Eric Kohn

In the process of merging formulas, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things recycles the same material it seems inclined to rejuvenate, one step at a time. There may be endless ways to make “Groundhog Day” feel fresh, but this one’s little more than another harmless retread.

It’s an efficient, effects-driven ride with snippets of real ideas, but never quite willing to take them out of this world.

If nothing else, the movie makes a strong case for Cox’s astounding resilience, an ability to take even the most routine gig and deepen its potential. It helps that The Etruscan Smile sputters along more than it belly-flops, and stabilizes by the poignant finale.

Here and there, Minamata tells a bracing story of corporate malfeasance and bracing advocacy for the underclass, but even the occasional poignant observation can’t salvage a movie trying this hard to tug every heartstring at its disposal.

My Salinger Year often trips on the self-serious nature of its premise, and struggles with an antiquated quality out of sync with its timeline, as if trapped between the character’s genuine experiences and her idealized vision of a literary world that doesn’t really exist.

The 2020 Call of the Wild isn’t all-out atrocity so much as a question mark, a formulaic adventure story spruced up with cutting-edge technology in search of a purpose.

Bad Hair has plenty to say — about the plight of black women in particular and blackness in popular culture in general — but his movie can’t settle on laughing off the conflict or regarding it with dread. Instead, it settles on lingering in the knotted chaos, hoping that the message still burns.

Perry’s self-produced soap opera scribble is the kind of hilarious so-bad-it’s-good romp in which the man behind the curtain invites his viewers to roll their eyes.

It takes some ambitious swings and works on its own terms in fits and starts, all while not really working at all. Like the T.S. Eliot poems that inspired it, Cats is an elaborate lark.

With emerging rebel leader Rey (Daisy Ridley) providing a sturdy emotional foundation, and billions of Disney dollars fueling an obviously stunning array of special effects, Rise of Skywalker doesn’t squander every opportunity to dial up the thrilling nature of the epic at hand, but all that razzle-dazzle can’t obscure a hollow core.

Doctor Sleep shows considerable effort to ingratiate itself to discerning cinephiles, from the moody Newton Brothers score to cinematographer Michael Fimognari’s dark blue nighttime palette; as a whole, the movie conjures an eerie and wondrous atmosphere that blends abject terror with a somber, mournful quality unique to Flanagan’s oeuvre. But his pandering to dueling source material results in a jagged puzzle beneath both of their standards.

An overlong blend of kid-friendly “Game of Thrones” warfare and standard-issue metaphors of intolerance, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil finds plenty of ways to build on the original premise, but few that resonate any better than the last flamboyant ride.

Yes, Waititi’s sugary fantasy unearths an endearing quality in the most unlikely places. But in the process, it buries the awful truth.

Zellweger inhabits the role of the jaded, soul-searching musical icon reasonably well within a dreary and unremarkable saga that finds her grappling with her past, contending with pill-popping addictions and a broken family. It’s a familiar story that Judy struggles to freshen up, at least until Zellweger takes the mic.

As much as the suspense remains in play, its main threat has a certain robotic quality, and the humorless tone doesn’t help.

Child’s Play at once repudiates Mancini’s franchise by attempting to make it bigger and bolder while falling back on ingredients we’ve seen before, and seen better. While it sets out to skewer the algorithms that could destroy the world, the remake hews to a mechanical formula — and winds up a product of the same tendencies it’s trying to indict.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that the 2019 version of Hellboy is busy to an exhausting degree, overloaded with apocalyptic fears, and seemingly endless in its pileup of twists. But it’s hard to read much into a movie less invested in shrewd observations than in stuffing as much lore as possible into 120 minutes.

None of the pretty imagery or impassioned lovemaking can break free of a mopey old formula that sits on every scene with the same schematic quality that makes its weary setting so familiar from the start.

The ideas don’t cut that deep, but like its psychic protagonist, this movie knows exactly what its audience wants.

The Lodge seems more content to hover in the disquieting mood than make anything substantial out of it. ... As it continues along an aimless trajectory, The Lodge proves that even horrible events can be a deadly bore.

