As lumbering and slow-moving as the vehicle in which most of its action takes place, Nick Gillespie’s horror thriller makes the familiar mistake of confusing obscurity with tension.

The Grace Card is a surprisingly hard-edged, faith-based drama.

Falling somewhere between the X Games and Jackass on the Knievel Scale of Senseless Self-Endangerment, the crew known as Nitro Circus offers more physical and technical prowess than Johnny Knoxville's crew without stooping to anything so disciplined it might accidentally be called a sport.

TAU is winningly guileless as it dresses an old story up in new clothes: Sometimes it takes a Creature to understand the depths of Dr. Frankenstein's monstrosity.

Generic and, at its best, straining to be heartfelt.

Here, due in large measure to a highly derivative screenplay, the director allows several reckless, unprofessional cops drive the movie into utter nonsense.

Many viewers will no doubt feel initially disdainful of John’s recklessly dangerous pursuits, but the film presents his inner struggles so empathetically that by the end all you feel is sadness for a life tragically lost.

As shamelessly corporate popcorn movies go, Snake Eyes is better than most. That’s not high praise, but considering the film’s dopey pedigree, it’s not nothing.

One of the things The Circle gets right on multiple occasions is that, once one has bought into a technology like this, the problems it creates are invitations not to abandon it but to seek further technological solutions.

Unfortunately, while the film has some fascinating and compelling arguments, it quickly assumes the tone of an angry diatribe rather than a well-reasoned political discussion.

Rather than relying on amplifying typical genre conventions, Wingard methodically lays the foundation to set up this particular Death Note adaptation for a potential sequel, but the outcome is more deliberate than inspired.

Lacking the stylistic finesse that might have compensated for its schematic narrative deficiencies, Backtrack lives up to its title all too well.

As a trilogy-closer, it's a mixed bag, tying earlier narrative strands together pleasingly while working too hard (and failing) to convince viewers Shyamalan has something uniquely brainy to offer in the overpopulated arena of comics-inspired stories.

Contains no shocks. But it works as a funny and slicker-than-expected parody of the genre.

Enough goodwill has been built up in the early sections that most viewers will not take offense when the movie abandons its plot and characters.

Muddled and uninteresting.

Anne Hathaway's charms barely rescue this exercise in lame comedy and romance.

The problem is, despite the fact that the cast is filled with a gallery of veteran comic performers, few of the characters they portray are very interesting.

A slow-burn psychological thriller all too visibly wearing its cinematic influences on its sleeve, Beach House delivers suitably ominous atmospherics but doesn't seem to know where to go with them, ultimately resorting to familiar genre tropes.

Set disbelief aside, and primal phobias may well suffice to get you happily to the other side of this adventure.

Shaped by a near-constant monologue from a golden retriever named Enzo, The Art of Racing in the Rain is watchable but flat, with only occasional flashes of wit and feeling.

The film leans into action-comedy, and for a while, coasts by on the pre-sold likability of its cast.

The dynamics among the Mystery Inc. team members remain fairly intact however, with the female roles in particular registering more clearly and confidently than in past iterations. In part that’s due to more dimensional scripting, as well as on-point performances from the voice cast, with Rodriguez rocking Velma’s unapologetic geek streak and Seyfried embodying a smoothly cool Daphne.

A formulaic yet clever chiller that offers generous doses of sex and violence aboard a luxury yacht.

Splashed and accessorized with brainy nonsense, "D.E.B.S." is a "H.O.O.T."

It’s a frenetic grab bag of strained shtick, however expertly delivered by ace comic performers.

Although Postcards From London ultimately doesn't quite live up to its considerable ambitions, it offers plenty of arresting moments along the way.

So strong are the emotions - and, yes, the melodrama - that Snow Flower and the Secret Fan represents one of Wang's best films to date.

