Bill Goodykoontz

It’s a sobering reminder, during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, how undervalued Black lives have been, and for so long, in this country.

Fanning is nearly perfect as Ginger navigates choppier waters than most teens have to. There is not a false note in her performance; no matter how melodramatic things become, everything about Ginger remains genuine.

Massaging the facts to pump up the drama is a necessary evil in a film like this, but The 33’s cinematic beats are so familiar that they undercut the sense of realism that would make it more compelling.

Where In the Land of Blood and Honey falls short, then, is in the story itself. Too many coincidences and, ultimately, too narrow a focus. But it is a genuinely noble effort, a worthy attempt to make some sense of the inexplicable.

Monster is a good movie that could have been a better one. Mandler needs to trust both his film and his audience more. Give him points for trying, but he’s just trying too hard.

The biggest problem is the whiplash-inducing tonal shifts. Director Jeff Tomsic, working from a script by Mark Steilen and Rob McKittrick, swings from violent slapstick to tender moments in slapdash fashion. You can’t get a handle on it, though maybe that’s fitting in a movie about trying to keep from being tagged.

It's all very pleasant, very inspiring, just not very surprising.

It's a little too obvious -- interesting, sometimes kind of fun but, ultimately, not as satisfying as it might have been.

Ultimately it’s a sympathetic portrayal. Yes, people called her a clown, but The Eyes of Tammy Faye shows her as someone more complicated and much more interesting.

If you’re a literature junkie, and I cringe at typing the phrase because it sounds so quaint in a world of 140-character expressions of self, then the film has its fascinating moments. The performances aren’t really among them.

A lot of fun for horror fans, a nice little jaunt through paranoia and conspiracy theories.

It’s engaging at times and wonderful to look at, but feels like it’s on the cusp of something bigger. But whatever that bigger thing is, it never arrives.

There’s a danger in critiquing the movie you wish a director had made instead of the one they did, but in this case, Heller did make a horror film and then backed off from the horror aspects.

A mean-spirited little movie, investing its limited charms in all the wrong characters.

We’ve seen the elements that make up Paper Towns before, but that’s OK. Schreier proves adept at avoiding clichés, and is helped by his actors.

Really, the movie is the third cheeseburger, the fourth beer, the fifth ice-cream sandwich. It’s gluttony, which is kind of enjoyable when you’re in the middle of committing it but leaves you feeling sluggish and remorseful later when you’ve had time to think about it.

There’s no rescuing Non-Stop from its own worse impulses. The likable Neeson’s implausible second act as an action star continues, but not in a believable direction.

Morton is outstanding. The rest of the cast, which includes Rashida Jones and Bradley Whitford, is also good. Bernstein does a nice job moderating the tone of the film, which could have been depressing, but isn't.

Wants to scare you, but it can't quite seal the deal.

While Drive-Away Dolls is a literal journey, it doesn’t have the sense of reaching its destination in the same way…It’s not a road to nowhere — it’s better than that. But it’s also not the joy ride it could have been.

It's an uneven proposition, veering wildly from genuinely funny scenes directly into ridiculousness and back again. But every time Shawn Levy's movie makes that journey, it's harder to get back on solid footing.

There are many things to enjoy — a cat named Small Frank is up there pretty high for me, as is Pfeiffer’s performance. But it snows you under with a small army of quirky characters and situations.

It almost works. Actually, it does work, hitting the requisite number of hip notes. It just doesn’t dazzle, and that’s kind of a surprise.

Steadman is great fodder for a documentary, as he has continued to produce his signature works. But if you're going to make a movie about Ralph Steadman, make it about Ralph Steadman.

There are a couple of intriguing ideas floating around here and there, but that's all they do - float around, unmoored by any sense of reality and, thus, suspense.

You also get drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. By the time the movie is half over, you'll feel hungover.

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.

Taking the bad-cop genre to the extreme, Filth lives up to its title and then some, but a no-holds performance by James McAvoy is reason enough to watch.

Damon's portrayal is perfectly understated yet powerful. It's also sneaky; you don't realize how invested you've become in it until the final act, when the characters' stories merge in what seems like too much of a rushed coincidence.

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.

Jolie's performance so overshadows the rest of the cast (and the rest of the movie) that you sometimes feel as if the other characters are, like us, just standing around watching her. This is not, however, the fault of the other actors. It's the fault of screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who doesn't give them much to do that's challenging or interesting.

Most of all I enjoyed watching Bale and Melling together. Poe wants to impress Landor, who after all is a famous detective, but he just can’t help himself.

[Pacino] and Green sometimes overplay their hand. That is, overplay the underplaying, which sounds patently ridiculous but is the exact description warranted here.

The Man Who Knew Infinity is a good movie about a great subject, but one that should have been bett

It's outstanding work (Carell). It's also a really funny movie.

