Elizabeth Weitzman

Some B-movies, of course, are highly entertaining. This one, though, seems like it was as much of a slog to make as it is to watch.

There’s no rule that every criminal has to be charismatic, or all their heists have to be heart-pounding. They just can’t commit the one sin that’s truly unforgivable: leaving us bored.

A sex comedy lacking in sex, silliness or subversion, when just one would do.

While Stoller’s script does boast a few solid laughs, everyone involved deserves and can do better.

Since Håfström and his crew stick their landing, those who particularly enjoy second-hand claustrophobia may find it worth the long journey. Everyone else, however, will be better served by more engaging enterprises here on Earth.

Unfortunately, though, the leads — both of whom radiate individual charisma — are entirely lacking in chemistry. And it’s not just them. There is little connection between anyone, or even any event, in a project that takes all its assets for granted.

Even Downs, so appealing on Nickelodeon’s “Henry Danger,” can’t fight the forces of this soulless script (which was based on a potentially promising story idea by Wenonah Wilms).

Too much of Dear Zoe, though, feels factory-designed to engineer emotion rather than aiming to earn it organically.

Bajestani is believably repellent as someone whose split lives as an obsessive loner and respected family man are disturbingly concordant. And Nadim Carlsen’s gritty camerawork pushes the film’s sense of grim social realism further still, providing a viscerally authentic horror. Abbasi doesn’t seem to realize, though, that he’s creating much of that horror himself.

If you set out to combine the worst parts of Hallmark holiday movies with the worst parts of frenetic ‘90s rom-coms, you’d probably wind up with something a lot like About Fate. The women are nuts, the men are clueless and the production is so cheap you could pass the time spotting every mistake no one bothered to fix.

Zemeckis and co-writer Chris Weitz do make some attempt to dust off the concept, but the modernized moments further undermine their efforts. When they add empathy, the story loses its soul. And when they jam in easy updates, it just highlights how out of touch the rest of the script feels.

A joyless exercise in IP mining, Cheaper by the Dozen is all the more depressing for its glimpses of unfulfilled potential.

The movie is composed of three disparate shorts meant to explore a range of connections. Instead, all three feel as if they were designed inside an echo chamber thematically, and none displays a desire to push the envelope creatively.

Presumably, Sudeikis took this job to prove his dramatic skills, and he does deserve credit for achieving that goal. What he’s never able to generate, though, is a compelling case for the movie itself.

Overall, the whole project feels weirdly empty and off-puttingly self-congratulatory, as though the very idea of turning women into action heroes is revolutionary.

It’s tough to get invested in a romance between two people more interested in likes than love.

If you hired an independent filmmaker to create a perfume ad, and then turned that ad into a full-length movie, you’d probably get something that looks a lot like Dimitri de Clercq’s directorial debut, “You Go to My Head.”

Even a weirdo drug comedy needs some clarity. And there’s not much to be found here, either in the muddy visuals, familiar special effects, or pursuit of psychotropic faux-wisdom.

Although this wasteful effort from the “Bad Moms” team is uninspired in almost every regard, it does advance cinema in a single way: writers-directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have figured out how to modernize one of the most traditional and apparently still essential Hollywood tropes: the Crazy Bitch.

We’re told over and over how stunning, how sensitive, how remarkable he is. But he’s such a blank slate that there’s not much actual evidence of these traits. It’s not Dickinson’s fault; he’s been directed towards a particular style of performance that favors tell over show.

What’s particularly disappointing about this effort is the amount of talent wasted.

This version seems to have been made not to honor Alcott’s little women but instead to please the parents who want blandly wholesome family entertainment for their own. One can only imagine what Jo herself would have to say on the subject.

For the most part, writer-director Stephen Susco (“The Grudge”) sees the Internet as a gimmick, a way to get some attractive, disposable protagonists from Point A to Point B. (Point A is “alive,” so…).

The best way to watch Chronically Metropolitan is to think of it as a parody of a particularly pretentious brand of indie romance. Unfortunately, though, director Xavier Manrique and writer Nicholas Schutt (“Blood & Oil”) play it so solemnly straight for their feature debut that it seems unlikely they’re aiming for satire.

Both LeBlanc and Larter glide through the synthetic setup like pros, but they have no connection because their characters barely resemble human beings.

Statham brings so little energy that the fight scenes are hardly more vivid than the gambling ones. His one-liners have no heart; his cynicism is no longer sharp.

Johnny Depp has done so much for us. Let us now return the favor and pretend Mortdecai, a disastrously misjudged career low, never existed.

With all the talent on tap — including screenwriter Buck Henry, who worked with Michal Zebede to adapt Philip Roth’s 2009 novel — you’d think we’d get something better than this outdated indulgence.

The danger in writing, directing, producing and casting yourself in the same movie is that there’s no one to pull you back from the cliff. Simon Helberg (“The Big Bang Theory”) did co-direct this grating vanity affair with his wife, Jocelyn Towne, but neither seems to realize how misguided it is at every step.

Here’s hoping Bruce Willis bought something special with whatever cash he earned from this pointless, brutally ugly rehash of 1973’s “Westworld.”

