Set, script, performances, and direction - it all works.

Aside from the exquisitely executed acts of outrageous (comic-book) mayhem, KILL is fun. KILL unleashes a vicious ballet of hand-to-hand combat, all within the narrow confines of a passenger train en route to New Delhi.

The stubborn ambiguity of Last Summer — with its genuinely could-be-this, could-be-that head-scratcher of an ending — will either be a dealbreaker for viewers or proof of bold, irreverent storytelling that refuses to be neatly packaged. To be sure, the film isn’t judging so much as presenting a fraught scenario for its audience to consider.

Returning director Chris Renaud, co-director of parts one and two, knows his way around the characters, and he knows what his audience wants: cartoon mayhem, mild naughtiness from the Minions, social awkwardness from Gru.

At any rate, you’ll be entertained. What you won’t be is transported, and that’s kind of the goal.

It’s not reluctance that prevents Leiser from divulging the driving force of the film’s narrative but rather a self-assured and less defensive “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude. The “opera” aspect of the film will be highlighted in the review and press material, but for Leiser, Freydís and Gudrid, it is simply a good story told through music.

Chapter 1 of this undertaking is imperfect, at times meandering and once or twice confusing, but it is never boring and never feels over-long. And it is spectacularly beautiful to look at.

Shot in black and white, with scenes of razor-wire barriers and terrified families hiding in the forest, Green Border evokes images of the Second World War and the Holocaust, the subject of Holland’s films Europa Europa (1990) and In Darkness (2011).

What the film does well though is deliver a precisely balanced combination of jump scares, intense situations and confrontations with truly horrible creatures. It’s an effectively scary story, and it’s through the silence of the audience that you can measure this film’s success. Punctuated by some powerful emotional delivery, the audience is able to connect with characters meaningfully, distracting them from convenient story factors and encouraging willing disbelief.

It’s fascinating stuff, and it rests both on its leads and on the universal truth that unburdening to strangers is often easier than unburdening to intimates, as any real-life cab driver or bartender can attest. And yet, as Daddio shows, that very spontaneous act fosters an intimacy all its own.

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.

While the film prompts a mildly interesting inquiry, in the end, it’s simply nostalgia that is the draw.

The Bikeriders sparks enough interest to hint at the possibility of stronger stories being washed away in the flow of an unfocused narrative. There are good stories in The Bikeriders, fleshed out within an inch of their potential.

It’s one of those movies where, short of any actual existential terrors to throw at the audience, the sound engineers merely crank up the volume from time to time so that a door closing sounds like a cannon going off. Our Lady of Jump Scares preserve us!

Thelma is really entertaining. The cast (which includes Malcolm McDowell) is very strong. The performance from Squibb, a 70-year vet of the industry and Oscar-nominated for her work in Nebraska, is fantastic, and Roundtree is likewise magnetic.

Like sequels of beloved movies, puberty can either be terrific, passable or really suck. So, while Riley, the lead character in Pixar’s Inside Out, has a rough-ish start to adolescence, the sequel Inside Out 2 — I’m relieved to say — is terrific.

It is also astonishingly tender and very human despite its fantastical premise, which rivals any superhero film for boldness of imagination yet summons uncommon emotional heft.

It’s never a good sign when the Wikipedia page is more interesting than the based-on-a-true-story movie it references.

The Watchers is not a perfect movie, but it is an excellent start, heralding the arrival of a bold new talent.

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

It’s a wistful, beautiful, and tender movie that works across generations, yet another feat accomplished. It's not just clever storytelling, dammit! There’s heart and magic at work here.

It’s wonderful for its restraint, and for the things it doesn’t do.

In a Violent Nature follows the traditional path of a slasher and rises above the genre to be something other than the norm.

In another era, in a more dramatic coming-of-age story, we would expect something life-changing, possibly terrible to happen. But Gasoline Rainbow remains gentle, optimistic and free-flowing. It’s a vision of America that is almost banal in its lack of menace, an alternative kind of docu-fiction that belies the angry drama of the daily news.

