Brian Lowry

Given a chance to step up in class, the actor turned director has assembled a topnotch cast, but in a story that teases the buildup a bit too long and doesn’t pay it off very neatly; indeed, the ending becomes what the movie’s driving force speaks of endeavoring to avoid – namely, chaos.

A thinly sketched out, wildly violent satire, one that rather cynically uses the current backdrop of partisan tribalism as the hook for an old-time exploitation piece.

Despite some amusing moments, everyone simply works too hard at providing rambunctious zaniness, until one grows painfully aware the inevitable outtakes reel will be superior to the movie.

While the film says something that matters, for a show whose press notes proclaim it a "generation-defining Broadway phenomenon," a great deal appears to have been lost in translation.

You People relies on cringe-inducing moments as the crux of its comedy, as a Jewish guy and a Black Muslim woman (neither of them particularly observant) get engaged, then endure the push and pull of their respective families. A topnotch cast – down to the tiny cameos – can’t fully redeem material that gets lost somewhere between satire and sitcom as assembled by star Jonah Hill and director Kenya Barris.

Do Revenge isn’t about stretching conventions but rather simply finding another wrinkle on what has become an established formula. It does that, but for a movie where the characters speak often about their Ivy League aspirations, creatively speaking it lands more in the safety-school category.

With Bette Midler and her onscreen sisters shamelessly hamming things up, it looks as if those involved in making this inoffensive flight of fantasy had more fun than anyone over 12 will have watching it. Still, the blend of witchcraft and comedy should divert kids without driving the patience of their parents to the boiling point, leaving a chance to conjure up a little box office magic among that contingent before the pot tips over.

Bullet Train certainly moves at an appropriately brisk pace, with Brad Pitt heading a sprawling cast. But the breakneck action is offset by a smart-alecky tone that proves both uneven and occasionally too cute for its own good, along with a mashup of styles – from the music to the visuals – that comes across like a Quentin Tarantino wannabe, with a dash of “Deadpool” for good measure.

Penguin Bloom is harmless enough as family fare goes, which counts for something, with an inspirational message for these trying times. The real drawback lies in how the story flits around in the telling and seems unable to choose a lane, leaving a movie that feels as if it's neither fish nor fowl.

Ant-Man is a somewhat ironic choice for a very, very big job: Kicking off the next phase of Marvel movies. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania works on one key level, establishing Kang the Conqueror as a truly formidable and worthy villain. Yet with its plunge into inner space, “Ant-Man” comes up short in almost every other way that matters.

Spaceman feels a little too weighty in its reliance on emotional cliches. Whether that’s ultimately due to the underlying material or the heavy hand brought to translating it, the net effect is a failure to launch.

An awkward, uneven film, with writer-director Taika Waititi conjuring some touching moments, but unable to pull off the magic act this "Rabbit" trick requires.

Long Live Rock finally feels like an ode to this tribal art form that doesn't possess much appeal, despite its intentions, to those outside the tribe.

Tom Holland's kinetic performance is impressive, but it's in the service of an uneven film that too self-consciously works at mirroring the form of a novel.

Deftly serves old wine in an equally old bottle.

An R-rated gals-night-out comedy that, thanks to the talented cast, delivers a few genuinely amusing moments, but which falls a couple of glasses of chardonnay short of being a good time.

Another demonstration of the hazards involved turning a six-minute animated short into a big budget movie, Casper will doubtless spur nostalgic recognition among grown-ups but skews so heavily toward children that it offers little to divert anyone over the age of 8.

Despite the gravity of the situation (or lack thereof), the promising idea feels too weightless in the spare, underdeveloped execution, operating at the edges of a good movie without reaching that orbit.

The movie rises and falls on Monroe and Withers’ workmanlike performances, leaving it to the heart-tugging subject matter, mostly, to carry it across the finish line.

In essence, this one is the equivalent of the "B" movies that flourished during the original's era -- and it proves middling, and occasionally muddled, on almost every level.

Blue Beetle tends to fare best in its smaller moments, which merely reinforces the concept’s limitations thanks in part to the sheer glut of similar fare driven by streaming. The cultural specificity is also an asset but feels rushed in a format that, unlike the pacing of a series, creates a greater imperative to get to the next battle.

This tepid romantic comedy falls somewhere between a weak sitcom pilot and a second-tier Hallmark movie.

“Horizon” tells such a sprawling story that this introductory chapter, despite strong moments, proves especially scattered, rolling out numerous characters on separate fronts without connecting them.

For an actor known for having led his crew as it boldly explored humankind’s final frontier, “You Can Call Me Bill,” somewhat disappointingly, takes its extensive access to Shatner and doesn’t go much of anywhere.

The formula is obviously full of potential, which explains why writers keep returning to it, from “50 First Dates” to the recent Andy Samberg movie “Palm Springs.” Yet the concept is also fraught with peril.

Black Beauty gives the original Victorian novel a significant makeover, a contemporary remake that relocates the story to the American West. The movie delivers a more pointed animal-rights message, but while its equine star fares well enough, the two-footed characters never really get out of the starting gate.

Despite a few raw moments, pic feels like a Lifetime movie with a marquee cast.

Director David Frankel's picture delivers sweet and (more rarely) amusing moments, but this odd duck never completely gets off the ground.

