Justin Lowe

Taken together though, the script’s rather shaky foundations and Crowe’s bombastic performance effectively derail the narrative in the second half.

Overstuffed with frantic action and framed by Sonic’s wisecracking commentary, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will appeal to family audiences seeking holiday distractions even if it doesn’t break new ground elaborating the franchise’s sprawling universe of intersecting characters and plotlines.

Intentionally provocative, artistically uncompromising and self-consciously polemical, La Leyenda Negra attempts to inform by incitement, challenging audiences to concede to an unvarnished view of migrant life in working-class Los Angeles.

Although Landon and co-screenwriter Michael Kennedy have latched onto a winning concept, pairing the body-swap conceit with serial killer thrills, they’ve freighted the film with so many trite life-lesson moments that the fun gradually drains from the narrative, like blood from a murder victim.

Cut Throat City will doubtless grab the attention of RZA’s diverse fanbase, but looks unlikely to make a significant mark among contemporary crime dramas.

More curio than classic, Four Kids and It may hold children’s attention (and sometimes test adults’ patience) over the movie’s brief running time, but seems unlikely to inspire many a rewatch.

For anyone who’s had to struggle to escape difficult situations, the self-reliance and perseverance these teens require to improve their lives will seem quite familiar and reassuringly realistic. Pahokee is also a worthwhile reminder for those who haven’t faced similar challenges that things rarely come easy for those from modest circumstances.

It feels too much like we’ve been here, done this already.

Power and Marks clearly have a facility with dialogue, and even though many of their plot points may represent standard dramedy material, the two elevate scene after scene with imaginative insults and witty banter among the characters.

Wilson acquits himself adequately enough, emphasizing pacing over character development, but delivering a series of kinetically propelled scenes that clearly benefit from his extensive visual effects experience.

Michael and Thomas Matthews’ debut feature Lost Holiday gives the impression of an in-joke that never quite lands.

The filmmakers’ reliance on romantic situations throughout the midsection may have some older teens and adults rolling their eyes, but the final scenes over-deliver with a literal flood of action that enables Hinako to definitively prove herself and discover her true calling.

It’s a fun concept, but the feature lacks the deft touch required to make disembowelments and virgin sacrifices actually seem amusing, although gore-hounds will certainly get their fill.

Ku shows a decent grasp of plot mechanics, but never manages to adequately develop the characters or effectively modulate the film’s pacing, even in the brief action scenes, which prove too tame by typical Cage standards.

Although it makes for an initially absorbing narrative and filmmaking challenge, with nowhere for the characters to run or hide, the thrills and shocks gradually become repetitive, as the writer-director recycles his own material, forcing the girls to evade the same threats again and again.

Favoring psychological chills over blood-soaked mayhem, Callahan’s impressively crafted debut nods to recent horror classics while displaying an eminently distinctive vision of its own.

DeNucci has a good sense for period detail, costuming and accessorizing the cast with a color palette ranging from earthy yellow through fashionable beige to muddy brown. Stylistically though, the film doesn’t have much in common with its most distinctive progenitors, missing an opportunity to recreate an authentic 70s aesthetic.

Alternately incisive and uneven.

Although she seems primarily concerned with whether conflicting views of sexuality can be reconciled in a committed relationship, Cash dresses the issues up in so many layers of cuteness that the message practically gets smothered by the candy-colored cinematography and insistent indie-pop soundtrack.

Mildly involving indie.

In the end, it’s a rather conventional feature that satisfies expectations rather than challenging them. As a result, this adaptation looks unlikely to stir the passionate devotion that could confirm it as first-rate comedy material.

Leveraging highly polished production values evoking the Old West with detailed sets, authentic weapons and period costumes, Wiluan gets enough of the details right so that the genre’s typical characteristics blend fairly seamlessly with the Indonesian adventure yarn.

More reliant on atmosphere than action to build suspense, Duncan Skiles’ The Clovehitch Killer offers an intriguing perspective on the darker side of American values, but lacks the conviction to entirely expose the cultural contradictions that often enable compulsive murderers

Lacking the flash of big-budget blockbusters or the originality of a uniquely imagined world, First Light is left trying to make the best of overly familiar sci-fi themes.

