Sharksploitation efforts, once home to nail-biting aquatic nightmares, have turned cartoony in recent years, with the “Sharknado” franchise forcing itself on the world, using irony and exaggeration instead of fear to engage audiences, turning primal oceanic horrors into cartoon time. “The Shallows” isn’t a documentary, but it endeavors to return some bite to the animal attack subgenre, pitting actress Blake Lively against a large great white shark who won’t take no for an answer. Thrills and chills are promised, but only a few scenes land with any sort of punch. “The Shallows” isn’t a lean 90 minutes, but director Jaume Collet-Serra (“Non-Stop,” “Orphan”) almost gets it right, periodically ramping up suspense and shocks while Anthony Jaswinski’s screenplay figures out how to fill up a run time with necessary characterization. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1996’s “Independence Day” was the last of its kind: a largely practically built blockbuster that enjoyed the element of surprise, buttering up audiences with a year’s worth of enigmatic marketing before delivering big thrills with a loopy, lovingly designed alien attack picture, giving the disaster movie formula one last sweaty workout before CGI arrived and smoothed out all the mayhem. It was a mammoth hit and one of the best films of the year, delivering huge action with sincerity and a tasteful amount of stupidity. “Independence Day” was also the last decent feature from director Roland Emmerich, who followed up his biggest hit with junk like “Godzilla,” “10,000 BC,” “White House Down,” and last year’s bomb, “Stonewall.” In need of career CPR, Emmerich reteams with former partner Dean Devlin (also someone who could use a professional boost) to mastermind “Independence Day: Resurgence,” which attempts to sequelize a tale that ended rather successfully the first time around. The creative well’s gone dry with these two, who visibly struggle to come up with a reason why this continuation should even exist, tarnishing the brand name with an unreasonably idiotic, irritatingly plasticized follow-up. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Nicolas Winding Refn found a wide audience with 2011’s sleek and furious “Drive,” but it was the follow-up, 2013’s “Only God Forgives,” that truly represented his baroque filmmaking interests. Mischievous and addicted to cinematic style, Refn does a deep dive into the abstract with “The Neon Demon,” his bloody, ornately lit valentine to the world of modeling and sexual obsession. A challenging picture that seems to exist only to irritate unaware moviegoers, “The Neon Demon” is pure big screen language from Refn, who takes his sweet time laboring over shots and performances, slowly, glacially introducing macabre ideas that transform the feature into art-house flypaper for those willing to submit themselves to the helmer’s extravagances, iffy sense of humor, and adoration for the extreme. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A hit film for Disney back in the summer of 1987, “Adventures in Babysitting” was a perfect example of the era’s interest in teen entertainment with an edge, launching a family-friendly plot of a babysitter encountering a disastrous night with her charges, but giving the material a PG-13 bump, making slumber party rentals a bit awkward. The Chris Columbus picture wasn’t short on charm or laughs, while bringing out the full appeal of star Elisabeth Shue, and it’s easy to see why the studio would pursue a remake, trying to connect to a new generation of working kids. However, instead of bringing the comedic mayhem back to the big screen, “Adventures in Babysitting” receives the Disney Channel treatment, sanding away the coarseness of the original effort to keep the material appropriate for all ages. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Hunting for a different take on Civil War history, writer/director Gary Ross (“Seabiscuit,” “The Hunger Games”) comes across the tale of Newton Knight, a Mississippi man who fought against Confederate soldiers, battling to retain basic freedoms lost during the prolonged conflict. There’s potential in the man’s unrest, but “Free State of Jones” doesn’t have much fire in its belly, dryly and predictably examining toxic racial attitudes, combat shock, and bruised nobility. Ross hopes to impart ideas on inequality and honor, but he’s found the least interesting way to do it, keeping “Free State of Jones” obvious and glacial, lacking a passionate screen presence as melodrama and monologuing tend to overwhelm the effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

From the outside, “The Phenom” looks like your average baseball film about a troubled pitcher coming to terms with a losing streak, with the effort heading out to the mound to explore the headspace of a pro struggling to win games. The feature actually offers very little baseball, more interested in the psychological wreckage of a player fighting learned behavior, remaining in low-lit rooms with characters instead of hustling around the diamond. Writer/director Noah Buschel has a specific mood in mind for “The Phenom,” and it doesn’t involving baseball as a game, but more of a prison, inspecting the drive required to join the big leagues and the price paid for such steely focus, especially when rubbed furiously against toxic fatherly influence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The marketplace is filled with movies like “Vigilante Diaries.” Horror used to be the primary tool for young filmmakers to enter the industry without spending any money, but now actioners have joined the party, offering helmers a chance to organize brutality with the help of known actors not above claiming an easy paycheck. “Vigilante Diaries” isn’t the worst of the bunch, but it certainly tries to be, emerging as a semi-coherent take on worldwide menace and one-man-army attitude, with co-writer/director Christian Sesma trying to fill up on guns and chases when he should really concentrate on writing, with the effort regurgitating as much B-movie formula as it can get away with. It’s not really a film, but a collection of clichés without a strong narrative spine. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the world of art, success rarely equals interesting. It’s an idea of worth that drives the documentary “Art Bastard,” which takes a look at the life and times of painter Robert Cenedella, who’s spent most of his career on his feet, refusing to submit to a system of acknowledgement and financial evaluation that generally defines the big names in professional creativity. Directed by Victor Kanefsky, “Art Bastard” is an informative picture, bringing Cenedella’s distorted vision of humanity to the screen, helping to identify a body of work that’s extraordinarily detailed and imaginative, and perhaps completely unknown to the average art-world participant. It’s basic in design, but the production is merely out to identify inspiration, doing so with a sense of humor and trust in the subject’s natural charisma. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m not exactly sure what screenwriter Steve Adams (“Envy,” “Donnie and Marie”) was aiming to express with the oddity of “No Stranger Than Love,” but it’s safe to report that whatever the original intent of the material was, it hasn’t ended up onscreen. Quirky with a capital Q, the feature is an unyielding rush of cutesy business anchored by a plot twist that touches on the existential, trying to use weirdness as a way to disrupt expectations. It’s too bad director Nick Wherham doesn’t have a clue what to do with all this sticky stuff, struggling to make scenes work that don’t piece together properly, while casting is largely a letdown, making whimsy feels uncomfortably labored. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With marketing that celebrates Eli Roth as a producer, there’s some expectation of tastelessness with “Clown,” which takes a darkly comic route to understanding the unease that generally accompanies painted men with rainbow hair. The sickness of the movie isn’t surprising, but its leaden sense of humor is, failing to strike a balance between grim events and the inherent silliness of the plot. “Clown” attempts to be subtle for a good 30 minutes, but co-writer/director Jon Watts doesn’t maintain patience, soon amplifying violence against children and assort demonic awakenings to give the effort some shock value when basic suspense fails him. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com