Jason Bailey

The movie’s practical and special effects are a rogues’ gallery of gougings, stabbings, shavings, and scalpings; those who like to have their stomachs turned will find much to cheer about. But is it actually scary – suspenseful, tense, trafficking in more than the cheap shock of a jump scare or vivid effect? Not really, no.

This is an excruciatingly stupid movie, and the nicest thing I can say about it is that, at 83 minutes, at least it’s over quickly.

If nothing else, Babylon is a giant swing, a three-plus hour orgy (sometimes literally) of sex, drugs, and cinema, a respected young artist reaching for a profound statement about art and commerce and America. He misses it by a country mile, but hey, he sure does take that swing.

I Love My Dad cannot overcome its off-putting premise. Nothing is out of bounds, of course (especially in comedy), but if there’s an approach to make the material palatable, either played straight or broad, it is left undiscovered here.

It’s tempting to take it easy on Alone Together, because harsh criticism feels somewhat cruel – it’s just such a gosh-darned nice movie, about two nice people who meet up and are nice to each other. But this is one tepid piece of work, a story of bland people doing and saying bland things as the world burns around them.

Hillbilly Elegy has nothing to say about the circumstances that caused these addictions and resentments, and it certainly has noting useful to say about “economic anxiety.” There’s nothing remotely thoughtful or even provocative about it, which is a shame – at least that would’ve made it memorable.

It’s cheap, and crass, and by the conclusion, downright infuriating.

And the score, again by Carpenter, his son Cody Carpenter, and Daniel Davies, is another banger, often lapping the action onscreen for mood and dread. It almost becomes a provocation, forcing us to long for more active involvement by Carpenter, a filmmaker whose skill and restraint frankly puts Green to shame. Who knows if Halloween Ends will actually conclude the slasher series (let’s not forget that “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter” was the fourth of twelve installments). But I’ll say this: even as a fan of the franchise, when the title came up at the end of Halloween Ends, I found myself hoping to God they weren’t kidding.

Hamm makes himself look bland, which is no small accomplishment. But he’s also smothering much of what makes him an exciting actor.

The picture is hobbled by the bland, lifeless color palette of too much contemporary genre filmmaking, as well as a buffet of unintentionally hilarious dialogue, and when the big third act reveal arrives, it’s comically dopey. And once that turn is taken, well, you can pretty much predict every beat that follows.

It’s a mighty snoozy affair, in which we discover that Doremus’s cinematic style —intimate, personal, and improvisation — has not so much solidified as cauterized.

A joyless, glacially paced compendium of interchangeable scenes of people floating around in their goofy masks and capes, tossing clichéd dialogue and CG lightning bolts, and punching each other into buildings.

First Time Female Director is a tremendous disappointment because Peretti is such a gifted performer; it’s understandable to go in pulling for her (this viewer certainly did), but those layers of goodwill just peel away as scene after scene simply does not work. Too much of what she’s assembled is just half-hearted cringe comedy—much of it without the comedy half of the equation.

Peter Farrelly’s “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” isn’t so much a bad movie — though it’s certainly that — as an inexplicable one, a comedy/drama set in the Vietnam War that somehow believes it’s saying anything that hasn’t been said a million times already about that conflict, and far more skillfully.

A wildly misbegotten mess, a goulash of incongruent tones and unclear motives.

The nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s short.

The de rigueur slapstick scenes for the title characters don’t even play, as the integration of animation and live action is so clunky that it feels like we’re watching special effects demonstrations rather than gags.

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is a marginally better movie than “The Hitman’s Bodyguard.” But that’s kind of like saying that getting stabbed in the gut is marginally better than getting stabbed in the neck.

All this movie has to say is that David Ayer enjoys creating misery, and sharing it. What a repugnant, hateful piece of work this is.

Fantasy Island is even worse than you’d guess. Both artistically and intellectually, it’s an absolutely bankrupt enterprise.