It is almost as if Gibson is daring his audience to turn away from his opera of barbarity – but perversely, his violence is the only compelling element of Hacksaw Ridge. Perhaps ironically for a war film, the rest of it is mostly a draw.

A serene, existential experience from the Canadian filmmaker Alison McAlpine, who takes to Chile’s Atacama Desert to look both skyward and inward.

It’s naive to blame the current cancerous state of American politics on a single carcinogen, but don’t let that stop you from pointing fingers at Roger Ailes.

There's a line near the end of Without Limits that's meant to sum up the tragic flaw of the movie's hero: "He insisted on holding himself to a higher standard than victory." The same might be said of the movie itself, which refuses to adhere to the basic success formula of the sports bio-pic -- the familiar arc that moves from early success through character-forming struggle to eventual triumph. [25 Sep 1998, p.D9]

In a series of mini-rants with insights that range from the ho-hum to the profound, the sixtysomething Žižek, paunchy, bearded and bobbing his hands like a squirrel’s paws, rummages through what he calls the trash can of ideology.

Plays precariously close to an unfunny sociopathic case study.

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

What advance publicity has been powerless to suggest is that Personal Best is an exceptionally well-crafted, thoroughly accurate, emotionally galvanizing piece of filmmaking, easily one of the most intelligent explorations of competition on cinematic record. What's best about Personal Best is a lot more than just personal .[5 Feb 1982]

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.

You probably have a better chance of stuffing an octopus into a tea cup than capturing one of Dickens's fat novels in a two-hour movie.

Both shocking and beautiful, the film impresses itself on the viewer with the awesome scale of the imagery – and with the urgency behind it. We have entered an epoch in which human activity is shaping the planet more than any natural force. Anthropocene bears witness that something’s got to give.

The considerable charm of Mad Hot Ballroom can be traced directly to its choice of subjects. They happen to be 11-year old kids, and the lens loves every precious one of them.

The portrait of the artist might be a bit uncritically rosy; still, this is a compelling dance film that captures the drive and passion of a key figure in contemporary choreography.

It’s a thoughtful, brainy, deeply considered and artful film that arouses the intellect and the passions and grapples with the problems of democracy.

Bronson is one of those “based on a true story” dramatizations where the theatrically staged drama only gets in the way of the more interesting truth.

Not too surprisingly, Fincher doesn't bring his auteur A-game here, though his crafty B-game is better than most. As well, the break-out performance of Rooney Mara as the semi-feral computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, gives the film a residue of authentic anguish.

Although Von Trotta skips around Bergman’s filmography a bit haphazardly, and touches upon his romantic proclivities in a frustratingly brief manner, there’s little room to go wrong when a film is seemingly 50 per cent composed of Bergman’s own footage.

Given that his movie never gives us an opportunity to understand who these men are, it is hard to mourn them beyond a superficial fashion.

Mamet's stylized dialogue, elaborate plot puzzles and the angry cleverness of his characterization makes for an invigorating, if not exactly likeable, mix.

The plot contracts classically as it approaches its delectably bizarre climax but Desperately Seeking Susan never achieves the hilarity it promises; it's a pleasant enough picture, and it has a bona-fide look, but it lacks a style. It also lacks the qualities essential to farce - pace, verve, timing, surprise. [02 Apr 1985]

The lack of genuine slaughter in Badlands isn’t the film’s only problem. While it flips the franchise’s history by making the Yautja a hero instead of a villain . . . there is not nearly enough tension or world-building on display to become invested in this particular game of kill-or-be-killed.

I am, admittedly, its ideal viewer – I own enough books to last me several lifetimes – but that doesn’t change the fact that The Booksellers is a lovely documentary – contemplative and captivating. I finished the film and felt compelled to turn off the screen and pick up a book.

A satisfying adventure story with allegorical manifest-destiny allusions, The Hidden World reminds us that if butterflies were the size of horses, humans would surely ride them. And wouldn’t that be an awful thing? ​

I meant what I said And I said what I meant A flick pretty faithful 'Bout 80 per cent.

Does every generation of moviegoers get the Emma it deserves? If so, we are in a lucky moment.

Even in a season of apocalyptic films, these facts are really, really scary.

YET another movie about a woman who is Trouble, French director Louis Malle's lushly shot Damage wants to be Last Tango in Paris for the nineties, but it is structurally and psychologically so unsound - despite several excellent performances - that it is less arousing than soporific. [22 Jan 1993]

The characters in Wonderland show an intelligent complexity and sharpness of contemporary observation that transcends romantic-comedy clichés.