Director Ridley Scott's lavish production isn't totally satisfying, coasting aimlessly at times before suddenly leaping to a more intense dramatic plane.

Excise the love story, and there's a pretty good movie buried within Love Happens struggling to get out, mostly to little avail.

Such fare plays better on DVD, where the best moments can be absorbed in bite-sized bits and the debris easily bypassed.

Despite similarities as a vigilante creature of the night, however, the Shadow — a character that enjoyed its greatest success in radio after being created in pulp novels — lacks the visceral appeal of Batman and won’t strike the same chord with moviegoers.

The movie’s earnestness can’t wriggle away from the pretty powerful temptation to tap out.

It's the uninspired writing, more than the general template, that keeps the movie from finding its stride.

The term “crowd-pleasing” is frequently overused, but it applies to this — the latest in a line of so-so baseball movies, which serves up its corn so unabashedly it’s hard to take offense at its sappiness.

A vehicle with roughly the weight of a stiff breeze.

Uncharted drops toward the wrong end of the chart every time Holland and Wahlberg engage in juvenile bickering, which alas is all too often. The one strange thing is that the funniest insult they exchange appears in the trailer but not the actual movie, and any good dialogue here is too rare to wind up on the cutting-room floor.

Simon Kinberg has worked on scripts for three previous X-Men films, and with his promotion here to writer and director, approaches the material with considerable conviction, as well as plenty of callbacks to the earlier movies. What he can't do, at least consistently, is make this story pop, or prevent the inevitable showdown -- with multiple parties engaged in a massive battle -- fully engaging, as opposed to devolving into a sort-of chaotic mess.

Despite nice touches, pic meanders in the middle and ends flatly.

An overinflated mishmash that compels the audience to sift through a lot of rubble for the few requisite thrills, this second "Die Hard" sequel leaves a lot of creative wreckage in its wake.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is less a coda to the franchise than a muted riff on it, an encore without much of a purpose. What drew director Steven Soderbergh back to material this thin is anybody’s guess, but if strippers like to talk about making it rain, this third and (for now) final entry creatively speaking yields more of a drizzle than a downpour.

While it’s fun seeing “The Breakfast Club” as they near “The Early-Bird Dinner Club” years, this is one of those projects that would have benefited from a more journalistic tone.

The bizarre prospect of Macaulay Culkin as a latter-day "bad seed" should prompt enough curiosity to generate initial box office visits, but this peculiar thriller doesn't deliver enough jolts to leave the audience screaming.

Best in its small moments, the movie should find receptive gal pals congregating for the mother of all viewing parties.

The casting alone should spur interest in The Devil All the Tim -- Batman (Robert Pattinson) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland), together at last -- but can't make the movie feel like less of a slog. Adapting Dale Ray Pollock's grim novel, awful characters proceed along parallel tracks, en route to a whole lot of violence and unpleasantness.

Built atop a provocative-sounding title and premise, The American Society of Magical Negroes starts and ends quite well. Almost everything in between, alas, proves uneven and inert in a way that dilutes its satirical punch, making this an interesting introduction for first-time writer-director Kobi Libii but a less than satisfying one.

Indian in the Cupboard is yet another example that Hollywood can make movies in which critics of sex and violence can find nothing to complain about. It’s also a reminder that family values can be, well, kind of boring.

Vin Diesel doesn't drive that fast, but he's plenty furious in "Bloodshot," and with good reason. Adapted from a comic book, the movie casts the heavily muscled star as a zombie killing machine, in what amounts to a superhero origin story with more twists than expected, but ultimately a simple-minded excuse for lots and lots of action.

What starts out crisp and promising gives way to a conventional shoot-'em-up in Safe, a fast-paced but extremely familiar vehicle for Jason Statham, who can only carry the material so far on his brawny shoulders.

Whatever the A.I. judge’s verdict, this human one says to wait for streaming.

It's mildly diverting for kids and families in a way that would be perfectly fine as an ABC Family cable project.

A muddled effort that offers little more than visual splendor to recommend it.

Thanks to the power of the subject matter and Day's knockout performance, The United States vs. Billie Holiday is worth seeing. But the film is generally at its best when watching, and listening to, the lady sing.

Director Doug Liman churns out a serviceable sci-fi thriller/videogame template that plays like "The Matrix Lite" and, finally, isn't nearly as cool as its trailer.

Chris Farley's first star turn is loaded with fat jokes, excrement gags and other banality, but also offers more goofy charm than most of its recent brethren -- which is to say, not much.

The Program starts in a fourth-down situation by being a sports movie with virtually no one for whom the audience can root — a major drawback, no matter how hackneyed those “Rocky”-ized finishes have become. Instead, Ward and co-writer Aaron Latham seek to indict big-time college football through a collection of cliches (money-doling boosters, steroid abuse, academic negligence , shady recruiting practices) and still want us to care about whether these players and coaches win the big game.

Running With the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee suffers from zooming in too close on its subject, leaving a documentary that’s chaotic and exhausting but offers less enlightenment than a more sober approach might have yielded.

As underdog car-racing movies go, think of “Gran Turismo” as “Nerd v. Ferrari.” Solidly assembled but less stirring than it should be – in part because it takes too many laps – the film moves, ironically, too slow to deliver as a big-screen attraction but might fare better with its eventual pitstops on at-home platforms.