There aren’t zombies rampaging through Norwegian director Thea Hvistendahl’s quiet film. Instead, the spare, slow-paced, thoughtful film is an affecting story about coping with grief.

For this viewer, always on high alert for emotional manipulation, Ezra is an engaging movie that works because of sharp writing and terrific performances.

Solo largely succeeds, thanks to Dupuis’ confident handling of the tonal shifts between off- and onstage scenes in a series of stylishly lit interiors. The performances feel grounded and credible, with Pellerin especially good in revealing Simon’s contradictions, between anxious vulnerability and resilience.

It’s a deceptively simple movie, a lot of fun. And it doesn’t require you to do a deep dive to really enjoy it.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is not likely to make the same rounds at the Academy Awards as its predecessor. But it remains a winning formula. And when someone tells you that it has the best action sequences put to film—believe them.

I Saw the TV Glow demands the audience's attention. I can’t say that, even with all synapses firing, I was able to catch every (maybe none) of the nuances Schoenbrun was tossing out. But it’s at times like that when I find it best to relax and experience the film rather than struggle to make sense of it.

I'll admit that The Strangers had me on the edge of my seat, mostly because I wasn't sure if I planned on staying.

The film is an indictment of law enforcement as it operates (or doesn’t) for aboriginal people.

This is perhaps a kinder, gentler Amy Winehouse story? Maybe so, but there’s no opportunity for emotional investment, despite Marisa Abela’s wonderful performance. It’s all a bit like seeing a good cover band.

IF is a delightful escapist fantasy that reaches deep into the hearts of the audience by invoking childhood memories.

Sometimes the story isn’t so much the thing. It’s the way the story is told that delivers the goods.

Director John Rosman’s debut film New Life is a simple but effective film that sits on the border between thriller and horror. Rosman straddles the line, keeping one foot in both genres and adding an element of apocalyptic drama. The result is a decent film despite the feeling that we’ve seen this before.

Evil Does Not Exist, the new film from Drive My Car director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, is a slow-burning wonder, an eco-fable of meditative beauty and menace, down-to-earth realism, and mythic resonances.

This coming-of-age film captures the exuberance of childhood even as it shows the gradual encroachment of outside social pressures.

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.

The writing in The Coffee Table is almost acrobatic in its delivery, manipulating feelings and ideas by rendering deep guttural emotions in the all too familiar ways. The terror in Casas’ film is linked to the unknown. But differing from other horror films, the unknown in Casas’ film is neither ethereal nor otherworldly.

The Fall Guy is hugely entertaining. A love letter to stunt persons and to filmmaking in general, the film is a romantic comedy for everyone who hates romantic comedies and an action thriller for those less than keen on the genre.

It’s visually lovely. But there’s a hollowness at the core of Jeanne du Barry, despite the obvious talents of its writer, director and star, the almost absurdly watchable French performer Maïwenn, who approaches this tragic-comic 18th century fact-based story with a sympathetic view towards its protagonist without probing too deeply into anyone’s motivations.

Mohr appears to be in control even when the film takes wild swipes from the absurd to the dramatic. Still, Boy Kills World works.

Occupied City is designed not so much to provoke emotions as to challenge our capacity for paying attention (“It’s okay to drift in and out,” recommends McQueen in the film’s production notes.) When we focus, we’re compelled to connect the double strand of the narrated past history and contemporary images in front of our eyes.

It’s all freakin’ fantastic, a real all-night rave of a movie. But could we maybe just dial the whole thing down just a smidgeon? Could Challengers perhaps have given merely 100 per cent instead of 110?

Clennon, does a great job conveying Benjamin’s anxious reserve, and internal struggle to beg for help without having to offer lengthy explanations.

While relying on some historical information, its inherent sweetness is the main reason for its success.

If you’re willing to go with it, the Zellner brothers and their cast have delivered something that is by turns funny, sad, and, in the end, surprisingly poignant.

