John DeFore

Though it leaves some avenues underexplored and gives a bit too much attention to the sci-fi landmark name-checked in its title, the film makes for engrossing, sometimes unsettling viewing.

A capable cast helps the pic rise above its formulaic nature (take out a drunken hookup and some language, and this is a thoroughly mainstream family film, at least for families of non-homophobes), but doesn’t make it a must-watch by any means.

As much a confessional one-man play as a showcase for tricks, it's a magic show in the way a Hannah Gadsby monologue is stand-up comedy: a work capable of winning over those who normally don't pay much attention to the genre, and certain to leave some in the audience much more moved than they're prepared for.

The picture rarely makes that business much to look at, providing some kind of energy to offset the actor's appropriate reserve. It feels rather plodding as a result, failing to turn the boxer's conflicting loyalties into the stuff of crime-flick high drama.

The pic musters just enough dark-comic energy to recall early Sam Raimi — albeit without the frenzied camerawork that helped make Evil Dead a classic.

If it uses romance and hijinks as a way of suggesting to teens that the unthinkable might not really kill them, that's a worthy goal. (Insert your own remarks about surviving 2020 here.) But adding fewer spoonfuls of sugar to this kind of medicine might be good for everyone.

It's not really the showcase Mackie has long deserved, and at any rate, Idris' morally troubled young human is the story's real protagonist; but few fans will be very disappointed as the credits roll.

It's not just superhero fatigue that makes this feature feel generic and cheap — lively enough to keep young kids occupied, but preferably while parents are doing something more interesting in the next room.

This is among the most enjoyable art-docs of the last couple of years.

A deeply disappointing follow-up to her promising 2015 short Kiss Kiss Fingerbang, Gillian Wallace Horvat's I Blame Society is a first feature that points out many of its faults as it goes, as if to transmute them into satirical jabs at an uncertain object.

The third doc Ai has released this year (following Coronation and the Sundance entry Vivos), it's among his most effective films to date — tightly focused and morally urgent. As an example of civilian/police conflict that has become literally incendiary, its relevance to current protests for justice in America should be obvious.

The film exudes empathy, as you'd expect, but struggles to find a compelling point of view.

Despite dealing with a truckload of grief, isolation and heartbreak, Happy Face finds a resolution that's optimistic enough to justify its name.

Though clearly made on a tight budget, Udo Flohr's feature debut finds a seriousness to match its unshowy production values, likely endearing it more to history buffs than thriller fans.

A few flashes of amused chemistry between the two actors represent all the human interest in this unimaginative sci-fi actioner, but that doesn't mean the pic's relentless focus on giant-monster battles won't please the director's fans.

As it is, the family pic's light tone never lets its themes of addiction, abandonment and poverty hit home, instead focusing on its hero's unlikely accomplishment and the brotherhood of sport.

A critique of post-millennial journalism is one of several ideas raised but mostly abandoned in this genre pastiche, which never really coalesces despite some promising elements.

The race to hold on to an identity being fragmented by technology, imagined so hauntingly in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is pure genre formula here, which isn't to say it's not fun.

Sentimental at times but not as cloying as its title may suggest, the polished production benefits from the happily un-cute lead performance of young star Tayler Buck, whose determination suits the weighty social issues driving the plot.

Highlighting the sensory pleasure and creative satisfaction while mostly only hinting at the hassles, Remi Anfosso's A Chef's Voyage seems, like the tour it chronicles, a bit like a vanity project.

Even Gandhi (maker of 2016's Obama-early-years feature "Barry") admits that what he hoped would be a cautionary tale is probably just one more way for the infamous celeb to get the attention he craves.

Monotonous, unimaginative actioner.

Benefitting from an unassuming but dead-on performance by lead Molly Windsor, the picture may frustrate those expecting a true horror film, but earns Oakley a place alongside other young women (like Amy Seimetz and Sophia Takal) currently exploring the usefulness of genre conventions in feminist storytelling.

An airless film about childhood fantasies that comes to life only fitfully, Brenda Chapman's Come Away is aimed at children but so pickled in grown-up grief that few kids are likely to connect with it.

As it moves toward a climax that will require Santa to connect with his inner action hero, the film works better than it should without being as enjoyable as its predecessor, the brothers' much less ambitious Small Town Crime.

While the script bounces from the cops to the feds to the cons and back, it fails to take us to that Donnie Brasco sweet spot in which the psychological pressures of being In Too Deep threaten to crack our hero, whether somebody gets a shiv into him or not.

Rescuing Jimmy (and possibly Lorna) from a possessive, abusive husband would have been plenty of drama for this hitherto quiet, sensitive picture. Instead we get a family full of leering thugs, whose depiction sometimes suggests they might have a cousin out in the barn who dresses in other people's flesh. The action doesn't get quite that extreme, but it's bad enough.

Patient viewers will find much to enjoy in this parable-like story, which is billed as a heist film but is ultimately less concerned with thievery than with moral justice.