Katie Walsh

Though the movie promises to tell a culturally and politically specific story, what could have been daring is ultimately trite, relying on familiar music biopic tropes.

Proceed with caution to "Warcraft," but there is entertainment to be found here. It's certainly more absorbing than the lazily assembled "Alice Through the Looking Glass," because Jones' exertion and drive behind the film is palpable, if a bit sweaty.

The film is a loving tribute from a son to a father figure, but perhaps Deen is too close to the story to have much perspective on it. We’ve seen this story before and Brave the Dark doesn’t shed new light.

The only time Wish shines bright is when it dares to get a little bit weird.

The script is standard sports movie fare without much subtext — in the mouth of anyone other than Harbour, some of these motivational lines would be real clangers, but he sells the material with his rugged soulfulness, and there’s true chemistry between him and Madekwe, as the unlikely sports star and his demanding coach.

There are some affecting inner child healing moments here, but without details and specifics, this is a big, bold swing, but a beautiful miss.

Clown in a Cornfield is fun, to be sure, but feels about as substantial as a corn puff.

In the film, Lily is delusional about her relationship and the movie blurs the lines of the abuse for too long to a frustrating degree that essentially robs our hero of her agency, and elides some of Ryle’s obvious manipulation.

This final installment finds Soderbergh and Tatum toying with audience expectations to disappointing results. There are a few flashes of the original magic, but it’s lacking in the energy that made the first two movies a thrill.

On first glance, Monster Trucks looks so-bad-it’s-hilarious, and it’s a bit heartening to report that it’s not quite that. The monsters are cute and charming, the production value is high, and the trio of Lennon, Levy and Lowe bring just enough quirk to brighten up the humorous beats.

Carrie Pilby is a studiously quirky affair, but only the natural charm of Powley salvages that tone. The film swings wildly from melancholy to wacky, never truly melding the two; it somehow also lacks verve and energy.

It's sweet, really, to imagine the kind of devotion Alpha might inspire, a film that's very simple, kind of strange, but will melt any dog-lover's heart.

Though the dialogue is written with all the finesse of a self-help book, and the visuals are a garish technicolor explosion, there are some nuggets of wisdom that do resonate, regardless of personal belief.

The Exorcist: Believer is an exhausting affair, an unrelenting film that attempts to cover up its lack of shock and suspense with a kind of cinematic bludgeoning: a battering delivered via smash cuts, jump scares, overlapping sound design and chaotic camerawork.

For a film thats trying very hard to make you feel, it sure leaves you cold.

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.

The facade the film offers is a lovely, and mildly diverting one, but there’s little insight to be found below the surface.

The Miracle Season moves with a brisk energy and pace, pausing only to draw a few tears hear and there. It's peppered with girl power bangers, training montages and inspirational speeches. But it relies on storytelling that tells rather than shows.

It's just a devastatingly sad and terrible story about two brothers who make bad choices, suffer the consequences and lose the last shreds of family they have left. No amount of 11th hour twists, reveals or bigger ideas can shake that inescapable feeling of dread and sorrow.

Bacon’s performance as well as Finn’s detailed craft manage to hold tension, and the audience’s attention, for the hour and 55 minute runtime of this horror curio, which is as opaque and somewhat silly as the smiles that drive it.

The Lost Girls gets stuck somewhere in the middle of magical realism and a gritty psychological exploration of what it means to believe in Peter and still live in the real world.

The emotions about the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters are spot on, and there’s no shortage of star power. But there’s an insistently dour fog over the proceedings, and the film feels subdued and sedated without the levity to brighten up things.

The film is well-made — the direction is strong, the cinematography by Barry Markowitz compelling and the script by two first-time writers is confident. The biggest problem with the film is Charlie himself.

It’s at once talky yet emotionally remote, and while posing a risky set of questions about sexual abuse, power and relationships, the experience is an unsatisfactory and draining slog.

This debut effort from Hickman lacks the dramatic tension and connective tissue to truly compel, but his gritty, high-energy aesthetic can no doubt be applied to better results with a stronger script.

The ideas are not deep enough and the dramatic tension isn't real enough to sustain this feature.

In the overstuffed plot of Then Came You, Skye’s terminal illness isn’t even about her. Her life merely serves as a lesson for Calvin to overcome his fears and seize the day. It’s a shame this manic pixie dream sick girl can’t even get her own movie.

The story is thin and merely serviceable at best, and it often feels like the film has barely been written.

If the film is affecting, it's due to Quaid's dark, committed performance as an incredibly troubled man.

On the wildly uneven rollercoaster that is Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, the lows far outweigh the highs.

The primary characters and setting of "Barren Trees" are solid, but the overly complicated storytelling falters.

