Beyond the premise though, Held is pretty much stale ginger ale, not fresh, no fizz, thinly acted and tepidly paced. While it’s passably interesting, watching co-directors Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing (The Gallows) explore the antiseptic house as if watching a a real estate video, the accompanying thin drama drifts into episodic genre violence and doubtful logic.

The film is long and slow, but never boring. There is, however, a sense that the various storylines are not woven together completely.

Black Water is an entertaining enough film, although one based on an overused premise that’s been done better.

There are too many cute influences, too many perfect musical numbers and even the physical rendering of the characters themselves belie the gritty human struggle that has remained at the core of this story for this to render the true story of Ebenezer Scrooge.

With echoes of Starship Troopers (minus the pointed satire), The Tomorrow War, starring Chris Pratt, is the second noisy “temporal war” movie of the pandemic era, after Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. To differentiate between the two, this is the one Nolan would have written if he’d suffered a head injury.

Writer-director Florian Zeller is aiming to go deeper here, and brings a lot of emotional and psychological complexity to the story. The film has depth and sincerity. Despite that and the excellent work of its cast —led by Hugh Jackman in a fine performance — the film stalls and falters midway through.

Uncharted once again confirms my belief that video games make for bad to mediocre movies. At least Uncharted scrounges up enough fortitude to be mediocre.

DogMan is kind of an idiotic movie built on a ludicrous premise. This does not prevent it from being eminently watchable.

There’s a sense of familiarity to The Prodigy, the latest in a half-century of “evil child” stories going back to The Bad Seed, and including The Exorcist and The Omen. It’s still effective, given the chills we get from a sweet-faced kid saying or doing something horrible in the dark.

The Rhythm Section is especially disappointing given its strong cast in front of and behind the scenes and its obvious ambition to rise above a paint-by-numbers action film with a somewhat relatable protagonist.

Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a sequel to his father Ivan’s hit 1984 comedy about paranormal exterminators, is an exercise in family homage and over-familiar exorcism.

Cookson is engaging enough as Joan, mercurial politics and all, but it’s a prosaic tale considering its enormity. And it never really finds its feet as entertainment.

It’s entertainment as fast food, though perhaps slightly less objectionable than the horrors perpetuated by KFC.

There are enough dream sequences infiltrating the action to confuse even devoted fans, while Insidious newbies and part-time dabblers are left to wonder when Freddy Krueger might arrive on scene. Wilson’s first stab at direction is not entirely a failure, but neither does he push the franchise to any new heights.

Despite a brief reprieve with films like Mandy (2018) and Color Out of Space (2019), both of which successfully harness Cage's outlier approach, he makes a swift and disappointing dip back onto Hollywood's B-list here.

While 88 has characters who have lots to say about the history of white supremacy, dark money in politics, and the delusion of fixing a corrupt system from within, this is a stiff, artless effort that barely makes the transition from explanatory journalism to fiction.

The Marksman is a minor entry in the Liam Neeson Action Oeuvre, but it's unlikely to boost his genre status. Neeson puts in a valiant effort to give Hanson the edge of a man grown weary, not just by time but by the assumptions of his age and the disappointing belief that his country has let him down.

Even with its slender premise, sporadic laughs, and abundant clichés, The Fabulous Four is entertaining and unapologetically — almost aggressively — sweet-natured, promoting friendship and female camaraderie while spotlighting a demographic underrepresented on screen and widely considered to have the kinds of dilemmas presented here all figured out by now.

Sometimes researching the background of a movie proves more revealing than the film itself.

The movie rattles through ninety minutes of episodic jolts, the visual style is jumbled. Distinctive only in having a better effects budget than your average demons-in-the-attic quickie. While the super-parody elements offer a few snorts of amusement, the movie avoids taking on more complex ideas about Superman as an American ideal, though the filmmakers are obviously aware of the Bizarro context.

Pain Hustlers waits until very late in the game to really drive home some of the horrors behind the opioid epidemic. For too long we’re complicit with its characters. And maybe that’s what it’s going for; but if so, it left me with a mildly unpleasant aftertaste. Not quite what the doctor ordered.

The King's Man takes known characters and events perverting truth with fiction. It's an amusing enough exercise even as it can jog free a few lost but freely interpreted high-school history lessons.

In Iain Reid’s source-material novel, there are literary tricks that spell it out more clearly. But the script and execution here fails to launch, with too much ”Why?” holding it down.

It’s decent, adequate fun.

