It might not be as novel as the first, but it’s essentially harmless, if a little chaotic, fun for kids and doesn’t need to be anything more than that.

Collective is not a walk in the park. But it’s admirably awake to the cause-and-effect tragedies that can follow seemingly slight or obscure governmental decisions.

Christmas on the Square is pure, studio-lot fantasy and not really trying to be anything else.

Marder, who wrote the screenplay with his brother, Abraham Marder, takes far too long to get to his points in a sluggish middle but has crafted a quite lyrical tale of a man trying to find his way when everything he knows is taken away.

Utterly original and utterly excellent, the modern bromance The Climb is a thrilling ride, an unconventional and idiosyncratic American film that acts like a old-school arty European one.

This Hillbilly Elegy has stripped away the most sermonizing, debatable parts of the book, but it’s also denuded it of any deeper purpose, leaving us with a cosplay shell of A-list actors chewing rural scenery.

A film like this should give life to its characters and reveal essential truths beyond the book-report versions of their existence. But Ammonite keeps you at a distance on a rather vacant, but beautiful, journey.

The story itself is unremarkable, even thin — there are no surprising twists or turns, no big lessons in the script by Nicolaas Zwart — but the relationship at its core is hugely entertaining to watch.

It’s simply telling a story about a man behind so many of our movie memories and making a new one in the process. And it is, without a doubt one, of the year’s very best.

Both Lane and Costner, direct and earthy performers from the start, have only added depth with age. As long-married Montana ranchers in Let Him Go (in theaters Friday), they’re basically the platonic ideal of an old-fashioned, homespun Americana. They could sell you a mountain of jeans if they wanted to.

This very American fable has been blessed with three remarkable performances.

The best thing that Holidate has going for it is that Roberts and Bracey do have great chemistry, but they just don’t have a story or a script that can do it justice.

By bringing the migrant crisis into a horror-film realm, His House has forcefully captured the traumas of the refugee experience. The grounded performances and pained faces of Dìrísù and Mosaku offer no easy answers.

As it races to its cool supernatural climax — and then a coda that connects it to the first film — “The Craft: Legacy” is firing on all cylinders, looking back respectfully but also showing how the same story in different hands can soar.

A work of fierce interiority has been turned into a hollow exercise in exteriority.

It’s not going to be as iconic as Roeg’s, but it should provide some nice family entertainment at home for Halloween. And, bonus, post-viewing nightmares and trauma should be minimal this time.

The transition — from hyperreal cooked crabs that glisten in a bowl in the first 30 minutes of the film to amorphous, gooey Candyland critters 30 minutes later — is jarring. The sequences on the moon grow tiresome, despite huge toads that fly and squeaky-voiced critters.

It takes a little while to get going...The “Borat” sequel will make you laugh and squirm as much as it will send shudders down your spine.

As in any Sorkin joint there are at least three lines of dialogue that might make your eyes roll into the back of your head and your body produce an involuntary groan so extended that you will likely have to rewind. But it just goes to show how good the rest of it is that a few clunkers could stick out that much.

This hypnotic film experience is a badly needed shot in the arm for all of us — music lovers, theater lovers, dance lovers, culture lovers, life lovers. It’s also one of the best concert films in recent memory.

It’s one of the freshest college movies in years, a nano-budget breakthrough of rare sensitivity that announces more than one new talent.

Honest Thief, co-written and directed by Mark Williams, is a predictable and slack affair, relying on eerie music, dark sets and smoke to create tension. There is no particular set of skills here.

The last few moments contain some of the most exhilarating and moving moments ever committed to film.

A quick-witted and lively debut.

The jokes aren’t often Sandler’s best material but Hubie Halloween is as sweet and easily digestible as a Milky Way.

Yellow Rose sings an affecting, sorrowful and defiant song where dreams collide with a cruel reality.

On the Rocks is perhaps more conventional and modest than Coppola’s other films, but it’s no less entertaining or profound.

It doesn’t always work, but has a natural engine and spirit to it that keeps you focused.