A film that often avoids any middle ground, making for a cut-and-dried courtroom tale that desperately wants to be anything but.

If the Day-Glo antics of Fear Street Part 1: 1994 are as tonally insecure as its teenage characters and a bit too broad to get under your skin, rest assured that this overstuffed slasher cuts much deeper when it’s contextualized as the latest chapter of an American horror story that’s been in the telling for more than 300 years.

While “Succession” was all about delusion, with the Roy children cluelessly thinking the family business needed them while everyone maneuvered around their childish stunts, Mountainhead is all about the cruel intentionality of men who actively choose to burn down our world and just might have the competence to do it.

Riddle of Fire is all too happy to wander around in circles as it simmers in its own absurdity, as if any kind of legitimate incident might threaten to break its spell.

Ron’s Gone Wrong has enough ideas about our current relationship with technology and social media to bring about important conversations between parents and teens that are more than just “phones are bad,” while delivering a charming and at times laugh-out-loud funny story about a boy and his robot computer friend.

Go For Sisters, like the filmmaker's previous features "Amigo" and "Honeydripper," sustains a feeble premise with richly defined characters and strong performances, yielding an underwhelming but nonetheless sustainable viewing experience.

Call it a Shakespearean catharsis or just call it a lark -- either way, the movie represents Whedon's least essential work, regardless of the material's inherent comedic inspiration.

Anderson does add some style to the film, doing wonders with an indie-sized budget for a film that requires a specific period setting.

In these trying times, you generally can’t go too wrong with Almost Love, a film where, for the most part, everyone is nice to each other and just trying to be a good person. But the third act becomes a pile-up of soap-operatic incidents that try too hard to advance plot arcs . . . that are less interesting than the spiky, perky characters at their center.

If this sounds like American Sweatshop is trying to have it both ways, that’s because it is. It wants to titillate, and to judge. To show, and to tell. To enrage, and to pacify. Combined with the by-the-numbers direction and unremarkable cinematography, the overall effect is of an after-school special about how social media is bad for you — which it probably is, to be fair.

American Animals is fiercely entertaining from start to finish, even when its characters are acting so dumb that you start to suspect they still have some more evolving to do.

While much of the information shared in “The American Dream” is stunning, tenuous threads and too-zippy pacing keep it from landing with much impact.

If anything, The Adderall Diaries is worth seeing for the ways it challenges the audience to examine and take responsibility for their own personal narratives.

Cicėnas and Grineviciute are both strong actors, each conveying their character insecurities and vulnerabilities with nuance, but their chemistry together isn’t quite enough to paper over the cracks in the movie’s love story

It’s no crime to have another wholesome heroine for a new generation to look up to, only a shame that this is a sanitized reproduction and slight distortion of one who already existed.

The sensory appeal of the technical limitations only lasts for so long. And as a feature, “Dry Leaf” does feel oh so long once there soon proves to be little variety to the bag of visual tricks over three hours.

It both hurts and helps that Bibb and Duhamel have real chemistry, and their initially combative relationship — a staple of the romance genre — is believable and with some actual heat behind it.

As the film’s themes announce themselves again and again, it weakens the mystery. The film seems to be yelling at us who the culprit is while hoping we remain engaged by mugging and hijinks alone.

King can’t really play a teen anymore, and the message of non-conformity feels stale, in the YA adaptation space and beyond. This trend, much like shifting beauty standards, is already on the way out.

For every scene of dazzling wonder, there’s another of outsized horror; for every big cat who looks ready to jump off the screen, there’s a wolf that appears bizarrely unfinished. There is little middle ground.

Moss’ spry but often superficial film purports to explore what it’s like for an actual human being to run for the highest office in the land, and yet the competency and boy-scout-in-search-of-a-merit-badge resolve that (briefly) turned Buttigieg into an unexpectedly popular alternative to Donald Trump is also what renders him such an impenetrable subject for a documentary.

If “Unstuck in Time” offers an erudite and affectionate portrait of its subject despite being so oddly generic, Weide shares his own frustrations with it in such a plainspoken way that he can’t help but pass them along to us.

Unfortunately, the film never transcends its tone of ever-present and palpable danger to become a more satisfying character piece.

Cinematographer Johnny Derango helps to ensure that the film’s more prosaic moments — of which there are many — are endowed with the same ambient vitality, as the active camerawork and careful framing invite audiences to look for truth in the kind of story that tends to just shove it in your face.

The new action flick Peppermint is a rare return to form for Garner, who doles out her vigilante justice with effortless charm. Unfortunately, that’s about the only reason to see Peppermint.

