The screenplay boasts a psychological complexity rare for thrillers of this type, manifested most strikingly in the form of Bernard, who is far from a cardboard cutout villain.

While some thriller addicts may embrace the resulting misanthropic action, others may find their minds wandering — to the many real-life cases of fraternity hazing, gang-rape and run-of-the-mill antisocial behavior that inspire deeper feelings of dread than this unconvincing outing.

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.

This story of a courier racing against the clock to pay off a debt boasts a vivid sense of place, as well as some awkward dialogue and a lead performance not quite flavorful enough to make the character's self-sabotage compelling.

A cutthroat little thriller that's surely more fun than most of the riddle-solving lock-ins currently springing up around the country.

Director Fei Xing stages the violent mayhem in exuberantly giddy fashion, although it all has the feeling of a group of randomly assembled film clips rather than a coherent narrative.

Although it's enjoyable to make the acquaintance of the well-played, crowd-pleasing Strangers, the encounter is quickly forgotten.

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

The circus theme already feels played out from the start, while the story heads in mostly predictable directions despite the limited pleasure of seeing those mighty morphin power crackers in action.

A chin-scratching B picture that fares best when it sticks with stars Donald Sutherland and Vincent Kartheiser, it gets less convincing the farther it strays from the two-hander at its core.

Danluck's unfocused direction makes Katherine less a grief-struck enigma than a dull somnambulist; and the film's copious flashbacks, instead of drawing us into the character's confused emotions, mostly suggest that the film can't decide how to tell its story.

Boasting excellent performances by screen veterans Peter Mullan and Gerard Butler, the latter delivering one of his best turns in years, The Vanishing feels familiar in most ways, including its title (the same as George Sluizer's classic Dutch thriller and its mediocre American remake). Nonetheless, the film proves highly effective with its slowly ratcheted up tension and eerie atmospherics.

Being Rose suffers from its plot contrivances and cliched characters, but it means well and that counts for a lot. It's hard not to get caught up in Rose's fate, especially with Shepherd infusing her portrayal of the spunky character with subtle grace notes. Brolin is equally good, movingly conveying the loneliness and pathos underlying Max's good humor.

Upsetting but too curious to wallow in misery (and blessed with a few grace notes), the film pays tribute to a girl who rarely indulges in the self-centeredness that comes with adolescence.

Those who believe that all Buddhists respect their religion's core principles of peace and tolerance should take a look at The Venerable W (Le Venerable W), director Barbet Schroeder’s eye-opening chronicle of one Burmese monk’s long campaign of racism and violence against his country’s minority Muslim population.

Pulling off a rare three-peat, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a tender, spirited coming-of-age CG-animated feature that proves every bit as emotionally resonant and artistically rendered as its 2010 and 2014 predecessors, if not even more so.

Genesis 2.0 is a double-stranded helix of a real-life thriller, chilling and unforgettable. An inquiry into the brave new world of "synthetic biology," it moves between two filmmakers in very different locations. Their twinned subjects, whose connections are gradually revealed, are past and future, superstition and logic, a hunter and his scientist brother.

Making their previous vehicles Step Brothers and Talladega Nights seem the height of comic sophistication by comparison, Holmes & Watson features the duo parodying Arthur Conan Doyle's famous characters to devastatingly unfunny effect.

Although the procession of talking heads inevitably gives the film a static quality, the visual tedium is alleviated by the filmmaker's handsome cinematography and the picturesque locations in which many of the interviews were shot.

Presenting an evocative portrait of a now-bygone era in the city's past, The Last Resort delivers plenty of nostalgia as is spotlights the work of two photographers who captured the period with vivid immediacy.

A labor of love, to be sure, but a simple, small-scaled domestic drama with none of the broad appeal of the hugely popular "Shakespeare in Love" of 1998, this thoroughly respectable Sony Classics pickup will command the interest mostly of older-skewing art house habituees.

Veering heavily into sexual territory, the film is more a gothic melodrama than a horror film. It certainly feels like a waste of not only Cage's talent (although the actor has a climactic, literally fiery scene that will forever change the way you think about the pop song "Leader of the Pack"), but also Potente, whose potential has been sadly underrealized in American films.

If there are any dadaist cinephiles out there, perhaps they can reclaim Second Act as a multilayered masterpiece of illogic. Certainly the film seems destined to survive all future nuclear winters, enduring as a time capsule of humanity at its most pitiably pedestrian.

The story's knotty aspects reverberate under its sentimental-cum-inspirational surface. In the guise of a glossy entertainment, Welcome to Marwen gets at some unnervingly irresolvable truths about humanity.

The Quake offers visceral thrills.

Through wit, surprise and an irrepressible ballsiness comes a scorching humor that neither curdles nor becomes exhausted.

Though fans will enjoy the behind-the-scenes view, and anyone interested in creativity can appreciate watching a master attempt to expand his turf so late in life, the doc's narrow scope and aesthetic limitations make it a fans-only affair, certainly not a full-bodied account of this man's towering career.

It offers some bits of fact and argument that may have gone underexposed, and it is more stylish than some earlier journalistic outings. But its potential to make change is hindered, as the film itself notes near its conclusion, by the fact that the already-stoked fear and rage of American citizens is neutered by those we've elected to make laws — many of whom have been taking checks from this deep-pocketed industry for years.