Katie Walsh

Ball and screenwriter Nowlin keep a tight grip on the tone and the relentless pace, but they often back the story and characters into corners that only a deus ex machina can fix.

The greatest appeal of The Girl King lies in the fascinating historical character and the formidable actress portraying her.

The modern noir style and genre innovation are such a neat cinematic twist that it’s a bit of a letdown that the world doesn’t always feel fully fleshed out.

Gorgeous and naturalistic shots by cinematographer by Autumn Durald speak volumes, and the atonal, foreboding score by Nathan Halpern creates a sense of dread, though they are ultimately squandered in an underdeveloped story.

The 1990s framing device keeps pulling us out of the 1950s love story, sapping its power.

The Road Within suffers from midfilm wandering and a hasty ending, but the message of self-acceptance rings true and clear.

Like many music documentaries, this film suffers from the tendency to reiterate its point too often.

Brother Nature has its amusing moments, providing a showcase that tends toward the formulaic and predictable.

47 Meters Down doesn't have the campy sparkle that made “The Shallows” a cult hit, but it's the kind of cheesy thriller that's good for a few jumps and a few chuckles at its own silliness.

There’s a sense of beauty and contemplation in Albertin’s work, and though it seems like danger hangs in the air, there’s an odd lack of tension or suspense, and the film’s pace requires incredible patience. Nevertheless, Nivola’s work is somewhat of a revelation, while Haley proves to be a worthwhile discovery.

Desierto is a generic thriller that happens to be wrapped in political packaging. That packaging is sometimes more interesting than the thrills themselves, but the film is bare enough to project what you want onto it.

The smart premise is muddled with far too many tangents — bumbling romances, rivalries with old classmates, troubled cats, precocious teens, angry dance sequences. When focusing on the central relationship, the film is at its best.

The film celebrates Mary Shelley for the trailblazing woman that she is, but hews far too close to convention to truly represent her life.

The aesthetic is just right, but it's a bit too obtuse, mannered and affected to sink its hooks into you, and it keeps the audience at arms' length.

Blink Twice is a big, bold swing, even if its message becomes muddled along the way. It’s clear Kravitz wants to make a statement with this film. What’s less clear is what exactly that statement might be.

The real draw to the “To All The Boys” cinematic universe is the connection between Condor and Centineo, who have intoxicating chemistry, keeping things interesting as “P.S. I Still Love You” ambles to its inevitable conclusion. They bring the charm, but one wishes it had a more exciting movie to support it.

This watered-down rom-com doesn't fully deliver but it's a diverting twist on the genre nonetheless.

Abigail is at times a bit too flippant, over-the-top and even protracted in its ridiculous Grand Guignol of exploding “meat sacks,” but it’s very much in line with the unique Radio Silence sensibility, en vogue with audiences right now.

All the elements are there — writing, performance, themes — but there’s not enough plot to sustain a nearly two-hour feature, and as the situation escalates, it becomes clear that they don’t quite know where or how to end things, and it lands with a thud.

The Bye Bye Man is cheesy, but it feels knowingly cheesy, with a heavy dose of wink-wink, nudge-nudge from the filmmakers.

Roseanne for President can’t quite decide what it wants to be: a political farce underlined with John Philip Sousa-esque military marches, a deep dive into the electoral workings of various third parties like the Green Party and the Peace and Freedom Party or an intimate portrait of a fascinating, wild and influential cultural icon. It’s all of these things and therefore not quite enough of each of them.

Everything hums along until it abruptly crashes and burns, and one can’t help but wonder if the film was picked apart to fit a PG-13 rating (the original is R) and a sub-100-minute runtime.

Though many of the character shifts and story beats are facile, Shine achieves its goal of presenting music and dance as love, connection, family and important forces for maintaining culture throughout the inevitability of urban gentrification.

The Current War: Director’s Cut is an interesting yarn. But one just can’t shake the feeling that it’s just a Wikipedia article jazzed up with a lot of fun camera tricks and some cinematic wizardry, though Westinghouse and Edison would have to be proud of the amazing movie magic.

It is a fine, if lightweight, little slice of throwback-’80s teen movie tropes with some high-tech flair.

Thompson’s directing is serviceable, if slightly scattered and derivative, using every rom-com trope and flourish available. “The Year of Spectacular Men” feels a bit long and self-involved — and a lot like the men whom Izzy dates, it’s fun but far from spectacular.

It’s a charming and quirky New York tale, if a bit disorganized, finding its voice when it quiets down to just listen to the three women at the center of the story.

The surface pleasures of Y2K are outlandishly fun, but plot-wise, the film is structurally unsound.

The off-kilter, colorful, cartoonish fantasy of Serenity is just so odd and appealing that you want to spend time with the characters, aboard this ship, among the people of Plymouth in this crazy, upside-down world.

The film is a moody and lyrical contemplation of grief and the connections that can be found within the void of loss.

The film itself is a bit rudimentary, with amateurish titles, and editing choices that bloat the already extended length, but the interviews with band members and fans are insightful and engaging, with archival footage that truly rocks.

The brawny Enforcement doesn’t shy away from brutal action, but the film is more in line with recent police thrillers like Deon Taylor’s “Black and Blue,” and Ladj Ly’s “Les Misérables,” which fuse overt sociopolitical commentary with genre thrills.

