A gritty serving of pulp fiction masterfully perpetrated by Samuel L. Jackson as a philosophical ex-con trying to buck the considerable odds by taking a shot at redemption.

The too-infrequent scare techniques, however, are mostly by the book, rarely developing sufficient dread to heighten the film’s rather unremarkable climax.

Genuine scares are few and far between, and the climactic explanation for the ghost's appearances comes as something less than a revelation.

Thanks to the great Helen Mirren as the wife and Spanish actor Sergio Peris-Mencheta as the boxer, the film does create a convincing portrait of a late-flourishing love that takes everyone by surprise.

The result is that the slackly paced Echo Boomers has all the excitement of a feature-length essay in The Nation.

[Yeoh] has such a commanding and darkly amusing screen presence that the pedestrian film can almost, but not quite, be forgiven for letting her down so completely.

A decidedly upbeat number, centered on a good-hearted character.

The production squeaks by on the visual charm of art director Ian Hastings’ period touches and warm autumnal hues. The voice talent is a decidedly mixed bag.

Sadly, there’s no trace here of the authentic fondness for his characters that illuminated Hill’s directing debut, Mid90s. Just a load of solipsistic L.A. brain rot trying to pass for satire.

Overall, there is so little texture to these character arcs that the actors are mostly just working in service of a blandly uplifting message. It’s as if they’ve all been commissioned by a well-funded science museum to lend their bodies and voices to the cause of slickly comestible up-with-people infotainment.

The deadening and sometimes laughable litany of shouted military-style dialogue eventually pummels into submission any hope for fresh creative angles on this well-worn format.

You can’t argue with the muscular marquee value of headlining Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot in a slick, fast-paced action thriller laced with playful comedy, even if it’s an empty-calorie entertainment like Red Notice.

It's discouraging to witness a filmmaker who clearly yearns for the indie world yield to the temptations of mindless movie manufacturing. At least Figgis made it as soulless as possible.

Suspect Zero has enough going for it to eventually develop a cult following. But compared to "Silence of the Lambs" and "Seven," it's still the minor leagues.

A scattershot exercise whose points of interest are surrounded by too much that is trivial. Still, the film earns points for its examination of politics and the political process.

Unfortunately, Allegiance is less sure-footed in the filmmaking department, rendering its potentially suspenseful storyline stilted and uncompelling.

Title deploys a fairly effective range of horror techniques, including jump scares, misdirection and some oddly unattractive VFX to ratchet up the tension, although gore is at a minimum.

Della Valle’s screenplay features the sort of artificial-sounding, hard-boiled dialogue uttered by characters who know they’re in a movie, and it’s woefully thin on storytelling coherence. Still, Akinnuoye-Agbaje looks great, and suitably haunted, walking on deserted beaches clad in a trench coat, and his co-stars prove equally compelling.

Largely forgoing the CGI effects usually endemic to such efforts, the film has the actors clad in werewolf suits and make-up designed by Dave and Lou Elsey that produce a slightly ludicrous effect, as if they were unusually large kids trick-or-treating. That the characters maintain their full powers of speech only adds to the silliness, although the hunky lead performers manage to carry it off with hirsute sexiness.

A barely warm dish of Cold War leftovers that shows its hand too early, then works itself into an increasingly implausible tangle of knotty plot developments without ever mustering much intensity.

The latest example of the unfortunately fertile trend is a comedy from Josh Huber that features every stereotypical plot element and predictable gag imaginable. Making Babies demonstrates the need for creative contraception.

In this fast-moving, densely plotted black dramedy, a faux scandal raised by an ambitious web TV editor comes close to destroying a number of lives, offering a masterful panorama on urban, middle class China.

Only God Forgives is a hypnotic fugue on themes of violence and retribution, drenched in corrosive reds.

Unfortunately, writer-director Scott Walker's film is a muddled and strangely inert one, generating little of the suspense or anguish its subject requires; despite its high-profile cast.

Martin's script holds some hard-boiled appeal, but his direction (some nice technical flourishes aside) doesn't back it up.

Sutherland brings some believable warmth to a film whose spiritual "aha" moments are generally packaged too tidily to hit home.

Cotillard, looking like one of the most glamorous white-trash fantasy figures in the history of the movies, has a hypnotic quality that will make you follow her character whatever she says or does.

A trainwreck of a sci-fi flick bent on extending a franchise that should have died a peaceful death almost exactly one decade ago.

Reclaiming Kristina as an icon of queer liberation and female empowerment is a worthwhile premise, but sadly the finished film is a stodgy multinational pudding that fails to give this concept wings.

