Christy Lemire

The wacky New York types with their lack of an internal censor and their wild ideas for what they’d do to the apartment provide a consistent source of laughs.

It is the kind of movie you watch on an airplane — perhaps on the way to someplace luxurious and relaxing like the South of France, the film’s setting — while falling in and out of naps.

Finally, a woman — Sophie Barthes — has directed and co-written a film version of Madame Bovary, but strangely, that doesn’t result in any more richness or enlightenment.

What begins in lively and vibrant fashion as the title would suggest gets bogged down in a literal and figurative swamp in Vivo.

It’s time for your annual Liam Neesoning: that cinematic tradition in which the seasoned star plays a grizzled character with a particular set of skills, which come in handy to dispatch bad guys and rescue good ones. But this year’s entry in the subgenre, The Marksman, is particularly mediocre.

With Girls of the Sun, she handles the action sequences with a deft hand and a feel for tension, but her character development is woefully lacking to the point of empty cliché.

Blake Lively gives it her all in The Rhythm Section, but the movie only meets her halfway.

Individual scenes can be tense but the arc as a whole lacks momentum. I Smile Back should have been devastating. Silverman is willing to take you there. What it ends up being is frustrating.

The pacing is so jarring that the emotional payoff doesn’t develop as intended. And the overall irony, of course, is that this is a movie about the need for magic that could have used a little more of the stuff itself. But if it makes you think of your mom and dad fondly, even for a moment, well at least that’s something.

It may seem ironic that a movie about electrifying the United States should ultimately be so tedious and forgettable, but such is the state of the delayed and troubled drama The Current War: Director’s Cut.

The jumbled narrative structure allows for a couple of a-ha revelations, but it mostly creates a distance for the viewer. And yet despite these flaws, the artistry on display in Violation is undeniable.

As the film trudges toward its conclusion, it’s one frustrating scene after another like that. And by the end, you’ll realize the clever opening title sequence was probably the best part of all.

The film version of the best-selling novel The Fault in Our Stars feels emotionally inert, despite its many moments that are meant to put a lump in our throats.

Everything gets upended in the film’s final third, when its languid pacing gives way to sped-up plotting.

If you long for the gritty charms of mid-‘90s indie cinema in general and “Trainspotting” specifically, T2 Trainspotting gives you exactly that. And by “exactly,” we really do mean “exactly.”

These moments remind us of the mindless summertime excitement the “Jurassic” movies have long provided, albeit with diminishing returns. But that giant footprint just isn’t as imposing as it used to be.

It’s disappointing and actually kind of cynical in its unwillingness to try anything even vaguely innovative with these beloved characters.

The Report is also surprisingly free of tension, given the subject matter; if you’re going to experience any anxiety, it’ll probably come from a sense of worry over whether all of this is going to be on the final exam.

It’s all inspiring stuff, to be sure—and often so dramatic that it’s hard to imagine it really could have happened, even though it did.

Life After Beth gets into the well-tread zombie-comedy territory in a clever and inspired way. Then it doesn’t get out of it nearly so skillfully.

While Where the Crawdads Sing is rich in atmosphere, it’s sorely lacking in actual substance or suspense.

Reitman gets the superficial details of the era right: the pay phones, the big sweaters, the constant indoor smoking. But he’s missing both key insight and satirical bite in his depiction of this pivotal point in American history. Privacy is about to become a thing of the past. In The Front Runner, it dies with a whimper.

The stakes are higher because this is the end—It really is this time!—but the first hour or so of returning director Francis Lawrence’s film is legitimately nap-inducing.

Stretched out to 90 minutes in Sponge on the Run, the pacing lags, the goofiness sags, and you discover over time that there’s not much holding these antics together.

With its amusing training montages, colorful supporting characters, and uplifting message of perseverance, The Phantom of the Open does exactly what you expect it will in the most familiar, comforting manner imaginable. It earns the politest of golf claps.

While it’s drenched in style and features performances from an eclectic cast of actors who are deeply committed to the bit, and its expressions of erotic desire can be quite steamy, director and co-writer Amanda Kramer’s film feels limited and grows tiresome rather quickly.

The style remains firmly in place – this time, it’s a lurid look at Los Angeles in the mid-1980s – but there’s nothing underneath it.

Eventually, though, the whole effort feels chaotic, crammed as it is with uninspired pop culture references and way, way too many fart jokes, even for a movie aimed at kids.

Everything about “The History of Sound” is restrained to a fault—until it’s about the music. And then it bursts with passion and pure emotion.

Rich in atmosphere but short on substance, director and co-writer Gareth Edwards’ film has the look and tone of a serious, original work of art, but it ends up feeling empty as it recycles images and ideas from many influential predecessors.

The ending — with its revelation of what these girls were really after all along — is so frustrating, you’re likely to wonder: Is that all there is?

Danish documentarian Janus Metz — making his first feature, and working from a script by Ronnie Sandahl — feels the need to hold our hands and oversimplify these two titans of tennis.

