A thoughtful, unsurprising dramatic comedy executive produced by Jay and Mark Duplass. If you know the indie filmmaking siblings from their HBO show Togetherness, you will be comfortable with the wry, understated Adult Beginners.

With the notable exception of Martin Scorsese's opus, most boxing flicks suffer form a certain amount of raw-boned sentimentality, the sort of easy melodrama that pits naive underdogs against corrupt overlords, or age against youth, or purity against prejudice. Even the recent "Million Dollar Baby" succumbed in the final act. But this one, where "Rocky" meets "The Waltons," has us reeling under its saccharine weight.

The film ends with the mention of Schrager’s full pardon in 2017 by President Obama. If the discotheque was non-judgmental, so is the film.

Only occasionally does Fresnadillo rise above the mundane, but, to his credit, the exceptions are worth savouring.

Here’s how good an actor Bill Murray is. He does such a bristly, entertaining turn as a boozy curmudgeon in St. Vincent, that he saves first-time director Theodore Melfi’s obvious dramedy from sliding into a burbling sinkhole of schmaltz.

An almost really good movie...risks leaving the viewer feeling like one of the bewildered automatons that move through the plots.

The arc of Nazneen's character, from drudge to feminist heroine, is predictably saintly. Chanu is a far more intriguingly human figure, the redeemed fool.

A good stupid movie: an energetic send-up of a discredited genre that does for motorcycle movies, say, what Jonathan Demme's debut, the 1974 drive-in classic, "Caged Heat," did for chicks-in-prison flicks.

We’re primed to expect that the culture clash, when it comes, will be powerful and dangerous. Instead, the film suddenly backs down, and the resulting learning and growing feels like chickening out.

Rudderless is humane and almost entertaining. A crucial late plot development disrupts the predictability, instigates a third act and provides reason for watching.

If the arrival of Beowulf is any indication, movie actors will soon all be replaced by lifelike, digitally animated facsimiles. The good news is that some of them might still sound like John Malkovich.

To these disappointed eyes, Little Children seems a frustrating mess.

Rosewater is far too eager to please to play tough.

A bland Shaun Evans is woefully miscast as the brash American.

Ray rambles on for two hours and 40 minutes, mining repetitive episodes like a TV miniseries.

Thoughtful, if predictable, movie: set against the Soweto Uprising of 1976 (but shot in and around Harare, Zimbabwe), the picture proffers two families, one white and headed by schoolteacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland), the other black and headed by Ben's gardener, Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona). Both are devastated by apartheid, but to different degrees and for different reasons. [22 Sept 1989]

The result, like so many stout travellers from stage to screen, is respectable. Stolidly, bloodlessly, yawningly respectable.

Didn't we just see this movie? Over in Britain, big bad governments may be outsourcing his job and rendering him redundant, but never fear -- the plucky working-class hero has definitely found a steady gig on the silver screen.

A long, ambitious, fitfully rewarding movie, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is less about the gun-toting outlaws of the 1880s than the filmmaking outlaws of the 1970s.

Our time is plagued with primitive directors toiling in the name of entertainment, and protected by an industry that rewards competence over excellence. They're the reason why this movie is simply average, and why all the Red Dragons look so uniformly beige.

The story stands up pretty well for a movie that's about 20 minutes longer than it ought to be, and has few of the action-beats that action-film audiences have grown accustomed to.

Hartley gives us quirkiness in place of connection and usually forgets to put the thrill in the thriller, which is precisely what's endearing about this Amateur. [12 May 1995]

When it does get fun and gory, the moments end too quickly but provide enough gore and a few jump scares to leave you satisfied.

Great satire (read most anything by Swift) must be capable of doing more than preaching to the converted, and, measured by that lofty standard, Bob Roberts may fall a bit short. [18 Sep 1992]

In its second half, the movie tips into familiar Gallic farce territory before settling for a formulaic sentimental kicker. As middling comedies go, the French approach has certain virtues. If good wine and long talks with friends can't prevent the inevitable, at least they make the waiting more tolerable.

