Tim Grierson

If this Mulan can be faulted for excessive earnestness, the movie’s sweeping visuals and inspirational tone are hard to resist.

Writer-directors David Zellner and Nathan Zellner’s fifth feature is easily their finest, a portrait of a Bigfoot community that starts out as an absurdist comedy before slowly transforming into a moving study of survival and loss.

Director Travis Knight does his best to balance clattering spectacle with a modest girl-and-her-robot tale. He’s assisted mightily by Hailee Steinfeld, who infuses this uneven action film with significant soul.

Del Toro’s predictably impeccable production design and tonal flourishes help bring the film to life, aided by strong performances from his leads, especially Jessica Chastain, who gives the otherwise reverent proceedings just the right amount of jolt.

The vivid performances capably capture the humanity at the centre of a film that can sometimes be dominated by Wright’s showy excesses — in particular, his overly elaborate set pieces. But there’s no mistaking Cyrano’s sense of tragedy, its lament for soulmates destined not to get their happy ending.

As appealing and likeable as The BFG is, the movie doesn’t seem particularly groundbreaking or daring when it comes from Spielberg, who is revisiting his major themes here without necessarily reinventing them.

As is often the case with del Toro’s pictures, Frankenstein is frequently a triumph of spectacle over nuance — grand gestures over precise character insights. Still, by envisioning this confrontation between its paired protagonists as an epic metaphor for humanity’s hubris at trying to play God, the filmmaker knows who the novel’s true monster is.

Rather than fleshing out its characters, the picture uses them as props to mock our obsession with our phones and, predictably, young people’s inability to interact with the real world.. For a film about the evils of artificial intelligence, Good Luck doesn’t have enough of a human element.

Director Paul King brings the same comic sweetness as his acclaimed Paddington pictures, but this delightful, frequently funny musical resides in its own cheeky, bighearted sphere – despite having to adhere to the rules that govern all potential franchises, which treat valuable intellectual property even more preciously than one of Wonka’s prized candies.

As much as is possible considering all the Dark Knight films that came before, The Batman feels like its own creation, not beholden to past instalments while still honouring what remains riveting about this character’s milieu.

Roofman sidesteps this tale’s most potentially fascinating elements to sell a more conventional narrative.

Boosted by a warm performance from Ali’s Moonlight costar Naomie Harris, Swan Song proves to be a rather straightforward tearjerker, but it earns its sentiment thanks to the thoughtful approach from its cast and crew.

Ultraman: Rising lacks sophistication in its storytelling, but the film nevertheless achieves a quiet poignancy.

An unusual underdog saga about an ordinary investor who inspired a grassroots movement that scared Wall Street’s major hedge funds, Dumb Money is a snappy, entertaining picture that taps into a lingering resentment about how rigged the financial markets feel to many Americans.

It might be a given that Pixar’s movies are visually spectacular, but The Good Dinosaur may be the studio’s most purely cinematic, the richness of the design and the emotional power of the widescreen compositions stirring deep, almost primal feelings about childhood, the loss of innocence and the untamed ferocity of the natural world.

Superb performances from Boyega and the late Michael Kenneth Williams highlight this sombre, character-driven tale.

Even for opera neophytes who couldn’t tell a soprano from a tenor, Ron Howard’s brisk, engaging film capably maps out an art form that Luciano Pavarotti ruled for decades, including enough technical insight to go along with an overview of the maestro’s personal and professional highlights.

A scintillating romantic triangle paired with a gripping sports drama, Challengers finds Luca Guadagnino in crowd-pleasing mode, delivering his most purely entertaining film.

It’s fair to ask whether the world really needs one more story about a flawed, brilliant, lustful older male artist, but Tommaso’s commitment to its own soul-searching fervor is potently feverish.

Failing to be incisive or moving, Marshall is content to be genial and unthreatening—two adjectives that have never been used to describe the long, hard, ongoing fight for equality.

Howard honours the collective heroism above all else, resulting in a well-crafted procedural that’s a little impersonal. Like the brave men who ultimately saved the day, Thirteen Lives gets the job done.

This ripping action-adventure features stellar effects and a superb lead performance from Owen Teague as a timid simian who must rescue his clan from the clutches of a warlike tribe.

The fading, erstwhile disgraced star’s grizzled, weary urgency gives this story some gusto and resonance, but otherwise, Mesrine director Jean-François Richet delivers adequate B-movie excitement only in spurts.

Like the wizarding movies to which it’s connected, Fantastic Beasts is better the darker it gets, especially in a robust final reel where the film fully hits its stride.

More often than not, Deadpool’s bratty energy feels liberating, allowing for a sexier, dirtier, more hilarious superhero movie than the typical all-ages Marvel affair, which is so concerned with maximising profits that it risks offending no one.

The best Pixar films make their dexterous mixture of humour, emotion and spectacle feel effortless but the ingredients do not blend as smoothly in Elio.

A wry smackdown of four insanely rich bros hanging out at a gaudy estate in the Utah mountains, the movie generates a decent amount of laughs, but it’s best when Armstrong puts satire aside for rage, seething at the tech kingpins destroying our society to increase their profits.

Often in sports, teams run the same plays over and over again, simply because they work. That’s true of The Way Back as well: We appreciate the expert skill, even if we know almost every move by heart.

The escalating cat-and-mouse game between Pike’s schemer and Peter Dinklage’s Russian mobster has its pulpy pleasures, but the script’s arch cleverness and heavy-handed message about the corruption of the American dream make it hard to care as much as we should about who ends up on top.

A moderately engaging thriller that coasts along without ever evolving into the more riveting character study it has the potential to be.

If in the past Abu-Assad’s movies could be criticised for stridency, The Idol finds him sacrificing none of his thematic drive while locating a more humanistic, inspirational tone.

The beloved animated character’s latest big-screen adventure is an amusing romp full of the expected horrible puns, dopey slapstick and generally cheerful vibe.

Perhaps the darkest, most action-packed Star Wars instalment, director Gareth Edwards’ standalone adventure establishes its own rhythm, balancing fan demands with grand, poetic moments unlike anything this cinematic galaxy has previously achieved.

Did Desplechin get seduced by the problems that plague filmmakers like himself? If so, he’s done a disservice to his own work, which needed a solution to its deficiencies—not an extended reverie that merely highlights them. [Cannes Version]

This adaptation of the Delia Owens bestseller proves to be an unconvincing, melodramatic affair that only occasionally locates the story’s mournful heart.

Not very funny and never especially touching, this Dora feels dispiritingly perfunctory — a two-hour babysitting tool that leaves little impression.

