There is a meanness of spirit to all of this, an uncomfortable awkwardness that seemingly can’t end well.

Though much of it is glum and muddled, it does find an anchor in Hugo Weaving (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix) as a gravely wise, ailing crime boss named Duke.

Reiner’s attempt to create Spotlight-like docudrama of newsroom courage and stoke fresh outrage about government lies is undermined by clunky old-fashioned filmmaking and Joey Harstone’s exposition-clotted script.

Neither version of the film — the talking-heads documentary or the period drama — has the depth to achieve much impact.

You may want to see Capone — a film so stylized and perverse it makes Todd Phillips’ Joker look like Downton Abby — but not for insight or amusement.

Their physical relationship seems highly unlikely in every element. It is weirdly mechanical and not remotely erotic, and worst of all, you never forget that you’re watching a movie.

There are a lot of moments that are quirky, but the film never quite finds the right comedic rhythm. Things that should feel funny rarely rise to make us chuckle, and too often the film, which does have a genuine warmth, falls flat.

Someone Like You is essentially a 30-minute Hallmark-like film stretched into two hours of romance novel fluff via playful-lovebird music videos and other visual padding.

Despite the presence and performances of the likes of Mira Sorvino and John Cusack, Fog of War fails to deliver what it promises: a war-time mystery filled with suspense and intrigue.

Ambitious, yes. You’d expect as much from Oscar-winning indie director Chloé Zhao, who’s taking her leap into the world of nine-figure budgeted blockbusters. Unfortunately, the net result is underwhelming.

Audiences looking for a so-bad-its-good bit of kitsch catharsis will likely be let down. The Meh – sorry, The Meg – is so calculatedly flattened out for international markets, especially its Chinese financiers, that even the dialogue feels as though it’s in translation.

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.

Even Discovery fans will have to admit this spin-off is just simply a weakly told story. The characters are contrived and even a talent like Michelle Yeoh can’t save it.

Not to put too fine a point on this or anything, but Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is an interminable slog.

There are many reasons why The Exorcist worked and still does, and why The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t and never will. But to explore the difference between the films too profoundly would be to legitimize Green’s film as a worthy successor to William Friedkin’s masterpiece. It isn’t.

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.

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.

Ana de Armas is magnificent as Norma Jean, her every expression and movement embodying the late star and suggesting countless hours of research and rehearsal. But the movie surrounding this possibly career-best performance is an overheated dud save also some genuinely novel camera work, notably in a threesome scene where intertwined bodies melt into a rolling taffy wave.

After the success of Ryan Coogler-directed Creed, an inventive series reboot, Creed II is a familiar disappointment though the "familiar" part will probably outweigh the disappointing part for audiences who enjoy the films as adult bedtime stories.

Dahl’s work demands darkness and an edge, but instead there’s a bright Hollywood-y antic sense to Zemeckis’s The Witches, and the overused and unconvincing FX only serve to trivialize what we’re seeing.

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.

Conceptually ambitious and sporadically entertaining but more often confusing and ultimately kind of dumb, Serenity must have seemed appealingly high-minded on the page. But the zigzagging new thriller lands with a thud despite a skilled cast and writer/director Steven Knight’s commendable desire to scribble outside the lines of conventional narrative.

The parts of The Little Things that are good aren’t original, and the parts that are original aren’t good.

Both the Arctic survival story and the spaceship drama are derivative, and while action sequences are well done in isolation, they never develop a convincing momentum.

The Prom, as it progresses from camp to earnest messaging, is like a sermon you believe, but still find too preachy.

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.

This dull recreation of the animated film doesn’t strive for anything more than what was contained in the original version of this film and actually delivers less.

Ultimately, Shotgun Wedding seems like something from a different time, a time-waster full of tropes that exists to only to fill time with the odd boom and an occasional chuckle – and falls short of even that.