Simon Abrams

The climax of Godland feels conclusive in ways that the rest of Pálmason’s mystery play does not, making one wish that there was an extra hour or two between its beginning and the very end.

I want to recommend Nelson's film in spite of how misconceived it is simply because it asks interesting questions, albeit in some of the most banal ways imaginable.

There are a lot of promising ideas here, but none are developed so much that this remake feels essential.

Blackout is nothing new, or even essential, but it mostly works anyway thanks to Fessenden and his cast’s impressive collaboration.

Novel enough to be worth the price of admission, but you'll think twice before getting back in line for a second visit.

An ambitious black comedy that never goes far enough.

For the most part, the new “Bad Genius” doesn’t enhance more than it adds to its source material. It’s still a better-than-average redo, if only because it doesn’t break what never really needed fixing.

It’s nice to see that the Muscles from Brussels is not only self-aware, but also sharp enough whenever he has to take a baby step or two beyond his own shadow.

Siva rarely challenges his charming ensemble cast to step outside of their comfort zones, but he and his collaborators still deliver a lot of what you might want from an action-musical about a pack of murderous, but righteous pirates.

The Bluff exemplifies a very enjoyable type of nostalgia-bait, even if it’s never as good as its elevator pitch.

Basically watchable.

Sure, Mortal Kombat II has enough fight scenes and gore to deliver exactly what fans of the games expect from these movies. Then again, the makers of this new franchise-booster don’t seem to know how to fill the rest of their movie’s 116-minute runtime. They tie up loose ends from the last movie whenever they’re not nudging their new protagonists through the motions of another patchwork action-fantasy that’s too hip to be sincere and too hacky to be moving.

A general lack of urgency are the main things holding Get Duked! back from being as good as it is promising.

Thor: The Dark World's characters are often very charming, but they're only so much fun when they're stuck going through the motions.

The action filmmaking, from interstitial chases to fight choreography, looks good, and so does the monster and its practically-effected victims.

You have to take the bad with the good here: Green Room may be too schematic to fully capture the essence of its characters' groddy milieu, but it's also economically paced, and gorgeous.

Instead of relishing the specific details of this story, you wind up enjoying its familiar pleasures and then maybe its creators’ proficient execution.

So while Enid’s investigation never goes anywhere noteworthy, Censor still fosters an increasingly desperate, anxiety-inducing effect.

Claire's Camera is, like many of Hong's best comedies before it, amusing without necessarily being laugh-out-loud funny.

Hardcore Henry is like a good roller-coaster in that it does not require a complex reason to be: it's there, it's fun, you ride it, and that's about it.

The good news barely outweighs the bad in Dracula Untold, a lightweight war-adventure that is ultimately stranger and more enticing when it remembers it's also a horror film.

Writer/director Chad Archibald still shows some promise here, especially whenever he lets his actors, cinematographer, makeup, creature, and production designer sell what is, at heart, a generic possession story. He thankfully does this often enough to keep the plot’s familiar and slowly dispensed beats from feeling too rote.

Customs Frontline is not quite as thrilling or as relentless as Yau’s other recent successes—particularly “Moscow Mission” and “Raid on the Lethal Zone”—but it still delivers more twists and surprises than you might expect from this tip of sudsy, formulaic cop drama.

I've never participated in Blackout, but based on The Blackout Experiments, I can tell you that it's an intense, aggressively confrontational and deeply disturbing recreational experience.

Fans of cheap thrills and cheesy B-movies are sure to be frustrated by The Requin, a new shark pic that waits about an hour before introducing major carnivorous fish action. That alone might turn off viewers since The Requin only lasts about 89 minutes, and most of the movie plays out like a soapy two-hander about survivor’s guilt.

Really, whatever you do, don't watch "The Last Key" without the emotional support of a buddy who can confirm that you're not just imagining this: these movies are still getting incrementally better.

Visually splendid, but generically flat-footed, Song of the Sea is an animated fantasy that comes close to greatness, but is rarely as clever as it is comforting.