The cast handles the sometimes ludicrous plot shifts with relative equanimity, although Cavill seems like he’s trying way too hard to embrace his role as a conflicted cop and father attempting to protect his teen daughter while pursuing a killer ruthlessly targeting innocent young women.

While its indispensable girl-power self-affirmational instincts are sound and a committed cast assiduously focuses on delivering an uplifting message, this is regrettably uninvolving material.

While Levin’s writing is sharp and observant, it’s also often overwrought and eventually just plain tiresome.

Good-naturedly gruff, unabashedly resourceful and proudly Australian, Occupation gets the job done with a minimum of fuss and an abundance of explosive set pieces that will likely endear it to domestic fans, even if it’s mostly forgettable otherwise.

Shifting the film into action mode necessitates several leaps of faith to keep pace with the plot as Powley goes crashing through the forest with near abandon.

The New Romantic comes off as too forced and calculated.

Although the prescription drug users that Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry) profiles have some interesting things to say about how these products affect their performance and perceptions, the steady stream of talking-head experts doesn’t do much to raise the movie’s pulse.

Wang’s verite approach attempts to strike a tone somewhere between revealing and contemplative, but her principal subjects are too young and inexperienced with the world to have much of import to say.

Fitfully amusing and occasionally grating, Amanda & Jack Go Glamping succeeds best when it focuses on its protagonists’ unique shared experiences rather than the overly familiar conflicts of partners in crisis.

Although concentrating on delivering easily digestible situations and scene progressions, Landon does demonstrate some enticing visual flair that gets rather diminished by the repetitiveness of the plot.

An unlikely romantic comedy concerning a young parish priest struggling to discover the true scope of his religious calling, The Good Catholic doesn't so much challenge conventions as reinforce them.

Temple comes off as more of a half-hearted attempt at exploiting typical J-horror themes than an actual homage to the Japanese genre.

Rather than relying on amplifying typical genre conventions, Wingard methodically lays the foundation to set up this particular Death Note adaptation for a potential sequel, but the outcome is more deliberate than inspired.

Shea's intense focus on constructing an overly intricate plot isn't borne out by the film's visual style, which is more workmanlike than inspired.

The performances in the 1997 scenes are relatively low-key, relying more on the dramatic development of personal relationships than the shock value of unexpected events. The contemporary storyline offers little of particular interest, however, serving more to contextualize earlier developments.

Although visually observant, the film’s narrative remains frustratingly vague, disclosing little about its central characters and often burying the principal plot points.

Klein conveys his characters’ shifting mental states with expressionistic sequences that are often unevenly framed, shot from behind his subjects or even unfocused. The result can be intentionally disorienting, but not always particularly revealing. By contrast, the performances are far more compelling.

Kim keeps the action sequences tightly focused, particularly in the tense opening segment, but tends to let dramatic scenes go on for too long after they’ve conveyed their point.

Title deploys a fairly effective range of horror techniques, including jump scares, misdirection and some oddly unattractive VFX to ratchet up the tension, although gore is at a minimum.

The film is often so deterministically plotted that a sense of creative detachment hangs over far too many scenes, leaving an impression that the filmmakers may sometimes be more interested in making grand statements than in engaging interest.

Supernatural shenanigans and amateur sleuthing add up to mild-mannered entertainment in Jackson Stewart’s affectionately quirky directorial debut.

Loaded with dark humor, Bates’ script faces considerable challenges developing sympathetic characters.

Fight scenes are staged with brutal directness and relentless energy in an interminable series of beatings, shootings and more creatively inspired assaults.

The film’s central conflicts are almost stereotypically outlined, with the flawed locals arrayed against intrusive outsiders, and Doleac’s characters don’t display much more depth either.

Although it’s clear that her dauntingly complex personality contributes to her abilities as a superior storyteller, Feuerzeig and Albert now ask us to believe a proven unreliable narrator’s account of her own life, which largely lacks corroboration.

Chan’s English-language dialogue occasionally comes across a bit muffled, but his body language rarely fails to connect. Knoxville thrashes about in a fairly undisciplined manner, but succeeds in providing a sizeable share of the comic relief.

