Frank Scheck

Sorry, but you need to have something to think about during this latest edition of a franchise that is dead creatively if certainly not commercially.

After a very effective opening scene, it starts to go off the rails and finally derails completely.

Laborious and dull, I Can Only Imagine 2 only comes to life in the comedic scenes featuring Ventimiglia, who buries his handsomeness in a buzz-cut, full beard, and Buddy Holly-style glasses to resemble Timmons.

The Dreadful is the sort of film that prides itself on being a slow burn but ultimately more resembles a fizzle. Except for Marcia Gay Harden. By all means, give her character a sequel.

To say that Melania is a hagiography would be an insult to hagiographies. This is a film that fawns so lavishly over its subject that you feel downright unpatriotic not gushing over it.

Much of the original cast and creative team have reunited for this wholly unnecessary sequel, which once again proves that oversized animatronic animal figures, no matter how homicidal their behavior, are more laughable than scary.

For all its visual stylishness, The Carpenter’s Son feels like such an essentially misconceived project that it seems destined for future cult status, with audiences at midnight screenings shouting out the more outrageous lines in unison with the actors. Which may not be what the filmmaker intended, but sounds like a lot of fun.

Like the first film, the sequel (directed by Kyle Newacheck) proves moronic, witless and relentlessly vulgar. Which is to say, Happy Gilmore fans will love it.

This latest incarnation represents the sort of charmless, wildly chaotic animated effort that has the unintended effect of reminding us why cutting publicly funded children’s television is such a terrible idea.

It’s all about as predictable and rote as could be.

This is the sort of movie in which even the opening credits, which continue until nearly the half-hour mark, are unbearably pretentious.

The charisma-endowed Washington and Sy do all they can to make the proceedings engrossing but even they are hard-pressed to make it interesting.

Unlike so many of Anderson’s efforts, In the Lost Lands isn’t adapted from a video game. But it sure as hell feels like one, and not one that would be fun to play.

Veteran television director Greg Berlanti (Riverdale, Everwood), who demonstrated real cinematic talent with Love, Simon, is unable to make any of this remotely convincing or, more problematically, entertaining. The wild tonal shifts leave the viewer in the dust, and not even the two stars are able to make any of it work.

Instead of being drawn in by Daniel’s spiral, we observe it from a distance. The result is that Longing, presumably intended as a cathartic meditation on grief, simply feels absurd.

Crowe himself, as usual, is the best thing in the film, once again upgrading less than optimal material with his indelible screen presence.

It’s a shame, because Cuoco’s well-honed comic skills are very much on display and Oyelowo, working in a lighter vein than usual, seems to be enjoying himself. Which is more than you’ll be able to say about the viewers of this tired action-comedy retread.

Expend4bles — the number is in the middle of the word, get it? — represents a nadir for a series that began as an entertainingly nostalgic throwback to old-school action movies and the square-jawed muscle men who starred in them.

Lead actors Cole and Latimore are competent enough, but they don’t come close to approximating the original film’s stars’ charisma or likability, with the result that their characters’ ill-advised activities leave a sour taste. This is one party you can’t wait to be over.

There’s nary an amusing or unpredictable moment in the film.

As Finley, Hopkins displays his usual magnetism, even taking the opportunity to play one of his own musical compositions on piano.

At a lean, mean 90 minutes or so, Ambulance might have been a guilty pleasure. Instead, it’s the sort of cinematic thrill ride so overstuffed that you can’t wait for it to be over.

Featuring many of the same grandiose elements as those predecessors, Moonfall looks and sounds like a would-be cinematic blockbuster but comes up painfully short in its ham-fisted execution.

There’s plenty of imagination on display in The Blazing World, but it’s buried amidst the narrative and stylistic self-indulgence that assumes we’ll be interested in going on this very strange and ultimately enervating journey.

The animation, consisting of both traditional 2D and CGI, is impressive, and there’s certainly a lot of it. But it never feels as joyful as you’d hope, too often coming across like corporate machination than inspired imagination.