This fitfully funny comedy — in which they must come up with the perfect song to stop reality from folding in on itself — offers little beyond nostalgia for an onscreen friendship that was once far more excellent.

Despite its shortcomings, American Made can be deceptively nuanced, as Liman and Cruise put care into their depiction of a natural born charmer who may eventually find his luck has run out.

Last Flag Flying isn’t great—a concept like greatness is too highfalutin for a film so bone-dry modest—but its scruffy integrity digs at you, won’t let you quite dismiss it.

Lacking some of the simplicity and elegance of the first instalment, The Conjuring 2 is nonetheless a smoothly efficient horror movie, building to a powerhouse finale rooted in our emotional connection to the film’s well-drawn main characters.

Writer-director Todd Stephens can allow quirkiness to overwhelm the thin narrative, but the story’s emotional underpinnings guide the film past its occasional rough spots.

The film may be short on analysis, but it’s clear that systematic government failures at the local and state level have created a toxic climate, and Whose Streets? displays the seething emotions that resulted.

Mockingjay — Part 2 proves to be the most satisfying, gripping and emotional film in the franchise, resolving Katniss Everdeen’s odyssey with tense action sequences and a well-earned poignancy.

Critical Thinking has plenty of heart, which unfortunately can’t make up for its fairly uninspired design and predictable trajectory.

A slow-burn drama with familiar contours but a sure sense of place and a great deal of restrained empathy.

This spy drama is bolstered by Benedict Cumberbatch’s stripped-down performance, and there’s plenty of pungent Cold War suspense to savour. And yet, Ironbark feels like a bit of a missed opportunity: The earnestness doesn’t necessarily do justice to the inherently absorbing material.

The fun pop-culture riffing remains, but The Second Part lacks the density of ingenuity, humour and whiz-bang action that marked the first film. Rather than bursting with imagination and wit, the sequel feels busy, overstuffed, a little routine.

If ultimately Maudie doesn’t have much new to say about love or art, at least its two misfits provide an insight into something deeply true about long-term commitment.

Despite that juicy setup, Dangerous Animals is a disappointingly straightforward and ultimately underwhelming horror movie, offering little of the grim poetry of Byrne’s previous work and far too much of the narrative predictability that in the past he astutely sidestepped.

This earnest tale succeeds thanks to its potent themes — including the tension between old traditions and new ways of thinking — and Ejiofor locates the story’s emotional underpinnings without succumbing to cheap manipulation or mawkishness.

Despite the film’s slightness and unexplored themes, White caters to our shared wonder about the solar system and our penchant to seek connection — even if it’s with our robot rovers. Those basic human drives are potent enough to make this trip worthwhile.

This small-scale drama is sensitively rendered, examining two people who share a past that they’re only beginning to untangle, resulting in unhappy recriminations that offer little in the way of closure.

The trouble with Miss Americana is that, although there is honesty and vulnerability, there’s also something rehearsed and distant about it. Swift invites us in, but she only lets us see so much.

Chung’s desire to add a touch of realism runs counter to what is, essentially, a low-nutrition entertainment about massive storms wreaking havoc on small towns and scooping up anything in their path. The more Twisters aims for gravitas, the more hot air it generates.

What gives Strange World some forward momentum, however, is the clear affection the filmmakers have for their characters — and that they have for each other - giving the film ample modest charms in its portrayal of basically decent people coming to accept each other’s differences.

Aided by Owen Pallett’s occasionally jittery score, Alice, Darling can sometimes possess the faint air of a thriller, albeit one in which the central menace is offscreen, far removed from Alice and her friends. But Kendrick, who has said she’s experienced psychological abuse in a past relationship, wrings dramas from Alice’s internal trauma.

Writer-director Elijah Bynum’s second feature is often riveting, its heartbreak and pain amplified by Jonathan Majors’ brilliantly anguished performance. But just as its subject risks imploding at any moment, this confident drama eventually starts to unravel, fumbling its final third while trying to find the right ending for such a damaged, raging soul.

Roher’s willingness to blindly accept any and all of his speakers’ pronouncements leaves The AI Doc feeling toothless. ... Clearly, the filmmakers want to present the material in an evenhanded fashion so that viewers can make up their own mind, but in the name of so-called fairness, the documentary lacks any real perspective or inquisitiveness.

Homegrown never makes excuses for its subjects — there’s no blaming their ugly views on economic disparity — but the disturbing ordinariness of these men is chilling.

In certain moments, the film’s absurdism recalls that era’s paranoia and volcanic anger, but too often Aster overshoots the mark, collecting the period’s signature elements without finding much that is smart to say about them.

A mixture of domestic drama, apocalyptic fable and old-fashioned (and unironic) Hollywood musical, The End is an audacious and frequently enrapturing experience, with superb performances at its emotional heart.

As punishing as some of The First Omen’s terrors are, they are quickly forgotten in service of answering questions about Damien (and leaving the door open for further sequels) that undercut Free’s gripping turn.

It may play a little flatly, but its sincerity of purpose remains affecting throughout.

The Unknown Girl isn’t just about guilt but also racism, the folly of pride and our collective need to be absolved for the bad things we’ve done—even if the penance doesn’t fit the infraction. All of this is done masterfully, but I confess it was masterful in just the way I expected. As a result, The Unknown Girl filled me with guilt as well—for not loving it more than I did.

The Smashing Machine may not always transcend genre conventions, but is a consistently idiosyncratic and candid look at a working-class athlete with a complicated romantic relationship and a crippling opioid addiction. Despite his hulking physique, Dwayne Johnson plays Kerr with real vulnerability as his championship aspirations slip away.

Viewers are left with some likeable, grounded performances from Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby and Ebon Moss-Bachrach — and a gnawing sense that this visually appealing sci-fi adventure is a missed opportunity.

Last Breath honours the constant possibility in work like this that the worst could happen at any moment — and that the line between living and dying is always frighteningly slender.

A vital cinematic document. ... The conversations could not be more stimulating, offering a glimpse of Black America past and present that is joyous, defiant and sobering.

Romulus achieves its goal of being nothing more than a well-executed monster movie, but that modest ambition leaves this sequel feeling a little hollow and mechanical — a sufficient thrill ride that largely reminds the viewer how masterful the first two instalments were.

An air of wistfulness imbues the proceedings, building to a resonant climax that’s hard to resist, despite some legitimate reservations about this uneven sequel.

Despite some initial swagger, this 1980s-set picture lacks the ingenuity of the previous two chapters – a disappointment made worse by West’s wan attempts to satirise the film industry’s shallowness.