A contemplative fable, Honeydripper locates the moment but misses the heart-pounding, gut-wrenching explosion -- the history is there, the thrill isn't.

There is little chance for the movie's talented stars, Day Lewis and Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves) to establish and develop their characters, beyond their set-piece declarations of love.

Fanning acquits herself, but Amina’s story as a single mother of two and a survivor of brutal sexual violence is the far more necessary story to tell. A main romantic subplot is slighter still.

It’s shocking and troubling, but it doesn’t add much to the reality we already know cruelly exists.

With its visual splendour, The Beautiful Country is indeed lovely to behold, but its story of human misery and survival doesn't always benefit from the painstaking art direction, picturesque vistas and surges of dramatic music.

Rocky Balboa scores a split decision: A familiar start, some flat-footed middle rounds and a solid, flailing finish. And since Stallone has promised to throw in the towel on the franchise, we'll add an extra half star in honour of his diligence in the gym.

Both actors seem too callow and shallow to actually feel all those emotional raptures they are supposedly experiencing. This is a problem exacerbated by the talent of the supporting cast.

Despite these advantages, North Dallas Forty's descents into farce and into the lone man versus the corrupt system mentality deprive it of real resonance. It's still not the honest portrait of professional athletics that sport buffs have been waiting for. It is, though, a stylish cut above most films of this type. [4 Aug 1979]

It’s zippy and distracting enough to keep you and your brood entertained for half an afternoon, but don’t get too comfortable – I can see the soundtrack eventually grating if you ever find your kids demanding to watch it over and over again. Which is inevitable.

There's a generosity of spirit to Stuck on You that is a pleasure, even when the movie is slipshod.

Bardem gives the kind of stately, anchoring performance that can just about make up for any shortcomings the film might otherwise face.

Equal parts biopic, concert film and pep rally, the movie's 105 minutes do a good job of conveying the pleasures of pop, courtesy of the very real talents of Justin Bieber.

My mood kept fluctuating, as did my reaction when the end credits rolled: This is seriously lovely; this is fluff; this is seriously lovely fluff.

With a multiracial cast, an international spy-caper flick with "Mission Impossible" and John Woo overtones, and a series of comic turns, fantasy sequences and sly humour, it should be a fresh delight. Unfortunately, it's not.

Forsyth's trademark surprises are a little less fresh and a little more predictable than in Gregory's Girl: the entire enterprise, while not stale, is labored. [04 Mar 1983]

So what's the problem? Just that the plot seems a bit too schematic, the characters a little too pat, and the imagery altogether too convenient -- for a tale that means to explore the elusiveness of truth, Lemmons sure likes to sew things up neatly.

Entertaining but manipulative.

Don't abandon Abandon. In the movies' long weekly line-up, it stands apart -- innocent of banality, and guilty of nothing more damning than intelligent effort that falls a tad short.

While paying lip service to the spirit of invention and adventure, the movie doesn’t do much for the evolution of children’s animated entertainment.

The excellent cast (Moon Lee, Annie Chen, JC Lin, Pipi Yao, Ding Ning) inhabits rich inner lives, although the love hexagon they find themselves in could be comically described as the “man looking at other woman” meme writ large.

So what's surprising here isn't Polanski's choice of material but his utter failure to put any distinctive stamp on it.

Instead of connecting the film's action with Murphy's personal crisis, director John Badham (Saturday Night Fever) gives us several aerial dogfights which seem to be drawn out only for the sake of giving the audience a bigger bang for its buck. The pacing and camerawork are gripping, to be sure, but in the end Blue Thunder achieves only the excitement of a good action movie. [14 May 1983]

Even augmented by the priceless commodity of Smith's talent, $25,575 can only be stretched so far. Apparently, it won't buy you a stellar cast - some very strong lines receive some rather flat deliveries. And some distinctly lame scenes survive the chopping block.

Ford v Ferrari’s narrative and emotional beats feel assembled in a factory-floor kind of way. The characters are stock, the story’s ups and downs are easily telegraphed, and the inoffensive but not particularly inventive dialogue is spat up as if the actors were eager to move onto the next thing.