For anyone over 5, it’s best as mild, inoffensive background noise, but no more thrilling or satisfying than that. It turns out to be nothing more than a merchandising opportunity after all.

The film has all the emotional resonance of a dog-themed novelty coffee-table book. Adorable, but ultimately forgettable.

Please Stand By has its surface charms...but if you look under the hood, the film just doesn't work.

Deadliest of all, Fear is just not scary. The jump scares don’t land, the fears themselves are all a bit silly and it feels like Taylor is holding back for the majority of the run time.

The jokes are stale, the energy is stilted, and the whole thing feels like a misbegotten vanity exercise cooked up in the pandemic to keep them occupied.

Alex Strangelove is a deeply annoying failed experiment at melding a sensitive LGBTQ love story with the ethos of raunchy teen sex comedies.

Amazingly, somehow, an overstuffed Godzilla movie feels scant.

Dead Envy is interesting for the way it plays off of Di Nardo’s backstory, but this lightweight stalker-thriller doesn’t deliver much else.

The soundtrack is fantastic and Samuel eminently watchable, but "Asthma" suffers from near-lethal doses of self-satisfied hipness.

Roberts, working with a much larger scenic and visual palette this time, seems adrift.

The low energy pace and performances strive for naturalism but just don't achieve compelling tension or suspense.

Counterfeiters is an amateurish first film, with inexperienced actors, clunky writing and a homemade ambiance. But the ambition and moments of inspired style are be lauded.

Old stereotypes are trotted out for humor's sake, and it's not a question of offensiveness, just that the jokes feel 10 years old.

The Immaculate Room tests the audience’s patience as much as it does the characters’.

As over-the-top operatic and inexplicable as Dawn Patrol can be, producer and star Eastwood remains captivating and charismatic, ultimately serving as a grounding element within the swirl of emotional drama and almost saving the film from going overboard.

Ava's Possessions is powered by an amusing conceit that configures demonic possession as a metaphor for addiction. But the metaphor alone is not enough to sustain this minor effort, which wears thin over the course of a feature length.

With such a fractured narrative, it's difficult to get into a groove with these short, shallow and over-simplified stories.

The time-traveling investigation is indeed optimistic, but in reality and execution, it’s just magical thinking wrapped up in a fussy, overly convoluted plot.

Levi plays Scott as somewhat smarmy and disingenuous — it’s hard to feel for this guy when he seems absolutely clueless about his own kids. Fahy carries the film in her supporting role, an acting imbalance that seems weirdly apt for this story: the supportive, capable wife sidelined in favor of showcasing the inept husband getting himself together and presenting it as meaningful or poignant.

The changes Bissell makes to the story are overly contrived, and the writing and editing are shaky. Most egregiously, Ann’s perspective is completely underwritten, without any personal history and the single humanizing factor of one daughter, who appears only briefly.

Clean is so lean, it’s as if the story itself was sacrificed for atmosphere. Clean brings the cold, moody vibes and extreme violence, but narratively, it’s a mess.

Risen is a fascinating cultural artifact, but as a film, it's destined for no glory greater than as an appropriate cable rerun on Easter.

While it’s a cute love letter to a certain strip of L.A., and Annenberg brings a winsomeness to her role, the story is thin and clichéd, relying on tired gags and stereotypes for humor.

Social Animals is far darker than its colorful, exhibitionist exterior lets on. As the film builds to a climax, it swings wildly in tone, each scene feeling disconnected from the one before.

The story is an intriguing twist on the western genre, but in piling on other subgenres and story elements, including a dangerous and charismatic cult, it dilutes the essential nature of what could have been a potent revenge tale.

The story is spread too thin, or perhaps there just wasn’t that much substance to begin with.

Beyond Skyline is a boldly bonkers film, and it leans into its genre goofiness with a straight face thanks to Grillo. But more humor would have gone a long way in sustaining interest and entertainment, as it’s not quite funny, and too low-budget to take seriously.

Hope Springs Eternal is fine as a leading role for Frampton, who has had small supporting roles in bigger projects such as “Bridesmaids,” but her star power far exceeds the boundaries of this limited project.

Halloween Ends has the feeling of dour obligation, and it’s clear that no one’s heart is really in this anymore, the limits of narrative possibility in Haddonfield stretched beyond their max.

The friendship lessons are sweet enough, but such a low-stakes story strains one’s patience for such affected cinematic style.

Art Show Bingo might be sweet, but it's dramatically inert.

You're either on board with this brand of outré exploitation or you're very much not on board. Return to Nuke 'Em High a.k.a. Vol. 2 is strictly for die-hard fans.

Unfortunately, A Reason doesn't have enough story to justify its running time of nearly two hours, and though the performers are skilled, the melodramatic score and deliberate pace result in a piece that is overwrought but underdone.

