The latest player in the young adult adaptation sweepstakes in “The Giver,” which is based on a 1993 novel by Lois Lowry, but has the unfortunate timing of coming out the same year as “Divergent,” with both films sharing uncomfortably similar plot elements. “The Giver” also shares clunky filmmaking lowlights with “Divergent,” emerging as the latest production to bungle basic cinematic cohesiveness in a mad dash to preserve all details great and small. The screenplay is stiff and literal, while direction from Philip Noyce is confused, unable to conquer genuinely poor acting and make sense out of this funereal futureworld adventure. Striving to unearth the next big thing in teen cinema, the production doesn’t take the time to step back and exhaustively assess just how impenetrable the material is. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Perhaps the purchase of popcorn and soda can’t wait until after a viewing of “Septic Man,” as it’s not a feature that encourages a hearty appetite. Opening with the image of a woman writhing in pain while sitting on a toilet, in the midst of the most painful defecation of her life, the movie doesn’t play around with teases, presenting pained, barf-slicked reactions and a zoom into a full bowl before the main titles commence. It’s gross, but that’s the point of “Septic Man,” which is best summarized as a one-man stage show produced by Troma Films, only missing their ballistic sense of humor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Michael Dowse directed the 2011 hockey comedy “Goon,” a deliriously violent and hilarious picture. Perhaps trying to disturb expectations, Dowse heads in an entirely different direction with his latest, “What If,” a frightfully affected romantic comedy that makes one wish the helmer remained on the ice. Although not without its charms, including a refreshingly bristly turn from lead Daniel Radcliffe, “What If” remains stuck in the syrup of unearned sentiment and ill-conceived slapstick, laboring to preserve the cute and cuddly when the material is best realized with honesty. It’s a film that difficult to dismiss, but easy to ignore. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The power of music has always been a very real, authentic force unique to the human experience. But what if that art form could do more than just entertain? The documentary “Alive Inside” takes a look at a special movement developing at nursing homes across America that connects those with mental health issues with iPods, gifting them a personalized playlist that has the influence to burst through paralyzing issues with memory and psychological balance. Investigating not only the program’s struggles to make music therapy the norm, but the soulful lift of the aural event, “Alive Inside” delivers significant emotion with a uneasy topic, finding a rich sense of hope in the seemingly hopeless inevitability of aging. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In a perfect world, the Norwegian adventure import “Ragnarok” would’ve come out in 1985 and been a massive international smash. A cross between “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Jurassic Park,” the picture has a defined Spielbergian approach that’s immensely entertaining, preserving the wonder of curiosity and the horror of discovery with a distinct Hollywood touch. Director Mikkel Braenne Sandemose keeps his tributes up front, but also preserves his own genre architecture, creating an engaging romp that covers the mysteries of Norse mythology, the trials of single parenthood, and the wrath of a snake-like creature stalking a forbidden island. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If “The Cove” and “Blackfish” taught us anything, it’s that documentaries don’t necessarily require facts and figures to support a subject matter. Excessive emotionality will do just fine. “Dinosaur 13” absolutely convinces with its parade of injustice, exploring the wild story of Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever discovered. It’s not a simple tale of ambitious paleontology and specimen recovery, but one of legal entanglements, betrayals, and media manipulation, spread out over the course of eight long, painful years. Cold details surrounding the fight over Sue aren’t enough for writer/director Todd Douglas Miller, who brings in syrupy indignation to fuel “Dinosaur 13,” diluting the picture’s power as a chilling reminder of powermad government types and the persistent corruption that infests the U.S. legal system. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Rich Hill” is certainly not something to be viewed while in a gloomy mood. Covering the basics in dysfunction, poverty, disobedience, and self-destruction, the documentary fights to find poetry in the darkest of details. Marginally successful in its quest to understand the blues of wayward teenagers, “Rich Hill” runs into extended patches of inertia, with this simulation of adolescent boredom often bringing the movie to a full stop. There are some fascinating moments of household conflict, and the circularity of irresponsibility registers strongly throughout the picture. However, directors Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo get too caught up in atmosphere, losing track of these lives as they fixate on the artful mournfulness of the effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Catherine Breillat is a master of detachment. She’s a cold filmmaker, specializing in uneasy sexual interactions and acts of violation, using interpretational qualities to keep her audience guessing. “Abuse of Weakness” is her most personal feature to date, a study of her own medical issues and experience with fraud, holding out hope that perhaps just this once Breillat might approach her material with an emotional availability, permitting comprehension of motivation, mood, and awareness. “Abuse of Weakness” offers no such comfort, but it does present Isabelle Huppert in a stunning turn of physical limitation and humiliation, carrying the picture’s bruised soul as the helmer tends to the plain details of the story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Perhaps the golden era of the buddy comedy is long gone now. “Let’s Be Cops” is a halfhearted take on an age-old genre, trying to launch