Simon Abrams

While it has a couple of appreciably goofy flourishes, the proudly crass horror-comedy Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is sadly more boring than offensive despite its superficially controversial high-concept premise.

Disappointing because its creators don't do anything interesting with a fairly novel theme: a mother's possessive love for her estranged daughter.

It takes some chutzpah to name your siege thriller Dangerous, and unfortunately, there’s not enough of it in the Scott Eastwood actioner of that name.

Point and Shoot consequently feels like a film made by a storyteller — not a journalist — who doesn't know he can ask follow-up questions.

Green, who plays a snotty version of himself, doesn't follow through on any of the ideas that make his film stand out. As a result, Digging Up the Marrow just uselessly lies there, like a cat during a heat wave.

In this context, Farnworth’s appropriately broad performance is exceptional. She doesn’t have much dialogue that’s worthy of her playful, all-in line readings, but Farnworth deserves all due praise.

Whatever promise the “V/H/S” horror anthology franchise started with is barely present in V/H/S/85, a low-energy potboiler that promises to transport genre fans back to the analog past for some reason.

So often bogged down by pseudo-naturalistic long takes and generic cop/robber power dynamics that it makes one wonder what the point of watching such a film is.

There's not only nothing new here, there's nothing convincing either. And if I'm supposed to judge Bumblebee based on how well it succeeds at what it tries to do (rather than what came before it), it's still not very good.

Rather than dig into what’s specifically changing about their relationship, Duplass and Eslyn focus on armchair psychology and black-box speeches to explain away what’s really going on with these two men.

A spectacularly disjointed comedy that’s only superficially about two foul-mouthed, but well-meaning dopes who light and pass the proverbial torch to the next generation of slackers. “Reboot” is more of an ego trip for Smith, an amiable, creatively frustrated pop artist who survived a major health crisis — one that even he knows he can’t shut up about.

What makes The Vigil so frustrating is that it feels like a product and not a reflection of its subject’s identity crisis.

Piercing, the latest horror film by music video helmer turned feature horror writer/director Nicolas Pesce, is more frustrating than it is actually bad. Because Piercing, an adaptation of Ryu Murakami's novel of the same name, succeeds as a darkly comic provocation. I think. Sort of?

Lowe's attempts at getting into anti-heroine Ruth's head are largely unsuccessful, though her performance is sometimes effectively hysterical.

There are hints of a deeper movie here, but the one on-screen sticks too closely to stories and ideas we already know.

A coming-of-age drama that's also Southern Gothic ghost story, is an unusual, ambitious failure, mostly because the film's hyper-naturalistic style is meant to evoke a supernatural mood.

Kermani deserves credit for expanding on Hill’s story, which has a great premise, but not much else going for it.

Amateurish horror-comedy.

Pegg and Temple’s responsive, well-attuned performances are actually the most frustrating things about Lost Transmissions since they’re good enough to make you want to care, even when their characters don’t seem to be worth caring about.

Van Damme and Lundgren have worked together five times now since 1992, when the two '80s icons traded blows and bullets in the first "Universal Soldier" film. Not much has changed in 26 years since Lundgren, playing a berserk cyborg antagonist, stole that earlier film, too.

The Divine Fury does sound like fun, especially given that, in the film, demons tend to catch fire as they’re exorcised. There’s also a climactic fight scene involving a scaly demon-man. And a ton of dead air, boring asides, tedious backstory, and other unnecessary narrative padding.

More often than not, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is a dire checklist of clichés that were already gathering moss back in the 1980s, when G.I. Joe was a popular children’s cartoon.

You never have to wonder or try to understand what the characters are feeling because they never stop telling you how to feel. The answer, invariably, is sad and fearful, but From Black is neither, really.

Meet Me in the Bathroom is an impressionistic blur, more about what it felt like to be at the head of a scene than the actual scene’s character or identity.

If nothing else, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reminds us that nostalgia is often used as a mandate for spectacularly lazy filmmaking.

Killers Anonymous just doesn't make sense as a throwback to MTV-friendly sensibilities. It's also not inventive, funny, or energetic enough to warrant its creators' vague ideas about deceiving looks, moral relativism, and, uh, girl power?

There’s a definite beginning, a doughy middle, and a gaping end to “Project Wolf Hunting,” but they somehow don’t cohere into a feature-length spectacle.

Unlike “Stranger Things,” The Wretched is a little too cute about teen angst, and not light enough on its feet to make you want to root for its ostensibly typical adolescent.

Some of the familiar and faithfully recreated twists and turns of the original “One Cut of the Dead” still land here, but not enough to make this leaden remake seem endearing or zany enough to pick through.

A tepid situation comedy in indie drama drag, "The Black Sea" lacks a sense of urgency beyond a few moments of canned tension between Khalid and Georgi (Stoyo Mirkov), a haughty Bulgarian fisherman.

Granted, the movie does feature a few endearingly goofy scenes where Cage acts like Humphrey Bogart, with sweat on his brow, a stogie in his mouth, and a haughty putdown for anybody who makes eye contact with him. But he basically already did that in Paul Schrader’s underwhelming 2016 Ed Bunker adaptation “Dog Eat Dog.”

