2019 was a busy year for comedian Rebel Wilson, who appeared in four movies intended to send her career soaring. It didn’t quite work out that way (one of the offerings was “Cats,” which didn’t make magic for anyone involved in the production), and Wilson soon disappeared, taking the next three years off from filmmaking. She’s back with “Senior Year,” which is built to play to her sellable strengths of improvisation, dancing, and goofball antics, remaining in line with pretty much every picture she’s made during her career. Unsurprisingly, “Senior Year” is sincerely lacking a developed sense of humor, with the screenplay trafficking in millennium nostalgia and R-rated raunchiness, occasionally stopping the effort to deal with tender feelings. It all feels very programmed and unimaginative, and it keeps Wilson front and center, with producers once again asking her to carry a feature without thinking things through, and she barely puts in an effort to do anything different here. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Eskil Vogt (who previously collaborated on efforts such as “The Worst Person in the World” and “Thelma”) looks to update the “Bad Seed” formula with “The Innocents.” It’s a story about four children who each deal with certain mental powers, giving them the thrill of discovery and the challenge of self-control. There’s a certain graphic novel atmosphere to the endeavor, which largely remains a silent study of behavior and choices, occasionally dipping into some pitch-black events involving sudden violence. Vogt remains in observational mode with “The Innocents,” which gives it tremendous cinematic power, forcing viewers to process the strange magic and antagonism that emerges from these young characters, which provides some of the finest suspense sequences of the film year. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Operation Mincemeat” is based on a book by Ben Macintyre, who explored the story of a secret World War II mission to provide a “deception plan” used to help the Allies invade Sicily in 1943. It’s an extraordinary tale of teamwork and talent, and there’s a special addition to this slice of wartime history, with author Ian Fleming part of the planning, using his military knowledge to help inform the eventual creation of his most famous character, James Bond. The saga of Operation Mincemeat has been explored in previous productions (including 1956’s “The Man Who Never Was”), but screenwriter Michelle Ashford (“The Pacific”) brings a more immediate sense of suspense to the endeavor, working with the strange details of the mission and the inner lives of the players in the game, while director John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”) brings a tight pace to most of the effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Ninja Thyberg originally shot “Pleasure” as a short film in 2013, helping to attract attention to her burgeoning career with a look at the technical ways and psychological damage of the adult film industry. Returning to the material, Thyberg looks to expand the experience for the lead character, depicted here as a young Swedish woman hoping to break into the business doing whatever she can to score gigs. Thyberg increases the run time and ups the graphic content, but there’s little dramatic expansion for “Pleasure,” which plays with a certain bluntness, but any emotionality is difficult to find. The troubling details of life in X-rated entertainment is what holds attention here, as Thyberg doesn’t have much in the way of characterization, presenting a simplistic take on the deadening arc of a pornography participant. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Chris Sivertson is best known as the helmer of 2007’s “I Know Who Killed Me.” It was a financial and critical disaster, but established Sivertson’s love of genre entertainment that deals with the violence of psychological pain and unresolved personal issues. He returns to the realm of brain-bleeders with “Monstrous,” which is being sold as a creature feature detailing one woman’s struggle against a mysterious monster from a nearby pond. The screenplay by Carol Chrest uses horror as a way to grab audience interest, but the film explores different areas of mental health and domestic unrest, helping to create an unsteady tonality where the first half of the picture wants to frighten viewers, while the rest of the endeavor hopes to make them cry. “Monstrous” isn’t a mess, just ill-conceived, and Sivertson (joined by a whopping 38 producers) isn’t a strong enough storyteller to generate a compelling understanding of a prolonged emotional breakdown. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Marmaduke” has been around for a very long time, originally debuting as a newspaper comic strip in 1954. It’s still around today, charming readers with its depiction of life with a Great Dane and all the impulse control issues such an existence offers. It’s paneled slapstick for a family audience, and Hollywood has tried their luck bringing the character to the screen before, with a 2010 endeavor using Owen Wilson to voice the oversized character. The feature wasn’t a complete debacle, but it failed to provide a reason why Marmaduke should be turned into a movie star. Producers have returned to the material, this time going the CGI-animated route with “Marmaduke,” which hires Pete Davidson to portray the pooch, while directorial duties are handled by the guy who made 1997’s “Spawn.” So yeah, this whole thing is a little weird. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One doesn’t need many reminders when it comes to the power of Charlotte Rampling, with the actress often gravitating to greatly dramatic roles, especially during the last decade, playing characters of power and influence (including fine turns in 2021’s “Dune” and “Benedetta”). “Juniper” initially appears to be another opportunity for Rampling to showcase her skills with quiet stoicism, and there are moments like this in the film. However, writer/director Matthew J. Saville (a longtime actor making his feature-length helming debut) is more interested in the slow cracks of emotion, giving Rampling a part of unusual depth and history, trusting her to flesh out what appears to be a role of simple coldness. “Juniper” has many modest surprises to share, including Rampling’s performance, with Saville constructing a gentle understanding of sadness and human connection, finding little bits of life that add up to an impressively observed picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Shepherd” opens with a quote from Dante’s “Inferno,” which is meant to act as an introduction to the feature and identify what type of experience writer/director Russell Owen is preparing for his audience. He’s created an intensely atmospheric picture that surveys the lasting sting of grief and the corrosive ways of secrets, using a supernatural horror story to explore a deeper understanding of emotional processing. It’s a spooky film with familiar working parts, taking viewers into the mystery of remote Scotland and the confusion of the unreal. Owen makes an initial effort to craft a brain-bleeder, offering strange visuals without much explanation, and “Shepherd” is more engrossing when completely bewildering. When the answers eventually come, in one way or another, Owen can’t handle the burden of explanation, showing more confidence when establishing this foggy realm of sorrow. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screenwriters Sean Wathen, Joshua Dobkin, and Emerson Moore (who also makes his feature-length directorial debut) aren’t presenting an original concept with “Escape the Field,” delivering a strangers-in-dangers tale that’s been explored repeatedly in television shows, adding a puzzling element that’s very close to the recent “Escape Room” films. They do have the mysteries of a maze inside an infinite cornfield, but that sense of unknown danger in the middle of nowhere was examined in 2019’s “In the Tall Grass” (which was based on a Stephen King and Joe Hill novel). Frankly, there’s little originality to “Escape the Field,” which should motivate Moore to really push the suspense factor of the production, giving viewers a wild ride when storytelling isn’t at its freshest. Unfortunately, screen tension is limited in the endeavor, with the writers trying to taffy pull their small ideas for confusion and paranoia into an 80-minute movie that doesn’t amount to much. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As a character, Doctor Strange has been very busy recently, making a mess of the multiverse in 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” also dealing with apocalyptic battles in the last two “Avengers” sequels. In “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the Master of the Mystic Arts finally receives a sequel to call his own, following up his introductory adventure from 2016. Change is inevitable, but the production team from the original picture isn’t around for the next chapter, with director Scott Derrickson stepping away from a series he helped to launch, replaced by the legendary Sam Raimi, who hasn’t helmed a feature since 2013’s “Oz the Great and Powerful.” Raimi once created a fierce hero in “Darkman” and crafted some of the best “Spider-Man” movies, making him a natural fit for the material, and writer Michael Waldron gives him a meaty comic book journey to realize. “Multiverse of Madness” improves on its predecessor, and while there are many more dramatic knots to untangle here, there’s some premium Raimi-ness to shake up the Marvel Cinematic Universe, presenting them with their first horror-tinged story that actually feels frightening at times. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com