestly gripping thriller lurks a more interesting film about real-life monsters, the kind that prey on human minds not human flesh.

For all its high-caliber talent mix, The Snowman is a largely pedestrian affair, turgid and humorless in tone. The cast share zero screen chemistry, much of the dialogue feels like a clunky first draft and the wearily familiar plot is clogged with clumsy loose ends.

Breathe is clearly aiming for the same heart-wrenching emotional heights as James Marsh’s Oscar-winning Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything. But this is very much a crude copy, its noble intentions hobbled by a trite script, flat characters and a relentlessly saccharine tone that eventually starts to grate.

Untaxing as drama, thin as entertainment, but modestly enjoyable as a revved-up caper movie, Overdrive is pure escapist fluff with a light French accent. Which still makes it smarter, leaner and cooler than any of the Fast and the Furious films it shamelessly mimics.

Chadha has distilled a fascinating and epic true story into a starchy, stuffy, sanitized period piece that never fully engages on an emotional or educational level.

Australian director Jonathan Teplitzky has fashioned a small-scale chamber drama from huge historical events, with a functional script and modest budget that fails to match the grand sweep of its story.

There is ample material in Fortunata for a heart-rending tale of blue-collar female empowerment, but Castellitto’s noble intentions get swamped along the way in incontinent floods of histrionic excess, broad caricatures, clumsy allusions to Greek tragedy and psychodrama subplots that feel like half-baked afterthoughts.

Perpetually shifting gears between playful sci-fi pastiche, quirky rom-com and apocalyptic thriller, Before We Vanish might have worked better as a single dedicated genre, but it becomes a little scrambled trying to cover several at once.

A minor addition to the Korean action cinema canon, The Merciless offers thin pleasures in a glossy package.

We are left with a powerful sense that her death was a tragic loss, both privately and publicly, but Can I Be Me never quite tells us why.

Olszanska gives an impressively intense performance, if a little too mannered at first, but neither she nor the filmmakers ever get beneath the character's skin.

While the fuzzy take-home message of peaceful coexistence is something most viewers can get behind, it is also too simplistic and banal to sustain an entire movie.

War on Everyone is a little too keen to advertise its own cleverness. The characters feel more like random collections of quirky tics than real people.

Hong has a distinctive voice and an interesting track record, but his latest exercise in flimsy whimsy is for indulgent hardcore fans only.

Not for the squeamish, Ovredal's chilly slab of body horror ultimately proves less than the sum of its forensically fileted parts.

The gentle tone and disjointed sketch-show structure here will appeal to long-standing fans, but Mascots wins no prizes for innovation or progression. The jokes are uneven, the caricatures often overly broad and the plot almost nonexistent.

Wheatley's riotous Looney Tunes action comedy is a sporadically amusing assault on the senses, but it looks like it was more fun to make than to watch.

David Brent remains an enduring comic grotesque, but this sporadically amusing big-screen resurrection is more cash-in reunion tour than killer comeback album.

The Commune effortlessly entertains at a TV sitcom level, with its pithy dialogue, its chorus of thinly drawn caricatures and its cozy sense of mockery towards the failed social experiments of past generations. But as serious cinema, it feels limited for the same reasons.

Reclaiming Kristina as an icon of queer liberation and female empowerment is a worthwhile premise, but sadly the finished film is a stodgy multinational pudding that fails to give this concept wings.

This is a genial, humane project with obvious fan appeal. But for anyone expecting a definitive behind-the-scenes film about the making of Star Wars, this is not the documentary you have been looking for.

Florence Foster Jenkins is a modestly enjoyable crowd-pleaser, but it ultimately feels smaller than its subject, a deeply conventional portrait of a highly unconventional woman.

Dad’s Army is hobbled by too much broad slapstick and labored clowning.

[A] blankly heroic, clunkingly predictable portrait.

The first act is great, full of dark portent and bravura film-making flourishes. However, the final hour disappoints, with too many off-the-peg plot twists and too many characters conforming to type.

In its favor, The Last Witch Hunter boasts some terrific production design and digital effects.... Less impressively, Eisner’s movie is clogged with cardboard characters, flat dialogue and a sluggish middle act that gets lost in too much fabricated witchy folklore.

Ultimately little more than an extended commercial for his new album. That said, it is an effortless pleasure to watch

Constantine’s skills as a first-time dramatist are a serious weakness here. Though the subject matter is rich and the soundtrack terrific, character and plot take a back seat.