Gallo displays none of the screenwriting elan he's exhibited in such previous efforts as Midnight Run and the Bad Boys films, although here it's hard to separate the ponderous dialogue from the way it's delivered.

It's never remotely involving, and you can feel the lead performers straining to handle their acting chores. The exception is Haddish, who is so convincingly scary and menacing here that you wish her character were in a better, dramatic movie.

In its tiresome attempts to send up its star's image and not take itself too seriously, the film becomes exceedingly laborious.

Grizzly II: Revenge is so bad, it's just bad.

Hicham Hajji's debut — while featuring an impressive supporting cast and admirably attempting to inject political commentary into its mix — proves such a wan, ineffective vehicle that it leaves its star all dressed up with nowhere to go.

The most problematic aspect of the film is that Hogan displays none of the cheeky charm and charisma that made him an international star. Although still obviously in great physical condition, he mainly walks through the film looking tired and pained, as if embarrassed to be taking part in such a labored self-reflexive exercise. On the other hand, you can't really blame him.

Despite the high-stakes drama, there's nary a compelling moment throughout, and some of the characterizations, especially Stormare's villainous Sanitation Department honcho, are so absurdly one-note that it's hard not to think that the film is meant as parody.

The dialogue suffers from a strained, turgid quality, most resembling a daytime soap opera.

The result is yet another paean to arrested male adolescence that should be mandatory viewing in convents to prevent nuns from thinking of renouncing their vows of celibacy.

This is the sort of film for which the term "tearjerker" was invented, but this one jerks them so violently you may need medical attention afterwards.

As recently as last year's "Motherless Brooklyn," Willis has proven that, when he feels like it, he's capable of giving interesting performances. Although no one begrudges him a decent living, it's frustrating that he seems to be settling for such low-rent VOD Steven Seagal/John Travolta-style vehicles at this point in his career.

The compendium of clichés might have been more palatable if the lead characters were more sympathetic, but it's hard to connect to Arielle's relentless need for attention and the utter stupidity that ultimately has tragic repercussions.

Using the Desperate Hours template that has fueled countless thrillers since, Survive the Night is a particularly forgettable example of a tired subgenre that, like so many of Willis' recent efforts, squanders his still estimable movie-star charisma.

The overall effect is frustrating, because the performances are generally solid (Breaux delivers a strikingly intense turn as the obsessed Nick) and one can sense the intriguing kernel of an idea that could have proved more successful if the execution had been less tenuous.

Director Magán displays no flair for action sequences, although the budgetary limitations obviously didn't help. Nor does he successfully pull off the dramatic scenes.

Suffers mightily from its limited budget and narrative scope.

Shot inconsistently in the series’ mockumentary style, which often finds the characters delivering direct addresses to an unseen camera crew, the relentlessly tedious film is devoid of laughs.

Despite its talented, overqualified cast, Lazy Susan simply feels like a mistake.

Despite the best efforts of the talented lead performers and an overqualified supporting cast, this is a movie for which you should practice social distancing.

The filmmakers are clearly hoping that Patterson's name will be enough to attract moviegoers, but this misbegotten effort only serves to further tarnish a cinematic brand already diminished by 2012's Tyler Perry-starrer Alex Cross.

Unfortunately, despite its uncomfortable resonance, Beneath Us barely scratches the surface of its provocative ideas, sacrificing nuance in favor of cheap shocks.

The only thing it delivers is unrelenting tedium. Every aspect of the production proves so amateurishly realized that it begins to feel a put-on, although the humor seems to be strictly unintentional.

The Turning sacrifices narrative and emotional coherence in favor of a series of would-be scary set pieces that seem mainly designed to discourage aspiring nannies from pursuing the vocation.

Despite the frequent use of graphics and animation to help alleviate the tedium of numerous talking heads (we hear from several other scientists as well), the film fails to makes its significant points accessible.

Like his (Farrands) previous effort, this film takes a real-life tragedy and manages to treat it in horribly tawdry and tediously uninteresting fashion.

For all its admirable intentions and the terrific performances by its talented ensemble, Inherit the Viper fails to have any genuine impact. Neither weighty enough to satisfyingly explore its themes nor sufficiently suspenseful to work as a straightforward thriller, the film proves dramatically inert.