The unstructured and rather amateurish documentary Citizen Clark …A Life of Principle, directed by Joseph C. Stillman, depicts the compassionate Clark’s remarkable life in his own words and the memories of those around him.

It succeeds as a comedy but not quite as a horror film, the genre merely a setting and style for sending up insidious character stereotypes.

Shanahan shows potential as the hunky but clueless leading man, and Dixon displays a solid point of view with a refreshing perspective centered around women’s success and choices.

It is a worthy, if somewhat abbreviated, toast to the woman behind one of the most iconic Champagnes in the world.

What comes through loud and clear in “My Mind & Me” is Gomez using the film to declare her priorities, and her carefully controlled revelations are a chance to write her own story.

Heartstring-tugging if a bit humorless.

There’s so much that works about The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, it’s unfortunate that it’s all been crammed into one overly-long film.

Barton is a standout as the alluring, broken young woman who hides as much as she reveals.

My Art is an amusing riff on the way one’s creative work bleeds into one’s personal life, and Simmons expresses a singular voice and style, despite the missteps in storytelling.

Despite the narrative elements that are part of Michael’s coping mechanisms, Aldridge and Field effectively salvage the emotional core of “Spoiler Alert,” bringing us back to the heart of the matter, and giving space to the feelings that should flow freely in a film like this.

All the excellent acting and sumptuous style can’t cover up that the culmination of this tête-à-tête is disappointingly hollow with an ironic bow on top.

Leterrier and Momoa bring an energy and excitement to Fast X that juices the engine to deliver the goods that fans want. But the jumbled lore and odd treatment of characters may leave audiences with more questions than answers, and wondering whether the franchise is running on fumes.

The Hustle nods to its predecessors and feels at times like “To Catch a Thief” meets “Absolutely Fabulous.” But what makes “The Hustle” work is its stars.

Throw in a whole heck of a lot of puns and sand all the edges down so everything is gently charming, inoffensive and just silly enough but not too silly to be annoying.

Henry is such an earthy, captivating presence that he holds the center of gravity in Causeway — when he’s not on screen, the film drifts, rudderless, as Lynsey does.

Lee (who directed episodes of “Broad City”) and Glazer swerve from comedy to horror, using the genre as a vehicle for social commentary about modern motherhood, misogyny and manipulation. False Positive is Glazer’s “Get Out,” which is a phrase you want to scream at her character, Lucy, over and over again.

The film has the feel of a television news program, and at feature length lags. But the sheer overwhelming enormity of this injustice pierces through, poignantly, again and again.

The delicious silliness of The Hurricane Heist creeps up on you, because the absolutely wild action sequences as Will weaponizes the hurricane happen with very little fanfare or preparation.

The stellar cast elevates the schlocky charms of this thriller. It’s well-paced and cut like a nighttime soap, jumping between characters as they explore this puzzling mystery over the course of a couple of days.

While The Greasy Strangler eventually becomes tiresome in its relentless repellence, it’s just so odd it deserves to be lauded for simply existing.

Anything wants to be an unconventional love story but gets distracted by other subplots, and McNeil doesn't take the time to develop what becomes the central story line. Still, it's a fine showcase for a softer side of the always excellent John Carroll Lynch.

Despite its audacious premise and style, Riot Girls feels at times underwritten, a few of the performances under-baked. Kwiatkowski and Iseman carry the film, but such a sprawling world is heavy lifting. Nevertheless, Vuckovic ably showcases her fetchingly energetic aesthetic.

What director Caryn Waechter does best is artfully and lyrically capture moments of teenage abandon where the girls feel free, self-possessed and full of friendship love.

The gently affecting Keep in Touch extends its stay a bit too long, stretching the story where it could have been more efficient. But it’s a fine showcase for McPhee’s lovely songs, Bachand’s lead performance, and the assured direction of Kretchmar.

The film, while well-intentioned and informative, is a somewhat unfocused piece.

In its loose, hallucinatory narrative, we gain a sense of the nightmares caused by a loss of spirituality and physical connection. It may leave you questioning if the Mayans were right all along.

The stylish Renfield is a bit of frothy fun. It may be too flip for some, but flippancy isn’t the issue — it’s the flimsiness. Hoult and Cage sell the toxic odd-couple dynamic well, but a sturdier story is required to fully support their performances, especially Cage’s operatic Dracula, who delights in terrorizing his foppish familiar.

The film meanders, and the climax descends into campy fantasy worthy of any ’80s B-movie, but Records is quietly winning.

It’s a taut, if somewhat hysterical, cycle of bait and switch, twists and turns, retribution, vengeance and mental torture payback for immature mind games with deadly results.

Heartlock is a daring and well-acted drama that can’t quite get the timing right.

Pine’s Poolman is sort of the physical, emotional and spiritual embodiment of Los Angeles itself: earnest, silly and a little (or a lot) ridiculous, but insistently charming if you decide to surrender to the experience.

While Alright Now threatens to spin off its foundations with all of its crazy, loose energy, the central relationship keeps the story on track.

Unfortunately, there’s a missed opportunity to develop the suspense within a structure that has built-in tension. The pacing remains steady during the ramp-up to the final pitch, but it lacks competitive drama.

Though the film is formulaic and somewhat annoyingly energetic, it’s cute and irreverent enough, and manages to bridge the generation gap, offering up a kid-friendly flick that can keep adults somewhat entertained for the duration, proving that even after all these years, Garfield’s still got it.

