Simon Abrams

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.

Trespassers is fairly timid, as far as home-invasion thrillers go: it’s got some machete - and gun-related violence, a couple of leering masked killers, and a little rough sex, but that’s about it.

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?

Our Time is even funny sometimes, albeit in the same kind of wryly mordant and cosmically alienated way as Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut.”

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.

An unbearably preachy post-financial-crisis civics lesson in heist movie drag.

A machine to deliver gore and violence, Brightburn also features some of the most improbably and even hatefully dumb salt-of-the-Earth type characters in a recent American horror movie. But even if you watch Brightburn knowing that it doesn't have much going for it beyond a few disturbing kill scenes, you will still be disappointed.

To be clear: Asako I & II is not a bad movie, just one that doesn't convey much beyond its creators' intentions. There are moments of poetic beauty scattered throughout, like the few scenes that don't push the otherwise cloud-light plot along.

The Wandering Soap Opera also sometimes feels like it was made by a filmmaker who doesn't understand where he is anymore. That mixture of excitement, confusion, and terror defines all six of the movie's vignettes.

Charlie Says loses much of its potency whenever it's not directly about the ordinary motives of the individual Manson clan members.

So really, what's great about "Master Z" isn't the way that its creators transcend their chosen formula, but rather how they perfect it.

Long Day's Journey Into Night forces viewers to be simultaneously hyper-aware and un-self-conscious about the fact that they are watching a movie that, in several scenes, is presented in real time.

The resulting episodic narrative is light on dialogue and heavy on ambiance; it's precise to an unsettling degree since a number of scenes start and stop whenever Lizzy can feel her way in and out of them.

Relaxer is a light, but moody comedy about an irredeemable loser who is too unwell to save himself. Imagine a deceptively optimistic comedy concerning a neurotic fish who's slowly circling his unwashed, slow-draining aquarium.

Unlike most costume dramas, Sunset — a moving Hungarian character study set in Budapest during 1913 — isn't a movie you can easily get lost in. The movie's disorienting and visually austere style takes some getting used to.

I often rolled my eyes at the kitschy, broad humor that Knife+Heart director Yann Gonzalzez (who co-wrote the film with Cristiano Mangione) sometimes used to characterize his sexually active queer characters.

Castañeda and Van Damme's scene-stealing performances don't significantly improve writer/director Lior Geller's frequent reliance on racial stereotypes and gangster movie cliches.

A week after seeing The Wandering Earth, I'm still marveling at how good it is. I can't think of another recent computer-graphics-driven blockbuster that left me feeling this giddy because of its creators' can-do spirit and consummate attention to detail.

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).

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.

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?

Cornish's gift for working with child actors is still apparent, as is his knack for dynamic action set pieces. The Kid Who Would Be King is not, in that sense, everything that it could have been. But it is fun where it counts and that's realistically what matters most.

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

A sometimes diverting, but overly familiar series of set pieces in search of a good melodrama.

This movie doesn’t work well as an edifying documentary, but it might go over well with anyone who wants to follow its unconvincing conspiracy-theory-like logic (apparently, genetic research is bad because it's "playing God" and is partly underfunded and overseen by the Chinese government and cocky American scientists!).

A cross between "Ocean's 11" and "The Expendables." American Renegades is also not nearly as fun as that sounds.

Between Worlds is also, unfortunately, a weird "Twin Peaks" homage, complete with industrial band ohGr's not-so-industrial, "Twin Peaks"-y score and "Twin Peaks"-like theme during the opening credits sequence (performed by "Twin Peaks" composer Angelo Badalamenti, no less).

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.

A massive, imposing work of non-fiction filmmaking that demands attention despite also being the sort of artwork that doesn't really need any of our attention to be great. Like a monolith, this thing just is. It also just happens to be great, sometimes despite and sometimes because of its mega-sized breadth and scope.

I dislike much of Mirai because most of the film's Kun-centric scenes (which take up 90% of the movie) are split between the character's un-imaginative daydreams and his full-blast fits.

The Great Buddha+ is one of those movies that's much more rewarding to think about than it is to watch.

The film's Gerber-bland back half is plenty bad, but the first half of Speed Kills features some of the year's worst filmmaking.

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.