Dominik Moll downplays the overtly scandalous nature of the story, at least for a while, with a leisurely pace heavy on imagery. He’s made a beautiful-looking film that portends disaster. And disaster arrives, eventually. It just takes its time getting there.

The script feels not half-finished, but maybe three-quarters. Lawrence does what she can to make up the missing 25 percent, but even she can’t perform miracles.

The movie is content to simply mimic the old Stooges, bringing nothing new to the table.

What ultimately waters down a movie like Touchback, aside from a really sappy ending, is that we know the answers going in.

Smith’s performance, in which he resists the urge to go over the top, and the subject matter make Concussion an interesting movie, but not the urgent one it could have been.

Both the film and television project were directed by Martin Campbell. He creates a nice level of tension throughout, and there are a couple of legitimate shocks (including one jaw-dropper).

Granted, a trip to Jupiter is a long way to go to find yourself, and if this were the Sandler we see in movies like “Grown Ups,” it would be interminable. But with this version of Sandler, it’s a worthwhile trip.

It is all very respectful, all very serious, all very important-feeling and often a little dull. As such, it’s a good start for Portman, with promise of better things to come.

Some of the comic bits are a little too broad and silly, but Derbez, in his feature debut, makes Instructions Not Included a balancing act more successful than it should be.

It's an interesting premise, if a bit far-fetched for anyone who has spent long nights washing sheets and pillowcases that kids have thrown up on.

If you like your summer-movie explosions huge, Man of Steel delivers. But it seems as if it might have delivered even more than a glorious noise.

The filmmaking is gorgeous and unsettling, giving the Midwest of the early 1980s a Gothic feel. The acting is hit or miss — two performances stand head and shoulders above the rest — but it’s the story that never quite gels.

A funny, if slight, documentary.

Even with the revolving door of characters and plot developments, there are some laughs in Almost Christmas.

Cloud Atlas is ambitious in nature, epic in scope and, ultimately, a big, overstuffed mess. [24 Oct 2012]

Hitchcock is, well, fun. More fun than good, really. It feels weird to call it a disappointment, because it is entertaining. But you can't help feeling a little shortchanged on the deep-thinking front.

It seems hollow, somehow false, even by its own campy standards.

The problems with the narrative begin early. [Review of re-release]

The film whirs along with such entertaining efficiency that you may not realize that, by the end, it has shifted its blame in a manner that does not exactly betray a lack of courage in its convictions, but a willingness to let some of the bad guys off the hook.

There are some good ideas in there, even timely. But eventually, like everything else in the movie, they’re washed away in a sea of blood and a hail of bullets.

It doesn’t always make sense. But it is fascinating — and fun — to watch.

What the movie needs is a more coherent story. While keeping an audience off-kilter and disoriented is a worthy goal, particularly in a horror film, it’s got to add up to something. In this case it’s more like meandering.

The interviews throughout are the best part of the movie - the least heavy-handed, yet most effective, element. There is a message here of the necessity for tolerance, but 8: The Mormon Proposition would have been better had its makers presented it in a more consistent, artful fashion.

Wahlberg and Washington are so good together, quips flying as fast as lead, that much is forgiven.

It’s not as good, nor as involving, as “Love Actually.” But like that film, it has Bill Nighy, and that’s good for something.

Statham probably isn't going to be doing Shakespeare anytime soon. But everybody ought to be good at something, and when it comes to this kind of thing, Statham is very good, indeed.

This is grasping at something, or really at everything, everywhere, all the time. It feels like a bunch of unfinished ideas, despite the lengthy gestation period.

To say Violent Night isn’t for everyone overstates the obvious. But if you’re looking for a bracing antidote to Hallmark Christmas movie treacle overload, it’s a holiday treat.

There aren’t enough scares to keep you on edge in Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, but there’s enough else going on to keep you interested.

Logic devolves, cameos abound — there are two that are truly inspired, one of which involves legendary recasting — and lessons are learned.

There are some funny bits and a welcome shot of new blood, but there’s not a lot of overwhelming evidence for this movie’s need to exist.

The jokes only make up for the pedestrian plot for so long. There was a time when animated fare with generic stories sufficed. But now we expect more from them, because they have, pardon the pun, evolved. The Croods, like its title family, hasn’t.

As a film, it’s like science fiction, a visit to Planet Obscenely Wealthy. It is weirdly compelling.

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.

The cast is uniformly outstanding, a pleasure to watch. It's a more toned-down role for the often-fiery McAvoy, and it suits him.

The LEGO Ninjago Movie is a worthwhile entry into this growing universe, expanding it but not really evolving it. It’s fun, but not especially memorable.

The First Time sets out to be the thinking kids' teen sex comedy but misses the mark by failing its characters. [18 Oct 2012]

I like the glitter. And I like The Prom in a general kind of way. It’s just not the show-stopper it might have been.

