Noel Murray

The slam-bang stuff in this picture is too tediously routine. The movie is much better when it gets philosophical, pondering a world where everybody’s surveiling everybody else but nobody can agree on how to use that information to keep us all safe.

This movie’s heart is in the right place, and its company is pleasant enough. But by its final half-hour, it starts to feel too much like a rote recitation from a rom-com to-do list.

Like the movies covered within, Sharksploitation is undeniably entertaining — especially at its most preposterous.

The Beanie Bubble eventually runs out of steam. The snappy pace and colorful style — so attractive at first — later become alienating, keeping nearly all the characters locked into one dimension.

The bluntness keeps the film from approaching greatness, although history buffs and genre fans might appreciate a World War II story told from a unique, non-Western perspective.

For the most part, Fear the Night feels like it could have been made by almost anybody. It’s crafty enough, but it’s lacking LaBute’s usual acid wit and fearless provocations.

Despite the morbid preoccupation with diving’s dangers, The Deepest Breath is an intense and often beautiful movie, likely to appeal to fans of extreme sports documentaries like “Free Solo” and “Riding Giants.”

Even if the narrative feels a little forced, the movie still works.

The story takes a while to get going, then rambles a lot once the premise has been established. And the dialogue zooms along so fast that it can be hard to follow. But young filmmakers are supposed to take chances like this.

The effects look cheap, the Louisiana accents are broad and the characters are one-dimensional, but veteran B-picture stars Nicky Whelan (as a tough sheriff), Casper Van Dien (as a notorious criminal) and Louis Mandylor (as the raiders’ leader) all throw themselves into the film’s cheesy spirit.

A rushed, muddled ending — and a general lack of any cogent point — keeps “The Attachment Diaries” from being an Almodóvar-level success. But for fans of those seamy places where art and smut intersect, this movie is a nasty little treat.

It’s fascinating to hear the details of how prolific Blanchard was, before the law caught up with him. If he saw a vulnerability in a store, a museum or a bank, he felt compelled to exploit it. He’s half crook, half Type-A task manager.

The “Barcelona” edition is essentially a repeat of the first film, flaws and all.

Hawco and Gaitán are gifted enough actors to give a dialogue-heavy movie some layers and dynamism; and Beltrán and Pitts throw some intense challenges at their heroes, including bad weather, a poisonous snake and a terrifying corpse.

Peter Nicks’ documentary Anthem is a broad-strokes film about a nuanced topic: the promises and failures of the American experiment.

No situation or character really gets a chance to breathe or grow here. Even the best casts can flail when the vibe is more antic than comic.

This movie is perhaps best described as a clunky but endearingly heartfelt DIY depiction of life among a group of LGBTQ+ kids, striving to live joyfully while being plagued by evil forces, anxious to eradicate them.

Sarah Snook gives a riveting performance as a mother going mad in Run Rabbit Run, a psychological thriller that’s mostly effective, even though its story is familiar and somewhat threadbare.

Director Roshan Sethi gives the musical interludes some visual pop; and the songs are genuinely hooky.

There’s very little about Maximum Truth that’s unexpected: not the jokes, not the satire, and certainly not the plot. Barinholtz and O’Brien are funny enough to keep this movie bubbling along, even when it’s low on ideas.

More than anything, The Perfect Find is a strong showcase for Union, who gets to play a lot of notes as Jenna: funny, sexy, anxious, nostalgic, inspired. Even when the movie is too plain, its star is something special.

Like most westerns, Surrounded is about people trying to reinvent themselves on the frontier. But this is also one of those westerns with a cynical streak, where the hostility the characters are trying to escape hounds them mercilessly.

The story being told lacks depth and insight; but it does have snap and polish, and it features a lot of astonishing art. In a way it’s a true Stan Lee experience.

Even without its paranormal elements, Jagged Mind is a powerful portrait of the dissociation that occurs when a person tries to justify the misbehavior of someone they love.

What results is a down-to-earth kind of horror movie, about the common feelings of despair fathers feel during those draining first few weeks.