The most likely reaction among all but the most undiscerning to Santa Fake will be "Bah, humbug!"

Sacrifices suspense and narrative coherence for moody atmospherics and hallucinatory visuals. Uninvolving to the extreme, She's Missing misses the mark entirely.

Despite its serious subject matter, Mob Town assumes an oddly comic tone for much of its running time, coming across almost like a spoof at times. Unfortunately, nothing in it is particularly funny, and the deadly pacing makes the movie seem much longer than it is.

Unfortunately, despite his obvious passion for the genre, Luke doesn't yet have the cinematic chops (or clearly, the budget) to effectively put his vision onscreen.

Ploddingly paced (it runs nearly 20 minutes longer than the 1977 film, to detrimental effect), poorly scripted and featuring largely amateurish performances and cheesy special effects, this Rabid strives to emulate the striking body horror of the original but mainly comes across like a half-baked imitation.

Infused with enough deadening scientific jargon to lull a graduate student to sleep, the film, which feels much longer than its brief 80-minute running time, never succeeds in effectively dramatizing its outlandish premise.

Far stronger on atmosphere than actual suspense, Grand Isle plods along in tedious fashion, not helped by its awkward framing device that gives it the feel of a Southern fried police procedural.

The computer animation proves competent if uninspired, and somehow manages to make even its presumably fail-safe puffins devoid of cuteness.

Thanks to the efforts of the talented filmmakers and the committed performances by the all-in cast, there are some undeniably spooky moments. But you have to sit through an awful lot of tedium to get to them.

Although earnest to a fault and certainly fulfilling its goal of being family-friendly entertainment, The Great Alaskan Race ultimately proves less exciting and not nearly as adorable as Balto, the 1995 animated film inspired by the same events.

Director Patrick Lussier and co-screenwriter Todd Farmer were previously responsible for such enjoyable guilty pleasures as "My Bloody Valentine" and "Drive Angry." Unfortunately, their latest collaboration, Trick, is definitely no treat.

It would, after all, take a sleuth of Hercule Poirot-like talents to discern what attracted these supremely talented (not to mention, in the case of one of them, Oscar-winning) thespians to such lame, cliched material.

Unfortunately, it all plays out in completely tedious fashion, having all the urgency of watching someone having an impassioned argument with their medical insurance representative.

Mister America proves a witless, one-note political satire whose deficiencies are even more glaring when such humor feels entirely redundant to our current state of affairs.

The Parts You Lose somehow manages to be both unmoving and tension-free, wasting the talents of several notable actors in the process.

Blumhouse has certainly proved very successful with its inventive, low-budget approach to horror, but now that the company is spewing out movies like an assembly line, more and more duds are starting to appear. Everything about this effort, including its hackneyed, overfamiliar title, smacks of laziness and a cynical indifference to its lack of originality.

It's certainly an imaginative concept for a detective story, but the storyline gets so convoluted and baroque that unintentional humor sets in. By the time we learn the outlandish motivation of the time-traveling serial killer and her true identity, the twists have been coming so fast and furious that we've long stopped caring.

Auggie is purposefully grim in style and execution, moving at a snail's pace and seemingly photographed in drab shades of gray. Although its running time is a mere 81 minutes, the pic seems to last forever.

Its largely Hispanic cast and extensive Puerto Rico locations lend a unique quality to Paul Kampf's prison drama starring Laurence Fishburne as a morally corrupt warden. Unfortunately, those elements are the only original aspects of this turgid exercise in prison movie clichés which doesn't even manage to be convincing as melodrama. Although certainly well-meaning in its condemnation of capital punishment, Imprisoned is too dully executed to achieve its desired impact.

The unfortunate result is that you wind up thinking how much more you'd prefer to be rereading that contemporary classic than watching this tedious exercise.

The story takes place in 1953, and the relentlessly artificial-feeling film feels like it could have been made then as well.