It's ultimately Parks who carries Tusk, and carries it farther than it should have gone.

Barber uses various stylistic devices - hand-held cameras, cellphone cameras, etc. - that make a somewhat slow story seem to move at a brisker pace.

Both Garrel and Martin are good. And it’s important to note that Hazanavicius is quite adept at the comedic bits, as well as at the occasional more-serious scenes, which deal with the disintegration of the marriage. The problem is his inability to merge the disparate tones.

It’s so ridiculously overstuffed it’s kind of fun. That extends to, or perhaps begins with, the look of the film. It’s rich, overripe, yet still kind of seedy.

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

Song to Song isn’t the sleepy disappointment Malick’s last two films were, but it’s hard not to wish he’d wake up.

Old Goats is a nice little slice of life, even if it’s a (partly) fictional one.

His (Borte) film would have been much better had it stuck to its guns as social commentary and not lapsed into a predictable, and predictably lame, love story.

The acting is really good, particularly Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby. But boy, with a running time of nearly 21/2 hours and a near-constant bombardment of visual overstimulation, it’s exhausting.

I admire what Gyllenhaal attempts in The Bride! I was less satisfied with the execution.

One of the joys of a good Brian De Palma film is his willingness to go over the top. In a film that isn’t so good, that excess becomes a lot less enjoyable. And Passion isn’t so good.

The problem with V/H/S, a compilation of sometimes scary horror shorts loosely bound by an overarching plot, is that, no matter how savage, evil or sadistic the killer, the victims almost always come off as bigger jerks.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty just doesn’t work.

This is an incredibly creative film, but, unlike other Gondry films such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the documentary "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?" it doesn't add up to much.

Part of the problem is that, in trying to convey the chaos of abject fear, Espinosa makes it hard to figure out the architecture of the ship, so we don’t know where anyone’s running.

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.

Kosinski never manages full control of the film’s tone, which is essential in a story like this.

If you’re looking for a brisk, compelling story, maybe not. It’s as if there is a third version of this film, something in between the two in terms of tone and fan service, that would be the best way to tell this story. That’s unlikely to happen, of course. How many “Justice League” movies do we really need, anyway?

Joe Bell is a well-meaning film with a gripping story it can’t quite figure out how to tell.

Jersey Boys is a good movie, and the performances are first-rate. But Eastwood should have roughed things up a little more.

This is a talented cast working for a talented director in a film that never reaches the heights it should have.

Helped by good performances from Edgar Ramirez as Duran, Usher Raymond as Leonard and Robert De Niro as Duran’s trainer, Ray Arcel, the film chugs along well enough, but never rises close to boxing films like “Raging Bull” (few films do) or “Creed.”

Nicolai Fuglsig’s film does a nice job of capturing the fish-out-of-water nature of the American combatants. Chris Hemsworth is suitably heroic and Michael Shannon suitably intense. But if this movie was the only context you had for the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks, you’d walk out of the theater thinking that we won a quick war without suffering any casualties, that American gusto and bravery saved the day.

The best of the lot. It's not great, but the mean-spiritedness that permeated the first film and stuck around a bit for the second is mostly gone.

The incongruity is shocking at first but wears off after a while, making Strays a good and funny bet for stumbling over while channel-surfing (or whatever the streaming version of that is), but not a lot more.

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

LBJ, Rob Reiner's film, benefits greatly from an absolutely all-in performance by Woody Harrelson as the former president. But it also benefits from the current president, or at least the current administration.

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.

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.

It’s great that Moxie addresses so many issues, but this is a story that might have been told more effectively in a series. Ultimately though, it has powerful moments and it’s hard to complain too much about anything that introduces zines, Bikini Kill and the riot grrrl movement to another generation at a time it really needs it.

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.

The story probably doesn’t stand up to heavy scrutiny, and at times the effort by star and director shows. But at least the effort is there.

A Little Help is worth watching, mostly for Fischer.

Costner works hard, and it shows. That's even more true of Leary. Garner's stuck in a thankless role. Only Langella seems to be having unencumbered fun.

There's a lot of promise here, all over the film, and not just with Takahashi and Paige. Fans of "Fresh Off the Boat" know that Huang can be funny (though he didn't like it). It's nice to see him stretch out into more dramatic territory, even if he's not quite on as sure footing there. Certainly "Boogie" makes you want to see what's next.

It’s stupid by design, but it’s not stupid enough. … It plays like an idea in search of a film. Desperately in search of, and never quite finding it.

The film . . . is good, not great; it never quite marries the skewering of New York elites with the true-crime feel of its grittier elements. But the performances keep it mostly on track.

It’s a fun movie, a nicely made Western in which bad guys get to be good guys sometimes. Maybe that should be enough, but you can’t help wanting more.