stars Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. as a big screen team capable of being plugged into any sort of adventure, coasting on their alleged chemistry and individual charms. “Let’s Be Cops” doesn’t feature an entirely unappealing premise, but co-writer/director Luke Greenfield doesn’t do anything to revive the DOA production, which is devoid of laughs, timing, and thespian invention. It’s just. awful. for most of its run time, content to squirm and squeal instead of explode with absurdities, eventually taking the whole thing seriously in a third act showdown that’s as misguided as the rest of this winded film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The fifth entry in a surprisingly durable franchise, “Step Up: All In” remains an American story despite mounting ticket buying indifference from domestic audiences to the ongoing saga of perfectly groomed young dancers on the hunt to make their dreams come true. Perhaps being so American is what makes these efforts irresistible to foreign audiences, because I can’t imagine people pile into theaters to see insistently flaccid drama performed by blank actors. Another offering of flopping bodies and broken hearts, “Step Up: All In” almost gets it right as it focuses heavily on dance choreography, but soon enough, director Trish Sie loses her nerve, calling up the wet blanket of melodrama to make viewers question why the “Step Up” movies bother with a script at all. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aren’t strangers to big screen adventuring. Based on a comic that debuted in 1984, the Turtles were the star of their own cinematic franchise in the 1990s, with the original picture presenting quite an achievement in creature fabrication. There was also an underrated CG-animated effort, 2007’s “TMNT,” which failed to catch fire, returning the brand name to television where the premise has found its greatest success. Now co-producer Michael Bay takes a crack at bringing the Turtles back to the multiplex, overseeing a PG-13 production that uses motion capture technology to realize the heroes in a half-shell for a new generation. It’s a major upgrade in technology, viewed throughout the feature in frenetic action sequences, but the screenwriting isn’t up to the challenge, trying to merge classic Turtle interactions with Bay’s customary event movie coldness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Idiosyncratic and surprisingly bawdy, “Land Ho!” is a travel picture that takes many unexpected turns. It’s modest work, a digital indie from directors Martha Stephens and Aaron Katz, and a film that invests in the charm of its leading men, using long takes of conversation to form characterizations, while glory shots of Icelandic nature play a pivotal supporting part, generating a mild but amusing fish-out-of-water atmosphere to give the feature some needed definition. While two older men locked in banter for 90 minutes probably doesn’t sound all that thrilling, “Land Ho!” is funny, saucy, and periodically sincere enough to launch a perfectly engaging movie with the barest of ingredients. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I feel bad for writer/director Jesse Zwick, as his film “About Alex” will be compared to Lawrence Kasdan’s “The Big Chill” repeatedly. Yet, he brought it on himself, with “Chill” focusing on a group of college friends reuniting after the suicide of a loved one, while “Alex” is about a group of college friends reuniting after the attempted suicide of a loved one. Neuroses flare up, sex breaks out, and dormant insecurities are paraded around for everybody’s entertainment. The primary difference is that Zwick doesn’t have Kasdan’s touch when it comes to characterization, but “About Alex” certainly isn’t an embarrassment, delivering a few surprisingly competent performances and a dollop of honesty as it plays a convincing game of grand theft movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Perhaps it’s a bit painful to realize, but “Twister” is nearly 20 years old. The monster storm extravaganza, one of the pioneering efforts of the digital disaster movie movement of the 1990s, was a massive success back in 1996, but failed to spawn a league of imitators (save for a double shot of volcano efforts in 1997). “Into the Storm” finally steps up as the next huge nature-gone-nuts production, but instead of trusting the inherent horror of a tornado touchdown, the producers have elected to transform the premise into a found footage feature. While “Into the Storm” has a mighty roar when it comes to scenes of mass destruction, the rest is insufferable, pinned between a paint-by-numbers screenplay and a feeble storytelling trend that only encourages filmmaking laziness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Lasse Hallstrom has built a career out of safe entertainment. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this artistic ambition, it’s rendered his filmography predictable, without only a few odd diversions interrupting the norm. The helmer of “Chocolat” returns to the world of food with “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” a completely mild tale of romance and redemption coated with a familiar Hallstrom glaze, often caught straining for audience approval when its cast of characters deserves a more exhaustive examination. It’s a pretty movie, always aiming to please, but the picture overstays its welcome, eventually trading the reliably routine for the ridiculous. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Damned” isn’t especially ambitious in a genre that could use more invention. Simplistic and hurried, the picture assumes the qualities of a throwback horror experience, following a group into a dangerous area where they’re picked off one-by-one by a malevolent force. Again: been there, done that. Helping “The Damned” reach some level of digestion is director Victor Garcia (“Hellraiser: Revelations”), who at least summons a convincing demonic energy to help motivate the characters into the panic zone. The feature certainly means well enough, with a few trembling performances that sell the moment, yet there’s little to dig into once formula takes over, leaving the effort predictable. Shrieking and bloody, but predictable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com