Dark Match, a recent addition to a growing line of stream-screams, combines the melodramatic tensions of a sports drama with 80s-style schlock horror.

Mortal Engines, which is produced by Peter Jackson and written by the team behind the Lord of the Rings films, is grandly, majestically, epically inert, a high-concept fantasy with a wide chasm between the money we see up on the screen and poverty of the story.

The story of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is so well-known that it’s hard to find a new angle. That is, unless you’re Luc Besson and you go back to the book’s inspiration, and present Dracula as a lost soul in need of forgiveness and redemption. And, refreshingly, that’s exactly what you get in this film.

Raccoon City is most fun when showcasing Avan Jogia as a rookie cop who’d been transferred to Raccoon City after accidentally shooting his partner in the butt—a bad joke that Jogia turns into a workable gag.

Rifkin’s Festival is a romantic farce, with ideas that long-time fans will recognize from a range of other Allen films, but with one difference. The movie ends on a surprisingly sweet note.

It’s not so much whether The Jesus Rolls fails. It does, but how much it fails depends on how amped up your expectations are going into the movie.

It would be swell if there was a way of describing Bloodshot that unscrambled its plot while making it sound staggeringly cool but… well, we can’t all be superheroes. Neat effects though, which maybe are the most important thing in a sci-fi actioner?

Night Swim is another title to add to the increasingly unreliable canon of films from Jason Blum and James Wan. Not every new project has to be greenlit, gentlemen.

The premise feels so quaint it might as well be framed by Cinderella-like animated bluebirds.

Taken in micro-doses, Peter Rabbit 2 has clever moments and a relentless eagerness to please. But the movie trips over itself when it attempts to satirize what it practices.

Maggie Moore(s) sun-baked backdrop — it was shot in and around Albuquerque — imbues the crime drama with a contrarian vibe that might be called Coen-esque though with much less umph than No Country for Old Men. It’s an enjoyable watch to be sure, but not destined to be memorable.

Bob Marley: One Love does not give a documentary’s worth of information and analysis into one of the 20th century’s most interesting, beloved performers. And yes, its approach is formulaic. But it celebrates Marley’s charisma and influence, and his music, which sounds as vital today as ever. Fair trade.

A movie with a sincere social message and an exploitation movie sensibility, Antebellum is a clumsy cousin of Jordan Peele’s Get Out, an allegory of racism in a horror film about entrapment that goes wide of the mark.

Rabid is a suitable entry into the science-fiction/horror genre that occasionally slants towards the promise of offering something more. And while the film’s science-fiction/horror elements don’t disappoint, the promise of something more doesn’t quite pull through.

Norwegian director Joachim Rønning (who co-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) offers nothing unexpected here, in what amounts to a complicated exercise in paint-by-numbers movie-making.

You’ve probably heard punchier dialog at dinner parties.

A Dog's Journey is a film that romanticizes the needs of the master over the beast. And while it's not untrue that domesticated dogs live to please, the willingness of the film to take full advantage of such unconditional devotion can feel exploitative.

I'll admit that The Strangers had me on the edge of my seat, mostly because I wasn't sure if I planned on staying.

Where the Crawdads Sing is recommended, and part of me liked it. But I confess to feeling a bit bored and, surprising even to myself, a bit disappointed that the filmmakers, in the quest to honour Owens’ book, created something without a single surprise in casting, setting or anything else.

Except the real Nazis, every character in The Aftermath has good intentions, marred by some moments of poor impulse control. And they are a little dull.

Neither big nor bold nor beautiful. Though I suppose it does count as a journey. Well, one out of four ain’t — no, wait, one out of four is terrible!

This is perhaps a kinder, gentler Amy Winehouse story? Maybe so, but there’s no opportunity for emotional investment, despite Marisa Abela’s wonderful performance. It’s all a bit like seeing a good cover band.

The level of sophistication in the storytelling is impressive, and Isaac’s attempts at Vulcan logic notwithstanding, it’s a movie that wears its heart on its sleeve.

The film settles for soft-peddling rehashed themes of belonging, where misunderstood mutants struggle once again to be accepted. We've been here before, and it was better the first time.

If this were a pilot for a TV series, home audiences might be willing to baby it along until it grows stronger. As a stand-alone movie, this particular mutation looks like a badly-adapted dead-end.

There’s a little more room for characters to breathe. This is not to last, however. The whole thing must ignite into a final act of fights, car chases and general destruction (and Snake Eyes’ discovery of honour). The battle scenes are often darkly lit and confusing (though it is a change of pace to see so much swordplay as opposed to gunplay), and the attempt to fuse the Joes and Cobra into the plot in the last act is not exactly smooth.

