Dennis Harvey

None of these elements feel very fresh, least of all in Ward Parry’s formulaic screenplay. But they’re executed with sufficient slick professionalism to make for a passable if unmemorable diversion.

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.

Engrossing as well as damning.

The pleasant, polished drama provides a compassionate take on a high schooler undergoing considerable change, its only debit being the arguably too-neat depiction of that transitional circumstance.

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.

The indictment of narcissistic online culture is still little more then an excuse for glam intrigue, and our not-infrequently-lethal anti-heroine’s motivations remain just as cloudy as they were last time. But a good time in enviable vacation spots is guaranteed, with ghoulish demises for many principal figures here served up like caviar on sashimi.

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.

While not perfect, the psychological thriller is cleverly conceived and confidently executed enough to make for a fun ride, one that eventually takes the full plunge into bloody black comedy terrain.

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.

It’s a densely textured, quite gorgeous dive into folkloric witchiness that avoids nearly all anticipated clichés, finally arriving at something not so much terrifying as unexpectedly poignant.

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.

Inside has a suspense hook to drive it forward and a climactic violent set piece, if not quite the one we were expecting. But the question of who’s going to kill or get killed ultimately proves less important than how their pasts have shaped these men — or rather trapped them, like quicksand.

It is engrossing stuff, as a cautionary tale as well as a taste of the spirit that leads people into explorations more bold than wise. The lure of the ocean’s mysteries (and the Titanic’s enduring romance) are vividly conveyed.

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.

For all its tastefully exasperating gaps in character and storytelling specifics, “To Live & Die and Live” still has a persuasive overall vision, one that holds out the possibility of salvation for its hero — and its city — albeit only if history and the toll it still exacts are faced head-on.

There’s no great effort at building tension, or orchestrating major setpieces. But the narrative moves along at an engaging clip, and there’s a pleasing emotional payoff to the way things ultimately come together in Farley’s screenplay.

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.

Set in the 1980s Midwest with a mix of the drab and the eccentric, Dead Mail is an effective, twisty thriller with a singular edge of off-kilter black comedy.

Goosed by a couple gratuitous interludes of gory amateur surgery, the movie is eventful, with a high body count. But there’s never the baseline authenticity of atmosphere or character depth that might make so much action meaningful, or even particularly exciting.

The director and star’s efforts may have lifted the German-language edition, but this static, lost-in-translation revamp just comes off as effortful, for little reward.

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.

It’s a small, slyly humorous movie that nonetheless ends on a note of more dramatic substance than you’d expect.

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.

How the film conceives of Maya is somewhat limited by her being a naive pawn in a bigger picture, but Dynevor easily demonstrates the screen presence to sustain this whole enterprise.

You might hesitate to call a film this fixated on child terror, adult perversity and sadistic violence “good,” exactly. But there’s no question director Scott Jeffrey casts a skillfully disturbed spell over a tale that emerges a cross between “It” and the original “Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”

Michael Polish’s film gamely tries to compensate for unspectacular production values with a lot of action — but its staging is pedestrian at best. Alexander Vesha’s script never convinces, and the competent actors fail to spark, despite Sylvester Stallone’s presence as a reluctantly reunited former colleague.

There’s no lack of suspense, human interest or unique animal footage in this engrossing feature.

The well-acted, confidently crafted indie Scrap probes messy family dynamics with low-key but taut acuity, avoiding the usual poles of dysfunctional-clan comedy or high drama driven by yelling matches and shocking revelations.

The biggest single factor in making “Young Werther” an antic, pleasing gambit overall is English actor Booth. He channels a bit of the early Val Kilmer from “Top Secret!” and “Real Genius” in conjuring a hero who’s so nimble and amusing in his peacocking, we forgive him being his own biggest admirer.

This is a story with numerous stinging ironies, albeit one told in a refreshingly nuanced, non-hyperbolic fashion that pays off very nicely indeed.

"Mango” tells a story that could have been told many different ways. Still, the path chosen feels unique — not least for conveying some awful truths by means palatable even to the most skittish viewer. It’s a peek down a long, dark tunnel that’s nonetheless suffused throughout by the light at its end.

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.