Brie Larson gives Carol the right mixture of sweetness, humour and swagger, underlining the film’s message of self-empowerment with a light touch.

Fraser walks through this aggressively sappy drama with the aura of simple goodness that has served him well. But such concentrated radiance starts to feel like a denial of the painful reality Rental Family ignores. The movie wants to give you a hug, but you may be tempted to slap it across the face.

Despite an overly polished and broad approach, the film is ultimately a persuasive portrait, guided by strong performances from Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman as anchors who decide they can stay silent no longer.

Suffice to say, Suspiria tries to do much, culminating in a finale that’s almost laughably over-the-top. But the passion of Guadagnino’s messy vision — the swirl of emotions he conjures on this grand canvas — has a forcefulness that mostly transcends its sizable flaws.

Swiss Army Man is a powerfully audacious and wilfully odd odyssey that is too nervy and strangely emotional to dismiss outright but, ultimately, isn’t satisfying enough to provoke a full-throated defence, either.

Although directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett do a good job executing tense suspense sequences, neither the satire nor the setup is particularly convincing. What we’re left with is some nifty cinematic gamesmanship which is not as politically astute as it thinks it is.

If Elvis suffers from a familiar Luhrmann weakness — style outpacing substance — the concert sequences effortlessly illuminate why Presley remains a revered musical figure, Luhrmann and Butler delivering one euphoric set piece after another.

In truth, Buddy is not especially scary, its many kill scenes staged for laughs. But if this horror-comedy makes an obvious point — television shows meant for kids sure are weird — Kelly finds enough fresh ways to exploit the idea.

Napoleon features exceptional battle scenes as well as tart back-and-forths between these romantic combatants, resulting in a lavish, thoughtful drama that remains entranced and bemused by France’s most notorious emperor — a brilliant strategic mind who could not have been more insecure.

Although Downsizing is often thoughtful, funny and poignant, ultimately it really is just another movie about a middle-aged white dude pondering his insignificance—with the added demerit being that he learns valuable life lessons thanks to a marginalized woman of color.

Miss Sloane is a shallow but lively thriller which becomes undermined by its makers’ misplaced belief in the profundity of their topical tale.

The movie sometimes overstates its ideas, but Poots keeps Vivarium from being just a coy, chilly intellectual exercise. She adds flesh and soul to what might be the film’s most disturbing notion: In some ways, we all become encased in the lives we have stumbled into.

Jokey rather than funny, and a bit forced when it’s trying to be sincere, Ant-Man has plenty of enthusiasm but not a lot of inspiration.

At a time when comic-book films have become formulaic and interchangeable, James Gunn’s third instalment of Guardians Of The Galaxy feels refreshingly vivid and distinct – a rousing space adventure which is dedicated to delivering both gorgeous spectacle and an emotional wallop.

The New Zealand landscapes could not be more enchanting, although the story lacks a similar magic.

While it’s impossible not to be somewhat caught up in these climbers’ life-or-death struggle, Everest is oddly uninvolving — it depicts a horrific scenario in an underwhelming, distancing way.

What’s best about the film is how Cedar and Gere have dreamed up a character who’s equally desperate and preternaturally ingratiating.

The film digs into the minutiae, giving off an unmistakable air of expertise, but the screenplay ends up being a collection of footnotes and intriguing digressions without necessarily feeling like an authoritative handling of this sprawling material.

Ridley Scott has lost none of his flair for grandeur, but ultimately Gladiator II is diminished by a nagging recognition that this material felt fresher in the first film — and that Denzel Washington’s devilish schemer steals the picture from Mescal.

This stylish, superficial lark is perhaps too pleased with its central conceit, but director Ilya Naishuller keeps the mayhem and dark laughs rolling at a steady clip.

Rather than the overblown spectacle we’ve come to expect from films of this ilk, Greenland crafts a muscular, barebones survival story that even makes room for some genuine emotion. Hollywood disaster flicks have eradicated humanity many times before, but rarely as unassumingly as happens here.

The longer The Lodge rolls along, the sheer skilfulness of the execution — the precise manipulation of the audience’s fears — becomes so impressive that one is tempted to simply succumb to its cold, cruel efficiency.

By striving for realism, The Apprentice ends up dramatically flat, the recitation of Trump’s most infamous incidents ... playing out perfunctorily.

Director Gavin Hood gives the proceedings a rousing electricity, and he’s aided by a cast which leans into the story’s urgency and continued relevance.

The directorial debut of Orphanage screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez is powerfully frustrating, undone by an ornate storytelling style in which twists only beget more twists, all in service of some fairly obvious observations about guilt, self-deception and devotion.

To experience this film is to be overcome with melancholy. The love story’s fragility makes such a sentiment inescapable, but so is the sight of so many faces who are no longer with us.

While this slow-motion tragedy sometimes risks more than it can deliver, the film’s cumulative effect stuns nonetheless. Ashton Sanders heads a fine cast that forcibly articulates the everyday landmines African-Americans have to navigate in a white society that often seems intent on destroying them.

A claustrophobic thriller about a disgraced cop trying to undo his past mistakes over the course of one supremely stressful night, The Guilty boasts a clever close-quarters conceit that ends up feeling more like an actorly exercise than a gripping human drama.

It may take a while to acclimate to the film’s off-kilter rhythms and strange happenings — not unlike the film’s protagonist, an outsider entering the forbidding Alaskan wilderness — but Saulnier has crafted his most mature effort to date, mixing his love for pulp fiction with a sombre examination of the inexplicable evil all around us.

For all its breezy animation, the film can’t match the vividness of its subject.

The sci-fi horror-thriller Ash makes the most of a minimal budget, casting Eiza Gonzalez as the lone survivor on a distant planet whois unsure how she got there or who she is. With Aaron Paul playing a fellow astronaut trying to help jog her memory about a massacre that occurred at the base, the film quickly establishes an aura of paranoia and bad vibes, paving the way for deft twists and an appreciably gory finale.

Ritchie’s tendency for swaggering overkill proves especially ill-advised for the serious story he wants to tell about how the US turned its back on those who helped its War On Terror, resulting in a hollow paean that’s far more convincing as a generic shoot-’em-up.

Sometimes the comedy is too broad, sometimes the targets are too easy, but this acting duo repeatedly reach for something deeper in the material, leaving the viewer uncertain if their characters are manipulators or true believers.

No matter how commanding Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin might be, Soldado is a less inspired or thoughtful redo of its predecessor, jettisoning nuance for amped-up nihilism.

