Alex Harrison

Though it's an often beautiful showcase for the Arabian desert landscape, Desert Warrior is a slow, awkward jumble, trying so hard to be cool and lacking any of the style or charisma to pull it off. The climactic battle has some redeeming qualities, but after waiting 90 minutes to see it and finding it so choppily edited as to be distracting, the prevailing feeling I carried with me after it ended was still disappointment.

Despite having a decent budget and some recognizable actors to work with, writer-director Tommy Wirkola, known for Nazi zombie film Dead Snow and his Santa action film Violent Night, ensured what ended up on screen was a pretty fun B picture. It doesn't have the stylistic touch that can sometimes bring a little something extra to playful genre films, nor does it have a true standout sequence that could give it a chance at a longer cultural life. But it does have just the tone you'd hope it would, especially as it nears its climax, and that's all it really needs to deliver the goods.

Hill is willing to look critically at some of his industry's darkness, but he's also far too inclined to let his lead off the hook, and his film is weaker for it. As dark comedy, Outcome feels underbaked; as drama, it lacks sufficient introspection to have earned its emotional catharsis. Part of that is length: At under 90 minutes, the film is sometimes choppy and out of breath, and more time to flesh out its ideas might have helped it feel more tonally balanced. But no one change could fix a problem that's rooted in the vision for this material.

It sits somewhere at the intersection of Quentin Tarantino and Sam Raimi, though without the former's control of form and the latter's splatstick comedic timing, it can't quite live up to the potential of that mashup. Still, it's plenty of fun. Zazie Beetz is the ideal badass heroine to carry this movie, and there are more than enough moments of stylish violence (and violent style) to get the whole theater cackling.

Sam somewhat shrinks into the periphery of the story to make way for Amanda Peet's Dianne, whose tonal world is welcome, but certainly different. Rather than hold things together, Shear the filmmaker seems to step back, too. The result is a film that only exists in moments: sometimes funny, sometimes interesting, always lacking the cohesion necessary to add up to anything.

It doesn't quite have the courage to be the best version of itself. Still, it works. War Machine is an action movie you feel in your body, and it mixes in the right dose of sci-fi VFX without losing sight of the character that keeps you caring.

It's possible to watch this movie thinking mostly of what could have been – if the script was as deft as it sometimes pretends to be, this had the makings of a truly great thriller. But The Rip is a good time when experienced on its wavelength, and worthy material for a relaxed night in.

It would be unfair to assign blame to any one performance, or even to Winslet's direction, when the script is the obvious culprit. Story or character hurdles are thrown up and surmounted with the same neatness, sapping them of their impact. The movie becomes so certain of its footing that the two-hour runtime starts to feel like a chore.

The actors inhabit these characters well, but they don't have the benefit of juxtaposition with normality to really put their work in context.

Ritchie is a prolific action director, and he leans action here, which is fine. When it's not being distractingly stylized, the action is good. But treasure hunt movies have a nerdy side that sometimes feels undervalued by this film.

Rosario stretches the material of a really good short film into an underwhelming feature.

Cleaner is a pretty good reminder of how fun it can be to watch someone with movie star charisma do a Die Hard.

While The Gorge is (ironically) fairly shallow, it offers some strikingly designed genre thrills and is powered by two charismatic stars.

Garner's performance is the heart of this, and if the movie were told entirely through her eyes, I think you'd have the compelling layer of doubt that the film sometimes seems to want.

Egerton's got something in this vein. Cruise-esque exceptionalism, but cut with relatability like he came from the everyday world but clearly wasn't meant to stay there.

What I connected to wins out over what I didn't – I have enjoyed sitting with its ideas, and there are a couple flourishes that will stick with me.

As a story of parental reckoning, Goodrich lacks the interrogative instinct of something like Sofia Coppola's On the Rocks, and it rushes Grace's catharsis as a result. But as a story of a man's late-stage awakening, it strikes a more resonant chord.

As a vampire movie, Salem's Lot is refreshingly old-school.

Being halfway between film and TV gives it the weaknesses of both and strengths of neither; trying to straddle the real with the mythic gives us characters that mostly feel too representative to connect with as individuals, and too individual to make compelling representatives.

