The film should prove catnip to music lovers, especially blues fans.

One of the most unsettling things about Queen is how awkwardly it tackles all this painful, historical material: it’s as though Trueba’s script knows that homage must be paid to it, but it feels shoehorned in.

It intends to introduce novelty to its overfamiliar setup, but uneven casting and a very thin script get in the way.

This is yet another hyper-competent, boyishly devil-may-care character that offers Cruise, famous for his derring-do on set, a chance to do his own stunts and fly a plane; it’s not a role all that far out of the ageing megastar’s wheelhouse.

The sadistic horror comedy Safe Neighborhood is the kind of film that’s tough to categorize but easy to enjoy, especially if you like watching teenagers do some very twisted things for the holiday season.

Pilgrimage alternates long stretches of tedium with ultra-violent sequences that have the feel of medieval torture porn.

The intriguingly bonkers premise rests somewhat soundly on matters of climate change, overpopulation and genetic engineering, but its most burning question is “Are seven Noomi Rapaces better than one?” To which the answer is a resounding “Sure, why not?”

Its central conceit is so nonsensical that even devoted horror buffs may balk.

The question mark at the end of the title becomes the most salient issue that the film considers, but don’t expect the Dalai Lama to provide a simplistic resolution. Although as warm and compassionate as ever, his quiet wisdom reminds us that there are still some mysteries that most of us remain unprepared to contemplate.

Sadly, the ambitious film never approaches the gravitas that helped the Lord of the Rings films involve us in their mythology.

In unexpected and wonderfully satisfying ways, A Taxi Driver taps into the symbiotic relationship between foreign correspondents and locals, particularly in times of crisis.

Heartfelt, if not entirely satisfying, Walk With Me provides an up-close glimpse of the life of devotion, focusing on the monks and nuns who live at a rural monastery led by Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Untaxing as drama, thin as entertainment, but modestly enjoyable as a revved-up caper movie, Overdrive is pure escapist fluff with a light French accent. Which still makes it smarter, leaner and cooler than any of the Fast and the Furious films it shamelessly mimics.

Dead air left in conversations may be meant to unnerve viewers, but is more likely to bore them.

Wildly inventive on a micro-budget scale, actor Bill Watterson’s shift to directing is an impressively crafted feature that’s full of frequent surprises.

While Burdge's dogged commitment to the role commands admiration, Gina's obtuse, masochistic behavior keeps us from investing in her as a character spiraling out of control.

The painstaking work done by Kobiela and Welchman to turn some of the artist’s most prized canvases into animated scenes can be impressive to behold.

While that let’s-band-together-and-save-the-park setup clearly isn’t the freshest acorn on the tree, director and co-writer Cal Brunker (2013’s Escape From Planet Earth) at least manages to keep all the ensuing chaos at a reasonably brisk clip. Drawing similarly energetic performances from his voice cast is another matter.

Hitman's Bodyguard offers more than enough shoot-'em-up to keep multiplex auds munching their popcorn, but sharper talents behind the camera might have made it considerably more enjoyable.

The Farthest ultimately proves a welcome and invaluable reminder, in these budget-challenged times, that space exploration is of boundless importance.

The Nile Hilton Incident represents the type of penetrating filmmaking that only a writer-director intimately familiar with Egyptian culture but possessing an outsider’s perspective could convincingly accomplish.

Showing levels of controlled concentration and unfussy flair far beyond what may be expected from a "student film," Machines powerfully evokes the sights and sounds — and almost even the smells — of a sprawling, stygian textiles plant south of India's eighth-largest (but very seldom filmed) city, Surat.

Even if the air fizzles out a bit during the denouement, the film still accomplishes what it set out to do, with both Kahn and Bejo aptly shouldering all the narrative weight until the final scene.

Even while gesturing toward a redemptive sacred altar, a default mode for parenthood in many mainstream movies, the director lets the messy realities stand. And his fine cast makes them ring true — the selfishness and neglect, the confrontations brutal and tender, the pained silences and, not least, the gusts of pure, jagged joy.

An affecting debut for anyone who has dwelled on the far outskirts of adolescent social life, Ian MacAllister McDonald's Some Freaks captures high school/college agony without transmuting it into thank-God-we-survived-it nostalgia.

While The Only Living Boy in New York looks nice (it was shot on film by veteran DP Stuart Dryburgh), it's an unabashed fake — glib and movie-ish in a grating way, with lots of prefab "soulfulness" and none of the texture or rough edges of life.

Salty, sweet and fun to chew over — sort of like taffy, but not so hard on the dental work — Fun Mom Dinner is a palatable addition to that growing subgenre of bawdy, female-centric comedies.

The film wastes several talented performers with its low-key, rambling humor and one-dimensional characters.