Unlike the actual video game, Assassin's Creed isn't ridiculous and fun, but rather ridiculous and turgid.

Writer/director Sam Hoffman's trite dramedy about personal redemption delivers mediocre performances.

Khumba is disastrously uninspired. Not even a galaxy of stars, united in their willingness to take a check, can save Khumba from being the boringest plucky outsider of all.

Bleeding Steel is also unfortunately just one film in a string of lackluster globe-trotting action films that struggle to confirm Chan's decades-old self-image as a pop cultural ambassador.

I wanted to root for and care about the world of “Night Raiders,” but I never felt like Niska and her daughter said more about themselves than their predictable behavior advertised.

This new holiday chiller mostly idles when it should charge at its most unsound ideas.

Worse still: because The Emperor's New Clothes is often beholden to the whims of Brand (star of "Get Him to the Greek," and that tedious "Arthur" remake nobody saw), it too often feels like "Button-Pushing Encounters with Russell Brand."

The Prodigy doesn't work because Buhler's scenario is too predictable to be involving and McCarthy's direction is too indecisive to be gripping. One of these two problems might have been surmountable, but both, at the same time, is lethal.

A couple of pedal-to-the-floor melodramatic twists suggest that “Founders Days” might’ve been a bolder or just meaner genre movie, but its toothless satire, like its timid horror drama, sadly doesn’t cut it.

Still: the cold half (ie: the important half) of Lords of Chaos is so ugly and mean-spirited that I couldn't really enjoy the other parts of the film that work, not even Rory Culkin's fantastic lead performance, or the on-screen chemistry that he shares with supporting actress Sky Ferreira (as photographer/love interest Ann-Marit).

Eventually, the lack of werewolf-related carnage is the least concerning thing about My Animal.

This might have been a better movie if its creators embraced their fitful bloodthirst. Instead, they seem to hope that you like these stock characters enough that you’ll gasp when their friends and enemies inevitably bite the dust. A machine to kill vague people, “Whistle” never delivers on its frightful promise.

The film makes one damning if unoriginal observation—the "reality" presented on reality TV is manufactured—and then does nothing to expand on it.

Unfortunately, director Johnny Kevorkian and screenwriter Gavin Williams not only put their Beanstalk-high concept to ill use, but also fail to keep their drama compelling on a scene-to-scene basis.

Poser might have been more satisfying if its gauzy night-club aesthetic and bold, underlined dialogue didn’t smother viewers with trite observations about hipster artistes.

This thematic concern with disingenuous allies isn't subtly expressed, but it is compelling for a while, especially given the movie's high-concept premise.

And when the movie’s over, nothing is resolved that the filmmakers didn’t side-step or reduce to a few unconvincing symbols of hope for a more equitable future. You might like Enforcement if that’s a line you already want to buy; there’s otherwise not much here to change your mind.

Jiu Jitsu is too disjointed and tame to be worth an impulse-rent; it's also too silly to be enjoyed with a straight face, and too lazy to be endearingly dopey.

The Good Doctor isn't a ponderous bore because Blake isn't a strictly good or bad character: It sucks because he isn't even a compelling character.

Director Jackie Earle Haley's Criminal Activities is the worst kind of Tarantino clone, one with no gas in the tank, and no clue about how to pull off Tarantino's swagger.

Blood Glacier is too sleepy to do anything with its guano-stirring premise. Yes, there are crazy-go-nutty monsters in the film, but you seldom get to see them as they sadly are not the focus of Blood Glacier.

Psycho Goreman isn’t clever or lively enough to be more than fitfully fun, especially given how much time is spent mocking generic, but painstakingly recreated plot contrivances.

The characters could have embodied traits of typical office drones and managers, turning the film into a savage black comedy. But those elements aren't developed beyond a point, making the movie's only selling point its excessive gore and violence.

Beyond some effectively icky make-up effects, Contracted: Phase II sells nothing that viewers absolutely must buy.

Maybe this is a product of the movie’s nature as an adaptation, but there’s never really a moment in There’s Someone Inside Your House that suggests its protagonists are real enough to be worth rooting for.

Medieval is a bleak and visually oversaturated allegory about the 15th century revolutionary Czech soldier turned military leader Jan Žižka (Ben Foster). There's blood and chainmail, yes, but it's also a self-serious allegory about duty and faith during miserable times.

For better and worse, Gone in the Night feels like the directorial debut of a podcaster, somebody who knows the value of storytelling novelty and has a gift for narrative economy, but also suggests more by the grace of good casting than their own singular talents.

Arizona might have worked better as a smart-ass social commentary if its tsk-tsking of consumerist myopia wasn't so consistently on the nose and its plot didn't swiftly devolve into slasher movie cliches.

Sleazy Australian kidnapping drama Hounds of Love will make you wish you were watching a more traditionally nihilistic horror film.