Handsome but hollow, Snow White & the Huntsman is easily among the stranger additions to a roster of rebooted fairy tales.

Director Miguel Sapochnik ("Game of Thrones") does what he can to wring the maximum amount of emotion out of this unlikely trio, finding moments of tenderness and humor in their interactions.

Unfortunately, Four Good Days doesn't really give anyone beyond its central duo anything much to do, and even they're largely saddled with trying to class up the equivalent of a Lifetime movie.

Burr’s fans will doubtless find plenty to like in “Old Dads,” even if the movie sandpapers down his rough edges and causes him to question his cave-man mentality.

The warming glow of nostalgia only goes so far, with one's level of forgiveness likely dictated by where they reside along the "X-Files" fan continuum.

Grappling with middle age, Clerks III turns out to be unexpectedly sentimental and nostalgic, reflecting that writer-director-editor-co-star Kevin Smith inherently recognizes this will likely be the gang’s final visit to Quick Stop Groceries. If so, it’s an uneven if gentle way to hang out the “We’re closed” sign.

As is, this update of a brand of buddy action-comedy Hollywood churned out with regularity way back when is a pretty shoot-by-numbers affair, beyond the mild kick of acknowledging that the central duo are getting a bit old for this sort of thing.

Part of the action occurs in the desert, which inadvertently proves apt, since the oases of enjoyable moments -- and they do exist -- suffer from being spaced too widely in what's otherwise a long, arid trek.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods provides a lightning-bolt-shaped exclamation point on the realization this comedic superhero franchise was, in fact, a one-trick pony – fine for a playful origin story, without enough voltage for an encore. Everything that worked in the original works less well in this so-so sequel, blunting even the star power emitted by its high-profile villains.

There’s obviously some talent at work here, but not much in the way of stretching, and the initial energy and sheer dorkiness doesn’t generate enough laughs – some decidedly low-brow (like John’s fascination with videos of mating animals), others cleverer – to sustain a movie.

Loyalists should be there for the premiere, but after that, one suspects it’s game over.

An expanded role for Salma Hayek is the newish wrinkle here, although that's hardly cause for an encore, or even an extra apostrophe.

Placing a trans teen at its center adds some heft to material that would in an earlier era would have been presented as an after-school special, but the uplifting and timely messaging can’t completely elevate this earnest but thin Amazon movie.

The film simply lurches loudly from one mundane action scene to the next.

In "Suicide Squad," Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn was the best part of a bad movie. That's true again with Birds of Prey, which moves the Joker's sadistic sidekick front and center, then proceeds to assault the senses in much the way its protagonist wields a baseball bat.

Some of the elements in “Secret Headquarters” are mildly pleasant, but the film seems too content to color completely within the lines. The resulting picture might be enough of a diversion for younger kids, but even they won’t be missing much if what’s in the movie stays secret.

As thin star showcases go, it's an occasionally effective bit of comfort food, arriving as theaters reopen and served with a generous side of schmaltz.

"Minions” certainly has to be evaluated in the modest context of what it’s trying to achieve – like fueling fast-food giveaways and toy sales – but even compared to the earlier movies in the franchise, this one feels particularly limited in its scope and ambitions.

Fun in places, this World War I era story was designed to expand the franchise but appears just as likely to end it.

The title, however, feels particularly apt in describing a series that burned quite brightly when it first arose, and despite the light and heat cast by its charismatic lead, gradually fizzled, faded and flamed out.

After a lengthy buildup, this "thrilla" in the "MonsterVerse" -- for anyone with even modest expectations -- qualifies as a pretty sizable letdown.

While this might represent a diverting lark in its dizzying combination of movie conventions, this is another one of those instances where what happens in Vegas probably should stay there.

Even setting the expectations bar at a modest height, though, the movie doesn’t quite clear it – another case, in rom-com terms, where the idea of them, as a marquee matchup, proves superior to the execution.

The result is an interesting misfire, yielding a few amusing moments while adding up to considerably less than the sum of its parts.

The sequel, Extraction 2, hammers away at the same basic outline, while feeling particularly simple minded even by the standards of the genre.

Your Place or Mine will probably do just fine for Netflix, standing out from a pack of Valentine’s Day-timed rom-coms because Witherspoon is her, and Kutcher is him. But those awkward red-carpet photos weren’t the only part of this exercise that didn’t quite work, whatever place one happens to watch it.

The result has that calculated, tired feel about it, with a few moments of kinetic action but not enough to make the film play like anything more than a relic.

As big as he is, you still have to look pretty hard and uncritically to find much magic in "Clifford."

Black Adam features a protagonist of almost unlimited power, which only makes its puny script more conspicuous. Dwayne Johnson is saddled by a very limited range of expression as the ancient mystical being featured in DC’s latest superhero epic, a film that isn’t nearly as cool as its poster, while highlighting the inherent challenge of building stories around antiheroes.

The blessings of technology actually undermine the movie in significant, distracting ways.

Outside the Wire can charitably be compared to the kind of "B" movies that studios used to churn out, and is best consumed by tempering expectations accordingly. Because unlike its futuristic hero, there's nothing special about it.