The comedy isn’t necessarily groundbreaking, and the story beats are almost painfully predictable, but the picture hangs together thanks to this group of legends and the loose, absurdist humor of the screenplay.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a one-joke movie, relying on the subversion of physical stereotypes, but thanks to impeccable casting and fun performances, that joke is very well-executed.

Ultimately, it feels irresponsible to remain unwilling to take a stand on this extreme abstract rhetoric in support of an all too real and immediate threat.

There’s a harried energy to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which is enjoyable until it becomes tiresome and deafening. Perhaps multiplication was too much — here’s hoping subtraction is next in the mathematical equation.

There are a few times when a viewer less familiar with this world can feel a bit out of place, though it is possible for anyone to find amusement in this winsome if slight film.

While undoubtedly a uniquely creative and singularly emotive film, it can be all just a little too, too much.

A sweet if underwhelming documentary with plenty of character, but told in such a simple and gentle way, it doesn’t quite grab audiences as it could.

The film’s affable nature and the sheer charisma oozing off Pine and Grant is intoxicating, but overall, there’s a sense that it doesn’t quite gel, the engine revving but never hitting the speed of which it seems capable.

It’s faithfully formulaic, but the cast makes it appealing.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent knows that what it has going for it is Nicolas Cage, and Nicolas Cage is what makes this otherwise forgettable comedy worth the watch. It’s not necessarily only for super fans, but super fans will be richly rewarded by this love letter to Cage, who, remember, never went away.

An unprecedented take on the holiday film, but not an entirely successful one.

That the structure consistently undermines its own storytelling is frustrating when the story to be told is a vital and interesting one.

While the performances are compelling, particularly Franco's, and the ideas batted around are worth grappling with, much of the storytelling is bogged down by extra details and exposition, and hampered by its unwillingness to take a position on the topic. An interesting story, but unfortunately, rather uninterestingly told.

Block Party is a lightweight comedy that frustrates because there’s the potential for it to be great, to resonate beyond its blandly formulaic charms.

Despite its literary origins, the film feels a bit like a writer tossed a few darts at a board labeled with aging action stars and various terrorist groups and just decided to make it work.

This film deserves attention for tackling an aspect of the transgender experience that is not often seen on screen, and though it laudably casts a transgender actress, the story is framed through the perspective of a straight cis-woman, Alyssa. Something tells me it would have been much more interesting, and less narratively tortured, as seen through the eyes of Eve.

Louder Than Bombs never quite comes together. You keep waiting for it to gel, but it just drifts along until it drifts away.

The film feels cluttered by all the other nonsense of girls, rivalries and friendships that could have been pared down for a more efficient narrative.

Despite the juicy details and fascinating topic, it’s disappointing that the stilted tone makes it so difficult to connect emotionally with this important story.

The Curse of La Llorona is middling B-movie schlock that goes for the low-hanging fruit: sequences you know will end with some kind of jump, bump or scream, and jokes that cut the tension and indicate everyone here knows what's up.

The wonders of Wonder Park are dampened by the pall of grief that the protagonist is experiencing, while the wacky amusement park antics prevent the story from going especially deep.

There’s a sense of dread as the film wraps up, knowing where the real-life story ended, and it’s increasingly out of step with the rosy picture painted by Tsikurishvili. Is he compelled to update the film or leave us with an image of Bergling in his freest moment? Ultimately, it feels like only part of the story, and therefore not entirely true.

Galifianakis steals the show as the friendly fussbudget in a performance we've come to expect from him. The enormous potential on screen is tantalizing, which is why the disappointment of failed execution stings.

While it will likely amuse its target audience of geeks and the terminally online, Deadpool & Wolverine is a whole lot of hot air and not much else.

The overall picture doesn't have the kind of true wow factor that would make this one stand out from the rest of the pack.

If Thanksgiving had to be any specific dish on the holiday table, it would be stuffing: disparate chunks tossed together and baked. Stuffing is a dish where old bread goes to shine — a cheap and easy crowd-pleaser. But this particular serving of it is missing a crucial element, the binder.

But for all the pondering The Possession of Hannah Grace inspires, it’s also true that at 85 minutes, it still manages to feel tedious at times. The dour environment doesn’t help, the humor doesn’t pop, and disappointingly, the scares just don’t land.

Every time Charlize Theron is on screen, the movie gets crazy campy, and therefore at least somewhat interesting.

It’s fun to see [Rodriguez] color in new shades of film genre, but the script and performances in “Hypnotic” are too laughably absurd to take seriously.

The Wild Life is a family-friendly take on the story of Crusoe, with a twist, and kids no doubt will be drawn to the colorful animal characters, but there's a lack of emotional connection that makes the film just another cartoon flick, not a special favorite or animated classic.

There is potential to say so much more about sex, love, partnership, feminism and shifting sexual mores across cultures, but Simple Passion lets the bodies do the talking, and after a while, they run out of things to say.

While the sentiments feel authentic, the ludicrous plot, filled with holes, doesn’t do the emotional aspects of the story any service.

Cooke and her character, Paige, inject some life into the proceedings, but the central mystery feels forced, the twists implausible. The screenplay strains for topicality, stuffing too many elements at once into this sad story in a bid for relevance that never quite resonates.