It’s almost too pretty in a self-consciously artful way, and that overriding aesthetic suffocates the underlying truth of the lead actors’ performances.

Tim Burton’s Dumbo feels like one of the big-eared baby elephant’s early flights: It’s adorable and earnest but it causes a lot of commotion, and it only sporadically, haltingly soars.

Cuckoo gets more confusing the more it explains itself. The further writer-director Tilman Singer goes in articulating the strange goings-on that drive this stylish, unsettling thriller, the less compelling it becomes.

While we do indeed see the normalcy of her home life with her parents and younger brothers and the regular, teenage-girl instincts that exist alongside her courage, we never get a glimpse into her deeper feelings.

An impressive team comes together in front of the camera and behind the scenes for the heist thriller Triple Frontier, but the results are frustratingly uneven.

It’s structurally awkward, jumping around in time needlessly and sometimes confusingly, rendering Nureyev’s story weirdly inert until the final 20-30 minutes.

Moving from in front of the lens to behind it, the former ‘80s sitcom star clearly has something personal and piercing to say. Her film will surely resonate with so many others who hear their own nagging voices in their heads.

Dazzlingly impressive from a technical perspective but frustratingly dull from a narrative one, Medusa Deluxe is an ambitious but uneven experience.

Gadot remains a winning and winsome figure in “Wonder Woman 1984,” and she retains her authentic connection with the audience, but the machinery around her has grown larger and unwieldy. Maybe that was inevitable, the urge in crafting a sequel to make everything wilder and brasher, more sprawling and complicated. In the process, though, the quality that made the original film such a delight has been squashed almost entirely.

It ultimately results in a cold, unsatisfying experience.

If only the dialogue and visuals matched the daring of its ideology.

The sequel (which is also a prequel) features a bigger cast, a longer running time, extra subplots and additional romantic entanglements. But it’s emptier than its predecessor and has even lower stakes. It’s less entertaining, and for all its frantic energy, it manages to go absolutely nowhere.

McDonagh’s film is well-crafted throughout but ultimately has nothing fresh or insightful to say about the ugliness of white privilege.

While “Superior” has a rich style and a couple of intriguing ideas, it ultimately doesn’t add up to much, leaving you with the feeling that you’re watching an inferior homage.

All the pieces would seem to be in place—on paper at least—for a rich and gripping grown-up drama. So why does the result feel so elusive and unsatisfying?

There’s a surreal, dreamlike quality throughout, with bursts of violence and bad behavior. But while Grabinski certainly deserves credit for his ambition, the juggling act he’s attempting gets away from him, and Happily ultimately ends up being more frustrating than dazzling.

All of it is done capably but without much panache; worst of all, the boxing sequences feel rudimentary, lacking both artistry and savagery.

A drama that’s tastefully restrained to a fault in a particularly British manner.

Like a novice juggler struggling to master some complicated tricks, The One and Only Ivan tries to encompass several different stories, themes, and ideas while appealing to adults and very young kids at the same time. It’s a tough feat to pull off — an uneasy mix of lofty notions about freedom and dog fart jokes — which the film only sporadically succeeds in achieving.

But because the talent amassed here is so impressive, I wish the film had been more focused.

The Glass Castle is at odds with itself. Maybe that contradiction is by design. Maybe it’s inevitable, given the emotionally complicated terrain it treads. But the result is a film that never quite clicks tonally and doesn’t do justice to its harrowing central story.

With Radioactive, Satrapi eschews traditional biopic notions in favor of a more daring approach. But the execution is frustratingly inconsistent, with a time-hopping structure that’s more jarring than thrilling.

Being a mom is hard, a universal truism that "Nightbitch" explores in ways that are occasionally inspired but mostly blunt and banal.

Senior Year takes two high-concept premises—the going-back-to-high-school movie and the waking-up-from-a-coma movie—and slams them together in an intermittently amusing but mostly obvious comedy.

The guerrilla-style approach is ambitious. The access is incredible. The film itself, however, is less so.

Bailey has achieved the purpose she set out at the film’s start. She’s made a film that’s optimistic, ultimately. But it would have benefitted from being a lot more real.

Zombieland: Double Tap is more of the same, but also much less. The cast is larger, the carnage is gnarlier and the comedy is even more meta than before. But while individual moments and action sequences might be amusing, the endeavor as a whole feels like a tepid retread.

Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan do their best to elevate Military Wives from a simple tune to a symphony, but the notes just aren’t there on the page.

The Secret Life of Pets 2 proves the old adage that you can go to the well — or in this case, the dog bowl — one time too many. And that’s saying something, given that this is only the second film in the series.

The performances are really strong, though. That’s what’s so frustrating; you just know there’s a better movie in here waiting to burst free.

Aïnouz rarely builds tension through these machinations; surprisingly, given what’s at stake, “Firebrand” is often a bit of a slog.

Hamilton deserves better. So do the other strong women who make up the film’s trio of warriors, fighting to protect each other and all of humanity from technological destruction. Again.