If you find Burr’s stand-up routines funny (and since he routinely sells out arenas, it’s obvious that plenty of people do), you’ll enjoy Old Dads, which also benefits from Cannavale’s hilariously beleaguered reactions, Woodbine’s solid underplaying and some very funny turns by a variety of comedians in small roles.

Visually stunning but strained by pretentious poeticism and a simplistic storyline, My Father Die is ultimately as labored as its ungrammatical title.

More curio than classic, Four Kids and It may hold children’s attention (and sometimes test adults’ patience) over the movie’s brief running time, but seems unlikely to inspire many a rewatch.

For those willing to put aside reality for 90 minutes, as Unfrosted does with gusto, the Netflix movie whips up a frothy sendup of storytelling tropes and clichés.

Jackson and his team tell a fundamentally different story. It's one that is not without its tension, humor and compelling details. But it's also a simpler, more button-pushing tale that misses the joy and heartbreak of the original.

Orson Oblowitz's Trespassers, the latest horror film to illustrate this principle, doesn't add anything particularly original to the home invasion genre. But it does provide some cheap thrills along the way.

Despite the updated setting and some on-the-money performances, the sleek if dramatically flimsy results make for a less than great "Gatsby."

It's too loose and casual, all too willing to trade the writer's trademark wit and literary mischief for slapstick comedy.

The naggy tension between the leads turns into a fine chemistry. [SXSW work-in-progress review]

Craig Lahiff’s feisty genre outing is a neat surprise.

There’s no question that the feature is a leaner, meaner affair than its predecessor. That’s not enough, though, to counterbalance the often oppressive self-seriousness (though Miles Teller gives it a welcome shot) or to plaster over the holes in the premise.

Like flipping through the pages of a pulpy best-seller, watching Loving Pablo has its moments of guilty pleasure but leaves an empty feeling when you reach the end.

The premise is rich with potential for aching romance and meaningful contemplation of the ways that time and technology can shape how we see our relationships. So it’s too bad that this version of it falls apart under closer examination, with a script that seems enamored of love more as a theoretical concept than a lived experience.

Banal dialogue, over-modulated performances and melodramatic scoring combine forces to sink the stirringly photographed proceedings quicker than that treacherous flash flood.

This well-intentioned if somewhat heavy-handed historical affair is anchored by Coogan’s solid lead turn, with support from Andrea Riseborough as a hard-hitting state prosecutor and promising newcomer Garion Dowds as an executioner who could wind up facing the gallows.

Fortunately, Prinze Jr. and Hewitt are on hand to provide some much-needed gravitas to the proceedings (which is not a sentence I ever envisioned writing). Both are in excellent form, providing connective tissue to the original film and its sequel.

First-time feature helmer Romanowsky has a hard time distinguishing between the things that draw her to Elliott's story and the things that make him pathetic.

Timeliness is all very well, but the significant subject matter cries out for a defter directorial touch and a deeper complexity in regard to the characters and performances.

Awkward performances and dialogue undercut interest in the characters so much that none of their raw, fleshy deaths matter a hoot, and by the time the rip-roaring triple ending rolls around, many viewers will have lost count of who’s still standing and who’s food for the birds.

Fatale proves very watchable, in an incredulous B-movie kind of way, and Taylor is a slick enough filmmaker to keep things moving swiftly and entertainingly. The film certainly looks terrific, thanks to Dante Spinotti's glossy cinematography and the high-end production design and costuming.

To the extent that it works, much credit goes to Keery, for finding the real human need inside this twentysomething cipher.

A lo-fi treatment of a high-concept crime rom-com deficient in sexual chemistry, laughs and suspense, this is a grating stunt in which actors who ought to know better, led by Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, play synthetically movie-ish characters meant to tickle us with the all-too-real trials of the COVID era. If you still think frozen screens and kids disrupting Zoom business calls are a hoot, it's all yours.

The movie addresses timely issues but eschews shading in favor of blunt black and white. It's old-school Lifetime fodder dressed up in Hollywood trappings.