This fast-paced, well-shot doc does place its finger on the quickening pulse of an ever-wider gap between liberalizing Western social values and the Orthodox sphere that believes they are antithetical to Judaism. It’s a painful divide, but one that Sabbath Queen helps keep at least partly in the realm of civil argument.

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.

It’s a fun movie that lands on the right side of “innocuous,” being pleasantly formulaic rather than simply bland.

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.

If you can withstand spending nearly two hours in the company of these grating, argumentative characters, there are rewards to be had in a skillfully wrought, twisty suspense tale.

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.

This imperfect drama nevertheless engrosses in its exploration of the life-and-death complexities of the healing arts, and how what may appear a simple matter of right or wrong from the outside can be much more trickily nuanced for those actually making fateful decisions.

In contrast to most movies about serial killers, this one offers nary a glimpse of violence, let alone any wallowing in sadism. Yet somehow that makes it all the more icky — at times the squirm factor is such that you may think no shower could wash a viewer’s taint-by-association away.

A sort of shaggy dog story whose appeal wanes as one gradually realizes it’s unlikely to go anywhere in particular, The Becomers is equally mild as sci-fi, spoof and sociopolitical satire. It’s off-kilter enough to catch one’s attention, but in the end too underdeveloped to strongly reward it.

When crises start occurring at the halfway mark, they pile on too quickly to underwhelming effect, sacrificing credibility for excitement that never really materializes.

This reinvention’s contrastingly elegant yet dislocated revenge-slash-love story is no slam dunk. But neither is it an unwatchable dud.

This English-language production may not be among the most memorable period war films in recent years, but its straightforward, sometimes brutal progress and assured craftsmanship will more than satisfy audiences looking for something other than simple combat spectacle.

The result is a movie that ultimately falls short on both suspense and ideas, though it remains watchable enough.

Indonesian director Mouly Surya’s well-crafted first English-language feature is too formulaically contrived to qualify as “elevated genre” or to boast the personal stamp of her prior work. Still, it’s an entertaining, pacey action melodrama.

That convoluted storytelling tack at times threatens to muffle “Funny’s” potent narrative agenda. Yet in the end, this ambitious, imperfect drama does pull off a complex thematic mix.

Psychotronic cinema fans may wish Queen of the Deuce spent more time on her celluloid stomping ground, and a bit less on family ties. Still, she did have a fascinating backstory, and surviving relatives’ (as well as some colleagues’) reminiscences are colorful.

Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee’s documentary “Any Other Way” combines archival materials, interviews and animated reenactments into a compelling investigation of an elusive life, as well as a talent so striking you’ll be amazed it remained forgotten for so long.

Its stripped-down approach to a familiar gist has a distinctiveness that is impressive, and is sure to please fans who are always up for a new slasher film — but wish most of them weren’t so interchangeable.

Daniel Hanna (“Miss Virginia”) and a strong cast, making for a satisfying scenic ride that picked up several festival audience awards last year.

David Gregory’s documentary won’t convince most viewers that the resulting flood of opportunistic cheapies are worth more extensive investigation. But they’re certainly cheesy fun in excerpt, and interviews with surviving participants provide an entertaining window into an anything-goes heyday for Hong Kong cinema.

Fun if perhaps a little too tongue-in-cheek for its own good, the results will no doubt appeal most to Moore fans who’ll revel in his Byzantine plotting, noirish tropes and other signature elements.

A grim diagnosis of a fast-spreading cancer, Against All Enemies may provide much less reassurance than cause for alarm, but its wakeup call is certainly worth heeding.

Masterful as he is at creating the stuff of nightmares, Morgan (as well as co-writer Robin King) is much less assured handling the character actions, psychology and dialogue outside his heroine’s fevered psyche.

On paper, it would hardly be expected to remain funny for eight minutes, let alone 108. But this ingeniously home-made lark never runs out of steam.

While imperfect, Bloody Hell does entertainingly offer food for thought via an important overall point made in non-preachy form: Nature indeed does have room for variation in gender and sexual norms, no matter how loudly political or religious conservatives these days protest otherwise.

The fact-inspired story’s central situation is compelling enough. But director/co-writer Henrik M. Dahlsbakken (of recent biopic “Munch”) delivers a middling effort too sparing of excitement to satisfy action fans, and without the character depth or involvement to score as drama instead.

