Michael Ordoña

The filmmaking lacks the style to pull off its willful blending of fact and fantasy. At least there are the songs to enjoy.

Is Faith Based the answer to the prayers of comedy-starved movie buffs? Not entirely, but it’s no plague of locusts, either.

The new Cheaper by the Dozen feels less like a feature than a lengthy sitcom pilot. It’s an assembly-line product scrubbed clean of personality.

The movie isn’t unusual-looking or surprising, but my daughter assures me fans of the show will not want to miss it. The rest of us will be immersed in warm confusion as things we just don’t understand unspool before us.

Whatever its goals, the filmmaking is uninspired. It’s heavily reliant on clichés, especially in its use of score, the lone-wolf cop and familiar devices to build tension.

The scenery’s gorgeous, Redgrave and Bergin are pros, Tom Everett Scott is fittingly gross as the selfish stage dad and Goodacre has some charm. But the film forgot to graft a personality onto its protagonist and seems so determined to be PG-clean that sparks between the leads are … hard to “find.”

The ending that seems meant to be wistful, even magical, reads instead as appalling, lamentable, gloomy, however you want to say “the opposite of wondrous and happy.”

It’s more of the same, for better or worse, but likely with enough bells and whistles — especially those new characters — to please younger fans.

The gags are often better in theory than practice.

If scares are the movie’s raison d’etre, though, it’s hard to imagine Spell will frighten anyone but those vulnerable to a few bits of graphic gore.

Opportunities for comedy are missed by miles. Davidson gets gonzo gags, Palmer is 007 with a heart, Murphy and Longoria try to exist in reality. That halfhearted miasma of genres results in tonal confusion. Murphy throws in what seem like ad libs to spice up a moribund script, but it’s not enough to add flavor to a bland stew.

The movie is Barrymore’s, of course. Even after the initial jolt of seeing her as a cursing hellion and an ambitious hanger-on wears off, she does not disappoint.

If you're interested in this movie, it's because you love either seeing zombies explode (check), the video games (major character included, check) or Jovovich kicking undead butt in every conceivable way (check and mate).

You’ll be pleased to discover the entertaining remake has its charms; it actually is all that, for the most part.

Don’t expect surprises or something to ideologically critique. This is kooky carnage. You came for Dave Bautista stomping a motorcycle into submission, and damn it, that’s what you’re gonna get.

We get slivers of moments and feelings described rather than experienced.

If the end-of-the-world genre seems downright somnambulant lately, Awake is jolting proof a fiendishly clever twist can shake it from its doldrums.

The new David Bowie biopic Stardust could be marketed as “Bowie as you’ve never seen him,” but it feels like “Bowie as no one ever saw him.”

Kraven the Hunter will sate fans with Taylor-Johnson’s action bona fides and its fine cast. But those same fans may be less-than enthusiastic about the idea that, with no Spider-Man and no franchise to move forward, this one essentially has nowhere to go.

Scream 7 is anything but cutting edge.

The “pranks” just aren’t funny. The whole premise isn’t funny.

The action is violent and improbable but not staged with particular pizazz.

There’s much to like about the road-trip comedy Half Brothers. It’s funny, smart, topical and even touching at times. But it’s hard to overcome the inescapable rot at its center.

Interesting and timely, The Red Sea Diving Resort highlights the plight of refugees and casts those helping them in a heroic light, but it doesn’t quite deliver dramatically.

For most, there will be no adrenaline rush from fear or thrill, or vicarious release from seeing tormentors tormented; one leaves feeling sad. Sad that this is what "entertainment" has come to. Come on, filmmakers. Can't you do better?

Breaking News in Yuba County lacks both the form and substance to cash in on its acting assets.

There's also no point in paying the 3-D ticket price for occasional bits of gristle flying your way, or blurry action shots. Whereas the first "Saw" got marks for originality, the filmmakers have so lost their fastballs that this one's extreme gore provokes either laughter or sleep.

Chain Letter is a nonsensical, bloody mess that, well, is missing a few links.