"Unnecessary Roughness” is a more apt title for the scuzzy serial killer procedural Night Hunter.

By widening the scope of their based-on-a-true story, the makers of Revenge of the Green Dragon make their subjects look like the products of unimaginative cultural assimilation.

Unfortunately, the movie’s unexpected plot twist violently re-directs its treacly uplift narrative for the sake of a Hail Mary conclusion that’s almost ridiculous enough to be campy fun. It’s not though, since the twist in question feels like a last-ditch effort to convince viewers that the movie’s otherwise plain story, credited to Vera Herbert (series writer on “This Is Us”), has more depth than it does.

Gender inequality may be a potentially complicating factor when it comes to sexual trauma (i.e., men can also be abused by women), but that provocative conceit isn’t considered with much care or intelligence.

The predictably loud and shockingly boring action caper 6 Underground is one-man-brand director Michael Bay’s answer to the “Fast & Furious” series.

While Sniper: The White Raven sometimes delivers solid meat-and-potatoes action movie violence, the rest of the film only confirms the hellish nature of war, which we’ve all seen before.

The film's rote right-makes-might fantasy wouldn't be so obnoxious if pandering to the lowest common denominator wasn't its default mode.

Stage Fright's lopsided tone wouldn't be so confounding if the horror elements worked or if writer-director Jerome Sable's music, co-composed with Eli Batalion, weren't so forgettable.

Gibney may encourage viewers to condemn the police, but his self-righteous editorializing doesn’t make up for the lack of convincing evidence.

Amateurish direction and generic characterization make a light premise — serial killers slaughter a rural carnival's haunted-house patrons while pretending to be carnies — feel like a slog.

The three lead actors are limited by their characters' kiddy-pool-shallow behavior.

Cusack's low-simmering performance keeps the drama at a tediously low boil.

Funny Bunny may be effectively alienating, but never in a commendable way.

The canned British character study Mogul Mowgli disappoints on a few levels, especially given its admirable focus on authenticity and cultural identity in a kitchen-sink drama about Zed (Riz Ahmed), an aspiring British Pakistani rapper.

Ultimately, Devries seems to want to impress viewers with his anger.

Leading man Richard Dreyfuss is so irrepressibly charming that he almost saves Jason Priestley's dismal buddy comedy Cas & Dylan from its awkward humor and trite sentimentality.

Lifeless bromantic comedy Flock of Dudes has all the celebrity cameos and latent sexism of Judd Apatow's adult coming-of-age stories but none of the lowbrow wit and sensitivity.

Throughout the film, Mindless Behavior's four interchangeable members only project youthful enthusiasm and PR-friendly love for their fans.

Absolution is an unconvincing showcase for Byron Mann, a new action star to whom Steven Seagal halfheartedly tries to pass a torch.

[A] grim, film-school-sloppy horror-thriller.

Tepid ghost story Insidious: Chapter 3 tries and fails to emphasize character-driven drama over cheap, jump-scare-intensive thrills.

The Loft's boorish leads aren't sensible enough to be worth caring about, making the film's character-driven conclusion feel like a self-defeating cop-out.

Attacks doesn't establish the severity of a real-life tragedy, it only crassly devalues the loss of human life.

This sequel is sluggish and rote where its predecessor was aggressively perky and desperate to please...Tai Chi Hero is more Tai Chi Business as Usual.

When the creators of The Last Exorcism Part II swapped pseudo-verité realism for psychological realism, they made it a lot harder to take their franchise seriously.

Project Almanac could have been fun, but its creators don't seem to know what fun looks like.

Most jokes don't translate very well in Go Goa Gone, a Bollywood horror comedy influenced by Shaun of the Dead.

There’s ultimately too much strained seriousness in The Song of Names' dramatically flimsy and symbolically heavy episodic narrative, making Girard and Caine’s already dated feel-good historical drama seem especially tacky.

Jellyfish Eyes may be blessedly unpretentious, but it's also immediately unmoving and relentlessly boring.

Though it starts off as a cautiously optimistic conversion narrative, the pseudo-progressive, banned-in-India LGBT drama Unfreedom quickly devolves into an absurdly pessimistic provocation.

Summer of 8 may be as sincere as a Hughes movie, but it's as shallow as a kiddy pool.

Barker's tactlessness wouldn't be so bad if he weren't too high on his own patchwork rhetoric to ask his subjects what specifically motivates them.

There doesn’t seem to be a romantic-comedy cliché missing from the bland French domestic Back to Burgundy, a wholly contrived post-adolescent coming-of-age yarn.

Co-writer/director Martin Owen downplays his conceit's most intriguing aspects — where are these kids' parents? — and instead focuses on monotonous chase scenes.

Amateurishly realized sensationalism trumps character-driven drama throughout Killers.

Like Vikander, you deserve better than Submergence.

Plays like a sampler of Dreamworks Animation's worst creative impulses: sugar-rush pacing, pandering meta-gags, and a slick, flavorless animation style.

Chander Pahar is an unfocused adventure-cum-travelogue.