The film is a slickly-executed piece, an enjoyable but almost unbearably twisty puzzle box of narrative fun, but once everything slots together the box is unfortunately empty.

It’s all feather-light, low-stakes stuff where it’s about the journey not the destination, and not judging a book by its cover. It skates by on the charisma of its stars but evaporates on contact.

Johansson’s direction is serviceable if unremarkable, and one has to wonder why this particular script spoke to her as a directorial debut. Though it is morally complex and modest in scope, it doesn’t dive deep enough into the nuance here, opting for surface-level emotional revelations. It’s Squibb’s performance and appealing screen presence that enables this all to work — if it does.

While there are pops of piquancy in Landon’s script, her direction and the performances (with the exception of Woodard) fail to inspire much more than a shrug. “Summer Camp” is only mildly interesting as another entry in the Keaton-verse.

It’s a thin tapestry of lore with some interesting creative embellishments, but without any real interest in character, it feels flimsy and disposable. You could do worse, but you could certainly do better.

It’s a remarkable story, but “Father Stu” is a broad, somewhat brutish film.

While the mocking tone mostly undermines any trenchant commentary, the strongest impression Ready or Not leaves, thanks to Weaving’s eye-rolling, primal-screaming, evil-giggling performance, is of the cathartic, transformative female rage at the center of it all.

Thanks to Grande’s emotional performance, what does shine through is Glinda’s personal story about embracing change, stepping into her own power and defining what it means to be “good,” on her own terms — not because it’s her brand. This is decidedly Glinda’s movie, and that is the one good thing.

The Equalizer 2 just doesn't deliver the thrills.

Allure is powered by Wood's intense charisma. Laura deploys her magnetic gaze as a weapon, though the destruction she wreaks is most often directed at herself. The character's situation is always untenable, and as it collides with inevitability, the co-writer-director Sanchez brothers lose the tight grip of control they've maintained over the story.

The outlook of The Happys is reflected in its title — even when things are dark, Tracy maintains her sunny outlook. It might be a bit too spit-varnished shiny, but her happiness is hard-won.

It’s an unexpectedly radical, if otherwise rather rote animated sequel.

Despite all the rich elements — the fantastic cast, the wonderfully detailed production and costume design, an oddball family story of black sheep finding each other — there's something missing from The House with a Clock in Its Walls. It's weightless, hop-skipping over necessary story-building, glossing over Lewis' warlock training as well as the personal histories of his guardians.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come feels behind the ball, not ahead of the game, and unfortunately, this is no escapist, or even cathartic, horror romp. Read the news instead if you’d like a real scare.

Though the craft is exceptional, there are some storytelling missteps.

The cast is rounded out with likable comedians, but this fable can’t decide if it’s going to be deliciously bad or morally upstanding.

At its heart, it's a simple story about a family gathering around a loved one, but there's too much going on narratively and stylistically.

Rosenmeyer and Shaw have an easy charm and chemistry together, but the been-there, done-that material doesn't match their talents.

While Scared of Revolution offers intimacy with Umar, it is otherwise unmoored from the important cultural history it could have been.

Though the distressingly large lollipop heads of the characters are often disconcerting, some of the animation is striking and near photorealistic. At times though it seems all of the resources have been put into the background environment instead of the characters.

Aselton has a light touch as a director, and she wisely trots out an all-star parade of comedy heavyweights to distract from the script issues.

Even the cute factor of A Dog's Way Home can't obscure its narrative weaknesses.

The cinematic execution of All Saints is serviceable at best. It's stilted at times, with too much dead air hanging around, and the stakes and roller coaster of ups and downs in the script often seem out of step with the emotion on-screen.

Fisk and Hoffman (the younger) make a fine pair on screen with a natural chemistry; it’s nice to see her back in a romantic leading role. You just wish the two had more substantive material to work with. In fact, the Hallmark holiday version of this film would likely have been more entertaining, or at least shorter.

Kaleidoscope is brilliantly crafted and performed, but it’s a bit too taken with its own muddling of facts and form to truly hook into.

Aside from the obviously unintentional humor, the quality of Kraven the Hunter is severely lacking. Perhaps that’s all the recommendation you need for some dumb fun at the movies.

It feels more like the sketch of an idea than a fully realized film, and it ends on a note that seems it should be the beginning or middle of the story, not the end.

Though it is faithful, Where the Crawdads Sing is lacking the essential character and storytelling connective tissue that makes a story like this work — an adaptation such as this cannot survive on plot alone.

Who the … is That Guy shines a light on Alago’s amazing life story, but the film itself lacks the verve and style of its subject.

If he is trying to say something (and it’s unclear what that might be), all of the fuss and muss obfuscates any message, and even worse, any emotional connection to the film. This latest dispatch is indeed a profound disappointment.

Carruth’s troubled performance holds the piece together until it loses the thread on its own tenuous mythology, descending into incoherent cacophony.

This dark and dreary monster movie is indeed horrific, but it’s also undoubtedly a downer, for more reasons than likely intended.

As the film turns toward black comedy, mystery and horror, away from social mocking, it becomes far more compelling.

Greenland 2: Migration offers up a proudly, even defiantly, optimistic view of what comes after disaster, which can serve for the viewer as either cathartic fictional balm, or Pollyanna-ish fantasy — pick your poison.

