If nothing else, director Stanley Tong and martial arts superstar Jackie Chan’s latest effort, Vanguard, proves the law of diminishing returns. Not too long ago a Chan film guaranteed an entertaining time at the movies and heaps of awe at what the human body could endure. Now? Not so much.

A slickly made, effectively atmospheric B-movie suspenser that marks a promising feature debut for its writer/director, who also plays a featured role.

Monotonous, unimaginative actioner.

The jokes are often ridiculous, as is pretty much everything else that happens, but there’s a palpable energy and visual inventiveness on display that keeps things watchable.

Flirts with becoming a savage indictment of affluent do-gooderism, but finally swerves to land on a vision of fraternity that’s altogether more optimistic.

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

Benefitting from an unassuming but dead-on performance by lead Molly Windsor, the picture may frustrate those expecting a true horror film, but earns Oakley a place alongside other young women (like Amy Seimetz and Sophia Takal) currently exploring the usefulness of genre conventions in feminist storytelling.

Offering no narration, expert talking heads or text interstitials, Liese forgoes contextualizing the culture wars and instead lets her subjects speak for themselves. Their pathos, however, doesn't always localize where you'd expect.

There are some undeniably amusing moments, thanks largely to a cast unafraid to throw themselves into the raunchiness and violence with full abandon, but it's hard to avoid the feeling that the film represents a missed opportunity.

As he did in Lilting, Khaou in Monsoon finely sketches the complex inner lives and identities of a small group of characters and plugs them into a narrative that unfolds gradually but precisely, so audiences have the time to consider the work's larger thematic concerns.

This eye-catching and sadly topical . . . film features a fearless performance from nonprofessional actress Vicky Knight in the central role.

An airless film about childhood fantasies that comes to life only fitfully, Brenda Chapman's Come Away is aimed at children but so pickled in grown-up grief that few kids are likely to connect with it.

Leap of Faith is an easy, entertaining watch, but it feels like a smaller film than its two predecessors, chiefly because it features just a single long interview with Friedkin rather than a rich chorus of insider insights.

Elegy . . . embraces the emotional messiness of a heart-wringing country song, but lacks a haunting refrain to get under your skin.

As it moves toward a climax that will require Santa to connect with his inner action hero, the film works better than it should without being as enjoyable as its predecessor, the brothers' much less ambitious Small Town Crime.

Working from a diligently researched screenplay by his late father, Jack Fincher, the director has made a high-style piece of cinematic nostalgia that's a constant pleasure to look at but only intermittently finds a heartbeat.

While the script bounces from the cops to the feds to the cons and back, it fails to take us to that Donnie Brasco sweet spot in which the psychological pressures of being In Too Deep threaten to crack our hero, whether somebody gets a shiv into him or not.

The Dark and the Wicked offers supremely atmospheric thrills that will hauntingly resonate with anyone who's ever been faced with a similar situation.

Once the outlandish premise is established, there's little to enjoy in the increasing body count, leading you to wish that Mr. Peterson had simply murdered his victims in their sleep. That at least would have made for a blessedly shorter movie.

Gripping, intense and often very moving, The Endless Trench pulls together details from some of the jaw-dropping accounts of these lifelong nightmares, recasting the hidden history of a so-called “mole” and of his endlessly suffering wife as a profoundly involving, superbly played story about love as protection from fear.

Of obvious interest to arthouse audiences in Cullen, Wright and Jensen's native Australia, this ambitious and stimulating glimpse into the dark abyss of creativity deserves widespread international exposure at festivals and via receptive theatrical settings.

The Killing of Two Lovers is a transfixing drama without a wasted word or a single inessential scene.

The film is a proudly over-the-top, entertaining musical comedy extravaganza.

Although Landon and co-screenwriter Michael Kennedy have latched onto a winning concept, pairing the body-swap conceit with serial killer thrills, they’ve freighted the film with so many trite life-lesson moments that the fun gradually drains from the narrative, like blood from a murder victim.

In Collective, Nanau's observational style of filmmaking reaches emotional depths.

Ultimately, Farewell Amor is a heartening meditation on the meaning of home not just for one African immigrant family, but for all of mankind.