Weir is beyond amazing, out-cursing Linda Blair's Regan from The Exorcist, out-dancing M3GAN, and out-terrifying the child with the garden-trowel from Night of the Living Dead.

Irena’s Vow is beautifully filmed, with careful attention to period detail.

Running a digressive two hours and 43 minutes, this idea-filled absurdist comedy, presented in the fragmented visual language of social media, ties together economic inequities of the European Union, political corruption and the exploitative labour practices of foreign film productions. Also, it’s seriously funny.

Bonnello wants us to take our time. He’s given it a certain pace that weaves you in if you’re willing to go with it. And things to contemplate if you do.

It’s a forgivable fault for a first feature such as Before I Change My Mind to try to do too much, especially at a time when gender issues have become so politically contentious. The film can plausibly be understood as a protest against the kind of new more restrictive youth gender laws introduced in several jurisdictions, including Alberta earlier this year.

Food, Inc. 2 is a gobsmacking compendium of scary information about food systems and monopolies, what we eat, what it does to us and what will happen next.

Sting is ridiculous. Still, it's a better movie than it needs to be. A dramatic family backstory sets Sting apart from myriad other creature features.

All You Need is Death is a film to experience. It requires some work from the audience. An impassive viewer is unlikely to piece together the fragments that make a cohesive whole. This is a film to be discovered, made by a director worth discovering.

It brushes up ever so lightly against Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And there’s a little of early-ish Yorgos Lanthimos (Alps, The Lobster). Except, you know, more heart. Much more heart.

Civil War is both premium entertainment and a cautionary tale.

Lost Angel — with its engaging mix of animation, talking-head interviews, voiceovers, still photographs, and archival footage — ensures viewers understand the depth of her achievement over two albums released in her lifetime and a third issued posthumously.

This lovely film with its unapologetically female gaze . . . kept me beguiled throughout.

The First Omen is nunsploitation disguised as religious horror bordering on art house. And while individual snippets from the film qualify as genuinely eerie, the overall impression is of a tale told twice-too often.

There’s violence aplenty, which is another reason the John Wick reference has proven so sticky.

Directed by Thea Sharrock and written by Jonny Sweet, Wicked Little Letters is a broad and funny period piece, and it sparkles with sharp dialogue. It’s also a little heartbreaking in its depiction of the many ways women are judged, shamed, and kept down by the concerted efforts of society in general.

DogMan is kind of an idiotic movie built on a ludicrous premise. This does not prevent it from being eminently watchable.

The film’s best parts, apart from abundant vintage footage and those groovy 60s-era threads, are recollections from those at ground zero, like club operators as well as performers Jimi and Judy Mamou.

If The Old Oak is indeed the last film of the master, it’s a fitting sendoff for a director whose work will continue to echo for at least as long as Durham Cathedral has been standing.

Someone Like You is essentially a 30-minute Hallmark-like film stretched into two hours of romance novel fluff via playful-lovebird music videos and other visual padding.

What shines through in all these performances — and in recollections by Wilder himself and others — was a man dedicated to his craft and excited about the creative process.

It’s creepy as hell, watching these kids with no purpose and a desperate need to be doing something important become sucked into notions about self-control and salvation.

There’s a smidgeon more humanity than in the braindead Godzilla vs. Kong, but nowhere near the wit and spirit of Skull Island.

It doesn’t sound much like it, but Problemista is a comedy and a savage send-up of much of what America holds dear. Torres’ absurdist humour underpins the storytelling.

Director Michael Mohan, who also directed Sweeney in 2021’s The Voyeurs, creates a wildly uneven tone here, with a film that starts out promising to be a supernatural horror before segueing into something far more prosaic.

Both a horror story about domestic abuse and a love-letter to the mother-daughter relationship, Shayda is an award-winning first feature about female agency from writer-director Noora Niasari.

With the right combination of nostalgia and novelty, it’s spot-on for families looking for fun on movie night.

