The Croods: A New Age takes wacky, weird turns, and yet somehow still manages to be dull and lifeless.

Despite footage onstage with John Lennon and jamming “Happy Together” alongside Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, plus naturally him taking on censorship during farcical Congressional hearings in the Eighties, Zappa never adequately spotlights its raison d’être’s wit – hello, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Sheik Yerbouti, and Does Humor Belong in Music?

It ends up being a smashingly good and goofball history of the non-world of Canadian history and flim-flammery, deeply committed to its own colonial crazy.

It's challenging not to see shades of Robin Williams, who was not just Belushi's equal in talent and predilection for pharmaceuticals but also his friend. Williams admitted more than once that it was Belushi's death that made him get sober, the ultimate wake-up call.

All of this culminates in a film that is equal parts silly and nationalist. If you find yourself nostalgic for the bloodless mode of America vs. The World action movies that populated the 1990s, then Vanguard is for you. And if you’re a Jackie Chan completist, the mediocre nature of the film is at least partially offset by his heartfelt rendition of the theme song and an A+ collection of outtakes that play over the end credits.

Most importantly, Marder gives the audience one of the most illuminating glimpses into deaf culture to date. Working with actors who are deaf is only part of it: The rest is in details and understanding.

"Write hard. Aim low," Mank is told. Instead, Fincher filmed low, aimed for the brain, and hit a deadly shot.

There's an extraordinary immediacy to Luxor, born of director Durra's unromantic but loving view of the environment.

At some levels, there is nothing new here: Everyone knows about the casting clashes, the abandoned score, and even Friedkin's take on it all. But it's the immediacy that comes from Alexandre O. Philippe's decision to leave everything to Friedkin that makes its so important.

Less a Nic Cage movie than a movie with an extended cameo by Nic Cage in a “finely crafted” paper hat (!), this Greek/Cypriot co-production mixes mediocre martial artistry with a sci-fi spin and ends up a puzzlement to both genres.

Coded Bias is not interested in wallowing in despair for the future, like many tech-infused documentaries like to do. Kantayya wants to inform and inspire change.

What makes Nanau’s film utterly compelling is the unfettered access he had to both the Sports Gazette journalists and to Minister of Health Voiculescu. There are no interviews or talking heads here: Everything unfolds as it is happening.

That it has so little new to say, and replaces spirited fantasy with an overbearing glumness, is just disappointing.

Mortal plods along for most of its running time with the occasional helicopter chase scene and plenty of CGI fulminology: But ultimately Ovredal’s not-so-deep-dive into Norwegian mythos is a too-obvious let down.

As Monsoon unhurriedly paces towards an open-ended conclusion, you sense Kit will be in a better place than the one he occupied when he first stepped off the plane.

Howard, mercifully, dumps most of Vance's political cant in favor of a maudlin, slow, rehab drama, carried on the backs of a cavalcade of wafer-thin characters.

Freaky hilariously modernizes the high school bloodbath for laughs.

As far as revisionist takes on the Santa story go, Fatman is a long way from the whimsical charm of last year's Oscar-nominated Klaus. Yet for all its bizarre Spaghetti Western nihilism, sporadically going full Franco Nero Django bloodfest, Fatman has an oddly warm heart under its brutal exterior.

It’s an ambitious, sometimes too bitter, second feature, but Lee somewhat manages to corrode the too-often fetishized queer period drama into something much more modern than its setting suggests.

So many strands, and when the full tapestry is unfurled, its captivating, beautiful, thrilling, and entrancing patterns are revealed. Wolfwalkers stands proud as a new classic.

In its use of texture and its recreation of beloved pop culture items, Power’s film is a fascinating slice of Nineties nostalgia viewed through a cardboard lens. But when the bodies hit the floor, you will wish for a little three-dimensional storytelling in this two-dimensional world.

Apart from the nowhere storyline devoid of any interesting character development or conflict, the movie feels vaguely exploitative.

The film’s gear change between mournfulness and madness is stuck in idle.

Kindred banks on its refined atmosphere and all-too-real story to keep its audience invested, which works to a degree because the film itself is beautifully made, but satisfaction with the ending may vary across horror diehards.

The Dark and the Wicked pulls no punches, either in its sense of perpetual unease, its occasional moments of understated yet truly stomach-churning gore, or in its emotional heft.

The off-kilter family balance is where Call Me Brother should be in harmony, but David Howe’s direction isn’t quite there, more stagnant than observant, leaving his dysfunctional family high and dry.

I cannot think of another film that plainly and comprehensively lays bare the both the complex apparatus at work, and the people dedicated to serving its populace.

The film is a deeply compelling portrait of how intense loss shapes our behavior, our perspective, and most importantly, ourselves.