John Mulderig

A decade after premiering on Nickelodeon and two years out from their film debut, the titular group of canine first responders, led by a preteen boy called Ryder (voice of Finn Lee-Epp), returns for another round of derring-do and some fresh life lessons.

With “Expend4bles” (Lionsgate), director Scott Waugh extends a franchise that dates back to 2010 and that has always been fueled by mindless machismo. The latest blood-soaked entry in the series maintains that lunkheaded outlook.

“A Haunting in Venice” (20th Century) is the third in a series of Agatha Christie adaptations, all featuring her famed sleuth Hercule Poirot, on which director and star Kenneth Branagh has collaborated with screenwriter Michael Green.

In their latest big-screen variation on the eponymous CBS-TV series starring Edward Woodward that ran for four seasons beginning in 1985, screenwriter Richard Wenk and director Antoine Fuqua have a few things going for them.

The latest such gambit vulgarly ventriloquizes dogs and results in the mangy comedy “Strays.”

Director Neill Blomkamp’s lively against-the-odds tale recounts the unlikely career of working-class Welsh lad Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe).

Seafood goes bad, very bad, very quickly. So, too, does the dead fish-scented sequel “Meg 2: The Trench” (Warner Bros.)

Things get dark down under in the Australian horror yarn “Talk to Me.”