Writer-director Anders Morgenthaler's conclusion comes far too hastily and haphazardly, with a disregard for plot details or plausible storytelling.

Frost memorializes his experience of this day, but it’s just not enough to make a significant comment about the event.

While Silencio could be fascinating sci-fi, it’s bogged down in all the family drama.

Mark Gill’s debut feature, England Is Mine, tackles the early life of Moz, but unsatisfyingly stops just short of the Smiths, telling a rather disjointed origin story.

This crime spree may have style to spare, but that's about all that's holding it together.

The premise still feels too thin and juvenile to grab audiences of any age. So what algorithm decided this movie would be a lucrative endeavor?

These references, and the relentless assault of ‘70s needle drops, are fun, to a point, but the movie itself is 87 minutes of pure chaos, a hallucinatory, cacophonous fever dream of nonsensical subplots and Minion gibberish.

This fearsome foursome may be appealing, but the film is beyond formulaic, and far from fabulous.

It's confusing and inconsistent, and no amount of Keener can truly anchor it.

Any trenchant observations to be found in this Blithe Spirit only pop and fizz into thin air like Champagne bubbles. Though effervescent, it’s a bit too ethereal for its own good.

Unfortunately, in Love Jacked, Anderson brings the heat, while West is barely present, unable to keep the necessary chemistry crackling.

Though it's nice to see Smurfette get her due, the whole endeavor feels tired and tiring.

With all the songs, gowns and corny jokes, kids under 10 will likely love it, and frankly, that’s who this is for, not the millennials or Gen Z kids who grew up with Brandy or Hillary Duff.

Though deeply personal and heartfelt, the overwrought film falls prey to too much melodrama and not enough realism or humor.

The cinematography, by David J. Myrick, is lovely and luminous, but the story itself lacks insight or deep emotion.

The movie strikes that wild, so-bad-it’s-entertaining chord vigorously. I can’t recommend Miller’s Girl but I also can’t recommend it enough.

There are no new treasures to be found in this installment, which is dragged down by the anchor of a prescribed franchise blueprint.

The characters make such unrealistic, outlandish choices at almost every turn that it’s hard to buy into their journeys. The pace is so measured as to be stultifying, and at the end of the film, you have to wonder where all of this is going, and ultimately, what is it for?

There are a few stirring moments, but it never seems authentic or real, just a bizarrely staged re-creation.

While the film’s execution seems expert on the surface, the internal narrative design is unfortunately ham-handed and woefully dull.

If The Black Phone dabbles in crimes that are taboo, even unforgivable in its depiction of brutality against innocent children, Black Phone 2 commits its own unforgivable crime of being dreadfully boring. This movie is a snooze — and not just because all of the action takes place entirely during Gwen’s dreams.

The worst thing about Life Itself is not that it is emotionally sadistic. It's just how much it wants to be emotionally sadistic, while missing the mark by a mile.

In trying to do too much, Halloween Kills ends up doing nothing at all, other than tarnishing this franchise’s good name.

Everything about Gringo, from the storytelling to the comedy to the cinematography is incredibly lackluster. The film is dark and dim, like everything's covered in a layer of dust. Oyelowo is quite endearing and funny as Harold, but he's given very little to work with.

The action is messy, the geography indiscernible, and a few shots seem stitched together with but a single pixel and a prayer.

He (Stewart) bogs down his talented cast with a bewildering plot, tired tropes and embarrassing dialogue. This one, well, it's simply resistible.

While it's fun to watch Garner return to her action roots, the brute force haymaker that is Peppermint is a far cry from the sophisticated thrills of "Alias."

Despite the ever-present layer of cheesiness, every now and again, some of those emotions are just big enough to land a somewhat effective blow right to the heart.

It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for those who already love it, it’ll be just right.

Freelance is this incredibly goofy jumble of tones, a movie that doesn’t know what it is or what it wants to be, flailing about as it far overstays its welcome.

It feels like any new ideas were jettisoned for the same old schtick. "Zombieland" may have helped to give birth to the zomb-aissance, but "Double Tap" just might be the kill shot.

Ultimately, any sass, sentiment and personality are obliterated in the noisy chaos of the climax, which is a grayish brown blur of flying spaceship parts, whirling turtle shells and shouts of "the beacon!" It's more cacophonous than cinematic, and loses the quirky charm of the cartoon in the avalanche of computer-generated violence.

Birke's script is plainly straightforward, a simple supernatural chase story. It doesn't plumb the depths of what might make Slender Man scary, so Slender Man isn't scary at all.

Stuck in this largely infantilized role, Cowen imbues Angel with as much verve and spunk as she can; she’s often funnier and darker than necessary, offering a refreshing dash of acid to temper the sickly sweetness.

