Connie Ogle

The film moves jerkily, in fits and starts, squandering its promising setup and bogging down in explanation.

Too much of the breezy humor that made the book a delight is stripped away, replaced with predictable jokes and broad slapstick, sitcom-quality encounters with women and bears and a pushy, grating sentimentality.

If Magic Mike XXL is bulging with anything, it’s inane conversation.

As it is, Gemma Bovery is as dry as day-old bread: Not inedible, but why bother with it if you can find something fresher?

The Age of Adaline is a modern romantic fairy tale set in San Francisco, marred by bad narration and an unnecessary desire to overexplain random magic.

This period piece, directed by Richard Laxton, is shot in such a grim and grainy fashion you long to turn on the lights — which is fitting, because you also wish the filmmakers had illuminated the characters a bit more clearly.

Unfortunately, Insurgent can’t quite live up to its intriguing set up. Even if you’re curious about it, the movie is often plodding and frequently nonsensical, with action that never feels novel or exciting.

There was, however, another question the screenwriter should have asked: Why does the script focus on the wrong couple?

Not entirely unwatchable.

This movie couldn’t be more fantastical if dragons swooped down and incinerated London, Paris and the south of France.

Unfortunately there’s far too little magic in this clumsy attempt to marry fantasy and realism; the film doesn’t have the grace or imagination to bridge the gaps between the two.

If you can get past the ludicrous fantasy — well, wait, that’s the problem. You can’t get past the ludicrous fantasy.

As a film, though, Gimme Shelter is unremarkable, a predictable story of redemption that happens awfully fast, to a girl who only seems to be in peril briefly — and has a rich dad to bail her out.

Ride Along sabotages itself, although I suppose that doesn’t really matter — there are already plans in the works for Ride Along 2.

Assange is a compelling figure that merited a better effort.

There are a few flashes of wit in the romantic comedy Austenland, but for the most part, the humor lands not with Dear Jane’s grace and style but with all the subtlety of a cholera outbreak.

Paranoia has a promising foundation — betrayal, danger and corporate espionage are solid building blocks of suspense. But the movie turns out to be more exasperating than exciting.

The movie does miraculously end up making good use of a couple of running jokes, and the cast soldiers on, though the laughs are meager. But mostly, Girl Most Likely is a case of good actors in serious need of worthwhile material.

This is getting old.

Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is a failure that should have at least been a magnificent mistake, a risky endeavor that showed a daring intent even if its brash vision didn’t quite succeed. Instead, the movie leaves you cold and weary and vaguely disgusted.

A competent but utterly unnecessary retelling of the story.

The film isn’t overlong. But it tries to fit so many themes into its brief running time — that it merely touches on most conflicts instead of exploring them in depth or with any delicacy.

There’s potential here, a decent story and a cast well-stocked with grownup cinematic luminaries. But this supernatural Gothic romance is a prisoner of its own demons, which include sketchy Southern accents, tacky and tired stereotypes and faux homespun dialogue in the wrong mouths.

If nothing else, Broken City manages to pull off a difficult feat: It's too convoluted to follow and simultaneously too simplistic to be believed.

The idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a small town sheriff is ludicrous, but then that's the whole point of his new movie: It's dumb fun, emphasis on the dumb.

It's the cinematic equivalent of Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name: You know in your heart it's a crappy song, and every wince-inducing line is an affront to your intelligence, but hey, it's on the radio, so you turn up the volume and sing along anyway.

Watching A Late Quartet feels more like sitting through a Classical Music 101 lecture than entertainment.

17 Girls is allegedly inspired by true events, but this diffident, dreamy film is so insubstantial it's hard to believe there's a speck of reality to be found in it.

Unfortunately even a clogging Timberlake can't stop the movie's march to a conveniently happy ending. Nor can he block the flow of psychobabble. It's enough to make any fan beg: Play ball. Please.

The body part joke to alien joke ratio seems slightly skewed in favor of the former, which makes the humor more than a little repetitive. How many different ways can one film say: "Men are idiots"?

The script is so pre-determined it seems generated by a computer program, not human beings.

What to Expect has no standout character who's consistently funny, and it must operate within the confines of a "kids are the most important thing in our lives" mentality, which is more tiresome ground, comedically speaking.

