Brian Truitt

Has ambition and style in spades – and thankfully, a plenty sassy Ryan Reynolds in the form of a little yellow rabbit-y dude – even if the quasi-noir private-eye tale is rather uninspired on the whole.

It borrows from "Animal House," "Back to School," "Old School" and other superior films, leaning less into crudeness and more into female-centric laughs, but offers some sweet moments and a few enjoyably zany characters.

Two years after the release of “Orient Express,” “Knives Out” reinvented the all-star murder mystery in a fun and refreshing fashion, and Branagh’s latest just seems stale in comparison, with no new life in this “Death.”

Writer/director Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled showcases good manners and bad deeds, though it lacks the necessary edge to make it a satisfying revenge thriller.

It’s a denouement that ventures too far afield from familiarity, a good-vs.-evil slugfest more complicated than it needs to be, and a “Halloween” flick that should go out with a roar but instead closes with a masked wheeze.

Like Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury in “Rhapsody,” Ackie’s own voice is heard at times though mainly she’s performing to Houston’s own signature vocals. And the actress does an exceptional job capturing the pop singer’s mannerisms and performance style in those moments. It’s everything else in between that’s the real problem.

It isn't good and it isn't bad – it is, to borrow a fitting adjective, "all right." But the film might as well be called “Matthew McConaughey: The Movie,” as it casts McConaughey in a role seemingly tailor-made for his famous style and yet, like the actor himself, also upends those same expectations.

One doesn't put Roberts and Clooney together on screen without conjuring at least a little magic. But dusting off an old copy of her "America's Sweethearts" or his "One Fine Day" is more likely to scratch that rom-com itch.

Snowden’s a polarizing whistleblower portrayed as an American hero here but in too pedestrian a fashion for such a hot-button topic, and the movie seems at times as awkward as its brainiac subject.

A befuddling mélange of superpowered showdowns, psychological gaslighting and self-important comic meanderings, it's a finale that doesn’t know what it wants to be.

Dark Fate ultimately blows up any chance for innovative storytelling with rehashed plot points and reheated signature moments.

If this is indeed the end, Dark Phoenix finishes off the X-Men movie saga in frustratingly middling fashion, however fitting for a superhero franchise that only just a few times actually reached its cinematic potential.

While it looks great with its gorgeous computer-generated foliage and realistic animals, the story focuses too much on its stiff hero and a one-note villain rather than the big-picture ideas it raises in passing.

This is Johnson’s baby, a film spotlighting a complicated antihero he has championed for years. It wins some battles and packs plenty of punch, yet it just can’t get past familiar tropes and flaws.

White Boy Rick works better as a working-class father/son drama than a cautionary tale about the American judicial system, though it never comes together satisfactorily as either.

The movie is a by-the-numbers action film that's not nearly as strong as its Damon-led predecessors.

The film is fine, familiar fare for gamers and children: Sonic sprints, Carrey mugs, but the creative juices run out quickly.

Pee-wee Herman may still look good in his ill-fitting suit, but more than 30 years after first hitting the big screen, his antics haven’t aged well.

Even with a wealth of talent involved, Inferno is missing some serious heat.

A B-movie at its heart with big-budget ambitions. Full of rampant goofiness, extreme gore, a jumbled narrative and hyperactive pacing, The Predator is also funnier and more clever than you would expect, though at the same time it’s an '80s film that doesn’t realize it’s 2018 in terms of political correctness.

It dips into the timely satire of mid-20th century suburbia, with inherent racism and white privilege hiding in plain sight next to picket fences and well-trimmed lawns, but rather than embracing it wholeheartedly, the narrative defaults to a lackluster murder mystery and a violent example of men and woman behaving badly.

Instead of being an intriguing look at an emotional breakdown, “Lucy” is more interested in being a sporadically trippy (and ultimately forgettable) soap opera that by the end has the camp factor of your average Lifetime revenge thriller.

The follow-up is a toothless, fleetingly funny revisit with some moments of greatness yet too much of the same old story to feel fresh.

While Mission: Impossible has found a popular way to reimagine an old show for modern times, Man is immersed in all things retro — from the ginchy fashion to a jazzy score — but for an action adventure, it’s a mostly tedious affair with fleeting moments of cool.

Hillbilly Elegy is a well-acted study of a white working-class family reaching for the American dream over three generations, though its disconnected story is what’s unfortunately lamentable.

The Magnificent Seven is like a long-fused stick of dynamite: It takes forever to get interesting but does at least unleash an explosive finale.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is a major step backward with an A-list actor in a C-grade military thriller.

This Hellboy leans more into super-gory horror comedy than its predecessors, trading nuance for ripped-off limbs and boasting as much subtlety as a stone fist to the face.

There are some scattered laughs but it's not particularly funny, and American Pickle is generally all over the place, aiming to be an abstract comedy about family and religion but losing its way trying to also poke fun at modern culture.

It’s a rather impressive feat to bury Tom Holland’s considerable charisma, though that is one of the few aspects where his new film “Uncharted” actually succeeds.

L'Engle's source material is a sneakily deep novel for youngsters, and Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell's screenplay doesn't do nearly enough with those themes of death, loss and parents letting their children down. Instead, theirs is a patchwork adaptation with weak character development, a lack of narrative groove and a haphazard finish.

The new "Matrix" tries to reprogram a beloved piece of cinema. However, it’s quite a few fixes short of a full upgrade.

In its favor: a breakout performance from Palestinian newcomer Leem Lubany and maybe the most apropos use of Peace Train ever.

Earnest to the point of stultifying, “Red One” offers a busy landscape of plastic action figures come to life, visually appealing and plenty colorful, though as hard as it tries, the movie doesn’t deliver the joy and emotion you’d want in a seasonal treat.

