For anyone who has endured a long bus journey with strangers, it will be no surprise that there was more conflict among the Americans than between them and the Egyptians

None of this adds up to a deep or compelling examination of the papacy. Think of it more like a wave from the motorcade on the way by.

Butcher’s Crossing is a decent western, with decent performances. It’s a film that delivers what’s expected. But for a story that could give Captain Ahab a run for his money, getting the expected is a bit disappointing.

It’s a lesser episode to be sure. But Wilson and Farmiga are both so accomplished and comfortable in their roles at this point, that they distract us from the movie’s flaws.

Kinds of Kindness is certainly a display of disparate kinds of weirdness. But unlike Poor Things, which was both provocative and told with absurd clarity, this anthology is a mixed bag of wannabe profundities.

Despite what redemption there ultimately is, The Whale is a feel-bad movie. But in a movie marketplace saturated with homogeneity, at least it inspires you to feel something.

There’s a lot to accept in this film that quite frankly, is a bit hard to swallow.

You couldn’t call Coming 2 America a good movie or even a so-bad-its-good, but just puffed-up mediocre concoction with a few pockets of delight.

Let it be known that The Way Back – in which Ben Affleck plays a drunk who once walked away from basketball glory and is offered a chance at redemption when his old coach has a heart attack – is possibly the most melancholy sports movie ever made.

Rifkin’s Festival is a romantic farce, with ideas that long-time fans will recognize from a range of other Allen films, but with one difference. The movie ends on a surprisingly sweet note.

It means well, but Greed fails to locate the heart of the fast-fashion calamity, instead spotlighting the grotesqueness of the one percent at the expense of everyone else.

Like every cringeworthy wedding you’ve ever attended, it leaves one with a lukewarm smile, and the hope that the time invested in witnessing this spectacle of forced happiness will be appreciated.

Double Walker’s story is feverishly imaginative, though its internal logic often doesn’t hold up. But the star and co-writer Sylvie Mix is committed to her story, playing a mostly silent, seductive (often nakedly so) phantom who “can only be seen by believers and sinners.”

Smith’s musical performances in the film, which are big on power chords, anthemic hooks, and gravel-voiced melancholy, help fill some the film’s emotional weak spots. What primarily distinguishes this lowkey, unsurprising drama is a well-stocked soundtrack, courtesy of music supervisor Natasha Duprey, amounting to a survey of Canadian alt-country songs over the past three-and-a-half decades.

The inexorable pace of this marital disintegration is masterfully dictated by its leads, Nighy (whose granite expression remains fairly unchanged whether unhappy with Grace or newly-alive with his new love) and Bening (without whose energy there would be no movie).

While there are a few twists in the film, much like the certainty of a flight delay, none arrive unexpectedly.

Nattiv is aiming to redeem her legacy with this film. To that end he unfolds the story like a thriller, where we get a sense of the day-to-day tensions of a war that posed an existential threat to her country and the immense pressure she was under. He has cast it well. And yet, despite the tension, Golda is disappointingly flat.

It’s a quiet, thoughtful movie that aims to be sensitive to the family, while plumbing some of the darker feelings that this late success wrought.

The performances are mostly entertaining, the scenery is rich, but it has flaws in the story that make it difficult to accept in some places. It’s also these flaws that allow the audience to figure out the plot a little prematurely.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is Warner Brothers/ DC Comics latest sacrificial offering to the altar of comic properties. And while the film isn’t bad in itself, it’s pretty clear that there’s a bit of a schism in deciding how to present this film and its hero.

In one way or another, every Planet of the Apes movie except the first has been a part of a longer narrative towards how this planet went ape. And for much of the screen-time, it does look like Kingdom is moving us there.

Unfortunately, Da 5 Bloods’ impassioned civics lesson is grafted on to a slapdash B-movie action plot.

It’s a movie that is well intentioned and aims big, but ends up being somewhat shallow.

Death to Metal is something of a fresh breath of stale air. In a genre long familiar with demonizing nuns, having an evil priest is a nice change of habit.

While it’s fun to see the characters back in action, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is overstuffed and meanders. The film also suffers from self-consciousness. Too many celebrities show up in ways that feel pointless, turning TDWP2 into self-congratulatory mush.

If you want to dramatize a real-life celebrity fraud tale, you can’t settle for the superficial. Either go for psychological truth or camp it up to the level of the superduperficial. There’s not much of either quality in JT Leroy, a film that offers colourful performances by Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart but fails to find any urgency in retelling the tale of an early 2000s literary fraud.