Unfortunately, the director who came in too early for the superhero craze may now be revisiting it too late. The genre now monopolizes the multiplex, and it seems as if everything about comic books and superpowers and misanthropy has already been said. But Shyamalan still says it, in an unfocused movie with some interesting ideas, and so much expositional dialogue in place of action, it’s sometimes more of a lecture than a thriller.

As it is, The Art of Racing in the Rain won’t disappoint anyone with basic expectations of a dog movie. It’s full of aww, if not wonder.

The sharks are disappointingly not scary but they’re interesting-looking with their plastic torpedo heads and serrated-saw smiles. When they leap out of the dark to dismember bodies, they bloody the waters in swirling lava lamp patterns that feel almost peaceful. Or perhaps I’m just trying to find a nicer way to say dull.

You Gotta Believe is billed as family entertainment. Whose family, exactly, they never specify.

The comedy level is well-sustained throughout the film. There is no shortage of comedy in the first half. But it really is the second half when one is able to stop making the predictions and relax into the laughs. At that point, all snake hell breaks loose and the pace accelerates quickly enough that it’s easier to go along with it.

Whatever you do this summer, watching this reboot shouldn’t be one of them.

Shot when COVID protocols allowed for minimal location shooting, the film is amusing partly because it hits on these resonant COVID-tropes. That and some nice stunt casting, makes this rom-com/heist fun.

Maybe giant robots that turn into cars, or in this case, animals, isn’t your deal. But despite the goofy premise and the formulaic nature of the story in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, it isn’t that bad.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is Warner Brothers/ DC Comics latest sacrificial offering to the altar of comic properties. And while the film isn’t bad in itself, it’s pretty clear that there’s a bit of a schism in deciding how to present this film and its hero.

Impossible odds and a furious deadline have propelled many great and not-so-great action films. Those factors are very much at play in The Ice Road, which stars Liam Neeson, several big rigs, and the province of Manitoba in a thriller that, though by-the-numbers in execution, boasts a watchable enough premise.

As a turn-your-brain-off, tech-heavy action movie, Captain America: Brave New World succeeds well enough. As a Marvel movie that connects with other Marvel movies in any meaningful way, or charts a new direction (other than that vague suggestion of a “New Avengers”), it’s little more than a space-filler.

Oh, but they’re a quirky lot, so they are, in Wild Mountain Thyme, which arrives December 22 stuffed with blarney, Irish clichés, and a head-scratcher of a plot about an odd yet spectacularly attractive pair who just can’t seem to get their romantic act together.

Unfortunately, love and enthusiasm doesn’t automatically add up to a good movie. The ideas here are well thought through, but the execution is tonally wonky, at times feeling like a stage musical translated to the screen. At other times, it comes across like a Hallmark movie. At two hours and 17 minutes, it’s simultaneously too much and not enough.

As long as you don’t mistake Opus for a thriller, it’s a fun ride at the movies.

Visually drab, tonally flat, and with precious few sympathetic or relatable characters, Brothers by Blood reduces the high-minded concept of filial loyalty across multiple generations to a paint-by-numbers power play.

A wearying spoof, the film, with its Regency-era setting, takes a smart, sombre drama and turns it into a juvenile inanity.

Halloween is still a Michael Myers slasher film. People meet horrible ends in extreme ways, and the plot rarely goes beyond the idea that someone really should put an end to all this nonsense. The difference in Green's film is that he gives us a taste of the emotional aftermath; and that can be more horrifying than the kill itself.

Overblown, outrageous, exceedingly (at times giddily) violent and visually exhausting — does any of this sounds familiar? — the film is, to borrow a hackneyed phrase which somehow seems appropriate in this context, all sizzle and no steak.

Despite an abundance of spent artillery, terrorists disguised as caterers, military strategizing, and filthy rich people in imminent danger, Attack on Finland achieves the level of a dry espionage drama with only a few surprises to elevate it from the mundane.

Director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) seems to be directing by template, never stopping to let us get to know anybody – least of all Neeson’s Alex, who for the most part is only there to kill people. Some things never change.

For a movie that’s supposed to take D.C. in a new direction, Black Adam sure seems like something we’ve seen plenty of times before.

Is it worth the wait? I mean, if you’ve already sat through The Last Dance — and I can’t advise that you do — then you might at well see it through to the bitter end. And I do mean bitter.

There’s nothing here that sparks surprise. The film remains mechanical and stilted, like some grim combination of taxidermy and ventriloquism.

