It is a relentlessly brutal movie, one that too quickly becomes monotonous in its cruelty, numbing instead of thrilling viewers.

On a basic level, the film is entertaining enough, but anyone hoping for a particularly fresh or innovative take on the show or its creator is probably going to come away feeling a bit let down.

It’s an uneven mix of cartoonish slapstick, poorly choreographed fight scenes, and some last-minute lessons about the importance of unity, encouragement, and the need to change obsolete rules. It has too much violence for younger children and is unlikely to hold the attention of anyone old enough to read the subtitles.

There’s strong emotion in “Holy Days,” but it results entirely from the talented cast. The story’s structure is so phony and over-determined that there is no real suspense, and, even more deadly, the tone is artificially “comedic.” True moments of unfettered humor are nowhere to be seen.

It’s a sporadically fun movie with obvious influences, but it also lacks in stakes and personality, getting repetitive long before it ends.

While “The Gates” itself isn’t a total smash, it’s a more than sturdy final effort from a beloved actor.

Dolly sets viewers up for an experience that it can’t quite deliver, mostly due to small acts of self-sabotage.

In a strange way, War Machine kicks off when it proverbially jumps the shark, introducing something so ridiculous as a big killer robot to jolt the movie awake from its ho-hum military recruiting motions. It’s not a movie built to withstand big questions, but for a high-octane action thriller, it’s a lot more fun when it goes off the rails.

A morality play wrapped up in gothic horror tropes, “The Dreadful” is definitely committed to the bit, and its darkly medieval setting is a refreshing change of pace. I just wish it were a medieval tapestry that worked as a whole, rather than just in fits and starts.

On paper, this sounds like a potentially fascinating combination but the film emerging from it proves to be anything but that. Instead, it proves to be such an overly ponderous exercise that, by the time it finally comes to an end, you may feel so sapped of energy that find yourself struggling to get up out of your seat.

There is a good movie lurking within writer/director Cinqué Lee’s survivalist coming-of-age thriller “Last Ride.” It’s just suspended between two half-told stories.

How to Make a Killing makes a half-hearted effort to surprise and maybe disturb us with some late developments, but by that point we’ve been numbed by the film committing the unforgivable crime of being dull.

What’s mostly lacking is a matter of character-enhancing detail, the kind that would better integrate the movie’s high-concept thrills with its heartstring-tugging melodrama. Soapy’s not bad, but “This is Not a Test” lacks the sensationalism or sensitivity to make it more than a wan misfire.

The worst thing about “Scare Out” isn’t that it’s boring and ultimately trite, but that there’s so little of Zhang’s usual sensuousness in it.

It’s hard to feel freely when you are constantly and loudly reminded by every aspect of the movie that you are supposed to feel things.

Jimpa is a story that feels like it’s arrived about a decade too late for its intended audience: Queer people want more from their rep than being anthropologically observed from the sidelines, and straight people have watched enough “Drag Race” to already be familiar with the concepts this film treats as novel.

Besson doesn’t build up the romantic emotion he apparently aspires to with his efforts, but “Dracula” gets by on the power of his (and Landry’s) conviction.

Unfortunately, “Back to the Past” doesn’t really stand on its own, and its creators don’t know how to offer viewers anything new.

While it looks beautiful, and Thomas Newman’s score does a lot of heavy lifting given the lack of dialogue, there needed to be more actual storytelling beyond a few key beats of new life and tragic death.

By the halfway mark of the screen-popping and kinetic but ultimately tiresome and borderline dopey AI thriller “Mercy,” I found myself yearning for a wireless mouse so I could log off.

That “Deepfaking Sam Altman” is earnest and curious and full of fun thought prompts ultimately makes it more frustrating than a flat-out bad movie would have been.

The film clearly has a lot on its mind. But by the end, you still might not know what it was, even though the hurtling camerawork, jagged edits, brutal physical confrontations, and bone-rattling sound design will send you home feeling like you’ve had an experience.

A by-the-numbers sequel that mostly ignores the stuff that made its predecessor stand out in exchange for formulaic would-be thrills.

Unfortunately, more bland than broad humor otherwise stands in for Polsky and Herzog’s personalities.

Andersen’s film, in its attempt to present various perspectives in this story, shifts the viewer’s attention from one character to another, diluting its emotional impact.

It’s clear that the irrepressibly charming Sedgwick and Bacon love to share the screen, and it is an absolute joy to watch their effortless chemistry. I just wish it were in a better picture.

It’s an inspired idea, even though a lot of the industry inside jokes may go over most moviegoers’ heads. The playfulness of this self-referential structure gives the movie a zany energy off the top that it ultimately can’t sustain.

It ends up being little more than a rambling, undisciplined clip show that misfires as both history and entertainment.