This faith-based drama "inspired by true events" (a phrase that hereafter has lost all its meaning) manages to be dumb on so many levels that, well, it simply has to be taken on faith.

The good news is that the movie is half decent. The caveat is that it could have been a lot better.

Despite the predictable touches in the script by Mark O’Halloran, director Paddy Breathnach reveals a sensitive touch with the material.

First-timers Sean Mewshaw and Desi Van Til show no evidence of inexperience in this sturdy and crowd-pleasing picture.

The proceedings too often smack of melodrama and, with the profusion of characters, some inevitably come across as stereotypes.

Exploiting the serious issue of homelessness for the purpose of cheap romantic melodrama, Other People's Children squanders whatever potential it might have had.

You need more than a little faith to endure Carl Lauten's stylistically ambitious but hackneyed faith-based film that infuses its treacly love story with heavy doses of CGI animation and even heavier doses of Christian moralizing.

Kwek's critical view of his home country is certainly there, burning brightly, but Unlucky Plaza should be considered a small step for a promising socially-conscious filmmaker trying to connect his fury with the right kind of art.

Although he can’t quite get a grip on guiding the lightweight narrative, Zada demonstrates a fluid visual style, particularly in the complex sequences filmed in the forest settings.

If the film runs a tad too long, especially in its second half, Embrace of the Serpent is still an absorbing account of indigenous tribes facing up to colonial incursions, revealing how Westerners are in many ways far behind the native peoples they conquer.

As spooky as The Shining's Overlook Hotel and Rosemary Baby's Bramford, the location -- actually multiple locations -- of the atmospheric horror film The Abandoned is spectacular. It's too bad that the same can't be said about the story.

Without that sort of compelling figure at its center, Diablo feels far more like a pastiche than the real deal.

Autobiographical but also singularly imaginative, this formally exuberant bildungsroman plays like a Gregg Araki film with a dash of Cronenbergian psychosomatic body-rebellion thrown in.

Just like a cubist painting, what happens in the film doesn’t necessarily resemble real life in a narrow documentary sense but instead gives the viewer something else: a chance to consider certain behavior from various sides and on a more abstract level.

Since from her other features it is clear she's an uncompromising director, it should perhaps come as no surprise that this film is as unapologetically personal and self-absorbed as it is, making no attempt to draw in viewers perhaps unfamiliar with the filmmaker.

Lee makes a credible transition from directing comedy, but relies too frequently on sub-par special effects and poorly staged reenactments that only inconsistently pump up the action.

It has all the flaws of the recent Bradley Cooper vehicle Burnt, only without the sex and the charm.

Yosemite is a contemplative drama, low-key perhaps to a fault. But Demeestere shows acute sensitivity in her understanding of boys and their growing awareness of the world, with its real and imagined menaces.

Its rhythms are sluggish, its jokes predictable and the gags are set up with such thudding deliberateness that even the sight of Ferrell losing control of a motorcycle, careening through the air and crashing straight through his house barely raises an eyebrow.

The filmmakers' access is remarkable, and they eventually compound the film's novelty in an exciting way (spoilers below). But claims that this film opens our eyes to unknown practices are exaggerated.

The charismatic performers — who include Angelababy as a woman at the center of a past love triangle with the two male leads — are engaging from start to finish.

The film is the product of the same production company responsible for such previous Willis duds as "Vice," "The Prince," and "Fire With Fire." Either the Die Hard star enjoys working with them, or he's being blackmailed.

While He Never Died is hardly a comedy — it's bloody and reflective, with a gloomy side that sometimes threatens to sink it — these wry moments are central to its appeal.

Its feature-length assemblage of found footage, unified by an original soundtrack and eccentric narration by Tilda Swinton, will be too much of a good thing for some art-house patrons. But auds accustomed to the work of Bill Morrison and other archive-combing meditation artists should respond warmly.

No less noisy, obnoxious or just plain groan-inducing than the previous installments.

Director Beth Harrington packs enough drama, music and history to fuel a miniseries in her thoroughly entertaining and comprehensive account of the Carter and Cash families and their enduring contributions to American music.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens pumps new energy and life into a hallowed franchise in a way that both resurrects old pleasures and points in promising new directions.

There is absolutely no doubt about who wrote the elaborate, pungent, profane and often funny dialogue that a fine cast chews over and spits out with evident glee, nor as to who staged the ongoing bloodbath that becomes a gusher in the final stretch.