Jeffers and Hay have a strong chemistry, and they make Peter and Winona’s vivacity and pain feel equally real, even when the movie around them is shading toward the phony.

Nothing in the story really sticks, or stings. The ace cast makes the movie better. But they deserved a better movie.

Writer-director Cory Choy and co-writer Laura Allen don’t offer a lot of definitive answers about what’s really happening here; instead they use the premise as a foundation for a series of beautifully shot vignettes, following two troubled souls as they connect with nature and each other

Despite all the familiar faces, Simulant still feels too bare-bones. It asks some pretty remedial questions about freedom and humanity; and it is ultimately too tasteful and earnest to get pulses pounding and minds racing.

There are really two movies happening here: one, a cat-and-mouse game between two manipulative schemers; and another that skewers self-involved, “anything for a click” influencers. Both have their merits; but they don’t mesh well.

The idea behind this film is to celebrate James’ first and best teammates. In the real world, what they achieved as a basketball team was remarkable. But dramatized? On the screen? It’s stubbornly undramatic.

For those willing to stretch a little to connect with Ferrara, Padre Pio is often as rewarding as it is challenging.

The Wrath of Becky delivers satisfying action, as this underestimated heroine — well-played by Wilson — makes some terrible people look like absolute fools.

This is a different kind of prison escape picture, focusing on the stifling confines of a life devoid of possibility.

Though the movie falls a bit short in character and theme, Harder preserves the story’s shocks by having the players remain aloof and unknowable from moment to moment, which keeps the overall picture’s meaning vague.

More often, the weirdness and affectations seem gratuitous. Even for a movie meant to be offbeat, the rhythm is jarringly askew.

While trying to make the original’s free-flowing, frequently surprising plot fit into a more conventional screenplay arc, Barris and Hall have sapped a lot of its vitality. The new version may be more current, but the old one rings more true.

There’s a bit of a bait-and-switch involved in Drucker’s approach; and on the whole, the film’s balance between the celebrities and the wannabes doesn’t do full justice to either. But there’s a strong point of view here, as Drucker scrutinizes an era that established a lot of the codes and aspirations of our own influencer-saturated times.

From scene to scene, Lopez and Caro do fill these broad outlines with real feeling, bringing a personal touch to old pulp archetypes.

Only one of these two pictures works on its merits, and it’s not “Part V.” But that’s as it should be. That’s true commitment to the bit.

It’s hard not to be impressed by Burleson’s command of how old exploitation movies look and sound.

The film’s dialectic qualities can feel a little forced and wooden, though Ritch mitigates this somewhat by directing his cast to deliver their lines at such a snappy clip that viewers don’t have time to dwell on the clunkers

This is an ideal role for Lenoir, who handles the punching and shooting parts of action movies well, but really excels at the brooding. His Adam is aptly named; he’s a biblical kind of hero, sinning and suffering.

The movie is entertaining and has a professional polish; but it’s also very safe. It feels like it was made more for the Darling children’s parents, not the Lost Boys.

The more fanciful qualities of Freaks vs. the Reich work fairly well. Mainetti has a gifted cast and a talented special effects department, so the scenes of these X-Men-like outcasts fighting fascism do look fantastic. But the film’s exhausting length is a challenge, as is Mainetti’s failure to use his historical setting meaningfully.

The cat-and-mouse action is uninspired and slackly paced; and any pizazz that Wilson, Lundgren and Fehr bring gets lost once they stop talking and start shooting.

Ultimately, this film is less about her final decision than about how having these choices helps her figure out who she wants to be.

Though the movie’s leads are undeniably charming, director Steven K. Tsuchida and screenwriter Eirene Tran Donohue don’t give them much to do that hasn’t been done many times before. What does distinguish their film is its setting

Though “Seven Kings Must Die” suffers some from the gray palette, dim lighting and general somberness that weighs heavy on a lot of modern television, the movie delivers viscerally exciting fight scenes and a strong sense of what life was like in an ancient, unsettled world.

