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

Chastain is utterly convincing in another tough-as-nails role. If audiences stick with the movie, it's largely thanks to her movie-star charisma, which almost compensates for the increasingly ridiculous plot. Malkovich and Farrell seem to understand they are A-list talent in B-movie roles, and relish the opportunity.

Peninsula suffers the same type of sequelitis that suggests a second entry must be more/bigger/louder than its predecessor. Where Train to Busan’s two hours were impeccably paced and every frame meticulously used, Peninsula spins its wheels in between its admittedly impressive key set pieces.

As recently as last year's "Motherless Brooklyn," Willis has proven that, when he feels like it, he's capable of giving interesting performances. Although no one begrudges him a decent living, it's frustrating that he seems to be settling for such low-rent VOD Steven Seagal/John Travolta-style vehicles at this point in his career.

A delicate miniature that’s magnificently humanist, occasionally amusing and shot in a palette of rich, saturated nighttime hues, this is the kind of really small movie that is actually really great.

While Sandoval's hard-working dedication is admirable, and her semi-autobiographical story full of latent dramatic potential, Lingua Franca is ultimately an underpowered, amateurish disappointment.

Not intended by any stretch as a proper biography, the film is also not one of Herzog's more mainstream efforts. But admirers of either artist will find it very worthwhile, as will viewers who need the occasional reminder that the world still contains wild places to explore.

Design values and Conrad W. Hall's photography are as flatly unimaginative as the rest of the film, which, in its avoidance of distinguishing features, would make a better candidate for witness-relocation anonymity than Margot does.

The movie has built up enough genuine warmth and displayed enough sensitivity that even the formulaic nature of its resolution does little to dull its impact.

With The Vanished, filmmaker and actor Peter Facinelli channels that fundamental fear into a compact, consistently unpredictable thriller that provides few reassurances, but plenty of surprises.

Tenet makes you feel floaty, mesmerized and, to an extent, soothed by its spectacle — but also so cloudy in the head that the only option is to relax and let it blow your mind around like a balloon, buffeted by seaside breezes and hot air.

Like many a stage mother, Thom Fitzgerald's comic drama is pushy. It tries too hard, in all too obvious ways, to win over the audience.

Emperor has difficulty mustering a seriousness to match its subject.

Writer and director Richard Tanne (Southside With You, about Barack and Michelle Obama's first date) takes what sounds like a terrible idea and transforms it into a sleek, well-played romance that largely makes the cliches believable.

The Pale Door represents yet another stylistic mash-up that ends up less than the sum of its parts.

In another filmmaker's hands, this might have become a message-heavy morass, but Sauper and his co-editor, veteran Yves Deschamps (Bruno Dumont's The Life of Jesus, the 2018 restoration of Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind) work the material with a remarkable fluidity and gracefulness that's consistently engaging and surprising.

A film that can be somewhat conventional in form, including a score that overdoes it on the pathos, but one that still provides a fascinating deep dive into organized failure.

Properly analyzing what made "Boro" tick, and explaining how one of most acclaimed directors of his generation ended up fizzling out so messily in the 1980s, ultimately proves beyond Mikurda and collaborators.

Cut Throat City will doubtless grab the attention of RZA’s diverse fanbase, but looks unlikely to make a significant mark among contemporary crime dramas.

Jolie, who also serves as producer along with Brigham Taylor and the late Allison Shearmur, invests her fragile pachyderm with a gentle, world-weary wisdom, while Cranston makes you feel his world crumbling beneath him in a performance that could have easily flirted with cartoon villainy in less accomplished hands.

Thomas keeps the tension high throughout most of the movie, even if some of his scare tactics can feel redundant.

The title may sound incendiary, something left over from the Russ Meyer era, but Danny Wolf’s Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies turns out to be informative and even-handed as well as entertaining.

Several people get wrongly accused of being responsible for somebody's death — there's as much undeserved guilt floating around in this picture as in a Fundamentalist kid's puberty years — and all three of our aforementioned protagonists find they have family issues that need working out. All are broadly drawn and unconvincing, like everything else in this pandering supernatural romance.

Oleg Malovichko and Andrei Zolotarev's script neither brings it to life nor quite has us rooting for its destruction.

What makes Project Power entertaining is its canny combination of familiar ingredients in a textured real-world milieu that gives it fresh flavor. Well, that and the dynamic execution of co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and their crack stunt and VFX teams.

The low-key Pearl proves all the more moving for its stylistic restraint.

Those not enthralled by Margiela's wittily iconoclastic but gimmicky avant-garde designs (and I must confess to being one of them) will probably find this documentary less than compelling. Like so many fashion-themed docs, Martin Margiela: In His Own Words will play best to afficionados who will be grateful for this insightful look at its reclusive subject.

Regrettably, Storm Over Brooklyn is only a rudimentary primer on the case, rather than a particularly comprehensive or insightful one. Many of its shortfalls have to do with director Muta'Ali's (Life's Essentials With Ruby Dee) narrow focus on the Hawkins family, especially since the film is most compelling when it evokes the pressure cooker of racial hostilities that New York City had become by the late '80s.