Bill Goodykoontz

Napoleon isn’t a failure on anyone’s part. But it’s not a rousing success, either. It’s not really a rousing anything, which is the problem. Maybe Scott should have gone in even more on Phoenix’s quirks and mannerisms, which are the most purely entertaining things about the film. Whatever the case, it doesn’t quite measure up.

Although the film features a powerhouse performance by Clarke Peters as Da Good Bishop Enouch Rouse, it's saddled with a sloppy story.

Director Wes Ball's film is a mad dash from one place to the next, with little time in between for rest, recuperation or plot development.

Moving On, a dark comedy written and directed by Paul Weitz, isn’t a great movie by any means, but it’s a pretty good one. It’s also a relief to see Fonda and Tomlin play women whose age is not discounted, but is also not disqualifying.

Brand ultimately can't make a watered-down Arthur as sweetly charming as the original, but he certainly makes it better than it would have been otherwise.

From its bland title to its fair-to-middlin' story, mediocre is the word that fits How Do You Know perfectly.

Ultimately, the movie is really boring. Any charm or spark it might have had is quashed by a lack of strong direction and writing.

Odd indeed. In a good way, mostly.

Lee Toland Krieger's film masquerades for a while as a romantic drama brainier than most, getting good mileage out of an intriguingly odd performance from Blake Lively. But ultimately, the movie relies far too much on contrivance and coincidence.

The story, meanwhile, strains to be a masterpiece. And the strain shows.

It’s better than a “Transformers” movie. Is that damning with faint praise? I’m not sure it’s praise at all. But it is true. Pacific Rim Uprising is, at least for about half the movie, better than a Michael Bay exercise in eardrum shattering. The sequel isn’t as good as the original, however, which probably isn’t a surprise.

Admission is pleasant enough. Even when off a bit, the talent of the cast assures that. But it’s still a disappointment. You might say it, ahem, doesn’t make the grade.

You hate to see a good cast wasted, but when it comes to 5 Flights Up, the verdict is: no sale.

There is nothing in the film that will keep you awake at night. Instead, The Awakening works much more subtly, with a profound sense of dread and resignation, a death-obsessed movie given life by Hall's performance.

Like the first film, The Croods: A New Age is a pleasant enough movie. It may not make you forget the original, but only because you probably already had.

The Internship has some funny moments. The cast is too talented for it to come up completely dry. But for a movie about a place so filled with ambitious climbers, it is far too lazy.

Overall, it's exactly as absurd as it sounds, but in the best way.

The Last Days on Mars isn’t a disaster. Robinson, in fact, shows some promise. It’s just not much of anything, a movie ultimately as barren as the landscape on which it takes place.

It’s not a bad movie, by any means. Just repetitive in its relentless praise.

It's a movie as warm and fuzzy as a comfortable blanket, and as safe as the milk Edwards prefers to anything stronger. Not as exciting, perhaps, but it gets the job done well enough.

Subtle, it's not.

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return lacks any sense of magic.

If it wasn’t for her, it would be near-unwatchable.

The Innocents, writer and director Eskil Vogt’s horror film about children with supernatural powers, is definitely difficult to watch, a brutal bit of business. But the thrills aren’t cheap — they’re hard earned, if you can call them thrills at all.

The script makes the characters a little too witty and spot-on with cultural references, but what makes it work, to the extent that it does, is the innate liability of Sudeikis and Brie.

Sam Levinson’s film is meant to be a harsh, unyielding examination of a relationship, and thanks to stunning performances by Zendaya and John David Washington, it sometimes is.

The Marksman is not awful. It’s not particularly good, either, but it’s not the disaster it should have been. Part of that has to do with the way Lorenz stages the action — well-choreographed and tense. Part of it has to do with Perez, who combines being adorable with a kind of hard-won wisdom beyond his years that makes for a completely winning character.

Beyond the Reach is a misfire, one of those movies that never quite rises to the level of guilty pleasure.

Memory is a good-enough movie that could have been a lot better. Neeson is to thank for most of the good. Turns out he, like his characters, does have a particular set of skills. They involve acting.

Trachtenberg is patient building this world, and the actors do a good job inhabiting it. Winstead is a terrific actress, and she makes Michelle's desperation and inventiveness believable. Goodman is never better than when playing a nut, and while we aren't sure if that's what he's doing here, the possibility makes for an intriguing portrayal.

There is so much to enjoy about Encanto — the songs, the gorgeous animation, the cultural traditions. All of which make the script’s serious shortcomings all the more surprising and disappointing.

Too bad. You sense that someone could have made a good movie with this material. Unfortunately, Leth didn't.

