Christy Lemire

It isn’t creepy, but it isn’t terribly plausible, either. It’s just another movie in which a 30ish white dude finds purpose and learns how to live life again through the love and support of a younger woman who’s more of a concept than a real person.

It lacks the verbal punch of a pulpy film noir. Its pacing is too slack to serve as a gripping romantic thriller. It even rings hollow as a cautionary tale, because everyone is scheming and duplicitous and so no one has been truly wronged.

It's all a dull, repetitive slog of talking heads saying the same thing over and over in slightly different ways, and it never picks up steam.

It’s more of the same, without any discernible improvement in quality, despite the massive technological leaps over the past two decades.

A mixture of misplaced gallows humor, wildly over-the-top caricatures and a gimmicky use of animation combine to make My Dead Boyfriend one of the year’s more uncomfortable movie-going experiences.

Back in Action isn’t as obnoxiously soulless as “Red Notice,” but it’s firmly within that subgenre of glossy, globetrotting action pictures you can stream while you fold your laundry. It all feels so cynical.

A movie that’s as empty and unlikable as the characters themselves.

Time may feel like a flat circle, but the calendar says it’s January, so that means we get shoddy, dumping-ground dreck like the generically titled Redemption Day.

Judy Greer assembled a monumental cast for her directing debut, A Happening of Monumental Proportions. Then she stranded her fellow actors with material that doesn’t even begin to tap into their talents.

No one needs a paycheck this badly. This goes far beyond the one-for-me, one-for-them theory of role choices.

The Pickup is as generic and forgettable as its title suggests: a bland action-comedy that will surely end up being one of the year’s worst movies, if only for the egregious way it squanders its talented cast.

Like A Boss is a movie written and directed by men which bears very little resemblance to how women actually relate to each other.

Secret Headquarters is as bland and forgettable as its title would suggest. It’s so generic, it almost sounds like the name of a better movie translated awkwardly from another language into its simplest terms in English.

Particularly at a time when women’s rights are in jeopardy here in the United States and around the world, “Dirty Angels” represents a blown opportunity to say something meaningful amid the mayhem.

This slick and cheesy Netflix movie only occasionally rises to the potential of its wild premise, thanks mostly to a crazy-eyed, licking-his-chops performance from Jason O’Mara. He knows exactly what kind of material he’s working with here. For the most part, though, “Hypnotic” is dopey, but never quite dopey enough.

Christian readers and audiences are the base here, but it’s hard to imagine that this incarnation of the story will persuade anyone else to find the Lord unless they’re sitting in the theater praying for the dialogue or special effects to improve.

The 355 amasses some of the most talented and electrifying actresses in the world, then squanders them in a generic and forgettable action picture.

Even by the standards of raunchy, comic spoofs, director and co-writer Deon Taylor’s film feels especially scattered.

Luck truly is best suited for small children with low standards. Older kids will be bored. Adults will find it especially dreary, even though there’s actually a relevant message in here about the merits of failure and the perils of lawnmower parenting, buried somewhere beneath all the sparkles and desperation.

Penn’s own humanitarian work is well-documented, including raising millions of dollars for Haitian relief efforts. Clearly, his intentions here are genuine. But his execution is laughably pretentious.

Jettisons everything that’s honest and worthwhile about the books in favor of hackneyed misadventures and gross-out scatological humor.

There is nothing new, exciting or particularly challenging about what The Secret: Dare to Dream is selling.

In theory, these actors should be able to just show up, be themselves, tap into their formidable improvisational abilities and let the laughs flow freely. In reality, though, movies require scripts. They require actual characters and dialogue and narratives that evolve in ways that are logical, or at least engaging.

The makers of The Possession of Hannah Grace clearly intended for it to be dark. After all, it’s about an exorcism that goes horribly wrong, resulting in further mayhem months later at a morgue. But they probably didn’t mean for it to be visually inscrutable, which is what this quick and dirty — and mostly scare-free — horror film ends up being.

Over and over again, this is the level of humor in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 — this is the shrill note it hits.

I’m also hoping that the game is more emotionally engaging — or at least, you know, fun — than the movie I just saw. Because that thing was a dour mess.

Schiffli’s snarky and snide self-aware tone quickly grows wearisome, and his action sequences have a cheapness about them that’s distancing; they’re almost laughable but never so-bad-they’re-good.

Playing With Fire tries to be tasteless and crass but also treacly and cheery. It wants to you go: “Ewwww …,” but also: “Awwww ...” You’re more likely to groan, then look at your watch again.

A blandly gritty piece of late-August mayhem that’s as forgettable as its generic title.

Even by the low standards of this type of live-action, family friendly comedy, Show Dogs is especially lame. It’s actually kind of amazing that it’s getting a theatrical release at all.

A movie based on a toy should be a whole lot more fun than this.

Alas, everything is wrong with Superintelligence, beginning with the misbegotten premise of Steve Mallory’s script.

Shrill, frantic, and hideous to look at, “Gracie & Pedro: Pets to the Rescue” isn’t just one of the worst animated movies of the year—it’s one of the worst movies of the year, period.

Like Father Like Son is at once unintentionally hilarious and borderline reprehensible, and it’s the closest approximation to the disaster of “The Room” since Tommy Wiseau’s cult favorite first graced arthouse theaters over 20 years ago.

The pacing is sluggish, the script is crammed with both incomprehensible technical gobbledygook and lazy, sexist jokes, and the visual effects are laughably cheesy. My kid could make a more dazzling space movie on his iPad.