Although often narratively cryptic and stylistically uneven, Antibirth could serve to establish Perez’s reputation in low-budget horror.

Fortunately Schulman and Joost keep the film visually engaging.... All that busyness onscreen distracts somewhat from the impression that Roberts and Franco don't look much like teenagers, although they form a fairly good team as long as they’re pursuing specific challenges rather than sharing their nascent emotions for one another or attempting to unravel the intricacies of the game.

Inspiring as her journey may be, however, the film tracks an overly familiar arc, dwelling on Shields' disadvantaged background, teenage romance with another young boxer and family turmoil but providing limited focus on the sport of women's boxing or the complexities of obtaining training sponsorship or lucrative endorsements.

Yadav’s concerns about discrimination and violence against women are evident in nearly every scene of the film, as her script positions each of the principal characters to undergo an experience of self-actualization in defiance of prevailing patriarchal norms.

Drawing on a substantial track record of comedic performance, Guzman adopts his usual approach by coming on much too strong, a strategy that elicits its share of laughs in action-oriented scenes, but tends to overshoot the more dramatic moments.

Coming in a few notches below the terror factor of Wan’s most exemplary material, this somewhat less-satisfying variation of an ill-fated haunting nonetheless represents a solid debut for Swedish filmmaker David F. Sandberg

The cast’s performances adhere to appropriately exaggerated comedic expectations, but could have benefitted from more specific character differentiation.

Meyer...and his easy rapport with the kids and Sacks helps coax sometimes surprisingly candid comments from his subjects. What’s missing however is adequate background on how the boys became such impressive young musicians and why they gravitated toward heavy metal rather than pop or rap.

Liberally riffing on situations and themes familiar from the high school-set movies that established the renowned writer-director’s legacy, Lee has crafted an entertaining alternative interpretation that substitutes an international cast of Asian actors for Hughes’ largely white, suburban ensembles.

At just 70 minutes it comes across as rather too tentative and brief to amount to much more than a sensitively observed but ultimately inconclusive coming of age narrative.

With its measured pacing, focus on family and repurposing of familiar horror conventions, the film represents a rather adult offering that can’t manage any memorable frights until well into the first hour of running time.

Although it’s an inspired gamble to introduce familiar genre elements into what’s essentially a high-strung relationship drama, Nina Forever’s repeatedly shifting tone ultimately proves more of a drawback than an asset.

Lee makes a credible transition from directing comedy, but relies too frequently on sub-par special effects and poorly staged reenactments that only inconsistently pump up the action.

Building on a string of B-movie action titles like Assassin’s Bullet and Ninja, martial arts veteran Florentine doesn’t need any schooling on running an efficient and energetic production.

The whimsically humorous script relies primarily on playing up the individual idiosyncrasies of the characters rather than full-on comedic situations, although the overall approach remains grounded in reality, rather than taking to Wes Anderson-style flights of fancy.

Mustang fanatics will be thrilled by the level of access that Ford provided the filmmakers to shoot at the company’s Dearborn, Mich., headquarters and interview the Mustang design team headed by chief engineer Dave Pericak. Even so, it may be difficult to escape a sense that the film sometimes plays like an extended product promo.

The second installment, which reveals some of the reasons behind their imprisonment, lacks a similar sense of originality and urgency, undercut by overly familiar characterizations and dilatory pacing.

Sinister 2 comes up a bit short on creative resources, although director Ciaran Foy probably gets enough right to entice those partial to the original.

Monson does succeed in editing the frequently dissimilar footage together into a fairly attractive package, although an animated sequence depicting the power of cosmic forces and another illustrating an historical timeline of human events feel rather too forced and self-consciously showy.

Sanga establishes the film’s offbeat style by frequently relying on Kieslowski’s quirky voiceover to frame events, a technique that boosts the effectiveness of characterization but somewhat diminishes the impact of plot developments.

With predominantly improvised dialogue and performances, Felt gains scant narrative complexity from an over-reliance on a no-frills documentary style.