The best thing about Welcome to Mercy is that its creators don't go for cheap thrills ... not many, anyway.

Volf’s refusal to address key choices that Callas made to shape her own career and fight her insecurities suggests that he’d prefer to imagine Callas as a victim of fate — and bronchitis, fame, Onassis, etc. — instead of a strong-willed but human prima donna.

Even the most open-minded viewers may have difficulty relating to the two lead protagonists in Border, a cynical Swedish romantic-fantasy that follows estranged border patrolwoman Tina (Eva Melander) and her unconvincing attraction to Byronic stranger Vore (Eero Milonoff).

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.

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.

A Finnish ensemble comedy about a wannabe black metal band, is probably the only film you'll see this year with a crowd-surfing corpse. Don't let the last part of that sentence dissuade you from seeing Heavy Trip: it's a real crowdpleaser.

Basically watchable.

Unfortunately, The Public Image is Rotten often feels like an illustrated airing of grievances that also happens to be an in-their-words history of Lydon's best band.

There's a morbidly hilarious dark comedy buried not-so-deep inside the lousy revenge thriller Peppermint. It's just probably not the movie that director Pierre Morel ("Taken," "District B13") and screenwriter Chad St. John intended to make.

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.

An arty tribute to violent, sensuous, over-the-top Euro-trash pulp fiction.

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.

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.

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 are no good or bad people in The Island, just a group of hapless schmucks who become more sympathetic as they get more desperate.

Most of the gags in this pandering spoof are about their own schematic nature — they’re jokes about how you’re smarter than the jokes.

The equally thrilling and exhausting Hong Kong martial arts fantasy Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings boasts more inventive weapons, monsters, and plot twists than most Western audiences will know what to do with.

Unfortunately, Archambault’s churlishly over-the-top performance makes it impossible to take 14 Cameras seriously, no matter how you interpret Gerald’s actions.

The biggest difference between the two films is that "Unfriended" is dynamic and cruel while Unfriended: Dark Web is unbelievably stupid and sadistic. Neither movie is especially smart or incisive about the Way We Live Now, but they don't really have to be.

Cassel’s Gauguin may ultimately be a lightweight cinematic descendant of the monstrous European pioneers that Klaus Kinski played in Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, but he’s also both menacing and pitiable enough to make Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti riveting on a moment-to-moment basis.

Unfortunately, the best and worst thing about director Dominique Rocher and his two co-writers’ scenario is its familiarity.

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.

Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté holds up a shallow mirror to the world of bodybuilding in the underwhelming experimental documentary A Skin So Soft.

Taken in its entirety, Ant-Man and the Wasp may not be the best anything, but, like its perpetually challenged hero, it is plenty good enough.

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.

Coogan and Rudd's generally charming performances both give weight to their otherwise wisp-thin characters, but their swishy mannerisms also speak to the superficial nature of Fleming's presentation of Erasmus and Paul.

The grisly post-torture-porn horror flick Incident in a Ghostland serves as an effectively punishing critique of the relentless misogyny that has become a staple of every stupid Texas Chain Saw Massacre knockoff that pits sexually active women against emotionally disturbed serial killers.

Hover may sometimes be unbelievably generic, but Osterman, adapting Coleman’s clever scenario, nails a universal power dynamic.

Pattinson and Wasikowska deserve better material than the Zellners’ head-scratchingly lazy jokes.

Fairrie’s unfocused examination of anti-Semitism illuminates little.

The film's nature as a work of propaganda would be more deplorable—or at least eyeroll-inducing—if it weren't so poorly blocked, scripted, performed, and choreographed. There is no joy in Seagal-ville, dear rubber-neckers, because pretty much everybody here has struck out.

The messy but charming concert doc Straight Into a Storm works best if you treat unfocused on-camera interviews with the members of Rhode Island–based folk/grunge-rock group Deer Tick like an unintrospective but affectionate video memoir of the group’s rise to alt-rock prominence.

Believer works best as a series of perpetually escalating confrontations.

An irresistibly gory science-fiction melodrama, is B-movie schlock done right.

If only Baker and the gang had fleshed out horny hero Pikelet’s journey with the same earthy details that make Pikelet and Loonie’s friendship seem real enough to be worth mourning.

