Kate Erbland

Brosh McKenna knows her tropes, and when she finally, finally brings rom-com vets Witherspoon and Kutcher together IRL (for an airport-set love declaration, of course), we’re reminded why these things work so well, how cozy and comfortable the inevitable it is, how wonderful to wrap everything up with a big bow, even if we saw that gift coming from a mile (or 20 years) away.

When Tomb Raider digs into its more creative action, it’s about as entertaining as popcorn entertainment gets these days. It’s when the film falls back on the old tropes that things grind to a halt.

For all its of-the-moment charms, Escape Room can’t shake its more basic genre trappings, eventually giving itself over to tired and predictable revelations and flimsy twists.

It’s not that darkness isn’t a part of the film, but that The Short History of the Long Road approaches even the most tense interaction with a bent toward positivity in all people. It’s, in short, nice.

There need to be more films like this, if only so the LGBTQ kids seeking them out will realize how normal their own experiences are.

Bloodshot is a throwback actioner that likely would have killed in the late ’90s, but now feels every inch the product of that era’s humor and innovation. In a rapidly changing world, however, that might not be a bad thing.

Lindy’s passion for and connection to the material is obvious (how could it not be?), as is her desire to twist a sad story into something fresh and often funny. Sweet, even! But an unhinged final act, plus a jaw-dropper of a finale, seems at odds with everything else she’s revealed, and this genre-spanner goes from, well, spanning to something else: not being able to hold onto any of its many spinning plates.

Even the best routines can’t entirely raise the film from its shambling, directionless feeling, and nothing is nearly as tight as Tatum and crew’s dance moves.

While the film is understandably concerned with its titular characters — Ed Helms as straight-edge Detroit cop James Coffee, young star Terrence Little Gardenhigh as his plucky pre-teen foil Kareem — its real standouts are supporting talents like Gilpin and Taraji P. Henson, who end up holding together a film that perhaps should have focused on them instead (cutesy title to come).

It seems that this particular game of Pokémon needed more time at the gym. Yes, that’s a “Pokémon Go” reference, and if you can’t follow it, don’t bother.

Capaldi doesn’t go for neat and tidy endings, so it’s a real shame that this too-glossy documentary does.

Despite the good vibes and amiable callbacks to the previous film, “Zombieland: Double Tap” is only ever amusing when it’s breaking new ground. That just doesn’t happen nearly enough.

While Grant’s film nails certain elements necessary to the genre (like casting a pair of likable, capable stars who generate some real heat), the film is also prone to falling into just as many bad habits and limp tropes synonymous with big screen romance.

While Lovesong fails to coalesce, Malone and Keough emerge with two of their best performances yet, bolstered by an on-screen bond that deserves far richer material that what is offered up here.

It’s light entertainment meant to be shared, a big glass of summer fun that goes down easy.

Evil Eye packs plenty of compelling cultural specificity inside its frames, it never attempts to dig any deeper into the wider world of that stuff that would scare anyone.

The devil isn’t just on the screen, it’s in the details, and Latif’s film can’t pull those together.

The film’s inherent messiness and unpredictability eventually settles into more expected charms, but Spinster is at its most appealing when leaning into the very ideas it seemed hellbent on rejecting early on.

While Papadimitropoulos and his cast capture the perma-vacation feel that permeates Mickey and Chloe’s happiest moments, he’s less adept at navigating the heftier emotional elements.

While Rebecca Frayn and Gaby Chiappe’s script works hard to give all of its players dimension, such an overstuffed narrative tends to do the opposite, limping through sub-subplots and continually introducing new characters, leaving its main attractions to twist in the wind.

It’s hard to ever shake the sense that everyone would be much better off just queuing up Östlund’s film and moving on.

What follows is misdirection, flashbacks, visions, and wooden dialogue. At least the action is good, and Brown is game as ever.

While the moments focused on the kids’ lives are the best part of the film — James and Ramirez have natural chemistry and are compelling to watch — Baig occasionally falters on that front too.

While Gregg offers a cheeky sense of what it really means to gaslight someone, no one will feel as injured by the film’s final-act choices than its audience.

A nerve-shredding space thriller that starts strong before falling prey to blunter dramatic twists, few of which are as thrilling as the original idea that sets everything in motion.

Predictability doesn’t have to be a sin when it comes to the often paint-by-the-numbers world of romantic comedy, but this awkward combination of expectation and disdain for it make for a film only fleetingly worthy of celebration.

It’s a whole lot less scary or fun the second time around.

The whole thing is overstuffed with enough narrative threads that it should require a feature film-sized outing to answer them all, but Entouragemerrily skips over whole chunks of vital narrative in order to give it a glossy Hollywood ending, the kind that would seem forced, well, even in the movies.