Glassland is a small film with an emotional punch that wallops above its weight class.

Budreau constructs with imagination and pleasing fluidity, painting a portrait with a soft, sympathetic focus while steering clear of worship.

This is a near-masterpiece, an intimate and nerve-wracking shocker that deserves as big an audience as the mystery box can conjure.

Its war scenes are plenty thrilling, but the film’s real achievement is its quiet authenticity.

The dialogue is sour, the politics problematic (Broadway veterans as Afghan locals? Why not?!), and the sentiments sometimes eye-rolling. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, indeed.

Zootopia takes the cultural practice of posing animals as human characters to queasy new heights.

Like a Chinese Balzac, Jia expertly balances the micro and the macro, the onrush of the new and the tug of tradition here, blanketing the proceedings with a pall of melancholy as palpable as the smog over Beijing.

While The Wave doesn’t quite match the saga of, say, The Impossible from 2012, it’s a film absolutely worth catching.

The film is a popcorn-crowd pleaser, but a “yippee ki-yay” or two away from something more memorable.

A Perfect Day, the first English-language feature from the Spanish director Fernando Leon de Aranoa, is in many ways a remarkable film: a taut, darkly comic drama about the dilemmas of international intervention in civil war, all of it neatly symbolized by one elusive length of rope. It is also, sadly, a film much marred by its sexism.

It’s frequently funny and entertaining enough, but its insights are far from revolutionary.

It is a rare biopic of any kind, let alone a sports bio, that merely celebrates participation. It’s that novelty that makes this simple comedy shine.

It’s all quest, flash and high action.

Though compelling in the acting and cinematography, Triple 9’s plot is by the numbers and about nothing.

A butterfly metaphor is employed by the time-flipping Takahata, a filmmaker whose delightful Only Yesterday took 25 years to arrive right on time.

Even with Pablo Larrain’s signature insights hidden in quiet and seemingly simple dialogue, and even with hints of his trademark dark humour, The Club may be one of the Chilean director’s most disturbing films.

Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra’s reimagining of the lives of lost peoples is compelling, but, despite many languorous images of river and jungle, this remains a bookish examination of the themes.

Dalio’s script doesn’t always flow as smoothly as the camera work, but an air of calm authenticity should leave audiences touched, in a good way.

Any hope that the clever concept behind Risen might produce a clever movie is thrown to the ground, where it lies quivering for the next hour or so, before expiring noisily in the film’s second half.

Having managed Berlin rather gracefully, Race often plods along the home front.

Disturbing and taut, Eggers’s direction is almost without fault. His only mistake lies in the film’s final 30 seconds, where all the implied horror of the family’s plight becomes just a shade too explicit.

The colourful film of course is allegorical: Peace is tough and tedious; war is an easy solution. And while the kids’ enthusiasm for battle wanes, pint-sized audiences will likely remain engaged.

The comedy is sophomoric and sort-of spoofy; satire happens here and there.

The filmmakers score half a point for at least avoiding the old “hero-who’s-constantly-filming” device, but fail to add anything else to the proceedings, except, perhaps, the movie’s unique setting.

There’s nothing subtle about The Finest Hours, but much that is satisfying.

From a sympathetic perspective, let me say that sequel No. 3 shows how difficult it is to keep these franchises fresh while remaining true to their initial charm.

[An] occasionally cute romantic comedy.

The Choice’s best attractions are the talented Benjamin Walker and the watery, small-town North Carolina scenery.

Smith is never more beloved than when she plays just this sort of curmudgeon. Happily for the movie, Bennett’s Lady is the cantankerous one the performer was most born to play.

Comparisons of Janis: Little Girl Blue have been made to Asif Kapadia’s touching 2015 documentary on singer Amy Winehouse, but in Amy we don’t see a subject as remorseful as the Joplin presented by Berg.

Steers can compose and capture a shot fine enough, but seems otherwise bored to be here. Each of his scenes collide lazily against the next; transitions are rushed and often ugly, and the director never seems to know what emotions he should be steering his cast toward.

Isaac pulls a full Tom Hardy by adopting a weirdo voice, awkward mannerisms and unknown motivations in a bid to give life to a villain who is, in his own words, pure “motiveless malignancy.” It doesn’t work, nor does anything else in this so-bad-it’s-good-no-wait-still-bad mess from William Monahan.

There’s lots of wisdom here, but in the Icelandic barrens, good cheer has sometimes gone missing. Yes, there’s a price to pay for being stubborn.

The film’s bizarre, gore-soaked premise actually manages to ease viewers into the far more uncomfortable topic of grief – after all, dying is easy, but living with death is much more complicated.

It’s short on personal details and instead focuses on the performer’s vocation. And when the concert footage slows the doc’s energy down, Mavis’s zest adds buoyancy to the proceedings.

