Jen Yamato

A sneaky tale of savagery in the dehumanizing digital age, writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Cloud” is as bleak a warning as you’ll find in theaters this year, cautioning against the corrosive combination of late capitalism, the internet and human nature.

The script by Nick Lepard never quite figures out how to fill its 98-minute run time with new cat-and-mouse (or shark-and-marlin, as Tucker dubs her) twists, and “Dangerous Animals” loses steam treading familiar trope-filled waters en route to an oddly mawkish ending.

Despite a snoozer of a pat ending that strains to bring its themes full circle, the live-action iteration at least proves that the franchise, with its notion of ohana and several films, spin-off series and countless plushies sold to date, hasn’t lost all its heft — just its original spark.

The film also suffers from erratic pacing and half-baked reveals, but at its best, it throbs with raw, human, horrific honesty.

The Amateur may be off to a rocky start as a spy franchise, but it scores one for the IT crowd.

Even with a gimmick engineered to orchestrate endless bursts of Looney Tunes-style hyperviolence, “Novocaine” lives up to its name, all right — a tedious action-comedy so numbingly bland, you feel the pain of its 110-minute run time even as its protagonist can’t feel a thing.

It’s an affectionate finale for the character, crafted with such care — from Molly Emma Rowe’s costumes to Kave Quinn’s thoughtful production design to those signature needle drops, monologues and Bridget-isms — it’s a shame “Mad About the Boy” isn’t opening in U.S. theaters.

As the tropes pile up faster than tears in a Nicholas Sparks novel, so do the bodies, dispatched in increasingly inventive and grisly ways.

Anderson is radiant playing this daffy optimist who rambles in breathy clips about past glories, as if the world around her hasn’t moved on since the days of Siegfried & Roy.

[Kurzel] delivers another warning in the form of a timely American crime story — one that, arriving in theaters a month after the U.S. election, many will deem too late.

It’s too bad that the premise hints at more of a horror twist than the movie actually delivers. Heller frequently interrupts a thin story with ambiguous dashes of magical realism that only serve to confuse.

Written and directed by “A Quiet Place” scribes Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, “Heretic” builds suspense through ideas and argument, allowing both sides to score points when it comes to organized religion.

This lethargic romantic drama forces chemistry where there is none and, worse, sells out its aspirationally cool, intelligent female protagonist with an endgame that she — and the luminous Dern — hardly deserves.

At times a case study in How to Be an Ally, the film is accessible by intention. Yet it remains raw, vulnerable and joyful, even when things get messy, as it charts a road map to empathy and acceptance — the real destination that awaits at the end of their cross-country odyssey.

When the pair’s natural curiosity and humor seep into the film, their scrappy enthusiasm is infectious.

An American teen encounters peculiar horrors at a remote German resort in Tilman Singer’s “Cuckoo,” a kooky sci-fi genre hybrid that crackles with offbeat turns and creature scares as it unfolds against a backdrop of deceptively serene forests and cheeky Euro-kitsch.

Set during the drab 1990s of Clinton-era America, the latest offering from writer-director Osgood “Oz” Perkins throbs with a bone-chilling sense of dread, a marvelous piece of supernatural horror wearing the skin of a serial killer thriller that weaves a lasting, sinister spell.

It’s frustrating and distracting when flat direction, inconsistent effects and wooden acting break the spell, making it more and more of a slog to stay interested as Johnny slices and dices his way through the film’s 94-minute run time.

More than its predecessors dating back to 1979’s lean, brutal “Mad Max,” “Furiosa” highlights the silliness and savagery of toxic men playing “Lord of the Flies” in the rubble of humanity.

Both the filmmaker and his cast are breakouts to watch in this Sundance standout, a heartfelt and hilarious entry in the coming-of-age canon that’s primed to find kindred souls in a wider audience.

Try as it does to mash slasher and Christmas picture together into some kind of a yuletide “Scream,” “It’s a Wonderful Knife” so badly miscalculates both genres that you count down the minutes, wishing for a guardian angel to save its likable young stars from the movie they’re stuck in.

“FNAF”’ instead spins out of control as it attempts the fool’s errand that has befallen many a video game movie: shoehorning a weird and immersive experience into the bones of Hollywood narrative convention.

Proving her own star quality, a committed Suri guides Sam through a journey of identity and final-girl heroics that brings satisfying healing to her strained relationship with her mother.

A fresh pivot that starts out strong before caving to fan service, this femme-centered installment at least doesn’t skimp on visceral horrors and black humor, finding inventive ways to make its audience cringe, cower and cackle as it puts its heroines through hell.

Flee is a work of great empathy for the refugee experience, bringing audiences close up to the fears of violence and repression that drove Nawabi’s family from their home and the abuse and apathy he describes that they faced once they left.

Beyond Glenn-Copeland’s magnetic onstage presence and rich, sonorous, still-flawless vocals, it’s the candid moments in which he dances to the music, riffs on spontaneous beats in between sets and shares meals on the sidewalk with his younger bandmates that leave a hopeful grace note on Glenn-Copeland’s legacy.

Antebellum ultimately trips over its gimmicky plotting en route to a conclusion that rings false.

The sequel is a stab at world-expanding that veers off the rails as it reaches for dazzle over depth, rounding out the hit film series somewhere between a whimper and a bang.