For me, One Cut of the Dead is good enough. It sometimes surprised me while I waited for a payoff that Ueda basically delivered, even if he and his collaborators never made me involuntarily leave my seat.

The Paper Tigers is still very much a martial arts movie that ends with a late-night rooftop fight, and then a celebratory dim sum meal. But if you already like this sort of lightweight crowdpleaser, you’re bound to find something worthwhile here.

For a while, the found-footage horror thriller “Bodycam” appears to have something to say and, therefore, a better-than-average sense of how to handle its subgenre’s tropes and tics. Then, in the last 10-15 minutes, the illusion is spoiled.

I’m still shocked that Followed is as funny as it is given that Mike is as obnoxious as you might expect given his very online, anything-for-the-lulz persona. He’s a cartoonishly loud, entitled millennial who never stops reminding us that he only cares about the sound of his own voice. He’s also sometimes unintentionally hysterical?

Blood-soaked Indonesian martial arts flick Headshot is for anyone who liked "The Bourne Identity," but wished it were way more violent.

Greed is never the sum of its best parts since other actors — especially Jamie Blackley, who, playing young McCreadie in a series of flashbacks, is fine but relatively disappointing — can’t pull off the movie’s delicate balance of broad humor and po-faced drama.

There’s more atmosphere than plot in the Romanian drama Intregalde, a moody parable that sometimes feels like the Eastern European arthouse response to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Extraterrestrial never settles into a groove, and therefore never becomes more than a collection of effectively icky scenes.

It’s schtickier and less assured than the first “Shazam!” but these leftovers still reheat well enough.

Once Haunter's story snaps into focus, and its creators pull you towards its inevitable conclusion, the film's flaws become that much more apparent.

Prisoner of War may sometimes deliver what you hope for, but it’s an otherwise sloppy outing for Adkins, who by now should expect more from himself and his audience.

Ultimately, Beneath is better than your average Roger Corman clone because it is more serious than trivial.

There is, in other words, nothing new in Hellions that you can't get already in earlier, more ambitious horror films. But McDonald delivers an effective thrice-told tale, and he does it with enough avant garde flair to show viewers that temper their expectations a good time.

The artful parallels that director Chan Tze Woon draws between contemporary and now middle-aged pro-democratic Hong Kong protesters often seem insubstantial given the movie’s thinly drawn narrative of historic events.

Thankfully, there’s enough affection and charm in the movie’s first half to keep Teenage Badass running on fumes most of the way home.

So while Clover may not be original, it is pretty watchable.

The gory, but weirdly blasé Russian black comedy Why Don’t You Just Die! feels like a gross exercise in style that’s also a passable tribute to Jim Thompson’s bleakly hilarious crime novels, and a brain-dead critique of post-Soviet consumerism.

Smart and scary horror films about faith, and loneliness are rare, and for the most part, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" is pretty exciting.

Vettaiyan may sometimes feel like the worst kind of throwback, but it still manages to coast on its star and his collaborators’ unshakable faith in crowd-pleasing movie logic. The filmmakers don’t miss a formulaic story beat nor do they skimp on what they think their audience will want from Rajinikanth.

Gans’ sequel delivers more of the same, so it likely won’t impress anyone who doesn’t already enjoy getting lost in the fog.

When a movie doesn’t quite come together, it’s often tempting to say that something essential is missing. I’m not so sure that that’s true of “Hypochondriac,” a rather good psychodrama about repressed childhood trauma that’s also an underwhelming horror movie about mental illness.

With “The 4:30 Movie,” a lightly likable coming-of-age story and romantic-comedy, writer/director Kevin Smith (“Clerks III,” “Jay and Silent Reboot”) offers low-stakes nostalgia and very little else.

Deerskin isn’t weird enough to be great, mostly because Dupieux (“Rubber, “Reality”) is a little too precious when it comes to pacing, characterizations, humor, etc.

