In the charitable spirit of the season, Candy Cane Lane serves as a passable addition to the annual parade of holiday movies trotted out each year. Yet even by that unexacting standard, there’s barely enough juice here to keep the lights on.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods provides a lightning-bolt-shaped exclamation point on the realization this comedic superhero franchise was, in fact, a one-trick pony – fine for a playful origin story, without enough voltage for an encore. Everything that worked in the original works less well in this so-so sequel, blunting even the star power emitted by its high-profile villains.

Fittingly, for a story about wandering around in a field, it winds up going nowhere.

The film simply lurches loudly from one mundane action scene to the next.

While the new Rebecca is a lot of things, irresistible, alas, isn't one of them.

There's an unintended kick, in the current moment, watching a movie designed to make you want to flee the confines of a house.

Granted, the cast is too talented not to conjure a few amusing moments, but it’s hard to escape the sense of a movie that’s sleepwalking through the old neighborhood as opposed to playfully strolling down memory lane.

Too many of the points the story earns for ambition get deducted for execution in this jumble of ideas.

The film has an old-fashioned “B movie” vibe, which, for a project headed straight to Netflix, is almost exactly as it should be. As for the feminist message wrapped into the premise, it’s merely further evidence that Brown, at the ripe old age of 20, looks like a boss both on screen and off.

Even for an action comedy, this Lopez-produced effort is inordinately skewed toward putting everything that might entice someone to watch in the trailer, beginning with the shot of Coolidge hoisting an automatic weapon to defend the wedding party. As hot as she is off “The White Lotus,” she can’t redeem the tiresome execution.

The best parts should strike a mildly receptive chord with parents while potentially boring younger kids, a prescription that could subject the movie’s imaginary friends to a harsh reality once audiences in summer-movie mode get a good look at it.

By the standards of Liam Neeson thrillers (and there are a lot from which to choose), Honest Thief is pretty weak tea, a passable, low-octane action movie that doesn't do much more than steal one's time. Like second-tier John Wayne westerns, Neeson offers enough of what his fans want, but a thin script and stilted dialogue make the battle harder than usual.

Horror movies are no strangers to social commentary, or the desire to be cathartic in how they use violence. Yet the latest example of those impulses, They/Them, illustrates how tricky that proposition can be, in a story that at various times feels creepy, exploitative and preachy, without becoming particularly tense or scary.

An animated, comic-book-inspired opening turns out to be the best part of Samaritan, a very by-the-numbers superhero tale that casts Sylvester Stallone as the long-retired title character, and otherwise feels like and exhibits the production values of a 1990s TV pilot. While tolerable on its own terms, the charitable thing to do critically speaking would probably be to ignore it.

Watching Chris Pratt fight to save the future has a certain appeal, but in the here and now, he can't even save the movie.

Uncharted drops toward the wrong end of the chart every time Holland and Wahlberg engage in juvenile bickering, which alas is all too often. The one strange thing is that the funniest insult they exchange appears in the trailer but not the actual movie, and any good dialogue here is too rare to wind up on the cutting-room floor.

Wonder Park feels like the kind of mild attraction that younger kids might enjoy when it hits secondary platforms. It's just not an adventure that's worth the price of a ticket or standing in line to see.

The Rhythm Section can't quite get its act together. Featuring a solid performance by Blake Lively, it's not bad exactly, but plays like a malnourished Jason Bourne wannabe, crossed with the grittier side of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."

At its best Ghostbusters: Afterlife simply delivers a good time, combining the upgraded special effects with comedy and youthful angst, while taking a little too long to get to the good stuff.

Outside the Wire can charitably be compared to the kind of "B" movies that studios used to churn out, and is best consumed by tempering expectations accordingly. Because unlike its futuristic hero, there's nothing special about it.

The sense of violation that this story entails is almost palpable, and "Our Father" certainly conveys that. If only the filmmakers had trusted the audience enough to present it in a more unadorned manner.

The kill count generally provides the requisite thrills, but everything else seems stitched together from genre clichés.

Tom Holland's kinetic performance is impressive, but it's in the service of an uneven film that too self-consciously works at mirroring the form of a novel.

A self-conscious effort to build a spy franchise around Gal Gadot, Heart of Stone plays like a poor woman’s “Mission: Impossible,” mostly thwarting even its star’s Wonder-ful charisma. Despite solid action moments scattered over its two hours, this Netflix movie plays like an inoffensive but lifeless addition to the “You might like” feature that, alas, you probably won’t.

The near-four-year gap between movies does help in one respect, allowing people to largely forget what left them unimpressed about the original.

Fun in places, this World War I era story was designed to expand the franchise but appears just as likely to end it.

Ricky Stanicky might be imaginary and doesn’t measure up to its promise, but in terms of that basket within the wrestler-turned-actor’s filmography, it at least fits Cena like a glove.

Ultimately, Next Goal Wins derives most of its modest charm from the film’s sheer unpretentiousness, which also makes it light enough to feel fairly disposable, despite being equipped with likable characters and scenic locales.