There’s some reward in watching good performers working to bring veracity to these awkward and artificial scenarios.

The good in the movie is overwhelmed by its by-the-numbers approach to its story. There’s not enough in Bigger to make a fan out of non-fans of body building, and there’s enough wrong to turn off the real fans.

Returning director Patrick Hughes and screenwriters Tom O’Connor, Phillip Murphy, and Brandon Murphy count too much on star charisma and action set-ups to carry the narrative. The result is that the smirks are mild and scattered while the bloodshed, gun fights, and explosions are relentless.

The visuals are impressive. But looks aren’t everything. In spite of the obvious care and affection that has gone into this remake, the movie itself is emotionally flat.

As written by Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino (who also directs), there is precious little going on beneath that alabaster exterior. One can only have characters ask each other “What are you thinking?” so many times before it feels as though the question is being begged.

It’s a mess of a plot and a literal trainwreck of a denouement. No faulting the destruction scenes, since they’re in Leitch’s wheelhouse, and as they say, every dollar is on the screen in that regard. But to paraphrase a quote from the late character actor Edmund Gwenn, killing is easy, comedy is hard.

There’s a sense that the film is attempting to navigate a sort of Atom Egoyan-like exploration of the ripple effects of trauma but it stumbles over a mishmash of a screenplay — the clumsy fragmentary flashbacks, the rushed climax and time-jumping, cross-cutting wind-up — none of which are improved by David Fleming and Hans Zimmer’s generic thriller score.

A conceptual mess if a somewhat engaging one.

Visually drab, tonally flat, and with precious few sympathetic or relatable characters, Brothers by Blood reduces the high-minded concept of filial loyalty across multiple generations to a paint-by-numbers power play.

Purcell’s performance and ambition in reframing this foundational Australian tale are admirable. But her version of the story would be more resonant if it held more mystery and less message.

The First Purge has a lot of narrative and unsubtle subtext to cram into a movie that’s barely 90 minutes long. In fact, its big, violent finish notwithstanding, a lot of it is quite dull and its pacing inconsistent.

Even with its decent performances and polished production values, Persian Lessons never clears the hurdle of its improbable premise, an idea that could serve as the setup for a bad-taste Mel Brooks’ sketch.

What works as edgy comedy is determined by what you can get away with. Having introduced depression and virtual incest, I Love My Dad just isn’t adroit enough to find a credible happy ending escape hatch.

There’s nothing here that sparks surprise. The film remains mechanical and stilted, like some grim combination of taxidermy and ventriloquism.

Werewolves is of the small-movie variety, and I wish it were better. Alas, it’s not quite stupid enough to be a guilty pleasure, and not quite good enough to be an innocent one.

Push feels like a long joke waiting for a punchline that never lands. Or worse, one that makes you feel stupid for not getting it, even though the setup was never quite clear to begin with.

There’s a list of pros and cons for this stop-motion animation collaboration between Jordan Peele and Henry Selick that merit the attention it got at TIFF this past September. But sadly, Wendell & Wild is just not wild enough.

Watching the movie Here is a bit like eating a Big Mac — it’s all fine and inoffensive in the moment, but you don’t want to look too closely or think about it too much afterward.

A reality-based hillbilly thriller that can’t decide what flavour of noir to serve up, Above Suspicion is one of those curious failures that the current appetite for home streaming often rescues from theatrical limbo.

This Hellboy looks like the real Hellboy, but its heart and soul have gone AWOL.

Norwegian director Joachim Rønning (who co-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) offers nothing unexpected here, in what amounts to a complicated exercise in paint-by-numbers movie-making.

Yakuza Princess is a passable actioner with a few memorable scenes, the highlight of which is a fight in a karaoke bar (yes, MASUMI gets the chance to sing). But it’s unable to get beyond a level of mediocrity, and MASUMI’s performance fails to resonate with the sufficient conviction required of her role.

Please Baby Please has one thing going for it: A chance to watch gifted actors do some daredevil freestyling. In moments, it’s almost enough.

A bawdy comedy about male strippers that lives up to mediocre expectations, Back On the Strip is directed and co-written by Chris Spencer who has previously worked with the Wayan Brothers comedy team.

The Dalai Lama is, no doubt, intellectually curious. But the argument that Buddhism’s mental practices are consistent with scientific thinking has been around for more than a century. We also know that hosts of people, scientists included, swear to the mental and physical benefits of meditation.

The confrontations involve a lot of prolonged, quasi-slapstick bullet-spraying firefights, which are hard on windows… and on viewers’ patience.

Plane is a mild diversion that carries more baggage than necessary, a forgettable thriller pieced together from a collage of other films and ideas.

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.