You should know right up front that even if you realize you're being manipulated you are probably going to weep anyway.

Detention has a frenetic visual style that's fun and appealing in a lot of ways, but there are way too many elements fighting for attention.

Pearce gets into his groove swiftly, owns it and remains entertaining throughout. The rest of the movie, however, would work better as a video game.

Only in the execution does Madonna stumble: Despite the undeniable romance of the historical material, she has made a movie more concerned with how things look than how they feel. Which should not surprise anyone.

One of the problems with Rampart is that we've seen guys like Dave in movies and on TV for years now. The bad cop psyche has been delved into pretty deeply on all fronts, most notably in FX's brilliant series "The Shield."

The good news is, The Vow is not excruciating.

Joyful Noise is too tone-deaf to put its few blessings to good use.

Something of an overlong, overblown, disorganized mess, despite being slightly better than its predecessor.

New Year's Eve is not unbearable. It's not bad, but it's not good, either. It delivers exactly what you expect: pretty faces, shallow romance and a mythical fanaticism about an event in a friendly Manhattan unblemished by hyper-vigilant security measures, obnoxious drunks or New York Jets fans.

If you're making a movie that purports to be about real love, at the very least, you have to make the audience care whether the lovers work out their problems.

As it spins along at a reasonably good clip - no one is going to mistake it for the slicker, more action-packed "Salt" - The Double unravels its secrets, which prove to be its undoing.

The cast is impressive, and the story even soapier than "The Tudors," if you like that sort of thing.

Amusing at times but never more than a modest diversion, lacking the cleverness and imagination required to turn it into more than a one-joke movie.

Something Borrowed commits the most fatal mistake of all: Its characters are so deeply uninteresting that the audience can't get invested in their eventual happiness.

The bigger problem with the film, which is genuinely unnerving at times, is what happens when the cavers are not in immediate peril, because they talk.

Sets out to be a study of grief and how to overcome it, but it rings too false to offer much hope - or entertainment.

Only two characters are worth much notice; neither is a prince, and one is a really big mouse, which tells you something sad about Narnia's royal family.

There was a fine family drama to be made here, but what we get instead is too sweet to swallow.

Frothy as it is, SATC2 is best when it's about the women, not the wardrobe.

The film's opening credits are terrific, and the first 10 or 15 minutes -- in which Ford and Arthur speedily load up on beer at the local pub -- are absorbing and funny. It's such a promising start that it's doubly deflating to realize that once they land on Zaphod's spaceship, the humor vaporizes.

Late Marriage's stiffness is unlikely to demonstrate the emotional clout to sweep U.S. viewers off their feet.

Next begins to seriously embarrass itself and its stars -- except for Biel, surprisingly, who manages to escape with a shred of dignity, possibly because her role requires little beyond looking gorgeous -- once it rolls to its climax.

Smart People tastes as fake as a Wal-Mart corn dog. Besides, it doesn't even know the work is Faerie Queen, not ''Fairie.'' Somewhere, Edmund Spenser is turning in his grave. You don't even have to be smart to know that.

The biggest offense in the somewhat unimaginative but serviceable legal thriller High Crimes is that the venerable Morgan Freeman simply does not get enough screen time, and when he's up there, he doesn't have enough to do.

Sobieski manages to make Jennifer's inevitable transformation more than a little bittersweet. Apparently even clichés click sometimes.

There's no real artistry to this: It's as though Parker has just seen "Seven" and suffered some sort of David Fincher flashback.

Compare Sylvia to another, more powerful film about a tragic literary death: "Iris," about Iris Murdoch's descent into Alzheimer's, leaves you with an aching heart and reddened eyes. After the equally sorrowful Sylvia, we are entertained but unmoved.

The film improves once the assassination attempt goes awry, but the audience is never truly invested in the actions of these heroic men.

On the Line's cutesy premise is no more ridiculous than that of most romantic comedies.

The film's failure to adhere to one of the most important rules of humor -- never give extensive screen time to someone who is not the slightest bit funny -- prevents it from being a completely enjoyable, if silly, romp.

