It’s pleasantly perverse, but somehow never quite gels. Still, it’s a fascinating keyhole into a central Hitchcockian idea, the notion that the weirdest behavior comes not from criminals, but our friends and neighbors.

Densely plotted by director Yuval Adler and Ali Wakad (the former Israeli, the latter Palestinian), this informant crime drama finds admirable complexity in the folds of its shifting allegiances — even if you’ve seen this dynamic done better in movies like "The Departed."

It's based on Evan Hunter's moralistic bestseller about a young New York teacher at a tough school, and is very worthy in its intentions. Highlights include Vic Morrow as a confused knife-wielding delinquent, but the studied pseudo-documentary atmosphere never quite convinces.

Fans, of course, will fiercely argue that Buckley has so much more to offer. And in the strongest compliment to Berg’s affectionate portrait, she makes a similarly convincing case, with ample and tender grace.

It’s bewitching stuff when it doesn’t feel like a waste of invitations.

There still hasn’t been a truly great film based directly on a video game, and the characterisations here are more likely to annoy than delight the hardcore fans, but the jetsetting and sunshine here is a welcome break from more serious action movies, and Holland will just about hold the interest.

Along with the usual streamlining of history, we get a good deal of first-hand emotion and little critical perspective.

Though its insights are slight-the movie feels as delicate and ephemeral as its sleepy winter surroundings - you can't help but admire the overall generousness O'Brien shows to his characters and performers.

Clooney occasionally shows a surer hand: He gets great work from Downton Abbey’s Bonneville — notably in an emotionally charged scene revolving around Michelangelo’s Madonna of Bruges — and has a fine monologue himself, in which Stokes dresses down a high-ranking German commander (a moving encapsulation of the American spirit at its best).

Anderson utilizes slow-motion 3-D to hyperbolic effect while again casting Jovovich as the epitome of badass sexiness.

If a subplot showing Orwell writing ‘Animal Farm’ as he becomes persuaded by Jones’s evidence doesn’t entirely work, there’s plenty in this thoughtful journalism drama that does. And not a single scene in a car park.

Audiences with infinite patience and no need for linear storytelling do get an intimate tour of The Anchorage's picturesque island off the coast of Stockholm, its landscapes lensed with loving appreciation. Past that, the experience of sitting through Ulla's daily routines yields little more than a travelogue and a vaguely contemplative vibe.

If you take The Alto Knights on its own terms – as an eccentric but engaging curio – there’s still plenty of fun to be had.

Disney knows how to bewitch a crowd, but the sense that Tangled was made more by corporate mandate than artistic spark remains constant throughout.

The movie isn’t particularly scary--not a crime when your goal is laughs. More egregious is the niggling fact that this simply isn’t as witty as "Shaun of the Dead," forever the yuks-meet-yucks standard.

Melodrama often risks the ridiculous to achieve the sublime, and though this unabashedly earnest tearjerker doesn’t completely transcend its narrative absurdities, it’s enough of a distinctively odd duck to keep you engaged.

Fortunately, Teegarden and McDonell make up for the hand-me-down plotting with a sweet, unaffected chemistry.

Always effortful and desperate to impress, The Lion King may serve as a virtual substitute for going to the zoo (don’t slide down the Black Mirror cynicism of that idea), but let’s hope it never replaces such outings, nor its 1994 forebear, a passport to something far more sublime.

Apart from one muted action sequence in which the participants try not to wake a sleeping bundle of joy (“Put that baby down,” one of them demands, and the order is obeyed, with a little tucking in), there’s scarce humor here for adults to relish. And Samberg’s characteristic snark has been sanded down to a nub.

It’s far from a total failure, however, and although Kokotajlo doesn’t feel entirely at home in the horror genre, he is clearly a talent to be reckoned with.

Savoca skilfully negotiates the nastiness of the opening scenes: four Marines organise a party, the object of which is to see who can bring along the most unattractive date. She is almost as successful with the potentially maudlin central section, after Phoenix has picked up Taylor, and remorse segues into affection and tenderness.

You never feel the burn in The Skin I Live In, certainly not the way you do in an immortal shocker like "Eyes Without a Face." It's almost as if Almodóvar wanted to reach out into a gory genre, but couldn't do so without wearing prissy gloves.

The sights and sounds are splendid--a lovingly hand-detailed portside city, a touching musical interlude in a windswept field--though they're largely disconnected from the narrative proper.

Capably directed by debut filmmaker Lee Haven Jones, The Feast won’t challenge Midsommar for the modern folk-horror crown. Like a Welshophone episode of Inside No.9 stretched to feature length, it’s more of a sinister little snack than a full-blown feast.

Somehow, writer-director Raymond De Felitta pulls off these proceedings way better than anyone has a right to, thanks to his light touch with potentially lurid plot developments and his generosity in letting actors flesh out their sitcom setups.

The tangential artist interviews and constant lionizing of the star couple meander, but given how museums between the coasts rely on collectors for life support, 50x50 still acts as a provocative call to arms: Those who love art must support it.

Lively remains impressive throughout, but with plot-driven fare like this, such lapses are a let-down.

Unlike satires that coast on winking self-satisfaction, Anusha Rizvi's debut is both a heartfelt and a genuinely funny skewering of India's convoluted caste-consciousness.