The comedy waffles between nonsensically heightened and realistically grounded, often alternating between the two modes at random, never landing on a tone.

It never feels like Brooks has a grasp on the material here, which careens aimlessly through Ella’s harried day-to-day, in a handsomely bland, serviceable style.

It wants to comment on the algorithms that rule our lives, spewing constantly recycled content at us seemingly at random, but it is exactly the thing that it points to: an upcycled Frankenstein’s monster of intellectual property spraying a stew of Easter eggs and Halloween costumes at the viewer, praying that something sticks.

What’s so maddening about A Quiet Place Part II is the unused potential. Krasinski opens up the world and timeline of the film, but doesn’t utilize it in any meaningful way, introducing new ideas but then jettisoning the opportunity. Again and again he falls back on more of the same old tricks from “A Quiet Place,” which was a bore to begin with.

The real problem is that there isn't enough whimsy in the world to save this unengaging story.

The costumes are giving Halloween, the sets and props are giving Xena: Warrior Princess and the story and performances aren’t giving anything at all. Mortal Kombat II seems destined to go the way of the ‘90s sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation — directly into obscurity.

There is some excellent location-shooting in downtown Los Angeles during the climax, seen through the lens of a bodycam or quadcopter or drone camera. It’s not enough to save the aesthetic of the entire film, though, which is somehow both gray and nauseating.

Cool New York City detective John Shaft is back again in, you guessed it, Shaft, with a modern update that goes completely sideways in all the wrong ways. This Shaft is a bad mother all right, and it'd be better if he just shut his mouth.

The whole thing might as well all be written in Minions chatter. It's wacky, but somehow dull, kind of like conversing with a Minion.

The whole endeavor is a naked attempt to cash in on the young adult fantasy trend spearheaded by "Harry Potter." There have been many attempts to snatch the Potter crown (and purse) but Artemis Fowl will not be the hot new kiddie fantasy franchise, based on this utterly charmless first entry.

This is your warning that if you have any affinity for the ballet, avoid this at all costs.

The breathtakingly bad Justice League, with its corny banter and terrible effects just might signify a return to that goofy Batman form.

The circumstances of the story might be “timely,” but “Dreams” doesn’t help us understand the situation better, leaving us in the dark about what we’re supposed to take away from this story of sex, violence, money and the state. Anything it suggests we already know.

A jumbled nonsensical mess.

The effort put into making this film work is palpable, but the result is something deeply surreal and strange. Perhaps this story simply can’t work as a film, or perhaps it wasn’t a very good musical to begin with. It’s a question that may be debated for years to come.

Ultimately, all we come away with is a few cheap laughs at online culture, which dates Love Me to its own time and place, an artifact not even of now, but the recent past. This love story isn’t futuristic at all.

Written by Nick Moore, Ruckus Skye and Lane Skye, the script just doesn't give us enough material to care about the story, which is devoid of subtext and keeps everything on the surface.

The Addams Family 2 feels as if it’s lost the spark of the first one. The jokes that felt fresh in the first film are stale here, with the story’s twists glaringly predictable.

The geography and some of the coincidences are as baffling as the messaging. The 96-minute runtime feels cyclical and endless.

It’s a film that dares you to give it a bad review, simply so it can turn around and call you a bully who picks on the people who try. It invites you to giggle at Florence’s horrible singing and then promptly scolds you for laughing, creating a contradiction that goes unreconciled.

The ambitious but unwieldy screenplay suffers from a lack of cohesion and loses control of the nonlinear memories and fantasies of seven people, with some of the characters’ motivations also lost in the shuffle.

It’s a film that ultimately feels less like a celebration and more like further exploitation of the star, leaving us all with much more unsettling questions about Houston’s life and legacy. Sadly, the disappointing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” doesn’t let Whitney rest in peace.

Unfortunately, despite the interesting history, the film itself is a dry, scattered slog, neutered of all the thorny, contradictory details of the real story.

Somehow, despite the sexist, foul-mouthed rancor, there are messages to be found about the false promises of toxic masculinity and learning to be the person you want to be without repeating the sins of your parents. Though it’s rough going to get there.

Jack’s Apocalypse is unable to convey any realistic stakes or authenticity in its story line.

It ends on a rather strange and unsettling note. Framed in a different context, this story could almost be a horror film.

Jacobs simply can’t make any of it work.

While its heart is in the right place, Welcome to Happiness is too fixated on its twee peccadilloes to truly succeed.

It feels at once overwritten and thematically thin, coasting on a cutesy concept before descending into relentless, and therefore meaningless, violence.