Don't expect perfection, and you'll emerge from this goofy movie all in one piece, with reasonably entertained kids and a milder headache.

Everyone, including the candidates, will recognize the importance of civic duty, leaving Swing Vote to end with swelling music and uplifting speechifying but on a completely unsatisfactory note.

You might call My Sister's Keeper manipulative, and you would not be inaccurate.

The fact that you won't remember any of these names for more than a minute should indicate exactly how much depth each character displays.

Neurotic New Yorkers, messed up relationships, inept analysts, infidelity -- Ira & Abby has them all, and it's anything but refreshing to trudge through this well-worn territory again.

The cast, which includes Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) as a coach who pushes her daughter too hard, is likable and energetic, and the film's messages are entirely reasonable.

The film is well-scrubbed of anything resembling sexuality, more a nonthreatening fairy tale than the romantic drama it aims to be. Its appeal flies straight to the hearts of 13-year-old girls.

Casanova doesn't seduce so much as lull the audience into a stupor with tedious blather about the battle of the sexes, intermittent but pointless swordplay and clumsy slapstick.

The misery is there, all right, in every woozy, spaced-out shot of Hoffman clutching his gas-soaked rag. But in the end, do we really care?

Better than you might expect despite its awkward, slow beginning, drawing you in gradually and paying off in surprisingly effective and bittersweet ways.

Unfortunately Miracle is long on cliché and short on originality.

It's possible to achieve hilarity and pathos, but it's not easy, and Litvak isn't quite skilled enough to make the sex jokes rest easily beside the final grandiose and pat confessions. As a result, When Do We Eat? merely whets your appetite for a fresh take on family matters.

The few jokes it does land can't make this more than a look-what's-on-late-night-cable event.

Unlike Uncle Nino's garden, the film never blooms into anything special.

It's pretty much a waste of everyone's time, especially yours.

There are not enough thrilling musical interludes, and few come close to capturing the sly joy in Porter's music.

Overall, the film's sheer mediocrity prevents Thurman from flying to its rescue.

It's unimaginative, crude and so derivative it hurts.

In the wake of TV's powerhouse "The Shield," Dark Blue comes off as something of a retread, with little of "The Shield's" electric fury, edgy camera work or deft characterizations.

Flamboyantly over-the-top, visually kinetic.

The film, bound to bore the socks off impatient viewers, mistakes reserve for depth and ends up hamstringing its talented cast into playing characters you never care about all that much.

Shakespeare's rich language does not fit soundly inside every mouth.

The sins of the inspirational Saint Ralph are venial, but they undeniably prevent the small Canadian film from stretching beyond the boundaries of an After School Special.

Despite all the flying bullets, which are admittedly entertaining at times, Shoot 'Em Up doesn't offer enough bang for your bucks.

Nobel Son is not good. Nor is it bad. It exists, instead, somewhere in the middle ground of interesting enough to hold one's attention without actually providing any fresh, sensible or nonderivative developments.

The only positive thing about the aimless film The Yellow Handkerchief is the idea that William Hurt may be ready for his Jeff Bridges moment.

Chéri never fulfills its emotional promise.

An uninspired, sporadically funny adaptation that falls short of the book's winsome, frisky chaos.

For most U.S. audiences, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, an Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film, is going to feel more like a history lesson than a movie.

Rapidly devolves into a pedestrian thriller in which almost nobody behaves in a recognizably human way.

Little happens that you don't see coming, down to which cast members will get picked off and in what order. It's a dumb action movie in a summer full of dumb movies, and yet it's always entertaining. And you won't really miss Arnold at all.

Features one of the more pointless cameos ever when Tom Waits shows up abruptly in the desert to spout mystical nonsense about Domino trading her life for somebody else's. The scene has absolutely no place in this jarring, violent movie; Waits is just another of Scott's distractions.

Except for Spacey's talent, elements don't add up.

Feels every bit as cheap and flimsy as Edward's hospital.

Premonition is actually more daring than you might expect. Not bold enough to be memorable, maybe, but just enough to keep you from falling asleep in front of the TV.

Think "Cruel Intentions" in period costume, or better yet, Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette," which managed to take its subject matter lightly and seriously at the same time.