It just sort of chugs along in predictable fashion, bolstered by a couple of good performances here, thrown off-track every now and then by implausible or unearned developments there, but overall a decent effort.

It’s got an interesting structure — it’s not just about catching a killer but also about revealing Deke’s story. But it ultimately suffers for that, the dueling narratives not blending together so much as competing. Of course, you could do worse than watch actors like Washington, Malek and Leto work. But at the end of The Little Things, you feel like you could do better, too.

Beyond the shooting and running around, the film works because Beattie never loses the perspective of Ellie Linton (Caitlin Stasey), through whose eyes the story is told.

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.

It’s more serviceable than inspired, but “Dark Fate” gets by on nostalgia. It’s just nice to see Schwarzenegger and Hamilton together again.

Tucci and Eve command the screen throughout, shifting tone and intensity as they go. It’s fascinating. So is the film, well worth watching and arguing over. Which, in LaBute’s hands, is doubtless the point.

It's wrenching stuff. If bits and pieces feel contrived (and they do), overall the message is strong — and important.

A Single Shot never rises to the level of a great film like “Winter’s Bone,” which digs much deeper in its depiction of life in the hills among the desperate poor. But thanks largely to Rockwell, it’s not bad, either.

It delivers its considerable moments of terror in the same way the original film did. But it does deliver.

The Dead Don’t Die isn’t bad, exactly. It’s just that with all this talent and all this beautiful weirdness at hand, it could have been so much better.

Now this is a scary movie. And, given that it's a horror film, that means it's a good one. [18 Oct 2012]

Carroll purists and freshman English majors may be aghast at the change in story, but for those who watched "Avatar" and marveled at the images but were left wanting by the wooden acting and tired story, "Alice" is a treat.

There are moments of real power and beauty in Ava DuVernay’s film, based on the much-loved Madeleine L’Engle novel. You just have to work too hard to find them.

The Big Year is better when it is examining the obsession of the birders, and Martin, Black and Wilson are enjoyable in toned-down mode.

These supremely talented women are put through embarrassing paces by director and co-writer Bill Holderman. It’s meant to be a film about a reawakening of desire, and thus life. It turns out to be a wince-inducing mess.

I'm all for directors making audiences think, but ultimately, those thoughts need to lead us somewhere. "To the Wonder" didn't, to my mind. I'm not sure Knight of Cups does, either.

Allen builds to a climax that is ridiculous and a comment on … I don’t know. Fate? Folly? There are plenty of both in Irrational Man, but they’re not often a comfortable mix.

Without an actor like Dafoe at its center (and margins and everywhere else), it would be unwatchable torture. With him, it’s more like watchable torture, easier to admire than enjoy.

How do you end the most iconic franchise of all time? (Don’t panic, there will be more movies, just not a part of this particular universe.) You end it by trying to please everyone. Which can make it hard to please anyone. But Abrams is a crowd-pleaser and a good one. He’s made a film that is unquestionably entertaining and wraps things up in a way that will make fans happy.

Grunberg and Boyar have a charming, if broad, chemistry. It’s all kind of cheesy, of course, but it’s meant to be. And the effects, when not deliberately silly, aren’t bad.

The story is gripping, compelling. One wonders what De Niro might have done with such a role 30, 35 years ago. De Niro -- whatever happened to him?

Scott's epic - and it's hard to think of anything this big, this elaborate and, no doubt, this expensive as anything but - is very much an origination story, a prequel, if you will.

Eventually, the film morphs from a horror movie to a border shootout. It’s not a seamless transition.

Emancipation, Antoine Fuqua’s well-meaning and graphic depiction of an enslaved man who escapes in search of Lincoln’s army and freedom for himself and his family, is a mostly affecting, no-holds-barred look at degradation, inhumanity and, ultimately, inspiration. But at times — too many times — Emancipation also plays like an action-adventure movie.

In fact, the problem with the film is that, despite an excellent cast that includes Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy and Rupert Everett, it doesn't really know what it is. A little of this, a little of that and by the time it's done, it adds up to not much at all.

There are too many explosions, too many blaring sonic effects, too many break-ups-and-make-ups, too many villains. And not enough heart.

The actors are having fun here and, for a while, so will the audience. But the payoff just isn’t there. It’s not-a-stake-through-the-heart disappointment, but the only eternal life Renfield will enjoy is in late-night channel surfing.

Free State of Jones is a well-intentioned slog through a potentially fascinating bit of Civil War history, brought to life only by Matthew McConaughey’s performance, and then only occasionally.

Director Mark Waters manages to wring some charm out of the film, and out of Carrey.

If the cast wasn’t so talented and so committed to doing some heavy lifting, Finding Your Feet would be a gigantic misstep.

The voices are outstanding; the story demands British accents, and with such people as Caine and Smith providing them, so much the better.