Moore’s premeditated attempts to wring some laughs out of this category 5 shitstorm are so half-assed that you wish he hadn’t bothered.... It’s as though he realized that the film could have been just as successful as a podcast, and compensated for that fact by shoehorning in some needless visual razzmatazz.

"Somewhere You Feel Free” doesn’t develop into a snapshot so much as a loving impression of a legend gone too soon. But the beautiful 16mm footage (with the new interviews shot to match) will trigger warm memories from Petty’s truest fans, and Wharton interprets the music in a way that should allow this film to serve as an irresistible entry point for neophytes who don’t realize how many Petty songs they already know by heart.

W.E. is less outright bad than underwhelming; if the director were unknown, it would hardly deserve notice. Like her first film, the 2008 "Filth and Wisdom," it suffers from countless storytelling flaws.

If nothing else, the movie makes a strong case for Cox’s astounding resilience, an ability to take even the most routine gig and deepen its potential. It helps that The Etruscan Smile sputters along more than it belly-flops, and stabilizes by the poignant finale.

Corsini keeps up the anxiety, jumping from scene to scene and person to person with a giddy, nervous energy that at least promises the film, as annoying as it might be, is never boring.

Canoodling more than we’ve ever seen Ed and Lorraine canoodle before, Wilson and Farmiga also seem to have a blast wrapping up their portrayals in a movie clearly created with their stardom in mind.

Part of the problem with Merchants of Doubt is also part of its own argument: You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, and a dispiriting number of people are less interested in facts than they are in confirming their own biases.

A strange, bifurcated tale of love and espionage, with Judi Dench stuck in a thankless role that does nothing to capitalize on her talents. The film is worse for it.

Although Farr layers on the creepy until the last frame of The Ones Below, the film's ultimate reveal is hardly shocking, and that the film spends a gratuitous amount time unspooling it long after it's clear what has gone down feels indulgent and unearned.

The Pale Blue Eye begins to double as a stiff but fanciful origin story for both Edgar Allen Poe and also the detective genre he would later help shape. The best stretches of Cooper’s thin and unhurried script find the film checking those two boxes at the same time, as its occult fascination enriches its all-too-human crimes (and vice-versa) until the border that separates this world from the next becomes as blurry as that which runs between reason and madness.

It’s a slice of life, surely, but a meager one at that.

Charli’s version of herself, though, is a fascinating creation — self-deprecating, yes, and laughing at herself, but with the clinical distance of a telescope lasered onto a forming star. See this movie with a crowd of Charli’s friends and collaborators, and you’ll too be in on the joke.

The great shock of Wild Indian is Corbine isn’t afraid to paint Makwa as more of a sociopath than a victim. The filmmaker destabilizes that false dichotomy to such a frightening degree that audiences might see him as a simple monster as opposed to an overflowing vessel for centuries of genocidal trauma.

Touch Me Not points towards all manner of holistic truths, but leaves them all frustratingly out of reach.

Swicord, perhaps a touch too reverent of Doctorow’s writing, can’t quite solve the limited emotional range of her protagonist.

Caldwell’s Infamous, at turns nihilistic and uncomfortably believable, may be built on a thin premise — what if its star-crossed pair of criminal lovers was, as the kids say, doing it for the ‘gram? — but an appropriately nutso performance from its star and some sharp writing keep it from feeling as disposable as its worldview.

Boom’s film (penned by Jeremy Haft, Eddie Gonzalez, and Steven Bagatourian) initially reads as a timely rallying cry around Shakur’s legacy, before devolving into a paint-by-the-numbers biopic that unspools with as much energy as a Wikipedia entry.

There are flashes of deep emotional resonance . . . But there’s also a huge amount of whiplash, as the wide-reaching documentary attempts to crystallize something as mercurial as this through performers, fans, lovers, haters, naysayers, believers.

Though the title may be the cleverest thing about this cookie cutter affair, it’s refreshing to see a gay family film that doesn’t use its characters’ sexuality for dramatic conflict.

As impressive as the final showdown is (it’s easily one of the most impressive setpieces in this fledgling franchise) and as shocking as the film’s closing revelations are (yes, they really are), this magic needs a spell of its own.

Mortensen’s first effort behind the camera never settles into the expected grooves of its genre or premise. On the contrary, the film vibrates at its own unrecognizable frequency as soon as it starts, and only allows for easy categorization during the clunkier moments when it bumps against clichés like a boat that would rather crash into lighthouses than use them for guidance.

The heart of this story remains firmly intact, but there’s something about seeing it rendered in live-action that takes away its inherent magic.

