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.