Michael Rechtshaffen

Maybe it was too much to have expected something fresher than the totally 80s feel-good vibe that Drivers’ Ed is content to deliver, but considering the source, the comedy can’t help but feel unmotivated. It’s what the kids today would call mid.

Lacking in tonal connective tissue, The Life of Chuck may still leave in its wake the desired upbeat, life-hugging effect, but it ultimately proves to be an ephemeral one — as transitory as the apparitions who usually haunt Flanagan’s more potent ghost stories.

Although anchored by a number of strong performances, particularly those of Ben Foster and fresh-faced Toby Wallace as estranged half-brothers attempting to find common ground despite their different upbringings, Helgeland’s meandering film still feels stuck in another place in time.

In the thoroughly capable hands of Grant, Delpy and McCormack, whose interplay has been playfully choreographed to the 1-2-3 tempo of a waltz-infused score by composer Isobel Waller-Bridge (Phoebe’s sister), the film proves as pleasingly undemanding as a typical summer read: neither a legit page-turner, nor easy to put down.

Although Prisoner’s Daughter gets a necessary emotional lift from its strong lead performances, the blandly by-the-numbers redemptive family drama falls short of representing a return to early form for the “Thirteen” director.

Any effort that manages to incorporate pointed observations about Islamophobia, casual xenophobia, female objectification and sexual hypocrisy, at the same time working in a loud make-out session in a cathedral confessional certainly can’t be accused of slacking, no matter how kooky or tedious things become.

While Anchorage, like its doomed passengers, might come up short in reaching the intended destination, the existential road to not getting there is nevertheless paved with its share of inescapably persuasive intentions.

That it ultimately manages to work as effectively as it does is a credit to the firm, focused visual grip of director Perelman, best known for his Oscar-nominated 2003 drama, “House of Sand and Fog,” and, especially the impressively-rooted portrayals of the two leads.

The execution struggles from the outset to find a sustainable comedic pitch.

Scheinfeld (“The U.S. vs. John Lennon”) pieces together an evocative time capsule. Somewhat less convincing is the film’s implication that the contentious tour ultimately led to the group’s demise.

Although Tomlin (for whom Weitz wrote 2015’s Grandma) and Fonda are thoroughly capable of taking their characters in any direction required of them, Moving On ultimately strands the actors — and the audience — at an awkward impasse.

You People busts out of the gate with the lit, razor-sharp zip of a “Dear White People” only to limp across the finish line with all the edge of Up With People.

The depiction of teenage acute depression settles for shallow character development and self-indulgent tropes that distract from a strong Hugh Jackman performance.

Strip away the IMAX scope, the booming score and the flyboy swagger, however, and all that remains is a hollow shell of bland, beaten-down war movie tropes that leave Jonathan Majors to effectively fend for himself with his deeply-rooted lead portrayal of the first Black aviator in Navy history.

After a while all the tasteful images of undulating waves and pulsating jellyfish can’t help but underscore the inescapable naval-gazing that goes with the territory.

A weakness for the formulaic, combined with a noticeably weighty running time, continually bumps up against the film’s many fine points.

For an extreme sports documentary, Super Frenchie, tracking the increasingly dangerous exploits of gonzo skier/BASE jumper Matthias Giraud, can’t help but feel benignly pedestrian.

Even as the concept of crowdsourcing isn’t as novel as it was at the time of the film’s predecessor and the 90-minute running time can feel unnecessarily expansive given the repetition of those pandemic-related sequences, “Life in a Day 2020” nevertheless serves as a telling time capsule. The world has never felt so compact.

Dispiritingly generic in both appearance and tone.

While the muted performances might have benefitted from the occasional more emotionally rooted response and the South Africa locations don’t quite convincingly double for John Ford country, it’s the inertness that ultimately stops Black Beauty in its tracks.

A CG-animated musical fantasy that still manages to infuse sufficient charm and genuine warmth into the inescapable familiarity.

While the Nick Peet-directed film has its cheerfully outrageous moments . . . even mild shock value in the time of an epidemic might not be just what the doctor ordered.

Despite its penetrating handheld camerawork (by Arnau Valls Colomer) and mind-altering sound design, Lost Transmissions never quite manages to tune out the lingering element of self-indulgence.

The seductively photographed and well-acted production simply can’t gloss over the inconsistencies in the Scott B. Smith-credited adaptation, which pile up higher than all those discarded cigarette butts.