It's possible to allow that Cinderella has its heart in the right place without concluding that the movie works. Credit where it's due for trying to squeeze the material into some new clothes, but hoping isn't enough to make the shoe fit.

Ultimately, The Gray Man is an unintentionally appropriate title to describe a movie that exists within such a narrow band of the cinematic spectrum. While a step up over the Russos’ last streaming effort, the bleak “Cherry,” it’s the equivalent of an old-time “B” movie with an A-level cast and budget.

The movie, however, turns out to be the opposite of its central character -- namely, an underachiever, despite those advantages.

By the standards of Liam Neeson thrillers (and there are a lot from which to choose), Honest Thief is pretty weak tea, a passable, low-octane action movie that doesn't do much more than steal one's time. Like second-tier John Wayne westerns, Neeson offers enough of what his fans want, but a thin script and stilted dialogue make the battle harder than usual.

For those wondering who would build a giant holiday musical-comedy around Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, the “produced by Will Ferrell” credit provides a helpful clue. “Spirited” tries turning “A Christmas Carol” on its head, and while it’s big and boisterous, the movie (hitting theaters before Apple TV+) isn’t consistently irreverent enough to feel like much more than a streaming stocking stuffer.

What “One Love” doesn’t do, ultimately, is provide enough material to distinguish the movie from the contours of an authorized biography or documentary. In that sense, the film pays tribute to Marley’s work but winds up hampered by a love for its subject that works against its ability to deliver major insights or rock-star-level drama.

A fairly limp documentary.

Granted, the cast is too talented not to conjure a few amusing moments, but it’s hard to escape the sense of a movie that’s sleepwalking through the old neighborhood as opposed to playfully strolling down memory lane.

Like “It,” “Five Nights” wants to milk horror out of something associated with the innocence of childhood, and on that level the quirkiness of the visuals and initial moments of wit likely provide enough of what audiences want to survive, commercially speaking. Even so, the net result is another slice of horror that at best feels a little half-baked.

Call it what you will, but this Chris Farley-David Spade re-teaming might as easily be dubbed "Tommy Boy 2," with a slightly less satisfying mix of broad physical gags and bodily function humor. Riding the recent wave of stupid cinema, Paramount figures to shear off good business among undemanding teen audiences with this fitfully funny entry, seemingly crafted for people who find the new "Saturday Night Live" too intellectually challenging.

Mostly, this is the cinematic equivalent of a first-person shooter game, one where the Marines possess only slightly more personality than the faceless invaders.

Alternates between unpleasantness and Hallmark-sweet sappiness.

Granted, Scoob! appears more into recycling than reinvention -- it's more a snack than a meal -- but it does endeavor to make an old concept fresh and cool again in children's eyes. That might answer the question why the movie exists, but based on the results, nothing here merits an exclamation point.

Who's a good movie? Not "DC League of Super-Pets," a big colorful idea that proves promising in theory -- tailor-made for a two-minute trailer -- but a rather tedious slog as a full-length animated film.

Moviegoers aren’t likely to be similarly spellbound, as Heston employs a too-slow buildup to an explosion of mayhem that incorporates gruesome violence with awkward attempts at dark humor.

Ultimately, Madame Web might have sounded like an interesting experiment, and it sort of is, but the execution feels less like a fully realized film than an extended prologue for a movie to come.

The Goldfinch has a painting at its center, but despite a classy palette of ingredients conjures a lifeless, disjointed picture. Adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the movie represents a transparent bid to bring the book's prestige to the screen, but it's another case of literary underpinnings being lost in translation.

A simple-minded strain of giant-robot combat. Much in need of a script tune-up, it’s a less-than-meets-the-eye summer-movie machine, and not a particularly well-oiled one.

"Elvis” has entered the theaters, but in a package that often recalls the excesses associated with his Vegas-residency years: Looking bloated, gaudy and at times bordering on self-parody. Those missteps, courtesy of director Baz Luhrmann and an ill-used Tom Hanks, squander Austin Butler’s brilliant moments in the title role, which deserve a much better movie.

Everything worth seeing in Pokemon Detective Pikachu neatly fits in the coming-attractions trailer, leaving a pretty numbing additional 100 minutes of sound and furry. Those deeply invested in the franchise will likely find bits to like, but in terms of fashioning a memorable live-action version, alas, that's not in the cards.

The basic premise could have been called “Lee Cronin’s The Exorcist,” although that probably wouldn’t have cleared legal.

The sense of violation that this story entails is almost palpable, and "Our Father" certainly conveys that. If only the filmmakers had trusted the audience enough to present it in a more unadorned manner.

Wonder Park feels like the kind of mild attraction that younger kids might enjoy when it hits secondary platforms. It's just not an adventure that's worth the price of a ticket or standing in line to see.

There are no icebergs here, but that doesn't prevent the movie from sinking under its own weight.

A wholly forgettable movie, most likely to be remembered, lamentably, for its contributing role in Neeson landing in hot water.

An almost shockingly amateurish one-note-joke comedy.

The off-the-wall comedy of Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow leaves a mark on the script, but it would require a talent of Peter Sellers' magnitude to conquer this material, and he's not around.

Director James Wan again fills the screen with spectacle, some of it unevenly rendered, though even eye-popping digital effects couldn’t compensate for the frequent flatness of the dialogue and situations.

