Jonathan Jakubowicz’s drama doesn’t add as much to the beyond-crowded World War II genre as it could despite the genuinely compelling true story on which it’s based.

It’s surprising that this effort from Clooney is as flavorless and unrooted as it is, because his better directorial turns are the ones grounded in character more than style.

There are times you even wonder if Cage and Dafoe should have switched roles. But the true identity swap tragedy is within Schrader, the filmmaker having substituted his trademarked thoughtful approach to unacceptable men with a cheaper, imitative brand of cartoony bleakness.

“The Devil Made Me Do It” opens with a disturbing sequence, set in 1981, that stands as the scariest part of the supernatural saga to date. That’s not to say that the nearly two hours that ensue are devoid of tension and well-paced jump scares, but the sheer chaos and malevolence on display right out of the gate are unmatched elsewhere.

Sadly, the film is a tedious and erratically cut caper, whose shape-shifting story feels like an uneven and over-plotted rehash of various recognizable films that we’ve seen before.

It’s honest about the deception that is inherent to celebrity, confronting us with one compromise after another, building to a pitch-perfect finale needle-drop over a captivating monologue that elevates the comedy into a work of grand, messy ambition.

There may be nothing new about America Underdog, but it’s still good enough, as far as non-perishable comfort food goes.

Cutting through the thick curtain of recycled lovey-dovey remarks and the proficiently dull craftsmanship of the production, Richardson’s radiant charisma acts as a lifeline. One would be hard-pressed to find a moment where she is not earnestly committed to the role’s convincingly bittersweet shtick.

Deep Water offers so many tawdry delights along the way that its flaws aren’t dealbreakers. Affleck and de Armas might not have lasted as a couple off-camera, but as co-stars, they’re a potent combo.

Detective Pikachu slogs, and its joys are fleeting, like a battle with a wild Mewtwo that you just can’t seem to catch.

More a forced, one-note farce than the sharp satire it’s trying to be, Atropia is almost impressive in how it manages to allude to so many complicated subjects surrounding U.S. militarism without authentically skewering or even poking at any of them.

You can think of The Quarry as a subtle thriller, but it’s more of a meditation on guilt, forgiveness and redemption in the West.

If you ever wondered what Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy would be like without the insightful writing, sharp directing and intuitive performances, Long Weekend will pretty much fill the bill.

Attractively made, good-hearted, and more than a little redundant even as it's trying a little too hard, Earth to Echo nonetheless will hit the sweet spot for parents looking for innocent PG-rated entertainment for their kids in a summer full of PG-13 spectacle and mayhem.

Most elements of Samba sound mockable, and are. Yet it does have oodles of charm, plus a cast of characters that feels like an impromptu family circle.

Director Gurinder Chadha (“It’s a Wonderful Afterlife,” “Bend It Like Beckham”) attempts to explore the cataclysmic human costs of the Partition without humanizing any of the Indian characters. And so we’re offered, on the 70th anniversary of the Partition (give or take a couple of weeks), another film about how brown suffering makes nice white people sad.

This is the kind of screenplay that offers juicy opportunities for actors, and Zendaya and Washington leave nothing on the floor.

Keaton’s terrific, and it’s sweet and airy and so unhurried you really feel like you’ve had a nice afternoon in the long grasses and cool breezes on the edge of the city.

Niche as some of the situations Arango poses are, his movie is the rare work of art that viscerally understands the immigrant experience but is cerebral enough not to oversimplify it, allowing it to appear messy and imperfect, and all the more truthful for it.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk winds up being a wearying experience, not because of its emotional content but because of its lack of cohesion and its ultimate collapse into gross and unearned sentimentality.

You, Me & Tuscany delivers the rom-com meat and potatoes: The beats, the scenery, and the great-looking people consumers expect. But it’s strictly fast food, when the sun-kissed Tuscan countryside, with its porcini, pecorino and Cinta Senese pork was there to savor with a nice chianti.

The Hollars feels so painfully familiar and so dramatically undernourished that even the great Margo Martindale can only do so much with this cliché-riddled script.

Despite the impossible stakes of their situation, the crew’s acts of backstabbing and self-sabotage feel curiously lifeless, bogged down by a completely unnecessary instance of on-the-job romance that comically comes out of nowhere. Though, in fairness, the ensemble gives it their all with committed performances.

Neither intelligent enough to be involving nor fun enough to be trashy, this is a movie that would only work if it were a little worse or a lot better.

Which version of the film each viewer sees will be a subjective choice, of course, but the fact that the lead character is so utterly guileless and innocent and kindhearted...makes Katie less a victim of the world and more a victim of first time writer-director Wayne Roberts.

Even though the conspiracy theory that NASA faked the moon landing is deeply and depressingly cynical, there isn’t an ounce of cynicism in Greg Berlanti’s sweet, comical and joyous film. “Fly Me to the Moon” uses great screenwriting and good old-fashioned star power to bring a far-fetched concept back down to Earth.

Even a better political satire would have a hard time keeping up with the bizarrely eccentric vaudeville currently taking place on cable news, but Our Brand Is Crisis can’t even come close.

Alone Together frequently hints at Holmes’ gifts as a storyteller, so it’s disappointing that she has a proclivity for romance-novel fodder. If she could have workshopped the script somewhere and honed in on authentic feelings outside conventional narratives, she has the potential to be taken more seriously as a filmmaker.