It’s too bad The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It isn’t a vampire story, because the filmmakers are bleeding this franchise dry.

It's stupid, then it veers toward the absurd, but with James at its center it remains sort of sweet throughout. You can't hate James or the movie; both are just sort of dopey but well-meaning.

The beauty of Kurt Warner’s story is that it’s so unlikely it’s nearly impervious to clichés. The strength of American Underdog, Andrew and Jon Erwin’s film about Warner’s life in football and with his wife, Brenda, is that they realize this and let the story speak for itself.

It’s a weird little genre, the sick-teen romance. “Five Feet Apart” winds up as just a pedestrian entry in it, because it tries way too hard on the melodrama front. Being a teenager is difficult enough. Being a sick teenager is presumably that much harder. Being a teenager in “Five Feet Apart” means suffering from something else, in addition: overkill. And that’s deadly.

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

Its over-the-top violence is cartoonish at times, menacing at others - which is a good thing. And truly, if one must wander a barren, post-apocalyptic landscape with somebody, who better to wander with than Denzel Washington?

One of the things that pushes Jig beyond what it might have been otherwise is that not everything works out as you might have liked.

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.

It’s an interesting film, no question. But too much of the message gets lost in the medium.

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.

Writer and director Mark Elijah Rosenberg paces things patiently, which in some cases is a polite way of saying there are boring stretches.

Unfortunately, the plot as a whole is rushed, with character-development shortcuts and one whopping out-of-the-blue development that seems to exist not as a surprise but because the filmmakers had painted themselves into a narrative corner and needed a way out. But there are some scares, and Cooper and especially Guido give authentic-feeling performances — again, with a few shortcuts along the way.

Director Jamie Payne keeps things moving, certainly, and the action is appropriately gruesome. But you can see where a little more time to tell the story would have helped.

It wants to be oh-so-serious, and it never lets us forget how hard it’s trying.

Comparisons are unfair and inevitable. But even when taken on its own terms, the new Carrie rings hollow, a horror movie that is unsure of itself, with little to offer the uninitiated and less to offer fans of the first film.

The elements are in place for a decent little movie, but Loach overplays everything, offering nothing in the way of surprises. Bobby’s supposed transformation isn’t particularly revelatory, but then, neither is anything else.

Gordon is an eclectic director, and he has trouble with the tone here. It’s not that cynicism can’t evolve into something more useful in film. It’s that the reasons should be more convincing.

There is a hazy, gauzy quality to all of this, which keeps things just out of reach. Certainly, it looks like a lot of fun to be young, beautiful and rich in Naples. But Parthenope is also out of reach, almost an idea as much as a character. What that idea is I’m not quite certain.

In addition to the performances — truly, everyone is good — what stands out is Sachs' direction. It's measured, patient. The scenes play out as one imagines the characters' lives would.

If Eastwood wanted to use the real men, a documentary would have been just as powerful and more dramatically satisfying. Instead, the acting is distracting. The film’s intentions are sterling. Its execution, not so much.

Blackhat is a mess of a movie from Michael Mann, a would-be cyberthriller slowed by stupidity and sabotaged by a stunningly silly subplot.

Give credit to Esmail, however, for coming up with an inventive way to tell the story, even if the execution doesn't live up to the idea. He shows great confidence as a director, and the film has a unique look, with heightened reality providing clues that this really is a different world, or worlds, even.

Despite all of the unlikely scenarios and dubious plot developments, Plummer shines. There are moments here when we understand why he took the role, and many more when we are glad he did. But not enough to make Remember a better movie all the way around.

Writer and director Nathalie Biancheri’s film explores the lives of those living as “The Other,” outside society’s norms. It requires commitment on the part of the actors and the audience. It’s a worthwhile investment.

Ultimately Coming 2 America isn’t a sequel that ruins the original. But it doesn’t improve upon it, either.

Citizen Koch is undisciplined and depressing, yet still strangely worthwhile.

Fast-moving, stylish and gritty, but also predictable. [25 Oct 2012]

Eternals isn’t a bad movie. It’s just not a particularly satisfying one, its scale proving untamable, even for Zhao.

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.

There are some things to admire in the film, based on the French movie "Pour Elle," most of which involve developments that would give too much away.

Maggie has some rough edges — what caused the epidemic, for instance? — but it's still a worthwhile effort, especially for a first-time director. And for an old pro like Schwarzenegger, trying something different and succeeding.

It looks nice, but it's not really going anywhere.

The results of her work are predictable yet pleasantly played out.

This is a first-rate cast in a second-rate story with some entertaining bits and some maddening holes. That combination works for late-night channel surfing. Anywhere else, not so much.

You come to this movie hoping that Johnson and Hart make you laugh. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. The hit-to-miss ratio is higher than you might expect, and both actors could accurately be described as pleasant, if not especially creative.

