Simon Abrams

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.

That kind of gallow’s humor defines the surface tone of Arkansas, which often feels like a riff on “Breaking Bad,” only now it’s more about how sad it is to be poor white trash.

The film will only work for you if you expect it not to make sense, and enjoy jokes that go on and on and then suddenly (and repeatedly) jack-knife off a cliff or two.

Yakusho's breathless, riveting performance grounds The World of Kanako even as it threatens to devolve into an unbearable series of nihilistic plot twists and gory set pieces.

Tusk is bearable thanks in no small part to its game cast, particularly character actor Michael Parks's Vincent Price-esque baddy.

Most of the documents that Lapa quotes from are, as presented, unrevealing — even offensive.

What's most arresting is the way Mizgirev's vision of 1860s Russia shines through in the perspiration on Champagne goblets, the flicker of candlelight on faces, and the sheen of polished-steel dueling pistols.

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.

The kind of childish genre movie that gives genre movies a bad reputation.

The most frustrating thing about the British prenatal horror movie Kindred is not that it’s impersonal, but rather that it’s not personal enough.

There’s not enough cold sweat ambience here, and that makes it even harder to root for a modestly budgeted chiller whose creators clearly started their project from a place of cinephilic affection. Even sympathetic genre fans will have trouble finding something new about such old hat material.

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.

The exceptionally fun martial arts beat-em-up Kickboxer: Retaliation is a very dumb, and very satisfying throwback to a simpler time when American action films were as predictable as they were formulaic.

As a performer, Fischbach’s frantic performance can sometimes be distractingly monotonous, but as a filmmaker, he has an impressive eye not only for compositional details, but also for how his images cut and flow together.

Puncture's story only moves forward thanks to Evans's charm. But a good lead performance can't single-handedly save thin material.

The sheer too-much-ness of Alienoid could have easily been wearying, given its many tangents and supporting characters. Thankfully, writer/director Choi Dong-hoon confirms his hitmaker reputation by balancing over-inflated set pieces with disarming screwball comedy and delightful character actor performances.

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.

A spectacularly miscalculated historical epic.

The arbitrary value of life in I Am Not a Serial Killer makes its nature as an ostensibly character-driven mystery that much harder to swallow. Don't bother with this nonsensical time-waster.

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 unsettling mood and creeping pace of the Indonesian horror movie The Queen of Black Magic take some getting used to.

The movie’s cast members all seem to understand their assignments, which makes even the sketchiest material seem more robust. There’s also more technical polish, as well as a general knack for comic timing, than you might expect from a remake of “The Toxic Avenger.”

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.

This sleepy and visually murky black-and-white drama belabors the same banal truisms about memory and role-playing during wartime –basically, it’s impossible to maintain your autonomy when you’re only a pawn in a complicated game — and tends to be more interesting to think about than to watch.

The British WWII drama “Munich - The Edge of War” starts off as a prim spy thriller and ends as an insufferable civics lesson.

In this case, Eckhart exudes the sort of unselfconscious paternal energy that’s needed to keep things moving in between the familiar, but well-executed disaster movie story beats. He almost single-handedly makes Deep Water a better-than-average genre exercise, though the bloody shark attacks and corny banter don’t hurt either.

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.

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.