Sometimes, the suggestive nature of Gregg’s impressionistic mood piece—as well as a characteristically strong lead performance by Riseborough (Possessor, Mandy)—is enough to sustain one’s interest in Here Before. Right up until Gregg lobs an unsettling and only partly satisfying twist at viewers and leaves us to work through our feelings on our own time.

The cleverest additions to the “Hellraiser” canon will only be apparent to established fans since the makers of the latest movie awkwardly graft a sometimes-inspired monster movie onto the back of a trauma-focused character study.

The movie’s fun, if a bit staid, when it’s in all-monsters-attack mode, but Ultraman: Rising doesn’t stand out whenever it requires more of your attention.

Thankfully, some climactic fight scenes, featuring strong action choreography and a clear overall presentation, give “One Spoon of Chocolate” the great emotional release it needs after so much dramatic buildup.

Thankfully, there's a considerable nasty streak that runs throughout Furies, and it isn't limited to the movie's antagonists.

While some of the film's wide emotional turns—from over-caffeinated road movie to magically-realistic melodrama and back again—are not handled with care, the film is more than the sum of its unequal parts.

Unfortunately, the quality of storytelling here often isn’t strong enough to hold one’s interest throughout such a diminutive runtime. Still, you might enjoy yourself if you don’t expect much character development, but do look forward to some creative uses of improvised weapons, like a hammer and a septic tank lid.

The Burning Sea may ultimately be too uptight for its own good, but there’s enough here to satisfy disaster aficionados who’ve already been here before and only really want to root for more of the same.

Until her plight becomes emotionally engaging during the film's creepy finale 20-30 minutes, watching Most Beautiful Island is an unproductively unpleasant experience.

Heavier Trip mostly ambles from one formulaic twist to the next, never really straying far from conventional situations or familiar characterizations.

This is a corny, civic-minded "Stand and Deliver" clone that stars martial artist Donnie Yen as Mr. Chen, a generically tough-but-fair teacher who gives hope to a classroom full of would-be high school drop-outs.

The battle scenes are grand, the martial arts fights are fleet and impressive, and the romantic drama is taken seriously enough. It’s a bit of a headache, but “Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants” still has its cornball charms.

If you want to see cats chasing people in packs, falling over themselves to descend stairwells, and jump up trees to swipe at disposable human protagonists--you will probably enjoy Roar.

Children of the Sea is consequently yet another animated fantasy based on hackneyed tropes, like sprite-like martyrs, the guiding hands of fate, and vague nostalgia for a pre-technological past.

Yuasa's adaptation of Furukawa’s book is half-thrilling and half-underwhelming.

The Hallow also de-emphasizes human drama to the point where it often feels like a Jenga tower of set pieces, a disappointing fact that's most apparent during the film's first 40 minutes.

The filmmakers fall over themselves trying to respect Man's outlook on life, and this makes their subject seem more like a hyper-disciplined saint than a world-reknowned, ass-kicking hermit.

There’s not much to Porumboiu’s latest beyond a surplus of plot twists and double crosses.

While I can't exactly recommend seeing Jigsaw, I can tell you that it's fun to watch. I just don't think it's the kind of fun the filmmakers' planned.

Byun ultimately pulls too many punches, but Kill Boksoon remains impressive, if only for its unexpected sensitivity and considerable emotional range.

It's as visually indistinct and paint-by-numbers-plot-driven as most Marvel Comics-based projects, especially the gaggle of recent Avengers-related films.

The main reason that Jawan doesn’t deliver more than what Khan’s previously delivered is because its creators seemingly included every masala-style sub-plot that they could think of.

There’s no way to enjoy “Cypher” without seeing it as an elaborate and often exasperating joke at viewers’ expense.

Ravager does have an internal logic that makes its time and subplot-jumping story easy to follow. But this new Phantasm will not be of interest to anyone who doesn't already know who the Tall Man is, or why he needs to be stopped.

While the first Children of the Corn was made on a reported budget of $800,000, it somehow doesn’t look as cheap as this new Children of the Corn, which eventually delivers just enough formulaic violence.

