Though Smith’s charisma and charm are appreciable, it simply adds an artificial sense of pleasantness by way of steering clear of thornier issues. The end result feels less like a documentary film and more like a devotional favor.

Teen Wolf, the series, excelled at weaving long emotional threads together not just over many episodes, but multiple seasons; a single 2-hour movie just doesn’t leave room for that kind of slow burn. But the trouble here runs deeper, as even with Allison’s supernatural return in the mix, there’s just not enough on the screen to justify The Movie even trying to weave something new together for those two hours.

By the end of this movie, its inventive genre cross-breeding feels as worn-out as any other.

Ultimately, The Trouble with Jessica runs out of gas and limps in the direction of a contrived conclusion, lacking the mercurial spark that all its characters attribute to Jessica at one point or another. If only the experience of watching the film could be as engaging as the implied experience of knowing her.

Thanks to its two young stars, At Midnight shines just bright enough to keep us watching, and sometimes that’s all we really want.

Though it takes place within the familiar thematic ground of terminal illness and fathers and sons, that willingness to take emotional risks, alongside the finely-drawn characters and beautiful performances, makes Bucky F*cking Dent a deeply lovely movie. His first film may have been a dud, but 20 years later, Duchovny the writer/director has finally proven himself a force to be reckoned with.

While the film contains some impressive scares, a phenomenal lead performance and steadfast central message, Run Sweetheart Run is far too preoccupied with speaking to a cultural reckoning that is truly only occurring in terms of optics and vernacular.

They Might Be Giants is intimate and rough around the edges. It’s a film that was made by people who’ve been around a bit, and come out tarnished but more interesting. It’s a cinematic version of the oldest sweater you own: It’s stained and there’s hole in the elbow, but damn it if it isn’t the comfiest item in your wardrobe.

Between sufficient scares and a puzzling yet promising narrative that takes shape in a wild fever that matches the intensity of the nearly feral antagonist, the story is vast and threaded smartly into a wearable piece of dread. The more granular writing, however, can be lackluster and the dialogue comes off cringeworthy in several spots.

It’s true that no one’s really making films like this anymore, but it’s also true that everyone pretty much wants to.

Day Shift’s gory, cheesy, vampire-hunting comedy-action film starring Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco is exactly what you expect, and that’s a good thing.

Director Yeon Sang-ho, who staged genuinely tense sequences in the first film, just seems suddenly out of his element here when expected to produce a grander action spectacle.

Marry Me shapes up as a two-hour ode to rom-coms themselves, which have famously suffered a bit of a downturn in recent years.

For kids, this won’t matter much, and Lyle is good enough that it may well have staying power at sleepovers and family movie nights for years to come. It is, however, disappointing to see a film with oodles of potential fail to stick the landing, especially when the right moves are obvious.

It’s tempting to believe a great sci-fi yarn exists in Carter, somewhere in the no doubt thick sheaf of studio notes demanding more spoon-feeding of an audience they believe to be equally thick. But more likely, it’s possible that Stanton simply wasn’t ready to make the leap from animation to super-budgeted live action.

The gritty, glowing neon textures of the ‘80s cover practically every frame of director Cody Calahan’s Vicious Fun, a horror-comedy caper that lovingly sends up the era’s genre tropes while never breaching egregious self-indulgence.

Clerks III is far from a perfect film. Absolutely drenched in masturbatory nostalgia and teeming with timely Marvel references, it milks the last drop of creative potential these nearly 30-year-old characters are capable of providing. Yet, somehow, these marked setbacks don’t completely bog the film down.

The writer/director demonstrates a rare storytelling economy in his feature debut, leaving no trace of fat on Homebound’s bones and letting only the most essential elements shine.

It’s light on the satire, and heavy on the fairy tale rules and aesthetics. There’s still plenty of charm to go around, and it’s ultimately a fun experience, but it undeniably avoids the original movie’s strongest aspects in favor of sincerity.

Goofball rockstars created a silly, schlocky haunted thriller with their friends, and that’s the vibe Studio 666 brings. If you’re a Foo Fighters admirer looking for a horror-comedy, you define the demographic.

Wolf Man grasps the sobriety of how easily men are acculturated to violence by other men, but loosens its hold around the start of its final act: the insularity of its world becomes a crutch rather than an asset, and the plot reassigns the task of solving male abandon to its female characters.

Chances are that if you’re a big fan of the book series, you’ll be satisfied with this halfway competent but way overlong resolution to the saga.

Director and co-writer Nia DaCosta uses three of Marvel’s most charismatic heroes to create a delightful team-up filled with color, odd genre explorations and some timely themes, all characterized by a trio that bursts with chemistry.

The most frustrating thing about Jeremy Power Regimbal’s directorial debut is there’s part of a very effective thriller here. It’s just not the good part.

Directed by Jacqueline Castel in her feature debut, My Animal’s moody dreams are in a territorial brawl with its small-town realism, which in turn barks and snaps at its soapy plot. Its fable eventually hunts down more than a trite analogy for perceived deviance, but its blend of visual and narrative tones favors the laconic over the lycanthropic.

A Good Person winds up with the ambition of a novel, but little of the richness.

In its fusion of Edwards’ craft with characters who aren’t thunderously stupid or unlikable, this is the best Jurassic movie in ages – in part because it works so comfortably as an ooh/ahh/run/scream monster movie.

Snow White is really one of the better Disney remakes.