The Tomorrow Man suggests "Take Shelter" by way of "It’s Complicated," an unseemly combination that never quite gels. But the actors work overtime to mine substance from the material, and Jones gives them plenty of room to rescue this curious movie from complete oblivion.

There are flashes of subtle resentment to Williams’ performance that register as some of her best work in ages, so it’s unfortunate that the movie’s calculated assemblage of sentimental beats dominate the show.

In a better world, Aquaman would excel at delivering an ecological message to the masses. But all the fish in the sea can’t salvage a movie that refuses to go more than surface deep.

On the Basis of Sex plays like a sunny fantasy from a more optimistic age.

By the time Apostle arrives at its big reveal, the movie has veered off on so many tangled pathways that the ending can’t resolve them all. Instead, it provides a single, ethereal image that hints at the more imaginative possibilities lurking somewhere inside this bloody mess.

A shocking misfire that nevertheless demonstrates the sheer confidence in his storytelling that Dolan has cultivated over a decade of movies. It’s the only possible explanation for this baffling ensemble piece, a campy (if at times inspired) burst of melodrama and ludicrous scenarios caving into each other in a spectacular mash of half-baked ideas.

In Yann Demange’s bland retelling, the kid’s downward spiral has been reduced to a series of crude, unremarkable encounters and the very thing this true story shouldn’t be: poverty porn. Nevertheless, Demange manages to stitch together a number of involving scenes that track Ricky’s harsh upbringing and the events that precipitated his downfall.

Abrahamson seems so coy about the haunting of the Ayres’ house that he refuses to allow the movie’s strongest aspect to take center stage, and the perils of The Little Stranger hover aimlessly throughout the movie like a specter in search of some elusive white light.

Statham remains an appealing summer movie fixture, but sharks deserve better than this.

It’s intermittently engaging as a B-movie, but so often strives for something more that it never finds a satisfying tone.

Skyscraper plays out like a metaphor for diminishing returns — Johnson keeps climbing, higher and higher, until there’s nowhere left to go but down.

The Fallen Kingdom is at its worst when attempting topicality (the testosterone-fueled Wheatley refers to one of our heroes as a “nasty woman”) or when beefing up its crass plot.

Though salvaged in parts by Lindon’s impassioned performance and a few perceptive asides that hint at a better version of the events, At War is mostly a redundant portrait of working-class struggles that does more to belittle the efforts of its subjects than position them in galvanizing terms.

Racer and the Jailbird speeds along at an engaging clip, but never overcomes the fundamental simplicity of its plot.

The movie stumbles through its shaggy comedy aesthetic with mixed results.

Broken Tower feels stationary, repeating the same motifs and attitudes ad infinitum until the credits finally roll.

Family is funny in bits and pieces, but so obvious in terms of its eventual direction that it might have been better served by less plot and more clowning around.

Mute is ludicrous, but within the confines of its referential logic, also pretty cool.

Eastwood remains a deeply purposeful filmmaker, and The 15:17 to Paris clearly has a plan — it builds to a riveting showdown, with a unique kind of payoff enhanced by the authenticity of its design. It’s a fascinating gamble even when it doesn’t hold together.

With Shaye’s performance as its anchor, the movie is often a perceptive character study, at least until it’s hijacked by the same bland trickery that so often fogs up horror movies with more to offer.

The resulting 119-minute pileup of showdowns and one-liners is an undeniably tighter, more engaging experience. It’s also a tired, conventional attempt to play by the rules, with “hold for laughs” moments shoehorned between rapid-fire action — a begrudging concession that the Marvel formula works, and a shameless attempt to replicate it.

Alfredson’s direction proves yawnsomely methodical, ticking off surviving plot points as though filling in some I-Spy Book of Scandinavian Crime Cliches.

Director Chris Perkel, who also edited, hasn’t made a movie so much as a prolonged tribute reel with ample material to fuel a dozen lifetime achievement award ceremonies.

No surprises here, folks; just half-hearted punchlines and unadventurous sentimentality readymade for marketplace consumption.

Rather than developing Roman’s conundrum, Roman J. Israel, Esq. settles for a prosaic character study laid out in painfully obvious terms, with a tacked-on twist in the third act just so that the story can find some way to end.

