John Mulderig

It’s the adolescent child and not the parent who’s at the center of the action in “Missing.”

The idea of incorporating iconic author Edgar Allan Poe, the inventor of the modern detective story, into a whodunit would seem like a winning one.

While the drama-and-comedy blend “A Man Called Otto” (Sony) proves generally goodhearted, it also turns out to be formulaic.

Director Kasi Lemmons’ profile charts singer Whitney Houston’s meteoric rise as well as the gradual descent into dependence that culminated in her untimely 2012 death at age 48.