The mildly amusing Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is further proof that even the stalest whiff of brand recognition has become preferable to originality. Only part of the blame for that belongs to the studios, but after cannibalizing themselves for much of the last 20 years, Hollywood has clearly eaten their way down to the crumbs.

At heart, it’s a story you’ve seen countless times before — often told on a much larger scale. And yet it’s amazing how far you can go on the strength of some evocative production design, a few clever dashes of sci-fi world-building, and a goofy script that isn’t afraid to err closer to “Pillow Talk” than to “Before Sunrise.”

God Help the Girl doesn’t quite succeed in convincing the viewer to toss conventional character development out the window, it still has its moments.

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.

Hodge sells it, just as he sells the rest of an otherwise chintzy film, a Lifetime movie-like drama that falls short of engaging with the many thorny issues it dramatizes.

Get Away works better on paper than as a visceral entertainment experience, as its raison d’etre of subverting folk horror expectations sometimes feels more like a screenwriting class exercise than a fully immersive world.

Admittedly lovely and heartfelt, Norwegian Wood is also hollow.

“Force of Nature” generates just enough mystery never to be boring, but not enough interest to elevate it above its modest trappings.

Jones clearly has valuable insights about being a Black woman in entertainment and has the chops to tell a captivating story. What any of that has to do with the sex industry is a total mystery.

To the Wonder renders the familiar terrain of romantic dysfunction on a grand scale. Malick haters may not change their tune, but at least they can admit that To the Wonder maintains a consistent thematic focus.

Silas Howard’s new film is nothing if not well-attuned to the difference between the purity of sharing the right values and the messiness of actually living with them.

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

Political only by implication, Zero Bridge works in a larger sense as a story of universal longing.

There is a tendency to overly explain things as opposed to letting Ginsburg’s words flow, but if you’ve enjoyed the previous looks at the notorious RBG, this is a new one offers a different angle to her remarkable story.

Weitz and Orton mean to question the individual’s role in a mass atrocity, but the abstract nature of their ideas never squares with the rigidity of their storytelling. As a result, Operation Finale doesn’t feel ambiguous so much as it feels like it lacks a point of view.

Russo-Young insists upon Before I Fall maintaining the courage of its convictions, and she gets her way — the movie takes a while to get off the ground, but when it lands, it lands hard.

It's a pretty experiment with no apparent results, but plenty of marketability.

A distinctly uneven but imminently watchable theatrical showcase in which cinematic and stagy devices go head to head with no clear winner.

It’s a whole lot less scary or fun the second time around.

While Baena and Brie, who wrote the film together, don’t exactly flip the script on this seemingly well-trod subgenre, the duo (plus a star-packed cast) certainly add some spice to it.

A taut and stylish thriller that manages to draw fresh blood from some very familiar territory.

This whirling vortex of dysfunctional friends and acquaintances feel like an unfocused and self-absorbed melange of frustration. It’s a parade of broken people, connected only by their fruitless pursuits of happiness.

The film serves as more of a primer for the uninitiated. But even for the initiated, it could contribute to ongoing discussions on how to dismantle the American racial divide that is deeply entrenched in our national psyche.

This is a movie that sling-shots so far past self-parody that it loops all the way back to something real.

Since 2005's "A History of Violence," Cronenberg has ventured beyond the grotesque allegorical interests of his earlier movies, a shift that has led some longtime fans to assume he has softened up. As an enjoyably peculiar anti-capitalist indictment, Cosmopolis proves otherwise.

Jason Bourne adheres to an existing format so robotically that it never manages to surprise or engage for longer than the occasional passing moment.

The script is half-baked and rushed, too much of a collage of other, better movies, and too coy to embrace its trashiness or ever go beyond PG-13 levels of horror.

It’s entertaining enough, but this is a story that doesn’t feel real, mostly because it isn’t.