Jocelyn Noveck

Teamwork. Friendship. Family. Playing for the game’s sake, not money. All these themes come together in a warm-hearted but highly predictable way.

For older viewers, though, it may be hard to ignore some of the clunkier moments of a script that, in trying to update a story created in 1963, gets in its own way with dialogue that while sometimes funny and sweet, can be awkward and occasionally even off-key.

Again, it all feels like a 30th reunion — maybe because it IS one — where the liquor flows, old stories are rehashed, the men haven’t aged quite as well as the women, the kids steal the show, and by the end you’re happy to have gone but feel no need to be at the next one.

Hawke takes a fairly one-dimensional character and gives it an intelligent and shaded performance.

All the charm and style in the world, and J.Lo has more than anyone, can’t make up for the bizarre tonal imbalance of “Shotgun Wedding,” a movie too violent to be funny and too funny (in the odd, weird sense) to be fun.

Some have argued that the film glorifies its subject. It doesn’t, really. But it doesn’t explain him, either. And that leads to another question, which is, if there’s nothing really new to say about Ted Bundy, need we be saying anything?

Despite some satisfying moments, by the increasingly cringe-worthy last third of the movie you’re just annoyed that it seems to want to cover all bases — to have its, er, cannoli and eat it, too.

Rodriguez and her fans deserve better than Miss Bala, a disappointingly bland and formulaic Hollywood remake of a much grittier and bleaker Mexican thriller.

This is a very big, very (very!) loud, very jumpy horror flick, and the screams will come, and they’ll be audible. Which is precisely what “Alien” fans are surely waiting for.

It’s hard not to think of the title when contemplating the overall effect of a film that spares no expense to entertain, yet ends up feeling a little aimless, perplexingly bland, and — what’s the word we’re looking for? Oh yes. Gray.

It’s hard to pinpoint why this next level of Grace’s very bad wedding night, again directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, feels darker and heavier — and hence, less enjoyable — than the original, which managed to maintain a bouncy feel, even with bodies combusting at an absurd rate. But if we have to blame someone, we’re gonna go with the doctor from “The Pitt.”

Writer-directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly offer up a commentary on the value of work. There’s a critique of capitalism, and an intriguing buddy relationship between two women with very different lives but shared goals.

Parallels to “My Best Friend’s Wedding” come early and often.

The action comes fast and furious, and the banter is pleasant enough. Diaz, especially, makes the proceedings decently enjoyable and some of the sillier lines believable.

The Alto Knights, despite its pedigree, doesn’t rise anywhere near the heights of its glorious predecessors. It is, rather, an enjoyable if choppily paced look at a relationship between two men, where unfortunately we’re arriving pretty late in the game.

Richardson, throughout, gives an empathetic and endearing performance, and Hardy matches her for charm, even if he doesn’t convince as a self-described “maths nerd.”

The real problem with I Feel Pretty, written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, is not in its message or conception, but in its ragtag execution.

In an extremely physical, committed, even exhausting performance, Pattinson takes what could have been an unwieldy mess and makes it much less, well, expendable.

Not all of it works, but it’s never uninteresting or uncreative — especially when it comes to finding inventively horrible (or horribly inventive) ways for people to die.

Ultimately, Pain Hustlers feels like a retreading of the same ground covered in other recent works, bringing nothing especially new to the table and, in splitting the stylistic difference between slick/breezy and poignant/authentic, succeeding fully at neither.

Of course, it all comes down to a Shyamalan-style final twist — the most entertaining part of the film, but it comes way, way too late. Listen, we’re all up for some summer fun on the beach. But by the time we’re allowed in on the secret here, we’re feeling a bit tired.

A feminist recasting of the familiar story is welcome, of course, but the screenplay focuses so insistently on its female-empowering message that it feels at times like we’re just getting hit over the head with it.

It’s also all over the map, in every way possible. It’s visually gorgeous at times but then boring to behold at others, emotionally poignant at times but stunningly cloying at others. It’s also confusing (though to be fair, many might call the book confusing, too.) Mostly, it’s just a frustrating whole comprised of some pretty promising parts.

There’s a lot of gross, both kinda and mega, over this film’s 93-minute running time. Also a lot of poop jokes, and penis jokes, both canine and human. You get the picture.

At a certain point, somebody says “I just hope this goes better than last time.” It’s a cheeky reference to the first film, but also a rather dangerous line to include in a sequel, because they almost never go better than last time. This one doesn’t either, but at least it’s upfront about what it’s doing: just making stuff bigger and crazier.

It’s an odd paradox that this movie feels both high-minded and also at times frustratingly pedestrian.

A movie as frothy and insubstantial as the foam on a nice cappuccino. It’s also about as believable as some of the woefully stereotypical Italian characters here.

Luckily, Neeson has a way of lending his rough-hewn dignity to even the most perfunctory of plots — because this one, it must be said, is perfunctory.