Surely an Oscar-nominated filmmaker like Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”) can do better than this nasty and unconvincing thriller.

Shallow and frustratingly misguided drama.

Does Hollywood have so little to offer women that well-regarded actresses feel obliged to accept demeaning indies like this flatly unfunny, morally vacant comedy?

The concept itself is bafflingly empty. We’re never given any reason to respect Teddy or his work — which is built on tired, self-help clichés — so we hardly believe in his rapturous fans.

The atonal script is credited to first-timer Michael Brown, but there’s still no explaining Shapeero’s lump-of-coal debut.

John Leguizamo can do so much better than this weak rom-com, in which men are morons and women are either neurotic or nasty.

Cryer makes a likable sad-sack and Will Sasso provides balance as his narcissistic best friend. But both guys deserve better. As do we.

There have been times when the right team has been able to transcend the gooey schmaltz of Sparks’ stories. This effort, however, sinks like a rock thrown into a sun-dappled lake shaded by magnolia trees sparkling under a sky of shooting stars.

As for Jackson, he strolls through the nonsensical story so casually, one suspects his mind is on other things — like what he’ll do with his paycheck. He has probably already moved on. We’ll happily do the same.

This failed epic — really, an epic failure — would barely be noticed, were it not for former Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage taking on a “Sharknado”-quality remake of a Kirk Cameron movie.

In a movie, nothing good ever seems to happen at a country house. And when it comes to this film, nothing very interesting happens, either.

There are no twists or even surprises, except the final realization that director Alan White is taking his culturally clueless, ineptly shot B-movie totally seriously. Judging from the uniformly underwhelming performances, he’s the only one.

Writer-director Carter Smith got his start as a successful fashion photographer. But you wouldn’t know it from the murky look of this generic thriller.

Even in the lazy days of late August, this movie is hardly worth the price of popcorn.

The compelling Draper’s the creation of “Mad Men” mastermind Matthew Weiner, the writer-director of Are You Here. Which begs the question: how could Weiner make, as his debut comedy, a movie as amateurish and off-putting as this one?

It’s admirable that writer/director Michael Walker wanted to make a socially conscious thriller. But surely he didn’t have to replace all the thrills with broadly moralizing messages.

As for our leading man, he’s clearly just messing with us now. Who else would make a revenge thriller called Rage and then sleepwalk his way through it?

The blatantly misogynistic treatment of the female characters, who exist solely to service Rob and his best friend (Craig Roberts), would have felt retrograde in a movie made decades ago.

The 6-year-old I watched it with summed it up perfectly: “It starts out fun but then it’s kinda sad and scary. And sorta boring, too.”

The story itself is fairly straightforward, but lands with a thud.

Before you spend good money to see the purported comedy, Blended, watch the trailer. The entire movie is packed into those 152 seconds.

Phil Alden Robinson’s overheated dramedy feels disconnected from reality in every emotional way.

If there were a Lifetime Channel for Men, Emilio Aragón’s unabashedly sentimental take on old age would surely wind up there.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with faith-based entertainment. The problem comes when, as with any heavily slanted perspective, the faith takes precedence over the entertainment.

If Meghan's misadventures were funny, or creatively told, or even just mildly entertaining, perhaps Brill ("Little Nicky") could get away with such lazy filmmaking. Instead he wastes all of his resources, including two top-flight comic actors, shamelessly.

Michael (Hansen) fakes his death and announces it online, solely so he can see who shows up at his funeral. His plans only grow more dimwitted from there.

All we’re left with is the sight of older men hiring a gorgeous young woman to take her clothes off and fulfill their desires. If nothing else, Ozon does leave us wondering whether he intended such an uncomfortable parallel between life and art.

So instead of the rom-com, we now have the “non-com.” The cardboard characters and predictable rhythms remain. But this time, we get all the comic cliches with none of the romance.

You can always tell when filmmakers get their ideas from watching other movies. First-time writer David Congalton must be a Christopher Guest fan, because his derivative mockumentary feels like the work of someone who’s seen “Waiting for Guffman” and “Best in Show” too many times.

Haven’t Cleveland fans suffered enough? Not only have they never won a Super Bowl, but now the Browns serve as the center of Ivan Reitman’s painfully creaky sports drama.

When you name your movie Dom Hemingway and then require the titular antihero to repeatedly declare, “I am Dom Hemingway!” the filmmakers must be very confident that there is something special about their character. Too bad there isn’t.

Jessica Goldberg’s sluggish directorial debut feels like a leftover from the 1990s, when dank indie dramas littered film-festival lineups.

So do the minutes. They stretch on as one tiresomely quirky sadist after another appears. Cusack is typically likable and De Niro is amusing in his brief scenes. But unlike Jack, you’re too smart to make big sacrifices for so little return.

This ill-advised romance from director Andrew Fleming is the sort of indie lark that nearly drowns in its own whimsy. Wade in at your own risk.

The whole movie hinges on the allegedly miraculous romance between Beverly and Peter, but Goldsman’s leads are distractingly mismatched and lack even a spark of chemistry.

