Lindsey Bahr

It’s hard to overstate just how garish and frenetic this whole endeavor is. Even with the explosion of colors it still strains to hold interest.

It might still be passable for cable, but this series has sadly fallen into unwatchable territory.

The most interesting part of The Mother, a decent if forgettable action pic starring Jennifer Lopez, is the one that is left largely unexplored. The movie is a high-concept thriller that boils down to just a few words: She’s a mother and an assassin.

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

This is a movie that should have probably leaned far less on wild hijinks with diminishing returns and more into the smaller moments of what it means to be friends for 40 years. But it’s not without its charms, either.

The best thing that Holidate has going for it is that Roberts and Bracey do have great chemistry, but they just don’t have a story or a script that can do it justice.

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

At a certain point, it becomes clear that not only is The King’s Man a tonal mess, it’s also just a set-up for a movie with an even more enticing cast that’ll leave you feeling even more conflicted.

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.

Voyagers is simply a semi-effective thriller with about as much emotional intelligence as its lab-produced, hormone-controlled, sequestered youngsters.

Overall “The Old Guard 2” is fine, a bit of a background movie that’s probably easy enough to tune in and out of (though Schoenaerts, a standout, gives it some real pathos). Its greatest sin is the non-ending, which might have moviegoers engaging in their own rants about wasted time.

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.

Antebellum will inspire conversation, just probably not the one the filmmakers anticipated.

Was it attempting a freewheeling jazz form, or is it just messy?

Dark Phoenix is a whiff. The most suspenseful thing that happened had nothing to do with the movie at all, but the theater’s fire alarm that went off during a review screening during the epic climax.

Golding is simply not the right actor for the part. He’s not exactly bad, just miscast and misused. And despite the novel trimmings and flash around him, his character is woefully generic.

For all the hype behind these three characters meeting, and the years it took to get it off the ground, Glass is one big anti-climax.

At a certain point, the experience of watching this all unfold through Enzo’s eyes becomes the alienating element. You’re not experiencing the big moments yourself, you’re just experiencing Enzo experiencing them, leaving you to wonder if the story and performances alone are anything special without the dog’s metaphors and poeticisms.

While it might not knock it out of the park, Edge of the World is still a very solid watch if a little slow-going and might also just inspire you to revisit some of the classics its indebted to which is its own small triumph.

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.

The writing is wry and occasionally quite funny. It’s not unsurprising that it made for a good play. But on film it moves at a languorous pace. Like its characters, it’s not interested in getting anywhere anytime soon.

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.

It is like an Austen amuse bouche — an entry-level cover version that tries to rev up the humor and speak directly to Gen Z by using its lingo — or at least an advertising executive’s idea of what Gen Z sounds like. But something feels off about the way it is executed.

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.

The good news is that Without Remorse is pretty great when it comes to the action, and there is a lot of it.

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.

This party isn’t worth a trip much further than living room.

How jokes this offensive can make it to the screen in 2019 is beyond comprehension and a bit of a shame, considering that this has so much else going for it including a delightful late-game appearance by the original Shaft, Richard Roundtree, who looks fantastic, by the way.