The fight sequences are so dynamic — and so frequent — that the 90-minute runtime flies by. This is the kind of movie that connoisseurs of over-the-top action like to seek out.

It’s an artful piece of work, with some memorable moments where these Texans pick at each other, playing on the weaknesses that are hard to hide in a small town. But the movie is also relentlessly sour, reducing nearly everyone in it (except Joan) to a few immediately observable and mostly unflattering traits.

As with the similar ‘80s and ‘90s films of director Chris Columbus (a producer on this project), the characters in Chupa are likable and memorable, with a fun dynamic. And Cuarón — the son of the Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón — creates a rich sense of place here, encouraging the viewers to come to love Mexico as much as Alex eventually does.

Nothing that happens really matters that much. Nevertheless, the movie has the kind of personality and heart too often missing from grimy little crime pictures. It’s endearingly ramshackle.

Watson’s fine performance and Brown’s thoughtful stylish touches (especially in the sound design) make the slice-of-life scenes special. The rest of the picture is more sketched-in.

Some of that professional lingo (like calling contracts “shows” and first assignments “debuts”) makes the story function as a sly metaphor for the entertainment business; and Byun’s stylish action sequences juice up the film’s second half.

The primary assets here though are Aniston and Sandler, who are totally present in every scene, playing off each other like old comedy pros and coming up with little bits of improvisatory business that make Nick and Audrey feel like a real and loving married couple.

Last Sentinel is more geared toward delivering a message about humanity’s bent toward paranoia and self-destruction than in producing any tension or thrills. It’s a very heavy film — really too heavy to move.

There are times, though, when Stapleton’s disjointed structure is distracting. Also, by centering so much of the narrative on Jackson’s voice rather than on the people who worked alongside him over the years, the film’s perspective can feel limited.

While director Matt Smukler and screenwriter Jana Savage deliver moments throughout the film that feel vividly real, too often they veer into the maudlin or cutesy, as though trying to soften this material for the broadest possible audience.

If you can forgive the persistent corniness of “Supercell,” this modestly budgeted storm-chaser drama offers some surprising surface pleasures.

Anyone interested in gaming history will find a lot to enjoy here; and the general niceness helps make what is essentially a fun 15-minute anecdote tolerable for 90.

The more powerful parts of this picture have to do with their realization that people may be too eager to hear tidy stories with clear villains and conclusions — even if they’re not entirely true.

The plot of Punch follows a fairly predictable path, and it lurches into overheated melodrama in its second half. But Ings does a fine job of capturing the instant connection between these two young men.

If nothing else, this movie is an effective demonstration of the directors’ ability to lull the audience into a relaxed state before knocking them around.

"Fallen Sun” is best described as a movie-size version of a “Luther” season — which, for longtime fans, is better than no “Luther” at all.

Despite some nice mood-setting, too much of Wolf Garden is spent talking around the story rather than just telling it.

The film gets too mired in shock for shock’s sake in its final half-hour; but for a good stretch it’s a wild and unpredictable ride.

The movie’s handful of action sequences are good, but they’re too sparsely deployed and overwhelmed by lots of slow-paced scenes of characters stewing in self-pity.

The film is visually sharp and quietly absorbing, and Olenius and Vilo sensitively capture the isolation and self-doubt that can make an athlete’s life so lonely.

God’s Time has an endearingly scrappy vibe and a talented cast filled with unfamiliar faces. But it also feels cobbled together, as though Antebi had multiple ideas for how to approach this material.

Ambush has the structure of an old-fashioned two-fisted combat picture, but with too little actual combat.

The elements of a good, “Winter’s Bone”-like depiction of the rural social order are here. But they only really coalesce — and combust — when Thornton’s on the screen.

Landon gets a lot of help from Harbour, whose facial expressions alone capture this ghost’s wit, hopes, fears and heartbreak. He’s one lovable dead guy.

