Christy Lemire

The pieces are all there, but they never really snap into place.

This sluggish tale of remorse and forgiveness mostly remains bland and distant, like the many generic aerial shots of Rome that it offers.

Justice may have a striking screen presence, but she can only do much with material that’s less than heavenly.

While Antebellum is dazzling to the eyes, it also leaves an icky taste in your mouth in its leering, exploitative depiction of violent, slavery movie tropes.

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.

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.

Actually, Muppets From Space doesn't offer much for adults, either. The normally smart, endearing characters can't save this movie, which begins with a flimsy premise. [12 July 1999]

The Whale is an abhorrent film, but it also features excellent performances.

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

There are plenty of perfunctory jump scares as well as some especially cheesy visual effects. But there is exactly one inspired sight gag and one funny line of dialogue, so you have those to look forward to, should you land on The Curse of Bridge Hollow while absent-mindedly scrolling for timely holiday fare.

Again, merely watching Brody engaging in such painstaking work is interesting; the generic bloodbath that ensues, less so.

You will never realize how much you need Guillermo del Toro in your life until you see the reboot of “Hellboy.”

A strange little movie that attempts the tricky feat of combining comedy, drama, sci-fi and romance, but it doesn’t get those individual elements right so it never coheres as a whole.

It lacks both the delicate artistry and warm wit of its predecessors. The subtle sense of spirituality is long gone; in its place are frantic action sequences. Whereas the previous movies operated on various levels to resonate with adults and entertain kids, this one is geared mainly toward younger audiences in ways that are frequently silly and insubstantial.

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

Back and forth The Oak Room goes, without ever building the tension it ostensibly seeks. Instead, it meanders from tale to tale, and the writing isn’t sharp or specific enough to sustain this kind of complex framework.

It’s more rote than revelatory, and the possibility of a sequel in the final shot plays more like a threat than a promise.

The supposedly original script from writer Zach Dean offers very little that’s innovative or inspired.

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.

Larger than its predecessor, last year’s “The Maze Runner,” in every way: in its cast, scope, set pieces and (unfortunately) length. But “more” also means more convoluted.

Imagine eating a giant bag of Skittles, then throwing it all up in a fit of sugar-induced nausea and you’ll have some idea of what it feels like to sit through My Little Pony: The Movie.

Because even though I’d just seen the exact same movie my son had, I wasn’t sure I completely understood it, either.

Various characters populate Person to Person, but they rarely register as actual people. And while some of their storylines intersect throughout the course of a day in New York, they rarely connect in ways that have actual meaning.

For better and for worse, Bliss truly makes you feel as if you, too, are suffering from a narcotic-induced, hallucinatory freak-out—one that leaves you physically exhausted, mentally spent and ultimately wondering what the hell just happened to you.

In fact, very little here is special, despite the individual charms of Evans and co-star Alice Eve.

It took 20 years for an Artemis Fowl movie to come out, and now that it’s here, the film itself feels like it’s in a hurry to be over already.

Mostly, Fifty Shades of Black is exactly what you expect it will be. It hits all the notes of its source material, only it amps them up, and it seems to get the inherent absurdity of this premise even more than Sam Taylor-Johnson’s movie did.

You’d think a movie in which Adam Driver fights a bunch of dinosaurs couldn’t possibly be boring, but that’s exactly what 65 is.