Less would have been considerably more in the case of Tread, a needlessly overstuffed documentary chronicling the path that led to a disgruntled muffler repair shop owner going on a remarkable 2004 rampage in a heavily armored bulldozer through the streets of Granby, Colo.

Ultimately, just as the events tread a fine line between fantasy and reality, so does the film teeter precipitously between promise and pretense.

A probing though ponderously episodic drama that ultimately feels as stitched together as Sawchuk’s frequently unmasked mug.

By the time the film finally gets to Fletcher’s dark and stormy, death-defying stunt, its greater liability is a talking heads-intensive structure aimed squarely at aficionados while certain to leave the uninitiated a little surf-bored.

While Long gives it his trademark amiable best and Klabin and longtime collaborator Patrick Lawler cook up a heady cocktail of lively though budget-conscious visual effects, at the end of the day the Carl W. Lucas script feels more like a concept pitch than a fully-plotted proposition.

While German actor Fürmann and especially Kingsley engage in a nimbly calculated game of cat and mouse, the film’s coup de grace fails to land with the intended punch.

While the escalation in anti-Semitic violence and rhetoric is justifiably alarming, Hate Among Us, which spends a lot of screen time covering attacks in Paris and Berlin, would have made for more incisive viewing had its exploratory journey kicked off closer to home.

In Mob Town, the cast’s definitely got the goods, but the writing and direction consistently fail to seal the deal.

Unfortunately, as cobbled together by writer-director Patrea Patrick, those historical elements, in which grainy black-and-white archival footage is unconvincingly blended with repetitive reenactments, keep distracting from the main attraction, who is prominently featured in candid interviews conducted some years prior to his death in 2018.

An undeniably heartfelt if overlong affair, especially for the uninitiated.

Provides a timely reminder of the once unquestionable value of a shared viewing experience in this era of personal streaming.

Ultimately more a curio than a bona fide buried treasure, the forward-thinking production, with its animated opening credits and resourceful use of models, makeup and double exposures, nevertheless serves as a valuable reminder that imagination and creativity needn’t ever be limited by the going technology.

Cutting through the small-town cliche clutter is Kanters’ deeply felt turn.

With the colorful Allison — he’d fit right into one of KFC’s revolving Colonel spots — and narrator Woody Harrelson at his disposal, Haney could have easily done without all the glossy dramatic recreations and frequent shout-outs to Bristol-Myers Squibb, which occasionally create the undesirable effect of a corporate promo video.

A killer concept falls frustratingly short of the finish line in Empathy, Inc., a dark morality tale that ambitiously casts contemporary technology in a throwback visual setting.

The documentary can’t help but feel like a promo piece despite providing some insightful backstage glimpses into its subject’s well-publicized life.

Grafting familiar Disney and DreamWorks tropes onto a tapestry of traditional Chinese legend and lore (the plot is loosely based on a Ming Dynasty-era shenmo novel), the adventure entertains with a title character who could be the spawn of Chucky and Stitch, from “Lilo & Stitch.”

While it may not put a fresh spin on the sports documentary format, “Loopers” gives the bag-carrying faithful a well-earned moment in the sun.

It isn’t that the sequel, directed by the returning Chris Renaud and again boosted by an energetic voice cast, doesn’t deliver on the genially amusing, if disposable, fluff — it’s just that the shtick-heavy storytelling proves even more undernourished than it was for the first outing.

It turns out Pokemon Detective Pikachu isn’t half bad.

As long as he maintains his focus on the notoriously private Land and the painstaking efforts of Impossible Project’s chief technology officer and Polaroid vet Stephen Herchen to recapture lightning in an SX-70, Baptist delivers something reasonably compelling. Unfortunately the bulk of the overly artsy production is preoccupied with the exploits of others.

Perhaps he was too distracted by wearing so many hats (Dara also performs the self-penned Once-style ditties on the twee soundtrack), but both he and Lancaster didn’t bother to imbue their sketchy characters with sufficient likability.

One wishes the script might have shared the degree of precision that has obviously been applied to the technical side of the production, which is resplendent in visual dazzle from the smallest beads of sweat on a character’s forehead to the vintage knit fabrics to those sprawling exotic vistas.