Director Bryan Singer made more hay with Marvel’s mighty mutant menagerie in the early 2000s, but the new film comes undone with too many characters and not enough nuance or freshness.

They’re made women in an underworld that doesn’t want them, and while that theme is sufficiently explored, The Kitchen disappointingly fails to explore the racial politics it hints at and, aside from the main trio, is full of characters who feel paper thin. The results aren’t criminal, per se, but the movie more often finds mediocrity instead of real nuance.

Although there are insightful moments and surreal bits that pop, it’s overall a bizarre – and at nearly three hours, bloated – film that attempts to honor its subject and instead lets her down.

If nothing else, though, the stylish and slick thriller brings sass to the secret-agent genre, and there are worse things than watching an evil Chris Evans try to murder Ryan Gosling for two hours.

At least Harrison Ford does his grizzled best to ground a hybrid film awash in computer-generated animals and visual pizzazz.

Ridiculously attractive spies fall hard for each other in Allied, but don’t expect "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" with Nazis.

This Baywatch has its share of hilarious moments but never fully commits to the absurd, and even the cleverest jokes get so many callbacks, they’re beating a dead seahorse.

It’s a bizarrely off-kilter affair that’s forcibly heartfelt and sentimental in one scene and overly mean-spirited in the next, and not even a few choice moments and some enjoyable surrounding weirdos can help two A-listers in way over their heads.

Stuffed full of rampant badness, the scattershot comedy isn’t nearly as clever or subversive as it thinks it is.

If only a psychic could have warned us about these wretched Spider-Man spinoffs.

While it does offer an extremely flattering view of all things Melania, outside of a few candid glimpses, you're not really going to learn a lot about who she really is.

Isn’t nearly as funny as it thinks it is spoofing spy tropes and buddy films and making a mockery of AIDS, politicians, movie stars and working-class Brits.

An unseasonably cynical assault on the holiday spirit.

Looking Glass is instead a competition to see how goofy Johnny Depp can be as the Mad Hatter and how many scenes (and hearts) Helena Bonham Carter can steal as the ragingly high-maintenance Red Queen.

The original Pitch Perfect worked so well because it was about the friendship of the Bellas amid the wonderfully weird world of singing dorks who didn't get the memo that they weren’t cool. That's now long gone, and what’s left is just way off-key.

The major whodunit here is who made a best-selling thriller so darn boring.

Life Itself is a real downer when it comes to death: A few are so out-of-nowhere that it’s like the hipster version of the “Game of Thrones” Red Wedding.

The joyous gallows humor and horror-movie commentary of old are gone and some inspired working-in of new technology falls apart.

A mostly dreadful reboot by director Camille Delamarre (Brick Mansions) that casts English youngster Ed Skrein in Statham's role as well-dressed driver-for-hire Frank Martin.

The film aims to be a Gen Z/millennial “This Is Spinal Tap” but with much less clever wit and way more vocal fry.

The Great Wall crumbles mainly because of its wholly predictable plot, wretched dialogue and dud of a filmgoing experience from noted director Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers).

The soundtrack for the P.T Barnum biopic musical The Greatest Showman is chock full of amazing and catchy tunes you’ll be humming after the credits roll...The actual movie? Send in the clowns.

It’s a dunderheaded follow-up, for sure, but it’s at least buoyed by Chris Hemsworth’s charisma and the few times where Winter’s War embraces complete camp.

Alicia Vikander worked herself into hardbody shape for Tomb Raider, which by contrast is a flabby, lazy mess.

A plethora of beats drop but little else of note — musical or otherwise — happens in the Zac Efron DJ fest We Are Your Friends.

A disappointing effort from a master filmmaker, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk trips in all the wrong places.

With Leto flying and jumping through New York City as a do-gooding bloodsucker with moral “Should I feast on my fellow man?” quandaries, “Morbius” is a lifeless slog with no real bite.

There’s fish-out-of-water hijinks as the Martian boy looks for the dad he never knew, but the whole sci-fi narrative collapses into a mess of illogical story beats and groan-inducing quasi-tragic bits right out of "Love Story."

Ridiculousness needs to abound somewhat in a film like this — reality takes a seat early and often here — but Resurgence pushes everything to an egregiously over-the-top and often infuriating degree.

It fumbles because neither of the characters are particularly likable.

Moviegoers may wish that Will Ferrell's megalomaniacal supervillain Mugatu had won in the first Zoolander and saved us from another film with these boneheads.

The follow-up fails in every way, as a retread of the beloved ‘90s vehicle and as a youth-centered setup for future installments.

Despite the beautiful eye-popping world it creates, the sci-fi film Ghost in the Shell is a defective mess with lifeless characters, missed chances for thematic exploration and a minefield of political incorrectness.

[Kidman's] Lifetime-esque potboiler centers on a bored working mom who discovers her husband might not be on the level, but while the locale is postcard idyllic, the narrative is a never-ending slog, only getting halfway interesting with a silly third-act twist and a suddenly bloody finale.

Actually does manage to be the best of the BDSM bore-fests in the forgettable erotic saga based on E.L. James’ Fifty Shades novels.

True, most Christmas flicks tend toward the trite and predictable naturally but they just don’t have to be quite this insufferable.

Even if you love alien robots punching each other while tossing out insipid one-liners, it’s a painfully long two and a half hours where the biggest problem isn’t a lack of plot but way too many of them.

This is a fantastical faceplant, and though Elba tries his hardest, what could have been the tale of an iconic gunslinger is a big miss.

May boast a star-studded cast but it’s a spectacular dud on every other level with tonal whiplash, a little casual racism played for jokes and a script seemingly pulled from Hallmark cards rejected for being too hokey.

An unfortunate movie that does an embarrassing disservice to the decades-old property and is a frightful waste of all the talent involved.