Carla Meyer

It's really just old- fashioned melodrama, dressed up with lustrous cinematography and a few nods to history.

Were “Vita” better developed and edited, one might find joy in its rejection of the patriarchy. But the female-friendly dialogue relies too heavily on exposition. Nobody asks if anyone wants a cup of tea.

The problems lie not with the actors but with a glib approach that exposes the flaws of the original story.

Highly entertaining, in a schadenfreude sense, but incomplete.

In White Chicks, the gross-out humor is minimal, no character comes off too badly and lessons are learned. Oh Wayanses, where are thy teeth?

A warmhearted and surprisingly ambitious sequel.

The Little Mermaid origin story lacks room for this more feminist take. It simply is not deep enough.

There's no hiding a hokey love story that undercuts the picture's compelling tennis scenes.

The film’s best moments show the characters bonding as teens, “Breakfast Club”-style, within their new bodies.

There’s real artistry to Ferdinand.

Despite some missteps, this version of “Mean Girls,” especially in its reframing of Janis, promotes feminism and inclusion almost as fervently as “Barbie” — although its characters still only wear pink on Wednesdays.

It’s such a pure delight to see Erivo and Grande just standing around when they finally duet on “For Good” that we will take that scene over a hundred where their characters dance, preen or ride a broom on their own.

The always fierce Bassett is a little too fierce here, reacting with unwarranted emotion to each romantic twist and turn.

Updates a classic premise -- the struggle for personal freedom -- by pairing it with ethical and moral quandaries.

Negotiating the role of a forward-thinking woman constrained by family demands and era, Elliott elevates a picture that's lovely to look at but lacking in dramatic impact.

Features bursts of humor and electrifying energy offset by speechifying and a dud of a subplot.

Fascinating context but awkwardly told.

Judging by her funny, warm, drawn-from-life feature directing debut Wine Country, Amy Poehler is a gracious friend. She and screenwriters Emily Spivey and Liz Cackowski ensure that the many former “Saturday Night Live” performers and writers assembled for this Napa Valley-set Netflix comedy get moments to shine.

The body-swap movie “It’s What’s Inside” dazzles up to the moment its plot gets going.

In I'll Sleep When I'm Dead,' master of stylish criminality Mike Hodges presents a nighttime London of sharp suits, distorted jazz notes and shiny luxury sedans cruising dirty streets.

Pretty and vague, the kind of film that might play on a loop at a county fair's Americana exhibit.

As it speeds toward conclusion, “Supremes” also stops subverting its more maudlin aspects, allowing a descent into soap operatic moments.

A snapshot of the festival, one that radiates good cheer and offers moments of true, godly goodness.

Goes disappointingly soft despite two dynamite lead performances.

Lacks even mild drama.

There is simply too much going on, in these separate storylines, for too long. There is a literal “meanwhile, back at the farm” quality to the movie, because it becomes so involved with subplots that you only remember Max and Rooster at the farm when the action shifts back to it.

Poignant and carefully observed, the Italian drama Facing Windows portrays two consuming, illicit romances: one in the present, the other kept alive in faulty memory. The long-ago relationship holds far more intrigue.

Margaret Cho goes over the top in the new Netflix comedy Good on Paper, mugging and delivering lines too emphatically. But as the movie progresses, you see the San Francisco native’s approach not as overacting, but heroism. She appears to be trying to single-handedly breathe life into this nearly laugh-free movie.

Penguin is the film’s most fleshed-out character. We know the bird’s origin story, but nobody else’s.

With The 15:17 to Paris, director Clint Eastwood overwhelms the extraordinary with the mundane, turning the true story of three Americans who helped subdue a gunman aboard a European train into a tedious film.

Although it holds some of the same contrivances as the original, Hulu’s new remake also maintains tension and features a masterful performance, this time by Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the mother.

Can be enjoyed if you don't mind a little manipulation.

[Duhmel] brings surprising nuance to an ostensibly shallow character, a guy who's not really bad, just caught up in his own celebrity.

Enlivens the classic premise of innocent-in-the-city by moving its archetypal characters in unexpected directions.

Cloying mix of screwball comedy and drama.

Clunky adventure story.

Wolf Man does not fully compel until it becomes ridiculous, employing a wolf-cam perspective that shows what a werewolf sees when he encounters people: glowing-eyed figures who look like AI-hallucinuted Teletubbies.

Offers a lively but jumbled insider's view of a world of great talent and greater risk.

Celebrates the craft of acting both in its story and in fine performances.

A dreary, distasteful exercise, "Off the Leash'' favors dogs over humans, framing canine high jinks with an ugly story of domestic abuse.

An intriguing brain-teaser.

The movie eventually settles into a more relaxed, warmer tone, as veteran TV writer Chad Hodge’s self-aware script acknowledges all the tropes — gay and holiday — while continuing to employ them effectively.

Leoni is a very attractive woman, and she should be credited for giving a brave performance, but her character starts to produce involuntary shudders when she appears onscreen.

But most every moment Ford is in on screen is a welcome one. Buck seems more real when in Ford’s presence.

It's engaging and transparent at once.

The film doesn't always work, but it captures the buzz of moviemaking, and that's infectious.

Entertainment value and reasonable length still make the film a decent, low-effort option for home viewers — especially those already subscribed to Hulu.