Rescuing Jimmy (and possibly Lorna) from a possessive, abusive husband would have been plenty of drama for this hitherto quiet, sensitive picture. Instead we get a family full of leering thugs, whose depiction sometimes suggests they might have a cousin out in the barn who dresses in other people's flesh. The action doesn't get quite that extreme, but it's bad enough.

Kelly Oxford’s debut feature Pink Skies Ahead is the kind of coming-of-age comedy that is destined for cult status, if not full-on indie success.

Patient viewers will find much to enjoy in this parable-like story, which is billed as a heist film but is ultimately less concerned with thievery than with moral justice.

Heavy on oppressively humid atmosphere and light on originality, the film is a mostly forgettable genre exercise whose viewers won't miss much by watching at home.

If it leaves us more hopeful about those kids' mental health than about the gun debate, that's hardly surprising.

Heavy on oppressively humid atmosphere and light on originality, the film is a mostly forgettable genre exercise whose viewers won't miss much by watching at home.

Slipping into the flavorful Neapolitan accent of her early years, Loren creates a warm-blooded, grounded character, whose feistiness ebbs slowly as the ravages of age, ill health and painful memory take hold. It's a lovely performance, full of pathos, from an esteemed actress whose wealth of experience illuminates this touching human drama.

It's a fun conceit trapped in a broad and retrograde flick.

The director doesn't rely on cheap jump scares or trick editing. Instead, he builds and sustains suspense throughout the well-paced thriller with controlled camera movement, malevolent lighting, unsettling music and jagged, staticky sound.

There's contemporary currency in Lister-Jones' point that women, already marginalized, should refrain from victimizing one another. But the point becomes strained once the external adversary emerges and the protagonists — of which only one really counts — take down a very literal embodiment of the patriarchy as pure evil. This is less an issue with the blunt theme than its limp execution.

An urgent film, it's filled with chilling detail and propelled by clear-eyed compassion.

Pixie is a trigger-happy comedy road movie that relies more on boorish energy than wit or charm.

Smart and unsettling psychological thriller.

It’s a far cry from dreary or depressing, but it also doesn’t offer any easy way to enter its emotional territory. Viewers who have gone through the experience of taking care of an ailing parent or relative may identify more fully with the slow-moving story.

Quiet and carefully made but cryptic, it relies on the viewer to complete its metaphors.

While some characters on the ever-escalating guest list provide the pair with welcome comic distraction, this day-to-night hangout pic doesn't really take flight.

The easiest (but incomplete) answer is that the George W. Bush era needed a Borat, and the Trump years make him painfully redundant.

Despite the stylistic glitches, Radium Girls proves engrossing, thanks to its powerful real-life tale and the excellent performances by leads King and Quinn, who make us fully care about their characters' fates.

American Selfie inevitably feels a bit scattershot at times, no doubt due to the vagaries of Pelosi's travel schedule and her guerilla shooting approach. Some of the footage is revelatory, some feels overly familiar.

I would love to have seen what a boldly idiosyncratic fantasist like del Toro could have done with this story. But there's plenty here for audiences looking for family entertainment that balances darkness with a buoyant sense of mischief. At the very least, it's a lively step up from Zemeckis' last two films, "Allied" and "Welcome to Marwen."

That the film proves intriguing despite its overly familiar themes is a testament to the acting more than the writing. Eaton delivers a compelling, highly physical performance, using her endlessly expressive eyes to communicate her character's complex range of emotions and making us care about Liv despite the contrived plot mechanics.

Looks like a promotional obligation when compared to the best of its predecessors: Despite its star's clear desire to expose the personal roots of the songs here, the film's execution makes it feel like an audiobook accompanied by lovely images.

Perhaps Byrne wants to keep his hour-and-a-half story light, but it's so airy it practically floats away.

Morgan's script generously allows us to deduce the truth just before Abe stumbles across it, which is not to say it doesn't have some real surprises left. It's fun to watch Abe put A and B together, and to regain some of his self-respect in the process.

A sloshy swill fermented in the hacked-up viscera of superior fantasy features — including Labyrinth, Hocus Pocus, Monster's Inc., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Adventures in Babysitting — the film often sinks beneath the weight of its viscous plot. However, it burbles and thrives in moments that rely on aesthetics over story, director Rachel Talalay (Tank Girl) infusing genuine creepy tension with an à la mode witchy/techy visual motif.