Dog Days is in some ways a very strange movie, in the way it straddles the worlds of weirdo comedy and family-friendly fare. But ultimately, it's the pooches who steal the show.

Coltrane displays a range he hasn’t shown before onscreen, dipping into darker realms as the romantically spurned blue collar townie Victor. But Fitzgerald runs away with Blood Money as femme fatale Lynn.

With its nonsensical, confounding story, it might not be for anyone, even if its heart is in the right place.

The film works best when focusing on the conflict between world-weary Huck and dreamer Tom, but the characters are underdeveloped and the plot overly convoluted, lacking the foundational support to prop up their antics and capers.

Reaching for meaning in The Nun II is as fruitful as a wander down a dark and dusty old hall. You’ll find things that go bump in the night but not much else underneath all the doom and gloom.

The luminous Garrett shines as Brenda, emerging from her shell. Hauptman manages to sand down David's spiky edges. The supporting characters, unfortunately, are two-dimensional and less charismatic.

The result is amusing enough, but it’s as cinematically substantive as a sugar cookie.

With a lovely voice performance from Cena, the spirit of Ferdinand does shine through. But the rest of the story filler is mostly forgettable.

The all-star cast is uniformly good, but the script lacks any sort of nuance to temper the pandering lecture.

It’s a warm, uplifting portrait of the potentials to be found in startup culture, but feels blinkered by its specific focus.

Swank is appealing and amusing, decked out in fringe and affecting a twang, but it in no way feels real; it’s more of a fun character performance. Ritchson, on the other hand, demonstrates a softer, more expansive side to the tough guy persona he’s perfected on “Reacher.”

The film clearly comes from a place of deep knowledge about the intricacies of schizophrenia but has an unfortunate tendency to overexplain itself.

Cusack puts in work as Paul, an old-fashioned hero. But he seems miscast and can't quite modulate the levels of camp in his performance.

There is real potential in this premise, and a few flickers of genuine artfulness, but the storytelling is frustratingly abstruse, making for an Exit Plan that’s a real missed opportunity.

Eventually, it loses steam while riding a line between outrageousness and earnestness and never quite comes together.

Four Good Days is a portrait of addiction that wants to dive into the ugliest parts: the detox, the physical deterioration, the flop houses, the things Molly did for drugs. But, despite Kunis’ haggard appearance, Four Good Days only flirts with ugly, pulling away from the most vile details at the last moments.

The jokes are sodden, relying on tired wordplay and sarcastic delivery to draw the faintest of laughs.

Uncharted is fine, and entertaining enough, but while some moments are inspired, others are completely inert. It’s oddly neutered and bloodless, the stakes negligible. It feels like a project with so much potential that never fully achieves liftoff, stumbling when it should soar.

The film poses half-formed thoughts about femininity through the lens of nationality, immigration, work, creativity and money, but ultimately the only profound thing it manages to say is on the nature of exploitation between subject and author. A fascinating albeit frustrating sketch on the topic.

A sweet tale with a smart storytelling device and charming performers, but not much more beyond the cute.

Shipp nails the energetic, motor-mouthed cadence of the outspoken Shakur. But the film surrounding Shipp is rough going.

The quasi-magical realist film In Search of Fellini has its heart in the right place but wears its studied quirks on its sleeve, leading with influences and references rather than a strong story.

Arkansas doesn't break the mold on cheeky, stylish, low-life movies; rather, it worships it.

Bone Lake offers up an appealing surface, but it’s just too shallow to get very far.

Every character is merely a stereotype or symbol, not a fully-fleshed out person. Indeed, one has to wonder what every actor, including Monaghan, is doing in this flimsily written psychological thriller, but perhaps, that question isn’t even worth the speculation.

Despite being two movies smashed together, torturously twisted in order to get all these legends at one tournament, Karate Kid: Legends isn’t an unpleasant experience, largely due to the charms of star Wang, who has a bashfully appealing presence that belies his seriously lethal martial arts skills.

Unfortunately, the cast and a few sweet tunes by Armstrong are the only things going for this delayed coming-of-age dramedy.

With a visual style that is straightforward and serviceable at best and a frustratingly limited emotional range, Back to Black never captures the beauty of Winehouse’s talent, the heartbreak of her performances or the horror of her tragedy.

The biggest problem with Why Him? though, isn’t him, it’s her. Stephanie is so underwritten that even though these men are competing ruthlessly over her, she drops out of the story completely. She’s the center of attention, but she’s a void. That’s not the fault of the winsome Deutch.

The entire film feels like an exercise in dashing expectations, for both our heroine and the audience.

It’s all too sterile and stilted, distracting from the deeply emotional story of love and loss at its core.

One can’t help but feel that the man himself — grill and all — is so much more fascinating than this rote representation.

Visually, it's busy, hefty and propulsive, but emotionally and thematically, it's as light as air. These engines could have used a bit more in the tank.

Burger presupposes all the right questions (and anxieties) about the realities of climate change-induced space migration; it’s just that as a film, Voyagers feels like a role-playing game rather than a character-driven story.

Erasing Eden is an exploration of self-sabotage and destruction that makes vague gestures toward the self-empowerment found in personal choice, but those morals are lost in the downright disturbing and degrading gauntlet Eden has to walk through to find herself.

The Little Hours gets freaky, but it never feels truly subversive, or even that titillating.