No blood, no gore, no hacked-off arms and legs, but plenty of creepy set pieces, quick cuts and blasts of music that will have you both squirming in your seat and jumping out of it. Until the bone-headed part kicks in.

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 performances, even from some really good actors, are wooden, the huge CGI effects are a distraction and the best thing about the movie is the one thing that, other than the casting, will probably make the most people angry: God is a kid.

The franchise... concludes with a genuinely stirring ending. ... But [Stewart's] acting hasn't improved, and the dialogue remains laughable. Bad actress, bad lines. Bad combination.

To pretend that the film’s pleasures are more than modest is just that — pretending.

Everything, Everything is a flawed film in many ways, but there is one that’s a deal breaker: It doesn’t make you cry.

A fast-starting film that quickly piles meta, self-referential elements on top of each other until they no longer make much sense, and the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own coolness.

Add romantic chemistry to the list of things that fall flat in the film, alongside dialogue and acting.

It feels flat, disjointed, with too many moving parts.

There is a gentleness, both to Allyn’s performance and to the film overall, that draws the audience in. The movie’s path is as predictable as Jackson’s, but it’s beautifully shot and the idea is a good one — reversing the typical border-crosser-on-the-run idea. That doesn’t forgive all of its shortcomings, but it comes close.

It comes down to a matter of tone, and Clooney can’t really settle on one. The Monuments Men is in no way a bad movie. Just, with this bunch, a disappointing one.

Rudderless is a quietly ambitious film, and if it eventually collapses under the dramatic weight it's asked to shoulder — and it does — at least it's trying.

If you’re going to keep your audience guessing, you need to provide them with answers they care about. Beckett doesn’t.

The film looks terrific, with a fantastical forest coming to 3-D life. Swooping birds, flying arrows and more make good use of the technology. But the best films use technology as a storytelling device, not as a substitute for story itself.

Too often Washington is made to simply sit and observe -- which is not a fatal mistake because he is such a good actor that even then he's worth watching. Worse, though, at times he's gone altogether. That's not the only flaw in the fairly straightforward thriller, but it's the biggest.

The elements are all there. They’re just thrown together in haphazard fashion. A funny scene here, an attempt at a touching scene there, toss, repeat randomly, the end.

Even with the talent involved, almost everything about Labor Day plays less like something you’d buy a ticket to watch and more like something you’d buy in an airport bookstore to read.

Thanks to a good cast and a willingness to stray fairly far afield from the source material, it’s better than you might think.

Matthias Hoene’s delightfully chipper film delivers, even on the “not-a-lot-more” front. He set out to make a funny, fast-moving gross-out zombie flick, nothing beyond that, and he has succeeded with style. And humor. And guts. Lots of spilling, dangling guts (and other body parts).

The Intern is idiotic, unrealistic, Boomer wish fulfillment that has no business working on any level. I quite enjoyed it.

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.

There's nothing bad about Skateland, in fact, particularly for those old enough to remember the clothes, the feathered hair and the soundtrack. There's just nothing new, or anything that hasn't been done before, and better.

J.A. Bayona's film never figures out what it wants to be, casting about for a coherent tone. Thanks in large part to Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow's script, it doesn't find one. But at least it has some fun making the effort.

The film is visually striking, even if the images don’t always make sense.

Ribisi has become the go-to guy for movie psychos, giving everything to performances like this one or as Moburg, the dissolute reporter in "The Rum Diary."

It never quite takes off in a stirring, inspirational way, but moves steadily forward in solid fashion.

Although there are moments of humor in the film, many of them supplied by the delightful Jones, there are also long stretches of, um . . . "blah" might be the best word for it.

Due Date should be a disaster, derivative of every road-trip movie you've ever seen. What prevents that are the efforts of the two stars.

While Cuaron’s technical chops are beyond question, his storytelling could use some honing here.

The balance between spunky kid film, buddy movie, comic book adventure and rugged violence is, as you might guess, difficult to find. But it’s kind of fun to watch “Project Power” try.

Johnson is his usual amiable self, but the best thing about the movie is Campbell.

It's a maudlin, superficial exercise in obsession masquerading as a heartfelt romance and study of grief, and character development is sorely lacking. Although well-acted, particularly by Annette Bening, the story feels contrived.

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.

The film, directed and co-written by Kevin Reynolds ("Fandango," um, "Waterworld"), is a nice-enough telling of the Resurrection of Jesus, which at times seems like it also wants to be a Very Special Episode of "CSI: Jerusalem." It's well-made and well-acted.

So sickeningly sweet dentists should show it in their waiting rooms to ensure business, the film just isn’t very good, even by treacly holiday film standards.

Rough Night has a couple of halfway good ideas, but they never add up to a whole.

