David Lewis

It’s hard to deny that Shyamalan remains one of our most prolific, longstanding filmmakers, and that his work continues to make an impression on our culture. His tense, never dull “Knock at the Cabin” makes us uncomfortable at times, and few punches are pulled. Perhaps he’s found a formula that will take him to new, interesting places.

Halloween Ends is far from a great finale, but it’s a decent showcase for Jamie Lee Curtis, whose place in film history has long been assured because of this role. Will this be the last we see of Laurie Strode, or the “Halloween” storyline? It’s best to wait for the box-office reports. After all, franchises never die — they just change shape.

The movie’s midsection, by far its most effective part, offers its share of heart-pounding moments.

Both McAvoy and Horgan handle the rapid-fire dialogue with gusto, and for a while, their devastating banter is amusing. But eventually the effect begins to wear thin: These vocal diatribes need a more developed story to hang on.

To be sure, Big Pharma execs make for natural movie villains these days, but this story could have used a tad more subtlety, something that was in short supply here.

The by-the-numbers film is not hard to sit through and won’t offend anybody, but its lofty, worthwhile message doesn’t feel earned.

The Virtuoso covers well-worn territory — the assassin story is almost a genre unto itself — and director Nick Stagliano, hampered by a predictable script, can’t bring much new to the game.

The technically elegant Voyagers, about a space colonization trip run amok, is easy enough to sit through, but it’s a story in need of more rocket fuel. There isn’t a bad scene in the movie, yet there isn’t a really good scene, either. It’s a quiet psychological thriller, even when it’s trying to stir mayhem.

My Salinger Year, which is basically The Devil Wears Prada set in the literary world, is a film that feels like it’s ready to take off at any moment, but stalls every time it tries to do anything.

Still, Silk Road remains watchable because both Robinson and Clarke are interesting screen presences. And there’s some humor, which consistently lands better than the thrills.

Monsoon, an offbeat story about a man’s cultural dislocation in Vietnam, is more of a slow drip than a torrential downpour. It’s a lovely film that suddenly and magically can wash over you, then lose you in its opacities.

Ting’s conceptually solid film is briskly paced, and its heart is in the right place. With a more fine-tuned screenplay, it could have been better than a serviceable movie.

It all gets a little unwieldy at times, but Shooting the Mafia is far from boring. We can’t take our eyes off it, just like a photo that’s out of focus, yet somehow remains arresting.

The most refreshing thing about the movie is having a more mature woman at the center of the action, and August knows not to overreach here. She is dryly funny, but also subtly affecting, and it’s a pleasure to watch her heart and mind slowly but surely open up to life’s possibilities.

For a film about an unexpected reunion between two daughters and their long-lost mother, there is shockingly little talk about family. We have no idea what these women see in each other, let alone want from each other. This strips the film of the emotional authenticity that it ultimately craves.

This project is in many ways a nod to the films of the French New Wave, and even if the surprisingly unsexy A Faithful Man doesn’t quite measure up, it’s never boring and keeps moving at a brisk pace.

There’s nothing particularly innovative about the filmmaking, but Becoming Nobody does its job: helping spread Ram Dass’ message in a polarized world in which we tend to emphasize our differences, not our similarities.

By the time the credits roll, we don’t achieve a much deeper sense of who John DeLorean really was — only a better understanding of why this complicated figure continues to befuddle screenwriters. DeLorean probably would have preferred it that way.

A B-movie with a few thrills and plenty of inane dialogue.

JT Leroy is on safer ground when Albert and Knoop are matching wits, mainly because it’s a pleasure to watch the perfectly cast Dern and Stewart on the screen. It’s easy to understand what attracted these fine actors to these roles, but the script allows them to only scratch the surface of this maze-of-mirrors story, where the truth remains deliciously elusive.

A movie that moves slower than it should and that keeps us detached for long periods of time. Most of the problems can be traced to the script, which does a poor job of establishing the characters and giving us a sense of how they relate to each other.

The film is a reasonably entertaining trifle, though it’s overstuffed with battle sequences and peripheral characters that often consume the main story line.

Apocalypse also doesn’t excel in the teen angst department, because the characters are not fleshed out enough. The love triangle is not convincing, and except for Anna and her father, we don’t care a whole lot about what happens to the characters, perhaps because we didn’t get enough time to know them in the beginning.

Though the ambitious Outlaw King doesn’t always fire on all cylinders, moviegoers deserve this chance to see it on the big screen, before it starts showing on a laptop near you.

This is a film that wears its anti-tech bent like an old James Bond wristwatch.

Assassination Nation won’t get any points for narrative cohesion or character development, but it’s a timely, visually arresting statement about how pandemonium in this country threatens to become the new norm.

Throughout the film, we always feel ahead — way ahead — of the narrator, even if the movie does contain a certain sense of dread for Trump detractors, as the inevitability of the election draws closer.

The Nun is certainly not a terrible horror movie – the production values are stellar, and there is a decent backstory about the abbey. But the film won’t be remembered as one of the top entries in the expanding canon of the Conjuring Universe.

Clearly, this is not a film for everyone, but even though the routine gets highly repetitious, some of the heavy metal numbers are stirring.

