Claudia Puig

Annabelle invites unflattering comparisons with scary movies that came before, but its disparate parts never coalesce into a genuinely fearsome thriller.

Do yourself a favor and rent the 1996 original from Japan instead.

Doesn't make the movie worth watching -- even if you're monstrously bored.

Moore and Ford rise above the hackneyed story, infusing the proceedings with their own chemistry and appeal. If only the adults responsible for this film could learn how to deal.

God may forgive you for seeing this needlessly brutal film. But you won't forgive yourself.

Overflows with pretensions and absurdity.

Manages to be both toothless and tasteless in its satire of TV news sensationalism.

A failure from start to finish.

Machine Gun Preacher has a lot more wrong with it than a bullet-riddled premise. It is yet another iteration of the big, strong white man who comes to save legions of poor anonymous black Africans.

If you're a Rainn Wilson fan, catch a rerun of "The Office."

Despite its collegiate setting, 21 and Over is pretty much for people with an IQ of 21 and under.

Don't stop believing. Just avoid clichéd musicals that try to capture the anarchic spirit of rock with trite commercial re-treads.

It's almost impressive when a movie can manage to be both repellently vulgar and sickeningly sweet in the span of a mere two hours. Almost.

It's dogged by awkward dialogue, a ridiculous plot and lackluster performances, especially by the leads.

It's unclear why the writers bothered to update the cartoon, unless it was to expand the possibilities for quips and jokey ideas. If so, they failed in their mission, as the movie elicits few laughs.

Director Kevin Smith's tweets, jokes and sharp commentary after being denied a seat aboard a Southwest Airlines flight because of his girth were a lot more engaging than Cop Out, his new movie.

Too much. The hackneyed story about an affluent damsel in distress who decides to fight her bully of a husband is simply too overdone.

There's nothing worse than a boring behemoth.

Barrels around in manic fashion much like Carrey does in most of his movies. He's meant to be a fool for love, but mostly he's just bonkers.

The cliché-laden dialogue, schlocky special effects and predictable plot are derivative; the movie is overwrought and lacks suspense.

Balls of Fury makes "Dodgeball" look like high art. It'll be tough to crack a smile, let alone laugh, during this uninspired and sophomoric satire of sports movies.

The best thing about A Good Day to Die Hard is its title.

One of the more befuddling movies of recent years. The premise makes no sense, no matter how you turn it around in your head.

All cinematic creativity seems to have focused on devising the most repellent ways to maim and murder.

A movie that gives marriage, homosexuality, friendship, firefighters, children and nearly everything else a bad name.

Those who sit through this mindlessness get the booby prize.

Maybe for the next installment, they can go off to college and find something better to do than making these silly movies.

Defanged and drippy, the remake of 1939's The Women seems to have been made for the dullard granddaughters of the sassy, sharp society matrons in George Cukor's campy original.

Wastes a moderately intriguing premise by filling it with laughably clichéd dialogue, one-dimensional characters and implausible turns of events.

The Gambler is a hollow, overwrought and glibly cynical remake of a '70s drama about a self-destructive academic.

Can't decide what direction it's going in. Some of the time it seems to be a standard teen sex comedy. Occasionally, it appears to be spoofing the genre. It concludes on a romantic, almost honorable note.

It might be that Jarmusch (Broken Flowers) is experimenting with creating a pastiche of dreamlike sequences that audiences can interpret as they wish. Or it may be merely pretension and hubris that fuels such a stylized and insubstantial story.

The two main characters in Are You Here spend much of their time stoned or weeping. Those who watch this dreadful film may seek to escape or sink into despair as well.

The overwritten script and the ridiculous plot combine to make The Counselor a frustrating experience.

Silly, unfunny and formulaic.

Is there a word that means the opposite of Cowabunga? If so, that's the word for the charmless, dull and derivative new take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

This is not only unsuitable for children, it's a colossal waste of time at any age.

Jude Law put on 30 pounds to play this slimeball. But the weightier question is, why would he bother to take this worn-out role, at any size?

Yearns to be fresh but ends up tasteless. It's as drawn-out, forced and annoying as a holiday meal with a dozen carping relatives.

Catch and Release is not worth catching. Release yourself from boredom by giving it a miss.

The entire undertaking feels like a waste of time and talent.

The name is a tipoff: Club Dread is dreadful.

The sci-fi film's reported $175 million budget must have gone largely into loopy production design, wild costumes, outlandish hairstyles and colorful make-up. It certainly didn't go into developing a coherent script or coaching believable performances.

Moore goes into operatic mode as Mother Malkin, a nasty witch who morphs into a menacing winged dragon. The worst performance, however, belongs to Jeff Bridges as a marble-mouthed, curmudgeonly knight named Master Gregory.

The players fall into recognizable stereotypes: the big and clumsy kid, the real talent who's also a showoff, the buffoon, the gross-out guy. But no one is more formulaic than the coach. He starts out smug with the kids and ends up smitten.

If you value your time and money, find an escape clause and avoid seeing this trite, predictable rehash. The 90 minutes could be better spent doing holiday shopping.

Everything about this fish-out-of-water romp is tired.

While he gets points for addressing the debate, the way in which Stein goes about it undermines his efforts to be even-handed and intellectually rigorous.

Sadistic mess of a movie.

Feels about as fresh and lively as a piece of burnt rubber.

This sequel to the clever and funny first "Transformers" not only is disappointing, it will give most people a throbbing case of metal overload.