The whole thing is a wild concept, hinging on the plausibility of every character's motivations, which are all a bit squishy.

Is Madame Web a good movie? No. Is it hilariously delightful? Often.

Where “The Raid” films used a thin story to efficiently showcase the rapid-fire lethality of silat, Headshot attempts to wrangle an emotional back story into the proceedings, which is a hard combination to stomach when the characters are brutally beating one another senseless.

The film is a feat of maximalist and moody production design and cinematography, but the tedious and overwrought script renders every character two-dimensional, despite the effortful acting, teary pronunciations and emphatically delivered declarations.

Though the film is politically and culturally urgent, it’s too much of a challenge to connect with the void of character at the core of this screenplay. We may all have the power to be Jane, but the image of Jane remains frustratingly hazy in Nagy’s depiction.

The film feels like it doesn't hit its stride until two-thirds of the way through, when Davis unleashes Kendrick. It's a clever premise, and there are some great performances, including Kendrick's, but a few story elements are fumbled to the film's detriment.

There isn't enough mystery and ambiguity around the murders to create a sense of fear or dread, yet there's something rather effectively creepy and compelling, with its retro thrills and chills

Hunt gives it as all as the tortured Louis, but Patterson is the heart and soul of the film, giving a far more interesting performance as his long-suffering wife.

Made up of stylish pastiche, girl power slogans and one go-for-broke performance, The Bride!, like her Monster, isn’t much more than an assemblage of parts, and the slipperiness of time, place and character leaves the film unmoored and unrooted. Here comes The Bride! — unfortunately, she’s brain dead.

It’s hard to pick apart a film that is as well-intentioned as Here Today, which earnestly wants to celebrate life, and every beautiful, tragic, poignant and surprising moment. But for a film that seeks to be so humanist, there’s only one truly human character in it. As likable as he is, that oversight is impossible to ignore.

With seemingly all the right pieces, it's a disappointment that The Promise lacks the energy and originality needed to sustain itself. It might be fresh material, but the approach is decidedly stale.

Fortunately, this loud, hectic movie doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it wouldn’t have the material to last a second longer. It’s bright, busy, inoffensive and exactly the opposite of the weird, dark, edgy 1993 movie adaptation. That may be better for the business of Mario, but it’s not exactly terribly interesting either.

Medieval is a film with an identity crisis, caught between its lowbrow sword-and-splatter charms and grander ambitions. As a quick and dirty 90-minute corker, it could have been a nice and nasty slice of genre filmmaking, but Jakl aims for something more epic in scope, and the film drags, easily 30 minutes too long.

It’s a humble story, one with the capacity to inspire in its simple message of perseverance. But the film itself, as an artistic product, feels limited in its observational scope, because the filmmaker doesn’t have any distance from the material.

While it is fun to reconnect with Big Nick and watch him try new foods, there’s just something missing in this rote “Ronin” ripoff — a danger. It seems Gudegast and his cast of characters alighted for Europe with only a few ideas in place, and the tapestry of this world is not woven as tightly as the original.

A glib, slick and shallow slice of Japanophile action entertainment that offers a very bright, shiny surface but has absolutely no interest in revealing anything beyond that.

While Just Say Goodbye reveals the filmmakers’ inexperience, with a bit of finesse, Walting could be a promising new voice.

The material is breezy and amusing with a few piercing moments of emotional truth, but the tone never quite feels right for the issue at hand. There’s a tendency to rely on incredibly hacky material, like extended bits about the complexities of sperm collection and well-trodden jokes about alternative healers.

With a highly stylized form, and thick, syrupy ribbons of blood splashing everywhere, Sun Choke evokes a creepy, eerie vibe, but it’s difficult to muster more than a passing interest in the story, because we don’t know who this girl is, or why she does these things.

The film wants to speak to some kind of old school, lone-ranger American hero type (as portrayed by a man from Northern Ireland), but it’s too vague, shying away from any controversy, to say much at all.

Freed from the respectful restraints of non-fiction, Berg goes completely hog-wild, cinematically, and it doesn't exactly work. The film is a riot of nearly incomprehensible editing, a violent melee of intertwining scenes, shots, characters, formats and timelines, straining the limits of coherence and cogency.

The surface pleasures of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights may be plenty, but the story itself, well, it never achieves climax.

The focus of The Aftermath is in all the wrong places, spending time with characters in which we are unable to gain an emotional foothold. This misplaced attention makes for an erotic drama that feels cold, and a political thriller that feels empty.

There's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the material and the approach that the filmmakers take, and much that doesn't get covered in this short, 80-minute primer.

With tonal inconsistencies and poorly written characters, any awe inspired by Alita: Battle Angel is replaced with a profound sense of confusion.

There are a few inventive battles on a frozen pond and atop the tiled roof of a temple, but they are so CGI-enhanced as to seem cartoonish, not marvelous.

The film capably, if expectedly, proceeds down this standard procedural path, progressing from investigation to trial, with flourishes of genius every now and again from Pearce, having some campy fun as van Meegeren. But even with a few courtroom theatrics and some profound ethical issues to chew on, The Last Vermeer is ultimately a dreadfully milquetoast outing.

Henson is a gifted actress and physical comedian. She manages to hold together What Men Want with the sheer force of her powerful charisma, but the film around her is harried, messy and woefully underwritten.