What's offensive about A Bad Moms Christmas (and “Bad Moms”) is just how shoddily made it is.

If there’s one word to describe the girl-power comedy “Like a Boss,” it’s incomprehensible. Structurally, industrially, philosophically and emotionally incomprehensible. What should have been an easy breezy buddy comedy is rather a flabbergasting tone salad.

The film looks amazing, but the writing is painfully pretentious and the acting beyond stiff and amateurish, so it’s impossible to gain a foothold into this story.

Bleeding Steel is a cartoonishly crazy, completely nonsensical cyberpunk action flick that is torturous to behold, and well below Chan’s caliber.

It's a shame that what could have been an intriguing situational thriller devolves into a hateful, arduous drag

There’s enough weirdness for Yoga Hosers to possibly generate some stoner cult appeal, but it’s shoddily slapped together, with a clearly first-draft script, terrible editing (by Smith the elder) and continuity errors.

As Replicas races headlong toward its conclusion, the filmmakers manage to avoid every potentially interesting choice for far dumber, and far more inexplicable, conclusions.

The film is more mood and aesthetic than anything else, and it nails the fictionalized, aspirational high school look — down to the actors who appear to be in their mid-to-late 20s playing 18-year-olds.

No amount of star power can save the script by Brad Desche.

The film's musings on artists and muses tries to be deep but gets bogged down in tiresome booze-soaked mind games.

The story of Here surrounding Richard and Margaret is relatable, entirely predictable and utterly dull.

Techie buzzwords like “hacking” and “bitcoins” fly, but it’s all just for show. It’s not about the tech, despite a convoluted subplot with an FBI agent in pursuit. The real story is of Sam and Josie, but uneasy romance is misguided to be sure.

Every character states their inner motivation out loud, often without prompting, making for a film that loses its intrigue almost immediately.

The whole film is a bizarre exercise in fantasy-building on a budget, from the computer-generated sets to the over-long, predictable story.

The obvious exposition, tortured dialogue and shoddy special effects just make you wish you were watching something else.

The Conway Curve wants to be a world of colorful characters, wacky high jinks and happy endings, but it’s just so stilted and blandly unfunny that it can’t support its own frantic antics.

’Til Death Do Us Part takes on the admirable task of depicting life with an abuser and the very real obstacles to starting over. But its stereotypical writing, which errs on the side of cheesy and hackneyed, rather than deep and psychologically rich, dooms “’Til Death.”

What could have been a taut and tense thriller is ankled by the inert characters, clunky screenplay and nonexistent back story.

OF: RDG is classic recent Ritchie: star-studded, snarky, and ultimately grating, lousy with weird glasses and bad accents. This thing is so slight, a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a “Mission: Impossible” that it’s barely a movie.

Bright spots are found in the supporting cast.... They just are not enough to pull "Dirty Grandpa" out of its ill-conceived and poorly executed gutter.

The Trouble With Terkel feels painfully outdated and stale, with rudimentary computer-generated visuals and characters that are potty-mouthed only for the sake of provocation.

Despite what the film might want us to believe, if he walks, talks and acts like a selfish, predatory creep, he is, and there's just no sympathizing with him.

It’s not funny, it’s not satirical, and it’s not worth your time, or Toni Collette’s

My Father Die is all provocation and no substance, and therefore completely meaningless.

The tone is wildly inconsistent, particularly with plucky, lighthearted music accompaniment scoring what is essentially a teen crime spree.

While there’s no shortage of comedy talent on screen in The House, there’s a dire lack of actual laughs to be found in this strange shell of a movie.

The climax is overwrought and cheesy, which doesn't match with the quiet dignity of the Inuit man. He carries a profound and sage warning, but Chloe and Theo just isn't the right dramatic package.

The story on screen comes off as a naive interpretation of the homeless experience as imagined from a place of great privilege.

From a storytelling perspective, the obsession with guns in a movie aimed at children is troubling, in poor taste and is lazy writing to boot.

There are grief dramas, and there are wacky family comedies, and there are films about charming screw-ups, but the degree of difficulty for one film to pull off all three at once is incredibly high. The disjointed “Pretty Broken,” written by Jill Remesnyder and directed by Brett Eichenberger, doesn’t clear the bar.

Ergüven's vision is a wild, melodramatic journey that offers no answers or insights, and by the end it only leaves one feeling, well, completely flabbergasted.

With wooden performances and a lack of character development, Below Her Mouth is more X-rated, late-night cable skin flick than trenchant exploration of female sexuality.

There’s more focus on the dull mystery and predictable story twists, and not nearly enough choreographic ecstasy on-screen.

Despite an energetic supporting cast, including Martin, Alyssa Milano, Danny Aiello and Garry Basaraba, the two leads sleepwalk through this limp and formulaic endeavor.