“Rebel Moon” might look big and splashy, even on a TV screen, but in terms of working as drama, it’s less a rebel yell than a low-key rebel grunt.

Yet even with its ribald laughs and spectacular action sequences (clearly seeking to up the ante on the latter front), the movie gets mired in a comedic midsection that wears the audience down, sapping their energy before the film shifts to a chaotic third act that just doesn't know when to quit.

For anyone wondering why "The Princess" is premiering on Hulu in the US, not sister service Disney+, the movie answers that in the first five minutes, when the title character brutally dispatches a pair of guards sent into the tower where she's being held. While the timing seems right for a princess who rescues herself, there's precious little substance to this violent fantasy, featuring Joey King figuratively letting down her hair.

Simply put, Neeson has been in a bit of a rut, one that Ice Road exemplifies almost literally, since at several points in the movie the challenge involves extricating big trucks from slushy situations.

Fennell ratchets up the volume to 11, with more emphasis on smoldering and sexuality than literature, at the risk of bastardizing Bronte’s tale beyond recognition.

The Secret: Dare to Dream at best feels like a tepid distraction even for those receptive to its blueprint, far from the stuff that dreams are made of.

Writer-director Sam Levinson spends a good deal of time in Malcolm & Marie complaining about critics, which feels like a boxer leading with his chin. Pairing Zendaya and John David Washington, the movie -- quickly and stealthily shot during the pandemic -- wins points for ingenuity, then loses them with its shrill tone and the uneven hairpin turns of its writing.

A listless romantic comedy that, almost out of desperation, turns a little more violent than necessary near the end.

M. Night Shyamalan is up to his old tricks in "Old," but after his heralded breakthrough with "Split," he's back on a downward trajectory. While the premise again has an eerie "Twilight Zone"-type quality, the long journey to a payoff -- littered with pretty awful dialogue -- might be picturesque, but it's no walk on the beach.

As much as the movie appears to yearn to jump-start the franchise, it seems to have forgotten to bother with a coherent script, leaving one to wonder how a film with this much action somehow manages to be so boring.

A warmed-over collection of cinematic cliches that misses its shot what could have been a fertile premise, in don't-quit-your-day-job fashion.

The film goes from Shark Week to shark weak – from playfully amusing to just plain stupid, eliciting enough laughs in the wrong places to make an advance screening virtually interactive.

The result is dull and lifeless.

Choose Love strains the storytelling to fit the gimmick, in a special that does its central character no favors by making her race through the trio of suitors suddenly in her life.

Whatever John Patrick Shanley's script may have tried to do in adapting Crichton's book, it clearly feels as if the picture were edited to leave the action sequences in while removing any connecting material that might have helped them make sense.

The problem is that those pulling Child's Play's strings don't consistently commit to anything other than the gore.

Columbia apparently dragged the river to come up with the script for this Bruce Willis vehicle -- an OK action movie until it sinks under the weight of implausible plotting and over-the-top direction.

In what amounts to damnation with the faintest of praise, Tron: Ares is slightly less incoherent than its most recent predecessor (granted, not a particularly high bar), while taking advantage of the passage of time to improve on the visuals, since “Legacy’s” de-aging process involving original star Jeff Bridges served as a lifeless distraction.

Hellraiser is obviously operating within fairly well-defined parameters, and leveraging 35 years of screen history, delivers on the most basic level in terms of special effects and gore, without – the “reimagining” claim notwithstanding – bringing much freshness to the formula.

Far from a passion project, this Netflix film distinctly feels – as one of its writers says in the production notes – like a punchline in search of a movie, built on a soggy parade of sugary cameos that doesn’t provide much snap, crackle and pop.

Yet for all its high-octane action this tenth film is really just revving its engine for more sequels to come, kicking off a multi-part story that offers an appropriately bloated way to bring this very loud enterprise to a (no doubt temporary) finish.

The stitched-together concept proves too bizarre and disjointed to catch lightning in a bottle.

Even grading on a curve, though, Murder Mystery is a tired, bordering on tiresome endeavor -- feeling like the pilot for a not-very-good TV show -- as well as a reminder that Netflix's content buffet caters to all kinds of tastes.

The best thing that "Sonic" has going for it, by leaps and bounds, is the infusion of manic energy that it receives from an unleashed Jim Carrey as the villain, Dr. Robotnik, basically a mad scientist out to capture or kill the little alien. Everything else, though, is a rather tedious slog.

Watching Chris Pratt fight to save the future has a certain appeal, but in the here and now, he can't even save the movie.

No wonder this Lawrence Kasdan script has been on the shelf for more than a decade: In the custody of director Mick Jackson, it proves a jumbled mess, with a few enjoyable moments but little continuity or flow.

Strip out Deception's fleeting nudity and what's left is a throwback to "B" movie days -- a thin thriller, burdened by clunky dialogue and prone to telegraphing its twists.

A movie that emphasizes its experiential and 3D qualities but lacks depth on every other front.

There are a few bursts of sheer, irresistible idiocy -- along the lines of "Wayne's World" or even "Pee-wee's Big Adventure"-- but not enough to sustain the more arid stretches.

For the most part, America: The Motion Picture seems too pleased with itself, an indulgence in silliness that feels woefully stretched at close to 100 minutes.