More a gloss than an insightful dissection, this documentary frustrates by sticking to the man’s surface, reducing his words to commendable sound-bites rather than deeply exploring them.

I Want Your Sex ends up being more fizzle than sizzle.

Despite a smorgasbord of high-octane action filmmaking, its thimble-deep characters and strained political commentary repeatedly stall what should be a wonderfully trashy shoot-‘em-up.

I’m Your Woman benefits greatly from its off-kilter rhythms and intuitive digressions, even if it can be tonally uneven and a little obvious thematically at times.

The film lacks the teeth to be an incisive takedown of romantic comedies — in truth, it works best at its sweetest. Dewey communicates a lifetime of longing in those soulful eyes that pop through Monster’s makeup, and Barrera brings an endearing amount of dorky energy. But whenever these characters leave the house, the problems start — both for their relationship and the film itself.

Director M. Night Shyamalan crafts an exercise in tense claustrophobia, teasing the audience with the question of whether their preposterous beliefs are correct — a riddle complicated by our familiarity with this filmmaker’s fondness for third-act twists.

Helped enormously by deeply-felt performances from Ellen Page and Allison Janney, this film mostly overcomes its unevenness by finding rich pockets of emotion and insight.

Throwing darts at genre conventions while honouring what is eternally mythic about the milieu, this comedy-drama draws off-kilter performances from Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska that subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) reframe archetypes and consistently set us back on our heels.

Not all of Unsane’s twists and gambits work—you have to accept a certain amount of movie-movie ludicrousness to get on the film’s loopy wavelength—but Soderbergh’s vision of a smart woman eternally held down against her will has a wonderful, nasty kick to it.

Fingernails’ themes may be a tad trite, but the storytelling’s unfussy elegance helps sell Nikou’s message about the messy vitality of true love.

What ultimately hampers the film is that, once the agonising dilemma is introduced, the script quickly becomes a standard survival-in-space saga, recalling everything from Gravity to The Midnight Sky. The performances are nicely modulated, though, resisting the story’s inherently melodramatic qualities and instead focusing on trying to solve the problem at hand.

Lipovsky and Stein’s first feature as collaborators exudes a grungy, second-hand feel, and the movie doesn’t have the confidence or vision to breathe new life into its narrative clichés. Instead, the pair lean on the sincerity of their storytelling, crafting a paean to broken families and exploring how children process unspeakable loss.

What saves this uneven material is the actors’ committed, anguished turns.

Split is a highly effective, nerve-shredding horror movie that makes the most of its claustrophobic setting, familiar setup and psychological gimmicks

Wheatley’s hyperbolic set pieces feel perfunctory rather than euphoric or hilariously bombastic.

While this psychodrama satirises our tendency to scapegoat our parents for our own failings, Aster is even more searing when he takes Beau’s trauma seriously, resulting in a film with meticulously executed tonal command and emotional nuance.

A confection that is equal parts murder mystery, old-fashioned ghost story and supernatural thriller, the third instalment of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot series proves to be the most enjoyable.

Eighteen years after The Matrix Revolutions, Lana Wachowski goes back down the rabbit hole, only to get lost in a sequel that lacks the visionary flair and zeitgeist-y profundity that once made this franchise such a game-changer for blockbuster cinema.

Attempting to celebrate the power of community and new beginnings, Sia’s directorial debut mostly serves as an unintended cautionary tale about chronic whimsy and outdated ideas.

The film manages to illuminate precisely what makes Dylan’s opaqueness so captivating.

Oh, Hi! is an ambitious, thought-provoking look at modern romance that starts with the terror of weekend getaways before dissecting the gender stereotypes that keep people from finding their happily-ever-after.

Talia Ryder gives a magnetic performance, providing an anchor for a film that is amusing and electric but mostly uneven.

Director Phyllis Nagy has crafted a subdued but affecting portrait of that time, strengthened by deft performances from Elizabeth Banks as a sheltered suburban mother whose eyes are opened and Sigourney Weaver as the leader of an underground abortion-facilitation service.

The picture has been worked out on a visual level — the immaculately sterile images evoke a future in which life’s pleasures, like having a family, have been wiped clean — but the script never explores those deeper themes.

By shying away from demonstrating the degree of hardship Ederle underwent to make history, the film shortchanges the catharsis it seeks in its final passages.

The film simmers with rage at the cruelty of one nation toward another, although the plotting grows increasingly convoluted, undermining the story’s righteous anger.

Coen draws from existing interviews and performance footage to create a portrait that is far from definitive, and yet the film’s snapshot quality manages to amplify what is so mythic about the 86-year-old legend — and also what remains so vexing.

As much as her camera patiently and sensitively observes Gabriel and Maya, they still feel a bit distant, their unspoken hopes and fears just out of reach — for us and perhaps for them, too.

Although the film sometimes dips into muddled melodrama, those occasional setbacks can’t derail a story filled with warm, resonant characters trying to fathom their own hearts.

Trying to wring laughs from the nauseating sex-and-stardom exploits of fictional Tinseltown A-lister Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his buddies, Entourage consistently comes across as sour, shallow and misogynistic.

This live-action remake of the 1941 Disney animated classic finds the eccentric, inconsistent filmmaker tapping into his career’s core emotional themes and, on occasion, Dumbo has the magic and wonder of his best work. (And that blue-eyed baby elephant is awfully cute.) But there remains a frustrating impersonality — not to mention an audience familiarity with his well-worn aesthetic — that keeps the film from soaring all that high.

Although Wakefield’s ending leaves open the possibility for multiple interpretations, the filmmaker removes the sting from her story’s tale, which keeps its insights from cutting as deep.

Ryan Reynolds is endearingly wholesome as this likeable digital nonentity, but once the story’s initial burst of cleverness fades, director Shawn Levy becomes bogged down in convoluted plotting and the overfamiliarity of his seize-the-day message.

A simple story told with abundant gentleness, Yomeddine looks at a group of outcasts with such compassion and generosity that it has the good manners not to artificially inflate their tale with phony uplift.

Despite a potentially daring twist at the mid-mark, though, the film lacks sufficient chills, or a satisfactory payoff.

As diverting and gleefully disgusting as it can be, Abigail ultimately has more gore than brains, its funhouse escapism fleeting rather than ferocious.

Buried in makeup that accentuates her character’s hard-luck existence, Nicole Kidman brings such compelling conviction to her role as a tormented detective that she single handedly imbues the film with urgency and authenticity. That proves crucial, since director Karyn Kusama often miscalculates Destroyer’s sense of its own profundity.