Nothing on screen is as electrifying or surprising as it was on the page, as semi-fictionally enhanced as the writing was.

The film manages to be exceedingly dull, perhaps because it's too enamored of its own design, concept and location to bother with a captivating story.

What really hampers Miles to Go is its aimless wandering. Many things could be forgiven with some growth or movement in the journey, but ultimately, this one just ends up running in circles.

The story veers off track, and Rokesh can’t cleanly execute the wild tonal shifts and haphazard story beats.

No Letting Go has all the subtlety of an after-school special, and the performances feel like they're from a public service announcement about mental illness.

Queenpins does nothing other than waste your time with bad wigs and poop jokes, and that is the biggest crime of all.

From the homophobic slurs to the lowest common denominator body humor to the stale gender politics, Pitching Tents is all cutesy retro raunchiness without any innovation or comedic payoff. It might have been excusable back in the day, but now it’s just boring.

Despite its best efforts to be thought-provoking, the film is dramatically inert, slow and its revelations aren’t all that politically illuminating, relying on coincidence and worn tropes to obfuscate its lack of ingenuity.

Unable to rise above this internal conflict, it’s a film that’s both dull and disposable. Though it sets up the opportunity for more interconnected franchise filmmaking, this is a beast that needs to be put down.

Everyone here really wants to make something good and moving, but they’re all working so hard to make something out of nothing.

What unfolds on screen over the course of three hours and one minute in Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 can only be described as a massive boondoggle, a misguided and excruciatingly tedious cinematic experience. That Costner has promised three more installments feels like a threat.

Often, trying too hard to be edgy sails right past offensive and just hits boring. Sherman, amazingly, manages to nail both.

It commits the worst comedy crime of all — there’s no punchline.

For all of Berry’s breathless, screechy effort, Kidnap doesn’t contain any suspense or tension.

Bell jettisons any possibility for radical ideals or emotional poignancy in favor of a hackneyed rom-com ending tacked onto a movie that’s both stale and unpleasantly madcap.

Experimental, yes, but this one wildly overstays its welcome.

Unfortunately, The Syndrome fails to adequately elucidate the many nuances of this complicated subject.

It may be a shoddily made Skittles ad masquerading as a superhero riff, but it’s Levi’s performance that sends it into the stratosphere of cringe.

The cryptic and mysterious story is crammed with overwrought issues — cancer, divorce, fraud, war — which the characters then over-explain.

The whole endeavor is an exercise in trying to do too many things — rehash a nostalgic property, propel Mexican film star Eugenio Derbez to mainstream stardom, revive Anna Faris' film career — but it never actually manages to be a good movie.

A film littered with tired tropes.

Writer-director Luke Sabis brings some interesting ideas to the well-known genre, exploring the nuances of abuse, spirituality and redemption. Unfortunately, the low-budget execution shows on screen, with a dim and dismal look, and the energy is decidedly lethargic.

Chokehold provides a poorly written and terribly acted framework as a thin context for the action.

By the end of the film, you're left with the unshakable feeling that everyone involved, from actors to filmmakers to the audience, is, and should have been, better than material like this.

Proud Mary isn't a retro action thriller at all, but a staid family drama, and an incredibly boring one at that.

While “Mean Girls Apocalypse” sounds like a winning premise, and an incredible thought experiment, the result is something narratively slack and intensely off-putting, which no amount of excellent acting can save.

This adaptation completely bungles the update.

While Moop might appeal to the Burning Man die-hard set, or for aficionados of the tales of doomed, Sisyphean film productions, beyond that, it’s not much more than a minor curio.

The Dog Wedding is rather a minor effort, and the amateurish acting of the supporting cast and stilted energy are hard to forgive.

It’s a chaotic jumble of movie references, cellphone footage, emojis, trigger warnings and edgy teen content. But it’s the fumbled “feminist” commentary that is just embarrassing to watch.

For all of the manic anti-authoritarian energy that Knoxville and pals generate in Action Point, it’s not directed at anything, which renders it meaningless and leaves the film to fizzle out like a deflated balloon.

Fickman’s directing is uninspired at best, barely competent at worst. The framing and composition is dire; there’s no sense of rhythm or flow, and characters constantly appear and disappear at random. But it’s the writing that truly fails the film and characters.

All in all, just another boring genre exercise.

The borrowed concept is all it has going for it, and at nearly two hours it stretches the conceit and the performers far beyond their range. It’s a minor effort overly indebted to its references.

Not only is not even a single character more than one-dimensional, but every line falls flatter than a witch dispatched with a Gatling gun.

It would still be a stinker even if it wasn't cloaked in a dark shroud of cultural and political relevancy. It's just that bad.

