G. Allen Johnson

No amount of excellent period costuming and brilliant set decoration can substitute for a good story and decent acting.

Spoof both of P.I.s and independent filmmakers is languidly paced and not very funny.

In tackling 1000 A.D., (McTiernan)'s suddenly an unwieldy, clunky filmmaker.

The intention is there, but the needed emotional maturity isn't.

What a cast! What a waste!

Cameron is such a good filmmaker that even though he seems to be out of ideas, the three-hour, 17-minute running time chugs along efficiently on pure craftsmanship. But is that enough?

A spectacular failure, despite further evidence of the director's keen eye and bold cinematic ideas.

At 2 hours, 21 minutes, feels like a slow death by a thousand cuts.

Peterloo, despite top-notch set and costume design, is this claustrophobic, interior movie. And despite the wall-to-wall dialogue, there is little character development — everyone seems to be a “type” rather than an actual person. So when the massacre does come at the end of the film, it is oddly underwhelming.

So politics and social commentary aside, we are left with a crime film. One that isn’t very suspenseful or particularly clever.

The only thing that keeps Wish afloat is DeBose’s voice, who elevates so-so songs such as “At All Costs” and “This Wish” with a powerful lilt.

A soul-killing sequel that gets its kicks torturing and murdering children and offers little hope or redemption. King has long wanted to commit “Redrum” on the reputation of Kubrick’s film, which he openly despises. Nearly 40 years later, this adaptation of King’s 2013 book “Doctor Sleep” doesn’t so much tarnish Kubrick as embarrass itself.

Chinese Portrait is a great art installation, but a thoroughly unsatisfying film.

Welcome to Marwen does not work as a drama of addiction, and frankly it doesn’t work as a celebration of Hogancamp’s creations, which work best as stunning still-photo images.

Just an odd mess of a movie. That you feel anything at all is a tribute to the acting talent of Dinklage and Goggins, who occasionally make us care.

The “Paranormal Activity” films, to their credit, build slowly, backloading the chills in the second half. That means, to get through that first hour, the characters have to be interesting, but these self-absorbed Gen Z wannabe filmmakers are anything but.

Director Sammi Cohen takes an attention-deficit disorder approach to storytelling, in which every feeling and plot twist is punctuated by a current pop song, and any hint of emotion or thoughtfulness is interrupted by a needle drop.

Yes, there are funny lines, but nearly all of them are familiar to fans; it’s almost like a greatest hits of “Addams Family” quotables.

The One and Only Ivan has within it a much more interesting film waiting to break out that really could have been for the whole family, but alas it is trapped within the cement walls of Disney’s cookie-cutter formula.

Sirât is a film of impression and feeling, not logic or plot.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves feels like Daley and Goldstein, who also co-wrote with Michael Gilio, asked ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI: “Write a Marvel movie except with ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ characters.” Seconds later, this spit out.

So it’s not my bag, but I went into Jackass Forever with the best intentions.

Because there’s nary a situation that seems reality-based and uncontrived in this movie that has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, filled with over-the-top cardboard characters that seem sneered upon by their creator. If Mirabella-Davis doesn’t believe in his characters, why should we?

The problem with Fingernails is it takes itself too seriously. Co-writer and director Christos Nikou takes a clinical, dramatic approach to such a high-concept, over-the-top and ridiculous premise. He seems so enamored by the concept of the movie that he forgot that the movie was supposed to be about relationships and not the testing.

UglyDolls is a mind-numbing, low-rent version of “Toy Story,” with saccharine songs and a plot with echoes of, no kidding, the Holocaust. If you’re under 10, you might like it.

By taking the “dark” out of the dark comedy, “The Roses” can’t decide what it wants to be, and becomes as flimsy as its setting: Mendocino is played by a seaside town in Devon, United Kingdom, and it looks more like New England than Northern California.

Sarsgaard and Jones are good actors, and both are fine. The real star, though, is sound designer Ian Gaffney-Rosenfeld and his team, who bring a depth and dimension to the story that sorely needs it.

It's simply terrible.