Christy Lemire

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.

Of course, the clothes are great: racks of shimmery, sequined knockouts and rows of fierce pumps. And it wouldn’t be a “Charlie’s Angels” adventure without a variety of wild costumes for the ladies to don for their undercover assignments as well as an assortment of high-tech gadgets.

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

The leads are so lovely and the city is so shimmery that it’s hard not to get caught up in its spell — for a while, at least, until its corny coda destroys whatever goodwill the film has generated.

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.

The best thing about “Invader” is that it’s short. But for much of its 69-minute runtime, it is thoroughly unpleasant, which makes it feel much longer.

A numbing and soulless spectacle of 3-D, computer-generated imagery run amok, Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings presents an enduring tale by pummeling us over the head with it.

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.

Johnson keeps it all moving at a decent clip, though, with the help of Michael Penn’s score. And she photographs Powley and her mesmerizing blue eyes so lovingly that it’s hard not to find her adorable—even when she’s being awful.

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 and co-writer Sarah Adina Smith offers some inspired moments and laughs here and there, but too often, running bits simply don’t pay off.

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.

You’d have to be totally cynical, with a heart of stone and ice water in your veins, not to be even the slightest bit charmed by One Chance.

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.

The result feels strained and slapped together, crammed as it is with silly mistaken identities and misunderstandings, adolescent jealousies and slapstick jokes. It’s a sitcom in a sari.

Think of How to Be Single as a cinematic Whitman’s Sampler: There are enough pieces that work to offset the pieces that don’t.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

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.

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.

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

Confuses repetitive raunchiness with daring humor. It hammers us over the head with the same handful of jokes in the hopes of beating us into submission. And it strains the screen appeal of a group of actors who normally are enormously likable.

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.

None of these characters or their stories is nearly as engaging as the movie’s many gonzo action sequences, though.

It brings me absolutely no joy to report that The Marvels is terrible, and the worst film yet in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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.