Michael Rechtshaffen

Unfortunately, where episodes of the series used to take their cue from a question posed by one of Carrie's columns, writer-director Michael Patrick King never finds that focus, and Sex and the City loses its tart edge in the process.

Although Tomlin (for whom Weitz wrote 2015’s Grandma) and Fonda are thoroughly capable of taking their characters in any direction required of them, Moving On ultimately strands the actors — and the audience — at an awkward impasse.

Hartley's kooky cosmopolitan caper can never be accused of slumming, but the shift from dry, offbeat wit to politically charged drama is a little jarring, to say the least; it's a bit like taking in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" and having it morph mid-way through into "Shadows and Fog."

While Henner and Begley bring a seasoned ease to their secondary roles, their presence, and that of a lively Zach McGowan as Cassidy’s drug-dealing ex, can’t compensate for wobbly dramatic stakes and glib main characters who don’t lend themselves to audience empathy.

Its release calculated to coincide with the X Games, Supercross: The Movie is advertainment to the extreme.

After a while, the extremely limited camera movement and languid pacing take an exacting toll, resulting in a viewing experience that is considerably less than idyllic.

The documentary can’t help but feel like a promo piece despite providing some insightful backstage glimpses into its subject’s well-publicized life.

The payoff is sporadically rewarding at best.

Strip away the IMAX scope, the booming score and the flyboy swagger, however, and all that remains is a hollow shell of bland, beaten-down war movie tropes that leave Jonathan Majors to effectively fend for himself with his deeply-rooted lead portrayal of the first Black aviator in Navy history.

Timeliness is all very well, but the significant subject matter cries out for a defter directorial touch and a deeper complexity in regard to the characters and performances.

What should be a sexually and emotionally charged atmosphere instead ends up feeling like an intellectual exercise, with the actors attempting mightily to simulate chemistry that simply doesn't exist.

You're left wanting to have seen much more of the story from the Queen of the Mountains' singular vantage point.

Awfully dull, with scant evidence of the sort of things that make horror movies attractive -- like mounting suspense and spine-tingling creepiness and, oh yeah, the element of horror.

It’s a loud Oz hodgepodge that never adheres to a prevailing tone long enough to allow viewers to emotionally engage with those characters in spite of some admittedly inspired CG flourishes.

Although Prisoner’s Daughter gets a necessary emotional lift from its strong lead performances, the blandly by-the-numbers redemptive family drama falls short of representing a return to early form for the “Thirteen” director.

While its two credible leads are certainly up to the challenge, there's a relentless claustrophobia that prevents the film from taking on a fully dimensional life of its own.

Pablo Fendrik's Ardor is a densely atmospheric, Sergio Leone-steeped western that ultimately proves too reverential for its own good.

An unwieldy, excessively talky affair, unintentionally exhibiting all the clunky stops and starts and self-conscious ramblings of a particularly awkward first date.

Works better than one might think, thanks to the group's modus operandi, which combines a fundamental reverence for the target material and a sly irreverence that's key to their skewering technique.

Bates and co-writer Mark Bruner seem to be going for a satirical tone that falls somewhere between David Lynch and Seth Rogen, but deliberately cheesy effects and a sluggish pace sink the early potential.

To his credit, director Asger Leth (Ghosts of Cite Soleil) gets right to the business at hand where the set-up is concerned, but it's in the execution that this would-be thriller falls flat.

Despite the undeniable novelty of having Holmes on hand to keep it real, the absence of traditional character development ultimately takes its toll on viewer empathy.

De la Iglesia, a filmmaker known for his dark comedies, ultimately has nowhere to take this breathless ode to Fellini and his own mentor, Pedro Almodóvar, as well as backstage showbiz satires like Robert Altman's "The Player" and Michael Hoffman's "Soapdish."

Essentially sleepwalks its way through a strictly by-the-numbers premise.

It's frustrating to see this wonderful-looking, laugh-out-loud funny survival tale fall short of its potential.

Like its various post-Cold War European locations, the film remains chilly and distant. Every time you feel like you're finally grabbing hold of something involving, the picture once again spins frustratingly out of reach.