Humane doesn’t want to be a hard-hitting drama about moral equity in an unequal world that nobody escapes alive, it wants to be a satirical — and increasingly basic — thriller about the evils of financially incentivized health policies in a world where nobody deserves to die, and it’s hard for it to succeed on those terms without caring about which of its characters ends up in Bob’s other body bag.

Yes, the masks are great. And yes, home invasions will aways be scary. But when it comes to messing with genre classics, your answer to “Why remake a near-perfect film?” can’t be “It was here.”

It doesn’t stop “Axel F” from getting the job done, but that’s little consolation in a movie so concerned with the long-term consequences of not caring about anything else. If only “Axel F” didn’t make it so damn easy to forgive it for that.

It delivers plenty of blood spattered, gut-spilling gore to satisfy genre lover’s bloodlust, even if we’ve pretty much seen everything a chainsaw can do by now.

The unrepentant movie-ness of “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” can also be part of its charm, especially when it comes to the cast members whose performances aren’t as stale as their parts.

Few contemporary horror films start this strong to end so poorly, and with such a lack of ease. Molly deserves answers, but “Knocking” forgets what the questions were in the first place.

At his best, Cooper is someone who can wring tension and understanding from what’s come before, not necessarily in anticipation of what’s about to happen. Antlers ends up getting caught between the two.

While every scene pulls Jerry apart at the seams, “Sovereign” is too vague and scattered to chart a legible path toward his breaking point.

The gags are fun, but like everything else they feel unfinished — the seed of a full joke that will leave you wanting more. There are laughs aplenty, and Singh is completely at ease in a starring role, selling the material even in its weaker moments.

"The Next Level” attempts to find a balance between winking jokes about video gameplay and the price of immortality (no, really), settling back into the charm of the film it’s tasked with following up. It’s not the most original kind of magic, but there’s potency there, more than enough to keep audiences hanging around for at least one more round.

Though ultimately unsuccessful, it valiant reaches for a funky, wild critique of hedonistic sluggards wandering through society with no clear direction. But more than anything else, it delivers Keanu in his element.

A maddeningly shallow look at Ronstadt’s remarkable life.

The Mad Women’s Ball capably sells the fact that Salpêtrière was a naked reflection of the institutional sexism that existed outside its walls, but Laurent’s eagerness to confront the barbarism of Charcot’s hospital tends to stifle the finer details of a story that hinges on female empowerment.

The film zips through its final act at breakneck speed, doling out answers and riling up new conflicts with little care for how they impact a standalone story, just setting up for a franchise that might never come to fruition.

The Tomorrow Man suggests "Take Shelter" by way of "It’s Complicated," an unseemly combination that never quite gels. But the actors work overtime to mine substance from the material, and Jones gives them plenty of room to rescue this curious movie from complete oblivion.

Mute is ludicrous, but within the confines of its referential logic, also pretty cool.

With emerging rebel leader Rey (Daisy Ridley) providing a sturdy emotional foundation, and billions of Disney dollars fueling an obviously stunning array of special effects, Rise of Skywalker doesn’t squander every opportunity to dial up the thrilling nature of the epic at hand, but all that razzle-dazzle can’t obscure a hollow core.

Krige is magical enough in a complex role (and relative newcomer Eberhardt makes for a wonderful foil), but she can only pull the film along through sheer force of will for so long.

Metal Lords may never find the rhythm a movie like this needs in order to stay in the sweet spot between goofy and charming, but there’s a stubborn kernel of truth to how casually its young characters learn to hear themselves by listening to Judas Priest.

By no means a great piece of filmmaking, Blood Father nevertheless recaptures some of the rough attitude of Gibson's "Mad Max" days, as he shoots, growls and head-butts through a routine tale of angry drug lords.

If this mildly refreshing mid-June spectacle is as thin and straightforward as the terrain that it covers — forgettable in a way that makes you feel like it’s melting while you watch it, and never as slick an action vehicle as its premise might suggest — it still manages to offer a few mild twists before the journey is over.

Barker-Froyland's intention was clearly to make Song One all about music and how it can bring people together. But the result is all about Anne.

Argylle ends on another glorious high that a more serious movie would never have been able to pull off, but the flimsy and hyper-contrived fluff leading up to it is so determined to justify its own absurdity that it doesn’t leave us enough of a chance to enjoy it.

It’s damning, if not quite fatal, that Lee’s version works best when it’s riffing on the standout elements of the source material rather than trying to reinvent them.

Trevorrow, like so many directors given the responsibility of delivering a straightforward blockbuster designed to satisfy bottom-line expectations, struggles to find the balance between silly and serious.

Brie’s delicate performance nearly rescues both Sarah and “Horse Girl” from falling into the awkward traps it sets for itself, hedging on the tough stuff in favor of weirdness for its own sake, faux-arty style over anything that could offer the slightest interest in healing, for either its star or her story.

