Viewers out for sweeping spectacle will likely come away from director Ridley Scott’s latest historical epic – Napoleon – satisfied. But those seeking insight into the conquering French emperor’s personality will find there’s a hollow ring to star Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of him.

Assessed for its morality, Disney’s new The Marvels is being considered a quirky, sometimes humorous but more often confusing superhero adventure, presenting a mixed bag of ingredients that will likely appeal to some viewers but not others.

Having worked in TV and movies for 20 years, accomplished songwriter and music producer Adam Anders knows that entertainment needs a love story, some lightness, and good actors and singers.

Swedish producer Adam Anders script, which he co-wrote with Peter Barsocchini, chronicles Mary (Fiona Palomo) and Joseph’s (Milo Manheim) effort to add personal commitment to their arranged betrothal.

In a gloomy and isolated Russian convent, Sister Yulia (Maria Vera Ratti), known among the other nuns for her love of beauty, becomes spontaneously pregnant while praying in front of a statue of the Blessed Virgin. She is bearing twin boys: One is the next Messiah, the other the Antichrist.

In 2013, Tim Ballard and a team of former agents left the US Department of Homeland Security to form Operation Underground Railroad, a private foundation that assists international governments and US law enforcement in dismantling criminal trafficking organisations that target children.

The Record has 5 free passes to Sound of Freedom to giveaway. Simply tell us the name of the producer of Sound of Freedom and your name and contact information, and you’ll go in the draw to win. Entries close Friday 1 September.

Unintended comedy paces the boredom-inducing banality of this follow-up to a 2018 feature about the accidental unleashing of an outsized prehistoric shark.

Just as its protagonist had his highs and lows, so Christopher Nolan’s three hour-long film Oppenheimer has its strong passages and weaker chapters.

In a hardscrabble neighbourhood of 1967 Dublin, best friends Lily (Maggie Smith) and Eileen (Kathy Bates) excitedly prepare to journey to the sacred destination in the company of a third pal, Dolly (Agnes O’Casey).

For Jim Caviezel, portraying Ballard – and replicating his dramatic real-life rescues of enslaved children – is a role second only to that of playing Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, with a similarly compelling mission.