This wannabe daring comedy about a man who attempts to "fix" the Special Olympics strains for that patented naughty and nice balance with squirmingly squishy results.

While the end result feels a tad overstuffed at 92 minutes, it's entirely understandable if, after more than half a century of being identified as "that guy," Miller's in no hurry to relinquish the spotlight.

ParaNorman is an amusing but only fitfully involving animated caper.

Uneven but nonetheless emotionally gratifying.

Haphazard plotting and seriously undernourished character development aside, none of the emotional stakes have been planted deeply enough to elicit audience involvement in young Pete’s plight.

With the colorful Allison — he’d fit right into one of KFC’s revolving Colonel spots — and narrator Woody Harrelson at his disposal, Haney could have easily done without all the glossy dramatic recreations and frequent shout-outs to Bristol-Myers Squibb, which occasionally create the undesirable effect of a corporate promo video.

By now Bowers, who also directed the last two Wimpy Kid movies, knows how to choreograph the inherent chaos for optimal giggles, even if many of the book’s more satirical elements have been swapped out for broader slapstick.

Director Levy struggles to find a uniform pitch that would agreeably blend together the gags, the visual effects and the obligatory heart moments. In its absence, there's a stop-and-start hollowness that confuses noise and chaos for comic energy.

In the absence of a sturdier storyline and more dimensional characters, the manic, rapid-fire delivery, while yielding some well-deserved laughs, proves more exhausting than inspired.

The film itself often feels stilted and repetitive.

One wishes the script might have shared the degree of precision that has obviously been applied to the technical side of the production, which is resplendent in visual dazzle from the smallest beads of sweat on a character’s forehead to the vintage knit fabrics to those sprawling exotic vistas.

Despite its undeniable visual artistry, the latest incarnation of White Fang fails to leave a lasting indentation.

The Forecaster, a documentary study of the rise and fall of commodities advisor Martin Armstrong, would have paid greater dividends by taking a more impartial approach to its subject.

6 Days can’t help but feel like a missed opportunity.

Even with the inspired choice of Steve Martin in the Clouseau role, this "Panther" picture is more bumbling and fumbling than the blissfully oblivious, accident-prone Inspector.

Lacking in tonal connective tissue, The Life of Chuck may still leave in its wake the desired upbeat, life-hugging effect, but it ultimately proves to be an ephemeral one — as transitory as the apparitions who usually haunt Flanagan’s more potent ghost stories.

Strip away all the flimsy copycat stuff, including the cheesy retro synth score, and what lurks beneath is a perceptive portrait of contemporary thirtysomething relationships, no silly sleuthing required.

The Ramsay brothers are attracted to all the grisly stuff found at the junction between noir-tinged thrillers and scarlet-hued horror, although the plotting here isn't as tightly coiled and the characters aren't as delineated as obviously intended.

This "Living Dead" exercise delivers far less monstrosity and a great deal of pomposity, not to mention dull characters who aren't nearly as lively as those dead guys.

Less would have been considerably more in the case of Tread, a needlessly overstuffed documentary chronicling the path that led to a disgruntled muffler repair shop owner going on a remarkable 2004 rampage in a heavily armored bulldozer through the streets of Granby, Colo.

The Good Dinosaur emerges as a visually breathtaking work of computer-generated animation that is ultimately unable to compensate for a disappointingly derivative script.

A darker, grittier creature that, while benefiting considerably from Dion Beebe's HD cinematography, is a frustratingly inert affair -- a long and talky excursion that fails to engage the viewer from the outset.

While its cast delivers uniformly breezy performances, most everything else about Ramona's move to the multiplex feels unremarkable.

Unfortunately, the whole seldom adds up to the sum of its illustrious parts, and Jarmusch's trademark deadpan quirks seem to have gotten lost in the translation.

Replaying many of the visual gags that worked so amusingly before, the latest edition proves every bit as repetitive and uninspired as its glib title, bringing little that’s fresh or funny to the interlocking brick table despite boasting a script penned by originators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

Never achieves the propulsive traction and outrageous/endearing balance that made "The Hangover" such a smash this time last year.