Bonds are tested and feelings hurt, but who really cares? The story takes predictable turns, embraces clichés and dodges all humor.

It's problematic enough that the movie's lead characters are unlikable. But worse is the blackening of The Human Stain with a trite and forced plot, uninteresting digressions and clunky direction.

The last name Blart may be the funniest thing in the movie, so that's a hint as to just how bad this shopping-center saga can be.

The screenplay is thin, the dialogue lacks nuance and the acting is often laughable.

Here's a by-the-playbook movie if ever there was one.

It's déjà vu all over again. There isn't much more to say about "We Own the Night 2." Oops, make that Pride and Glory.

This second installment, based on Veronica Roth's series of YA novels, feels cobbled together and less focused than 2014's Divergent, and lacks tension and excitement.

In a summer filled with dumb comedies, this might prove to be the dumbest. Think "Road Trip" meets "City Slickers." Then dial the humor down a few notches, and you're left Without a Paddle.

Sitting through this movie is worse than being locked in a room with a continuous loop of "Nip/Tuck" playing on a jumbo screen.

While this third installment offers a jot more humor (mostly unintentional), the action scenes are disjointed, badly staged and mind-numbing.

Flyboys doesn't succeed as a wartime adventure story or as a period romance. Even the special effects, set in a historical context, are too ho-hum to save this over-long and tedious film.

Sitting through the teen skateboard comedy Grind is, well, a grind.

Labor Day feels like a belabored, sappy slog.

What is most troubling is how this film can serve to shape perceptions for impressionable kids. Young girls and boys will think that non-stop make-out sessions is all it takes to sustain "endless love."

The pirate ship has hit foul waters, and even the sharp wit and charm of everyone's favorite buccaneer can't save it.

Post Grad is a collection of unfunny, insipid and predictable vignettes in search of a movie.

Talented actors are wasted in a film that induces more cringes than chuckles as women old enough to know better act like horny sailors on leave, absorb mass quantities of alcohol and drugs, and generally behave horribly.

John Wick serves up a noxious, clashing blend of hyper-realistic and cartoonish violence. Too bad there's no cinema decontaminating service that can wash our memories clean of such useless gore.

The dialogue is beyond clichéd, and performances feel cobbled together from other movies.

Fighting seriously lacks punch.

The jewels in the buried treasure, once sighted, look fake. But the bigger problem is how artificial the whole story feels.

So leaden and obnoxious that it actually makes you long for the John Travolta of "Old Dogs."

Its use of trite "Win one for the Gipper" dialogue, overbearing soaring music and conventional plot devices makes it far too formulaic to truly move us.

By the time the movie reaches its protracted conclusion, it feels like a slog. Pacino has a few funny lines, as does Leguizamo, but not nearly enough to save the film from collapsing under the weight of its own self-righteous tedium.

You're bound to have more fun working overtime than watching Employee of the Month.

Director Steve Buscemi is not to be faulted for his filmmaking or acting skills, but as co-writer he could have done better than the false-sounding dialogue.

For a movie that touts the importance of humanity, Green Lantern is a strangely lifeless spectacle.

It's too bad more energy wasn't devoted to fleshing out the one-dimensional characters and crafting a decent script. The only reason to catch this harmless diversion is for the group dance sessions.

Given its predictable story, the only reason to see Stomp is for the rhythmic step dancing.

It takes more than an awkward title attempting to sound cool to overcome its mundane plot and silly dialogue.

Nothing about this rote exercise feels remotely fresh. It's a re-tread of the 2009 original, sans the inspired lunacy.

From the embarrassingly over-the-top performance of Ray Liotta as a tough-guy biker to the pratfalls of William H. Macy as a bumbling computer geek, this movie stinks of exhaust and desperation.

Some screwball moments elicit a chuckle or two, but the script is weak and the characterizations clichéd.

Shyamalan isn't drawing the caliber of performances from his actors as he used to. Who can forget Haley Joel Osment's haunting portrayal in The Sixth Sense or that of Toni Collette, who played his mother, or Bruce Willis in arguably his best role?

Ostensibly meant to be light entertainment. If light is synonymous with preposterous, frenetic and noisy, it qualifies.

Slavishly follows the well-worn and soggy Sparks path.

Though the lead actress, newcomer Jordana Beatty, gives a spunky performance as third-grader Judy, her character's borderline bratty charm wears thin fast. Mostly it's undercut by the movie's irritatingly antic slapstick style.

Misanthropic to the extreme, Bad Teacher fails across the board.

It's tough to summon sufficiently negative language to describe the unfunny, desperate mess that is Bad Words.

Perhaps there was a clever germ of an idea here, but the five credited writers didn't develop characters, scenarios or rules in this sci-fi world well enough to engage the audience.

Filled with laughable dialogue, Abduction goes nowhere.

It's an unrelentingly brutal movie set in an unusually scenic locale — the coastal city of Valparaiso, Chile.

It's an idea that might have made for a mildly intriguing skit, but blown out into a full-length feature it's at best campy and at worst an amateurish, sentimental schlock-fest.

A wan version of the same old tired serial killer story, despite its updated milieu -- cyberspace.

The Romantics is a misnomer. "The Spoiled Melodramatics" would be more accurate. Or better yet, "The Pretentious Ones."

The shenanigans of randy soccer moms and their obnoxious blowhard husbands are intended as comic relief. But the sappy plot of this formulaic romantic comedy is just as silly as its inane attempts at farce.

Too slight and pointless.