Relentlessly fast-paced and filled with hyperkinetic visuals, the sequel hits the sweet spot in terms of what its target audience wants, even if adult non-aficionados will find little of interest other than the starry vocal cast.

Assembling this vehicle for his young clients, music producer/manager/video director Christopher B. Stokes has attached an anemic plot to a series of dynamic hip-hop dance sequences.

Doesn't bring anything new to its very tired genre.

Unlike a Pixar cartoon that embraces as wide an audience as possible, Speed Racer proudly denies entry into its ultra-bright world to all but gamers, fanboys and anime enthusiasts. Story and character are tossed aside to focus obsessively on PG-rated action and milk-guzzling heroes.

As easy on the eyes and ears as it is embalmed from any dramatic point of view.

There’s a good story at the heart of The Out-Laws about Parker coming to terms with her family’s long criminal history. But that’s more or less tossed aside in favor of all the nonstop gags, in a film that starts off like Meet the Parents and ends like a goofier The Expendables, some excessive violence included.

In the end, Demonic is all simulation, no real scares.

The film's Italian director does achieve in his second American outing a pleasing blend of Hollywood professional sheen and European sensitivity to character details and nuances.

Fitfully amusing and occasionally grating, Amanda & Jack Go Glamping succeeds best when it focuses on its protagonists’ unique shared experiences rather than the overly familiar conflicts of partners in crisis.

Is it all poetry or just a put-on? Again, Baby Invasion is a bit of both, and viewers are likely to either vibe out or tune out.

It's a messy, childish scrawl of a film, but it is high on energy.

A teen comedy that possesses a wickedly satirical streak.

He’s All That may be a flattened reflection of its predecessor, but both films are charming enough to get away with about one anal sex innuendo joke apiece.

Certainly delivers the goods as far as quantity of sex goes. But the quality will leave some cold.

A good-looking debut offering more atmosphere than action.

That the film works to the extent that it does is largely due to the unique charms of its muscular leading man and the well staged, extremely brutal fight sequences featuring enough gore to test the boundaries of an R rating.

Pretty, occasionally witty and not believable for a moment, Sophie Lellouche's Paris-Manhattan is suffused with fannish love for Woody Allen's films but hardly lives up to their legacy.

Predictable yet passably entertaining.

One hates to say it, but after this and "Black Snake Moan," it might be time for the talented actress (Ricci) to keep her clothes on.

Dwayne Johnson's energetic performance enlivens an otherwise by-the-numbers family comedy.

Smultaneously silly, ostentatious and terribly boring.

In the end, it isn't so much that the New Arthur isn't the Old Arthur. Rather it's the anti-Arthur.

One of those not-rare-enough limp comedies that leaves viewers wondering who managed to round up so much underexploited talent.

Ryan and the rest of the cast are forced to slug it out with the kind of trite dialogue that seems to have been lifted straight off of those corporate inspirational posters.

The problem once again remains an inability to sustain those de rigueur elements of tension and suspense much beyond those first 20 minutes.

While the film sometimes plays like an hour TV medical drama padded to reach feature length, Sawant achieves touching, naturalistic performances from a fine ensemble cast.

The main problem of Mr. Morgan’s Last Love is a structural one, as it is really two films in one.

Sadly, Berk’s stale screenplay simply lacks the heft or depth to lift it above third-hand homage to earlier, better, smarter films.

Lacking even the galvanizing action sequences that would have compensated for suffering through its formulaic plot, this is a thoroughly forgettable exploitationer that will not enhance its stars' resumes.

Unfortunately, despite everyone’s best efforts to deliver a femme-driven actioner revolving around a central character who comes across like a female Rambo, Trigger Warning, premiering on Netflix, proves distressingly familiar.

For those wearied by cliches about poverty, rote characterizations of minorities and shocks for their own sake, best to avoid "Cracktown."

Ultimately adds up to less than the sum of its parts. But it possesses a visual power, as well as a lingering resonance, that gives it a certain distinction.

Failing to live up to it anarchic convictions by adding sympathetic aspects to its central character shortly before the conclusion, Uncle Nick, much like the sorts of holiday celebrations it depicts, is ultimately too strained to be enjoyable.

Sacrifices the quietly creepy qualities of the original in favor of ramped-up horror film techniques that by now seem distressingly familiar.

Telling an obviously lived-in tale, this small-scale indie drama suffers from a compendium of cliches.

Manages to retain a certain goofy appeal thanks to the stand-up efforts of its comically adept cast members.

Simply put, Sherlock Gnomes is a dreadful bore.

