Christy Lemire

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.

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.

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.

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.

Director Kim Farrant’s debut feature is beautifully shot and offers some powerful, well-acted moments from a strong cast, but it’s just relentlessly dreary.

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

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.

Weirdly sluggish and dull.

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

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.

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.

Everyone’s so handsome and there are SO many cozy sweaters and clunky boots to enjoy on those rainy days. But these characters are barely more than a collection of quirks, and the thing that’s keeping them from being together forever has got to be the most ridiculous of all contrivances.

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.

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

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.

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.

Nothing nearly so wacky or grotesque goes down in this romantic thriller, but you’ll wish it would.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.