A few years back, I reviewed “Universal Soldier: Regeneration,” which was technically the fifth installment of the tired series, leading to minimal viewing expectations. Instead of a snoozy actioner, director John Hyams (son of inconsistent helmer Peter Hyams) refreshed the franchise with a shockingly stout effort, returning some firepower back to a flatlining futuristic concept, also replacing a few blown light bulbs in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s marquee value. Unfortunately, the excitement was only fleeting, with Hyams’s latest, “Dragon Eyes,” a tepid fight picture that’s too reliant on chaotic moviemaking elements to make an impression, creating noise where a thrilling revenge saga should be. Where “Regeneration” showcased a filmmaker ready to pound some life into dreary formula, the ugly and bafflingly dull “Dragon Eyes” revels in cliché, slowly falling asleep despite some gratuitously violent content.

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It’s almost impossible to decode the true intent of “LOL,” which is such an obnoxious and baffling viewing experience, clouding whatever teen angst authenticity it was striving for. A remake of a 2008 French feature starring Sophie Marceau, the original picture’s writer/director Lisa Azuelos has returned to helm the American take on the war between teens and adults, perhaps best qualified to film material she’s already tackled before. The challenge proves too insurmountable for the creator, with her update a choppy, confused observation of growing pains and adolescent insubordination, executed with a bizarre obliviousness to the toxicity of these characters and their extraordinarily superficial concerns begging for sympathy.

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After years of insides jokes, cameos, hints, and calculated introductions, it’s finally led to this. “The Avengers” pays off a promise made in 2008’s “Iron Man,” bringing together Marvel’s greatest superheroes (and two question marks) for a battle to save the Earth, after they’re done pummeling one another. A mildly clunky but largely soaring presentation of citywide devastation, costumed hero neuroses, and flamboyant evildoing, the feature gathers all the details and character quirks fans could want from a super-sized outing such as this. And who better to direct than a man with practically his own religion in the realm of geeklandia, Joss Whedon. Every ticket should come with a tube of smelling salts to keep the target demographic from passing out.

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With such an esteemed cast and capable director, it’s hard to argue with anything “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” provides. The familiarity of the story’s revelations and relationships are a tad deflating, but the overall feature puts forth a great deal of heart and empathy, with emphasis on the aging process, rarely handled delicately in features. Although mildly comedic, “Marigold Hotel” is at its finest sitting back and allowing the gifted performers an opportunity to feel around the situations, usually discovering the most precise emotions to play. It’s far from a remarkable film, yet it strikes all the satisfying notes required to remain meaningful and entertaining.

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As a child, I adored the CBS Saturday morning program, “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.” A phantasmagoria of cartoons, slapstick, and puppetry, the show was a miracle shot of creativity in a realm of glorified commercials, drilling into my brain with its purity of imagination and firm grasp on ridiculousness. At the time, I didn’t consider the personalities that drove the series alongside Paul Reubens, but as the years went by, revisiting “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” exposed brilliant work emerging from multiple sources. One of those fountains of genius was Wayne White. While the playhouse festivities don’t define his career, it’s an excellent entry point into a snowballing mind always on the prowl for absurdity.

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When it comes to Jason Statham and his action entertainment endeavors, one always knows what to expect. While maintaining a perfectly respectable career as an unshaven action figure, Statham’s movies haven’t always displayed a level of concentration and imagination that could solidify the star as a punch-happy icon. “Safe” is a fitting match of the actor’s growly determination to restless cinematic overload, with writer/director Boaz Yakin orchestrating a largely insane bruiser that invests in mesmerizing absurdity. It’s ridiculously violent and frequently flat-out ridiculous, but the picture’s commitment to the underlying promise of roaring bullet-drenched mayhem is kept in a big way. With “Safe,” Statham finds assertive material that fits his limited range like a glove, blending the diminutive scrapper into a larger portrait of New York City chaos, prizing every last broken bone and open wound.

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The latest from Aardman Animations, “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” (released elsewhere as “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists”) carries all the hallmarks of the British studio’s wit, speed, and visual creativity. A stop-motion animated effort, the movie is a delightfully entertaining yarn that puts a little cheekiness back into cinematic pirating, especially after the gradual disruption of jollity found in the last three “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels. Besides, what’s more fun to watch, a mincing Johnny Depp or a plasticine figure of extraordinary flexibility and cartoon possibility, plundering and bumbling across a vividly designed and colored background, surrounded by pure mischief? It also doesn’t hurt that “Band of Misfits” is easily the most charismatic performance Hugh Grant has delivered in over a decade.

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“The Raven” should be a lot more entertaining than it actually is. Extrapolating the final days of writer Edgar Allan Poe, the movie turns the author into a detective of sorts, playing up the man’s expertise with macabre situations as he races to save a damsel in distress. After all, who’s more skilled at catching murderers than a man who’s spent his life imagining indescribable horrors? What’s actually committed to the screen is stillborn, poorly arranged by director James McTeigue, who’s too caught up in stiff period details to keep suspense in play. It’s a neat idea for a film, but it doesn’t come alive in this uneventful attempt to refresh the serial killer genre.

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“The Five-Year Engagement” highlights familiar cinematic working parts, keeping in step with previous Judd Apatow productions with its overreliance on improvisational comedy, unnecessary foul language, and a bloated run time (clocking in at just over two hours). Yet, the picture manages to locate a morsel of life left in the mummified romantic comedy genre, using relationship realism and blindingly charismatic stars to carry a heavy load of Apatowian formula. While a bit unwieldy, “The Five-Year Engagement” is a winningly silly effort to dissect pre-wedding tension and longtime commitment coziness, doing a capable job milking domestic discomfort for every drop of goofballery, punctuated with a sweet dollop of genuine affection shared between the lead characters. In an industry obsessed with wedding movies, here’s an anti-ceremony heartwarmer, executed with a spongy comedic imagination and a little touch of soul.

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From Norway comes “Headhunters,” a startlingly aggressive offering of thriller cinema that arranges quite a ferocious ride of murder and escape. While it introduces itself as a darkly comic heist picture with satiric flavors popping from its business world setting, the feature soon takes off like a shot, hitting the viewer with all sorts of gruesome acts of violence and desperate scenarios of survival, maintaining an outstanding pace as it mounts numerous twists and turns. Although it carries a few off-putting moments for the average moviegoer, “Headhunters” is a truly accomplished showcase of direction, with copious amount of surprises and neat corners on the storytelling. That Hollywood is rabid to remake the film is the least shocking thing about it.

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“96 Minutes” is a story about violence told in a violent manner. It’s an unsightly film, dreadfully cynical and obvious, but there’s a germ of an idea concerning the foundation of cruelty that’s worth noting, but it involves sitting through a 90 minute picture anchored by unnecessary shaky cam, one genuinely bad performance, and superfluous cursing to prove itself hard enough to dramatize life locked in dire urban centers. It’s a mediocre effort from writer/director Aimee Lagos, making her feature-length helming debut, but “96 Minutes” has moments of promise and severity that suggests the moviemaker might excel with better material one day.

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