The writing is rudimentary and the direction often awkward, but Mo'Nique would confound a veteran director.

After an intriguing setup that takes its time building atmosphere and characters, declining to rush the first death, the film becomes progressively more overwrought and hokey. It also loads up on derivative tropes that worked better everywhere from Ringu through The Conjuring Universe.

Far from the renegade, boundary-pushing, sexually explicit sensation that its makers have been suggesting, The Canyons is a lame, one-dimensional and ultimately dreary look at peripheral Hollywood types not worth anyone's time either onscreen or in real life.

The animation, consisting of both traditional 2D and CGI, is impressive, and there’s certainly a lot of it. But it never feels as joyful as you’d hope, too often coming across like corporate machination than inspired imagination.

Smartly written by William Osborne and Michael McCullers, Thunderbirds expertly targets kids. Yet parents won't be entirely bored.

McAvoy and Radcliffe are actors with charm to burn, but it’s only in brief moments that their characterizations cut through the film’s pandemonium, while the jokes they’re called upon to deliver land with a thud.

Less a succinct narrative than a meandering portrait of several ultra-rich, ultra-empty thirtysomethings who waste away their days with sex, drugs and ennui, the film offers a few decent performances captured with New Wave-style visuals, but is not quite the social exposé or melancholic drama it aims to be.

It's a frantic piece of filmmaking that invests nothing in the characters and moves much too fast for its own good. But things do pick up a bit for the final third, when a story line finally arrives.

The leading man aside, a fine cast is thoroughly wasted in a tale that centers on old-fashioned Cold War-style conflict rather than the sort of terrorist drama that's more pertinent today.

Unlikely to inspire a passionate following similar to the original, the film, which opened Friday without being screened for the press, ultimately induces more titters than dread.

In an awkward split-personality way, it works some of the time.

Tpicture delivers the requisite number of pratfalls, and the genial Ice Cube makes for a credibly hapless everyman, but the comedy still feels a little too safely soft around the edges.

The CG animation is nothing special, but the characters are surprisingly fun and the story is full of enough puns, wordplay and slapstick to elicit laughs from across the age spectrum.

Sharing its title with a historic Reno hotel that's seen better days (or maybe not), El Cortez is a clumsy lump of ponderous pulp fiction with "Cooler" aspirations.

Performances are strong across the board, and the movie offers a solid sense of place. But the mysteries, once explained, don't make a lot of sense.

Unfortunately, there's little wit or genuine suspense to elevate the proceedings above the level of a cheesy comic book.

There's just not enough going on behind actor Freddie Highmore's eyes to convince us this kid's existential angst is real.

A former MMA star, Carano clearly has the impressive physicality and charisma to compete with the male stars in this arena. But she's going to need far better vehicles than this humdrum effort.

Though much of the drama is clunky and flat, the taut, visceral performances by David Oyelowo and Kate Mara never err.

Sex Tape is sexcruciating.

It's getting increasingly difficult to avoid films as bereft of redeeming qualities as Deadgirl, an exploitation-horror hybrid best left to torture-porn fanboys and academics seeking to dissect the outer reaches of the contemporary young-male mindset.

A thriller so fixated on red herrings that viewers may stop caring if anyone's really in danger, Gone is diverting but unlikely to linger long in theaters.

Unfortunately akin to going to a dance club stone cold sober and wearing ear plugs. You get the gist of the general experience, but euphoria is far, far away.

What fun there is falls to Jackman, who gives the grand old man of pirate characters plenty of fresh and unusual wrinkles and emerges better than the others simply by virtue of playing a two-dimensional, rather than one-dimensional, figure.

Billy Crystal and Bette Midler hustle to peddle the threadbare material that makes Andy Fickman's comedy a perfectly tolerable, if uninspired, moviegoing experience.

Poms is equal parts boring and infuriating, especially when you consider the actresses made to perform caricatures of old age.

A routine mob thriller.

Now that the filmmaker has reached a certain age, she no longer seems to have her finger on her generation’s pulse. Case in point: The Hot Flashes, a ribald comedy whose menopause-referencing title is all too indicative of its pandering humor.

An ordinary cop picture boosted by two charismatic superstars but hindered by its dearth of surprises.

An awkward mix of proficient 3-D animation, detailed technical recreation and strained storytelling that stalls on takeoff.

Assassin’s Creed is resolutely stone-faced, ditching the humdrum quips that are par for the course in today's blockbusters. But this is almost two hours of convoluted hokum that might have benefited from a few self-deflating jabs.

It’s a pretty trying movie to watch, though it does have some striking images.