Cruz’s aces performance apart, very little about this extremely disappointing film feels real, and some of it is risible.

Whatever social commentary is intended in this cautionary tale, it is lost in the overall thematic murkiness, and the film is reduced to being a series of increasingly silly, ultra-violent episodes.

As banal as its title, USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage lacks even the impact of the monologue about the subject delivered by Robert Shaw in Jaws.

Incarnate, much like its central character at key moments, barely seems to have a pulse.

Blandly internationalized, generically derivative, drained of any personality, edited as if by computer and bleached of the slightest hint of emotion other than a holiday card-like sympathy for children and allegedly cute animals, The Meg is a one hundred percent inorganic meal, something made from pre-tasted and then regurgitated ingredients.

The film is well-intentioned but dramatically unconvincing, full of clichéd situations and on-the-nose dialogue about kids getting their shot and living their dream.

Shock doc The Blackout Experiments augurs to be an experiment in audience walk-out.... it is neither scary nor shocking.

It’s not a problem there’s a hole, as it were, in the common-sense logic of the film’s world; it’s that there’s a big, gaping hole where the illogic should be, a whole lot of nothing where there should be metaphor, playfulness, all that juicy, enigmatic, magical-realism stuff that helps films like Being John Malkovich and its many knockoffs become fodder for film-studies essays.

Jonas is, it should be said, the most likeable thing about this watered-down noir.

Writer-director James Bird’s second feature tells an entirely familiar story with a dash of transvestism thrown in, but doesn’t do anything interesting with that twist – and the lumpen screenplay is drag enough.

Under the stilted direction of Alex Ranarivelo, it's all as clunkily melodramatic as it sounds, with the climactic trial sequences proving particularly slow going.

Irving and screenwriter Peter Warren find it surprisingly hard to milk the charms of performers like Amy Sedaris and Justin Long for laughs.

However universal the perennial questions and struggles that The Shack illuminates, under Stuart Hazeldine’s plodding direction, its faith-based brand of self-help feels like being trapped in someone else’s spiritual retreat — in real time.

The film is as shapeless as a real life — amusing in an extremely mild way on occasion, but no more goal-oriented than a protagonist who, time and again, shows that all he really cares about is getting high and tossing a ball around.

Attempting to mix emotional pathos with broad farce, the film fails on both levels.

Given the tragic and highly charged events it depicts, All Eyez on Me is oddly low on emotional bite, perhaps because it never feels real. As clean and polished and blandly overlit as a TV soap opera, Boom’s film looks and feels smaller than Tupac’s cinematic life story.

By the time director Alexandre Aja brings together the pieces with an illuminating pang of emotion, most viewers’ confusion will have given way to indifference.

[An] empty ponderousness suffocating the film.

Laughs do not exactly pour forth from this dreary and frequently insulting picture.

The movie morphs from sluggishness to confused ludicrousness, as it turns into a thrill-deprived thriller.

Many Christians yearning for faith-based entertainment will be moved by this film, and that crowd may well ensure a profit for the production. But more picky viewers will admit that even taken solely as an exploration of the trials of being a Christian teen, it's awfully weak tea as a movie, instantly disposable if not for the tragic backdrop.

Cooper weaves a few well-placed observations about gun culture and male condescension into the heavy-handed mess.

The technical aspects of Mohenjo Daro prove to be a major disappointment.

If similarities to mumblecore dramedies seem appropriate, be advised that by comparison, that subgenre is way more involving than Never will ever be.

As the stuntmen duke it out and we see close-ups of the two actors making silly faces, it's hard not imagine a Mystery Science Theater 3000 feature in the making.

Lead actor Johnny Simmons fits his role perfectly, his baby face giving him the suitable appearance of an overgrown adolescent. But the smutty, tired material with which he has to work is surprisingly devoid of laughs.

A very loose and extremely limp adaptation of Don DeLillo's 2001 novella The Body Artist, it palpably aspires to be a classily highbrow kind of romantic ghost story with psychological thriller undertones, but falls laughably short of its goals.

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

The Last Film Festival is stuck in a loop of painfully silly humor, with stars Dennis Hopper and Jacqueline Bisset offering glimmers of the satire that might have been.

It's hard to imagine a dull film based on the infamous Kitty Genovese murder, but Danish filmmaker Puk Grasten's fictional take on the horrific, real-life crime manages the dubious accomplishment.

Never rising above the level of generic B-movie, Sleepless represents the sort of disposable fare typically dropped into theaters in January.

Concerned with both physical and psychological hazards of the job, Life on the Line manufactures a pileup of looming disasters to which director David Hackl lends no cadence.

A horror film that relies on a silent child to adequately convey terror is starting off with a significant handicap, one that The Unspoken never manages to overcome.

Twenty years ago, this comedy might have been a slightly amusing diversion. Now it just exudes an air of sweaty desperation.