Ranks as one of the most elaborate, stunt- and effects-filled summer movies currently in the theatres. Unfortunately for its box-office prospects, it's also in Russian, which narrows its audience to action junkies with a foreign film bent.

Reset is remarkably undramatic – to both good and bad effect.

In horror movies, monsters often lose their power to terrify once they come fully into the frame. But as Rothstein reveals the full shape and size of an ogre that has slipped into our financial markets, just try to calm your growing dread.

Perhaps if Rossi had begun where he ends, with the bold assertion that this project is not about raising money for art but about using celebs to sell magazines, The First Monday in May might prove as enlightening as it is titillating. What does Rihanna get paid? We don’t know because, as a staffer names the actual sum, the filmmaker bleeps the words.

The whole affair seems curiously bloodless and often more torpid than torrid.

The film lacks the comic ingenuity of the best in CGI critter movies. It's not fun-for-the-whole-family, like "Shrek." Still, it's a howl and amazement for anyone under 12.

Can't spoil the ending, except to say that it spoils itself.

Like Majors’s chiselled physique, which is almost a special effect all its own, Magazine Dreams takes unironic pride in flexing its themes so nakedly and frequently that there’s little left to the imagination.

Far more than most action stars getting on in years, Bruce Willis has aged nicely into the role. Maybe it’s that shaved pate of his, a bullet-head that still looks primed for any chamber.

If the action is graphic and immediate, other aspects of the movie are inexcusably bad.

The picture is as tastefully pretty as its girls, and just as motionless.

A con-artist movie that is something of a con itself.

Perhaps this multilingual, almost-pre-AIDS idyll does not stretch credulity – the family is surely based on Aciman’s own internationalist clan – but it can try the patience.

The pleasant surprise is Brosnan. Actually, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's seen "The Matador" or "After the Sunset." The former Remington Steele and James Bond is maturing nicely and choosing some complex scripts to show off his acting chops.

Evil isn't a matter of banality in The China Syndrome; it's a barracuda in a three-piece suit. The film is thus weakened both politically and esthetically. The weakness does not stand in the way of the movie's cumulative effect, which is to weaken the knees, but as you make your way out of the theatre, knee-caps clicking like castanets, you may stop to wonder what kind of shape you'd be in if the one-eyed king's vision had been bifold.[24 March 1979]

Perhaps the harshest criticism of the new German film The Edukators is that it doesn't make you feel any better edukated.

What should have been the trickiest parts of this enterprise – elucidating the warm relationship between Essrog (Norton) and Minna (Bruce Willis), and Essrog’s Tourette syndrome – Norton handles with aplomb. The rest is a murky mess, unnecessarily dense and confusing for two hours, and then in the last 20 minutes, way too obvious.

Despite its unique premise, Eat Wheaties! is easy to embrace.

Facial prosthetics, Inside Hoops humour and "Barbershop"-styled trash talk ensue. Pepsi is one of film’s producers, but painkiller Aleve gets better product placement. Spare some for the arthritic plot, please.

Down in the Valley is one of those pictures you root for even when it goes badly wrong.

The Butler may be a sanctimonious cartoon, but it points to events in the civil rights struggle that were as grotesque and extraordinary as any fiction can invent.

Isn't exactly what you'd call fresh. But although it borrows ingredients from many familiar Christmas flicks, it's got a sly twinkle of its own.

Ferdinand is not going to be the next "Frozen" or "Lion King" or even the fourth or fifth "Ice Age" movie, but there's a reason the story is still being told some 81 years after it was first published. Its lessons – be true to yourself, go your own way, and don't let society tell you what you should or shouldn't be – are just as applicable today as they were then. And that's no pile of bull.

A drawing-room murder mystery that had some extremely funny moments. [24 June 1978]

With a plot focus on the exotic, ever-more anachronistic Edwardian manners and mores occasioned by royal protocol, it’s like a crossover episode with "The Crown."

