Martin Yenko

‘The Life of Chuck’s’ good-spirited empathy and crowd-pleasing tendencies that belie its sharper complications is a balance it walks well towards a central message: wonder and happiness will always be within our reach.

Armed with a sprawling, twisty narrative which overstuffs itself as much as it micromanages, ‘Weapons’ stands out as an equal parts horrific, darkly hilarious, and affectingly unstable image of hidden evils in suburbia.

Source material accuracy notwithstanding, ‘Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy’s’ squandering of character and metanarrative elements reveal a glossy spectacle with lacking heart.

‘Bride Hard,’ starring Rebel Wilson, is the type of project with a canvas wide enough that if utilized well, would potentially be an entertaining romp, sadly we live in a world where that didn’t materialize.

‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ is a gleeful return to the anarchic ultraviolence that is the franchise’s raison d'etre, giving you what you’d expect in subtly different, yet all the more tense and outrageous manner.

‘The Legend of Ochi’ is a lovingly crafted riff on classic fantasy adventure films, one whose intimate foggy mountain atmosphere gives weight to rather broad-brush storytelling.

'A Working Man' is exactly what the marketing advertised — Jason Statham annihilating those in his way for a personal vendetta. But aside from the gleefully brutal intermittent bursts of carnage, there isn’t much substance beneath the surface.

Beneath the slight eccentric clunkiness of ‘In The Lost Lands’ lies a very stylish and charmingly dorky slice of fantasy that believes in its own scrappy, wondrous illusions, and is all the better for it.

Companion’s sturdy structuring, biting humor, and tight pace of escalating tension allows it to bolster its thematic sentiments through an intriguing premise. It’s acidic fun with a twisted, beating heart.

After over half a decade since its predecessor, ’Den of Thieves 2: Pantera’ serves a second round of patient, unraveling thrills that puts in a bit more thought in its modest ambition as straightforward genre pastiche.

Arjo Atayde’s haunted, steely stoicism is an adequate anchor to hold ‘Topakk’ on. There are plenty of fist-pumping viscera to be found, but the film’s lack of grasp on its chaos hurts it more often than not.

A tense, cerebral, yet crowd-pleasing chamber piece, ‘Heretic’ stacks tantalizing theological disquisitions and moments of primal terror on top of each other to create one entertaining thrill ride.