Eastwood is known for his ruthless efficiency as a filmmaker, but The Mule feels dashed off at best, barely even a movie. It’s a strange rough draft, poorly executed and disastrously performed, despite the starry cast.

This limp, lifeless, one-joke action comedy sequel, directed by David Kerr, comes 15 years after the 2003 "Johnny English," and manages to overstay its welcome, even at a scant 88 minutes, mostly because writer William Davies didn't bother to write anything other than "Johnny English is bad at spying."

Despite the best efforts of McCarthy, and a winsome Maya Rudolph as Phil’s 1940s-style secretary, Bubbles, The Happytime Murders is more like the “Boringtime Slog.”

It's clear that Roth was trying to say something about the brave new world of social media-enabled social justice, and public shame as a tool for change, but the message is garbled. That it comes wrapped in a horror package that just isn't truly scary or suspenseful is the real shame though.

Rambo lumbers to the finish line in the flaccid fifth installment, which is a Frankenstein’s monster of badly photocopied references to the previous movies, limply strung together with the laziest of screenplays.

There is absolutely no reason to catch a ride with the nasty, brutish and shrill "Stuber," a horror movie about our current American nightmare of late capitalist economics and unchecked law enforcement masquerading as an "action comedy."

Mother's Day is a total mess, but what's truly offensive is that they didn't even try to make this cynical, post-Sunday brunch cash grab even remotely watchable. Your mom deserves so much better this Mother's Day. Go see "The Meddler" instead.

Collateral Beauty is much more shallow nonsense than anything else.

Representationally, Clika is an important and worthy film. Cinematically, it unfortunately can’t find the beat.

Ultimately Suburbicon is woefully underwritten. Gardner and Maggie are mere sketches, a set of facial tics and accessories masquerading as real characters.

There’s not a thrill to be found in this ostensible thriller, a rote kidnapping exercise taped together with digital blood spatter and an overly dramatic score, vaguely gesturing at global crises from five years ago.

What is remarkable, though, is just how unbelievably unbelievable this inspired-by-true-life tale is.

The plot proceeds at a punishing clip but there’s a tediousness to the proceedings, even at a rather tight 97 minutes, because no dramatic weight is given to anything that unfolds.

The film is ponderous, the performances mostly subdued.

Scream 7 is an unfortunate tarnish on this otherwise sturdy franchise’s legacy.

A dirge of unfunny scatological material, techno-anxiety and child endangerment masquerading as familial bonding. Settle in for the "Long Haul," because this is one bumpy, miserable ride.

Some may enjoy the cacophonous, raunchy, lowest-common-denominator dreck that The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard has to offer. To those I say, godspeed. But it’s undeniable that the actors, the audiences and the filmmakers all deserve better.

Wish Upon isn't over-the-top wacky or campy, and in fact, feels slightly low-energy at times, but it's the kind of simple filmmaking coupled with absolutely insane writing and plot points that make it an ideal candidate for so-bad-it's-good viewing.

An angry, violent and despairing film, without much of a point other than that existence can be angry and despairing and memory is a prison. As a piece of art, entertainment or cultural ephemera, it is indeed bold, but it is significant not for what it says about Capone, but rather what it says about Trank, and the ongoing saga of his career.

The Emoji Movie could not be more meh.

Red One is a confounding project that is clearly trying to be for all audiences (it’s weirdly kiddie-oriented, but feels more aimed at adults) and is so bad it ends up being for none.

A great cast cannot save the dramatically inert and totally inept rom-com "Alex & The List," which is short on both the rom and the com.

Mad Women is punishingly dull and apparently aimless, without any real conflict driving the story, just confounding and ridiculous interactions among the characters.

The self-seriousness of this loony swing-and-a-miss shares a tone with Tommy Wiseau’s outrageously amateurish cult classic “The Room” but isn’t nearly as entertaining.

Do little? They could not have done less. The only appropriate adjective for this Dolittle is “hasty.” Everything feels slapdash and half-rendered; the plot proceeds in a fashion that could be described only as perfunctory. Everyone on screen seems to be in a stumbling daze, especially Downey as the frazzle-dazzled doctor.

Argylle has bone-deep structural issues on a fundamental level, but it is also a failure of directorial execution from top to bottom, resulting in what has to be one of the most expensive worst movies ever made. It’s honestly fascinating — something that should be studied in a lab.

Sundown is a distressingly sexist and tone-deaf spring break sex comedy cobbled together from references to other classic party films and sounds as though it was written by aliens approximating teen speak.

It’s crisply shot but suffers from poor, amateurish editing, an overwrought dramatic score and the storytelling fails to compel. The acting, writing and directing of American Violence indicate this flick is strictly a B-movie, but its tone is far too self-serious to have any fun with at all.