Wirkola, who’s best known for his two “Dead Snow” zombie movies, struggles to tackle a more serious-minded tone this time around.

It’s an unabashed freewheeling mess of CGI explosions, fast-talking strategies and shiny metal monstrosities clashing in epic battles. And it’s actually kind of fun, in an infuriating sort of way, to watch the most ridiculous Hollywood movie of the year do its thing.

It’s intermittently funny, mopey, and tense, sometimes totally off-base but certainly ambitious in its approach.

The director excels at generating a nervous energy around his character’s mounting desperation, and the movie’s intermittently engaging for that reason alone.

The premise begs to provoke contentious debate around privacy laws in an age of boundless innovation, but it can’t seem to find steady footing in that dialogue, in part because it lacks a substantial means of asking the right questions.

Life spends its first act building up some big ideas, but eventually unravels into another monster movie in space.

There’s plenty of intrigue to the dissonance of a hard-rock lifestyle and Malick’s gentle touch, but much of the movie’s potential is overshadowed by the impulses of a director unwilling to get there.

Kong: Skull Island may include some clever period details and idiosyncratic asides, but it’s largely a blockbuster B-movie less interested in depth than scale.

At their worst, Affleck’s roles are stern and lifeless without soul, pretty sculptures with nothing inside. It was only a matter of time before he made a movie that embodied that lesser side of his career.

At a time when calls for diverse media dominate the industry, Hidden Figures hedges its bets with a family-friendly commercial solution: warm and fuzzy storytelling that’s both progressive and safe.

Once again, the screenplay (by Johnny Rosenthal and Shauna Cross) goes out of its way to put terrible lines in its characters’ mouths and dares viewers to laugh. However, it’s gotten harder to take this form of jarring lowbrow humor, especially when it serves no purpose beyond shock value.

Neither wacky enough to work as pure punchline, nor smart enough to bend its looniness into something more substantial, Storks views the world with the same confused outlook of its wide-eyed infants.

No amount of strong performances and good vibes can hide the sense that we’re just watching a paint-by-numbers routine. Nair puts so much effort into galvanizing the movie’s central figures that the slightest hints of conflict register as little more than an inconvenience.

It turns a major tragedy into a minor disaster movie.

Jason Bourne adheres to an existing format so robotically that it never manages to surprise or engage for longer than the occasional passing moment.

Ultimately, Robbins’ domineering character is so well-calculated that it appears Berlinger couldn’t peer beyond the curtain even if he tried. That fascinating dilemma makes the movie worth watching even though it presents an incomplete picture.

While the new Ghostbusters successfully empowers female movie stars, that’s not the movie’s selling point. However, it’s the only justification for its existence.

In theory, Election Year offers a form of catharsis from contemporary anxieties by turning them into entertainment. Instead, this latest entry in a ridiculous franchise has become a victim of its own sick joke.

By no means a great piece of filmmaking, Blood Father nevertheless recaptures some of the rough attitude of Gibson's "Mad Max" days, as he shoots, growls and head-butts through a routine tale of angry drug lords.

[Dolan's] crafted the semblance of a substantial movie that never quite gets where it was supposed to go.

It's one thing to make a minor, accomplished work after focusing on grander statements, but Julieta mainly disappoints because it feels like the kind of straightforward, unadventurous drama that the filmmaker generally excels at reinventing through his own peculiar vision. This time, he plays it too safe.

A Hologram For the King never congeals into a single, involving story.

Melissa McCarthy is hilarious in every scene of The Boss, but the movie rarely keeps up with her.

Despite some clumsy moments, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 handily revives the first movie's appeal.

Rather than focusing on a cataclysmic showdown between pop culture's most famous men in tights, Zack Snyder's flashy, cacophonous follow-up to 2013's "Man of Steel" is basically one long teaser for the next installment.

Expert craftsmanship can't rescue Triple 9 from the constant feeling of a pulpy remix.

Burnt deals less with the food itself than the way it drives Adam to the brink of insanity. Yet it falls short of generating any real urgency surrounding that situation.

It never crystallizes into a singular experience, and instead collapses in a rush of well-intentioned innovations.

Unfortunately, while Julianne Moore and Ellen Page go great lengths to make the central romance convince, Nyswaner's undercooked script and Peter Sollett's direction have the opposite effect, reducing Freeheld to a tired formula.

