Blake Goble

Cohen still has it in fits and starts. That “pedo radar” from Who Is America really ruffled feathers. He’s a performer of chameleonic qualities; see his immersive, anarchic turn in The Trial of the Chicago 7 for a nice contrast. But applying his talents to a sporadically funny, 90-minute SNL political cold open of a film is a little bit of a bummer.

At 100 minutes, with just enough digital chutzpah to keep everyone reasonably amused and never quite annoyed, Dolittle is tolerably fine.

In holiday gift terms, it ain’t coal, and it ain’t a new car. It’s holiday socks, with a big ugly candy cane and some wavy text on it. Noelle’s cute for a minute, but you’re not going come back to this thing after January.

Even its ornamental excesses become beside the point, because the core conceit actually works. Boy, those George Michael songs bind the scenes together like Gorilla Glue. Nothing says quaint like Tom Ford storefronts, too. But these things fade into something warmer, grander, and even a bit telling.

Mister America aims for the acerbic pitch of a ‘70s alternative political farce like The Candidate, but the parting feeling is that it’s just an overdeveloped ramble. It’s not ha-ha funny, which is fine in the world of a muted humor like this. But like Heidecker’s campaign, it’s not entirely convincing as a satire either.

Nominal laughs plus three reliable actresses equals the very mediocre Otherhood.

It’s a sequel full of more that still feels like less.

What Skin lacks in history, context, or behavioral psychology, it compensates for with pure angst, dread, and guilt. It’s the human element, the bare skin as it were, that makes this film stand out. It’s a melodrama with characters that inspire interest, if not fondness.

Yesterday is too trusting, too confident in its silly dream, and not fun or passionate enough.

While the movie’s a letdown in the remake and modernization departments, it’s at least a modest success in terms of ebullient talent and frothy farce.

Peterloo is traditional, dryly historical, and all sorts of other Merchant-Ivory slang for stuffy and challenging.

Neil Marshall’s Hellboy is a monster mash, loud and proud. Just bring a mop.

To commend The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is reasonably easy. Here’s a film that’s pro-science, and sheds new light on a world that Western audiences don’t normally see. But it’s all so dramatically meager and obvious as well.

Marwen is too much, not enough, and yet still deeply watchable. It’s admirable for the wildly different approaches it takes. Only a stylist like Zemeckis could try something like this. Take a real man’s witty, real-life therapy-based photography and attempt to spin it into a mo-cap circus with every genre tool he can think of.

The Mule is a functional take on capitalism, work-life balance, and the creeping, overlong process that is aging. The tense moments click.

Mowgli is not entirely recommendable, but it’s not a total bust either.

Green Book means so well, and admittedly, it just gets by on its leads and its good humor.

Outlaw King is like watching prog versus metal. When it’s prog rock – folksy and wooden ­– it’s at its worst. Muted, draggy, earnest, with wee traces of carefully placed humor or commentary on a bygone era? It’s Moody Blues, and even a little Jethro Tull? Hardly worth putting on, unless you like your history slim and bone-dry. But at its best, it’s heavy metal, with swinging axes and church slayings and all sorts of grim goodies.

The movie’s merely the latest A-list comedy of this sort, is happy to live in the middle, and yet it frustratingly outwears its welcome because of a lack of creativity and sloppy structure.

The pleasure of good company is Robin’s occasionally winning quality.

Life of the Party exists in one of those unfortunate places where it’s easy to criticize, but McCarthy still makes you smile, and even laugh.

The steam runs out fast with one generic chase after the next, forgettable gunplay, and gory violence. Its ham-fisted double crosses and half-baked moral dilemmas amount to little.

Sure, it may be a little rote, and even thrifty, but it offers more than enough yuks to earn its way into your Netflix queue.

This is a mild return to franchise form, which is like saying that one of the descending plane’s jets started working again. Despicable? No. Deal-able? Sure.

Of course, there are still product placements, and lowbrow jokes, but there’s an empathetic streak in Sandy Wexler. And that’s something we haven’t seen from Sandler in a long time.

Life is like a box of mediocrity. You more-or-less know exactly what you’re gonna get. But for what it’s worth, Daniel Espinosa’s space shocker, while totally born from the same stars as many other films, still lands about half the time.

The movie is like a second verse, sung a little louder and just a little bit worse.

A passion project from the sing-talk god David Byrne, Contemporary Color is a concert film, but a finicky one, unstable and unfocused.

Patriots Day sits right on the line between exploitation and tribute. The star power is dicey, and the action relentless, but Berg means well and likes the people in his recount.

This Ben-Hur is closer to an ‘80s actioner about two men who once loved each other parting ways, only to reunite and settle their differences through vicious means.

Parents will nap, some kids will be amused, and the nerdiest viewers will have good reason to point out flaws in the movie’s not-so-intelligent designs.

A lot of fandom went into this, but Popstar is relentless to the point where it eventually becomes plodding.

Rio, I Love You is worth a passing look for its pot of talent.

After their muddled but well-meaning Tammy, McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone’s follow up is a superior mix of jokes, to the point that even when the film misses its mark, McCarthy and her crew wheel and deal to the bitter end.

Eddie the Eagle trips plenty, but Eddie, insufferable as he may be, represents the people that in spite of failure being visible at the bottom of a 90-meter ski drop, still take that leap.

A comedy of manners and femininity gets bisected by gnarly effects, and the two-tone approach works in its way.

"Jane" eventually comes alive, even if Jane never truly does.

If for one second you forget the diverging script, the weak direction, and Efron’s limitations, there’s something to be amused by with De Niro’s flagrantly foul-mouthed, horned-up grandfather figure.

There’s a laziness to The Road Chip, what with its mostly stale or needy jokes and cutesy plotting.

Here’s a film with all the right ingredients and a few too many wrong moves, yet one that’s admirable for trying as hard as it does.