In fact, with its basic shortage of gore and only brief glimpses of nudity, it’s hard to imagine what in the film prompted an R rating, unless it stands for “ridiculous.”

The bottom line is a plot intended to make one consider life's big issues merely reminds us it's too short to sit through movies as muddled as this.

While the result deserves some credit for finding a creative way to bring the book to life, the overlapping storylines simply aren't compelling enough, despite the best efforts of a game and attractive cast.

Once you get past admiring de Armas’ immersion into the role, that’s the only itch that Blonde seems to know how to scratch.

Neither Macaulay Culkin nor Ted Danson has improved his luck in selecting projects with this schizophrenic comedy, which can't decide if it wants to be broadly farcical or fuzzily heartwarming. While it fares better on the latter front, pic doesn't succeed on either level and should test the patience even among Culkin's peer group.

A near-claustrophobic comedy that manages to be both predictable and preachy. Solid actors in supporting roles offer minor redemption.

Mortal Kombat is within its rights taking the material semi-seriously, but does so by taking itself a little too seriously, given the rote nature of translating the game -- whatever its ongoing popularity in that form -- to the screen.

A private eye who's "a sex machine to all the chicks," as the song went back in 1971, isn't exactly tailor-made to 2019. The new "Shaft" plays with that tension but yields mixed results, in an action comedy that's neither consistently funny nor especially exciting, despite Samuel L. Jackson's second stab at the part.

The execution, alas, prevents this from being a genuine crowdpleaser, with the better moments (mostly of the schmaltzy variety) more than offset by the irritating and tedious ones.

Frankly, I’d begin with having future me warn the present-day version to skip this.

An animated, comic-book-inspired opening turns out to be the best part of Samaritan, a very by-the-numbers superhero tale that casts Sylvester Stallone as the long-retired title character, and otherwise feels like and exhibits the production values of a 1990s TV pilot. While tolerable on its own terms, the charitable thing to do critically speaking would probably be to ignore it.

A tired, disjointed medley of madcap visual gags, the animated film yields roughly as many legitimate laughs as can be counted on a Minion’s three-digit hand.

Taken on its terms, the movie isn't terrible strictly as mindless escapism. But beyond the most basic, visceral thrills, Wrath of Man's bitter fruit yields a slim harvest.

6 Underground proves so uneven in its tone and unrelenting in its volume that it's hard to imagine a hole deep enough in which to bury its silliness.

For the most part, Hyams’ lackluster direction and the repetitive quality of the action sequences squander an intriguing premise and impressive production design, leaving few moments that elicit the sort of “Wow!” response such fare needs in order to prosper.

The main problem is there's a whole lot of scary out there this time of year, and Books of Blood winds up in a sort-of creative no-man's land. Even for undemanding souls, this is a pretty skeletal construct.

The biggest surprise, frankly, might be that the funniest person here is frequently Manganiello. Indeed, the mere visual juxtaposition of the towering “Magic Mike” star and Reubens in the same frame together is practically a special effect in itself.

Dane Cook sells out arenas with his stand-up act, and Jessica Alba is, well, Jessica Alba, but once "Chuck" exhausts their devoted bases, this doesn't promise to bring much good luck to Lionsgate.

The Laundromat makes a pointed political statement, while spinning out a garbled mess of a movie. In the process, director Steven Soderbergh mostly squanders a cast toplined by Meryl Streep, in a Netflix film that plays like a darkly satiric connection of vignettes that lost something -- mostly, a coherent narrative -- in the rinse cycle.

These two Paramount+ projects ultimately feel pretty toothless.

A self-conscious effort to build a spy franchise around Gal Gadot, Heart of Stone plays like a poor woman’s “Mission: Impossible,” mostly thwarting even its star’s Wonder-ful charisma. Despite solid action moments scattered over its two hours, this Netflix movie plays like an inoffensive but lifeless addition to the “You might like” feature that, alas, you probably won’t.

So relentlessly juvenile as to merit a new twist on the PG-13 rating -- one that strongly cautions not only those under 13 but anyone much above it, too.

Far from the definitive version of the tale, this lavish but overwrought melodrama is in many ways less compelling than even a recent made-for-cable movie and a 1973 miniseries starring Michael Sarrazin that was less faithful to the source material.

The Current War is a fascinating story, badly told.

This PG-rated offering thus dances along a fine line -- one that suggests a shelf-life well short of its "I wanna live forever" anthem.

Pretty easy to tune out.

A ponderous, self-indulgent bedtime tale. Awkwardly positioned, this gloomy gothic fantasy falls well short of horror.

Too many of the points the story earns for ambition get deducted for execution in this jumble of ideas.

Lacks the charm and buoyancy that made the first "Act" a mass-appeal hit

Fittingly, for a story about wandering around in a field, it winds up going nowhere.

The tragedy associated with such stories could provide fertile territory, theoretically, for a good drama about what went wrong and who's ultimately responsible. That movie might get made someday, but Crisis isn't it.

A half-baked mob drama.

This is an especially limp star vehicle that delivers a few widely spaced moments of frivolity before what should be a quick mop-up trip to the DVD aisles.

In the charitable spirit of the season, Candy Cane Lane serves as a passable addition to the annual parade of holiday movies trotted out each year. Yet even by that unexacting standard, there’s barely enough juice here to keep the lights on.