The many, many action sequences are spectacularly conceived and executed, including a car chase on the Williamsburg Bridge that’s probably still tying up downtown traffic.

Awful Nice, about two perpetually warring brothers, grates on the nerves from first moment to last.

Suffers mightily from its limited budget and narrative scope.

Pfister, who, like his mentor Nolan, adamantly continues to shoot on film (not digital), shows a sure hand at staging scenes, creating visuals and setting a tone -- if only all the diverse elements here fit comfortably under the same tent.

South of Heaven is the type of film that’s good enough to make you wish it were better, its problematic whole being less than the sum of its admirable parts.

Trade is an earnest attempt to dramatize the network of Internet sex "tunnels." Unfortunately, the film's horrific and important subject matter is distilled into a lackluster lump of generic buddy-movie/road-picture components.

For all its aggressive energy, The Current War is an uninvolving bore, making it unlikely to measure up as the kind of Oscar-baity prestige entry The Weinstein Co. obviously had in mind.

A gore fest aimed at indiscriminate action fans. Those interested in learning more about goings on in medieval history will probably find the splatter tedious and off-putting.

The actors do what they can to supply the texture missing from the script. Vaughn and Wilson riff together with pleasing professionalism.

There are plenty of fisticuffs and shootouts to be found in The Duel, but precious little of interest.

In contrast to Bellucci, who underplays in dignified fashion, Collette works hard, very hard, to sell the concept and her character. That she fails is not an insult to her formidable gifts, but rather due to the flimsiness of the material, which seems better suited to the small screen.

Contributions of the accomplished cast notwithstanding, this period drama takes a few too many spins around the downward spiral, making it hard to believe as well as unpleasant.

First-time directors Bob Fisher and Rob Greenberg start off with a movie so dull it threatens to vanish from the viewer's memory before it's even finished. Things get better midway through, with the directors' screenplay finally playing to the talents of at least one of its stars, Derbez.

Mister America proves a witless, one-note political satire whose deficiencies are even more glaring when such humor feels entirely redundant to our current state of affairs.

A few bright moments aside, these annoying characters don't grow on us anywhere near as much as the filmmakers expect them to, and the shoestring-budget FX work, which would be more than good enough in a film buoyed by some wit, just underlines the movie's pedestrian qualities.

Momoa loosens up here, leaning into Arthur’s humor and teasing with something approaching depth by dialing up the cockiness. He plays well alongside Wilson’s severity and Abdul-Mateen makes a striking villain. But the film never surprises us by taking any serious risks. We always know its next move.

Unfortunately, this effort, clearly inspired by the French classic The Wages of Fear (and its terrific American remake, Sorcerer), isn’t even as entertaining as a typical episode of the History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers.

While the Hulu release ultimately adopts a tone of triumph, its themes of empowerment ring hollow coming from such a thinly written script. It’s most persuasive as a portrait of the frequently toxic culture surrounding those apps to begin with.

A small-scale character piece that genuinely likes its protagonists: an overweight teen girl and an overage delivery guy. But for all its quirky touches, the comedy cleaves to formula in its depiction of how they challenge and change each other.

Crudely shot and edited, the film is most notable for the strong performances by its two leads.

Part murder mystery, part dysfunctional family drama and part meditation on the elusiveness of the American dream, Motherland doesn't fully succeed on any of its levels.

A timely look at an important issue that's getting more hotly contested every month, Electoral Dysfunction takes a mildly jocular tone to get viewers concerned about what it calls a "war on voting" in America.

The film's impact is greatly enhanced by the superb performances by the young lead actors who handle their characters’ complexities with impressive skill.

Although some of the film’s many twists are not that surprising, they’re satisfyingly delivered, and with a strong supporting cast ...plus striking dream imagery, this adds up to arguably the best in the franchise so far.

Director Stephen Kijak, who previously explored far more compelling musical territory with Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, has delivered a behind-the-scenes portrait that should please the band's diehard fans but offers little of substance to the uninitiated.

