Andy Webster

The script, by Ms. Stephens and Joel Viertel, though lurching at times into overstatement, is enhanced with worthy if fleeting performances from John Cho and Christopher McDonald as Sam’s colleagues. Ray Winstone, as a journalist, effectively melds sleaze and compassion.

Tai Chi Hero merely fills the eye, offering little that stays with you.

The script, by Mr. Dekker, spirals into a muddle of ambiguity, leaving only the imagery and the performances to save the movie. And try as they might, they cannot.

If not for Mr. Jones, “Resurrection,” while competently edited, would be devoid of humor, an area where Mr. Statham has shown promise in the past.

Ms. Turner captures the intimacy of solemn, heartfelt moments, and salutes a man who honors their value.

While this unrelentingly midtempo movie milks Brooklyn for its chic, it manages to denude it of its color.

Although the subject is potent, the film, directed with a seemingly effortless commercial acumen, doesn’t burrow deeply.

Underlying this overlong and overheated enterprise is a surfeit of ambition. Maybe too much.

Sure, the new action workout Kickboxer: Vengeance — a reboot of a foot-fighting franchise from the 1980s and ’90s — follows a tiresome martial-arts movie formula. But amid the hoary conventions are agreeable inklings of an alternate sensibility.

The directors, Dallas Hallam and Patrick Horvath, are fluent in the genre’s staples (creaky interiors, slamming doors, yada yada yada), lighting schemes and startling edits. And they draw decent work from their actors, who commit to the wispy, subtext-free material.

For some, its atmosphere and intriguing performances will prove worthy of the outing.

What Lotus Eaters can take pride in are Gareth Munden’s stunning black-and-white cinematography and Ms. Campbell-Hughes, a riveting visual subject suggesting miles of internal depth. She makes this wallow in callow company watchable.

The film rests on the attractive but opaque Ms. Thorne, who is not ready for such weight. Commendably, she stretches her acting muscles, but Hazel’s internal struggle remains elusive. Viewers need more to connect with.

Mr. Mercer’s character doesn’t attract sympathy comparable to that for Ms. Townsend’s (Ms. Lore’s Harper fares better), but there is no holding back on the worms, dermatologic nightmares, venereal-disease metaphors and hints of future sequels. Start stocking up now on the Pepto-Bismol.

Fortunately, Camera Obscura has decent actors to flesh out its dubious premise.... But their diligent efforts cannot raise the whole enterprise above a mere exercise.

[A] strained, overheated thriller.

This belabored comedy, directed by Benjamin Epps, has a slick visual veneer and some capable performances, especially by Ms. Rulin and Ms. King. But the script, by Matt K. Turner, is loaded with contradictions, its hollow flirtation with subversion amount to airplane pablum.

A smorgasbord of empty calories, the Vin Diesel vehicle The Last Witch Hunter, for all its overstuffed visuals, leaves you hungry. But not for more.

The film’s director, Liz Tuccillo — a former writer for “Sex and the City,” an author of “He’s Just Not That Into You” and now developing a sitcom for Lauren Graham — is predictably facile with comic rhythms, though her dialogue tilts toward the glib, and her characterizations toward the familiar.

While its premise and some of its effects may be B-movie grade, Atomica — like the best B movies — delivers an unexpectedly rewarding kick.

Despite its sense of mission, the film suffers from soapy excesses and narrative disjunctures.

For all the healing here — the revived include a bird, an ailing uncle and a blind man — The Young Messiah performs no miracles.

It is a competent if sometimes heavy-handed affair, a mosaic of fictitious and underexplored characters who hear the assault but are too self-preoccupied to act.

It’s depressing to see Ms. Moretz — so spirited in “Clouds of Sils Maria” and the “Kick-Ass” movies — reduced to constant mooning at Mr. Roe.

The Rambler...feels like a slender plot with additional scenes pasted on.

Despite Mr. Ransone’s goofy charm, Sinister 2 can’t claim the same finesse, substituting pedestrian plotting and a more graphic gore for the original’s restraint.

The movie benefits greatly from Mr. Amoedo’s largely steady direction and the uniform acting skills of its Chilean cast (performing in English).

Best of all, Mr. Law doesn’t skimp on wide-screen compositions; this is one movie designed for the theater, not the couch.