Zwick can't seem to decide what the movie is - a refreshingly frank comedy about sex and commitment, or a more-serious look at illness and its effect on relationships.

There’s nothing in Thor: The Dark World that wasn’t done better in “Thor,” or a lot better in “The Avengers.” Except Tom Hiddleston’s performance as Loki.

Knoxville and the others go about their messy business with a glee that is impossibly contagious.

Interesting as it is, Narco Cultura aims to tell the story of what’s happened in Juarez and in Mexico (and, by virtue of its immense appetite for drugs, the U.S.). Instead, it feels more like a couple of intriguing chapters.

A curious misfire, a stylized biography of one of the most powerful women in politics, portrayed by the greatest actress of our time, that asks more questions than it answers.

The film soldiers on through a couple of possible endings, and if its real destination is never truly in doubt, Mbatha-Raw makes the trip interesting.

An improvement over its predecessor.

The movie, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer of “Twilight” fame and directed by Andrew Niccol, is just kind of dumb. Like the more famous books and movies, about a love triangle between a vampire, a werewolf and a human girl, it often plays like a teenage girl’s idea of how literary romances play out.

Juror #2 isn’t quite forgettable, but it’s also not the movie we’ll remember Eastwood for.

While individually some of the scenes are terrific, they don't add up to much, making Hail, Caesar! one of the Coens' lesser comedies, better than "Intolerable Cruelty," say, but nowhere near the genius of "The Big Lewbowski."

Acting (and story) take a back seat to the visual display. Eubank shows confidence with each shot, whether it takes place in a desert vista or a clinical government slab. What's it all mean? It's unclear, except meaning that Eubank is a talent to watch.

There are some laughs (a well-placed police baton, for one). But Metal Lords feels unfinished, rough, like a solo the guitarist never mastered.

The Batman is impressively made. The acting is first rate, and the chemistry between Pattinson and Kravitz is magnetic. It’s meant to be an important statement. It’s just not a lot of, you know, fun. Or as someone famously put it in another Batman movie, Why so serious?

Blomkamp regular Sharlto Copley is quite good — as Chappie, in a motion-capture performance. (He also provides the voice of the robot.) If this were somehow a commentary on man's increasing lack of humanity or something, that would be fine. Instead, it's just good work buried inside a movie made up of intriguing ideas that never really go anywhere.

Pete’s Dragon is a good movie. But it could have used a little more of the magic its characters are searching for.

It’s mostly a biography of Holiday — nothing wrong with that, certainly when you’ve got a performance as stunning as Andra Day’s in the title role.

The film does not have the courage of the book, which felt no need to tie a nice pretty bow on everything. But it's fun enough for a good while (it's only 81 minutes long), and that's enough.

It's all too much on the surface, not enough underneath. In other words, fans of the first film will love it.

The rest of the cast is fine, actually, but Rudd spares nothing in making Ned a lovable loser, with the emphasis on "loser."

Half of a Yellow Sun winds up being one of those movies in which a pesky event of great historical import keeps getting in the way of a soap-opera romance.

As with most prequels, there's ultimately not a lot of suspense, since we know what's going to happen in the next installments. Tell us something something to care about.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is certainly funny. It’s just not the flash of inspiration the first movie was — it can’t be. Baron Cohen revealed more out of contemporary America (and a lot about Arizona) with the 2018 TV series “Who Is America?” The new movie will make you laugh, but too often it’s more of the same.

Although it contains some interesting characters, God's Pocket, like the neighborhood it depicts, is the kind of place you can't wait to escape, even if its inhabitants cannot.

There’s nothing wrong with a thriller leaving some loose ends. But Deep Water trips over them too often.

Thanos is the most interesting, and most complex, character here.

In "The Player," Robert Altman carves up Hollywood with knowing, surgical precision. Cronenberg is a gifted filmmaker in his own right, but here he takes a meat-ax to the place. He gets what he's after but leaves quite a mess.

The film is interesting and at times enlightening, but it's all over the map.

It’s still more of a spectacle than a movie. But as spectacles go, it’s a big one. And with more elements of an actual film creeping in here and there, who knows? By the time we get to the fifth one, we might have some actual cinema on our hands.

There’s a story within a story here, one more compelling and relatable than the other. Perhaps that’s by design. But even if that’s the case, it doesn’t mean the two parts co-exist comfortably, no matter what the intent.

It’s as if Boyle is saying he isn’t afraid to visit the past. And he does it about as successfully as one could — T2 is a movie worth seeing and enjoying if you’ve seen the first film (less so if you haven’t). What he’s not as successful at is telling us why.