Yes, Anderson is good, but it’s the film that ultimately lets her down.

If it’s not original ground, Don’t Worry Darling is a visually arresting mash-up of The Stepford Wives and Pleasantville, with its plot about an idyllic artificial ‘50s with pampered suburban housewives religiously dedicated to their husbands and their cocktails, and hints of the decade’s dark side.

Working from a script by Neil Forsythe, Marsh has created a superficially experimental if tame take on an artist of grim truths and dark comedy.

Much of Doors comes across as experimental. But its weirdness, its stone-faced humour, and its none-too-complicated effects can be hypnotizing. Doors is compelling and indiscernibly droll; A 2020 Space Odyssey as mesmerizing as it is strange.

There are white-knuckle moments, notably Gloria’s crossing of the border with a heap of stuff that would raise troubling questions were she stopped and searched. Rodriguez puts us right there in the car beside her and it’s thrilling. But the outcome arrives a bit too pat, our heroine conveniently switching from cowed hostage to arms-wielding ass-kicker with dubious ease.

At an hour and a half, Gretel and Hansel shouldn’t be a slog. But at a certain point in the last act, it definitely labours for its chills - and all that feasting eventually leaves the audience more hungry than scared.

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

Approached with a casual regard for logic, period thriller The Secrets We Keep is entertaining enough to recommend though it never feels quite as original or shocking as the filmmakers — working with a plainly Hitchcockian roadmap — likely hoped for.

Fair warning: Tango Shalom is a broad comedy, with a thick coating of the sentimental lubricant known in Yiddish circles as “schmaltz.”

Overall, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a middling entry in the Dracula canon.

All in all, it’s something of a merry mess, barely held together by Eigenmann’s wary, steadfast performance as Joy, an illegal immigrant mother whose life is a nightmare even before the movie turns into one.

The fight scenes are initially impressive and artfully filmed, but eventually repetitive. As a selling device for UFC, The Smashing Machine falls a little short. Still, even if it seems like we’ve seen this movie before, Johnson does sell his character, no gimmicks, raised eyebrows or phony theatrics. He is believable, even if we never really discover who he is.

There’s more than an echo here of The Client, the 1993 John Grisham adaptation which saw Susan Sarandon playing a maternal role to Brad Refro’s 11-year-old Mafia witness. But the surrogate mother-child bond barely develops here, as Hannah and Connor leap from one near-death experience to the next in this relatively brisk 100-minute film.

Whatever magic that writer/director Savi Gabizon brought to the original seems to have evaporated for this second go.

Producer-director Jonathan Keijser’s debut feature is a fish-out-of-water tale that softens the edges in the story in favour of eccentric character comedy and mild family conflict. Oh, and it does a pretty good job of portraying Antigonish as one icy-cold but warm-hearted town.

It’s a good, fun film, the kind that likely scans differently with repeat viewings, and includes a savvy wink to the vegan word as per Silverstone’s noble and ongoing mission. But I had the killer — if not the labyrinthine impetus for the crime — pegged from the get-go.

The Public, which played at TIFF last fall, is the kind of movie you want to like and that probably needs to get made and seen. But needing to see something and wanting to see it are different things.

What makes Cry Macho fascinating to watch, even in an uncomfortable high-wire act way, is Eastwood — stoop-shouldered, sometimes pausing in his dialogue, but determinedly taking on a character he probably should have taken on back in 1988 when he was first approached about doing the part.

Horror fans will find that Paxton's film is not a straight-ahead feast of digestible thrills and chills. Others might perceive it as an acquired taste. A Banquet requires a deliberate decision to watch as it doesn't pair well with distractions and traditional expectations.

Maggie Moore(s) sun-baked backdrop — it was shot in and around Albuquerque — imbues the crime drama with a contrarian vibe that might be called Coen-esque though with much less umph than No Country for Old Men. It’s an enjoyable watch to be sure, but not destined to be memorable.

Visually opulent as only a Guillermo del Toro movie can be with gorgeously detailed, period-perfect costumes and interiors and a marquee cast, the noir thriller Nightmare Alley checks all the grand boxes of the genre. Yet the film feels emotionally inert, stacked with unsympathetic, strangely uncharismatic characters that defy empathy. Or worse: defy abiding interest.

At 74 minutes, the film has little time for deep character mining and ends up feeling more like a collection of uneven scenes and engaging dialogue riffs rather than a fully realized drama.

As much a showcase for Kristen Stewart and the fabulous frocks of the 1960s as a glimpse at a very low moment in U.S. governmental history, Seberg is an entertaining if simplistic drama that would have benefited from more grit and less gloss.