Something From Tiffany’s rides the line between Hallmark cheese and the Hollywood gloss of big-screen rom-coms once headlined by its producer, Reese Witherspoon. It emerges as a top entry in the former category and a middling example of the latter, with lots of nice moments along the way.

Were there an award for most bizarre and dispiriting comedy-horror hybrid featuring killer dolls, the latest installment in the "Child's Play" series would have it locked up.

Diego also lacks any nuance as a character. He is grim and humorless, like most everything else about this film.

The freshest thing about Breakin' All the Rules is its dropped "g.''

To earnest for its own good. Sincere and heartfelt, it's the kind of family film that might be at home on cable.

The slasher scenes, though relatively few, are amazingly evocative for such a low-budget movie.

Laura Dern is not a wizard. She cannot make the dumb and formulaic elements of her romance/travelogue movie “Lonely Planet” disappear. But Dern brings such authenticity to Katherine, her confident, matter-of-fact successful author character, that her performance often outweighs this Netflix movie’s flaws.

Misbegotten mess.

House of Spoils suffers most from genre hybridization. The more explicit horror moments feel grafted on to what is essentially a character study with mystery elements. But as “Speak No Evil” recently demonstrated, Blumhouse no longer signifies low-budget, terrifying horror. The brand has become shorthand for movies lacking clear identities.

This tale of tortured love between a Mormon missionary and a West Hollywood tomcat renders its gay and religious characters so stereotypical that neither lifestyle appears attractive.

Delivers laughs most of the way through.

Teen sex comedies always have more homoerotic moments than you can shake a ... whatever ... at, but Eurotrip seems overly concerned with penises and predatory men. This brand of humor, a time-honored crutch for comedy writers, is both lazy and unseemly.

Self-indulgent and admirable.

Light on inner conflict and heavy on cliches.

[Brody's] mannered performance helps downgrade this picture from a middling sci-fi film to a bad, borderline-camp sci-fi film.

There’s authenticity in the coach’s belted khaki shorts and in the anguish Hunt brings to a moment where the coach no longer can bear being at her star player’s wake. This moment is the film’s most moving until images of the real coach, and real Caroline Found, accompany the credits.

Muniz, however, is hampered by Stripes' constant moping, which brings out the "Malcolm in the Middle'' star's whinier tendencies.

The picture never comes out from under the weight of its dreariness, despite fine acting, foot chases and conspiracy theories galore.

Offers enough glossy good cheer to appeal to everyone.

This brand of eccentricity does not suit Cusack. He lacks Cage’s manic gleam and irrepressible sense of play. Cusack comes off as glum and a bit lost, negating Miller’s effectiveness as bogeyman.

Sweaty, filthy, miserable and well acted.

Jackpot! involves a fight to the finish between the abundant charisma and likability of leads Awkwafina and John Cena and the impossible material they were given. The actors lose, because nobody could survive so many jokes based on groin kicks and bathroom humor or a movie premise as lacking in context as it is sky-high in concept.

Melissa is the only fully developed character in an overlong, badly paced film filled with cliched dialogue and accented by pleasant yet forgettable music.

The studio behind Wicker Park bills it as a "romantic thriller.'' But it's actually an example of an even more unusual subgenre: the dumb, suspense- free and undersexed stalker drama.

The sequel might have the formula down, but it lacks everything that made "Anaconda'' fun.

Swayze's presence crosses the line from curious to bizarre and adds a heavy layer of cheese to Havana Nights.

Daniels has the talent to make a genuinely complex horror film. What was “Precious,” if not a horror movie made all the more chilling by its lack of supernatural elements? But for “The Deliverance,” Daniels simply dusts off the same crab-walking, veins-a-popping demon moves we have seen a million times.

Confusing, mixing messages of self-empowerment with those of conformity.

The whole cast is likable and the scenery lovely, making this only the second-worst Shields beach movie, after “The Blue Lagoon.”

It's strung together, with cliches instead of puka shells.

The tense, stylish thriller turns into soft-core, slapdash psychodrama.

It's merely adequate, with one riveting element but limited chills.

A street-dance film that's lively and silly and about as "street" as a Britney Spears video.

An awkward and aggressively unfunny film.

The game’s repetition quickly gets tiresome.

Badly cast and unevenly acted, “Regretting You” features the least healthy mother-daughter relationship since 1975’s “Grey Gardens.”

It's a prevailing sense of humor that makes this an entertaining, if silly, film adaptation of the Marvel comic.

Despite most everything else in the movie being predictable, Bray’s mystery is hard to guess.

McCarthy is one of our finest physical comedians. Every moment of physical comedy she performs here is cringey.

First Daughter can be measured in degrees of Holmes' discomfort... There's never a moment when she doesn't appear as if she'd rather be in a different movie.

Unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, however, Vin Diesel shows no discernible comedic skills.

A rather boring horror film.

Dax Shepard from MTV's "Punk'd," in his first major big-screen role, steals Without a Paddle. Not that it's too hard to do.

Lacks the clever twists and turns that made the original such fun. The sequel has exactly one twist, and it's not very clever.

probably less painful than actual childbirth, but it's still a very long 86 minutes.

Wilson and Helms favor Bradshaw in likability. But they are not two hours’ worth of likable, in a film this flawed.

Filled with overly processed situations it tries to sell with manic energy, "Kranks" is canned, hammy and rolling as fast as it can.