Mike Mccahill

Kenji Tanigaki’s The Furious follows mute Chinese handyman Wang Wei as he pursues the traffickers who kidnapped his daughter, eventually joining forces with an undercover journalist played by Joe Taslim. The review praises the film’s increasingly ferocious martial-arts choreography, inventive camera work and exceptionally intense closing half-hour, while acknowledging that its plot is basic and its action staging lacks the architectural precision of The Raid films. Overall, the film is judged an exhilarating blend of technical skill, athleticism and brutal spectacle.

Disclosure Day has performed strongly at the box office but received a relatively weak B from CinemaScore and disappointed some viewers. The film updates Close Encounters for the social-media era while exploring secrecy, misinformation and social division, but its conventional distrust of phones and reliance on family, religion and local news make it feel more 20th-century than contemporary. The review praises the opening and some performances, particularly Wyatt Russell, but criticizes David Koepp's thin characters, unclear mythology, dated editorial message, weak visual effects and heavily nostalgic use of Spielberg's earlier filmmaking language. Its final appeal to listen is judged too defensive to rescue the film's faltering conclusion.

An Australian-shot, US-set horror film follows Elise, a former member of a fundamentalist Latter-day Saint group, whose disturbing behavior leads her and friends to a regression-therapy session involving an ayahuasca variant. The discovery of a cellar door and revelations about her repressed past introduce supernatural and religious-trauma elements, alongside an implied bisexual awakening. The film’s cinematography is praised for its atmospheric, wintry look, but the review concludes that its promising premise collapses into conventional horror devices, overplayed repression and hysteria, and an ultimately underwhelming finale.

Charlie the Wonderdog is a Canadian animated family film in which a dog gains superpowers after alien experimentation and battles a resentful cat. The review finds the premise occasionally funny and credits director Shea Wageman with some oddball ideas, but criticizes the frenetic set pieces, thin script and derivative concept, especially compared with Disney's Bolt and the broader Pixar and DreamWorks tradition. Owen Wilson's vocal performance is viewed as undemanding, with the film offering little evidence of a career revival.

This low-budget British science-fiction murder mystery follows anti-terror agent Alana Toro, played by Zoe Cunningham, as she investigates a rebel group and becomes trapped in a time loop at a bar for interstellar truckers. The film earns praise for its tactile grimy sets, imaginative costumes, expansive score and pulpy central character, but its clunky exposition, irritating repeated announcement and over-explanatory wristwatch undermine the time-loop premise. The result is a charming but cramped and sluggish vision of the future.

Ronan Corrigan’s debut feature updates the traditional heist film through a screenlife format centered on gamers who target a crypto billionaire. The film’s restless digital aesthetic, strong meme culture and awkward romance are effective, but the novelty fades into mechanical cursor-driven plotting. Its apparent 2018–2020 setting also makes it feel like an emerging period piece as social media’s cultural influence wanes.

Mary Beth Hurt, the thoughtful and understated American actor, has died aged 79. She made her film debut in Woody Allen’s Interiors, earning a BAFTA nomination, and became widely known for The World According to Garp. Her four-decade career included acclaimed stage work, three Tony nominations, films such as The Age of Innocence and The Dead Girl, and collaborations with her second husband, director Paul Schrader. Hurt preferred complex supporting roles and continued working on stage and screen until an Alzheimer’s diagnosis; her final film was Change in the Air in 2018. She is survived by Schrader and their children, Molly and Sam.

Grace Glowicki’s microbudget Canadian horror film follows a lovelorn gravedigger who salvages her deceased poet sweetheart’s corpse. Built around a scratch-and-sniff “Stink-O-Vision” gimmick and deliberately grotesque, sexually charged humor, the film combines penny-dreadful plotting with striking imagery and inventive practical effects. Its extreme aesthetic and unusual smells will not suit everyone, but its originality, commitment to filth and refusal to become dull make it a memorable acquired taste.

Mother’s Pride follows rival West Country pubs: a struggling traditional local overseen by Martin Clunes and a more upscale gastropub. A homebrewing scheme is proposed to save the failing business, but the film’s conflicts are resolved abruptly and predictably. The review criticizes its clunky exposition, sentimental populism, weak jokes and simplistic defense of pubs, while giving limited credit to Clunes and Mark Addy for their performances.

Robin Bextor’s hour-long documentary traces how Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders grew from family stories and a recreation of Birmingham’s working-class past into a global television and fashion phenomenon. The film offers useful contributions from figures including Carl Chinn, Grant Montgomery and Michael Hogan, and examines the series’ production design, cinematic influences and rebellious music. However, its reliance on familiar talking heads, drone footage and archive clips makes it feel patchy, formulaic and less ambitious than the cultural impact of the show warrants.

Vishal Bhardwaj’s Hindi adaptation of Romeo and Juliet relocates the tragedy to Mumbai’s 1990s underworld, following Shahid Kapoor’s hitman Romeo and Triptii Dimri’s vengeful widow Juliet. The film benefits from bold imagery, strong performances and Bhardwaj’s history of Shakespeare adaptations, but its nearly three-hour runtime, crude tonal shifts and emotionally detached lovers make it a gruelling disappointment compared with films such as Gangubai Kathiawadi.