We can see the character’s angst, happiness and sorrow, but it doesn’t cut through. The film’s emotional life doesn’t quite connect and feels remote.

The only thing that feels new about Captain Marvel is its protagonist’s gender. And as with Superman, I wonder about the dramatic limitations of such a godlike superhero.

Its script is undercooked and veers in random directions from its simple premise. But it has a heart, and two likeable leads who work well together.

Good Boys might pride itself for its lack of restraint, but the film’s guileless good nature that it charm

It’s still not bad, and its pacing works surprisingly well given its paucity of plot. Fans of the actors, or of low-key, high-concept sci-fi, should be pleasantly surprised. For others, mere surprise may be all that awaits.

Though the emotional appeal of this story of resistance to brutal repression is genuinely moving, the documentary has limitations in both style and content.

While Chadha includes a few gritty nuggets about the psychological cost of immigration, the problems are mostly smothered in a warm jelly of sentimentality, a surfeit of stock characters and an exhausting succession of feel-good breakthroughs.

Mostly, this is a look at how solid actors can carry a nuts-and-bolts, dramatically undemanding action film. Jordan is physically imposing, and handles the action choreography with style.

James vs His Future Self is a less abrasive and transgressive film than LaLonde’s previous The Go-Getters (an anti-romance about two street people conniving their way out of town). Consequently, it’s not as raucously funny. But it’s a decent enough time waster.

Relentlessly episodic and missing the taut focus of the first film, Peninsula compensates with overkill, populating the screen with long-stretches of CGI action (Yeon’s background is in animation) including nighttime car chases and oodles of zombie splatter.

Dog is a bumpy, unpredictable ride because that’s what our heroes are on, but it’s all delivered with a gentle touch and authentic feeling that assure us that Briggs and Lulu are heading in the right direction.

Crowe, identified in the credits only as The Man, is the reason to see this film. He makes for a convincing villain. And even when the movie veers towards the ridiculous, Crowe forces you to keep your eyes on the road.

A compelling story that’s well-acted, well-written, and beautifully shot is its own reward. The female perspective is pretty neat, too.

Falling for Figaro is a small story about big dreams that soft-peddles through familiar territory. Figaro can be as fluffy as the fur on a blow-dried angora cat but it scores big on its ready-and willing-to-please charm.

Having finally honed the most enjoyably human superhero in the Marvel Universe, it seems “off” to want to ramp him up with tech.

Despite its horror-film veneer, Innuksuk wraps the viewer in a warm blanket of nostalgia whenever the film threatens to chill. But Slash/Back has enough creep factor to settle any argument purporting that Stranger Things only happen in the cozy climates of Midwest America.

There are good reasons for an action film to be two-and-a-half hours long. Having to devote dozens of extra pages of dialogue to constantly explaining itself isn’t one of them.

There is plenty of opportunity to embrace the film for its wanton display of Christmas gone wild and a bleak reminder that despite charity being its own reward, the reward is not always worth the effort.

Equal parts clever and annoying, Wes Anderson’s latest film is akin to being locked in a holding cell with a team of cellmates suffering from florid cases of logorrhea. They might be smart, but it would be a relief if they would just shut up or at least slow down occasionally.

The whole package — written by Sarah Henderson and directed by her husband Curtis Vowell — has a casual, episodic vibe, mixing sardonic banter and broad physical comedy.

What keeps the movie from being simply a series of lurid events is the relationship between Mía and Euge, played with an easy grace by Gusmán and Bejo. Their chemistry is so comfortable, you have to remind yourself they aren’t actually sisters.

In the end, all the sorrow and horror and anger and angst just seem pointless despite Corbet’s stated intention to juxtapose the meaningless against the tragic.

Though it can’t match the Michael Mann-level menace and poetic rapture it aspires to, the new Atlanta-set Superfly is certainly watchable. Along with its set-piece fantasies of lavishness and violence, it features a flavourful cast of drug dealers, and stars the charismatic baby-faced Trevor Jackson.

A slave-on-the-run movie that uses every bit of its star’s modest acting ability and ticks all the award boxes, Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation would be a shoo-in in a world where Smith was not banned from the Oscars for 10 years.

The surprisingly conventional Tiny Tim – King For A Day mixes archival photos and film, and animation, to present an image of the man before and after he hit the pinnacle of pop culture by getting married to first wife Miss Vicki live on The Tonight Show.

