At once an enjoyable genre ride and a feminist art house story, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts might send some heads rolling but has its own head firmly on its shoulders.

This doc seeks the vulnerability in subjects who live in pursuit of iron-man ideals many of us find ridiculous.

As a movie it's OK, with very little worth raving about. As a story and message, though, it feels important and worth getting out there in as swift and mainstream a way as possible. Better to inspire some institutional change and maybe save a few lives than to be hailed as art.

Despite Barrett's careful attention to creating an unsettling mood of existential horror by loading the soundtrack with ambient dread, and his depiction of New York as a breeding ground for overstimulated instability, Brain on Fire just sits there, inert and uninvolving.

This story about the reunion, following a 35-year abandonment, of a mother and daughter, marvelously played by Spanish actors Susi Sanchez and Barbara Lennie, respectively, is slow but never ponderous, clear in its outlines but never simplistic, and elegantly crafted without being stifling.

The film simply fails to provide much reason for nonfans to particularly care about the rise to cult stardom of the Rhode Island-birthed group.

That the film works at all is due to the performances of Smollett-Bell, who is natural and appealing, and Pierce, who infuses his low-key portrayal with his usual deep soulfulness. But their fine efforts are not enough to lift the mediocre One Last Thing above its basic cable-level veneer.

The film is, at its strongest, an inspiring sensory immersion in that performance, one in which the (mostly unidentified) plants are the stars. A complex, dimensional portrait of Oudolf never quite emerges, though, and the brief doc, however lovely, lacks an essential dynamism that would make it truly compelling.

The film fails to provide many practical solutions to the problems it identifies. Still, it’s an effective piece of agitprop suffused with sadness over the decline of a rich part of the American heritage.

Tag is neither bad nor good, but rather, despite its out-there story, almost numbingly ordinary: an easy, breezy action-com that’s sometimes amusing but rarely funny, competent rather than inspired.

Beyond the obvious complaints about objectification of women, this second feature from the Canadian who calls himself Director X is just a bore.

Travolta is a lively presence in some scenes, talking in a rowdy New Yawka accent and tossing off a few good lines early on. (The highlight being: "If I robbed a church and had the steeple sticking out of my ass, I would deny it.") But he can do little to bring this tedious and episodic chronicle to life.

Boosted by central characters that remain vastly engaging and a deep supply of wit, Incredibles 2 certainly proves worth the wait, even if it hits the target but not the bull's eye in quite the way the first one did.

It's the female performers who steal the show, especially Whitman as the uber-confident Zelda and Alexander as the girlfriend who tolerates Bernard's immaturity even while calling him out for it.

Director Shackleton stages the ultra-violent mayhem with reasonable proficiency but little flair or imagination. And the less said about the dialogue...the better.

Lorna Tucker's documentary profiling famed fashion designer Vivienne Westwood displays a genuine tension between the filmmaker and her subject that initially proves intriguing. Unfortunately, that tension soon dissipates, and all that's left is a much too cursory portrait of a figure whose fascinating life and career should have led to a more interesting film.

A brief but informative look at a crucial chapter in the fight for marriage equality in America.

Half the Picture is a vital, comprehensive documentary on a subject that's so fundamental to the industry it's about, you have to wonder why dozens of movies on this scale or bigger haven't already been made.

This is the second feature from Pakistani-Norwegian filmmaker Iram Haq, but unfortunately it lacks the nuance and insight of her impressively poignant yet controlled debut feature, I Am Yours.

The flavorful cast inhabit vividly drawn characters, and, perhaps most of all, the film exudes wall-to-wall, high-grunge atmosphere. That’s a lot of checked-off boxes, and yet the effect is efficiently wild rather than wildly involving, entertaining but not indelible.

This is a self-satisfied exercise that's only occasionally as much fun as it thinks it is.

Part of the film is a realistic drama about two men in love with the same woman but because they are both involved in illegal activities, the negative tension between them gives rise to several jungle setpieces that are real nail-biters

The picture is mildly unsettling even if its ingredients don't add up to as much as they promise to.

An intriguingly structured, multilayered road movie in which an ordinary working-class dude looks back over a nation-wandering decade of his life, this second collaboration by the writer-directors is a cumulatively engrossing and ultimately very moving work of clear-eyed political intent.

Bayona not only nods to the histories of classic monster movies and the legacy of original Jurassic helmer Steven Spielberg; he brings his own experience to bear, treating monsters like actual characters and trapping us in a vast mansion that's as full of secrets as the site of his breakthrough 2007 film The Orphanage.

Following a thoroughly predictable rom-com template to thoroughly satisfying effect in a manner rarely seen in Australian cinema since Strictly Ballroom, Ali's Wedding hits all the beats while deftly capturing the tensions of the first-generation immigrant, torn between the norms of the country he calls home and those espoused by his family.

Beyond a few scattered insights, Quest mostly remains on the surface of someone it portrays as a kind of culinary Prometheus, all the while failing to justify why that should be the case. It's like a tasting menu that never really turns into a full meal.

Presumably intended for Jackass fans desperately in search of a plot, Action Park makes a typical episode of America's Funniest Home Videos look sophisticated by comparison.