Adrian Horton

It struggles to feel at all like a genuine story.

In making the worst stereotypes of America’s political poles as extreme as possible, and America’s divide as literal and violent as possible, The Hunt feigns a viewpoint rather than actually having one. It takes aim at everyone, redeeming no one. Which feels circular, and queasy, and right back where we started: some empty talk about a divided nation, and a film thats probably not worth this much conversation.

McConaughey may be a capable driver, but this is an unwieldy vehicle – oversized, overlong and altogether way too many parts to run smoothly.

For all the grand gestures of musical theater, there’s an odd flatness to Theater Camp, a half-hearted and lackluster comedy from a group of Hollywood friends set at a summer performing arts community.

Love Again, by ceding some space to the Queen of Feelings, has moments that play. I can’t say it was good, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it.

There’s bits of misplaced humor, a firm sense of place and promising performances, but frustratingly little magic to be found here.

There are moments in Along for the Ride . . . where the magic that cements a teen film seems within reach. For a few seconds here or there, you can feel it. The rest of it just passes by like the tide.

The 99-minute film is long on yelling and guffaws, short on punchlines.

Nothing is really offensive or incompetent, but it never rises to the level of funny or interesting, either.

Love in the Villa is feel-good, not try-hard. Nothing ever rises to the level of unwatchable, but nothing has any distinctive staying power, either – you may catch the whiff of romance here and there, like passing by a bakery storefront, which constitute the most alluring shots of the movie.

The younger Day-Lewis shows promise as a film-maker – Anemone certainly looks serious, the correct scowls and swirling skies and wordless, eerie montages to suggest weighty themes, big emotions and ominous suspense. The tools to back up that style with emotional punches that land like the real ones of the brothers – best believe they tussle it out, because of course – are not yet refined, but in this father-son duo, at least, I have faith.

Ella McCay is, first and foremost, a mess – a clunky collection of incoherent characters and confounding plot that seem to defy basic story logic at every turn, and not in a surprising or intriguing way.

Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield can’t save this dreary Valentine’s drama that lacks fizzle and emotional stakes.

As hard as Cuoco and Davidson try at chemistry – and Cuoco, at least, seems to be really trying – this umpteenth spin on the Groundhog Day time loop is more irksome than endearing, cutesy than actually cute, a downward spiral of uncomfortably performed neuroticism that devolves into a borderline indefensible ending.

Those seeking a feelgood romcom should keep looking.

Little Wing is overall an odd, unaffecting mess, other than, again, the pigeons, who look majestic on camera.

There are a few laughs but, at nearly two hours, Ricky Stanicky far outstays its welcome.

Where the Crawdads Sing never really had an interest in complications, or hardship, or racism as anything beyond wallpaper for its central nature girl fantasy of self-reliance. It would rather stay above the fray, gliding prettily along the marsh without actually getting dirty.

Where Godmothered should coast, it stumbles – swerving between unwieldy earnestness to something edgier and settling on something duller than it should be.

Dosunmu, an established music video director, assembles beautiful shots of longing, pain, yearning, closeness and jealousy between Beauty and girlfriend Jazz (Aleyse Shannon). But strung together by Waithe’s too-spare script, they feel isolated and go nowhere.

A Different Man is a slog, made worse by the fact that it seems to mistake darkness for insight.

It’s a visually verdant but emotionally flat film whose confusing friction between two miscast leads frustrates rather than engrosses.

Despite the action-comedy bona fides of director Paul Feig, helmer of the far more entertaining Bridesmaids and Spy, and the comedic chops of Awkwafina and John Cena, Jackpot! is an unsteady balance of dark and light, a tinny and discordant mishmash of stunts, ridiculous characters, ludicrous stakes and attempts at zeitgeist.

Though the two leads are capably charming – or, in the case of Tiffin, baseline attractive as a nice hometown guy not given much to do – the movie still has the imprint of a tech company’s content assembly line: cheaply made, over-lit, bumpily paced, ludicrously dialed-up characters without much comic payoff.

Chasing Summer at least outruns the charge of being boring, though at what cost.

This awkward, misjudged, occasionally sexy film has seeds of a radical, fresh story and flashes of directorial brilliance but is hobbled throughout by the confounding decision to write her 26-year-old main character as either insensitively neuro-divergent or more sheltered child than adult.

The central romance here is, on paper, a love for the ages, a story of all-consuming passion. It’s not quite so in practice.

The Chernins are savvy enough to not wrap the whole thing in a neat “just be yourself” bow in the end, but Incoming could have worn a little more of its heart on its sleeve.