There is enough right and apparently painstakingly accurate about Prey – the Predator series prequel in which the now-familiar species of extraterrestrial hunters sets sights on a tribe of 18th Century Comanches – that hearing the characters speak an actual indigenous language would have taken it to a whole other level. Instead they speak jarringly modern English.

A lot of genuine heart and goodwill has been poured into Jules, a slight, gentle comedy with a sci-fi edge. Heartfelt as it might be and despite a strong cast led by Sir Ben Kingsley, an unfocused storyline undermines the film, making it a frustrating watch.

On one hand, its chief conceit is commendably weird: the adult Williams is played by Jonno Davies as a chimpanzee filmed in motion capture, conjured with CGI to humanoid effect, and voiced by its subject. Daring! Yet its story follows a ho-hum biopic trajectory structurally indistinguishable from recent entries such as Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody.

These images are intriguing and intermittently beautiful, but the technique gets repetitive, and the gap between the visual lavishness and the so-so script is distracting.

There is plenty wrong with Prey for the Devil, but despite cringy moments of profound seriousness around a rather silly conceit, I was on board. It’s been decades since an exorcism film left me feeling unsettled. Prey for the Devil’s tactics might be cheap, but they worked on me.

Spiral is locked in a formula that has not budged in nearly two decades. That is likely to read as good news for fans of the franchise.

If you think Little sounds like something a 10-year-old might come up with after seeing Tom Hanks’ Big, you would be entirely correct.

Drunk Bus has some pros and cons. At its best, it evokes the freewheeling style and emotional pangs of Greg Mottola’s 2009 film, Adventureland.

This is not a rousing movie that people are going to come away from energized. Still, it’s an interesting approach to an extended ad for an album.

Despite its virtues and intriguingly complicated morality, Queen & Slim never rises above its initial premise which is so not credible that it hoovers all ensuing tension from the rest of the film. Ridiculous can’t sustain a two hour–plus running time, and the stronger the filmmakers stick with their fire-breathing idea, the more frustrating Queen & Slim becomes, stomping out any connection to a reality most of us would recognize.

What redeems The King, beyond the excellent performances, is the way the film gets around to asking questions about making war. Why go to war and who benefits is part of the story here, which leaves it in an interesting place.

Somehow, within this roiling pot of fancy costumes, class hatred, vicious misogyny and official corruption, we are supposed to discern the poisonous seeds of the violence that would wrack Europe. The connections are somewhat fuzzy.

I Blame Society barely scrapes by as midnight movie camp; it’s much better as a form of wryly witty performance art/film criticism.

Director Nadia Hallgren’s Becoming gives us a good impression of hanging out with the First Lady without really getting us past the surface, although we get some sense of her drive.

For everything Senior Moment gets right, there seems to be an equal and corresponding wrong which mars the film and the efforts of its clearly committed cast under the helm of action director Giorgio Serafini.

Director Simon Curtis and writer Julian Fellowes deliver the dual comedies of errors with cheer, sprightly/stately music and the lightest of drama. The scenery, both at Downton and in France, is worthy of Rick Steeves’ Europe. If this is a goodbye (and there are plenty of signals that it is, barring unexpectedly huge box office), it ends on a note of smiles, tears and no hard feelings.

Poirot’s latest adventure may engender some brief happiness in audiences, but I’m not sure it will leave them fully satisfied.

The fast pace is attention-span theatre for the young’uns, and the adult-aimed quips are entertaining for a while.

If you can get past the faintly ridiculous-slash-icky premise, underscored by the film’s double-entendre title, No Hard Feelings plays its broad comedy gamely and with some snappy dialogue to boot, albeit much given away in the trailer.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a mostly joyless exercise whose only saving grace is the mordantly silly touch of director Sam Raimi, who delivers ghouls, demons, necromancy, imaginatively surrealist backdrops and at least one rampaging monster that looks like it escaped from an episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. For many, this is entertainment enough.

A new biopic of women’s wrestling pioneer Mildred Burke is nobody’s idea of a great movie, but it’s an entertaining cheese-fest with a lot of stagey charm.

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

Sometimes I Think About Dying dares to ask the question: What if The Office wasn’t trying to be funny? And what if Pam was painfully shy, and Jim damaged from two previous marriages, and no one ever made a raised-eyebrow face at the camera?

If Everything, Everywhere All at Once causes concern about the direction cinema is heading—all flash and edits and quirky perspectives — then Missing might leave some hyperventilating. But if you can afford the paper bag needed to keep your breathing under control, then you’ll likely find plenty to enjoy in this Google-approved thriller.