It’s sufficiently giddy at first but eventually grows repetitive and wearying, especially as more and more stuff gets blown up real good.

Their many challenges wrap up too neatly, but there are enough genuine moments of truth in Blast Beat to make you wish there were even more.

Ultimately, these shocking and violent sequences become repetitive and gratuitous, making Red Sparrow feel more like a cheap exercise in exploitation than a visceral tale of survival.

Tonally messy and overlong, director Greg Berlanti’s film ultimately squanders the considerable charms of its A-list stars, Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, who are individually appealing but have zero chemistry with each other.

The glittering cast of Death on the Nile is all dressed up but, alas, they have nowhere to go.

The mythology here is both dense and frequently silly, with the movie grinding to a halt around the one-hour mark for an extensive information dump. By the end, you may still be unclear as to what’s going on, but you also may not care.

Writer/director Camille Griffin’s feature filmmaking debut is an ambitious but muddled mix of Christmas comedy and apocalyptic drama.

A big-budget, holiday-timed blockbuster about…racism, which may not exactly be the joyful, escapist entertainment families are looking for this time of year.

A terrific cast can only do so much with superficial, maudlin material in the coming-of-age dramedy Wildflower.

Director and co-writer Susanna Fogel has trouble achieving a tonal balance between the comedy and the action, which only grows increasingly glaring over the course of the film’s overlong running time.

Every Day has an intriguing concept that’s hampered by problematic execution. And it raises several questions it never answers in satisfying fashion, leading to a conclusion that will elicit not just head-scratching but unintentional hilarity.

For a movie that’s about a character on the run, No Man’s Land meanders and takes its time in a way that feels in conflict with the narrative.

It’s an inspiring tale based on true events with a worthwhile message about finding your voice and asserting your identity. If only it were good.

Rough Night starts out buoyantly, and it and features some wonderfully weird moments scattered throughout. But those scenes never truly gel with the movie’s eventual life-or-death stakes.

For much of its overlong running time, “Waiting for Bojangles” depicts mental illness as an adorable personality quirk, a source of good-time party vibes, even a glamorous quality. Then, once this frothy French romance evolves into a more serious drama, it turns turgid, causing a jarring tonal shift.

Your Place or Mine begins in 2003, and it feels like the kind of superficially agreeable and instantly forgettable romantic comedy that came out around that time.

Weirdly sluggish and dull.

Given that she’s one of the greatest actresses of her time, Mirren naturally finds ways to reveal glimmers of humanity in her portrayal of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. But the artifice of her physical transformation too often smothers her, resulting in a stoicism that makes her an elusive figure.

Maggie Q and Michael Keaton have such snappy, sexy chemistry with each other in The Protégé, it’ll make you wish their connection were in the service of a better movie.

It's pretty standard man vs. nature stuff. It’s also a pretty simple parable about the perils of greed. All of this would be fine if “Gold” had more to it, but aside from its undeniable style, there’s very little there there.

As Don’t Worry Darling reaches its climactic and unintentionally hilarious conclusion, Wilde loses her grasp on the material. The pacing is a little erratic throughout, but she rushes to uncover the ultimate mystery with a massive exposition dump that’s both dizzying and perplexing.

Takes on the topic of gender dysphoria with a talented cast but not much to say.

These “Fantastic Beasts” movies are just not good. They’re extremely OK, but never truly inspiring or transporting.

Diane Kruger is as inscrutable to us as she is to her fellow Mossad agents and the asset she seduces in The Operative, a solidly crafted if forgettable espionage thriller.

Like Slimer shoving snacks in his ravenous maw, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” tries to cram way too many characters, storylines and iconic images into its two-hour runtime.

A presence that initially was disturbing grows repetitive and almost predictable over the course of an entire film.

Horns would seem like another gamble, and another opportunity to stretch. It’s a supernatural thriller, territory he’s familiar with, but taken to a raunchy, grotesque extreme.

Unsung Hero could have used more of such emotional honesty. But it ultimately must deliver a broad uplift that’s palatable for the whole family, so it tends to skim the surface.

Perfectly serviceable and utterly forgettable, Honest Thief nonetheless offers a few pleasing details to keep it from being a total slog.

It’s amusingly slick and mean for a while, but ultimately the film’s one-note nihilism grows numbing, and its stylish visuals and well-chosen soundtrack can only do so much to keep it lively.

Even by the standards of this franchise—and this genre in general—Step Up All In is pretty laughable.

It’s a mismatched-buddy comedy. It’s a fish-out-of-water comedy. It’s a raucous girl-power comedy.

The sad subtext of Made in Italy is more intriguing and poignant than what we see on screen.

For every delicate element there are many others that are heavy-handed or cringe-inducing, including some painfully on-the-nose musical selections. (Salt-N-Pepa’s perky “Push It” plays while Collins’ character, Rosie, is giving birth. Get it? Because she’s pushing!)