James L. Brooks has no creative mountains left to climb, but watching the ill-conceived “Ella McCay” it’s hard not to wish he had quit while he was ahead.

Nora Ephron's attempt to reconceive the standard TV-to-bigscreen adaptation goes bizarrely haywire here, spinning out of control like a runaway broomstick.

This "Titans" reboot merely demonstrates that building a more elaborate mousetrap doesn't necessarily produce a more entertaining one.

If only as much thought went into the script for this listless comedy as its marketing calculus.

Home Sweet Home Alone is a very odd duck -- a movie that basically replicates the three-decades-old "Home Alone" template, but in a way that feels slightly weird and ill-conceived. Dropping on Disney+ in connection with the streaming service's two-year anniversary, it's a reminder that not all well-known intellectual property ought to be let out of the house.

There’s something unfortunately symbolic about Jurassic World: Dominion, which combines old and new DNA from the near-three-decade-old franchise and generates a pretty mindless mess … an XL-sized mediocrity out of the gene pool’s shallow end.

It’s the kind of star-driven vehicle that yields obvious benefits to Netflix even if, qualitatively speaking, it doesn’t deserve to see the light of day.

Again rated R after softening the rougher edges the last time, the body count is certainly off-the-charts high, but the action – under the guidance of stunt coordinator-turned-director Scott Waugh (“Need for Speed”) – is about as generic as these things get.

Horror movies are no strangers to social commentary, or the desire to be cathartic in how they use violence. Yet the latest example of those impulses, They/Them, illustrates how tricky that proposition can be, in a story that at various times feels creepy, exploitative and preachy, without becoming particularly tense or scary.

This is one of those movies that’s forgotten almost as soon as it ends, and it doesn’t even require any chemical intervention in order to erase the memory.

Watching The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe serves as a reminder, to paraphrase Elton John’s musical tribute, that her candle burned out long before the exploitation of her ever did.

The kill count generally provides the requisite thrills, but everything else seems stitched together from genre clichés.

Debates over LeBron James' greatness compared to Michael Jordan on a basketball court will continue in perpetuity, but "Space Jam: A New Legacy" won't fuel much chatter about who's the better actor. Putting James in Jordan's shoes, as it were, isn't a bad idea in theory, but despite the odd moment of inspired Looney Tune-acy, this reboot shoots a very loud and thudding airball.

Even taking it as a given that Disney’s animated classics will all receive live-action makeovers eventually, Pinocchio feels like an unnecessary exercise – a movie so flat that it never sparks to life, and barely feels as if it’s making the leap into a different medium.

Cats isn't quite the unmitigated disaster that some feared -- or perversely hoped -- but it's not good, delivering a mostly incoherent adaptation of the long-running musical. An eclectic roster of stars claw out a few meager moments, but as screen experiences go, this is a memory best forgotten.

An understated, uneventful slog of a movie that feels like a misguided merger of "Gran Torino" and "Bronco Billy."

Splitting the movie into three chapters seems appropriate, since the film delivers a trifecta: overwrought, overacted, and overlong.

For Cox, a veteran actor with no mountains left to climb and few concerns about speaking his mind, Prisoner’s Daughter plays like one of those movies where you just take the money and run.

The result is a movie with an exceedingly narrow target audience that should test Will Ferrell's appeal among boys maybe ages 12-14 -- about the only demo likely able to endure this laborious mess.

So episodic and flat it should be a letdown even to those amused by the original.

A lifeless, workmanlike comedy conceived to provide holiday shoppers an inoffensive respite from the mall.

While some might find it possible to have fun by surrendering to the silliness, this bad moon doesn't quite rise even to the level of a guilty pleasure.

If the previous movie conjured a bit of excitement by eradicating everything that had transpired after the original, that sense of novelty has quickly worn off.

Peaks early -- like, during the first three minutes -- and rapidly goes downhill from there.

Even for an action comedy, this Lopez-produced effort is inordinately skewed toward putting everything that might entice someone to watch in the trailer, beginning with the shot of Coolidge hoisting an automatic weapon to defend the wedding party. As hot as she is off “The White Lotus,” she can’t redeem the tiresome execution.

The near-four-year gap between movies does help in one respect, allowing people to largely forget what left them unimpressed about the original.

The Forever Purge's once-over-lightly politics don't merit much of a fuss, playing like a cynical exploitation of real-world issues.

Apatow serves up some clever lines, but they're mostly lost in the overall noise and manic tone. While it's not necessarily too soon for a funny Covid movie, The Bubble labors to achieve a sought-after level of zaniness right up until the ending.

A sort-of psychological, semi-erotic drama that, despite its literary pretensions, possesses roughly the intellectual heft of a perfume ad.

Pic is at best a relatively harmless way to enjoy air conditioning for those who admire Williams' ability to riff, even at his most irritating.

Ultimately, it's a marketing pitch in search of a movie that proves punishingly flat.

Spiral, however, doesn't chart its own course as much as simply try to have it both ways. And if the title implies a certain motion, the main direction the movie heads is essentially down the drain.

Although streaming provides a logical venue for this small-scale film, it's hard to think of a time or platform where this adaptation from British director Joe Wright ("Darkest Hour," "Atonement") would have felt satisfying, with an ill-considered, twisty finish that's a sizable letdown from the already so-so material preceding it.