Swallowed is slow-paced and often aggressively unpleasant — unless your idea of a good time is watching people moan in pain for minutes on end while clutching their stomachs. But it’s a memorably intense experience, with sharp points to make about how the lives of outsiders and outlaws can tip in an instant into sloppy chaos.

The movie’s premise is clever; but what really makes it work is that these two use this ghost schtick as a way to examine the ways that friendship can be a hassle.

Indie filmmaker Pete Ohs and a small cast of committed actors ventured out into a barren New Mexico nowhere for “Jethica,” a horror-comedy that doesn’t offer much in the way of scares or laughs but is strangely fascinating regardless.

For the most part, this is an absorbing and nuanced character sketch, with a well-deployed supporting cast.

Even at its bluntest, Seriously Red draws a lot of heat and light from Boylan, whose Red enjoys embodying the casual confidence, folksy wisdom and bombshell bravura of one of the world’s most beloved entertainers.

The symbolism remains heavy, but it’s all in service of a powerful prisoner’s story, about the small ways people find freedom.

When Attachment becomes more of a full-blown possession thriller in its final third, it loses the lighthearted charm and keen observation of its earlier sections. Still, that first hour is so sweet that the comparatively sour parts don’t spoil the picture.

There are jokes here, and dramatic moments too; but everyone is so darn earnest all the time that nothing truly exciting happens. Instead, we just hang out with some pretty decent folks for a while, and then the credits roll.

What saves the picture is McKenna’s knack for finding something real and relatable within quirky comic characters like a hyper-organized overprotective mother and a swaggering cool guy who makes a living telling other people how to succeed.

The film works best when it gets into the nuts-and-bolts of the sex scenes themselves, past and present.

There’s an earnest, yearning passion here that makes the film feel vital even at its clumsiest.

The Locksmith screenplay (credited to five people, none of whom are Harvard) doesn’t have the snappy dialogue of the best noirs; but its storytelling is efficient, with enough characters to make its world feel well-populated but not overstuffed.

Anderson’s story becomes a tale of perseverance, about a passionate woman still searching for her happy ending.

Give credit to Spillane for making sure that this movie isn’t just about the heartwarming highs, but about the hard work it took to reach them.

The Mission is less about Mormonism or Finland than it is a poignant and relatable portrait of loneliness.

The lack of explosive action hinders Condor’s Nest, as does the reliance on spare, nondescript locations like bars, offices and open fields. But Blattenberger can write punchy dialogue; he also wisely spends some of his money on ace character actors.

Shotgun Wedding peters out down the stretch, as the explosions and gunfire overwhelm the banter. But the middle hour is snappy, helped by the chemistry of Lopez and Duhamel, playing two over-analytical, over-prepared types who have different ideas on how to thwart their attackers.

Sorry About the Demon is too slackly paced and there’s a broad tone to the jokes and performances that skews corny. But the central comic premise is a hoot; and the movie has an unexpectedly philosophical dimension.

The film is bracingly frank about the younger generation’s pursuit of sensual pleasure (and pain). And it’s graced by Weil’s superb performance as Avishag, a multilayered character who swings from maudlin sentimentality to the extremes of human desire.

There’s something wrong with the children, all right. The filmmakers can’t figure out what to do with them.

While the script (co-written by Eisener and John Davies) is weak, there is an endearingly scruffy vibe here, goosed by some cool-looking costumes and effects.

If the movie feels a bit overstuffed, that may be because Poliner clearly cares about these characters, and — quite touchingly — has thought a lot about what would make them happy.

The cast is fine, but there’s a dispiriting dourness to the film. Nevertheless, after a slow start, Kitamura does offer up some impressive splatter scenes — peaking at the end, with a wild climax that partly justifies the movie’s existence.

Ultimately, this is a movie with real personality, about a man coming to realize with no small amazement that he has an actual legacy to pass on — even if it’s a grim one.

Smith and Leonard spoof the presumptions and pretensions of people who like to outwardly project as kindly and enlightened; and they unsparingly illustrate how someone’s seemingly rock-solid reputation can be undone in an instant.