Niagara Motel: The biggest flaw in this dark comedy by Gary Yates (Seven Times Lucky) may be that it is too ambitious – crammed with too many characters and too much plot.

‘The ambition may be laudable but the results are not,’ says The Globe and Mail ’s Rick Groen.

The story follows a vast ensemble, all poised on the edge of despair at a seedy motel in downtown Niagara Falls. Toronto playwright George F. Walker (This Is Wonderland), in collaboration with Dani Romain, put the script together from three of his Suburban Motel plays. But ‘while much of Walker’s dialogue remains punchy… the intertwining of the stories lessens its impact,’ writes Jason Anderson in Eye Weekly.

‘Niagara Motel is too disjointed to satisfy the discerning filmgoer,’ agrees The Province’s David Spaner, and ‘never feels like a consistent whole,’ according to Cameron Bailey of Now Magazine.

‘Top-heavy with look-at-me absurdness,’ says Steven Frank of Time Canada, despite some strong performances, especially those of Anna Friel, Wendy Crewson and Peter Keleghan.

And, thanks to British cinematographer Ian Wilson (Edward II, The Crying Game), it ‘looks gorgeous, even in its seediness,’ writes Bruce Kirkland of the Toronto Sun.

Lucid: Director Sean Garrity (Inertia) returns with the story of Joel, a psychotherapist plagued by insomnia after his wife and daughter catch him in bed with another woman. But despite its dark twists and turns and its outstanding cast, his sophomore feature is garnering mixed reviews.

It ‘never manages to turn its quirkiness into genuine charm nor its cleverness into real feeling,’ complains The Globe and Mail ’s Kate Taylor.

Jonas Chernick, who cowrote the script and plays the lead, ‘has a face that the camera loves,’ enthuses Susan Walker in the Toronto Star. ‘But Lucid also tries one’s patience, more maddening than it is elucidating.’

However, the Winnipeg Sun’s David Schmeichel says Lucid is worth a look: ‘The cast is uniformly great and Garrity succeeds in creating a Lynchian vibe that just gets weirder as things progress.’

Although she says the film stumbles in the last act, Julie Crawford of the Vancouver Courier also says Lucid is ‘visually rich and cleverly recreates Joel’s off-balance reality.’

‘Not especially suspenseful,’ but it ‘holds attention passably until it runs off the rails in last reel,’ writes Dennis Harvey in Variety.