If you’re looking for a Valentine’s Day date, this version is probably a better choice than the uncomfortably swoony original would have been. You might be bored, but at least you won’t be embarrassed.

Painfully dull thriller.

The real challenge is for viewers, who must tolerate overacting, idiotic scatological jokes and juvenile innuendo. The only way it might be endurable is if you’re wasted, too.

From an artistic perspective, Ron Krauss’ heavy-handed drama, Gimme Shelter, fails almost entirely. But if the director set out to combine the stilted falsity of 1980s after-school specials with leaden political dogma, he’s certainly achieved his goals.

A few barely conceived scenes allow Carl Reiner, Tom Arnold and Jay Mohr to show up for a quick paycheck. What’s that title again?

A director who really wanted to honor these actors’ legendary roles, rather than simply use them as a marketing hook, might have found a way to make this concept palatable. Segal (“Get Smart”) is not that director.

Despite the revved-up start and a suitably dusty setting, the movie stalls almost immediately. The story is uninspired, Lyons looks lost, and Booth makes for a bland femme fatale. Clarke tries to inject some energy into the action, but even he seems to realize this ride’s going nowhere.

You certainly won’t learn anything of interest about the Princess of Wales in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s misguided new biopic. But Diana can be declared a success in one regard — its vacant inanity serves to remind us of the perpetual indignities forced upon this unlucky Lady.

Shabby on the surface and indulgent at its core.

There is no reason a film with an agenda can’t also be engaging or thought-provoking. But what we have here is not so much a movie as a blunt Sunday sermon.

Rare is the film so ineptly made that it barely deserves the dignity of a review. Which, on the one hand, makes this slapdash horror romance somewhat unusual. On the other, however, you’re wasting valuable time just reading about it.

Even if we had never heard of Woody Allen or Adam Sandler, this schlocky effort would feel about as fresh as a week-old bagel.

Skip the movie and go buy yourself a drink instead.

There probably is an interesting story in Van’s rags-to-riches tale. But all we get in this extended publicity stunt is clichéd filmmaking, stilted performances and a self-aggrandizing hero.

There’s no explaining the presence of Guy Pearce in Pauline Chan’s sappy, atonal family drama. But it’s easy enough to understand why he looks so uncomfortable throughout.

It would be nice to say that Rourke, at least, offers a reason to see this junky thriller, about an American agent who gets involved in an Indonesian terrorist plot. But as entertaining as it is to watch him adopt a strange accent and swan around in sarongs as an eccentric jewel thief, it’s also a little depressing. The paycheck cannot possibly be worth it.

Don’t be fooled by the smoke and mirrors. There is nothing here that is great, or powerful. Worst of all, there’s nothing here that even feels like Oz.

How ironic (depressing? predictable?) that the week after we celebrate the best in movies, we are force-fed its very worst. 21 & Over is filmmaking by formula, and evidence of Hollywood’s assumption that appealing to viewers’ basest instincts will always pay off.

Who could have predicted that one day we would long for the relative subtlety of “Twilight”? Richard LaGravenese’s Beautiful Creatures is so outrageously florid, Bella and Edward’s baroque courtship looks understated by comparison.

Despite the filmmakers' desperate attempts to scandalize us, the only real shock is that a movie this disastrous ever managed to get made.

It would appear that for his first feature, Mikael Buch wanted to leave nothing to chance. So he threw in enough action for five movies, amped the comedy up to frenetic levels and encouraged his cast to play to the rafters.

One of those factors must have settled upon the unlucky shoulders of Stephen Frears, who certainly has the pedigree to go all the way. And yet, he stumbles so badly with Lay the Favorite, his comic adaptation of Beth Raymer's memoir, that one is left wondering what could possibly have gone wrong.

In this group, only Hemsworth stands out.

As it turns out, the only truly interesting element about this clichéd surfer flick is that it was made by celebrated directors Michael Apted and Curtis Hanson.

Though Jaglom intends for us to be charmed by show folk, the amateurish performances and perennially misjudged direction wind up portraying them instead as boundlessly needy narcissists.

It's hard to know whether Sebastian Gutierrez is imitating or satirizing the hard-boiled noirs of Hollywood's past, but either way it feels like a botched attempt.

While plenty of gross-out comedies have come and gone in the last two decades, Leslye Headland's Bachelorette may be the most vulgar of them all.

If only the movie could live up to its own potential. Instead, we're stuck with blandly unappealing costumed characters meandering through a boring quest to find some lost balloons.

As generic and forgettable as its title, this half-hearted attempt at a teen comedy feels like a term paper you might buy online: poorly written and cribbed from a million other sources.

How does a comedy troupe even get from the frat-humor antics of "Beerfest" to the middle-class suburbanality of Babymakers? Well, everybody gets old eventually. Growing up, on the other hand, is optional.

What's most notable about this aggressively cynical project is how much talent it wastes.

It's bluntly written, poorly shot and edited, and cruel without being clever.

The most charitable approach to this unfortunate diversion in Jackson's career would be to pretend it never happened. Now, who wants to go see "The Avengers" again?