This intense psychodrama about buried trauma and doomed romance demonstrates an unapologetic operatic flair which entrances and over-reaches in equal measure. Seyfried exudes a stark intensity that grounds the proceedings — whenever Egoyan risks losing control, she keeps the production on course.

For all its unpredictability and nerve, the film too often feels snarky rather than subversive.

Director Jeremy Sims allows this simple saga of renewal and survival to go a little broad and self-consciously crowd-pleasing, resulting in a comedy-drama without the original’s elemental grace and wisdom.

Richards is such a fun interviewee that there’s no point kvetching about the film’s superficial treatment.

Shannon laudably offers no easy solutions, although his sincerely crafted dead end feels insufficient in its own way.

Unfortunately, the sharp point of view and creative risk-taking present in Ansari’s acclaimed series Master Of None (co-created with Alan Yang) are nowhere to be seen in this pedestrian comedy full of convoluted plot points.

Spurlock again proves to be fascinated by the art of salesmanship, but too often Super Size Me 2 feels like its own hustle, peddling a slick, self-promotional investigation into a world that’s already fairly well covered.

Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson shine as these troubled souls drawn to each other as much as they are to their shared love of the venerable singer-songwriter, and the film’s musical sequences are easily its high point. But writer-director Craig Brewer stumbles when the couple step away from the stage, falling victim to an overly melodramatic approach that’s out of rhythm with the rest of the picture.

This conventional rock-doc is light on new insights — and its focus on Robertson’s viewpoint short-changes his former bandmates in this often-contentious group — but it tells its story with considerable affection.

It is as visually extraordinary as its predecessors and, while the film contains some of those earlier pictures’ weaknesses, the deficiencies are starting to feel like charming quirks in an otherwise transporting series.

The film takes commendable tonal chances, but too easily succumbs to easy jokes and unconvincing plot twists.

Running over three hours, and swamped with sex, drugs and over-the-top set pieces, this swaggering drama seems infused with the impetuous energy of its characters, resulting in a film that’s drunk on its own ambition, wildly uneven but never, ever boring.

This sequel to the unlikely 2012 male-stripper sensation has an agreeably ramshackle spirit and another winning turn from star and producer Channing Tatum. As for the dancing, it’s as deliciously spirited as ever.

Despite how personally the filmmaker connects with this ambitious riff on the Cervantes novel, the long-time passion project succumbs to the same indulgences and weaknesses that have plagued his recent movies.

There’s anger but no insight in Vice, a glib portrait of Dick Cheney that preaches to the choir but becomes less persuasive as it goes along.

Ocean’s 8 feels a bit like a high-end knockoff in that way that lots of spinoff films can, although the compensation is the familiar delights of watching smart characters do their job very, very well.

There’s no question that director Liesl Tommy and star Jennifer Hudson have approached this project with reverence, hoping to highlight the late singer’s importance both as a cultural figure and a symbol of her era. But the cliches that usually attend such biopics — specifically, the need to simplify an individual’s demons and traumas into easily digestible dramatic beats — are especially frustrating here, leaving this overly earnest picture lacking the vibrancy of its dynamic subject.

Donzelli’s observations on the working poor don’t dig deep enough, resulting in an overly polished glimpse at the struggles of making ends meet.

Burdened with a drab quest narrative and populated by sweet but unmemorable characters, the studio’s 22nd feature still delivers glorious animation and the occasional tear-jerking sequence. But whether it’s the pedestrian design of this mythical realm or the simplistic story of squabbling brothers in search of their long-lost father, Onward never feels like much of an advancement.

Despite its Chinese setting and characters, the movie doesn’t feel appreciably different from so many other previous tales of lost young people who learn friendship through a pet or extra-terrestrial, and the story’s broad humour and pedestrian plotting don’t add much to this perfunctory fable.

This Hamlet sticks to the narrative essentials to produce a terse, pitiless retelling.

Those laudable intentions can too often result in a lethargic narrative. The characters may contain degrees of shading, but they rarely come to life, leaving Nuremberg feeling like a professional but dusty reenactment.

Olivia Munn is quite touching as the title character, and the picture cleverly dramatises the conflicting thoughts that bounce around inside us and, often, dictate our lives.

Taron Egerton brings a desperate energy to his role as one of those entrepreneurs who discovers how business was conducted behind the Iron Curtain. But director Jon S. Baird fumbles the narrative’s tricky tonal balance, resulting in a glib, convoluted film that is never as engrossing as the game these characters are fighting over.

Rob Peace is buoyed by Jay Will’s touching lead performance as the titular aspiring scientist, but the film struggles to bring coherence to this cautionary tale, ambitiously tackling several themes and tones but never quite bringing them together into an engrossing whole.

The movie is delightfully odd but not consistently inspired, often straining to rewrite the rules of superhero cinema, a mixture of good and bad ideas all mashed together. Where other comic-book movies lumber along with self-importance, this film is a breezy, amoral lark, which proves somewhat refreshing. But that’s not enough to allow Birds’ hit-or-miss pleasure to soar.

Poignant and frustrating in equal measure, The Light Between Oceans aspires to be an elegant melodrama, but the intelligence that director Derek Cianfrance and his capable cast bring to bear eventually becomes overwhelmed by the story’s emotional manipulations.

This is a moody comedy about unconscious marital discord, but it’s also about that ineffable discontent that envelops most of us. Digging For Fire is funny because it rings true — and because it stings a little.

The more that Nalluri tries to connect Dickens’ personal breakthroughs to those of his fictional character, the less authentic it feels. Inadvertently, this forgettable bauble ends up illustrating just how rare and precious true inspiration is.

Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum have a great, flirtatious rapport in The Lost City, yet something is missing in this romantic-comedy action-adventure, which sports a funny premise but slipshod execution.

This Ghostbusters doesn’t lazily insert the actresses into the original characters’ roles, instead taking the time to come up with new dynamics — and far more pathos — for this quartet.

When Raimi is allowed to indulge his weird streak — especially during an audacious third act — the picture pushes past the franchise’s predictably polished sheen to arrive at sequences that are livelier and odder than Marvel normally permits.

Late Night director Nisha Ganatra brings a bighearted sincerity and more than a few touching moments, and it is a pleasure to see Lohan back in a major big-screen role. But her charming performance cannot compensate fully for a perhaps unavoidably convoluted plot.

For all its showy, whirring machinations, the film isn’t especially light on its feet — and its murder mystery isn’t very engrossing.

Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie are both superb in muted performances and, while the film’s palace intrigue gets a bit dense, the story never loses sight of its deep compassion for these characters and their shared plight of being held hostage by conniving, belittling, power-hungry men determined to usurp their authority.