Purcell, as star, stays resolute to the last, but as filmmaker, her sharp ideas are dulled into something that barely leaves a mark.

Harrison is one of our finest young actors, capable of eliciting great empathy and always conveying deep interiority, and saddling him with a derivative monologue only serves to take us out of his head, and mostly out of his performance.

“Huda’s Salon” doesn’t waste a second in its crackling first 10 minutes ... but that rat-a-tat-tat opening eventually gives way to a drama that’s uneasy both due to its subject matter and its weak hold on it.

The film has style in spades; it would have substance, too, if only it knew when to quit.

Mary and the Witch’s Flower may not be a great film — it occasionally struggles just to be a good one — but it’s a convincing proof-of-concept, and that might be more important in the long run.

For better or worse, we’re on Tammy Faye’s side, but the film often embraces the worst bits of a complicated story in order to make Tammy Faye look better. Why not make her look more real, makeup and all? Chastain is always able to find that humanity, but The Eyes of Tammy Faye too often turns its attention to the wrong places.

Roommates has a real chance at being a formative experience for someone, which is more than a lot of movies can say. But those of us who have already been sufficiently formed? We can find better things to stream this weekend.

Good on Paper can’t quite find its footing, offering insight and sparkle in only fits and starts.

The movie is constantly at war with attempts to provide an honest portrayal, almost as if its subject were reaching beyond the grave to steer any negativity back in the direction of a hagiography.

If this bloody entr’acte, whose title addition works as both noun and verb, has little to offer but a jacked up body count on a bed of fan service, it serves both with panache, charging forward as an almost elemental slasher outing unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

No amount of strong performances and good vibes can hide the sense that we’re just watching a paint-by-numbers routine. Nair puts so much effort into galvanizing the movie’s central figures that the slightest hints of conflict register as little more than an inconvenience.

Park makes a noble attempt to suffuse the meditative soulfulness of Takeshi Kitano’s “Fireworks” into the propulsive genre tropes established by more recent (and more Korean) forebearers like “A Bittersweet Life,” but he just can’t find the same poetry in that silent pain as he’s able to produce from the screaming kind.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is a flashy ode to the fairies and the radicals, the maricóns who’ve repurposed their oppression and media literacy into an outsize, fuck-if-I-care-what-you-think political identity. Yet there’s nothing revolutionary about the movie that contains them.

Unfortunately, Undertone is far more interesting as a phenomenon than an actual movie. Tuason and company deserve to be commended for telling a narrative film on such a small scale, but the finished product fails to deliver a conclusion that’s scary enough to justify its lethargic, slow-burn format.

It’s way too much and a bunch of nothing at the same time, and even agents of chaos who take wicked delight in witnessing this type of pandemonium may find themselves worn out before the film’s predictably hyperbolic conclusion.

While erudite, well-researched, and all too relevant ... [the film] is an unilluminating chore to watch, even as it convincingly argues the profound extent to which its subject helped blemish the moral complexion of the modern world.

It manages to offer more heart and more laughs the second time around.

While The Greatest Night in Pop may not amount to anything more than a sanitized and somewhat masturbatory look back at one of the wildest get-togethers in the modern history of music (the film doesn’t offer any commentary deeper than “isn’t it so fucking crazy that this happened, and that we have it all on tape?”), there’s no denying that it’s a lot of fun to watch it all go down.

Leto’s performance works because he’s so utterly believable as a soulless ghoul that it’s easy to buy into the happy-to-be-here warmth of his emergent humanity.

If there’s any takeaway from “Rob Peace” for the industry folks in the audience, it’s the leading-man power and charisma of Jay Will, who gives an overwhelmingly heart-open performance that makes you understand why everyone in his midst adored him, and how his life’s richness lent well to a best-selling biography.

As mercifully non-didactic as one would expect from any French movie about a constellation of hot people banging into each other as they rotate along their respective orbits Paris, 13th District is much less interested in judging these characters than it is in watching to see how they keep their balance.

Braun and Yanagimoto’s film is frustratingly shortsighted about the societal conditions that allowed Aum to thrive in public for so long. Plenty of fingers are pointed, but most of them only in passing.

Buffaloed wants to package searing insights into the crooked world of debt collecting into a cutesy comedy, leaning hard on Deutch’s skills and far less on a script that’s unwilling to get nasty with its subject matter.

Almereyda’s feature is rich in acting talent, but this stagey, flat drama can’t match the wattage of its leads.

None of the pretty imagery or impassioned lovemaking can break free of a mopey old formula that sits on every scene with the same schematic quality that makes its weary setting so familiar from the start.