The threats faced in Runoff feel generic: predatory corporations, merciless banks, environmental contamination and encroaching industrialization just seem like overly familiar themes, lacking sustained suspense.

Strauss-Schulson brings an appropriately wacky comedic style to The Final Girls. Co-writers M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller have shamelessly raided the horror-movie canon, efficiently repurposing familiar references to amusing effect, without neglecting nods to Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and similar fare.

The movie is at its strongest when it integrates family dynamics into the plot rather than indulging in extreme couples therapy.

Such a deliberate setup is by design intended to create emotional conflict, so it’s perhaps fortuitous that the plot doesn't become even more contrived than it starts off.

Intermittently amusing but rarely as funny as it wants to be.

With filmmaking roots in horror and other genre fare, Taylor invokes some interesting cinematic choices but sometimes seems to be uneasily straddling the line between serious, intense drama and outright exploitation.

Reliant on suspense rather than gore, this is functional middle-brow psychological horror and screenwriter Joe Croker finds plenty of tired haunted house tropes he’s happy to recycle in adapting material from Susan Hill’s original novel.

Initially more a series of gags than a cohesive narrative, Merkins gets by on its considerable wit and a few genuinely hilarious moments for the first hour, then tries to play catch-up in the final 30 minutes by attempting to capitalize on marginal subplots.

Writer-director J.C. Khoury’s second feature is a romantic dramedy featuring a conventionally appealing cast that’s squandered on a dissatisfingly derivative premise.

An accomplished first feature that doesn't quite achieve its initial promise.

The film is attractively and professionally packaged however, with accomplished camerawork and editing supporting a narrative that eventually seems to reveal more smoke than fire.

Fastvold and co-writer Corbet subscribe to the less-is-more branch of screenwriting, assuming that audiences will be drawn in by the air of mystery surrounding the sisters, when in fact the lack of narrative detail is consistently off-putting.

What new information The Culture High offers is almost entirely subsumed by its sprawling ambitions to make every conceivable connection to the marijuana debate, limiting both its reliability and its impact.

The too-infrequent scare techniques, however, are mostly by the book, rarely developing sufficient dread to heighten the film’s rather unremarkable climax.

Anders’ well-attuned comic sensibility makes for moments of hilarity in some of the more originally conceived scenes, but bogs down in predictability with reliance on too many stock situations that absorb the bulk of the running time.

Actor and first-time feature director Matt Rabinowitz’s intense focus on a fragile father-son relationship makes for unexceptional developments in The Frontier, an insubstantial low-budget ensembler.

Nalin and cinematographers Anuj Dhawan and Swapnil Sonawane do an admirable job profiling the experiences of their selected subjects, although some trimming of the 115-minute runtime would help tighten the narrative focus.

Aside from some uneven handling of the cast, Ball competently styles the action sequences throughout the film and capitalizes on his VFX expertise with pulse-pounding scenes tracking the Runners through the Maze battling Grievers.

This passably palatable film never hits any real high notes.

A blithely derivative romantic comedy that isn’t without a certain smug charm.

Although the pacing would have benefited from some judicious tightening, much of the film’s effectiveness is attributable to the lead actors’ well-modulated performances.

Although screenwriter John Kare Raake’s Raiders of the Lost Ark template may sometimes seem a bit shopworn, at least it doesn’t dwell too indulgently on Viking mythology, playing to the strengths of the action scenario instead.

Much of the naval action is realistically and thrillingly staged with blazing cannon fire and slashing swordplay that sufficiently diverts attention from the sometimes unrealistic special effects.

Hughes and cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. handle the assignment skillfully enough, but without much imagination, sticking to a conventional action style that is more about the quantity of explosions than nuances of execution.

The castmembers portraying Splinter and the turtles achieve a persuasive level of realism that was never possible with the elaborate puppetry required for the original film series and adequately fulfill expectations for their characters.

Commercial director Bruce Macdonald’s first feature film feels curiously inert.

There’s no shortage of eye candy on display, with acrobats, dancers, fireworks and carnival rides providing a colorful backdrop to the fairly formulaic story arc. The lack of specific background on the event's origins and history is somewhat frustrating, however, since the 85-minute runtime could certainly accommodate further exploration.