The ensuing melodramatic plot developments, which include Lana's little boy suffering a potentially fatal brain injury and Ryan being asked by the Make-A-Wish Foundation to visit sick kids in a hospital, are the stuff of which truly bad movies are made. By the time Ryan makes a death-defying leap over a drawbridge and then makes a spectacular comeback at a championship soccer match, you'll be unlikely to hear the dialogue over the guffawing of the audience.

Despite its very brief running time, the film feels plodding, never quite managing to land either the intended dark humor or scares to which it aspires. You can admire its ambitions but lament the missed opportunities.

Writer-director Kelker never establishes a consistent tone, eventually aiming for a tragic conclusion that feels hopelessly unearned.

Unfortunately, the themes don't resonate in sufficiently powerful fashion to compensate for the film's sluggish pacing and strained melodramatics.

Clara forgets to have anything resembling a compelling plot. Or an original one. Even science geeks will find little here compelling.

Unfortunately, for all the debuting filmmaker's talent for creepy atmospherics, I Trapped the Devil feels draggy and attenuated even with its brief 82-minute running time including credits. Despite some good performances, the film goes nowhere, and very, very slowly.

Unfortunately, their strenuous efforts (and Esposito tries very, very hard) aren't enough to lift the material above abject hokeyness. This is a film that makes subway riding seem such a miserable experience, you suspect it's been bankrolled by Uber.

Starring a miscast Hilary Duff in the title role, The Haunting of Sharon Tate deserves the instant obscurity for which it is certainly destined.

There have been films that treated Nazi doctors conducting evil experiments in concentration camps more sympathetically.

The latest example of the unfortunately fertile trend is a comedy from Josh Huber that features every stereotypical plot element and predictable gag imaginable. Making Babies demonstrates the need for creative contraception.

Visually murky, choppily edited and lacking both narrative clarity and well-defined characterizations, Captive State is a deeply frustrating viewing experience. It seems to be straining mightily for a future cult status which it doesn't deserve.

Eden Marryshow (Jessica Jones) makes an arduous attempt in his feature directorial debut, in which he plays the title role of an unemployed actor who gets by thanks to the good graces of family and friends. But his character ultimately proves far more grating than endearing, making Bruce!!! a slog to endure.

Perry doesn't even try to successfully integrate the story's comedic and dramatic elements, merely toggling back and forth between them as if in need of mood stabilizers.

The whole enterprise seems like an advertisement for the breed, the ownership of which will apparently improve your life immeasurably while making a holy mess of it.

Most anthology films give you the comfort of knowing that if you don't like one segment, another one will be following in just a few minutes. Berlin, I Love You perversely does the opposite. It makes you nervous that if you don't like one segment, which you surely won't, another mediocre-to-awful one will follow.

The film seems so determinedly intent on keeping the audience guessing that the plot quickly segues from being intriguing to annoying.

This talky, ham-fisted effort proves particularly disappointing because it should have been much better than it is.

Writer-director Bilandic fails to infuse the painfully thin proceedings with any narrative momentum or comic flair, resulting in an oppressive weirdness for weirdness' sake.

Making their previous vehicles Step Brothers and Talladega Nights seem the height of comic sophistication by comparison, Holmes & Watson features the duo parodying Arthur Conan Doyle's famous characters to devastatingly unfunny effect.

Such an utterly routine, formulaic and forgettable example of its genre that watching it becomes an exercise in endurance. Even the always welcome presence of veteran actor William Fichtner, terrific as usual, isn't enough to save it.

Hospitality is the sort of film that looks like a thriller, feels like a thriller and essentially plays out like a thriller. The only thing it forgets to do is provide any actual thrills.

Aiming for charm but instead coming across as hopelessly forced, Swimming With Men barely manages to stay afloat.

Strictly for the most obsessive fans of the series, The Gilligan Manifesto mainly demonstrates the pitfalls of intellectuals having too much time on their hands.

Attempting to be a cautionary tale for the Airbnb era, the pic squanders its potential with ham-fisted execution.

There's nothing inherently wrong with agitprop cinema, of which this is a prime example. But passion and righteousness are not enough to make a satisfying film. Cohesion and rational arguments are necessary as well.