There’s just not enough there — action, comedy, romance, art — to demand (or, rather, earn) your full attention.

Mostly, Jackpot! is an action-comedy vehicle that pairs Awkwafina and John Cena for a romp through a few clever economic inequality gags and a lot of cartoonish mayhem.

Time is the fundamental metric of prison life, which makes a documentary like “Daughters,” filmed over years, uniquely, maybe even monstrously capable of capturing its passing.

This is a very big, very (very!) loud, very jumpy horror flick, and the screams will come, and they’ll be audible. Which is precisely what “Alien” fans are surely waiting for.

All of the acting is terrific and so naturalistic that it’s easy to forget that these are actors performing lines that they’ve memorized in front of a camera.

But It Ends With Us doesn’t end quickly enough — more than two hours drag — with tangents and poor editing, like sudden scene cuts that leave viewers looking for clues to where they are.

As with many horrors, the big reveals were, for this critic, a little underwhelming — a strained attempt at a unifying theory for this weird place that doesn’t add much ultimately.

This is a popcorn movie, with a surprising turn from an underrated star. And ultimately, it’s a pretty fun time at the theater.

Though Liman knows how to mix action and comedy as well as anyone, “The Instigators” is better whenever there’s less going on.

Even if the book’s story has been told and the movie’s format has been done before, a movie that reminds us to be imaginative — and that delivers some imaginative visuals to boot — can’t really get old.

This is a movie that should have probably leaned far less on wild hijinks with diminishing returns and more into the smaller moments of what it means to be friends for 40 years. But it’s not without its charms, either.

Creating something that feels nostalgic or captures a moment in time is no easy task, but the film pulls it off, largely thanks to the stellar performances.

The sole MCU release of 2024, “Deadpool & Wolverine” proves it’s not necessarily the source material that’s causing so-called superhero fatigue. It also suggests, in light of Marvel’s move to scale back production following a pandemic and historic Hollywood strikes, that increased attention given to making a movie will ultimately help the final product.

Chung, a filmmaker best known for the comparatively small “Minari,” has made a solid film with escalating action sequences that look great on the big screen.

The force is not strong in “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” a shallow “Man on Wire” for social media influencers about a pair of Russian daredevils who stealthily scale urban heights to attain the precious treasure of a much-liked Instagram post.

Monroe, steely and strong, cuts like a knife through this almost cartoonishly severe film. Nasty stuff? Yep.

This is a premise that could turn horrifically treacly or maudlin. But Greg Kwedar — who directs and co-writes with Clint Bentley — has a firm, no-nonsense but emotional hand, even if he uses a few too many razor wire-though-the-window shots.

More than anything, Gilford’s film ought to be lauded for the way it continues telling a story about a subculture that few know exist.

Fly Me to the Moon is best when it’s not taking itself too seriously. And the most worthwhile concept it sold is the idea of Johansson and Tatum (which, by the way, is a great reminder to rewatch “Hail, Caesar!”) as a modern Day and Hudson. They have the charm. They just need material that does it justice.

Goth is compelling again as Maxine, especially in a killer audition scene, but her character feels underwritten.

“Axel F” is not exactly Murphy’s finest hour, either. But Murphy just saying “Jesus!” is funny. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 30 years for our next Axel Foley fix. God, we’ve missed him.

Six films in and with more on the way, too much of a good thing is becoming more of a pressing question in “Despicable Me 4,” a silly and breezy installment from Illumination Entertainment that passes by with about as much to remember it as a Saturday morning cartoon.

Ultimately “Day One” could have been set around any old apocalypse. Tethering it to the rules of “A Quiet Place,” a smart premise whose novelty is impossible to recreate let alone build a world upon, just holds it back.

There are dull moments and off-putting tangents that seem to exist only to provoke, but the message at its core is a nice one about connection and empathy and occasionally uncomfortable intergenerational conversations that don’t end with someone being silenced.

Part of the problem of “Chapter 1” is that in addition to overstuffing it with too many characters, the editing is pretty bad. Viewers will struggle with some violent cuts in which Costner has jumped the action forward months within the same chapter without any clues.

For all these characters, something about being subjugated by someone else provides a perverse sense of comfort.