All the well-crafted effort has unfortunately been expended on a tired and overly familiar story that never registers as anything more than a compendium of horror-film clichés.

A densely packed documentary that earnestly and obsessively addresses campaign finance reform, its history and vital importance.

What keeps the material from feeling too scattershot is the vitality of Cassel’s performance, which is full of life even when he’s not always in the best of health. He’s a much-needed charismatic center that almost manages to keep the entire enterprise together.

Rawson Marshall Thurber's Skyscraper is one of the most idiotic action movies to come down the pike in some time. It's also a lot of fun if you're willing to go with it, and getting viewers to go with things is one of several fronts on which The Rock routinely earns the money he gets paid.

The movie flirts with the usual mixed-signals of romantic comedy, but is on much more solid ground with sight gags (as when Drac's jello-like blob friend happily absorbs the slice-and-smash violence Ericka aims at the vampire) and character work that depends less on celebrity voice talent than on body-language animation.

There's nary a believable moment, emotionally or otherwise, in No Postage Necessary, which also suffers from its overly treacly musical score composed by Closshey. The film bears as much relation to real life as cryptocurrency does to hard cash.

With its sensory immersion in nature and its yearning characters, the gorgeously shot film is a memorable study of solitude and connection.

Beautifully acted by its ensemble of mostly non-professional actors, The Citizen puts a very human face on a topic that has inflamed much of the Western world.

There’s enough drama and jeopardy on the business side of Albert’s endeavors to keep an audience focused, however, and he proves to be a thoughtful and engaging personality who’s thoroughly immersed in the exotic world of international haute cuisine.

Based on real-life events, The Lighthouse depicts its dramatic situations in credible and compelling fashion. But its single, cramped setting and leisurely pacing could definitely tax the patience of horror fans looking for a more visceral, scare-laden experience.

Bleeding Steel is all about old-school thrills, and Zhang has delivered a wide range of them, from cafeteria catfights to expansive pyrotechnics — with not just one but two crotch-kicking gags thrown in for good measure.

In his first narrative feature, documentary maker Jeremiah Zagar (In a Dream, Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart) captures the feel of the novel with uncanny precision, notably in the visceral charge and physical heat of tightly wound bodies almost constantly moving in close proximity.

Despite the assistance reality continues to give it, making an annual rite of government-sanctioned racial violence seem less far-fetched by the day (or by the tweet), Gerard McMurray's The First Purge still fails to establish a persuasive connection to our own moment in time — its occasional winks to current events serving as limp zingers instead of stinging commentary.

TAU is winningly guileless as it dresses an old story up in new clothes: Sometimes it takes a Creature to understand the depths of Dr. Frankenstein's monstrosity.

A brutally effective little thriller which rings welcome changes on hackneyed urbanites-vs-backwoodsfolk templates.

Though enjoyable as it touches on some of the liveliest scenes in New York City's recent pop-culture history, the doc's appeal is greatly limited by Garcia's blinkered perspective on his own life.

Vreeland’s willingness to include painful as well as flattering details is what gives Love, Cecil its punch.

Earthlings is rather scattered in both its portrait of Van Tassel as a man and its explanation of his cultural impact.

This is a gentle, reflective portrait that seldom gets personal and yet somehow feels quite candid.

Both an unexciting and by-the-numbers history lesson and an inside-view, you-are-there look at an underreported armed conflict, the documentary This Is Congo is almost as full of contradictions as the nation it is trying to portray.

One of those thrillers that sets itself some tricky problems early on and fails to successfully solve them later, Daniel Calparsoro’s math-based The Warning nevertheless knows exactly which buttons to press, and is an enjoyably undemanding ride for most of its length.

Despite its undeniable visual artistry, the latest incarnation of White Fang fails to leave a lasting indentation.

Skin plays out with the clarity, simplicity, rawness and grim poetry of a folk tale, tackling on the way some pretty elemental themes, but it’s a tale as told by a very dull speaker. By the end, viewer sensations are mixed, with pleasure at having entered a strange new world, but also frustration at its sheer lack of drama.

While impressive in parts, the picture oscillates between the profitably enigmatic and the frustratingly obtuse.

The fun stems mainly from the amusing interactions between the two main characters so deliciously played by Coogan and Rudd. Both actors are at peak form here, with Coogan clearly having a blast as the flamboyant Erasmus and Rudd employing his expert deadpan delivery and gift for comic timing as the slow-burning Paul.

The result is an effects-laden goofball comedy in which anything goes and nothing matters. Not that this is an entirely plot-free extravaganza or just an excuse for comic riffs. But the filmmakers are so cavalier about the idea that any of this is supposed to make any sense that there's a certain liberation in not burdening two human-brained insects with the fate of the entire universe.

McQueen is a haunting story of extravagant talent and inescapable private sorrow, made with exquisite craftsmanship worthy of its subject. While a narrative biopic has been in development for years, this excellent documentary delivers an eye-popping, emotionally wrenching experience that paints a fully dimensional portrait of a complex artist.

Though stylish in its way and steeped in shadows (director/writer/editor Gregory Bayne also supplied attractive B&W cinematography), the enjoyable 6 Dynamic Laws for Success (in Life, Love & Money) embraces an oddly chipper spirit as its sad-sack protagonist competes with savvier bad guys to find the loot from a long-ago bank robbery.