Whatever the filmmakers' subtextual intentions may be, the film certainly gets stronger and more compelling as it goes on, thanks in part to intense emoting on the part of its cast, with Harris, Keeley and especially Soller standing out particularly.

Confused both dramatically and politically, this is a film whose perhaps worthy ambitions seem to have outstripped its makers' talents — ironically, Forgotten is an expression of the very political forgetfulness it wishes to rectify.

In between bouts of torrid sex, the men engage in the sort of anguished, confessional conversations that Eugene O'Neill would find over-the-top. None of the characters are particularly interesting, even with the dramatic revelations they've been assigned.

Oddly, everyone from boat-tour guides to shot-bar patrons find time to ask our hero solicitous personal questions. If only he, or the film, had more interesting answers.

Unfortunately, Captain America: Brave New World proves a lackluster Marvel entry that feels as if its complicated storyline has been painstakingly worked out without a shred of inspiration.

Babbit's flat direction has none of the lurid appeal or humor that (along with a much more appealing cast) sustained John McNaughton's notionally similar "Wild Things" through crazy plot contrivances.

Cooper can do this kind of arrogant-but-irresistible golden boy shtick in his sleep, but that doesn't make it any less pleasurable to watch. Flashing his baby blues and a fiery temper, the actor gives a fully engaged performance that almost makes us want to forgive the movie’s laziness. Almost.

This stiflingly restrained French dirge about morality, guilt and atonement is chilly and constipated, mistaking ponderousness for intensity.

Tennant is awful, by which I mean wonderful, by which I mean truly terrible, yet in a legitimately magnificent way…I think. This is a you-can’t-kill-THAT-performance! par excellence, beginning at peak nutball and staying breathlessly atop the trash heap.

The light touch, the structural economy and lyrical voice that buoyed the gentle four-character piece on stage become cloying and strained in this clumsy expansion.

The film is heartfelt and often powerful, but sometimes too sluggish to carry maximum impact.

Though not quite as devoid of personality as those names and its boilerplate dialogue, the film nevertheless plays like a flowchart in search of a pulse, a drama whose "Traffic"-like ambitions aren't matched by narrative inspiration.

Stargate is a blast from the past in many ways, but it imaginatively employs the latest special effects technology to give audiences new thrills. [24 Oct 1994]

Scene by scene you wish 55 Steps made you angrier than it does. Yet August's docile filmmaking acts as an emotional soporific, removing even the potential camp pleasures of Bonham Carter's histrionics.

The picture is far from great, but it's a serviceable B-movie with some A-list talent on a slumming expedition.

Holland boasts striking advancements in the director’s style and committed performances from Kidman, Macfadyen and Bernal, but these qualities can’t quite save a narrative fundamentally confused about its purpose.

Despite the formidable star wattage and estimable talents on display, however, Maybe I Do fails to overcome its obvious stage origins, feeling all too schematic and talky. The plot feels like it could have been lifted from a French farce from the last century.

Wedding Palace is being billed as the first Asian-American romantic comedy and the first U.S.-Korea independent co-production. Too bad, then, that this shrill, unfunny effort from director/co-writer Christine Yoo features such broad clichés and stereotypical characters that it doesn’t exactly reflect well on the Korean-American community.

One feels the lack of an underlying original idea that makes the director’s work so quirky and identifiable, and that also goes for the missing element of ironic-iconic humor that has been slowly disappearing from his films.

Extremely crude in its technical elements, the low-budget film does reveal stylistic ambitions through devices like frequently reverting from color to black-and-white film stock. But the shaky narrative style and broad characterizations undo its effectiveness.

Its rhythms are sluggish, its jokes predictable and the gags are set up with such thudding deliberateness that even the sight of Ferrell losing control of a motorcycle, careening through the air and crashing straight through his house barely raises an eyebrow.

Has heart to spare, but little new to say.