A new do-over that can barely generate enough heat to qualify as a thriller.

An absurdly stylized action-horror-comedy mashup that somehow makes a satanic cult, wanton violence, and buckets of blood boring.

65 represents such an uninspired effort as to look like a fossil even before the credits roll.

Forty-four years, 13 movies and innumerable corpses later, it sounds naïve to think “Halloween Ends” will really mark the end of anything, but like the holiday for which it’s named, it’s fun to pretend. The producers do seek to bring finality to this latest trilogy featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, although that turns out to be the only original idea they conjure in an odd, tedious film.

All of which goes to demonstrate that while it's easy enough to slap a colon on a lowbrow cable TV show, additional punctuation by itself isn't sufficient to actually transform it into a movie.

The resulting movie, however, hits the wrong notes, repeating mundane lyrics without uttering the words that keep coming to mind, which are "precious" and "pretentious."

Strange and more than a little sad, You Cannot Kill David Arquette -- a documentary about the actor's adventures in wrestling -- derives most of its strength from the discomfort associated with watching it. As the son of a showbiz family, the fact that Arquette is reduced to this cry for attention more than anything reflects the enticing lure of the spotlight.

That seed of potential, however, sails away on a tide of numbing stupidity.

While ‘Resurrections’ again offers a choice between the red pill and blue pill, the one thing that won't be necessary -- especially for those choosing the home-viewing option -- is a sleeping pill.

Zombies 3 is creatively dead on arrival, reviving the concept at least once too often.

Part heist movie, part family reunion, the film draws upon the most salient characteristics of the flabby feline, but mostly as an excuse to build a story that seems to crawl further from its origins with every passing frame.

Even kids won't get much of a kick out of this high-energy, low-IQ futuristic slugfest, which plays down to, and in many ways, below the level of some Saturday-morning cartoons.

In an equally damning commentary on the acting and Roland Emmerich’s direction, Lundgren and Van Damme are both more realistic as stoic cadavers than they are once their memories start to return.

Look, we get it, people are looking for new stuff to watch, mindless escapism included. Still, in terms of any sort of inspiration or originality, "Kate," the movie, is every bit as D.O.A. as Kate, the character.

Resting almost entirely on the shoulders of its young leads, both they and the pic lack the sparkle to sustain what seeks to be a whimsical premise but, except for a few moments, proves ponderous instead.

Most notable as a vehicle for Jason Momoa, this wannabe spectacle from “The Hunger Games” director Francis Lawrence serves up lots of special effects desperately in search of a story.

“Godzilla vs. Kong” director Adam Wingard and a trio of credited writers probably make the right decision in treating all this with grave earnestness, which doesn’t render most of the situations, dialogue and the climactic encounter any less laughable.

The movie simply doesn't deliver -- living hard, selling hard and, before it's over, finally dying hard.

A bloody mess.

The star’s latest film should attract flies, all right, not with honey, but rather the stale aroma of its inane premise.

A comedic dud that's aptly titled, since it makes loud noises without really needing to be seen. The one thing unlikely to be heard during this Netflix superhero spoof is a whole lot of laughter.

After about 15 minutes of The Last Mercenary, though, even if you can't do splits like Van Damme the temptation is to split -- and to paraphrase "Scarface," say goodbye to him and his little friends.

Me You Madness serves as a reminder that you can clearly try to be funny, and still produce something that turns out to be kind of a joke.

Those who fell victim to the over-the-top animosity directed at Amber Heard during the Johnny Depp trial – as chronicled in the docuseries “Depp v. Heard” – will alas have fresh ammunition thanks to “In the Fire,” a pretty awful starring vehicle for the actor that she also produced, a film unlikely to produce many sparks beyond those set off by the morbidly curious.

Two head-chomping symbiotes aren't better than one in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, a mind-numbingly tiresome sequel, filled with uninspired comedy and a CGI monster fight that seems to drag on forever.

The aroma of "Cats" has yet to fade, but Universal follows it up with another animal-related stinker in Dolittle. Robert Downey Jr. produced and stars in the title role, but even charitably taking into account that this was designed for a younger family audience, talking to animals in this retelling is somehow a colossal bore.

A pointless and pretentious drama.

A small-scale movie with a throwback drive-in feel that loses nothing in an at-home setting, and based on its minimal merit, has little to lose in any event.

Crude, virtually laughless and aimed at a target audience that's probably never heard of the source material, "Car 54" should have a short patrol of theaters before being towed away to the vacant lot of "10 worst" lists.

Director Carl Reiner and writer David O’Malley simply cast their nets too far and wide in this grating sendup, which proves crude without being clever or, for that matter, even remotely funny.

Melania fails to yield almost any unguarded moments, so intently focusing on its subject as she walks through venues in high heels as to approximate the feeling of a 104-minute perfume commercial.

Style has seldom pummeled substance as severely as in Cool World, a combination funhouse ride/acid trip that will prove an ordeal for most visitors in the form of trial by animation.

Added together, there are about three minutes of funny material in Happy Gilmore, and pretty much all of them are in the trailer, leaving a sometimes painfully unfunny 90 minutes with which to contend.