The Spanish director's fingerprint is there, undoubtedly. But the movie feels strangely incomplete, as if made with one hand tied behind his back.

There's plenty to admire in Maria, and in Jolie's performance, but my connection to certain scenes shouldn't be mistaken for my being emotionally engrossed. In fact, I typically felt kept at a distance.

Layne's performance is a real strength, and she does a great job of not only anchoring us in her character's emotions, but embodying how she feels about singing in any given scene.

While it has its weak spots, A Family Affair holds together well enough to entertain.

Gradually, everything becomes burdened with story. The more the triangle of Kathy, Benny, and Johnny is played up for drama, the less interesting it becomes.

Atlas is like an artificial sci-fi movie that walks and talks like the real thing, but just isn't.

The bottom line: even with some inconsistencies, Drugstore June is funny. It creatively approaches a deceptively ambitious setup and doesn't overstay its welcome.

Bleeding Love remains under-written and over-directed, unable to fully justify the time it asks for. If you're wanting to see Ewan McGregor do some quality acting, there are plenty of more rewarding options.

It's almost like Cumming has made two films, one through aesthetics and atmosphere and one through story and theme, that ultimately can't coexist. Neither is a bad film, but the former makes a much greater impression, and I wish it had been seen through to the end.

Lord of Misrule feels like it was made with a lack of understanding of what actually works about its premise, and the result is a constant ebb-and-flow of being drawn in by the imagery and pushed back out by the storytelling.

Silent Night winks at us as often as it tries for genuine drama, and whichever tone you choose to accept will likely determine whether you have as much fun with it as I did.

Manodrome lacks depth as either social commentary or character study, in large part because of how it positions us in relation to its protagonist's perspective.

Keeping us close to the film's talented cast is a decided strength of this, and the performances add nuance to a largely straightforward viewing experience. But it's hard not to wish Fingernails had grander designs. It shows just enough of its full potential to leave us wanting to see those ideas expressed more fully.

I do not regret having seen it, and with all there is to recommend it, I feel comfortable suggesting you seek it out upon release. But do so with tempered expectations.

The material is not lacking in thematic depth, but how the filmmakers choose to express these themes makes for an inconsistently engaging experience. Dreamin' Wild is sometimes too caught up in its own artfulness, and all that weighted form ends up trapping its ideas rather than giving them heft.

Sympathy for the Devil is a missed opportunity with a collection of engaging moments, none sustained enough to really satisfy.

Jenkin doesn't leave the audience without any puzzle pieces; there are enough for multiple stories to be constructed, should the viewer wish to understand Enys Men on that level. At a certain point, however, it becomes so difficult to disentangle the real from the unreal that to try feels pointless, and the last act suffers for it.

The problem is one of focus, and had the movie trusted its protagonist enough to let her be the true center, it might have provided a viewing experience worth recommending.

Landon's latest will be best remembered for its multiple laugh-out-loud set pieces, and with the craftsmanship and performances on display, viewers will likely be willing to forgive its less-impactful stretches.

Its absurdity is enough to appeal to the right group of adventurous friends, perhaps, but even those with the stomach for its grossest impulses might find themselves wondering what it was all for.

Though it risks a slip into fully formulaic territory at times, the new movie is building to a far more interesting endgame than it appears to be, in which all the fleshing out of Cenobite lore and mechanics actually amounts to something quite profound.

Already working with a shakily thin script, Jákl weighs his movie down with an overly self-serious aesthetic, to the point that even the target audience might find the two-hour runtime a tough sit.

Fully engaging with the film, as one might be forced to do in a theatrical setting, will prove unrewarding — both intellectually and emotionally. But it's the kind of movie that's perfect for streaming while doing chores, or to turn on after a long day of work with the intention of putting one's brain on standby.

Given some time to think on it later, viewers might have trouble pinning down what it actually had to say about all those thorny subjects it seemed to be about.

This low-budget sci-fi film is actually doing something quite clever, but by keeping it hidden until the final minutes, it leaves viewers with a character drama that just isn't compelling enough to merit revisiting, even after learning how all its pieces fit together.