Fans looking for an inspirational portrait of idealism will probably respond warmly to a film whose release is timed to World Food Day (October 16), a United Nations effort to highlight the cause nearest to Chapin's heart.

This is the sort of film for which the term "tearjerker" was invented, but this one jerks them so violently you may need medical attention afterwards.

The drama works only in fits and starts. The vague danger that shapes it, and the narrative's underlying emotional intricacies, are too often explained rather than felt.

The story has a tendency to scatter at times, and it banks a lot on the humanity of the three main actors who have some heart-wrenching moments riding out the joys and sorrows of modern life, complicated by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Freedia is such a charismatic guide — and the explanations for gun violence so familiar — that the documentary loses steam whenever she's off-screen for too long.

The playful sparring that Strathairn does with both Olmos and Sheen feels like everything you want to see from seasoned actors at this stage in their careers, and the dialogue always rings truest when Strathairn, Olmos and Sheen get to play against one another. The significant acting chops of this trio of leads is the primary reason the film is worth seeing.

White Riot is a timely, engaging exercise in social and cultural history, but a wider focus might have given it deeper context and broader marketability.

And yet, what makes Greenland stand out is how, at certain times, what we’re watching doesn’t seem so spectacular, but very much like the real thing — albeit with a fair amount of VFX and Butler’s own brand of sweaty, stress-bucket bravado.

Home movie footage shot by Judy during a period of Belushi's sobriety at the couple's summer home in Martha's Vineyard provides a poignant glimpse of the normal life he could have lived. That his early loss left so much potentially great work undone makes the documentary as much elegy as tribute.

The movie's last act offers complications both expected and surprising. For the most part, it satisfies, especially in what proves to be the pic's most elaborate action sequence.

Earlier films like Sightseers and Free Fire suggested Ben Wheatley might have the mordant wit to tackle a work forever associated with sardonic genre maestro Alfred Hitchcock. But in place of atmosphere and suspense, he delivers blandly glossy melodrama.

It’s not quite enough to prevent this B-grade rendition from feeling rather familiar and unsuspenseful, even if stars Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria) and Madison Iseman (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) provide a decent level of tension throughout.

Your patience for Girls' Rules may depend on how well you can tolerate slapstick set-ups.

Much like its central character, the film at least proves honest in its intentions.

It's a film awash in scrupulously researched vintage production design, costumes and above all music, all rendered in a Technicolor palette that will send grandparents and fans of Golden Age cinema swooning with nostalgia.

A Die Hard ripoff that forgets most of the lessons that action classic has to teach, Ryuhei Kitamura's The Doorman forgets first of all what a little bit — even a shred — of wit can do for a movie that otherwise relies on bullets and brawn.

Pfeiffer's performance in this uneven but charming adaptation of Patrick deWitt's 2018 novel certainly isn't her subtlest, but it ranks among her most captivatingly Pfeiffer-ian.

The standout element of Evil Eye, however, is a riveting star turn from veteran Sarita Choudhury as a superstitious mother whose concern for her daughter spirals into a violent nightmare as past lives pierce the present.

It’s the pairing of Bellingcat’s story of citizen journalism with the larger story of the state of media and its relationship to democracy that makes this documentary stand out. It’s frankly a relief to hear someone explain how we got here, how the culture of “fake news” came to rule the day, and then provide a clear example of how one group of people is standing up against it.

This densely packed, exquisitely executed and just a teensy bit batshit film is peak Pixar. It's a vintage mix of the company's intricate storytelling, complex emotional intelligence, technical prowess and cerebral whimsy on dexamethasone.

A CG-animated musical fantasy that still manages to infuse sufficient charm and genuine warmth into the inescapable familiarity.

Ameur-Zaïmeche remains vague, perhaps frustratingly so, about his movie's identity — per the closing credits it was mostly shot in the South of France — but what he says about fear and isolation in a totalitarian society has a universal tinge.

The War with Grandpa will probably prove riotously funny to small fry while providing some compensations to adults with its supremely overqualified cast.

Masciale and screenwriter Luke Barnett, both Funny or Die regulars, have crafted a playfully humorous sendup that’s more about poking fun at their characters than tearing down faith-based filmmaking.