Blood Relatives isn’t always a great comedy about vampires, or fathers and daughters, but it is a charming road movie.

Is it worth seeing? Yes, but only if you enjoy being grossed out.

You still might get what you want from Tiger 3 during the action and musical scenes, which have their moments.

One of the main pleasures of watching The Raft, a new documentary that combines decades-old footage of the Acali's 101-day voyage with modern-day commentary by the ship's six surviving crew mates, is that the Acali's story isn't just told from Genoves's self-mythologizing perspective.

The film's relentlessly quirky style of comedy is consequently very self-conscious. Every joke in Ping Pong Summer is a variation on a theme: 1985 was the most awkward time to be alive.

I can only recommend “Don’t Turn Out the Lights” so much, mostly because the characterizations and the dialogue are so cliched and unlovable that it’s often hard to enjoy all the twists and turns that Fickman (“Race to Witch Mountain”) tiptoes past throughout this diverting Choose Your Own Adventure genre exercise.

For the most part, Buffalo Boys is a decent folk tale, despite Lee and Wiluan's periodic application of "Game of Thrones"-style sensationalism.

Dashcam succeeds as a barrage of icky stimuli that may go great with a rowdy audience.

Hypnotic may not be clever or energetic enough to keep your mind from wandering, but it is charming in its own stumbling way.

The process of discovery that Evan goes through to get closer to Louise is what makes Spring special. But what Evan discovers about Louise feels like an after-thought that frustratingly overwhelms the film once it gets to where it's going.

Watching The Lure is a bit like having manic depression—the thrilling high points are just as relentless as the crushing low-tide ebbs.

Realistically, Overlord is a simple mechanism to deliver squib packs and swear words, a function that the film's creators accomplish despite their otherwise unremarkable story's choppy pacing and general humorlessness.

Kaufman keeps things moving at a brisk pace and delivers the sort of cheesy dialogue and story beats that you should expect from this dorky, but serviceable genre exercise. He’s a better action filmmaker than he is a straight-up dramatist, as you can unfortunately tell in scenes where the protagonists struggle to emote through visually and emotionally flat dialogue scenes.

Baahubali: The Epic may not deliver a better edit or experience, but it does highlight what was already great, especially once it settles into a groove following a ten-minute intermission break. By that point, most of the cuts have already been made, leaving the leisurely pageantry of Rajamouli’s regal milestone to speak for itself and at its own preferred volume, too.

Co-directors and writers Billy Bryk and “Stranger Things” star Finn Wolfhard pay homage to ‘80s body count pics with a sappy but likable coming-of-age comedy about a group of summer camp counselors who are stalked and slayed by a masked killer.

The dual nature of “Babi Yar. Context” as both an essay movie and a cut-up historic document might create an uneasy tension with viewers who would like to know more about whatever they’re looking at. If nothing else, Loznitsa succeeds at being upsetting.

Dialogue does most of the heavy-lifting here, just like in “Love”, the first and most recently released entry of Haugerud’s thematically related series. Haugerud’s knack for visual storytelling also makes a difference, specifically in how he presents the city of Oslo and its features as an enriching backdrop.

Chinese blockbuster Monster Hunt is a sappy, crowd-pleasing, tonally wonky fantasy-adventure/comedy that pits dorky-looking monsters against over-acting cornball comedians/monster-hunters.

The Hong Kong Triad mob thriller The White Storm 2: Drug Lords is a cynic’s delight, though often not in the ways you might expect. As a message movie, The White Storm 2 is pretty toothless.

A prime example of a horror omnibus film: even the weaker segments have something to recommend them.

Had Nicholson taken advantage of Melendez and Suarez's seemingly easy-going nature, Rubble Kings might have been great. As it is, the film is a one-sided, but satisfying tribute to an alternatively terrifying and beguiling city that we can only revisit in movies.

Your enjoyment of “Tornado” depends on how much you want to root for thinly drawn characters who don’t look strong enough to carry an entire movie. They can and they can’t, depending on how patient you’re feeling.