Whatever magic that writer/director Savi Gabizon brought to the original seems to have evaporated for this second go.

For everything Senior Moment gets right, there seems to be an equal and corresponding wrong which mars the film and the efforts of its clearly committed cast under the helm of action director Giorgio Serafini.

The film — set over the course of one wedding day — rates as no more than a passable distraction, though those can be useful.

It’s not for lack of trying as Crisis has a terrific ensemble cast doing terrific work. But the film never sparks or soars.

Mostly, this is a look at how solid actors can carry a nuts-and-bolts, dramatically undemanding action film. Jordan is physically imposing, and handles the action choreography with style.

If you want proof that hell hath no fury like an angry mom, look no further.

I was intrigued to find that Finding You was not produced by an AI romance plot generator, but an actual book — Jenny B. Jones’ 2011 YA novel, There You’ll Find Me.

Perhaps the only scary thing about the new horror movie The Curse of La Llarona is the fear of mispronouncing the title.

There are white-knuckle moments, notably Gloria’s crossing of the border with a heap of stuff that would raise troubling questions were she stopped and searched. Rodriguez puts us right there in the car beside her and it’s thrilling. But the outcome arrives a bit too pat, our heroine conveniently switching from cowed hostage to arms-wielding ass-kicker with dubious ease.

Geremy Jasper’s O’dessa is a dystopian rock opera lacking the essential elements of soul, rhythm, and the rebellious spirit characteristic of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a tone-deaf attempt at greatness that ultimately falls short.

There’s a sense that the film is attempting to navigate a sort of Atom Egoyan-like exploration of the ripple effects of trauma but it stumbles over a mishmash of a screenplay — the clumsy fragmentary flashbacks, the rushed climax and time-jumping, cross-cutting wind-up — none of which are improved by David Fleming and Hans Zimmer’s generic thriller score.

Here Today is the movie Crystal directs, a genial, monotone of good-heartedness that isn’t as funny as it wants to be or needs to be, but hits some truths about the subject of age and dementia, while maintaining its mild smile.

Awash in good intentions and weighed down by its grim premise, Come Away is a fantasy that fails to inspire, despite its star power (including David Oyelowo and Angelina Jolie) and occasionally clever flourishes.

And though Besson does salvage a reasonably entertaining tale, his unapologetic fetish for women who kill gives the movie an icky feeling of having stumbled across someone’s private web browser.

Possibly, Eat Wheaties! will age well, but at this point, there’s more cringe than comedy here. The character of Sid isn’t just endearingly awkward or amusingly fatuous, like Steve Carell’s Michael Scott in The Office. He’s just thickly insensitive.

Crowe, identified in the credits only as The Man, is the reason to see this film. He makes for a convincing villain. And even when the movie veers towards the ridiculous, Crowe forces you to keep your eyes on the road.

The confrontations involve a lot of prolonged, quasi-slapstick bullet-spraying firefights, which are hard on windows… and on viewers’ patience.

Director Ben Wheatley gives the summer blockbuster the finger, and it’s the funniest damn thing I’ve seen this year. Meg 2: The Trench is flawed to perfection; a satirical pummeling of commercial cinema and the first out of gate with a Barbie send-up.

Ultimately, what sinks the story is a combination of miscasting and bad writing, regardless of its language. Braff tries too hard to be likeable, sometimes coming off as almost creepy. Hudgens leans the other way.

Despite some exemplary action sequences, including an impressive chase scene through the streets of Paris and into the subterranean tubes, The 355 fails to shed the tropes of male gaze and the kickass female fetishes of Kill Bill, Charlie's Angels, and every film Luc Besson has made with a female lead.

Fourth of July is meant to be a comedy, but isn’t in the sense that there is nothing funny enough to laugh at. It is a domestic car crash with no edge or purpose.

Spiral is locked in a formula that has not budged in nearly two decades. That is likely to read as good news for fans of the franchise.

Director Laura Terruso overlooks several comedic opportunities in About My Father. It’s as though she’s working from a script that’s been edited by someone who got the situations but not the jokes.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this greatest-hits patchwork approach or the correct racially diverse, girl-power script from Ashleigh Powell. There’s also nothing new or necessary about this jumbled, pretty mess of a movie, which barely covers the seams between its varied pilferings.

The Home has neither haunting atmosphere nor paranoid madness to recommend it; it’s just a weak story, badly executed and dragged along until it launches into a blood-spatter bonanza in the last five minutes.