Aggie is an extraordinary figure, and the doc is interesting enough. But don’t expect much invention or surprise here. The overall tone is frenetic and imprecise.

Silly, overstuffed and as sweet as anything Adam Sandler has done.

Satisfying enough as a horror/slasher flick with a black-comedy aftertaste, it has some commercial appeal but doesn't represent a step forward artistically.

The film spreads itself too thin to offer a thorough political portrait.

A near-miss that should find some appreciative viewers, it feels like a stage play in need of a little polishing, whose talented cast likes it enough to commit fully.

If the film's title is an ironic use of Trumpian bluster, it also accurately represents the movie itself, which is about as far as you can get from Michael Moore-style agitprop while still having a red-blooded interest in this country's continued existence: The filmmakers avoid insulting a politician who deserves anything they might wish to sling at him, opting instead to let facts speak for themselves.

Playing off intense, uncomfortably tight close-ups where the actors show off finely tuned displays of flickering emotions with long shots that emphasize the plush interiors and tidy suburban gardens that surround them, Sud ratchets up the tension expertly.

Making a unique police drama in itself is a considerable achievement. Red, White and Blue earns that distinction partly through its skilled avoidance of the standard beats of stories about rookie cops chafing against the establishment. But it's also a direct result of Logan's remarkable qualities as a real-life protagonist that enable it to transcend conventional bio-drama.

The thriller starts out with a firm footing in horror and becomes less distinctive as it shifts into more psychological and sentimental terrain. Still, the confident storytelling keeps you watching, as well as strong performances from Mamoudou Athie as a widowed amnesiac and Phylicia Rashad as a brilliant brain specialist playing God.

Almost without fail, Larney's dramatic beats dispense with any build-up before arriving at their intended level of intensity, and the movie overall projects grandiosity without taking the time to make us care about the world being saved.

Needless to say, Herb Alpert Is… has a hell of a terrific soundtrack.

Creating a highly unusual and welcome look at schizophrenia that neither demonizes those with the condition nor patronizes them as suffering martyrs, the British drama Eternal Beauty pulls off a tricky feat.

This is an intimate epic, imbued with a warmth and a tenderness that radiate from both behind and in front of the camera.

Making his feature directorial debut (he's written such screenplays as Insurgent and Underwater), writer/director Duffield expertly handles the complex tonal shifts, keeping us on edge even as we're laughing. We're also thoroughly engrossed in the main characters' fates, thanks to the witty, perceptive dialogue and the two leads, who bring an unforced, charming naturalism to their performances.

A deeply frustrating doc that only rarely engages with its ostensible subject, Alan Govenar's The Myth of a Colorblind France intends to examine the country's reputation as a haven for Black Americans, but more often plays as travelogue, checklist of Francophile artists and meandering collective memoir.

What Olaizola does best is create an atmosphere of almost mystical uncertainty at times, setting her film in a place where the frontiers between countries, cultures, reality, folklore, past and present are in constant flux.

The drama really sparks into high gear once the trial gets under way, a shift signaled by arresting cathedral-like shots of the Old Bailey's Neo-Baroque domed ceiling accompanied by the dissonant strings of Mica Levi's sparingly used score. The transition also gives the excellent principal cast ample opportunities both for impassioned oratory and amusing disruption.

The Boys in the Band in many ways is dated and formulaic. But it's also very much alive, an invaluable record of the destructive force of societal rejection, even in a bastion of liberal acceptance like New York City. Despite its flaws, this consistently engaging film provides a vital window for young queer audiences into the difficult lives of their forebears.

The jocular, amiable tone helps deliver the more serious social history lesson throughout, even if sometimes it feels like it’s shouting just a little too loudly to wake up the dimmer students at the back of the lecture hall.

Sorkin has made a movie that's gripping, illuminating and trenchant, as erudite as his best work and always grounded first and foremost in story and character.

Sacks’ personal life was as startling as his professional achievements.

Despite its value in providing superb starring turns by Lena Olin and Bruce Dern, the film never manages to overcome its air of familiarity.

While LX 2048 isn't equally satisfying on all fronts, it's more than successful enough to add to the where-are-we-going? syllabus.