The story suffers from a distracting aura of self-importance. Vikander brings a remarkable tenderness to her character (who, in real life, left her husband's side much earlier) but Redmayne's sharp gaze and toothy smile make it virtually impossible to ignore the actorly feat on display.

Gyllenhaal's alarmingly effective presence is enough to act circles around the soapy narrative of a fallen athlete's comeback so tightly that it crumbles in the very first act.

Maïwenn's evidently tight control over her performances once again shows its strength within the context of individual scenes, where the characters' attitudes often convincingly shift from blithe to furious in a matter of minutes. But the overall arc of their developing relationship fails to convince.

Portman's screenplay shortchanges the dramatic potential of the material in favor of a by-the-numbers period piece.

Love plays out like the fragmented outline for a more engaging movie. But the one found here lacks substance both on the level of story and graphic reveals.

Whereas "The Apostle" was a passionate effort for Duvall that he spent years pulling together, Wild Horses feels more like a vanity project that eschews polished storytelling for half-baked conceits.

Whereas "The Avengers" felt like a reimagining of the paradigm for superhero movies, Age of Ultron has air of a rerun. Though impressively made and visually remarkable, it suffers from the hollowness that plagues so many blockbusters carrying the sense that we've been through this before.

Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson from Kelly Marcel's screenplay, the considerable talent behind the camera and a modicum of considerable performances yield a few undeniable guilty pleasures, but most viewers will be seeking a safe word to escape this two-hour-plus mess of half-baked excess.

The movie's uneven tone and ridiculous twists never quite gel, but Knock, Knock is so eager to please that it's hard not roll with the absurd depravity on display — which has been the essence of Roth's appeal from the outset.

While its bleak assessment of American intelligence operatives imbues the story with some modicum of topicality, the specifics never keep pace. The movie becomes a bland action-drama lacking the sophistication to deal with its weightier themes. As a promising endeavor hacked to pieces, the movie's fate mirrors its anti-hero's own failed ambition.

Exodus: Gods and Kings illustrates a typical contradiction of commercial entertainment: By playing it safe, the movie fails to enrich the material, and never captures the energy that has made its narrative so captivating for millennia.

A well-intentioned and resolutely minor period drama, "Big Eyes" isn't exactly a catastrophe, but its bland depiction of a fascinating story perhaps better served by the documentary treatment shows no evidence of the visionary creator behind the camera.

Writer-director David Ayer’s brash, assaultive Brad Pitt drama manages some evocative imagery and achieves visceral impact by enacting a hellacious atmosphere that never lets up — but Ayer takes the mission too literally, and winds up literally lost in the fog of war.

Even as it celebrates the spirit of committed journalism that rises above the powerful forces designed to contain it, Kill the Messenger displays the same anesthetized quality that Webb's dedication to his job was meant to counteract. Renner is a different story.

Men, Women and Children is so married to the idea of humanity's insignificance that it presents support for that argument with its very existence.

Rosewater is lacking in sophistication, but its attitude is infectious.

Magic in the Moonlight belongs to the pool of lesser Allen comedies, yet Firth and Emma Stone — as the alleged necromancer Sophie Baker, the object of Stanley's scrutiny and eventually his affections — bring all the zany energy they can muster.

Predominantly a failure of tone, Horns has plenty of admirable traits and yet dooms itself from the outset. It's an admirable conceit stuffed into far less subtle material.

It’s a dazzling showcase of fantasy-based filmmaking in the 21st century that also manages a feeble attempt at injecting feminist politics into an antiquated narrative. Yet its eventual climax strains from the obviousness of these efforts.

Rather than making his own movie, Gosling has composed a messy love letter to countless others.

The Search lacks the the credible emotions of the original and never assembles a convincing reason for its existence.

A lazily plotted and largely generic thriller.

Like its tattered setting, The Rover is scattered with intriguing ideas never successfully fleshed out.

Intentionally or not, however, Fading Gigolo actually functions as something of a statement on Allen's persona—onscreen and off—as it has been understood in the public eye. And the resulting conclusion, like the movie, is a decidedly mixed bag.