There are enough formulaic elements, especially teens meeting gory deaths, to keep undiscerning viewers in their seats. But the script (co-written by Erik and sibling Carson) stumbles in its climactic revelations, with an even worse epilogue bound to send patrons out rolling their eyes in unamused disbelief.

The players are deft enough that a little more wit in the writing would have surely been well-served. (Nighy in particular makes much of relatively little.) And while briskly handled, none of the ideas here are fresh enough for Role Play to score points on narrative or character unpredictability.

While most performers are fine within the material’s limitations, principal villains Avgeropoulos and Montesi are notably underwhelming.

Despite so much cause for grief, what’s striking about the protagonists is their cordiality and resilient hopefulness.

Contrastingly notable for their absence are emotional depth, narrative cogency or non-scatological humor — lacks that much ultra-violence and a surprising amount of sexual content can only distract from so much over such a long, bombastic, shallow course.

Following events over the course of several years, this cautionary tale has an impact not unlike watching the rise of similar anti-transparency policies and politicians elsewhere of late: dismaying, yet with all the lurid appeal and colorful personalities of any juicy public scandal.

While seldom going for big laughs, the film never takes itself too seriously, allowing its story to occupy the realm of cineaste fantasy.

There’s no lack of effort here, but too often Suitable Flesh just feels effortful, rather than the outrageous good time aimed for.

It’s an involving, empathetic if one-sided portrait.

Though the results aren’t terribly original or memorable, they do provide a creepy 90-odd minutes.

In some respects an improvement on its predecessor, in others not, this is finally one more good-enough if unmemorable entry sure to extend the series’ life in lucrative fashion.

If The Dive’s final stretch feels a bit less urgent than what precedes it, one appreciates that the filmmakers did not pile on the usual melodramatic gotchas, hewing to a relatively realistic course of events.

The tension that should fire up this joint throughout never quite catches hold, because there are never any tangible stakes. These characters and their crisis remain just a premise, too incompletely worked out to either generate urgent suspense or enter the realm of surreal fantasia as Cage did in a long-ago road nightmare, “Wild at Heart.”

Director Samuel Bodin’s first theatrical feature is atmospheric, and departs from stock slasher conventions just enough to make for an entertaining if unexceptional scarefest.

The result is a fresh mix of social satire and relationship dissection with a saving dollop of heart.

Though slick and more expansive in some ways, with bigger action sequences, it proves an overlong, uninvolving entry, in which any attempted fresh wrinkles to this fantasy universe offer scant viewer reward.

Ultimately the performers are winning enough, and the ideas in the ambiguous story intriguing enough, to achieve an end result of successful middleweight charm and substance.

It’s hard to think of a prior chronicle quite so luridly indicting as American Pain.

Nick Cassavetes’ slick adaptation certainly maintains the book’s mix of lurid incident and pontificating pretentiousness — albeit without the kind of intensity that might have made this far-fetched story credible, or the atmospheric style that might’ve pulled it off as a fevered nightmare à la David Lynch instead.

The Wrath of Becky is entertaining enough. But perhaps inevitably, with its heroine grown to near-adulthood, the novelty is a bit dulled now.

It’s a self-canceling combination of the earnest and the clueless, its technical competency shorn of any leavening style or personality.

The worst thing you can say about To Catch a Killer is that it’s so adeptly executed in all departments that one is disappointed it ends up feeling a tad generic. It’s engrossing, sometimes exciting, yet never fully free from an overall sense of derivation.

Though not quite a slam-dunk — its sum impact is more pleasingly ingenious than indelible — Late Night With the Devil definitely reps a personal best for the Cairnses.

Director Anthony Nardolillo and writer Michael Corcoran’s film strikes a pose of sly ingeniousness throughout that is uncorroborated by any actual cleverness, surprise, wit, tension, thrills or much else you’d hope for in a high-end-heist tale.

The result is a useful mix of the pseudo-random and finely honed that refuses to hand-wring over Clem’s travails, yet simultaneously makes an upbeat case for her emerging from them intact — even if she’ll never exactly be Miss Congeniality.