This is the sort of bad film that can only come about as the result of misguided ambitions.

It's one of the worst performances Cage has given — and perversely, since he's playing a madman, it contains none of the unabashed weirdness that has made some bad Cage performances guilty pleasures.

Instead of improving on the original's visualization of the liminal state between life and death, director Niels Arden Oplev turns the conceit into just another excuse for rote haunting, making this Flatliners often indistinguishable from its 2017 thriller peers.

This is a shallow snapshot of First World problems and feeble conflicts that makes you despair for the state of gay-themed drama, perhaps even more so because it's capably acted and assembled with a slick sheen.

The movie struggles to generate the slightest tension around the question of who’s playing whom, but the real question is, Why bother?

Several respectable actors offer dicey performances here, but Rappaport's screenplay is the real villain, expecting thin references to real-world financial peril to paper over gaping holes in credibility and plain-old drama.

Very little about what happens is very interesting, with the contrived situations and artificial-sounding dialogue giving the proceedings the strained feel of a mediocre off-Broadway play with a misjudged air of profundity.

Disjointed and confusing, the film fails to live up to the promise of its spooky setting. There’s a good horror film to be made from this story, but The Axe Murders of Villisca isn’t it.

Alternately registering as an homage and rip-off of the countless slasher pics that have preceded it, Pitchfork is a strictly disposable affair.

Van Cotthem's performance is wholly convincing, which might not be something to brag about, and the film flatlines right along with him.

While there’s nothing particularly wrong about minimalistic science fiction — some of the genre’s best offerings have been of that variety — Atomica is a lifeless, tedious affair that won’t play any better on the small screens for which it was obviously intended.

Despite Barrett's careful attention to creating an unsettling mood of existential horror by loading the soundtrack with ambient dread, and his depiction of New York as a breeding ground for overstimulated instability, Brain on Fire just sits there, inert and uninvolving.

To attempt a critical evaluation of Orion's new Caddyshack is a little like describing the esthetic qualities of an outhouse.

I Hate Myself :) centers on two thoroughly repellent, self-absorbed figures with whom spending time proves a nearly intolerable trial.

Flatly staged, patchily acted and hobbled by a script (by Meyers-Shyer) that substitutes strained cuteness for wit and texture, Home Again is like a feature-length sitcom sans laughs.

A visually imaginative but narratively incoherent exercise that provides viewers the unwelcome opportunity to feel what it’s like to watch a video game being played by someone else.

Visually murky, choppily edited and lacking both narrative clarity and well-defined characterizations, Captive State is a deeply frustrating viewing experience. It seems to be straining mightily for a future cult status which it doesn't deserve.

Mirren always brings a touch of class, of course, even to deluxe schlock like this. But Clarke is something of a blank leading man while the secondary characters are mostly pale phantoms sleepwalking through a thinly drawn plot.

The film has its sporadic pleasures, mostly provided by Bella, who effectively conveys Destiny’s enjoyment of her over-the-top murderous and sexy antics, and Michael Madsen, as Lisa’s supportive stepdad.

With its many story strands and flat direction, the movie lacks a pulse, its ambitious hodgepodge of concepts refusing to jell.

For a film meant to champion the powers of three-dimensional art, Rodin winds up being awfully flat.

Returning director James McGrath and screenwriter Michael McCullers had an opportunity to build on an entirely workable formula, but instead have settled for a frenetic sugar rush of a retread that rapidly wears out its welcome. Pint-sized viewers might be distracted by the noisy, chaotic result, but most others will be hard-pressed to find the proceedings cute and adorable.

It’s all pretty tedious, with Miller failing to infuse the proceedings with the stylistic flair necessary to compensate for the cliché-ridden plotline, whose twists can be seen a mile away.

Eli Roth and screenwriter Joe Carnahan could have done the same thing, manifesting the rages and fears that afflict the country we live in right now. Instead they offer a cheap and dishonest Death Wish that (references to social media notwithstanding) is interchangeable with get-tough knockoffs that have flooded cinemas for decades.

The mob-war stuff here could not possibly be more rote.

Goss, who by any standard is the real star of the film, displays charismatic intensity and impressive physicality.

Perry doesn't even try to successfully integrate the story's comedic and dramatic elements, merely toggling back and forth between them as if in need of mood stabilizers.

The disappointing end result feels less than the sum of the talents involved, a weak script and thin high-concept plot only just held together by smart visual wizardry.

The characters are uninvolving, the emotional stakes never fully take hold and the physical action invariably promises more than it delivers.

While the endless introspection may be therapeutic for those involved, it's not so wonderful for the innocent onlooker, who's subjected to the ponderous musings of the emotionally catatonic group while a series of similarly vapid flashbacks offer little in the way of relief.

