Andrew Barker

There may well be new and novel ways to spark audience shivers from not-so-bright homeowners inexplicably using their cameraphones to check out bumps in the night, but this series clearly has neither the patience nor the inclination to look for them anymore.

The Sound and the Fury is certainly a folly, failing to capture the weird, entrancing, often maddening ambiance of the great writer’s elliptical masterpiece, and its surfeit of half-baked film-student flourishes and needless cameos occasionally give it an amateur-hour feel.

Laughs are few, attempts at feel-good catharsis fizzle out limply, and all of Murray’s most elaborate performance setpieces — especially his endless rendition of “Smoke on the Water” for tribal elders — fall embarrassingly flat.

The film has its razor-sharp grace notes and a seductive stylishness, neither of which can override its relentlessly adolescent worldview.

This derivative, ploddingly plotted WWII-set thriller goes through all the motions of an old-school wartime spy pic with plenty of technical competence but zero panache.

This somnolent supernatural thriller is a low-energy wash from start to finish.

[A] misbegotten mess.

Well cast and funny just often enough to recommend.

Upending the conventions of the musical rise-and-fall formula while still offering a relatively straightforward three-act narrative, the film is anchored by an Ethan Hawke performance that ranks among the best of his career.

Dellal’s likably chaotic direction and a bevy of solid performances make sure the film’s beating heart outweighs most of its contrivances.

Despite a thoroughly committed, impressive performance from Tom Hiddleston as Williams (and an even better one from Elizabeth Olsen as his first wife, Audrey), the film tackles the life of one of the 20th century’s most seminal musicians with all the passion of a stenographer, making for a dull, unfocused slog through what should have been an effortlessly cinematic story.

The Scorch Trials offers virtually no character development and only hints of plot advancement, mostly just functioning to move a group of obliquely motivated characters from one place to another without giving much clue where the whole thing is headed.

Undeniably likable in its own breezy, resolutely unambitious way, Jay Karas’ tennis laffer Break Point manages to generate decent laughs, even if its reliance on indie-comedy formula borders on the pathological.

The Transporter Refueled comes up strong where it counts, with frequent bursts of ludicrously implausible yet coherently directed mayhem.

[A] hysterical, insightful and genuinely empathetic documentary.

A retread of such brainless, shameless lameness that it’s hard to imagine anyone begging for another installment.

Too often plays like an earnest yet unsatisfying adaptation of a cult graphic novel, with most of the charm lost in translation.

This is a shaggy, easily distractible film that consistently defies expectations to both charming and baffling effect.

Worth watching for its trove of emotional testimonies from family and friends — including an atypically forthcoming Lorne Michaels and Adam Sandler — the pic is somewhat defanged by its surface-level approach and standard-issue filmmaking style.

Coley’s screenplay contains a few witty references and sharp one-liners, but they often work at cross-purposes with the overall narrative drive, drawing scenes out and stretching believability needlessly.

Thorpe’s documentary can sometimes seem a bit intimidated by the various cans of worms it pries open, but it’s nonetheless a breezy, funny, often quite clever film more concerned with minor epiphanies than big answers.

Even the less immediately engaging material here helps build an uncannily cohesive snapshot of a very specific time and place, and the past decades have only given it a bittersweet edge.

Though Stray Dog is slowly paced and at times a bit repetitive, Granik and her crew rarely risk losing their audience’s attention, and they uncover a wealth of images that are alternately striking, symbolic and singular.

Sometimes funny, often dumb, with equal doses of inside-baseball references and broad bro-ish boorishness, Entourage will be loved by fans and despised by detractors, possibly for the same reasons.

Unbalanced, unwieldy, and at times nearly unintelligible, Aloha is unquestionably Cameron Crowe’s worst film.

After providing some blissfully stupid B-movie thrills for its first hour, the film suffers from spectacle overkill.

Less a steadily escalating thriller than a guided tour through a county-fair-style haunted house, Poltergeist offers some quality jump scares, and Kenan has a knack for staging solid individual setpieces. But he proves weirdly incapable of modulation or mood setting here.

A few mildly tone-deaf jokes are hardly enough to sink Hot Pursuit. What does, however, is its tendency to belabor the laziest, most obvious gags beyond the point of reason.