Some movies deal with the settling of the American West as mythic. And then there are films like writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, which strips it down to its basics for a more human scale and poetic vision of the Western era.

Self-assured kid actor Coleman and the always-funny Schaal give My Spy some personality, but can we please retire this worn-out idea?

Within the frame of an old-fashioned stab-and-splatter exploitation flick, The Hunt is consistently smartish.

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).

It would be swell if there was a way of describing Bloodshot that unscrambled its plot while making it sound staggeringly cool but… well, we can’t all be superheroes. Neat effects though, which maybe are the most important thing in a sci-fi actioner?

The mostly non-professional cast do a credible job of depicting a family growing progressively more anxious under increasing pressure.

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.

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.

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.

Despite evoking a lot of previous pop-cultural touchstones (including Harry Potter, Shrek and even Weekend at Bernie’s), the nerd-minded, fast-moving Onward has wit, eye-catching anachronisms and imaginative actio

It’s not so much whether The Jesus Rolls fails. It does, but how much it fails depends on how amped up your expectations are going into the movie.

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.

Beanpole makes you feel its two-hour-plus running time, with drawn-out scenes full of off-centre framing and claustrophobic close-ups, but there’s an exhilaration in the audacity of the filmmaking, as the boldness of its portrayal of the survival drive.

It’s a rare thing to see a movie about failure that a) is plays like a gentle rom com, and b) is not about utter neurosis. But Standing Up, Falling Down is a small sweet, slightly flawed movie that is both of those things.

There’s enough of Austen’s generous social vision and her character-revealing dialogue to make this watchable but Emma. takes a long time to connect emotionally.

Middleton plays Abby with a pleasing note of vulnerability that is often supplanted by a nagging anticipation she’ll tip off the edge. She and Gross have smooth chemistry as estranged sisters.

The Call of the Wild is aiming to be an old-fashioned adventure movie for family viewing, and it delivers the requisite big warm cinematic hug. And more than being the story of a dog finding his inner wolf and fulfilling his destiny, it’s also an homage to the natural world. And that, wrapped in the adventures of a dog, is a pretty wonderful thing.

Suffice to say, this is all getting explained when scary things could actually be happening. My “FUN-tasy” throughout was that the credits would roll.

This isn’t a film that suddenly bursts out at you. Sciamma, like her characters, works by restraining everything. She doesn’t rush the story or focus on a building sense of hunger or passion. The title notwithstanding, the movie is a slow burn, not a fire.

Rabid is a suitable entry into the science-fiction/horror genre that occasionally slants towards the promise of offering something more. And while the film’s science-fiction/horror elements don’t disappoint, the promise of something more doesn’t quite pull through.

A compact drama with outsize emotional heft, The Assistant is propelled as much by what it doesn’t show as what it does.

A solid, if not revelatory portrait of contemporary Russia through the story of exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The Traitor is a pleasure to watch. Working with cinematographer Vladan Radovic, Bellocchio blends sweeping camera work and flurries of action with painterly lighting and often ironic musical cues. The story itself is somewhat over-stuffed — the time-jumping narrative (Bellochio and three other writers are credited) and an onscreen counter of murder victims — but this is still a welcome chance to see a great old school European auteur at work.

This is not art, it’s not brooding, it doesn’t offer any relevant commentary, it’s not even a refreshingly feminist take on an overtly masculine saturated movie-industry. It’s a loud, sometimes disjointed, mildly convoluted, ultra-violent comic-book adventure that moves at a break-neck speed. And, if you stick with it, it’s loads of fun.

What starts out as a promising comic thriller deflates quickly as it becomes clear we’re just here for the gore.

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.

We’re gripped by the tension of Greene’s tautly calibrated performance, as a mother performing a daily high-wire act, trying to keep her family together and her children from harm.

The Rhythm Section is especially disappointing given its strong cast in front of and behind the scenes and its obvious ambition to rise above a paint-by-numbers action film with a somewhat relatable protagonist.