Justin Lowe

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.

It's commonly expected that a self-described "thriller" should deliver some, well, thrills, but actor-director Zoe Quist's self-indulgent third feature turns out to be practically inert.

The reductionist plot eventually forces both the protagonists and the filmmakers into a blind shaft without a productive exit strategy.

Overall, the writers have crafted a well-articulated universe with distinct settings and relatable, compelling characters devoted to a thrilling quest for redemption.

Aside from the ponderously contrived narrative, however, which mines a long list of supposedly relatable female insecurities and neuroses, much of the characterization relies on one-dimensional stereotyping.

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

Genre comparisons aside, the expert timing and clever setups that were exhilaratingly employed in You’re Next are mostly absent here... Fortunately Barrett and Wingard haven’t lost their ironically humorous touch, as most of the film’s uneasy laughs revolve around upending typical thriller expectations.

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.

Simien intensifies the impact of both action and dialogue with a self-reflexive directorial style that creates a marginally heightened sense of reality, revealing more about characters' motivations than would conventionally be expected.

Chan varies the film’s stylistic veneer of naturalism with occasional, lyrical scenes of the lush woodsy environs surrounding the family home and flashbacks to the kids’ childhoods, as well as moments of low-key visual humor, as the pair stumble about searching for clues to their mother’s secret life.

Nirmalakhandan attempts to pull off this whirlwind display of staggeringly dysfunctional family dynamics with a lightness of tone that’s often at odds with events in the film.

The greatest strengths of the film clearly come from Green’s novel, which resolutely refuses to become a cliched cancer drama, creating instead two vibrant, believable young characters.

Rose-tinted as the film’s perspective may be, Ping Pong Summer is still a lingering, entertaining glance back at an era that Americans just can’t seem to get enough of, whether in music or movies.

The outcome is usually fairly tiresome, but on occasion reaches levels of moderate originality.

Lacking sufficient self-parody to entertain as a campy monster-movie spoof, or the budget to thrill as action adventure or sci-fi, much like the creature it depicts, Poseidon Rex represents a throwback that even its own distributor can't really get behind.

Creepy enough to get the job done, but not sufficiently extreme to fulfill the initial setup.

Debuting directors Damon Maulucci and Keir Politz have a better sense of storycraft than the filmmaking on display.

Hank and Asha takes an unremarkable situation and renders it completely banal.

Leveraging limited resources to impressive effect, writer-director Chris Eska’s empathetic scripting and well-tuned casting reliably guide The Retrieval’s memorable trajectory.

Under Saldanha's guidance, an extensive team of animators and visual effects artists elevates the 3D format to an alluring level, with character details, dense background imagery and often complex action and aerial sequences (including a requisite Busby Berkeley-inspired musical number) appearing effortlessly executed.

Cory Monteith in one of his last screen roles may be the best thing going for McCanick, a tired cop drama that recycles predictable narrative elements almost to the point of meaninglessness and then substitutes wildly improbable developments in place of actual originality.

Rife with rom-com cliches and jaw-droppingly idiotic situations, the story is so off-putting that its irrationality becomes almost secondary to its pointless attempts to prove that opposites really do attract -- when they’re actually not as divergent as they first appear.

Vitthal realizes the virtues of keeping things simple, minimizing the complexity of shots and editing to keep the focus on the characters, which constitute the strongest component of the film.

Swanberg's modest script lays out some fairly mundane domestic situations, which the actors elevate with a collaborative style characterized by gentle humor and authentic, frequently overlapping dialogue.

Turns out to be something like a comic riff on "Training Day." Leaning more toward Hart's brand of slightly raunchy humor rather than Ice Cube's equally popular family-friendly fare, the PG-13 film exhibits broad appeal.

The script succeeds by expanding the Paranormal Activity mythology with additional details and even a few surprising twists.

As a document of the American political process, Caucus offers an intriguing if limited snapshot of a specific campaign season, but lacks either breadth or depth.