Fuller demonstrates a strong command over his visual domain, but the pat allegory he presents about the monsters with whom we have to learn to live feels a bit muddled.

The Legend of 420 captures a zeitgeist, but with so many facets to explore in this survey of contemporary American marijuana culture, it only scratches the surface.

The comedic actor makes his directorial debut with a politically charged comedy that's sort of a satire, designed to wring wry laughs out of our deeply divided political state. But in this climate, it's just frustrating and unpleasant to watch.

The first half is the more intriguing as older and younger tussle with each other and ask the tough questions, figuring out their mission together. But it all falls apart in a hackneyed third act.

The last third of the film descends straight into a combination of "Dynasty" with shades of cult classic "The Room." It's fantastic because it's complete and utter silly madness. Helicopter crashes! Slaps! Drinks thrown in faces! Fully clothed shower sex! A framed "Chronicles of Riddick" poster! All the makings of an instant cult classic.

Twists and turns abound, but they're all smoke and mirrors that ultimately don't add up to anything.

The disappointment of Breaking In is the wasted potential — there are a few plot setups that could have been further fleshed out or brought back around (why was her father being investigated by the DA?) and Union isn’t given enough opportunity to truly display her charms. This thriller could have really used some room to breathe.

The film undeniably captures the breathtaking and unique landscape of coastal Western Australia. It's an incredibly beautiful film, but it's a challenge to emotionally connect to it. It feels like the outline of what would have been an epic novel, but in the translation to the screen, it has lost its interiority, and anything profound it might have communicated.

Writer-director James Bird took inspiration from real-life experiences, and the story is obviously heartfelt. But despite a stylized, edgy surface, Honeyglue doesn’t stray from the well-worn weepy narrative.

The intentions are admirable, but the execution and ideas are far too vague.

This Little Women adaptation is faithful to a fault, which results in a very strange world where this group of five present-day women depends on men for their social lives and careers — basically anything that gets them out of their cozy house of feminine fantasy.

While Lowriders offers an interesting entree into this world, it's unfortunately too formulaic and predictable to leave much of an impact.

What makes The Resurrection of Gavin Stone singular is its fresh and thoroughly modern approach to evangelical Christianity.

For a film about outlandishly kooky dolls, the film sure is flat, listless and narratively bland.

At times Miles feels a bit rickety around the edges, but the character at the center is instantly relatable and has a relaxed charm that makes the story compelling.

This increasingly convoluted tale moves quickly but goes nowhere.

This flick isn’t a masterpiece, not even a vulgar one, but it’s cheeky and entertaining enough in its giddy hyperviolence, thanks almost entirely to the star turn of Josh Hartnett, who has proved in his recent renaissance that he’s especially great in bozo mode.

The character and Qualley’s performance is so beguiling that it would be a delight to watch Honey O’Donahue solve any manner of mysteries of the week, “Columbo”-style. It’s a shame, then, that the particular mystery at hand in Honey Don’t! is so convoluted and nonsensical.

Directed by Stephen Williams with a sense of momentum and fluidity, it’s hard to shake the feeling that this version of Bologne’s life story glides over the most interesting parts.

There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers, and had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop stardom instead of an Oscar-winning acting career, she’d be one of our top icons. Her Mother Mary performances are so fantastic it leaves you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

The irony and meaninglessness of the violence rankles, especially when Ulysses is presented as such a nice guy who is prone to de-escalation and community care in his day-to-day work.

Ultimately, what's revealed in the new biopic of young Salinger, written and directed by Danny Strong, poses some interesting questions, but doesn't live up to the power of the mystery around the man itself.

It's a serviceable animated movie appropriate for the season, but there's nothing beyond its source material that marks it as particularly unique or special.

Jeong and Schaal are quite funny in the limited time they're given, but one can't help but think the story would have worked so much better as a drama, or some kind of "Man on Fire" actioner, with Coleman's chops and Bautista's brooding presence. Hopefully a director can figure out what best to do with him as a leading man, and soon.

The problem is that one can't help but think of better, more interesting movies based on this premise.

Hunter Killer needs its radar calibrated, because while it bounces between serious and silly, it never quite finds a suitable place to land.

Anecdotes and photos bring the golden age of Catch One to life, with a lively disco soundtrack and Thais-Williams' font of fascinating stories. But the film itself could use a more rigorous structure as it wanders from anecdote to anecdote and era to era.

The real problem here, though, is that it's painfully cheesy pablum, relying on hokey burger joint and Friday night football game stereotypes to take the place of character development.

Pet Sematary finesses some of the bumpy narrative moments from the original, but where it forges its own path is in rewriting Ellie's story. This is initially intriguing, but it ultimately reveals itself to be the less original choice, relying on horror archetypes and tropes we've seen before.

The Art of Racing in the Rain, while a tearjerker, is a very strange movie, starting with its mouthful of a title.

The films are bad, but they are entertaining. Fifty Shades Freed, the final film of the trilogy, just might be the most competently made yet — which is a shame for those expecting the high camp factor of "Fifty Shades Darker."

The always wonderful Martindale nails the tone in her warm and nuanced performance, combining sly humor and a soulful presence, while the men orbiting around her range from complete goofs (Copley and Jenkins) to self-involved and dour (Krasinski).

Even this cast can’t save the rote machinations of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as it dutifully delivers morsels of memory.

