Tim Grierson

The sequel to 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph boasts a big heart and some clever comedic set pieces, and yet this follow-up fails to match the original’s balance of savvy pop-culture nostalgia and genuine emotional stakes. Ralph and Vanellope are still fun company, but their latest adventure is full of glitches.

Featuring vivid animation inspired by Daxiong’s drawings, the film is somber and hushed, able to stir emotions without resorting to manipulative tricks.

He’s not really reinventing or subverting a genre. Rather, Haynes is applying the same smarts and curiosity he always does, openly questioning why a kids’ film can’t be as absorbing and thoughtful as any other kind.

Writer-director Mike White has crafted a painfully funny and surprisingly moving character piece, but what’s most remarkable is how he and his star empathize with Brad’s feelings of inferiority while, at the same time, pinpointing the arrogance, privilege and callousness that often factor into such soul-searching.

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.

A Quiet Place Part II proves to be an even fiercer and more emotional experience than the first instalment. Expanding its world slightly without losing sight of the elements that made the original so effective, this superb piece of mainstream horror filmmaking is bolstered by some terrific performances, most notably Millicent Simmonds as a deaf daughter assuming the role of family protector in the wake of her father’s death.

Jokes may fall flat, and the movie might get a bit treacly, but The Sheep Detectives‘ big heart is never in question.

Reconceiving the iconic sci-fi villain as an underdog hero, Predator: Badlands is a consistently entertaining action-thriller filled with propulsive set pieces.

While the story’s sturdy, familiar structure remains resonant, this version never feels particularly inspired or revelatory, despite some lovely moments scattered throughout.

There’s no shortage of familiar elements here, and yet one can’t deny the empathy Levinson brings to the material.

The documentary’s so simple it feels profound without ever really trying.

While this flimsy coming-of-age drama over-relies on the Boss’s greatest hits for its emotional high points, this remains a likeable and touching story about finding your own voice.

If Beale Street isn’t quite as seamless as the Oscar-winning Moonlight, this adaptation of the James Baldwin novel still proves to be a stirring, absorbing experience that articulates something ineffable about everyday life.

The ceaseless stupidity of men is lamented but also dissected in Sleeping Giant, a thoughtful, well-observed but also familiar coming-of-age drama.

A mixed bag that doesn’t quite work — it’s too jokey, and too tonally erratic — and yet there’s real sweetness, as well as a genuine attempt to not just be another comic-book movie.

Don’t think of The Damned as an antiwar film — consider it an origin story for Minervini’s perceptive, understated exploration of an America still in conflict.

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature travels across the landscape of that most potentially treacly of genres, the cancer drama, locating something tough, tender and brittlely funny in this portrait of two women facing their own impasses.

Theater Camp is ultimately too uneven and unfocused to earn a curtain call, but like its marginally talented protagonists, it does its best with what it has.

Plan 75 may seem like it’s about ageing, but more accurately it is about the importance of community — the hope that someone will remember us after we’re gone.

More informational than revealing, John Hoffman and Janet Tobias’ documentary makes the case that in times of great uncertainty concerning mysterious diseases, calm reason and unassailable science are our staunchest allies — two assets the 80-year-old immunologist possesses to ample degree.

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

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.

Semans pushes Margaret into potentially preposterous narrative terrain, but Hall’s total commitment to her character’s growing mania helps ground the proceedings, no matter how outlandish the plotting becomes.

Not without its bluntly funny bits, this nasty, programmatic comedy wants to be outlandish but, oddly enough, it’s the movie’s lack of realism that really hurts it.

A paean to the importance of retaining one’s childlike enthusiasm, the animated The Little Prince is itself a charmingly innocent film, lacking some of the storytelling and design sophistication of its Pixar and Dreamworks competitors but nonetheless delivering a sweet, likeable tale.

A Ciambra may be a conventional tale of a young man trying to find himself, but the writer-director’s attention to detail enriches that setup.

Eagles Of The Republic reunites Saleh with Fares Fares, the lead in the earlier pictures, to mock film industry egos while delivering a chilling commentary about a tyrannical government which imposes its will both through media propaganda and deadly force.

Unfortunately, no matter the initial electricity DaCosta brings to the material, the crackle gradually starts to wane, the momentum diluted by extraneous subplots and slack pacing.