Dennis Harvey

Its rags-to-riches-to-near-ruin storytelling is simplistic, the celluloid craftsmanship B-grade, the acting nothing to write home about. Still, there’s a sense of a fertile cultural moment being captured for posterity, however routinely.

There’s a lot to look at here, and nary a dull moment. Still, the cumulative impact is less than “great” — hobbled by too many confused, confusing layers in an overstuffed second half.

Hewing closer to the 1984 template, it’s an improvement on that film — not a particular high bar to reach — though a somewhat mixed bag overall.

It’s slick and fun in just the same way the earlier film was. Though given the parting promise of a third installment, one hopes Uthaug and writer Espen Aukan come up with some new twists — inspiration is beginning to run a little thin here.

Hall and Gandersman compel enough interest to pull viewers through, even if they may find the fadeout less than satisfying.

This tale of mob-related malfeasance and solo vengeance in Vegas is slick but thoroughly ridick. However, it’s pacy and colorful enough that those in the mood for a deep-fried knuckle sandwich with extra cheese may have fun.

This mix of found-footage, missing-person, demonic-possession and other stock narrative hooks too often feels like a compendium of ideas from other movies Frankenstein’d together, with too little effort put towards finding a personality of its own.

Despite a stronger premise this time, “Clare” echoes the filmmaker’s prior feature in remaining on a highly worked surface — one that doesn’t illuminate people and events so much as treats them like decorative pawns in a game whose rules, as well as its casualties, ultimately feel inconsequential.

It’s a compelling tale of increasingly hazardous desperation, even if the star and her fellow-Brit director Benjamin Caron (oth veterans of royalty drama series “The Crown) aren’t necessarily an ideal fit for this very American, down-and-out milieu.

White’s bemused alpha authority carries the day. And this uneven, sometimes sloppy vehicle gets a real boost from Method Man. He lends his wannabe-main-character sidekick moments of comedic invention that make him MVP here, much as he was in the very different “Bad Shabbos” a couple months ago.

Guns & Moses can be accused of implausibility, tonal missteps and sporadic heavy-handedness — but you can’t say it lacks chutzpah.

As the celluloid universe spun from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” continues to accrue remakes, spin-offs, addendums and miscellany, “Boys” does provide one potentially compelling footnote. But its execution feels like a missed opportunity.

Donnelly seems reluctant to embrace melodrama at the same time that he fails to provide the psychological detailing needed to elevate this story above stock genre expectations.

Straw is too messy to be “good,” exactly — but it has a bitter relevancy, and it works.

Reprising high-school slasher cliches dating back at least to 1980’s “Prom Night,” minus any particular invention or irony, this new entry is a slick-enough but disappointingly unimaginative effort that can’t even be bothered to reference the mythology established in the prior films.

It’s a polished, pedestrian biopic, with direction by British TV veteran James Strong that smooths over instead of elevating Eric Poppen’s cliche-riddled script. While the subject matter is compelling, one hopes Politkovskaya can someday get a punchier, less formulaic screen treatment.

Franklin & Marchetta have made a respectable first feature that is well-realized in every aspect — save the earnest but mediocre basic material it ultimately fails to elevate.

It’s a sort of fan-film magnum opus, impressively ambitious on limited means (purportedly around 1/200th the estimated Disney budget) yet still not quite ready for prime time, feeling more like an especially elaborate amateur cosplay than a honed vision with its own distinctive style and ideas.

A Desert aims for the enigmatic, supernaturally-tinged mystery of something like Lynch’s “Lost Highway,” but in the end lacks the tension and atmosphere to pull that tricky gambit off.

While many movies these days feel stretched too thin to sustain their few real ideas, Rounding emerges in the end as a project that ought to have shed some surplus ideas to better focus on a few. Either that, or the compact pacing should’ve been eased to allow them all more breathing space.

Frederik Louis Hviid’s second feature is an absorbing true-crime tale that readily holds attention for two hours, while lacking the deeper emotional involvement to linger in the mind long afterward.

This superficially diverting tangent is too convoluted and tonally wobbly to leave a lasting impression.

Justin Routt’s Mississippi-shot feature is competently made. But neither its staging nor its performances transcend the limitations of Adrian Speckert and Cory Todd Hughes’ script, leaving mediocre material unredeemed by any special thrills, style, or character detailing.

The preachier tenor may be welcomed by older patrons, but younger ones might’ve appreciated more humor being retained to prevent restlessness during the last half hour or so.

It’s a reasonably taut post-apocalyptic survival tale that makes up for a lack of original ideas with tight pacing and solid craftsmanship.

Despite its new thematic wrinkle, the five segments here feel familiar in ideas and unmemorable in execution. It’s a middling addition to a variably inspired anthology brand that will no doubt trundle on through more installments yet.

Has some gaps in storytelling and contextualization that leave it feeling like a less-than-complete picture of the protagonist’s career to date. Yet the film more than succeeds in its primary goals of providing an inspirational role model plus lots of stupendous surfing footage, a combination that will enthrall most viewers.

This unabashedly derivative movie makes so little pretense of aiming for the qualities it lacks, you can hardly begrudge boilerplate slasher enthusiasts the fun they’ll have with it.