Both a heist film and a revenge story, Ritchie’s Wrath of Man is the cinema equivalent of a hollow-point bullet. It’s not weighty, but it causes a lot of destruction.

There’s little sense of jeopardy, which makes the parade of violence nothing more than a detached spectator sport, with implications that are not good.

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.

There are moments where director Bell seems to be positioning Esther as an anti-hero, which would have been interesting. But it’s not a path to which he commits, and it’s back to bloody business as usual. The fact that this is a prequel drains even more suspense from the movie’s resolution.

Thick with dank atmosphere and well-acted with a cast that includes Colm Meaney and Barry Keoghan, it’s a drama about angry men with mommy issues that starts with a slow burn and ends up to its ears in gore.

Performances are, predictably, strong with the 85-year-old Hopkins, bouncing about like a bantam-weight fighter, and Good, in the more restrained role, calmly watching the phenomenon as much as responding to it, eventually wearing down his opponent with compassion.

With the one-off low-budget Nutcrackers, Green says he wants to pay tribute to the rough-edged adult-child comedies of his youth, films like The Bad News Bears and Uncle Buck. The result is a film that often feels, beat by beat, like you’ve seen it somewhere before.

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: Force of Nature is fairly terrible albeit in some interesting ways that won’t change the way you think about film but will make a Monday night couch-sit more entertaining, if only to discuss the WTF elements while washing out the popcorn bowl.

Anyone considering a movie called American Sausage Standoff (a.k.a. Gutterbee) should expect an odd comedy, though they might not expect one quite as eccentric as this Western by Danish actor-turned-director Ulrich Thomsen.

There is absolutely nothing in Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween that you haven’t seen before, and seen done far, far better.

Hot Spring Shark Attack is a broad spoof of Jaws, related monster movies, police procedurals, contemporary culture (think influencers) superhero sagas and other things. And it is initially quite a lark.

The cast is made up of some of the finest and most interesting actors working in film today. And for the most part they’re doing thoughtful work. Unfortunately, there’s only so much they can do. The film doesn’t go emotionally deep enough to pay off.

The film suffers from the over-interpreting mental “glitch,” eagerly connecting coincidence, mental illness, drug experiences, religious awe, computer gaming, and science fiction movies in an over-arching pattern.

There’s star power in front of and behind the camera in the new mob action-drama The Kitchen. But all that talent, unfortunately, doesn’t add up to a satisfying movie.

Despite being top-heavy in themes, Whannell’s Wolf Man is a plodding, uninspired tale that discards folklore—there are no full moons or silver bullets—and squanders the talent of its cast.

If you’re already on to the more sinister stuff, this is probably an unnecessary retreat into mild ickiness.

None of this is helped by Platt’s performance, with a petulant eye-roll to every impediment, as if he were the fussbudget Felix of The Odd Couple and Cindy his disaster-prone Oscar.

The trouble starts with the script, which wobbles between an investigative thriller and a psychological study.

Clocking in at a brisk 88 minutes, Coffee & Kareem doesn't provide much comic relief, though it is a relief when it's over.

Kawase’s attempt at a healing, nature-loving cathartic conclusion comes across as campy, as if a scene from The Blue Lagoon was accidentally attached to a Japanese nature documentary.

The Matrix Resurrections is an incoherent, narratively sloppy mess.

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.

Sadly, despite the film’s gallant efforts, I am forced to join the ranks of the naysayers. In the end, I did find that the CGI effects were as creepy as they are impressive, and there were more failed numbers than there were successful ones.

New Rome wasn’t built in a day, and we don’t always get the film we want. I doubt even Coppola did with this one. Megalopolis is what it is. You probably wouldn’t want to move there. But it’s worth visiting as a tourist, if only to gape at the locals.

It’s a heartfelt film that seems to be aimed at the strength of familiar love in spite of difficulties. The elements are all there, but the film’s repetitive structures render it frustratingly flat.

As the film progresses, the idea of using a school shooting as a subject for a thriller feels deeply ill-conceived, undermining the gravity of the subject it attempts to address.

Rebel Moon isn’t a terrible movie, but it pales in every comparison to the Star Wars universe.

As a study in mutual traumatic grief between doctor and patient, Marionette has some resonance, but the emotional core of the story is smothered by its irritating intellectual pretensions and altogether too much wood paneling.