Marjorie Baumgarten

The new Death Wish is unlikely to spark similar controversy, simply because the filmmaking is not as compelling as in the original film.

Headlining a less-than-mediocre kids’ movie taints one’s brand rather than enhancing it. Just ask Shaq.

Even though everything about this project probably looked good on paper, upon completion The House comes up snake eyes.

Fortunately, Brian Cox delivers a bravura performance that keeps things watchable, if not always dramatically truthful.

Seeing what St. Andrews’ greens must have looked like in their native days before all golf courses became zealously manicured is refreshing. The film’s action, however, is rarely filmed in a way that highlights the action, and the story’s biographical elements lack dimension and drama.

Ultimately, this is a movie that’s more about the Ottoman Lieutenant’s Woman than The Ottoman Lieutenant himself – another example of the film’s epic misdirection.

"Avatar’s" Worthington is adept at playing a tortured soul, but his American accent and dramatic range are both wanting in this movie.

Fist Fight is not a complete dud, but it does grasp at the lowest hanging fruit for its humor.

The horror that lies at the heart of the film is fairly obvious, and with no characters for whom we have a rooting interest, A Cure for Wellness is as difficult to swallow as castor oil.

There is a certain sweetness to this teen romance and Gardner’s naive fascination in the newly discovered wonders of Earth. But there is so much that is dopey, on both a scientific and emotional level, that The Space Between Us strikes with the impact of a crash landing.

Collateral Beauty is ultimately as mushy a movie as the phrase itself, whose definition is never fully explained by the script. It’s another example of something sounding good but meaning little.

There’s no pacing to the narrative, and the images are perfunctory. I’m Not Ashamed will draw the same audience that has turned Rachel’s journals into popular reading matter, but the film is not likely to lure any converts.

Is That a Gun resorts to smutty humor and moralistic speeches to confront the issue of American gun violence in the wake of Newtown, Conn. This movie uses those murdered babies’ name in vain.

Writer/director Damien Lay’s screenplay has some head-scratchers in addition to its flat dialogue, but it’s clear that the airplanes rather than the characters are his real passion. Unfortunately, his film never takes flight.

Mother’s Day, the movie, feels as contrived and inauthentic as the holiday itself.

This comedy has a few genuine laughs, but The Bronze never even comes close to making it to qualifiers.

Adults may respond with a laugh every once in a while, but they’re unlikely to find Fifty Shades of Black a nonstop titter fest.

Told in a chaotic fashion, the movie jumps from scene to scene without a lot of continuity.

Although the plot is pretty bare-bones, it’s propped up by plenty of gratuitous dialogue and imagery that do nothing to further the story.

The original was indeed ludicrous, but it exuded warmth, vitality, and belief in itself. The 2.0 update splashes up on shore DOA.

The religious charlatans who are the primary characters in Don Verdean are ripe for comic deflation, but the film’s unsteady tone has no discernible target.

One of the unfunniest comedies it’s ever been my misfortune to see.

Even though it’s fair to say that Pixels is on steadier ground than most of Sandler’s recent comedies, the film is nevertheless flat-footed and grows tedious after the first hour.

When this stereotype masquerades as a storyline, it needs to have a unique spin or radical narrative disruption for it to stand out from all the other self-made movies about white male artists with girl problems and self-worth issues. In Stereo is not the movie that stands out from the rest.

Aloft’s characters exude a certain impregnability, and the story’s structure only further distances us from them.

Even if some of its history and buckles are askew, the film is still an original take on a Christian redemption story.

Oh, for a time machine that would give me back the hour and a half I spent watching this movie.

Not even this sprightly cast can buck the privileged sense of entitlement that bedevils this movie. Don’t count on the impish humor that Simon Pegg has unleashed so successfully in other movies to save the day.

What the movie ultimately demonstrates is that the sum total is less than the individual parts when you add together Rocky, the Terminator, Indiana Jones, Mad Max, Blade, Zorro, Hercules, and the Transporter.

The laziness is what irks me most about Blended. Everything from the re-teaming of the two stars and their "Wedding Singer" director, Frank Coraci, reeks of moviemaking by checklist.

Any just God would likely recoil from the ham-fisted and spurious defense put forth in this film.

The film lacks any undercurrent of believability.

Although there’s a strong likability quotient for everyone onscreen here, which ought to keep the movie minimally afloat among its target audience of black viewers starved for a new Tyler Perry offering, Baggage Claim should be left behind at the carousel.

Again. Via Red’s experiences as a young man and wildcatter, Jason learns that money cannot buy happiness. What the viewers learn is that money can’t buy a good movie either.

V/H/S/2 is for gore hounds exclusively.

R.I.P.D. never creates a believable universe, interesting action sequences, or dynamic characters. It’s a paint-by-numbers approach in which the film’s comedy and drama both fall flat.

Long after Only God Forgives concludes, only its scuzziness remains. This artistic misfire will forever be knocking on heaven’s door.

The Land of Lazy can crown a new king because with Grown Ups 2 Adam Sandler has officially nabbed the throne.

What begins as a cute idea grows annoyingly sentimental before it is through.

Apart from its dramatic predictability, Temptation is a snooze because of its languid pacing and rudimentary camerawork.

The film, however, is short on genuine scares and ingenuity.

An exercise in pure sadism, The Collection moves at a clip that leaps over plot holes in its race to elicit fright.

Although the original Red Dawn was far-fetched, the remake offers little but vicarious thrills.

Miami Connection is the sort of film that rarely sees the light of day anymore – a really bad, totally inept mess that reeks of more ambition than talent.

Atlas won't be the only one to shrug off this tiresome load.

The rescuing of our public schools is a national necessity. I just don't know that we are aiding that cause by sending out oversimplified and dogmatic messages about not backing down.