Reynolds is a good actor but he's miscast. Mirren is great, and she makes Woman in Gold better than it otherwise would have been. Still, it's just kind of boring and straightforward, even if its inspiration is not.

The premise wears thin after a while and the humor is hit-and-miss, but when it's on its game The Wedding Video can be laugh-out-loud funny.

Me Before You is enjoyable in places, and Claflin eventually gives his character some depth beyond simply being angry. But the film exists mostly as a tear-production delivery system.

The script, by Bill Dubuque, goes sideways in a hurry. Characters do inexplicable things for no reason other than advancing the plot, and sometimes not even that. There is a jaw-dropping coincidence that is as ridiculous as it is obvious.

Trolls World Tour isn’t a great movie, but it’s not an awful one, either — and maybe most importantly, it’s a new movie, one you can watch right now without leaving your house.

It's a modestly interesting coming-of-age movie, and a totally forgettable mystery.

Broadway Idiot is entertaining enough. Certainly if you’re a Green Day fan, it’s something close to essential. But it never goes too deeply into anything.

A pretty good action movie for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately, it lasts 106.

Nothing seems real here, with everything too broadly drawn.

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.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates gives us too much hangover and not enough buzz.

The best thing “Day Shift” has going for it is the best things the dopey ’80s films had going for them — a willingness not to take itself too seriously. And that only gets you so far. But who knows, maybe in 40 years this will look better in retrospect, too.

An improvement over its predecessor.

The real hero here is Joss Whedon, who directs the film with a fanboy's enthusiasm and a thorough knowledge of the genre.

Despite a couple of powerful performances, a big-name cast and an ambitious structure, Lovelace...feels oddly half-baked, almost unfinished.

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.

It's all too much, and it's too hard to follow. Less is more, and this movie proves it.

Tremendously entertaining.

It’s good, it’s intriguing, but in the end it’s nothing to howl about.

Overall, Kill the Irishman is an entertaining look at a brutal time in an ugly place.

True Story never really soars in the way it might, but the performances more than keep it aloft.

A jumbled, messy movie that has some winning moments but jumps around too much to hold your interest for long.

The story takes some unexpected turns, which Crowe handles well, without overplaying them. Overall, The Water Diviner is a solid effort, a good, old-fashioned movie when it's not delving into soap opera.

To say The Marvels is all over the place is to imply that there is an anchor to it somewhere. There’s not.

It leads exactly where we think it will on a sometimes funny, ultimately predictable, journey.

Song One is an odd little movie. It seems as if there is more going on than there is, which you realize after it's over. As pleasant diversions in the moment go, however, you could do much worse.

There's no question that Black women are underrepresented in movies. There's also no question that when they get a chance to perform, they deserve a better movie than For Colored Girls.

Spare Parts is the kind of feel-good underdog movie that almost can't help getting waylaid by cliches.

Just slam the pedal to the floor, blast on past the weaknesses in the plot, and enjoy the ride.

Good intentions can only take you so far. So it is with Freeheld, a well-meaning movie whose sterling intentions, timely and provocative subject and terrific cast are muted to near oblivion by uninspired storytelling and direction.

In effect this is a pretty standard overcoming-adversity story, particularly with the more politically oriented social observations removed. What isn’t standard is the acting.

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.

I appreciated the effort Delpy, directing her sixth feature, puts forth in trying to spice up the genre. But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.

Racer and the Jailbird, the inelegantly translated title of “Le Fidele,” is a first-rate caper movie. It’s also a pretty good romance. And a boring, suffocating melodrama.

The trouble with a movie like Jungle Cruise is the comparison it invites. And in this case, the ride is better.

I like movies like “Rosario” — creepy little horror films with enough scares to keep you on edge and enough of a story to keep you invested.

As with nearly everything else in The Campaign, a little goes a long way, until it finally just goes on too long, period.

There are a couple of good performances and a few funny bits, but mostly the film just bounces back and forth until coming to a flat, trite close.

It’s not just that the jokes aren’t funny, or that they’re given to genius comic actors like Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus to deliver — which has to be some kind of pop-culture crime — the bigger issue is that there's not a single instance of recognizable human behavior in the entire film.

A flawed script prevents Welcome to the Rileys from being the effective meditation on grief and healing it wants to be.

There are scenes here and there that are worthy, but many that aren't. Lipsky tries to use dialogue to cover up weaknesses in other areas - such as why these people behave the way they do. Some of the movie is inviting, some of it off-putting.

Now You See Me is a movie about magic, but its most astonishing trick is how little mileage it gets out of a stellar cast.

The audience should be given game controllers upon entering the theater. It wouldn't mean the film would make any more sense, but at least you'd feel like you had some say in the matter.

Exactly what it sounds like: a cowboy movie and an alien movie thrown together, a genre mash-up that's more fun than good, but pretty good nonetheless.

