A good mystery and earnest performances keep the movie lively, though the confined location and limited plot ultimately make the end product feel paltry.

At a certain point, though, the movie runs out of eccentricity capital and becomes just another contest documentary about determined participants — in this case, mostly obsessive young white men — and the well-worn narrative of defeat or accomplishment.

Tonally, the film is a mess, unable to decide if it's a damning downer or...the inspiring story of conquering injustice.

The Rise of Skywalker nakedly offers itself up in the spirit of a “Last Jedi” corrective, a return to storytelling basics, a nearly 2 ½-hour compendium of everything that made you fall in love with “Star Wars” in the first place. The more accurate way to describe it, I think, is as an epic failure of nerve. This “Rise” feels more like a retreat, a return to a zone of emotional and thematic safety from a filmmaker with a gift for packaging nostalgia as subversion.

Despite a few inspired moments and some fun banter, Portrait of a Serial Monogamist is a slight, often random lesbian comedy that offers little new in the way of authentic depth or enlightenment.

Veteran actors such as Danny Glover and Walton Goggins bring much-needed flavor to Diablo.

Director Eli Hershko and co-writer Christopher Theokas do a nice job with the relationship between Carla and Grandpa, but the other roles go underdeveloped. The filmmakers are even less successful with plotting, telegraphing every major turn.

Like husbands who think that carrying in the groceries is really pitching in, Lucas and Moore have their hearts in the right place, but their efforts have little real insight or impact.

Love Beats Rhymes lacks its own ambition to be something different.

It's as though everyone involved with this doc is afraid to push too hard, lest they knock everything down.

In the end, there’s no outrage in War Dogs — no lacerating insight, no gonzo satiric energy, nothing more than warmed-over cynicism and some mild titters at the spectacle of boys being boys under uniquely deadly circumstances.

While Robertson throws in too many cheap jump-scares, he mostly does well by Green's script, coaxing strong performances from the cast and making sure the viewers feel a sickly dread every time some creature is growling and scratching at the ranch-house door.

The movie’s length is excessive and its arc over-familiar, but for those who don’t mind a little sap — or a lot — Greater is effective.

The movie's never anything other than an artificial construction, where every detail strains for larger meaning — from the pictures on the wall to the fish in the aquarium.

The actors alone can't sustain Intruders for its full 90 minutes, but for the most part they follow Starr's lead, carrying a film that's both menacing and magnetic.

The end product is a standard-issue cult drama that nevertheless has its gripping moments thanks mainly to the presence of Emma Watson.

Even with all the design-rich invention and admirably committed weirdness on display in “Swiss Army Man,” we’re still in the land of immature males, poor-me feelings and superpowers. While the movie focuses on one end of the body, you might be left sighing from the other.

By the end, Ross’ initially disarming fusion of cleverness and whimsy has curdled into a dispiritingly familiar mix of sentimentality and self-satisfaction.

Greenaway's boundary-pushing, breathlessly in-your-face approach begins to take its toll on viewer patience.

Despite a few delights — chiefly an adorably self-aware Joe Manganiello as the object of Pee-wee's man-crush — the new movie has an unsure tone and the barest thread of a story.

The facade the film offers is a lovely, and mildly diverting one, but there’s little insight to be found below the surface.

As glossy and tony as its rarefied subject matter, Crazy About Tiffany's, although entertaining enough, might be one of the least socially conscious documentaries since writer-director Matthew Miele's last valentine to high-end shopping, 2013's "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's."

It's a treat to see Kiefer and Donald side by side, and both give fine performances. But a pairing this special deserved a story more unique than "reluctant killer reaches for his guns."

The visuals and concepts presented here may be compelling and vital, but director Luc Jacquet (“March of the Penguins”) weaves them together with too little urgency, propulsion and, ultimately, unique sense of purpose.

Ross is to be commended for taking chances on his first outing. He delivers grown-up shivers with a strong cinematic sensibility. But however suspensefully the score groans and cries, the emotional stakes dwindle with each overemphatic narrative curve.

An initially compelling but uneven drama elevated by two centered performances.

Pandemic proves serviceably frightening, if sporadically gory, maximizing tension derived from unknown dangers lurking in dark corridors and behind closed doors.

Though the craft is exceptional, there are some storytelling missteps.

If the film’s trio of new screenwriters (replacing series mainstay Ehren Kruger) have seamlessly upheld the crass and juvenile “Transformers” sensibility, then Bay’s visual sensibility has, if anything, matured, to the point of demanding and earning your exasperated surrender.

If we'd never seen another film on the horrors of apartheid, all this might have been more impressive, but we have and it isn't.

Bad as the overall design remains, individual scenes keep sparking alive, partly because the dialogue, or delivery, seems fresh, and improvisatory; partly because Van Peebles, in his directorial debut, figures out unusual or athletic camera designs for every scene. It's obvious he has talent, equally obvious there's no way this story can work right, no matter how strenuous the staging.

While everyone involved with Backtrack is a polished pro, the movie's tastefulness gets in the way of the suspense.

