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.