Skyscraper — a sort of reverse "Die Hard," where a family man breaks into an imposing structure to save his family — scoots by on the thinnest of premises, and an even thinner script.

It doesn't gel and lacks the kind of visual kinetic energy we’ve come to expect from films of this ilk.

It’s So Easy suffers from an approach that leans more on telling than showing, and we just have to take his word for it that his life’s events are that fascinating.

The Devil Has a Name has an important message if you can get past the unwieldy melodrama of the film, but the second coming of “Erin Brockovich” this is not.

With this noisy, fast, chaotic "Hellboy," Marshall is at his most cheeky and most unhinged. It's certainly… a lot.

An exceedingly mild affair, The Last Laugh relies mightily on Dreyfuss’ warm charm to keep the journey rolling.

Pasek and Paul’s songs end up having to do much of the emotional heavy lifting, and the rest of the film feels cobbled together from random parts scavenged from other kids’ movies and pop culture ephemera.

The protagonist's unlikable routine is too high a degree of difficulty to execute flawlessly.

Krauss digs into the murky, uneasy morality of wartime, but The Kill Team doesn’t quite convey the brutality of these crimes with the same power that news accounts or even Krauss’ own documentary have.

The only performance worth mentioning is Jeong, who brings his energetic weirdness to a rather small role.

Never Let Go becomes an unpleasant slog for much of its runtime.

Reynolds is a bit too glib and smug to buy as the romantic lead. It’s actually a relief that the movie salvages the romance by relegating it to the game world. But the whole film remains a bit too glib and smug anyway.

Deakins’ work is beautiful, Colman is incredible, and the role of Stephen proves to be a breakout for Ward. But the story is too scattershot and contrived for an audience to be swept away and moved in the same way that Colman finds herself swept away by the experience of the Peter Sellers classic “Being There.”

Forbidden Fruits can’t reconcile all of its influences and just ends up as a collection of references and high style without much staying power — it’s essentially the fast fashion of girly pop horror.

Certain qualities are undeniable, such as Keaton’s command of this character and O’Hara’s unique wit. Ryder has the heaviest performance lift, transitioning her character from teen to mom, but she finds her groove in the back half of the movie. But there’s something a bit bland and manufactured about this version.

There’s just simply nothing to hook into aside from Fishburne’s performance, which is the only captivating element of the film, and even that is derivative of his iconic Morpheus from “The Matrix.” Despite its many twists and turns, Slingshot shows no signs of life.

Though the film eventually gets to where it needs to go, it feels scattered, stumbling over true crime tropes on the way.

Despite the talent involved, and the incredible subject matter, the irritating tendency to over-explain to the audience means there’s very little spark to be found in the enervating Radioactive.

As far as family-friendly, faith-based holiday movies go, you could do worse than “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” though it might not quite connect with all young audiences, as the film leans more toward poignant than playfully riotous.

Predictably, it descends into a meaningless blur of gravity-defying physics and robotic limbs by the end, where a lot of violence is happening but you’re never sure exactly why or even how.

At the end of Jojo Rabbit, you’re just left wondering what the point of it all was.

There are a few chuckles to be found in Bill, but this is decidedly more "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" than "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

The central relationship of “The Valet” is the weakest part of the film, and much of the comedy is a bit tiresome, though a few bits do pop.

The Mountain Between Us falls flat, struggling to truly enthrall beyond a basic love story.

Bad Santa 2 relies entirely too much on the salty stuff, offering an opportunity for audiences to titter at the firehose of vile gutter humor that leaves no one unsullied, and delves into some truly dark places.

The slight and scanty Drive-Away Dolls could dissipate with a gust of wind, but it beats a hasty getaway before that becomes a problem. While its story fails to justify its own existence, it delivers what it says on the tin: dumb, randy fun, even if that feels retrograde in more ways than one.

The Goldfinch is both too long and too short; dull to watch but scanty on the details about logistics, character, and just how anything of note actually occurs. The mystery of the film is something to be endured, rather than solved. But the real mystery is our leading man. We never know who Theo is as an adult, or if we’re on his side, or why we should care.

Goth holds MaXXXine together through the sheer force of her charisma, despite the bumpy plot, an underwritten character and the plodding, perfunctory kills that arrive like clockwork.

With the dour drudgery of “Last Rites,” it has never been more clear that it’s time to move on from their story, even as the memories of better installments linger.

It’s easy to take for granted what’s good about Dalíland, namely Gala and Dalí as played by Sukowa and Kingsley. Sukowa’s depiction of a Russian woman with a taste for drama and the finer things in life is over the top, but deadly accurate; Kingsley balances imperiousness and vulnerability beautifully and with an ease only he seems capable of achieving.

Criminal feels like the kind of high-concept, unapologetically preposterous action movies of the heyday in the '80s and '90s. If that's your thing, it's a hoot.

Stearns grapples with notions of gender, violence and identity. But in this mannered, ironic take, his punches don't land hard enough to leave a mark.

The drought is ultimately presented as a man-made occurrence, wrapped up in regulations and red tape, rather than a troubling environmental reality. The reality is far more complicated than anything that can be neatly wrapped up within the conventions of genre filmmaking.

Maybe every filmmaker should make their own Dracula — it’s a text that certainly can be quite illuminating

The music is great. Jaafar Jackson is a star. But the movie itself is uncomfortably problematic in a way that’s hard to overlook.