It’s a light diversion rather than a symphonic masterpiece, but it’s still pleasantly in-tune entertainment.

Documentarian Anailín Lucy Mulloy’s eye for the decaying textures of modern Cuba on the ground is sharp, and there are passages—as the dull characters mope and kill time and work up snits—in which you wish the movie were simply nonfiction. As it is, everything feels fake except the Centro Habana barrios themselves.

At only 72 minutes, Spring Blossom whizzes by and ends a little abruptly. Some may go away unsatisfied, but others will see in Lindon an impressive young talent to be reckoned with.

The stakes may seem low, but these high jinks resound with abstract generational import, the various episodes cohering into a moving portrait of a nation that couldn’t account for all it had lost in a war that it won.

The ending offers only a slightly clichéd vision of emancipation that leaves the picture not much clearer. After showing how hard life can be, it feels a little bit too easy.

Succeeds best as a witty, knowing commentary on the genre itself. References to lycanthropic lore, literature and cinema abound; gags are plentiful; and the whole thing casts a pleasingly skeptical glance at various social fashions and fads of the times.

It all really happened but surely with a lot more passion than writer-director Angela Robinson’s script would have it.

Disney’s frantic take on Lewis Carroll may lack much of the book’s illogical charm, but it does contain one of the great proto-psychedelic sequences in cinema: a dazzling, disturbing explosion of colour and sound.

Richard Jewell’s greatest feat is the generous emphasis it places on its Forrest Gumpian do-gooder’s complex sense of humanity; if only there were more of that to spread around to the other characters.

It’s a story of achievement against all odds, of community and kindness in the darkest places, and of the simple power of putting one foot in front of the other to reclaim a life. I challenge even the coldest of heart to not be touched by its message.

Truthfully, watching septuagenarian whores spank mildly titillated johns and test-drive sex toys has never seemed so ho-hum - or so oddly familiar.

If Last Ride leans heavily on fugitive-life lyricism, it benefits from an incredible father-son chemistry between Weaving and Russell-one that makes the movie's inexorable drive toward tragedy that much more gut-wrenching.

In a movie that deals almost exclusively in pals playing pop music and exposed penises, the boyish humor goes a long way. Call it a hit single, but don’t expect it to go platinum.

The troubling turns the story takes, which are meant as a rebuke to happily-ever-after stereotypes, are much more interesting in conception than they are in execution.

As Farhadi casts his roving, distracted eye over this unhappy community, sharing his story in a choppy, documentary style, it ends up feeling like a curiously detached exercise, more academic than wholly satisfying.

Stylish and fun, but the short story format denies Corman the stately, melancholy pace that distinguished his best work in the cycle.

Land Ho! avoids schmaltz to get at that rarest of male timber: rekindled hearts.

Thank You for Your Service is as necessary as top-flight journalism.

The film suddenly gains in power, until it fulfills the promise of its title with hard-hitting compassion and a crystal-clear sense of grace.

The sights are gorgeous—a seamless mix of archival imagery and impressively rendered digital views of our galaxy—and the science is, to layman’s eyes and ears, more than credible.

The war scenes are extraordinary, although thrown in far too liberally; even better are the daft tableaux vivants which seem to comprise Archangel's only entertainment.

The story, about a rock star with a prison background, was tougher than some of the other Presley pictures, but the musical numbers especially were shot in the MGM tradition, which was totally wrong for rock.

Writer-director Von Trotta, an icon of the New German Cinema, doesn't have the technical chops for the fireworks you desire, so she settles for wan earnestness.

It’s hard to give sibling co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo (makers of the thornier Captain America films) any credit—or blame, really—for steering a product that’s been so corporately fine-tuned. They toggle dutifully between million-dollar quips and Wrestlemania smackdowns, and when they find room for a vista of galactic stillness, it’s not out of any inspired vision so much as the need for air.

Rather than an intrusive flashback to the most challenging aspects of the pandemic, it’s a gentle reminder to recognise the hardships we’ve overcome and appreciate the merit in nonlinear progress, even if it takes time.

By the time Sorcerer gets around to its rain-soaked, rickety-bridge set piece, you’ll either be obsessed or fully checked out. Give yourself a chance to pick sides.

The two Roberts (Duvall as cop, De Niro as priest) turn in potentially great performances, but are given precious little to work with.

Stopping just short of the devastating exposé it might have been (but plenty creepy).