A World War II romance-thriller that starts off smartly but sputters to an underwhelming finale.

This clever, heavily meta picture has fun both mocking its own existence and trying to find enough twists to justify itself. The result is a film which is superficially appealing even if it is ultimately undone by the contortions necessary to keep the irreverent sleight-of-hand going.

One of Pixar’s most beloved characters gets an origin story with Lightyear, a lacklustre sci-fi adventure which misses the wit and wonder that have been the studio’s hallmarks for decades.

On occasion, the sincerity and unabashed emotion can be bracing, but more often this rambunctiously enthusiastic writer-director overestimates how compelling his protagonists’ plight is, giving us a florid melodrama without enough grit underneath the operatics.

There’s real feeling in this story — and a genuine desire to challenge audience expectations — which is laudable but only takes Stillwater so far.

Very rarely do you get the sense that anyone involved in Christopher Robin had a really strong take on the material or an innate understanding of why these characters have resonated for nearly a century.

There’s ample amusement in the twists, betrayals and revelations that unspool. But Bad Times never really transcends the inherent limitations of its setup; it’s fun, but fleeting.

George Clooney and newcomer Britt Robertson are solidly compelling, but Tomorrowland remains only a moderate success, its ingenuity, wit and enormous heart too often at odds with a ho-hum story and tentpole conventionality that the film tries so hard to transcend.

Hardly lacking ambition or verve, this amped-up fairy tale comes complete with social commentary and a grownup examination of the consequences of seeking connection, but the episodic, intermittently engaging saga frustrates more than it enchants.

Jack Black’s mildly theatrical, knowingly hammy performance is but one of this horror-comedy’s overdone elements, and the film fails to rise above the level of perfunctory effects-driven spectacle.

El Planeta writer-director Amalia Ulman’s second feature tackles exploitation and cultural tourism, the film’s genial surface belying a quiet anger underneath.

Jean Dujardin is quietly excellent as the French officer whose growing conviction that Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel) is innocent of treason puts him on a collision course with his superiors. The Oscar-winning actor provides the film with its soulful centre, despite the familiarity of the material and its procedural tone.

Although it is initially intriguing to see Nick and Donnie put aside their differences to form a fragile truce, their wary partnership does not generate much spark.

The romantic comedy-drama Rules Don’t Apply is, by turns, fizzy and melancholy, nostalgic and clear-eyed, but it never builds to anything especially substantial.

For as much as Huang tries to go for a more freewheeling approach, treating his interviews like off-the-cuff conversations taking place in bars and restaurants, Vice Is Broke isn’t that intimate or revealing.

A simple story celebrating the importance of showing resilience and goodness in the face of intolerance, To The Stars never shouts to make its points. All the better that it forces you to lean in so you can really hear.

If the destination ultimately proves a little less satisfying than the trip, Mitchell and his collaborators fill us with so many moody reveries that we succumb to its warped logic and indelible vividness.

The Fast & Furious movies always possess a certain amount of eye-rolling histrionics, but Kirby finds just the right mix of sincerity and snark, understanding that these films are meant to be knowingly ridiculous.

A heartfelt performance from Chris Evans as the conscientious caretaker of his brilliant niece isn’t ample compensation for a film lacking the same intelligence and inquisitiveness that its young protagonist possesses in abundance.

Aiming to be a blistering examination of America’s unwinnable War on Drugs, the high-octane King Ivory is intense without being insightful.

A rowdy salute to the thankless sacrifices made by modern mothers, Bad Moms has lots of spirit, some funny moments and wonderful chemistry from its three leads. And yet, this so-so comedy can’t shake a formulaic, uninspired construction that often settles for the easy joke or the pat pay-off.

Garfield and Pugh have such instant chemistry that one never doubts why their characters would end up together. But ultimately, We Live In Time views Tobias and Almut as abstractions, and by jumping back and forth in time, it never makes them very present.

The new film from ’71 director Yann Demange is best when it pauses to explore the father-and-son drama at the heart of this tale, as well as coldly examining America’s ruinous drug policy.

Filmmaker Jessica Palud’s second feature may be uneven, but it hits on something fundamental about its troubled, defiant subject.

The film lets Nicolas Cage’s gonzo performance be its guide, mixing mocking self-parody and giddy enthusiasm for an utterly disposable, demented genre diversion.

Seeking to be a nonstop adrenaline jolt, Fuze starts off strongly but eventually fizzles, its high-octane ambitions soon becoming mechanical and rote.

The Shallows is diverting escapism one wishes could have cut a little deeper.

This inherently melodramatic material has an undeniable emotional sincerity, although the story ends up being so gentle that it barely makes a ripple.

The director of The Lure has a knack for peculiar protagonists — not to mention mixing whimsy with darker textures — but her latest provocation wouldn’t be so affecting if not for the committed performances of Wright and Tamara Lawrance, who play sisters who understand one another when no one else does.

Marc By Sofia is light on probing insights, instead offering viewers a chance to see a relaxed Jacobs talk to a close friend about his inspirations and artistic philosophy. Still, the uninitiated may crave a more rigorous, extensive overview of the man’s redoubtable career.

Director Adam Wingard embraces the towering scale of these showdowns, and a stellar cast that includes Alexander Skarsgard and Rebecca Hall tries to add some gravitas to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the actors fight a losing battle against some impressive special effects to command our attention.

In between the nudity and four-letter words, the film looks seriously at grief, arrested development and economic inequality, and there’s a sweet rapport between the two leads. A series of irritating plot twists and a predictable trajectory ultimately undercut Lawrence’s bravely brash portrait of a woman going nowhere fast.

Flanagan brings enough smarts and soul to the flawed, fascinating Doctor Sleep that he manages to escape The Shining’s shadow mostly unscathed.

The picture affirms Nebraska’s stature without shedding much light on the man who brought it to life.

The storytelling in Sex is ho-hum, but the sincerity of the undertaking — and the issues at the film’s centre — make it hard to resist, no matter what objections might be raised.

The filmmakers rarely go beyond being pleased with how strange this convergence of pop-culture and political figures must have been, and so Elvis & Nixon comes across as both thimble-deep and distractingly self-satisfied.

The film finds an unexpected way to reach its happy ending, but ultimately Quiz Lady is a fun premise seeking a sharper execution — unlike the brilliant Anne, Yu and her cast don’t have all the answers.

For the first time in its storied history, a Pixar movie feels like a straight-to-DVD entry: undemanding, mildly amusing, utterly disposable.

