Scott Foundas

An appreciably moody but dramatically stilted crime drama that exudes a certain retro appeal before collapsing into a series of empty neo-noir poses.

A colossally overproduced white elephant of a movie that obfuscates both its own protagonist and his important message with layer upon layer of unnecessary “style.”

The Runner doesn’t lack for drama, but the characters are so thinly and predictably drawn, and the movie’s supposed insights into the art of political compromise so banal, that nothing catches fire.

Even the resourceful, likable Reynolds is at a loss to elevate this rather dreary piece of would-be escapism, which calls out for the wry, pulpy touch of a John Carpenter (or his acolyte David Twohy) and instead gets the strained self-seriousness of director Tarsem Singh.

If you haven’t come to see lots (and lots) of dance, you’ve come to the wrong place; and even if nothing in the second half of ABCD 2 quite reaches “Happy Hour” levels, D’Souza shoots and edits dance with a lot more savoir faire than most contemporary musical directors, mindful to keep the dancers’ entire bodies in frame, and cutting with a strong sense of spatial continuity.

It’s fun enough while it lasts, but somehow, finally, all too much and not enough. The problem isn’t that dinosaurs have ceased to impress us, but that dinosaurs alone are not enough to sustain us

Whereas Wan (who retains a producer credit here, and makes a cameo appearance) is the sort of director who can effortlessly turn a billowing curtain or creaking floorboard into an unbearable portent of dread, Whannell rarely makes the neck hairs quiver, let alone stand at attention.

Desert Dancer traffics in the kind of spirited rebel-youth archetypes who’ve been endemic to dance movies for decades.

Zombeavers is not a total wash, and seen at night, under the right combination of low expectations and controlled substances, it may even seem better than it really is.

Beneath the sitcom cutesiness and boldfaced sentimentality, the film manages to keep just enough reality coursing through to stay grounded.

Z for Zachariah is a handsome-looking film (shot in widescreen, on remote New Zealand locations, by veteran David Gordon Green d.p. Tim Orr) and it doesn’t lack for provocative ideas, though it never digs quite deep enough into any of them.

As usual, Statham gets a lot of mileage out of his droll, ever-present scowl, but as in “Heat,” the movie’s disparate narrative strands never really come together, and the climactic showdown feels pretty anticlimactic.

A handsomely made but dramatically inert and not very scary sequel.

Features a standout central performance by newcomer Boyd Holbrook (“The Host”), but suffers from predictable plotting and shallow characterizations that keep the movie from ever transcending the obvious.

When it comes to Annabelle’s five or six big stinger moments, Leonetti manages to deliver the jolts, and if audiences are sure to head home complaining about how dumb and predictable it all was, many may also find themselves nursing their significant others’ lightly bruised forearms.

Touches of apocalyptic comedy run throughout Nightcrawler, but the movie’s overriding tone is one of strident, finger-wagging self-seriousness.

The good news is that Kevin Costner does some of the finest, most deeply felt work of his career as a widower lawyer fighting for custody of his biracial granddaughter in Mike Binder’s Black and White. The bad news is that this well-intentioned family drama never quite shakes free from its didactic, movie-of-the-week dramaturgy and a hand-holding approach to race-relations.

If the movie never quite masters the feel of messy, grown-up life, it at least makes a few promising salvos in that direction... The actors help a lot.

Ponderously overlong and not even half as much fun as it should have been, The Equalizer still gets a lot of mileage out of Washington’s unassailable star presence.

An inspirational sports drama that goes long on rectitudinous sermonizing but comes up short on gridiron thrills or genuine love for the game.

The Giver reaches the screen in a version that captures the essence of Lowry’s affecting allegory but little of its mythic pull.

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus is at once too much and yet somehow not enough. On the one hand, it’s exciting to see the always envelope-pushing Lee working without a studio- or distributor-imposed safety net... But while the film never lacks for ambition, it fails to satisfy emotionally or intellectually in the ways Lee intends.

Skillfully made first feature by writer-director Katrin Gebbe has some undeniably striking passages and performances, but ultimately spirals toward a gruesome third act that is no less monotonous for supposedly being based on true events.

Seth MacFarlane has delivered a flaccid all-star farce that’s handsomely dressed up with nowhere to go for most of its padded two-hour running time.

Both the words and the pictures are surprisingly flaccid, largely due to Gerald DiPego’s literate but hopelessly contrived screenplay and direction that lacks Schepisi’s usual snap.

The lively but wildly erratic result will surely please Jaglom’s winnowing fan base, while baffling most others and doing little to deter Jaglom himself.

There are intriguing, half-formed ideas afoot in Transcendence, but the script and Pfister’s heavy, humorless direction tend to reduce everything to simplistic standoffs between good and evil.

For all its sincere intentions, Kruishoop’s script feels cobbled together from newspaper headlines and bits of other movies rather than real, lived experience.