How to Be Single at least marshals its surfeit of incident in service of a point of view that prizes individual fulfillment – in whatever form that may take – over idealized portrayals of courtship and coupledom. However clumsily delivered, it remains a message worth taking to heart.

Zoolander 2 feels like a hasty collection of last-minute comedy panic attacks.

First-time feature director Tim Miller has created a work that’s both aggressive and not aggressive enough.

Goldstein...is excellent in the role, rendering Edith’s monstrous ambition with relatable (and frequently terrifying) conviction.

In short, there are an awful lot of subplots and comic characters but none of the actors in this star-studded cast is allowed to build his laughs and the Coens just abandon several of these vivid personalities along the way.

A magical and often bleak parable about societal clashes.

Topical ideas on humanity, mistrust and alien-as-immigrant metaphors are a plus, but a laughable romance and a ridiculous wrap-up render the film as only a staging ground for the next two parts of the trilogy to come.

It’s the direction, not the script, that really kills the picture, as Mazer limps along from the chugging contest to the half-naked conga line to the car chase without ever raising the laughs he needs from the comic set pieces or the tension he needs from the dramatic developments.

Gomes believes we should all take responsibility for one another and sees austerity as a government abrogation of social duty that ultimately turns citizen against citizen.

Labelling his film as a response to the impoverishment of ordinary people caused by the government-imposed austerity of 2013-14, Gomes explains his dilemma brilliantly at the start of Volume 1. How is a well-meaning filmmaker to effectively render the pain of the Portuguese with a documentary set in a town where the shipyard has closed just as alien wasps are attacking local beehives?

Arabian Nights is a remarkable achievement, but also an erratic one.

The screen, always Bergman’s supreme medium, is proof of the power of her magnetic and energetic presence. It shines through in even the grainiest, jumpy, out-of-focus home-movie footage.

Yes, the filmmaker and co-director Duke Johnson laboured for years over this project, and their set design is often astonishing. But that doesn’t mean the film is a masterpiece, or even half a masterpiece.

Hart’s irritating character desperately seeks approval, but his idiocy is too much. The comedian makes Jerry Lewis look like Benedict Cumberbum – and if you think that line is funny, Ride Along 2 is your kind of jam.

It’s a complicated story that requires digging deep into uncomfortable questions about ballet’s rigid aesthetic standards and the economics and availability of training. George doesn’t give it the depth or analysis it requires.

It could be a cautionary fable about the predatory hypocrisy of any patriarchy, of any community predominantly defined by social conservatism.

[A] fascinating documentary.

Norm of the North will occupy the attention of young audiences while getting a message across to them about the dangers of humans going where they don’t belong. Older audiences are less well served; they’ll just have to grin and bear it.

Bay has attempted to carefully characterize and humanize each member of the security force, and Krasinski, Dale and Schreiber are largely successful at creating personable fighters.

If you’re up for mild startles and unchallenging entertainment, a trip into The Forest should be right up your alley, if not your path.

The film is made watchable by a strong cast that renders the men’s vulnerability particularly sympathetic.

Fortunately, Sisters doesn’t collapse into total absurdity in the same way that many house-party movies do – the film is slapstick and at moments teeters on the edge of too much, but it quickly snaps back before losing its audience.

Lutz and fellow operative Carano are as warm and responsive as Ping-Pong paddles, batting lines back and forth lifelessly.

If his direction is erratic, the script he wrote with Annie Mumolo (Bridesmaids) has gaps you could drive a truck through and dialogue filled with painfully obvious exposition of plot, motive and theme.

For all the talk of Smith’s strong performance, one wonders if the subject matter couldn’t have been tackled with less sentimentality and heartfelt biography.

Daddy’s Home is not the world of Peak Ferrell, where jokes fly fast and absurdism rules the day. Instead, it is a land of predictable punchlines, easy sight gags and easier paycheques.

“Bodhi,” in Sanskrit, is short for “being of wisdom.” In Hawaii, “Keanu” means “cool mountain breeze.” And, in Hollywood, Point Break means never having to bother with a plausible plot.

The Big Short has a reckless, off-balance energy, with an ending that doesn’t really end the uncertainty: The collapse could happen again, no joke.

Tarantino is a masterful storyteller, painter of cinematic images and director of actors; the script, the cinematography and the cast of outlandish characters, created by a powerful ensemble dashingly led by Jackson, can’t be faulted in any way.

It tells a well-crafted story; the new characters are invigorating; the old characters are reintroduced tidily. But it is also far too enamoured with the power of its own history.

At the heart of the problem with this period piece is an absence of a riveting scene or a memorable slice of dialogue.

There are unresolved questions and puzzling detours along the way, but Bikes vs Cars does show that cars, millions and millions of stationary cars, may yet prove the bike’s best friend.

