Lindsey Bahr

It’s not a bad idea and Union proves more than capable of nailing her Liam Neeson/Bruce Willis moment of save-your-family action stardom, but the movie has trouble sustaining interest even over its brisk 88 minutes.

Fennell clearly has so many ideas swirling around, which is fitting for a story like Wuthering Heights. And yet as a viewing experience, it is an undernourishing feast, neither dangerous nor hot enough.

Glum and meandering, the Los Angeles-set mystery about a Hollywood starlet and her assistant starts off promising enough but trudges along aimlessly to a deeply silly and maddening end.

This is the first Hollywood film from South African director Donovan Marsh, and he does cook up some captivating action set pieces...which may have you laughing, rolling your eyes or even cheering (as a fair amount of people were in my screening), but it’s never boring.

They’re just two strangers thrust together by this surrogacy agreement and spending time with them is not fun, engaging or enlightening enough to sustain a movie.

Plotlines are abandoned at will, there are set ups for things that never come back and some suspiciously malleable “monster-logic” that makes the whole endeavor seem a little lazy and half-baked.

For all its pizazz, everything about this Little Mermaid is just more muted.

The movie on the page wants to romanticize the simple pleasures of race car driving outside of the glitz and glamour of the high-rolling industry, and has been directed by someone who doesn’t actually believe that the driving is enough and that it does need all the trimmings of a “Fast and Furious” spinoff to make it exciting to an audience.

It’s exactly the kind of big, silly, occasionally exciting spectacle that have come to define summer movie season, for better or worse. There’s even an opening for a sequel.

There’s just not enough there — action, comedy, romance, art — to demand (or, rather, earn) your full attention.

Artificiality as an aesthetic is all fine and good, but Love Hurts feels a little too much like the charmless, ripped-from-the-Magnolia-showroom homes that Marvin is hawking to perky yuppies around Milwaukee.

If an algorithm designed a classic, big-screen spectacle for the small-screen age, “The Electric State” probably wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

Though it starts off promisingly enough with Carrey’s character marooned on a “piece of shitake” mushroom planet, it soon becomes evident that this outing is a soulless attempt to up the stakes and cash in.

For a movie so excited to tell a story about the CIA’s “most highly-prized and least understood unit,” it sure doesn’t do much to ensure you leave any more informed than you were when you sat down.

The big problem is that Halloween Kills is less of a sequel than a half-baked interlude before the finale. It is a bloody, violent, chaotic and cynical mess and not even in a good or particularly scary or insightful way.

Brightburn was a good idea. Unfortunately the creativity stopped there.

It’s too bad because there could have been a more fun movie in here — Clarkson imbues it with a distinctly feminine and teenage energy that makes good use of its soundtrack. But it spins itself into a knot trying to justify a silly story instead.

The one saving grace is King, a genuinely delightful young actor who manages to hold your attention and empathy even if her underwritten character barely deserves it.

Like a drug store chocolate bar, it just is. It might not be good for you, but it’ll go down shockingly easy, give you a minor sugar high (and possible headache) and disappear from your memory just as quickly, leaving you defenseless for when the inevitable sequel comes along.

This is a complex man and artist worthy of a complex story, not a would-be-feel-good farce.

Old Guy feels very of this moment in the fact that it looks good and has a good cast and yet can’t seem to deliver something that’s either entertaining or meaningful. But unlike so many of its peers, this one amazingly was not made by a streamer.

Me Time somehow squanders a solid premise, a stacked cast and a seemingly unlimited budget. It didn’t need to be anything great in this movie comedy drought we seem to be in. But considering who was involved, it really should be better than it is.

For how reliant this movie is on screens and keeping Pratt alone, one might assume that “Mercy” was a socially distanced, COVID-era leftover instead of something made in 2024.

The story is not only derivative of so many other dystopias and kids with power sagas, but, and perhaps worst of all, it never even really gets going — a clear and infuriating set up for some future installment.

Oyelowo is the one who comes off without a scratch and actually has some quite amusing moments (he has a great, high-pitched scream and solid comedic timing). If only the movie was a better showcase.

The one bright spot is Cena, who is quite good. Like his character, who goes above and beyond to adeptly play Ricky Stanicky, Cena really and truly commits and brings a kind of unexpected depth and pathos to Rock Hard Rod. He’s flexed his comedy muscles before and should again, soon. Is it enough to save the movie? Not for me.

Al Capone’s last year could make for an interesting film, but there is little poetry or transcendence in Capone, and nothing even remotely close to the quietly devastating third act of “The Irishman.”

Not only do its two stars have zero chemistry with each other, but the story goes out of its way to over-explain and over-justify the preposterous premise, adding needless complications (like a whole side-plot about his family’s business) and motivations to make everyone more likable and empathetic.