Fortunately, some of the people around Cameron turn out to be more interesting. The best in show is John Gallagher Jr., who brings out both the creepy and comforting sides of “ex-gay” instructor Rick — a seemingly nice guy who’s oblivious to the harm that he’s inflicting on his charges.

Dogs are notorious scene-stealers in the movies, but in the sappy yet mildly entertaining Dog Days, the humans mug just as shamelessly as their impossibly cute canine counterparts.

It’s never easy to translate visually the inner turmoil of a struggling artist, and “Gauguin” is a prime example of that.

At the end of the day, it's all just a nihilistic trifle, yet before the final sign-off, we can't help but think twice about what else is lurking on the internet.

Director Ben Lewin has crafted a biopic spy thriller, kind of, but the script has neither the character shadings to be a biopic nor the pacing and twist and turns to be a spy thriller.

Turns it into a 90-minute infomercial, with nary a revelation in sight.

Regardless of how one might feel about its inherently icky subject matter, Dark Crimes needs more narrative momentum. The cast is game, the production design is impressive and a few surprises await — but even as things heat up, the film somehow remains cold.

Even if it has B-movie trappings and the tension wanes in the second half, it’s a stylish psychodrama.

The unconventional Joseph Beuys, one of the pillars of the modern art movement, gets an unconventional tribute in Beuys, a zigzagging documentary that is both illuminating and opaque.

In the end, it’s left to Shaye to carry the film, and she does so with aplomb. The “Insidious” franchise may be running out of places to go, but Shaye appears to be just getting started.

Take Every Wave remains entertaining because of Hamilton’s awe-inducing skill on the ocean, and his determination to ride the waves as long as his body will allow.

Director Byung-gil Jung, a trained stuntman, is an expert in staging action set-pieces, and for fans of dazzlingly violent shootouts on motorcycles and buses, this brutal revenge tale should be right up your alley, even if the proceedings often get sidetracked with a confusing back story.

In the end, the whole enterprise comes off as too clever for its own good, a social satire without a clear target. It’s a movie that you admire more than you like.

This is a film that keeps it simple: Don’t cross a mother, or she’ll hunt you down.

In the end, though, the movie’s superior craftsmanship can’t overcome its aura of joylessness.

The uneven, misanthropic French comedy Slack Bay, one of the weirdest period pieces in quite some time, is an odd combination of “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” Monty Python, and “Laurel and Hardy,” with some cannibalism, incest and gender identity issues thrown in.

As we watch these four pros in action, we find ourselves wanting fewer flashbacks and more time with all of the folks in one spot. That would have been a satisfying meal in itself.

It’s hard to dislike a film where almost every character, no matter how small, brings something to the screen, and because of that, Wilson World is worth inhabiting for a few hours.

This is an ambitious movie that didn’t come quite together in the editing room.

Eventually, the plot feels more perfunctory than palpable, but Watkins is careful not to drag things out. All in all, we don’t mind being taken along for the ride, yet in the end, we’re ready to disembark.

Almost Christmas would have been less clunky if it had focused more on the family’s loss of its matriarch, and allowed the comic elements to naturally arise as the characters struggle with the new family dynamic. Instead, we get too many slapstick set pieces and extraneous subplots that bog down the proceedings.

Quintana brings a stunning visual flair to his film, and Sheen has a fine moment when he ponders the thin line between miracles and tragedies. But we keep waiting for the film to wash over us, and it never quite does.

The narratively challenged film seems conflicted: It critiques our obsession with models and beauty and style, even as it obsesses about those very same things. There is a lot of flash, but little substance.

There’s no denying that this imaginative puzzler has moments you won’t soon forget.

Jessica Tuck gives an emotionally raw performance as Morgan’s mother, and Amanda Plummer’s turn as a trailer park resident sheds more light on Jordan than all the other scenes combined.

Your enjoyment of the movie will depend on whether you can suspend your disbelief — and confusion — and let the magic of misdirection wash over you.

It’s competently made but boring — and desperate.

Though Michelle’s transformation into a family-loving gal is hardly convincing, the film still moves along quickly, and McCarthy has some memorable moments in which her comic chops are on full display.

Intelligently made and contains some impressive set pieces.

As one might expect from a Christian film, Miracles From Heaven centers on faith — and a major miracle — but it’s also a decent family drama about a mother’s tribulations in caring for her sick child.

Its slow-boiling brew of dread turns out to be more tepid than terrifying.

This film doesn’t know exactly what it wants to say.

It’s obvious that this is a well-intentioned, sensitive labor of love, and Hooper’s strategy of keeping it safe is bound to bring in folks who might otherwise avoid such material. For the rest of us, we must settle for a film that is solid but never quite soars.

In the end, Chi-Raq is a positive movie that wants to jolt us into doing something about the very real emergency in Chicago. Along the way, the execution of the narrative gets muddled, but there’s no denying that this risk-taking film has a pulse. A strong pulse.

Even the brilliant Juliette Binoche, a welcome presence in any film, is reduced to whipping up empanadas and looking wistfully beyond a fence — basically standing there and doing nothing. And this is one of the most developed characters in the movie.