Unfortunately Marryshow, in his various capacities, has neglected to instill his terminally obnoxious character with a vital shred of audience empathy, let alone to provide sufficient comedic beats that would have better engaged his thoughtfully diverse cast.

For every poignant keeper...there’s a clunker.

Even as it treads on familiar Stephen King (“The Mist”) and John Carpenter (“The Fog”) territory, the film has moments that will leave you gasping for oxygen — as long as you choose to avoid all those gaping plot holes.

Replaying many of the visual gags that worked so amusingly before, the latest edition proves every bit as repetitive and uninspired as its glib title, bringing little that’s fresh or funny to the interlocking brick table despite boasting a script penned by originators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

It’s all quite amusing up to a point, but unfortunately that point arrives early on in this practically two-hour-long take on a one-gag premise.

There’s the kernel of an intriguing political thriller buried beneath all the strained exposition and pompous speechifying enveloping An Acceptable Loss, but writer-director Joe Chappelle never manages to find it.

Hernández ultimately fails to inject sufficient empathy into his moody character, while all those alternating flashbacks and episodes of delirium take a toll on the film’s ability to maintain a firm grip of its own on viewer engagement.

Amid the despair, Spitak nevertheless offers a glimmer of hope in the bleakness.

Andy Serkis' decidedly non-Disney Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle may have intended to offer a darker, grittier take on the classic Kipling stories, but the end result proves to be more of a murky muddle.

While Elgort, whose big breakout role was in last year’s “Baby Driver,” does a decent job of delineating the two characters and Patricia Clarkson reliably comes through as their sympathetic doctor, the clinically distancing production never forms a meaningful bond with its audience.

Factoring in the flat narration by Clarke and some awfully hokey visual effects, Better Angels would have benefited from better angles.

Although a third act reveal doesn’t quite pack the intended punch, Bullitt County nevertheless propels its characters in some unanticipated, intriguing directions.

While an argument can be made for it being either “too late” or “too soon,” James D. Stern’s American Chaos nevertheless serves as a handy look back on the poll-defying perfect storm that cleared Donald Trump’s path to the White House.

Although it’s all bathed in a warmly nostalgic glow courtesy of cinematographer Darin Moran, and the cast, including Peter Stormare as an oddball shaman called the Rock God, is uniformly engaging, too often the familiar proceedings get bogged down by extensive slo-mo surfing sequences and pointless “Wonder Years”-style narration.

My Favorite Year” meets “Nebraska” in An Actor Prepares, a comedic road movie that doesn’t take any fresh detours from its well-traveled route despite the presence of a very game Jeremy Irons.

What’s missing is a more personal directorial imprint.

Given all the intriguing stuff he had at his disposal...it’s a shame Berman isn’t able to bring the enigmatic man of the hour (plus 17 minutes) into greater focus.

Despite its undeniable visual artistry, the latest incarnation of White Fang fails to leave a lasting indentation.

In the absence of more intricate, involving plotting, the tongue-in-cheek characterizations and eye-catching production design only take things so far, and the novelty begins wearing off well before that dog-eared copy of “6 Dynamic Laws” reveals its final chapter.

While the always affable Rudd is up to the more serious task at hand, the overly studied direction by Australian Ben Lewin frustratingly keeps the audience at arm’s length from both its lead and that surprising chain of events, which feel as palpably pieced together as the stitching on Berg’s baseballs.

You don’t need to be well-versed in rom-coms to know that, in the process, Harper and Charlie will ultimately fall into each other’s arms, but getting there proves to be a slog courtesy of screenwriter Katie Silberman’s talky, sitcom-ready dialogue and director Claire Scanlon’s ponderously uneven pacing.

While it scratches an admittedly reflective surface, you keep hoping the nicely photographed Maineland would have dug a bit deeper.

Like its developmentally-arrested, misbehaving man-children, the long-shelved source material hasn’t aged particularly well.

And thanks to some creative character casting and a self-aware script that isn't averse to poking fun at itself, Show Dogs emerges as a high-concept family comedy that manages to avoid being taken for the runt of the litter, even if it doesn't really bring anything fresh and different to the arena.

Among the more glaring issues are performances that sound distractingly contemporary and obvious budget constraints that serve to suffocate the overly talky chamber piece instead of providing much-needed breathing room.

This mannered character study comes across as more affected than affecting.