It's little more than an artsy but hollow Lifetime cable movie.

Despite the fertile concept, it's hard to care about, much less root for, the irritable, charisma-challenged Barney. The character never emerges as an effective hero or antihero, and performer Carlyle does little to mitigate that.

Belladonna of Sadness is an interesting curiosity from the early days of modern anime, but material that may have seemed daring and adult in the era of Disney's “Robin Hood” and “Snoopy, Come Home” looks exploitative and misogynistic 43 years later.

For reminding us all that Cage has a peculiarly gifted way with erratic types, The Trust has merit, but the rest of it strains to hold one’s interest.

Many fine small moments pepper the family dramedy One More Time, but they don't add up to a satisfying enough whole.

As with Rossi's acclaimed documentary "Page One: Inside the New York Times," "First Monday" covers too much ground.

Though the movie's consistently watchable, it's rarely grabby, aside from a few strong jump-scares.

In a way, Indy has been swallowed up by not only the very action-comedy movie formula he helped normalize but also by the dispiriting, depersonalizing trends in 21st-century studio filmmaking.

If Genius is a failure — and by the generally unilluminating standards of most mainstream movies about the creative process, I’m not entirely sure that it is — it succeeds in being a noble, even charming one.

Batman Returns, the most eagerly awaited and aggressively hyped film of the summer, is, for better and worse, very much the product of director Tim Burton's morose imagination. His dark, melancholy vision is undeniably something to see, but it is a claustrophobic conception, not an expansive one, oppressive rather than exhilarating, and it strangles almost all the enjoyment out of this movie without half trying.

The terrors we see in A Cure for Wellness are never as scary as they are beautiful, but they are never so beautiful as they are arbitrary.

There isn't enough mystery and ambiguity around the murders to create a sense of fear or dread, yet there's something rather effectively creepy and compelling, with its retro thrills and chills

Shalini Kantayya's debut documentary feature never stays in any one place long enough to make a sufficient impact.

The twisty plot mostly comes together via flashbacks, following an opening armed robbery. Too often though, Yang opts for brute force over brains, defaulting to violent fights that don't quite fit with the film's overall lightness.

Rosenmeyer and Shaw have an easy charm and chemistry together, but the been-there, done-that material doesn't match their talents.

It’s not a great movie but a welcome one, if only for how it attempts to revive a whole genre.

Despite an energetic set-up, the broad script fails to deliver the anticipated goods once the action relocates to Paris.

There are a few chuckles to be found in Bill, but this is decidedly more "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" than "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Slater has some effective moments and Franco excels at a certain kind of scary/funny psycho, but it doesn’t ultimately add up to much as either pulpy trash or exposé.

Imitating the Bourne capers rather than establishing an identity of its own, “The Take” is a strictly by-the-numbers political thriller that fails to capitalize on Idris Elba’s formidable screen presence.

The Wild Life is a family-friendly take on the story of Crusoe, with a twist, and kids no doubt will be drawn to the colorful animal characters, but there's a lack of emotional connection that makes the film just another cartoon flick, not a special favorite or animated classic.

It’s So Easy suffers from an approach that leans more on telling than showing, and we just have to take his word for it that his life’s events are that fascinating.

With its twinkly piano and soul-stirring cinematography, Love Thy Nature feels like the visual equivalent of a hot oil spa massage — and leaves a residual effect that proves equally as fleeting.

The story, although intelligent, is not quite unique or essential enough to merit the film’s protracted running time.

With a highly stylized form, and thick, syrupy ribbons of blood splashing everywhere, Sun Choke evokes a creepy, eerie vibe, but it’s difficult to muster more than a passing interest in the story, because we don’t know who this girl is, or why she does these things.

The film insistently asserts its autobiographical roots at the expense of sharper plotting and characterizations, not to mention more energetic pacing.

Garcia never gets a grasp on her protagonist’s contradictions, or those of her story — certainly not enough to pull off the movie’s jaw-dropper of a twist. But she conjures a powerful sensuality, and Cotillard burns ferociously bright, even when the center does not hold.

Dense with plot and mythology, the film is refreshingly unpredictable — if only because guessing what comes next would require understanding what the hell is going on.

With the exception of one clever twist at the midway point, what transpires here is thin, vaporous and awfully derivative. But my goodness, how Shaye holds you, even through the most routine of jolts and the most ludicrous of circumstances.

The Meg, stolidly directed by Jon Turteltaub (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” “National Treasure”), winds up proving a fairly obvious theory about its chosen sub-genre: the more massive the shark (and the budget), the lighter the scares and the lower the stakes.

The Cleveland locations — along with some memorable visual flourishes via skateboard tricks — show that Caple has a unique eye and a strong sense of place. Here’s hoping that next time he applies them to a fresher story.

More resonant in theory than in execution, the post-Holocaust drama To Life never truly embraces the promise of its title or the roiling emotion beneath its surface.