More manipulative, maudlin trash from the Disney-Pixar content farm.

McGuigan’s visually vivid Victor Frankenstein races to its lightning-storm finish, running over the solid (if not electrifying) acting of McAvoy and Radcliffe.

For the first time in the series, Stallone did not write the script, yet director Ryan Coogler and his co-writer Aaron Covington aren’t exactly brimming over with fresh ideas: Worn thin with repetition, the sentimental old premise muffles suspense and dampens emotion.

It is almost criminal, though, that the end of this otherwise game-changing franchise full of bloodthirsty and complex women concludes on a painfully trite note – the strides made by all four films are undercut by Part 2’s underwhelming and hokey epilogue.

As millions watching the eventual rescue understood, the strength of those miners and the unlikely hope of their families, was utterly captivating. Their survival moved me deeply then and, with The 33, it still does now.

Spotlight is not about fiery performances or thrilling set-pieces – it’s simply a tight and captivating look at professionals who excel at their jobs, and who legitimately care about making a difference. Sometimes, that’s more than enough.

In a big, engrossing performance that is the film’s chief delight, the reliable Australian actress Toni Collette plays Milly.

The Peanuts Movie is a sloppy mash-up of disconnected vignettes and rehashed jokes, all lazily reverse-engineered from the premise that a Peanuts movie is a thing that people will like and will happily pay to see.

A Bond movie is all about delivering on expectations: to enjoy it you have to be pleased rather than frustrated by its predictability. In that regard, Spectre, Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as Bond and the second directed by Sam Mendes, can be deemed a solid success: not as darkly stylish as "Skyfall" but not as stupidly grim as "Quantum of Solace" either.

Unusual for a Holocaust drama, the film offers no false hope of rescue or resurrection, but does insist that our bearing witness matters.

The Last Witch Hunter is redeemed through complex visual-effects work that aptly illuminates Goodman’s netherworld. Further, Diesel’s stolid performance is balanced through the supporting star power of Caine – even with criminally limited scenes – and Rose Leslie’s “dream walker,” whose earnestness makes even the world of a macho witch hunter seem entirely plausible.

Room is a film of tiny little miracles.

It thrills because Constantine, a noted British photographer, shows instead of tells.

While the gender-based farmhouse siege is suspenseful and bloody, director Daniel Barber weighs in too heavily with extended silences that slow down the goings-on of a film that has darkly lit tension, lovely scenery and fiercely presented ideas on feminism.

Every scene is perfectly framed, every symbol lovingly shot, but the story and the characters remain opaque.

Condescending, self-righteous and sloppy, Truth is simply a bad film for which there are no excuses.

With no cutaways, the film’s story and the momentum of the unlikely robbers seems as unstoppable as the camera. The characters are confused, adrenalinized and breathless, as are you. Because the deal feels real.

Some will criticize the director’s choice to recount a collective struggle through just one individual, but Mulligan’s performance, coupled with a solid script by Abi Morgan, shows us just how much is at stake when a woman decides to wage war.

The film, as entertaining as it is, doesn’t exactly further a genre that has been stale since the success of 2013 rom-zom-com Warm Bodies.... What’s promising about Scouts Guide, though, are its unlikely heroes.

Although rich in cast, the bad-boy-chef dramedy Burnt is unremarkable otherwise.

It’s the kind of film that can’t even bother to commit to its own cynicism, which makes it the most deeply cynical kind of film there is.

The wide swerve of Anderson’s associations, their “hypnotic splattered mist,” don’t make for an easy film. But it is a very good one and only the hardest heart will leave the theatre unmoved.

Baby it’s a wild film, but not Murray’s best and not Levinson’s either.

Guillermo del Toro’s latest dive into the darkness is a sumptuous, beautifully constructed tale that feels both archaic and inviting.

The ever-reliable Hanks sympathetically personifies all in America that is worth fighting for, while his British colleague’s surprisingly comic version of Rudolf Abel portrays the Russian spy as a man quietly steadfast in his loyalty to a different cause.

In fashioning a creation myth for Peter Pan, director Joe Wright and writer Jason Fuchs have produced such a thin story that they reduce, rather than amplify, J.M. Barrie’s famous characters.

Listen to Me Marlon is an offer so intimate that no film fan should refuse.

The acting is uniformly strong and the camera work is winningly claustrophobic, but the film is one note.

The Green Inferno offers up extreme gore, unlikable characters and seriously confused themes (is it a pro-environment film, an ode to imperialism, a satire of social-justice warriors or a poorly sketched combination of all three?).

Hotel Transylvania 2 is what you might call frivolously scary: scary by mistake, or scary for no reason.

We’re not sure what sister and brother ultimately learned about their much different sibling, and one is left with the feeling the trip was more in service of the film’s narrative than a dream-fulfilling jaunt for Tom.