Rarely have so many classy ingredients added up to such a muted, muddled, multi-story mess. Of course, it is still better to make an ambitious failure than a boring success. A true disaster movie, in all senses, High-Rise is ultimately an ambitious, brilliant failure.

Hawke is natural casting as Baker, sharing enough facial similarities to capture some of the late jazz icon's chiseled, hollow-cheeked, fallen-angel beauty. He gives an unshowy and vanity-free performance, all soft-spoken mischief and brittle arrogance, but laced with just enough blood, sweat and tears.

Stylish but slight, Arnby's debut feature ultimately sticks within werewolf movie conventions, adding little fresh to the form.

No Escape is a pedestrian but modestly gripping nerve-jangler from writer-director John Erick Dowdle.

Gameau clearly has good intentions, and generally succeeds in sweetening a potentially bitter subject for easy public consumption.

Strip away its gorgeous wintry landscapes and we are left with a symphony of ponderous New Age mumbo-jumbo masquerading as philosophical wisdom.

The story ends in a muddled rush, leaving many unanswered questions. Like a newly launched high-end smartphone, Ex Machina looks cool and sleek, but ultimately proves flimsy and underpowered. Still, for dystopian future-shock fans who can look beyond its basic design flaws, Garland’s feature debut functions just fine as superior pulp sci-fi.

The plot is diffuse and disjointed, but theater director Andrea Pallaoro’s feature debut scores highly with its exquisite beauty and fine performances.

Effie Gray is an exquisitely dreary slice of middlebrow armchair theater which adds little new to a much-filmed story.

Shot in precisely composed frames, with recurring visual motifs and an eye-pleasing color palette that accentuates blue hues, Tip Top is commendably ambitious in its Godardian attempts to deconstruct the police thriller format, but it's only partially successful.

While Avery handles the kinetic action set-piece with impressive swagger for a first-timer, his self-penned screenplay is a major weak point.

An initially promising genre reboot ends up feeling like a major failure of nerve.

It is difficult to believe a single word of it, still less to care about these relentlessly selfish and short-sighted characters.

A Life in Dirty Movies is still a sweet and illuminating journey into cult cinema history, but it would have been more honest and psychologically rich if it had shown us the money shot.

Klinger is clearly aiming at a hardcore of filmmakers and cinema students, but even that niche audience will only glean incomplete insights into the methods and motivations of his subjects.

Ahluwalia has striven for a very self-consciously arty aesthetic here, more Gus Van Sant than Michael Mann. This is a commendably bold way to approach material that might otherwise have drifted into routine lowlife crime-thriller territory, but it also drains a rich story of narrative momentum and emotional punch.

The premise of this Hungarian/German/Swedish co-production is solid, even if the execution feels a little slack and the running time too long.

With its splashy paintbox palette and jaunty pop soundtrack, All Cheerleaders Die just about hangs together as a cheerfully goofy romp.

The film relies on high production values and sense-battering shock tactics to make up for wooden performances and an illogical, silly script. As an exercise in retro pastiche, it impresses. But as a postmodern genre reinvention, it fails to deliver.

The Dance of Reality is a rich pageant of nostalgic narcissism laced with New Age mysticism and fortune-cookie wisdom.

The story is rich in juicy anecdotes and epochal events, even if the man behind these striking images remains a little too elusive throughout.

Strip away the Middle East backdrop and Bethlehem is a fairly routine thriller about good cops, corrupt bureaucrats and armed criminal gangs.

Any sense of narrative momentum or intellectual focus quickly unravels as the film evolves into an almost wordless symphony of disconnected images, sounds and music. But the nature-heavy montages are mostly beautiful and bizarre enough to excuse the film’s pretentious excesses.

The film’s facile message of cross-cultural unity owes more to fairy tale than reality, but the action is slick and the story gripping.

Halfway between a guilty pleasure and a missed opportunity, it makes the crucial mistake of treating curious viewers like deferential subjects, demanding far more sympathy than it deserves.

There are just enough laugh-out-loud moments here to excuse the lurches into shameless, tear-jerking sentimentality.

Omirbaev fails to invest either the murder plot or its political subtext with much suspense or conviction.

Heli is undoubtedly made with serious intent, but it is also relentlessly depressing and curiously uninvolving.

The pace is gently hypnotic and the topic fitfully interesting, but the format will test the patience of all but serious art-cinema fans with its narrow focus and chilly film-school minimalism.

Mary Magdalene is an uneasy viewing experience, ponderous and disjointed in places, but also crafted with conviction and a strong aesthetic vision.