It’s exceptionally well made, daring and experimental, with a powerful performance from Ana de Armas at its center. At its everything, really — she dominates the film, as well she should. But the film is also too long, too self-indulgent, just too much. It is a marathon of misery.

The story is the problem here, devolving into a ridiculous situation that produces far more groans than chills or thrills.

The tone is so uneven, the shifts so jarring, that they overtake the movie’s modest pleasures.

It’s not fair to either of these actors to want to see Rocky and the Terminator over and over again. But it is fair to want to see them in something better than this.

You can't help leaving the film with the following thought: Man, it's good to see Murphy being funny again.

Unfortunately Jean-Marc Vallée’s film doesn’t measure up to Gyllenhaal’s performance.

This is a stunningly accurate portrayal of our current climate. And it’s not pretty.

What raises it a notch above the typical slick Hollywood romances are its stars, Ludivine Sagnier and Nicolas Bedos.

The director is known for visually quirky choices and offbeat interviews and asides. These techniques can be a mixed bag; sometimes they help lighten up a deadly serious segment, other times they seems silly. But it’s distinctive, and “This Is Us” could have used more of it.

TRON: Legacy may well satisfy the fanboys who have waited almost three decades for its appearance. Enjoy. Who knows, maybe one day if you wait long enough they'll make a "Super Mario Bros." sequel, too.

While this version, listed as a "prequel," has a few gross-out moments, it lacks any sense of warmth. Which might be an odd criticism of a horror movie set in Antarctica, but there you have it.

Instead of delving into the moral questions WikiLeaks asks by its very existence, Condon gives those a passing nod in a couple of weak subplots.

American Reunion depends more on the audience's feelings for recognizable characters than telling an original story, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

One of those message movies that never uses subtlety when a sledgehammer is handy.

Gosling and Evans are movie stars, no doubt about it. How far that charisma can take a film is a question “The Gray Man” asks and answers: pretty far, but not far enough.

The story simply doesn't stand up, with its combination of well-worn plot elements and confusing red herrings -- or maybe they're just details that don't add up.

Director McG proves perfectly adept at blowing things up in interesting ways, but there's not so much acting here as there is yelling at different volumes.

It's all well done and cute and forgettable.

Trouble is, it all adds up to . . . not much.

Director David Leitch’s film, based on the novel by Kôtarô Isaka, is a hyper-stylized, hyper-violent action film that rarely comes up for air. It’s also a big ol’ mess. Although everyone involved seems to be having a good time.

The star wattage is blinding, but the film fizzles out.

It all adds up to a decent movie — one that, for those in the know, stands in the shadow of a better one.

Owen and Binoche both are quite good, rising above the material for the most part. But even they can't save the film from itself, or from an ending that's downright bizarre.

In the end, How to Make a Killing is fine, fun, a nice diversion starring, if no longer the flavor of the month, then a good actor elevating the material around him.

It’s easy to roll your eyes at what we see in “One Track Heart,” but harder to dismiss the happiness and peace on display here.

Lola Versus isn't a bad movie. It's just not a particularly noteworthy one. It's too self-consciously ... everything.

Director and co-writer Terry George (“Hotel Rwanda”) tries his best to give the film an epic sweep, but he substitutes quantity of plot threads for quality of story.

There are some funny parts, of course, because the cast is so talented. But it’s too much work for too little payoff — sound and fury signifying nothing. Nothing but Minion fart jokes.

Director Ruben Fleischer, who directed Eisenberg in the worlds-better "Zombieland," never finds that kind of successful groove here, instead bouncing from one set piece to another, with vastly inconsistent results.

The action is entertaining enough, and it's kind of fun to follow the intricate plotting and planning of the jobs.

McConaughey has become one of the more interesting actors around, someone whose next role is always worth checking out. But in Gold, the balance is off somehow — he’s acting up a storm, but a muddled story and hard-to-figure character ultimately betray him.

There is an engrossing, important story at the heart of 7 Days in Entebbe. Unfortunately, it only shows up intermittently.

There's just nothing magical about the story, nothing that lifts it above its status as an agreeable song-and-dance movie, a laugh here, a laugh there, pleasant but overly busy, for seemingly no real reason other than to throw a few more set pieces at the wall to see what sticks.

Live by Night is a mess. It’s got some interesting elements that Affleck, who wrote the script based on a Dennis Lehane novel, surprisingly can’t pull together. And, it must be said, his performance in the lead role isn’t up to snuff.

The elements of a good story are here, and the talent to tell it is more than willing. The movie just never quite gets there.

Inkheart is entertaining enough, if not always easy to follow. And if it does nothing else, at least it may inspire kids to read, if for no other reason than to help make sense of it all.

[Jennifer Aniston's] performance in Cake is rightly being praised as a dramatic breakthrough (no one doubts her comedic chops). She's really good. It's just too bad the movie does her no favors.