A crashing disappointment, even if you haven't seen director Masaaki Yuasa's relatively inspired and completely unpredictable 2004 anti-coming-of-age fantasy "Mind Game."

With the uninspired pity party comedy The Day After, self-lacerating Korean dramatist Sang-soo Hong continues a trend towards un-productive self-loathing that began last year with the half-empty "On the Beach At Night Alone" and continued with the half-full "Claire's Camera."

A tone-deaf celebration of Manhattan’s ritzy Carlyle Hotel.

For those who have understandably not seen Takakura's original film due to international distribution issues: think "The Fugitive," only this time, Tommy Lee Jones' gruff cop is replaced by a more sympathetic hot-shot detective.

The spectacularly dumb, and weirdly entertaining bad-taste thriller Bad Samaritan is the kind of movie that many will assume can only be enjoyed ironically, or just with some sort of emotional detachment.

Unassumingly powerful details make The Guardians one of the year’s most affecting love stories.

There's something off about Beyond the Clouds, a beautiful but obnoxious Indian-set drama.

This bloated, unfocused follow-up—which was tellingly crowd-funded by fans and then released by Fox Searchlight—takes all of the charming goofiness of the first film, and runs it deep into the ground with gags that either over- or under-think these stock characters' original appeal.

Imagine a cross between "Annie" and "Jesus Christ Superstar," only with more speed metal. Now imagine a lot of long takes of sometimes merely adequate, sometimes sneakily brilliant performers doing simple dance steps or sing-talking reams of theatrical dialogue (adapted from Charles Peguy's religious mystery play).

A genre movie that's at war with itself.

Like Vikander, you deserve better than Submergence.

Oh, The Humanity Bureau! How could a low-budget science-fiction thriller starring Nicolas Cage go wrong? Let me count the ways.

The unexpectedly impressive nature documentary Pandas is so visually dynamic that even the most pedantic (think Neil deGrasse Tyson level) skeptics will probably not mind listening to narrator Kristen Bell — speaking for writer–co-director Drew Fellman — rattle off 43 minutes’ worth of cutesy panda trivia.

The film’s fast-slow-fast pacing not only gives psychological weight to Benson’s unabashedly pulpy scenario but also constantly keeps viewers on their toes.

Liang and Zhang’s young heroes would be far more universal if they were just credibly hormonal.

There’s a chintzy silver lining tacked onto every potentially dark cloud in the cloying French World War II drama A Bag of Marbles, a pseudo-inspiring adaptation of Jewish World War II survivor Joseph Joffo’s partly fictionalized memoir.

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.

The just-shy-of-great teen comedy Dear Dictator is the rare high-concept coming-of-age story with enough warmth and smart-ass charm to (hopefully!) make it accessible for a fairly wide cross-section of moviegoers.

The Forgiven consequently only succeeds as an ugly, empty-headed provocation.

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

The makers of the irresistible character-study doc Itzhak capture Itzhak Perlman’s characteristic warmth and bravado through short, anecdote-centric scenes that make the Israeli American violinist sound like a big-hearted raconteur who’s just dying to tell you everything about himself.

Geoghegan and Hendrix have the right instincts, which goes a long way, given that their vision is slightly limited by their budget. I didn't just fall for this type of film: I also admire its creators' knack for conveying what they like most about their characters through pulpy dialogue, impressive shot choices, and satisfyingly gory set pieces.

The Lodgers needs to be better than a great mood in need of a decent story and stronger characters.

Thankfully, Cooke crams in so much persuasively appalling information — especially during a tangential aside on mentally ill patients’ high death rates — that it’s easy to forgive him for seemingly trying to push all viewers’ proverbial buttons at once.

Monster Hunt 2 is charming enough on a scene-to-scene basis that its success is worth noting.

The atmospheric but threadbare male bonding horror flick The Ritual is so well-directed that you can't help but groan at its lightweight script's many little inadequacies.

It's an unsettling, and sometimes high-concept doodle, but it's awfully hard to resist a film that marries Atomic Age paranoia and optimism with Kurosawa's signature post-modern, atmosphere-intensive style.

What Winchester lacks in originality its creators amply make up for in execution.

Legends of the Mountain’s narrative fuse may be long, but Hu knows exactly when to light it and when to snuff it out.

Padmaavat is a rare work of pop art that is both powerful and repugnant.