Jason Schwartzman has become, without question, the go-to actor when you want a character with off-putting, even annoying traits, yet need to have the audience side with him just enough not to want to strangle him.

You’d think a move about the potential for the destruction of universes would feel pretty high stakes, but this one doesn’t. Nor does it connect on the family drawn together through adversity front.

Welcome back, Whit Stillman -- with Damsels in Distress, the hipper-than-thou club is back in session.

No one wants to live in the past, but in The Peanuts Movie, the old stuff still stands up, while the new story is just flimsy glue holding the classic bits in place.

It's all well done and cute and forgettable.

Wonder will make you cry — that’s one of the main purposes of its existence — but it’ll also drive you a little crazy.

There are some scares here, in the same way that there is some pain when you hit your thumb with a hammer. Blunt force carries a lot of power. But there isn’t a lot of thought. It’s the same idea as the first movie, just not as well-done.

Dumb fun can be, well, fun. G.I. Joe: Retaliation is way too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter.

It’s a mix of good films that could have been a single outstanding one.

He (D'Souza) reaffirms many of the complaints against Obama, and when he sticks to the facts is much more persuasive.

It’s fun while it lasts, but ultimately forgettable, kind of like the people they stole from.

Shankman gets enormously entertaining performances from Tom Cruise and Alec Baldwin, so much so that it's a problem: The movie's not about them.

While there is some magic here, it’s not the transportive experience it might have been.

The acting is first rate, the story still heartbreakingly urgent. But ultimately Parkland plays more like a re-enactment than a film in its own right.

An unruly mix of science, morality, family dysfunction, horror and finger-down-the-throat gross-out ridiculousness.

More brains and less brawn probably isn’t a prescription for box-office success for a movie like this. But it’s a movie I’d rather see.

Obama is so smart and insightful, even in response to the canned and near-sycophantic questions during the question-and-answer sessions on stage, that it makes you yearn for a real interview, a tougher documentary, one that trusts both Obama and the audience more.

True enough, she's trying to do the right thing. But she never quite gets there. And that gets old, making "Ramona" wear out its welcome long before it should have.

Despite the best efforts of Plaza and the rest of the cast, Life After Beth never winds up being as scary or as funny as it ought to be.

McKenzie and Taylor-Joy are both affecting as two sides of not-quite-the-same coin. Their performances are the best thing about the film, which is good — but not as good as it might have been.

Daisy Edgar-Jones is affecting and effective as Kya, known to redneck townsfolk as “The Marsh Girl.” If only the filmmaking and screenwriting were as good as her performance. It’s really just a swampy Southern Gothic soap opera at heart, with designs on being something more.

If Sick isn’t a great COVID-inspired horror film, at least it’s a start.

Bill & Ted Face the Music is sweet and hopeful and, of course, kind of stupid, but that’s a big part of the point.

The Conjuring 2 won't make anyone forget the first film, but it's good enough that you'll hope they make another.

Suffice it to say that it's something that would make Austin Powers blush, baby, but it's not supposed to be funny.

It’s a jumbled, intriguing, inconsistent mess — and yes, it is uncomfortable by design.

The film’s intentions are noble enough, but its story doesn’t always live up to them.

Individually they are all good here, though Hardy's skills don't necessarily translate that well to romantic comedy -- which could have been used to good effect, but McG doesn't have the touch to pull that off.

It’s fun enough in places, outrageous (in mostly a good way) in others. Ultimately, however, the plot falters enough that it’s more like a two-hour audition for Great Actress. Chastain passes with flying colors, even if the movie doesn’t.

The problem with Peyton Reed's film is that when he shrinks the always-affable Paul Rudd, he shrinks a big part of Rudd's charisma, too.

Jensen has a real gift for comedic editing, knowing just how long to play out a bit and when to move on. And Mikkelsen goes all in with his performance (as does everyone else).

It’s not a disaster, and it doesn’t lack for ambition. But it’s wildly uneven and kind of blah, if that can be said of a movie with nonstop, often incoherent action, self-aware needle drops and not nearly enough smart-aleck quips from a cast we’ve seen deliver plenty of them in the past.

Melfi, who also wrote the script, goes for broke on the sappy front. It's a credit to Murray's skill — or maybe the strength of his personality — that he never submits completely to all the heart-string tugging.

Everest is a sprawling mess of a movie, one you feel like could have been great but instead roams all over the place and winds up being just pretty good.

It's an unnecessary movie, with some funny parts and a few callbacks to the original, as if visiting Las Vegas for a bit might bring back some of the original magic. It doesn't, but at least this time it seems like they're trying. A little, at least.