Although the prospect of watching a mash-up of "La La Land" and Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" holds promise, director-writer Josh Klausner, in a departure from his screenplays for "Shrek Forever After" and "Date Night," opts instead for offbeat spiritual enlightenment, but is unable to sustain a delicate tone that becomes increasingly twee as it goes along.

While the slim sampler platter would be more at home on an "Exorcist" commemorative DVD release, the documentary, accentuated with unnerving bursts of music sampled from the works of neoromantic composer Christopher Rouse, should placate the rabid fan base.

Visually atmospheric but tonally all over the place, Hot Summer Nights, a first feature by Elijah Bynum, has much to appreciate but ultimately possesses the sampler-platter vibe of a director’s demo reel.

The old debate over nature versus nurture is played for (sporadic) laughs in Birthmarked, a satire that's unable to deliver on a promising hypothesis.

Thanks to its star's all-in commitment, the overtly maudlin film works better than it should, particularly sequences in which octogenarian Reynolds is dropped into "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Deliverance" and converses philosophically with his younger self.

While undeniably a rough-around-the-edges first feature, there's something so appealingly genuine about Arkansas-based Justin Warren's loosely autobiographical Then There Was Joe, that you're willing to forgive the shortcomings.

The guys occasionally over-reach for irreverence, director and fellow "Workaholics" veteran Kyle Newacheck mainly succeeds in delivering the most defiantly outrageous farce since "Borat."

The Ramsay brothers are attracted to all the grisly stuff found at the junction between noir-tinged thrillers and scarlet-hued horror, although the plotting here isn't as tightly coiled and the characters aren't as delineated as obviously intended.

At its core is a well-intentioned message about inclusivity and valuing inner beauty, but the film, adapted from the 2012 YA best-seller by David Levithan (albeit with a problematic perspective shift), remains stuck in a stubborn rut somewhere between confusing and snooze-inducing.

While Potter devotees will no doubt be scandalized by the edgier bad-boy ‘tude now possessed by Mr. McGregor’s mischievous cotton-tailed nemesis, the greater offense committed is the awfully flimsy plotting that fails to take full advantage of terrific production values and the work of an engaging cast led by the affably energetic James Corden.

Although it has some commitment issues in terms of wanting to be both a probing domestic drama and a flat-out thriller, Aaron Harvey's The Neighbor finds a sturdy constant in its thoughtfully delineated performances and handsome production values.

Over the course of almost two hours, all the amped-up visual effects and slapstick silliness can become awfully exhausting, making a hinted-at sequel ultimately feel like a threat.

Brian Buckley’s The Pirates of Somalia, based on a memoir by Jay Bahadur, finds itself navigating some choppy tonal waters prior to emerging as an engagingly performed take on recent world events.

Manages to squeak by with enough charming set-pieces and amusing sight gags to compensate for a stalling storyline.

The blades of the brotherhood may be sharp, but the execution is exceedingly dull.

Despite Denison’s intentions, a very fine, uncomfortable line exists between being up-to-the-minute and opportunistic.

LBJ would have benefited from a more distinctive voice.

Lacking the incisive bite of the keenly observed campus-based “Dear White People,” the movie too often finds itself on the unfunny side of that very fine line between risqué and bad taste.

While Harnett’s a real trooper and stuntman-turned-filmmaker Scott Waugh (“Act of Valor”) establishes an effectively bone-chilling milieu heightened by an immersive sound design that keeps those whipping winds and howling wolves in uncomfortably close proximity, the embellishments fail to create crucial suspense.

While the storytelling, by Abbess and co-writer Brian Cachia, might lack novelty and, occasionally, coherence, visually the film consistently impresses with creative art direction and costume choices.

Although Chris Perkel’s two-hour documentary can feel like an extended episode of “Behind the Music”...it’s admittedly tough to condense half a century of such remarkable musical diversity.

While Little has a assembled a sharp ensemble, including Bruce Davison as the sheriff who hunts down the felons and the late John Heard as the prison warden, it’s ultimately the hardened intensity of Patrick’s commanding portrayal that gives Last Rampage its take-no-prisoners tautness.

Although chances are good that something called This Is Your Death is not going to be admirably restrained in the subtlety department, there was at least the hope that this grotesque thriller wouldn’t have kept pivoting uneasily between audacious social satire and mawkish moralizing.

Embargo plays like a freshman college paper that’s long on reference material but comes up short in establishing an overriding premise.

A perfectly watchable if overtly theatrical whodunit.