Disney's attempt to wrestle E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 story and the perennially popular Tchaikovsky ballet into a fairy tale with a modern attitude is like one of those big, elaborately decorated, butter cream-frosted cakes that looks delicious but can make you quite ill.

Despite its technical gloss and effective performances, Den of Thieves never manage to feel other than hopelessly derivative.

Presumably intended for Jackass fans desperately in search of a plot, Action Park makes a typical episode of America's Funniest Home Videos look sophisticated by comparison.

It intends to introduce novelty to its overfamiliar setup, but uneven casting and a very thin script get in the way.

Travolta is a lively presence in some scenes, talking in a rowdy New Yawka accent and tossing off a few good lines early on. (The highlight being: "If I robbed a church and had the steeple sticking out of my ass, I would deny it.") But he can do little to bring this tedious and episodic chronicle to life.

Its central conceit is so nonsensical that even devoted horror buffs may balk.

Dead air left in conversations may be meant to unnerve viewers, but is more likely to bore them.

A discordantly derivative attempt at amalgamating divergent horror cliches and unrelated cultural traditions.

Unfortunately, Schwarzenegger doesn’t show up until more than an hour into this relentlessly unfunny comedy and by then viewers may have tuned out long before.

The film ultimately becomes bogged down by its meandering dialogue, generic characterizations and such mild attempts at suspense as one of the quintet worrying about a brother in New York City.

In addition to its unconvincing, cliché-ridden storyline, Alina takes itself too seriously.

Depicting the very long, violence-filled night that ensues after a group of young people trespass in a creepy, abandoned prison, Against the Night proves as generic as its title.

Characters say precisely what they mean in the film, its flat dialogue a shortcoming not countered by the bland central performances of Juan Riedinger (Narcos) and Julie Lynn Mortensen, in her feature debut.

It's just lousy. Bloated, vastly less funny than it aims to be and misguided in key design choices even when it scores with less important decisions, the film does make bold choices that might've paid off under other circumstances. But these aren't those circumstances.

Acts of Violence evaporates from your mind while you're watching it.

It's hard to entirely resist the film's cheerful self-awareness of its limitations or the committedly loony performances by the performers who seem to be having a good time.

Things get tedious as the filmmakers reach the end of their money and have to pack it all up without getting any celebrities on their record other than Glee's Naya Rivera.

Soul of Success does little to capture the eureka moments Canfield evidently produces for his followers. Maybe the doc is worried about giving the goods away for free.

Lacking the star power that might have drawn American audiences who haven't seen the far superior original, Inside has no reason for being.

You all too vividly feel the strenuous efforts of everyone involved, from the actors struggling to bring life to their one-note characters while hitting all their marks to the cinematographer keeping his camera aimed exactly where it's supposed to be.

While the precociously talented Sidney, played by Logan Lerman, is not an uninteresting character, the artificially constructed nature of the narrative gives the supposedly shocking revelations way too much importance, essentially subjugating any sense of character development and flaws to its mystery-type structure.

Discerning viewers will recognize The Music of Silence for the tediously sentimental, rote exercise that it is. It's the cinematic equivalent of listening to opera in an elevator.

Unfortunately, settings alone don't make a movie, and this cliché-ridden effort feels indistinguishable from the countless similarly themed horror films that have preceded it.

Considering its lurid story arc and troubled characters, the film almost feels tamped down as Hunter strives to create an atmosphere of mystery and slow-burning tension. What he delivers instead is tedium, where even the climactic reveal proves both underwhelming and predictable.

The Banishment (Izgnanie) starts off like a thriller with a car roaring into the city and a clandestine surgery by a man to remove a bullet in his brother's arm. Then, ever so slowly, the movie falls into the clutches of long, solemn stares into space, meaningful drags on cigarettes, cryptic dialogue revealing little and a tiny drama that feels old, tired and empty of real purpose.

As puerile and go-nowhere as the script is, Clement and Berry are more successful than their costars at making the dialogue their own. Clement even gets a laugh or two. But be assured that the pic's big reveal is not worth the wait.

Dramatically and philosophically void and unprovocative on the grand scale of apocalyptic speculative fiction, this low-budget indie is somber and dreary on a moment-to-moment basis and leaves its talented cast stranded with few opportunities to alleviate the sense of stasis.

Severely wasting the talents of Rosemary DeWitt, who really, really deserves better material, Arizona is as arid and barren as the state that provides its title.

The movie soon devolves into an extremely familiar escape-the-monsters affair, with all the compounding dumbness usually involved when our fleeing heroes are forced to keep filming the action.

Any meager pleasures that Lies We Tell offers are purely technical.

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.

Like a long fishing day without a bite, Serenity invites impatience rather than excited anticipation, and the eventual payoff provokes a big “huh?”

Though competent in technical aspects, the pic's third-hand script and uninspired direction make it hard to invest in the heavy weight each character carries around with him.