This new holiday chiller mostly idles when it should charge at its most unsound ideas.

Dog Eat Dog may be successfully alienating, but that doesn't mean it's entertaining, thoughtful or even successfully provocative.

One almost wishes Chaves and Johnson-McGoldrick had not tried to reinvent the wheel, and instead just stuck with the franchise’s sophisticated simplicity and tried-and-true paranormal formula. Without a focal haunted house, this one just doesn’t feel like a film that belongs in “The Conjuring” universe.

Hypnotic may not be clever or energetic enough to keep your mind from wandering, but it is charming in its own stumbling way.

The Moment is something different, a big swing into the mockumentary genre satirizing the pressures of pop stardom and the struggle for creative control. It doesn’t always work, but Charli xcx, as ever, throws a wild party.

You wish the material were more consistent for these two. Some moments are screechy, others aren't deeply emotional enough. The in-between moments in which LaMarque hits just the right note can be charming, though, and they promise better things to come.

Speedway is pleasant, kind, polite, sweet and noble, and if the late show viewers of 1988 will not discover from it what American society was like in the summer of 1968, at least they will discover what it was not like.

The problem, though, is that American Underdog doesn't ever really connect the modest virtuousness of Kurt and Brenda to Kurt's ascension as a quarterback.

It is tempting to dismiss this story as “sick-lit” but director Justin Baldoni balances the compelling specifics of CF with the larger questions we all face about creating meaning in a world of uncertainty and loss. And he does it with two gifted and appealing young stars, especially Richardson.

It’s really a vicious piece of work, a movie made by a filmmaker who is unafraid to see the primal, darker parts that beautiful people hide behind their gorgeous facades. It may not be the comeback that fans of Lyne’s were really hoping for, but it’s a reminder that this kind of movie can still get made today.

How badly do you want to see rabid computer-generated zombie-monkeys die violently? Because there's not much else worth recommending in [Rec] 4: Apocalypse.

For the incredibly low bar of the video game adaptation genre — which this technically is as it shares elements with a 2016 Nintendo DS game — this one comes out better than average, but it is unlikely to work unless you’re a loyal fan of everything that is Pokémon. (Related: My 4th grader loved it.)

At the end of the day, “Atropia” feels like Gates gesturing vaguely at a few really interesting notions about the military-entertainment complex, and how it can bleed through into the people waging the actual war.

The Quarry may be a slow burn from a dramatic standpoint but it is only when Shannon is around that it flickers, however briefly, to life.

Bridgend does have a life on its own beyond fact, but the narrative it offers in place of the headlines only further proves how phenomena like adolescence and death is better observed, not investigated.

Guest of Honour, a knotty memory play and character study that, not unsurprisingly, screened at last fall’s Toronto fest, is a gratifyingly solid work that benefits from first-rate performers and a knowing location nose for the scruffier corners of Hamilton, Ontario.

What ultimately should have been borrowed from Spielberg’s oeuvre but isn’t is a sense of wonder and achievement whenever characters come in contact with the unknown or overcome a great obstacle as a team. Imitation should be flattering, not flattening.

Wait for this to show up where it belongs — on cable.

That is actually one of the key problems with the film as a whole — there are times when it tries to embrace its silliness and times when it wants to be treated as a serious action film and the clash of tones is simply too jarring.

An actor has to just have it and Omar Sy has it. One needs only to watch his performance in Samba to see Sy's old-school natural star power in its purest form.

Most of all it shows how DeJoria’s passion for doing good extends into a head-spinning variety of walks of life.

Ultimately, Viceroy’s House might be worth a visit just for certain tasty details, such as how Lady Edwina and her adult daughter greedily scarf down the chicken meant for the family dog without shame after having their palates dulled by wartime rationing.

It’s frustrating, then, to see such high-concept potential, some decent production design, and a couple of game leads fall victim to a mystery that unfolds with thudding obviousness.

Benjamin never quite replicates that creepy feeling of being alone in a dangerous place, resulting in a film that needs some dirt under its nails and to get under our skin to be effective. It simply never is.

A grueling coming-of-age thriller on the cliché-heavy side, with little hook to offer other than Wolff’s aching screen presence.

The first 25 minutes of Malcolm & Marie are a strong, standalone short film. They’re mostly sharply written and Zendaya and Washington add what feels like history between the lines. I was totally with it. But I'm not convinced we learn anything more in the following 80 minutes that we didn't in the first 25.

At any rate, Keaton and Gleeson are mostly a pleasure to watch as they enact the Inevitable Stations of the Romantic Dramedy, which include the mandatory misunderstanding that leads to breakup before inevitable reconciliation.

Shook, about an influencer being tormented by a mysterious caller, takes the bait on making a movie about such social media vanity, but its touch-and-go terror hardly offers commentary or cleverness.