There is a joyful lightness of spirit — and some very beautiful cinematography — in The Queen of My Dreams, the dazzling debut feature from Canadian writer-director Fawzia Mirza which premiered last fall at TIFF.

If you’re a fan of the man, William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill is an easy sell.

With no risk of over-subtlety, Uproar mixes gentle quirky comedy with a few digs at clumsy white allies and the myth of the innocent bystander.

Most importantly, what the film really accomplishes, is bringing back to life Tenório Cerqueira Junior, a terrifically talented musician whose career was ended abruptly. They’ve restored his work and his legacy. It's no small thing.

Ultimately, what sinks the story is a combination of miscasting and bad writing, regardless of its language. Braff tries too hard to be likeable, sometimes coming off as almost creepy. Hudgens leans the other way.

Even those with no particular interest in fashion will be gripped by this story and dazzled by Galliano’s undeniably artistry. It’s impossible not to be. The film is also a profound reminder of just how complicated we all are.

One Life is slow, old-fashioned storytelling. Both Hopkins and Flynn work to keep things tethered; children in peril are subject material that leans easily into the maudlin, but that’s avoided here, mostly courtesy of these performances.

A film that wants to be a metaphor for something, the French film The Animal Kingdom is like an edgeless, absurdist high school version of The Island of Doctor Moreau.

Love Lies Bleeding is bent in the most unexpected ways, filling the screen with the impossible while refusing to make excuses.

Imaginary is far too long, at one hour, 44 minutes. The build-up has a few exciting moments. But the climax, intended as the film's centerpiece, is a dull repetition of hallways, locked doors, and unimpressive jump scares. Anyone who has toured a makeshift haunted house at a charitable event has experienced worse scares.

This fourth film, featuring the same writers as two and three, but new co-directors Stephanie Stine and Mike Mitchell, isn’t a bad movie, but it does feel like it’s going through the motions.

That it falters under the weight of its earnest ambitions doesn’t mean that we don’t get its heartfelt healing message. But that earnestness, and a distracting plot device never quite takes off.

It feels unbalanced, a collection of often-compelling sequences stitched together in a way that is unpersuasive or sometimes simply puzzling.

The action, the battles, the love story… all of this continues through the film, but as it progresses it subtly turns, leading us to some bigger, and heavier themes such as the pointlessness of war, the dangers of religious fanaticism, fascism, and the questions of people who find themselves swept up in fate. It works as pure action, but with all of this, Dune: Part Two is a potent and layered film.

Seagrass is a small Canadian film that delivers a huge emotional impact.

Fans of action films as Top Gun, American Sniper or Hobo with a Shotgun may be disappointed by the absence of splatter, though The Monk and the Gun achieves is own kind of sardonic catharsis.

The movie unfolds with what seems like a series of random left turns, which, in some cases, may have been written on the day of shooting. But Qualley and Viswanathan are a likeable odd-couple, in a dumb movie rendered smartly enough to not overstay its welcome.

In juggling the beforementioned autobiographical, experimental, and historical elements, I Didn’t See You There can feel scattered and somewhat distant, no doubt due to Davenport’s disinclination toward treating his disability as a commodity.

Concrete Valley is a loving, lovely portrait of a corner of the city that, unless you live there, is probably either a blank spot on your map or a region you drive through to get somewhere else.

Land of Bad is an atypical war film because of the contrasts that reflect the different style of modern warfare.

The Taste of Things is rare, with a depth and maturity we don’t often see on screens anymore. It charts the connection of two mature adults who are at peace with themselves and each other. There’s a calm restraint to their relationship, and that adds to the film’s sensuality.

Madame Web is a strange and quickly forgettable entry in the superhero genre. It falls apart entirely in the third reel with an unimpressive final battle and an odd, but not wholly uninteresting, Buñuel-like expose.

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.

Bob Marley: One Love does not give a documentary’s worth of information and analysis into one of the 20th century’s most interesting, beloved performers. And yes, its approach is formulaic. But it celebrates Marley’s charisma and influence, and his music, which sounds as vital today as ever. Fair trade.