A meandering, pointless and boring rumination on substances and those who love to abuse them.

It’s a color-by-numbers thriller that’s flat.

The most disappointing thing is that Nine Lives doesn’t even dare to be an audacious mess. It’s a Frankenstein’s monster of Hollywood’s worst instincts, a movie made with a math formula where its vision should have been.

The script telegraphs things, but also often descends into incoherence. It tries to be too many things at once, and ends up being nothing.

it is a boring paint-by-numbers ghost movie, a jumble of tropes borrowed from movies like “The Ring,” and a poor facsimile of its influences.

It feels like a bad parody, a shadow of what a film is, not an actual film itself. The color palette is a dreary mud puddle of grays and browns, and there’s no sense of space or geography. It has no weight, no heft, no texture, no color, no sense of magic or wonder in the least. The story itself has no sense of stakes or resonance, and the actors vary in affect from lifeless to dutiful to pained.

Have I changed so much that I can't find this funny anymore? Nah. Broken Lizard hasn't changed enough to keep up with the times, turning in a badly degraded copy of the original. Stale, unfunny and offensive is quite the hat trick.

Memory has a decent director in Campbell (“Casino Royale,” “Vertical Limit”) and a great cast (yes, that’s Ray Stevenson as a corrupt cop), but a crippling case of a bad script that can’t manage to make us care about any of these characters.

"Collision Course” is simply a perfunctory, watered-down entry in the series that feels like it should have been released on home video.

Enjoy a marathon of Bravo’s real estate reality shows for more nuanced characters and compelling story lines instead.

Spent exhausts the audience’s goodwill within the first few minutes of this bizarre project, and requires the utmost patience to endure.

For all of the mini-melodramas that populate this tale, and the repellent ickiness in the central relationship, the worst part about Almost Friends is how incredibly dull and dramatically inert it is.

Breaking Through is curiously low-energy, riddled with hackneyed plot devices and weighed down by choreography that doesn't come close to what you'd see on network reality shows.

Nibali and Galati deliver their lines in matching monotones, in scenes that are simply deadening. None of the trio of leads has the presence to carry the film, though Mihaljevich displays a flicker as the dangerous sociopath Wendel. Alexander's limited style doesn't help these performances either, nor does the wildly underwritten script.

The salt in the wound of this painfully out-of-touch film is the footage of real L.A. homeless camps and people, as if the film were saying something trenchant about the issue. What a gross misunderstanding of this glib story about a rich man who steals stories and inspiration from struggling people.

For all of its incompetency of craft, like a strange bit of outsider art, the film showcases a fascinatingly unrefined look at the very real fear felt by immigrants in Donald Trump's America.

James Franco’s Pretenders begs the question: is this a film about bohemian artists or a parody of a film about bohemian artists? Because if we’re supposed to take this laughably trite and sexist claptrap seriously, one has to laugh.

The story is wildly melodramatic, the execution amateurish, and the line readings from the supporting cast are stilted at best. Traicos is campy and compelling as the gleefully unhinged Jackie, but she’s the only interesting thing in an otherwise dull film.

Everything about this movie seems ripped from the ’80s, including the woefully sexist gender politics. But that’s only one of many reasons that this B-movie dreck should have stayed underwater.

The whole thing has a very seedy, late-night cable feel, which is where you should catch this film — and only if you’re a die-hard UFC fan.

The overwrought script is full of dusty old clichés like this, and Mullins and Co. don’t have the chops to sell them. The supporting cast offers wooden line readings, while Mullins is an uncharismatic performer, with a range that extends from dead-eyed to high-pitched yelling.

A Lesson in Cruelty tries to affect a dark comedic tone, but fails spectacularly. There's no comedy, despite Lebrun's over-the-top vamping, and the dark elements are far too disturbing and violent.

Courier-X is so inscrutable and tediously boring that it will test the patience of even the most tenacious truther.

It’s just a listless, routine exercise in religious horror, infused with a whiff of the exotic that tends toward the xenophobic. There might be a shred of entertainment to be found if only it were worse.

Jaye never gets to her original question about rape culture, and ultimately twists herself in knots to justify the movement’s misogynist rhetoric.

Two Weeks to Go is not a movie, it’s a sketch of a character study or a possible outline for a future project. It’s most definitely self-indulgent drivel.

Father Figures is a movie, ostensibly. I'm pretty sure it is. Moving images were projected, along with recorded sound, which indicates it is a movie, but the effect was so listless, low-energy and profoundly unentertaining that I jotted down in my notes "what even IS this?" It would be more accurate to describe the experience as a nearly two-hour borderline hostage situation, with torture involving bad, offensive and unfunny "comedy."