Despite the filmmakers' efforts to humanize Wilson, however, Bill W. still dabbles in hagiography, valorizing the man while also painting him as a reluctant hero.

The film is slapdash entertainment not meant to be further contemplated after leaving the theatre.

Creating plot from lyrics, in this case, leads to heavy-handed literalism and limited creativity. The wall of music is amusing for a while, but grows into a loud, wearying assault long before the movie's two hours are up.

Only Ruben Blades as President Calles and Bruce Greenwood as American Ambassador Dwight Morrow get out of this film with their acting dignity intact.

Instead of putting the high in high school, this film is the kind of drug movie that gives pot smokers a bad name.

The primary problem with Blue Like Jazz is that there is no believable character development.

October Baby earns points for the originality of its protagonist but it has no chance of preaching to anyone but the choir.

This Italian import may have greater resonance for the men of Casanova's native land than it does internationally, but it definitely hits on truths infrequently addressed in the movies.

The film feels about as genuine and spontaneous as its evident lip-synching.

I really think the entire payoff to the Chipmunks' gambit comes in those inevitable moments when Dave bellows in exasperation, "Alvin." Maybe if we all bellow in unison it will be forceful enough to put an end to this painful film franchise.

Atkinson's fans are likely to rejoice as the comedian twists his face and body to and fro, but the rest of us will not be recruited.

Molina and Weaver, who, most of the time, perform brilliantly, move through Abduction as if on autopilot.

Most unforgivable, however, is the film's coda in which real Georgian victims pose for the camera with pictures of their loved ones lost in the five days of war. Using real people to impart the emotions that the entire film was unable to evince is simply cheap exploitation.

The film squanders any potential it had to be a revealing look into female intimacy and instead uses broad-scale melodramatic strokes.

What the kids at my screening seemed to like best was the wizard's cat, whose mouth is computer-manipulated to utter pithy asides.

Unlike its multifaceted director, the film never stretches its boundaries.

Although I'm generally a fan of movies that choose to star girls (of any age) as their lead subjects, Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer simply strikes the same whiny chord over and over.

The only entities hoodwinked by this animated sequel are paying customers.

There's an interesting story here, but Joffe never firmly wraps his arms around it.

Deathbed scenes and colonoscopy humor, Bible quotations and Maury Povich "Who Is the Real Baby Daddy" episodes: All cohabit with equal relevance in the world of Tyler Perry.

Arthur overextends its welcome and relies too much on prop comedy.

This Red Riding Hood loses sight of the forest for the trees on its way to Grandma's house.

The kindest thing that might be said of this Eighties nostalgia trip is that its formulaic plot and overall mirthlessness are meant as mimetic tributes to that blasted decade.

It's only February but I can already name the year's winner of Most Thoughtless Gay Stereotype in Film award. The dubious honor goes to The Roommate.

Delivers sinister atmosphere but few shocks.

Listless, dull, and totally lacking in spectacle.

Apart from the smutty giggles that derive from the mere mention of the Focker family surname, this third entry in the now 10-year-old comedy franchise falls flat.

Unbearable.

Burlesque bumps and grinds. And then it continues to grind and grind and grind.

I'd use the term science fiction to describe Skyline but the movie decidedly lacks both science and fiction.

If it's a good heist movie you're after, there are surely better ways to go than with this limp caper.

Certain things must be answered, like Seagal's environmental lip service that is utterly mocked by the movie's need to blow things up and destroy property.

Coppola never manages to get his themes to coalesce into anything terribly coherent.

Aronofsky's reach far exceeds his grasp with this film, and the muddle he concocts makes one wonder if there was ever a solid foundation for The Fountain. Hope may spring eternal, but this fountain is a dry hole.

About as two-dimensional as a comic book, RoboCop 3 should be regarded as the last strike-out.

A mildly diverting comedy but has little of real substance to recommend it.

Nothing about the movie makes much sense.

Across-the-board, the kids are extremely adorable to watch (not an easy thing to pull off) and will appeal to the other kids in the audience who might identify with them and see the story from the kids’ point of view. But looking at this film from any other perspective, will give you brain rot.

Badland's only commercial potential lies in the possibility that people may confuse it for Terrence Malick's incomparable "Badlands."

Stuff the cork back in: This wine movie was sold before its time.

Shoddy craftsmanship and uninteresting subjects (it's amazing how tedious some conversations can be when there's no one to put words in the subjects' mouths) sink this spring-break movie faster than an outbreak of Leginnaires’ disease on a vacation cruise liner.

Simply put, no matter what this zebra thinks of himself, Stripes is no thoroughbred.

A gimmick in search of a movie: how to get Carvey into as many silly costumes and deliver as many silly voices as possible, plot mechanics be damned.

The problem lies with the unimaginative story premise and the quip/reverse quip dialogue that just may be better-suited to half-hour television shows than this nearly 2½-hour movie feature.

Silly and implausible.

Sex may, indeed, be all in the mind, but Romance fails to score in the mind's eye.

In the wake of the debacle known as Showgirls, Striptease has had to fight to establish its separate identity and credentials. In retrospect, it appears to have been wasted energy.

Muddled, sloppy, and obfuscating.

None of it is handled with any emotional believability or grace. Well-worn phrases and plot developments are repeated here as though the world had never heard of "Cinderella."

Certainly movies are a business, but it's only good form for them to at least pretend that they have some reasons for existence other than the purely mercenary. The goal of entertainment has been forgotten here in the mad dash for formulaic guarantees. These comedy nun pushers have forgotten that there's no bottom line at heaven's gate.

This crude live-action takeoff on the Cabbage Patch phenomenon ought to have had star Anthony Newley humming "Stop the Movie, I Want to Get Off."

Meets the required minimum dosage of feature-film attributes, and then nods out when it comes to going any further.