While the film’s balance of thorny laughs and thought-provoking themes is not always smoothly executed, Borgli’s provocation succeeds thanks to the grounded performances of his stars.

A film that takes daring risks which don’t always pay off. ... Delpy should be credited for her audaciousness, and My Zoe is a film which is often more interesting theoretically than it is to experience in the moment.

The storytelling ends up a little too murky to be the grand commentary on privilege and exploitation McDonagh intends.

To be sure, Tjahjanto provides these sequences with bruising action, mixed with a touch of dark comedy, but they are shot and staged without much distinction. And because the audience is now no longer startled to learn that nerdy Hutch can kill people, his ability to dispatch dozens of baddies feels anticlimactic.

While Jurassic World boasts a few efficient sequences...mostly it’s a grim affair that’s not leavened by adequate humour or a palpable romantic spark between Pratt and Howard.

Daliland dials up the actorly pyrotechnics, but it’s all spectacle without insight, failing to lay a foundation for why this long-running marriage, despite its volatility, endured.

It’s not a good sign that, as the film crosscuts between its different story threads, Jolie’s becomes the least interesting.

Taking the reins from Michael Bay, directing duo Adil & Bilall supply loads of energised style, but without the panache or shamelessness of their predecessor. As for stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, they don’t seem rejuvenated by this reunion, mostly re-creating the forced back-and-forth quipping that wasn’t even fresh back when they were younger men.

Action fans should savour the spectacularly violent set pieces, but a bland villain and an underwhelming narrative ultimately prove even more lethal than de Armas’s fighting skills.

An iconic comic-book villain gets an appropriately epic origin story in Joker, which allows Joaquin Phoenix’s raw talent its grandest stage yet.

While there’s energy and edge to the picture, Cruella feels stitched together from different influences in order to justify a rather blatant attempt to renew interest in a moribund property.

Primate is often a blunt instrument, but these set pieces exude a little elegance in their sustained dread.

Director Jay Roach’s adaptation proves too broad and tonally erratic. In the process, he undermines game work from Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as a husband and wife who can still sometimes see past their animosity to remember the love that once seemed indomitable.

Dramatising Steinem’s life during different periods, and with different actresses, Taymor has crafted an exceedingly thoughtful portrait of a leader and the women’s movement she championed.

The 59-year-old actor’s legacy may indeed be one of perseverance, but “Not Alone Anymore” touchingly details just how much more challenging her battles with addiction and sexual abuse have been than those of other famous people.

There’s a B-movie purity to how this franchise conducts its business, eschewing the flash of modern blockbusters for a more pummelling, elemental approach to its shootouts and hand-to-hand fight scenes. On top of that, The Accountant 2 has added a winning sense of humour to the equation.

Gloriously ludicrous and stridently melodramatic, F9 is fuelled by its own goofy energy, delivering comically grandiose chase sequences and shameless fan service all in the name of giving audiences an uncomplicated good time.

Its smooth efficiency offers plenty of sturdy pleasures. What’s missing are the emotional underpinnings that made these movies not just top-flight action vehicles but also stirringly soulful.

Flamin’ Hot is a breezy affair accented by Jesse Garcia’s winning performance as the budding Mexican-American entrepreneur, but this underdog tale ultimately proves to be too unremarkable to generate much heat.

By sidestepping the sharper, tougher questions about matters of the heart, the film still plays it too safe. Freyne may love all three characters, but what he doesn’t do is make his audience care deeply enough about which of them will get their happy ending—and which one won’t.

A smoothly executed but decidedly drab crime drama. Checking all the necessary narrative boxes for its target audience and asking little of stars Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson other than to bring their well-established onscreen personas to the characters, the latest from director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks) dabbles in familiar dramatic ironies and rather obvious observations about violence, celebrity and ageing. The Highwaymen never puts a foot wrong, but it fails to elicit much passion or fascination.

The sliver of a plot sees An American Pickle stumble in its attempt to be a timely commentary, although its emotional underpinnings give the film a modest charm to relish.

As with his award-winning debut, the French filmmaker sometimes risks heavy-handedness to make his points, but his argument’s brute force is amply persuasive.

While this defiantly unflashy film may similarly feel out of step, long on mawkishness and short on dynamic, arresting moments, the purity of its gently mournful tone stays with you.

Denzel Washington gives a terrifically off-kilter performance in Roman J. Israel, Esq., a fascinating and flawed character study that frustratingly can’t meld all its ambitions into a coherent and satisfying whole.

What proves irritating throughout the movie is the sense that Fogelman has chosen the easiest, least interesting execution of a rich premise.

It’s not simply that Uncle Frank becomes just another road-trip comedy — it’s that Ball resorts to clichéd or contrived narrative devices to keep the story going.

Examining a post-apocalypse through the eyes of a few souls left to carry on the human race, The Midnight Sky is an uneven but ultimately thoughtful and moving survival story.

Jojo Rabbit doesn’t lack for ambition or sincerity of purpose — which only makes it more disappointing that the film proves to be so meagre. ... Rather than being bracing or dangerous, this comedy ends up feeling a little too safe, a little too scattered, and a little too inconsequential.

From the film’s first moments, the audience can guess exactly how the story will pan out, and the pleasure is watching Eastwood gracefully negotiate every well-worn twist and turn.

Stone’s mixture of paranoid thriller, political commentary and romantic drama keeps Snowden feeling busy without ever being particularly engrossing or enlightening. Frustratingly, Snowden remains a ghost in the machine.

As thoughtfully rendered as much of Hologram is, the film eventually succumbs to the material’s fundamental triteness, offering done-to-death life lessons about second chances and the value of broadening one’s perspective.

Unfortunately, Howard fails to modulate this wickedness and, at over two hours, the picture becomes monotonous and unwieldy. Indeed, the malicious proceedings lose their power to unnerve, to diminishing returns.

The Next Level lacks the gleeful inventiveness of Jungle, in which three well-known stars slyly subverted their personas while embodying the insecurities and naivety of their teenage players. Absent that, it mostly feels gimmicky; the cast straining to recapture the hilarious rapport that once seemed so effortless.

Moana 2 boasts such beautiful visuals, it’s all the more disappointing that the sequel’s story and songs struggle to keep pace.

While a few of the new songs are keepers, too often the razzle-dazzle distracts from a familiar but resonant look at the pain and pleasure of adolescence.

A modest, tasteful family drama ... None of this is terribly original, of course, but the leads consistently mine the complexity in Nicholson’s script.

An overly precious tone ultimately sinks the writer-director’s attempt to recapture the enchantment of adolescence.