The film is an unremarkable exercise in craft dedicated to a thoroughly remarkable artist – the tale is sublime, the telling only serviceable.

In a contest between passion and pretension, Laurence Anyways reaches a kind of draw. What holds up here isn’t Dolan’s overly decorative filmmaking, but what he gets from his performers.

Overall, The Salt of Life has more bite but less charm than "Mid-August Lunch."

The foundation of a much better movie is buried somewhere beneath the debris that’s too quickly piled on to The Kings of Summer, but there’s something at least strangely organic in its abandonment of a sturdier architectural project.

Of course, this is social satire and some bits are very funny...but the message is too obvious and the humour too gentle for the whole affair not to feel like so much white male whining.

Antibirth follows in the tradition of "Alien," "Prometheus" and "Rosemary’s Baby" rejoicing in an abject fear of childbirth. Lovers of horror will likely be into this fertile homage and will appreciate Perez’s new takes on horror’s tried-and-true tropes and plot twists.

Postcards From The Edge, is long on witty one-liners but woefully short on coherent structure. [13 Sep 1990, p.C5]

Shag bounces through elements of farce and satire, music and romance without straining too hard and with a few more laughs than one would expect from a picture that seems patched together from such a wide variety of genre films. Like a perfect Southern belle, Shag is smarter and funnier than you expect it to be, but never smarter and funnier than it has to be.[21 July 1989]

The film lays emotions on thick, with strong performances and dreamy cinematography. The high points are devastating and show off Chon’s empathetic storytelling. But at its ebb, the film tries to do too much at once, spilling every which way.

The Canyons is actually anything but gratuitously sensational. On the contrary, it’s rather restrained, even conservative affair, far more interested in expositional conversation and a sustained tone of bleached-out melancholy than cranking up the heat.

So when it comes to rawness, realness or any other signifier of urban authenticity, Step Up 2 The Streets doesn't measure up, especially when compared with a grittier dance flick still in theatres, the Toronto-made "How She Move."

Watchable as ever.

Here, Soderbergh's visual additions -- gimmicky lighting, surreal backdrops, all cued to the monologue's changing rhythms -- are more distracting than enhancing. Or maybe not. In a way, the camera's empty gimmickry points to the same tendency in Gray's verbal canters -- diverting enough but, ultimately, isn't it just sleight-of-mouth? [18 April 1997, p.C5]

Co-directed by James D. Stern (who made another NBA promotional documentary, "Michael Jordan to the Max") and Adam Del Deo, the story of the Americanization of Yao is determinedly upbeat.

Constant is the very thing The Constant Gardener is not. Attractive yet fickle, the movie beckons enticingly one moment and wanders off the next.

Would that the movie had gone the next step, and possibly imagined that this bright, shiny little E.T. had figured out how to get kids to do its sinister work for him by providing free WiFi and endless smartphone upgrades in exchange for undying loyalty, we might have had something altogether different on our hands.

Not woeful, not wonderful, merely watchable.

Clichés abound and you think you know where this is going. But in her feature debut, Canadian director Lina Roessler manages some genuine surprises. Caine is wonderful, Plaza is charming. The film has its moments, but one for the books this ain’t.

Begin Again is a not-entirely-successful movie about not selling out; it’s a theme that must concern Carney deeply.

The plot could have benefited from some sort of subversion – something to make the familiar trope of a dysfunctional family wedding a little less predictable.

The Face is her face, the mannerisms are her mannerisms and Miss Dunaway manages magnificently to depict a woman whose acting off- screen is no better than her acting on.This is theoretically a modern horror movie about mother love but it is actually one of the funniest movies about how not to make a movie ever made. [25 Sept 1981]

With the zippy (if slightly confusing) animated feature Henchmen, the stooges and underlings of the world unite – literally, in the Union of Evil.

Despite its explosive subject matter, the movie has been carefully calibrated not to offend anybody.

This carefully massaged doc, with its spectacular aerial views of the landscape and the hunt, is a heartwarming story about perseverance and talent – if you believe it.