Between an over-reliance on woozy indie filmmaking staples — from its soft lighting to its plodding, overly delicate score — and a central family dynamic that never feels legible, the end result is more irritating than enlightening.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You vibrates with a primordial love and respect for its heroine, one that self-evidently stems from Bronstein’s own experiences as a mother, but the film refuses to wink at its audience or often even the slightest hint of memeable solidarity.

The making-of story is well worth hunting down and can make this broadly underwhelming movie almost worth the watch.

But when evaluated as a work of pure craftsmanship, Flight Risk is some of the finest stupidity Hollywood has gifted us in a long time.

There’s a lot to enjoy about Companion, from Hancock’s sleek visuals, smooth pacing, and twisty script, to Thatcher’s uncanny performance as an android who borders on humanity without ever crossing the threshold. But while the film offers a snapshot of human-AI relations at an inflection point, it doesn’t fully probe some of the implications of its premise.

A strong cast, unique perspective, and handful of undeniable moments that terrify and mesmerize recommend this stomach-churning debut as a standout in a loud subgenre.

It’s the kind of film that even the most devoted cinema purist should be comfortable referring to as “content.” But watching Foxx and Diaz crackle with the age-appropriate chemistry of a couple that still finds each other attractive after 15 years is a reminder that star power is still as important as ever.

Hamm’s adaptation of the material is competent enough, offering all the striking shots of the Swiss Alps and extra-laden battle scenes that any historical epic connoisseur could ask for. Bang checks all the boxes as a leading man, emitting the rugged sexiness and unflinching bravery required of a historical figure who transcended his own lifespan and achieved true immortality.

Throughout the very funny film directed by Lawrence Lamont and written by Syreeta Singleton, you are treated time and time again to the brilliance of Palmer — how she can transform any bit of dialogue into a laugh line, or make her eyes glimmer with gags.

A semi-feral drama about parental fears that isn’t remotely scary enough to catalyze those concerns into the action it puts on screen, Wolf Man runs away from its potential with its tail between its legs. “There is nothing here worth dying for,” reads the “no trespassing” sign on the childhood home where Blake inexplicably returns with his wife and daughter. There’s nothing here worth watching for either.

By the time this hard-nosed genre exercise arrives at its ambivalent final scene, whether or not the criminals get away with stealing a few million Krone feels all but irrelevant to a world in which real fulfillment is so hard to keep.

Yakusho never misses a beat; fittingly enough, even this movie’s greatest weaknesses are an opportunity for him to prove his strength.

The result is at once accosting and strangely affirming, narrowly saved by a strong cast of performers and moody cinematography that navigate the movie’s thinner aspects and more ambiguous moments with relative ease.

While Yen makes sure to acknowledge that he isn’t as young as he used to be, such admissions prove needlessly self-effacing.

Even if nobody was asking for “Den of Thieves 2,” it might be time to start crossing our fingers for “Den of Thieves 3.” Frankly, I’m even more excited for “Den of Thieves 7.”

Veiel and Maischberger build a compelling case that she was in fact a Nazi, right up until the end of her life.

Despite the simple question at the film’s core, Carax is unsurprisingly more interested in assembling compelling images and sounds than offering a sincere look inside the man crafting them. He orbits vulnerability like a moth swirling around a streetlamp, getting ever closer and occasionally touching it before instantly recoiling.

That From Ground Zero exists is both a tragedy and a miracle in unequal measure, a fact that proves impossible to forget over the course of a film whose every frame has been rescued from the rubble of an ongoing genocide.

The scares are mostly metaphorical and the sparse imagery becomes repetitive by the end, but “The Damned” remains a promising debut that offers a moody exploration of the human condition.

There’s no denying that Los Frikis were punk as hell, and errant traces of that anti-establishment attitude can be found in Nilson and Schwartz’s refusal to judge their characters for injecting themselves with HIV as a “fuck you” to a government that hadn’t left them any other choice, but the declawed safety of their storytelling undercuts that energy at every turn.

It might be enough to entertain young children or diehard SEGA loyalists, but the rest of us are left to lament that the running time isn’t as fast as its blue protagonist.

Mufasa has hidden charms that are arguably best described as Jenkins released straight to VHS.

Carry-On doesn’t aspire to be too much more than good, trashy, yuletide fun, but it consistently over-delivers on that front in the process of telling a sweet little story about a guy who learns that a difficult career setback doesn’t have to result in a lifetime of surrender.

Alas, the special effects in “Kraven the Hunter” are bad enough to completely undercut the only decent setpiece — a chase through the streets and rivers of London — in an action movie that doesn’t take advantage of its R rating until the final shootout, as the CGI devolves from “adorably cartoonish” to “done as cheaply as possible by a studio trying to cut its losses” so fast that it comes dangerously close to “Scorpion King” territory by the end (which doesn’t stop Chandor from burdening the effects with selling his story’s most pivotal moments).

Like “I’m Not There” before it, “A Complete Unknown” would rather celebrate Dylan’s mystery than attempt to explain it (each of their titles emphasizes his elusiveness as a defining factor), but where Haynes’ solution was to make Dylan infinite, Mangold’s is to make him as small as possible.

At least it aspires to mine a fresh experience from the all too familiar tedium of watching Hollywood pick a franchise dry, even if it ultimately falls well short of that goal.

From beginning to end, The Six Triple Eight never trusts its audience to actually engage with the material beyond its inspiring surface, evidenced by a lengthy coda featuring title cards that literally restate the film’s plot over archival footage of the 6888th Battalion. Unsung heroes deserve better.

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.