A so-so stoner film where the premise is almost always better than the execution.

Like many movies set in colourfully bleak futures, Hotel Artemis can’t sustain the novelty of its initial world-building.

Thanks to Thea Sharrock’s graceful direction, this live-action movie never feels heavy-handed, speaking to its young audience without talking down to them.

This iconic archaeologist has spent his life digging for the treasures of the past — sadly, Dial Of Destiny does the same thing, pillaging our collective fond memories of a once-great franchise.

Ultimately director Jon M. Chu’s more-is-more approach has a numbing effect, the endless spectacle leaving little room for nuance, depth or genuine feeling.

Elemental contains hints of the studio’s wit and poignancy while lacking the inspired execution that once seemed so effortless.

As an action-comedy, Heads Of State is more successful at the former than the latter. It’s a junky, diverting movie, one with major tonal issues and a completely predictable storyline, no matter how many twists and red herrings the filmmakers throw at us. Not sharp enough to be memorable but just well-crafted enough that you wish everyone involved had tried a little harder.

This considered, muted drama can’t escape a fussy tastefulness — not to mention inevitable comparisons to more crackling treatments of similar subject matter.

Lea Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel and Raphael Quenard commit fully to this cheeky postmodern exercise, but neither the humour nor the commentary is incisive enough to sustain such a strained bauble.

Essentially a feature-length version of the cute animal videos that proliferate on social media, Born In China is a feast for the eyes while also being an irritant for the ears.

The picture’s initial comic energy proves hard to sustain even with a short runtime, though, as the jokes start to feel strained and the numbers grow uninspired.

It’s to Ficarra and Requa’s credit that they try to juggle romance and political commentary, daring to make a studio movie that doesn’t fall into cookie-cutter genre rules. But the overriding problem is that Whiskey doesn’t go far enough in its risk-taking, settling for a story that gets more predictable as it rolls along.

It’s no spoiler to report that not everyone in Army Of The Dead will make it out alive — what is surprising is how little you’ll care who does.

Jake Gyllenhaal brings likeability and commitment to a raw role, but despite a strong supporting cast director Antoine Fuqua never quite transcends the proceedings’ gritty, melodramatic blandness. A lot of care, heart and craft have been thrown at awfully familiar material.

It’s a shame that Instant Family reduces the complexity, pain and joy of parenthood to a multiplex-palatable family comedy. The real story is probably far more interesting … and hopefully funnier.

For a movie that’s meant to have some magic in it, Peculiar Children displays little buoyancy, the proceedings weighed down by tedious world-building and perfunctory thematic lip-service about the need for community and the power that comes from finding one’s voice.

Love And Thunder doesn’t always gracefully execute its balance of light and dark but when the film focuses on the unshakeable bond between Thor and Jane, the results can be mighty moving.

This English-language remake of In Order Of Disappearance by its Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland doesn’t particularly succeed as a thriller, but the film’s gleeful perversity at refusing to satisfying genre conventions gives it a scruffy integrity all the same.

An effective, albeit somewhat artificial, exercise in suspense, The Wall derives much of its propulsion from Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s grunting, grimacing performance as a wounded US soldier squaring off with an unseen Iraqi sniper.

Lister-Jones gives a heartfelt performance as this unhappy woman coming to terms with her disappointments, and she’s assisted by Cailee Spaeny as her character’s younger self. But the slim story and wobbly execution ultimately undermine some deft observations about depression, forgiveness and the inner child who needs to be heard.

If, somehow, you’re just now getting into Saturday Night Live and haven’t already ingested endless lore about the most enduring of sketch shows, Lorne might be a meaningful primer. For everyone else, you’ve heard this joke before.

Singer-songwriter Ben Dickey is affecting as Foley, assisted ably by a supporting cast that fights to transcend the drunken-angel clichés of the man’s legacy.

While there’s no denying the picture’s ferocious forward momentum and skilful execution, the empty swagger leaves the whole enterprise feeling a bit mechanical — a heist without the faintest whiff of escapist pleasure.

There are plenty of solid laughs in Mascots — everything from jokes about furries to throwaway bits involving obscure cable channels — but what’s disappointing is that there’s not a great overr-iding idea that ties all the gags together.

As grimly gripping as Them That Follow is, the proceedings have a stacked-deck quality to them, which keeps this compelling tale from being truly galvanising.

The CG images still impress, and there are gripping moments during the film’s second half as the insecure Mufasa embraces his destiny. But like too many origin stories, Mufasa often rehashes what was once stirring about this materia

What makes this adult animation so affecting is the writer-director’s commitment to fortifying his spectacle with a deep emotional undercurrent.

While her previous pictures never shied away from tenderness despite their outré scenarios, her latest is a far more melancholy affair. Sadly, it’s also easily her least accomplished.

Director Baltasar Kormákur makes good use of location filming on the open waters, giving this melodramatic tale a dose of realism, but this true story is never as harrowing as the subject matter would suggest. Blame it on a misjudged narrative device and Adrift’s generally adolescent approach to relationships and maritime emergencies.

Tag is all strained sentimentality and obvious observations about men’s inability to leave childish things behind.

An ambitious, thematically overstuffed drama that’s both a crackling action-thriller and a ponderous political commentary.

The film ultimately feels like a superficial examination of rich subject matter.

Whether it’s Jim Carrey playing not one but two supervillains, or the introduction of even more supporting characters, Sonic 3 wears out its welcome, resulting in an entertaining but exhausting affair.

Though sometimes disappointingly broad, Radioactive nonetheless possesses a thoughtfulness that gives the film its stubborn spark.

Neither director Stephen Hopkins nor star Stephan James can bring Owens’ story to passionate life, resulting in a drama that’s well-meaning rather than riveting.

Marielle Heller’s fourth feature is a gently observant comedy-drama about the perils of motherhood that could use a little more bite.

Hugh Jackman demonstrates again what a fine Wolverine he is but this comic-book pairing ultimately underwhelms, resulting in some touching moments and some anarchic humour in a picture otherwise dragged down by convoluted multiverse logistics and drab fan service.

This likeable, emotionally precise film has a big heart and a genre-shifting construction that keeps the proceedings from feeling like just another young-adult meander. But despite an agreeably earnest performance from rising star Nat Wolff, Paper Towns covers familiar coming-of-age terrain and suffers from an opaque turn by newcomer Cara Delevingne that’s not quite as captivating as the story requires.

Some adorable animals and a snarky sense of humour about superheroes aren’t quite enough to save the day with DC League Of Super-Pets, an intermittently amusing and touching animation.