Christy Lemire

American Ultra tries to combine a sweet, slacker romance with a slick, super-violent action flick. If that sounds jarring to you, that’s probably because it is.

Blonde abuses and exploits Marilyn Monroe all over again, the way so many men did over the cultural icon’s tragic, too-short life.

Things Heard & Seen is partly a Gothic horror movie and partly a portrait of a marriage falling apart. It’s more effective as the latter than the former, but by the end these two seemingly separate kinds of movie dovetail in a way that’s surprisingly clever and effective.

Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, John Cena, and Meredith Hagner travel to Mexico in Vacation Friends, but they never really go anywhere.

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.

Alas, David O. Russell has concocted all manner of adventures and detours, wacky hijinks, and elaborate asides to occupy his actors, none of which is nearly as clever or charming as he seems to think.

It’s a harmless animated adventure that will provide a bland diversion to young viewers.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is zippy and breezy.

A Tourist’s Guide to Love is as harmless as its blandly forgettable title would suggest. It’s not quite a Movie to Fold Laundry To, because the scenery is quite lovely, so you’ll actually want to pay attention. But it is a pleasant escape if you’re seeking lazy Saturday afternoon viewing.

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.

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.

It’s just a flat and suspense-free tale of pretty people in peril.

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.

Fellow comedian Dave Attell is his delightfully twisted self as the MC at a Coney Island bikini contest where Renee puts on a wild spectacle compared to the typical skinny girls who populate such events. Again, this isn’t a moment of body shaming. It’s an unbridled display of enthusiasm. We’re laughing with her, not at her. If only the rest of the film had such complete confidence.

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.

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.

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.

A strong cast giving their all — including Jon Hamm, Ellen Burstyn, Bruce Dern, Catherine Keener and Amber Tamblyn — can’t do much with such heavy-handed, self-serious material.

There is simultaneously too much and not enough going on in writer/director/co-star Josh Lawson’s feature debut. He crams in too many people and plot lines but offers too little in the way of character development and credible emotion.

The Hoebers have woven a delightfully weird streak throughout the humor that’ll keep you on your toes. It’s consistently a pleasant surprise in what is otherwise a predictable story.

Working alongside veteran screenwriter Joe Carnahan, who’s made his name with this kind of brash, muscular storytelling in films like “Narc” and “The Grey,” Hernandez Bray tries to get his arms around a lot at once. Quite often, he’s successful.

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.

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.