The movie both embraces and questions the romance of heroism, a provocative paradox that would have had more dramatic oomph if the screenplay were less staid, the characters more fully fleshed.

Most B-pictures imitate other movies, but writer-director Mickey Keating’s Carnage Park steals so freely that it almost becomes derivative in an original way.

Writer-director James Bird took inspiration from real-life experiences, and the story is obviously heartfelt. But despite a stylized, edgy surface, Honeyglue doesn’t stray from the well-worn weepy narrative.

Remains intriguing despite its troublesome issues.

It’s dispiriting to watch Lowriders make every predictable move. It clutters an otherwise well-meaning snapshot of a vibrant community underserved by mainstream filmmaking.

Director Charlie McDowell, who co-wrote the film with Justin Lader, sidesteps the material’s more intriguing ideas, ultimately settling for a conventional story about love, loss and second chances. The disappointment comes not in the lack of answers but in the relative absence of audacity in tackling such a trippy concept.

Although it contains its share of diverting shootouts, car crashes and explosions, this self-serious film mostly evokes a forgettable TV police procedural.

The slick animation and exciting battles lose their novelty eventually, and there’s just not enough here in the way of edge-of-the-seat storytelling or vivid characters to compensate.

Excellent production values and a decent premise help hold together “Billionaire Ransom,” an otherwise rickety thriller constructed from used parts.

Admirably imaginative but frustratingly clunky, the sci-fi thriller Let’s Be Evil is a technophobic cautionary tale that ironically demonstrates how fancy new digital filmmaking tools make a low-budget project look spiffy.

Deeper socio-historical context and a more electric approach could have helped us better appreciate the far-flung impact of this visionary artist.

Without its lead, whose full-throttle portrait is at least a burning flame, Gold wouldn’t work on any level.

Bad Santa 2 relies entirely too much on the salty stuff, offering an opportunity for audiences to titter at the firehose of vile gutter humor that leaves no one unsullied, and delves into some truly dark places.

Somehow Murphy manages to lift his dignified, all-knowing servant character off the page, giving a meticulously composed performance in a vehicle that can’t help but feel superficially repackaged.

However heroic a figure Fanning’s Liz may be, however much this fine actress makes us feel her terror and determination, any sense of triumph is steadily, grindingly undone.

Unfortunately, this improvised film (Guest’s actors work off a detailed outline) contains the occasional titter but few guffaws.

LBJ would have benefited from a more distinctive voice.

At times, I’m Not Ashamed is vivid enough to make one pine for a Christian-leaning teen flick that doesn’t have such a blunt, preordained ending.

Although the script by Olivia Hetreed and José Luis López-Linares traffics in vital ideas and still-timely assertions (“We shouldn’t try to fit facts into a set of beliefs!”), a looser, less self-important approach would have helped.

It’s a warm, uplifting portrait of the potentials to be found in startup culture, but feels blinkered by its specific focus.

It feels more like the sketch of an idea than a fully realized film, and it ends on a note that seems it should be the beginning or middle of the story, not the end.

That Rabe (daughter of the late Jill Clayburgh and playwright David Rabe) proves so intriguing to watch is more a testament to her acting focus and stirring, lovely presence than to the dreary role she inhabits.

While the movie’s artfully made and daringly disturbing, Dekker ultimately overestimates how many sick twists one motion picture needs.

The surfeit of familiar faces is a poor substitute for Steinbeck’s psychological astuteness, his rich understanding of the way human beings respond, individually and collectively, when they are backed into a corner.

This sparsely populated film’s smart, enjoyable first half provides some nifty banter, fun character bits and a few jokey surprises. But the story turns a bit flat and convoluted as secrets are revealed, allegiances shift and bullets fly.

With its old-fashioned gloss, the incident-packed story proves only mildly engaging and finally has little to say.

A scrappy war flick with a fair amount of combat suspense but a whole lot of clichéd dialogue.

The fantasy of a punk icon for a friend is one thing, but the filmmakers undercut the modest liveliness of their enterprise with a save-the-day storyline that seems far removed from the roiling, anti-authoritative ethos of punk.

Wingard’s movie, for all its abundant mischief, doesn’t trust the power of its own illusion. You can see these woods a lot more clearly now, and what you see is that you’ve been here before.

Carrie Pilby is a studiously quirky affair, but only the natural charm of Powley salvages that tone. The film swings wildly from melancholy to wacky, never truly melding the two; it somehow also lacks verve and energy.

With seemingly all the right pieces, it's a disappointment that The Promise lacks the energy and originality needed to sustain itself. It might be fresh material, but the approach is decidedly stale.

The largely improvisational approach as well as the limited settings and story arc also undercut the picture’s deeper dramatic potential — despite a powerful, beautifully performed finale.

Unfortunately, the cast and a few sweet tunes by Armstrong are the only things going for this delayed coming-of-age dramedy.

Hunt, whose debut feature was “Frozen River,” has a steadfastly classicist approach to tried-and-true genre storytelling that’s admirable, but instead of building tension, The Whole Truth lets it bleed out.