Barry Hertz

Sumptuously designed, brightly costumed and shot with an eye toward epic grandeur, the new film is simply gorgeous to take in, no matter the size of the screen. Less pretty is the script, which took four screenwriters to conjure even though there’s perfectly good source material just sitting there, waiting for a photocopy machine.

Instead of funnelling his inspirations into one singular vision that he could call his own, Boone has made a Frankenstein of a franchise movie, a giant elevator pitch that leads directly to the sub-basement of originality.

Although the tale feels a bit slight – and yeah, I’m still aware we’re talking about a Bill & Ted movie – the affair is ultimately breezy, harmless fun.

It is beautiful, delirious, frustrating and so wedded to that film-critic notion of the unimpeachable “Kaufman-esque” sensibility that there is little point in arguing with its power, with its immeasurable impact. It works, even (especially?) when it’s not supposed to.

I also appreciated the film’s quick glimpse of Hell itself, which Lucia is plunged into as a warning to whose who won’t accept salvation. With its cheap CGI demons and soundtrack of wailing souls, it was unintentional comedy of the highest order. If you need me, I’ll be laughing all the way to Hades.

Doff has created a film that bursts off the screen more often than not, albeit in that ultra-extreme Joseph Kahn kind of way. Your mileage may vary, but it’s a good enough game to play these waning summer days.

It is riveting, deeply depressing stuff – and would be more engaging if co-directors David Darg and Price James had decided to explore the many similarities that movie-making and wrestling share, such as their devotion to putting on a highly fictional show.

Tenet is not so much a decipherable thriller as it is an extreme exercise in reverse-engineered narrative incomprehensibility – the cinematic equivalent of a half-baked pretzel, its goopy symmetrical loops superficial yet delicious all the same.

A giddy and fitfully amusing mashup of "Adventures in Babysitting," "Date Night," the Spy Kids franchise and, um, "Wet Hot American Summer," The Sleepover is the latest entry in Netflix’s experiment in catch-‘em-all entertainment.

Summerland may not be the greatest show on Earth, but it is firmly Arterton’s show – and deserves more attention than most anyone on these shores will likely give it.

The One and Only Ivan elevates its babbling baboons and erudite elephants to a level of graceful storytelling and emotional catharsis. The film might only be available to stream in the emptiness of your own home, but it has enough big-screen ambition that you can easily imagine it holding an entire theatre’s audience rapt.

Politicians are craven and driven by all the wrong reasons, and though the pair uncover a handful of hopeful voices – especially Ben Feinstein, a compassionate and committed idealist – you will likely exit the world of Boys State as cynical as you entered it.

While Spinster works well enough as a showcase for Peretti’s talents, Dorfman never matches the power of her star. With a bare-bones production design and most of its scenes blocked in a pedestrian manner, Spinster looks like a TV show that simply goes on too long.

The latest adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel is not necessarily a bad film, just an unnecessary one. Given that we’ve already been treated to about a dozen film and TV (and anime!) adaptations, there is little that Munden and his creative team offer that is essential.

The characters aren’t compelling, the comedy isn’t energetic, and the narrative surprises that Rey throws at the screen will be obvious to anyone who has ever heard the word “Sundance.”

In its cautious rhythm, its economical storytelling and its deliberately over-the-top colour scheme – each character’s “infection,” so to speak, is back-lit by deeply saturated red and blues – She Dies Tomorrow unsettles without using any of cinema’s typical tools.

The international cast manage to acquit themselves fine enough, with Jagger in particular having a ball as an energetic rapscallion.

While Rich’s script misses a few trickier opportunities to further dig into questions of religion and history – Herschel sleeps his way through the entirety of the Second World War, yet there’s never any discussion of how the Holocaust has irrevocably changed the world he wakes up in – An American Pickle is a movie that your bubbe will love.

Perhaps sensing that the rest of his story - mostly focusing around the earnest do-goodery of Golja's aide - falls emotionally flat, Navarretta lavishes attention on his two marquee players, creating tiny moments of poignancy.

There is not much more you could ask of a Canadian thriller, even if the director lets the Thailand-set portions of the film devolve slightly into clichéd Brokedown Palace territory.

White Lie is a wildly entertaining ride.

Given that his movie never gives us an opportunity to understand who these men are, it is hard to mourn them beyond a superficial fashion.

Fatal Affair will live up to the first half of its name, and you’ll be bored to death.

“SEE THE MOVIE THAT NO AUDIENCE CAN OUTLAST!” – after actually taking in The Painted Bird, I can confirm that the horror more or less matches the headlines.

But Schneider, whose only other directing credit is the extremely low-key 2009 family drama "Get Low," finds a way to portray the nautical action with clarity and precision. You might not know what Krause and his crew are saying at all times, but you definitely know what they’re witnessing.

Maybe Rapoport’s script from way back when was fiercer, sharper, and funnier, and the sands of time have simply eroded any of its interesting edges down to mere nubs of gross-out nothingness. But watching it today on Netflix, it can’t help but feel highly algorithmic.

There are a few scenes where Theron is an inch away from completely rewriting the proceedings – she just needs a slight jolt in the right direction from her director, a nudge toward chaos. But filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood never quite delivers the inspirational spark her star needs to unleash such fury, and the resulting antics rest somewhere between spectacle and shoulder-shrug.

This is a tremendously entertaining trip through the births of both America and the musical form, with each institution given a lightly revisionist torque by Miranda, who approaches the material with a scholar’s dedication to detail and a showman’s slick wit.