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

This is Spinal Tap is now a movie classic. I wish I could say the follow up Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is as good. But, alas, it doesn’t really touch the beloved original.

The film is broad, campy, audacious and arrives with high expectations. But Dicks ultimately disappoints — and the inherent joke that goes with that line should not pass underappreciated. The title is the joke. But it’s a joke that doesn’t get as much play as it should.

Visually, Antlers is stunning as a portrait of a town dying. And there are plenty of gruesome, hide-behind-your-eyes scenes to satisfy most genre fans. But it's Cooper's commitment to his characters and the performance of the film's two youngest leads that make Antlers more than just a movie about killer—well, you'll have to see for yourself.

It has the potential to be a cracking good comedy, and the trailer suggests as much. But in the end, all this proves is that you can distill two minutes of hilarity from 96 of meh.

I’m not sure why director Ricky Tollman would take a real story that practically writes itself and write something else. It’s hard to follow what he’s trying to say with Run This Town, but it’s said awkwardly, without much regard to reality. The cast are all engaging and terrifically talented. But the story they’re given is a narrative straitjacket that even the best actors couldn’t save.

Uncle Drew is a goodhearted broad comedy, one where you don’t have to know the players (under all that latex) to enjoy the game.

Minghella’s directorial debut is awash with mean girls, pretty boys, seizure-inducing club scenes, headache-inducing auto-tune, and a thin plot that unfolds (and ends) dizzyingly quickly.

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

Anniversary is a political thriller. No, make that an apolitical thriller. Directed and co-written by Jan Komasa, it’s a hot-button story where all the buttons have gone cold. I’ve been in airport elevators with more pep.

After 28 films, it’s incredible that Marvel studios has anything new to say, never mind the ability to be fresh and entertaining.

The Burnt Orange Heresy is more mysterious than mystery. Still, there are reveals best kept secret until the moment when they are intended to be dropped. Capotondi’s film requires patience, which may be problematic for those who don’t find discussions about art, truth, and the symbolic use of flies scintillating.

There’s a kind of wannabe-hip quality to it all, but by the end, we’ve been so hammered by quirk (and numbed by bloody deaths) that we’ve forgotten what motivated this glib daisy-chain of revenge in the first place.

Roth, in restricting himself to the polite requirements of a kid-friendly movie, keeps his darker instincts in check, making this more a movie about set design than emotions.

Anchored by a solid performance by Tom Hanks, Finch, is a small-scale drama, that is ultimately — and please forgive me for being cliché — about the beauty of being alive. I mean that in the best way possible.

If Lorne really is “the most boring” doc of the Oscar-winning Neville’s career, it’s only because his career bar is high. As it is, Lorne is a terrific backgrounder for devout fans of Saturday Night Live. Fairweather fans, on the other hand, might find it like an overlong sketch.

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.

Both a heist film and a revenge story, Ritchie’s Wrath of Man is the cinema equivalent of a hollow-point bullet. It’s not weighty, but it causes a lot of destruction.

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.

Havoc is a frenetic action movie with tons of in-your-face violence and it’s kind of fun to watch — the carnage is so exaggerated that it becomes cartoonish.

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.

There’s little sense of jeopardy, which makes the parade of violence nothing more than a detached spectator sport, with implications that are not good.

No doubt Henrik Kauffmann (Ulrich Thomsen), the Danish ambassador to the United States during Nazi-occupied Denmark, was good. But The Good Traitor, the pseudo-docudrama depicting his life is sadly not.

It’s the antic humour set against the retro décor that acts as a common meeting ground for youth and adults to enjoy Minions: The Rise of Gru together. It’s funny on both age levels.

For an animated character, Scarlet feels remarkably real.

There is a terrific movie to be made about the trial of Han Van Meegeren, one of the most successful art forgers in history, who made millions selling his paintings to rich and prominent Nazis during the Second World War. Unfortunately, The Last Vermeer isn’t it.

The crude if silly humour of the movie’s first 90 minutes is followed by a dollop of sentiment at the film’s end, resulting in a case of tonal whiplash... like a slap with a wet fish followed by a forced bear hug. No doubt Tag means to be a rude but heart-warming trifle, but it just isn’t funny enough to get past its awful taste.

The series still has lots of heart, but its quality is moving in the wrong direction.