Claudia Puig

Nothing feels remotely fresh, let alone savage or zany in The Wild Life. It’s a dull, uninspired and frantically tedious animated re-telling of the Robinson Crusoe story, complete with a menagerie of ditzy, caterwauling beasts.

Hot Pursuit is this week's "Paul Blart." Which is to say, it's ill-conceived, not funny, overbearing and not in any way worth watching.

Slavishly follows the well-worn and soggy Sparks path.

It will be hard for audiences to remain even vaguely attentive during this slog of a feudal vengeance tale.

Get Hard is hard to sit through and hardly funny. So unless you're really hard up for entertainment, stay away from this tone-deaf raunchfest.

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.

The only redeeming feature about The Gunman is its exotic locations.

Sitting through the turgid and tedious S&M melodrama that is Fifty Shades of Grey may feel like its own form of torture.

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 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.

What was once fresh and innovative now is tired and overdone.

Blackhat is a tedious, preposterous and incoherent cyberthriller that is anything but thrilling.

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

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

This ill-conceived sequel to 2011's entertaining Horrible Bosses is base, moronic, insulting and vulgar. It's also cringingly unfunny.

If there was any doubt that most things in society have been dumbed down in the last couple of decades, Dumb and Dumber To could be exhibit A.

The Homesman aims for a story that's poignant and told sparely, but comes across as mawkish, tedious and self-indulgent.

A deadly dull and overly familiar movie about summoning ghosts that draws upon nearly every horror movie cliché.

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.

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

As forewarned, so avoid.

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.

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 Expendables 3 is as boneheaded and disposable as it sounds.

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.

Viewers seeking a fresh comedy, a seductive romp, or even just an escape from boredom for a couple hours will be left dismally unsatisfied by this stilted, nearly humorless, non-titillating slog.

Where 1991's "Thelma & Louise" was funny and action-filled, Tammy's story is thin, cringe-inducing and, worst of all for a comedy, not funny. Jokes land with a thud and the pacing is leaden.

Silly, unfunny and formulaic.

Mothers deserve a much better break than the hectic, shrill and dismally unpleasant Moms' Night Out.

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?

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

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

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."

Labor Day feels like a belabored, sappy slog.

This wrongheaded biopic that bears her name does nothing to burnish her legacy. In fact, the tedious movie lacks any insight into the characters involved, and surely would have the late Princess of Wales rolling in her grave. And it can't be easy on her sons to see their mother depicted in such a one-dimensional fashion.

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

Insidious: Chapter 2 appears to be the sum of the unusable parts from James Wan's recent haunted house feature "The Conjuring."

Move along, there's nothing to see and no one to root for in this murky franchise reboot.

Kick-Ass is a prime example of a movie that never should have bothered with a sequel. Not only is its successor played-out, but it revels in carnage while lacking the visual style and gleeful humor of the original.

The Canyons is billed as an erotic thriller, but the sexcapades of these empty-headed twentysomethings are far more likely to elicit yawns than titillation.

We're the Millers is a twisted road trip worth avoiding. Not only is it not funny, it's offensive.

This insipid, and sometimes awkward, blend of animation, computer generation and live action wastes a ton of talent and lacks a true sense of whimsy.

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.

A failure from start to finish.

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

Even as temporary visitors, the audience can feel IQ points slipping away.

The story's appeal is lost in all the fights between the monsters and robots.

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

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

Never was a film so visually stunning and so intolerable as To the Wonder.

Family Weekend is the kind of dark-for-dark's sake, wannabe quirkfest that proves indie films can be just as clichéd and vapid as the most soulless Hollywood movies.

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

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

This genre stew throws in so many ingredients - including sundry body parts that are cut off and go flying, and heads that explode - that the result is a tasteless mash-up that's hard to stomach.

Audiences deserve a resounding "mea culpa" for the embarrassing dreck, masquerading as comedy, in The Guilt Trip.

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.

Fun is hiding behind a bad movie costume in this humorless and idiotic Halloween teen comedy.

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.

That's My Boy is puerile, mean-spirited and charmless.

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

Despite an unlikely setting and a moderately intriguing premise, Chernobyl Diaries proves to be a generic horror flick where young tourists are systematically victimized in unoriginal and not terribly scary ways.

What audiences should expect is a tone-deaf, superficial, charmless ensemble rom-com, focused on five attractive, but uninteresting, couples.

Somewhere amid the mind-numbing barrage of action sequences there's a story based on Greek mythology. But its essence is buried amid the clatter.

The concept is unoriginal, the scenarios aren't funny, and its message is banal. Plus, Murphy alternately hams it up and phones it in.

A movie about a teen party gone horribly wrong, would be every parent's worst nightmare if it weren't so inane.

More often the film succumbs to clichés, grows convoluted and outlandish, and winds up dead on arrival.

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

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.

Filled with laughable dialogue, Abduction goes nowhere.

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

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

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.

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

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

Memorable for being one of the most obnoxious animated movies of recent years.

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

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.

Trying to decipher all the convoluted pathways could drive you mad. Mostly, though, it is so ludicrous that it will unintentionally inspire laughter.

A documentary on the formation of stalagmites would have been more compelling.

Yogi Bear is a big boo-boo.

It may be the only movie ever to feature a bad performance by Johnny Depp, one of the best actors working in films.

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.

Who had the lamebrained idea for a post-apocalyptic 3-D Nutcracker that is lacking any trace of ballet?

Kimberly Elise gives the best performance as a beleaguered woman with an abusive boyfriend (Michael Ealy).

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.

Overflows with pretensions and absurdity.

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

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

Lacking even a hint of humor or a watchable story, Disguise has distinguished itself as the summer's worst movie.

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.

You know something is wrong when a preschooler's unwitting ad-libs are funnier than anything seasoned comedy writers can come up with. Kids say the darnedest things. Too bad the grown-ups don't.

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.