Tedious portrait of a troubled Rolling Stone.

While Gretchen Mol delivers a delightfully exuberant lead performance, the film itself seldom goes beyond skin deep.

The age-old search for the fountain of youth is engagingly appraised in The Immortalists, a lively documentary focusing on a pair of very different biomedical scientists who are equally obsessed with eradicating the ravages of time.

This mannered character study comes across as more affected than affecting.

Although it has its involving moments, the watered-down Waugh fails to make any kind of lasting connection.

While the dramatic underpinnings could have used more work, the labyrinth that’s the focus of Dave Made a Maze is truly an amazingly inventive sight to behold.

In short, No. 4 is one big snore.

It might also have been nice to have included some archival footage that would have illustrated how little the Yukon River setting has changed over the last century, but Horvath appears to have no interest in digging any deeper.

Definitely acquired-taste material and will perform best in the hipper, bigger rooms.

In the absence of a more dramatically dynamic approach to that awfully familiar subject matter, “Burning Sands” proves neither as incendiary nor as challenging as intended.

A backwoods psychological thriller delivered faux-documentary-style, with mixed results.

A dramatically inert, lethargic dramedy that isn't nearly as quirky and poignant is it perceives itself.

A perfectly watchable if overtly theatrical whodunit.

Whether the con is truly on or the filmmakers have simply taken an awful lot of poetic license where the post-Michael Moore documentary format is concerned, moviegoers certainly have less amusing ways to be bamboozled.

Attempts to pass itself off as a fast-paced caper picture doubling as a socially conscious apartheid drama but ends up equally unconvincing in both departments.

While the early going might bring to mind the Dogme 95 school of stripped-down filmmaking...the result, with its collective of uniformly unsympathetic characters, ultimately overdoses on all the unscripted bad vibes.

Ultimately falls short of reaching the pleasingly pulpy heights of an "L.A. Confidential" or a "Chinatown" despite those obvious aspirations.

Rather than further expanding those seemingly limitless SpongeBob horizons, the live action/CG stuff never satisfyingly jibes with the traditional nautical nonsense down below.

You don’t need to be well-versed in rom-coms to know that, in the process, Harper and Charlie will ultimately fall into each other’s arms, but getting there proves to be a slog courtesy of screenwriter Katie Silberman’s talky, sitcom-ready dialogue and director Claire Scanlon’s ponderously uneven pacing.

A beautifully shot (by Oscar-winning cinematographer John Toll) but dramatically empty pursuit picture set in the untamed West.

In the thoroughly capable hands of Grant, Delpy and McCormack, whose interplay has been playfully choreographed to the 1-2-3 tempo of a waltz-infused score by composer Isobel Waller-Bridge (Phoebe’s sister), the film proves as pleasingly undemanding as a typical summer read: neither a legit page-turner, nor easy to put down.

A charming supporting cast fails to invigorate Goodbye to All That, a relentlessly flat seriocomic take on contemporary relationships.

While Elgort, whose big breakout role was in last year’s “Baby Driver,” does a decent job of delineating the two characters and Patricia Clarkson reliably comes through as their sympathetic doctor, the clinically distancing production never forms a meaningful bond with its audience.

While it has its moments of pure Farrelly inspiration and swell performances from Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear...the patented blend of the outrageous and the sweet that has become the brothers' trademark struggles to find the desired balance here.

An obvious "Ocean's Eleven" knockoff, minus any of that franchise's hip sensibility.

Greenaway's boundary-pushing, breathlessly in-your-face approach begins to take its toll on viewer patience.

Scheinfeld (“The U.S. vs. John Lennon”) pieces together an evocative time capsule. Somewhat less convincing is the film’s implication that the contentious tour ultimately led to the group’s demise.

Tumbledown sees its good intentions undermined by cloying sitcom conventions.

A CG-animated musical fantasy that still manages to infuse sufficient charm and genuine warmth into the inescapable familiarity.

Ultimately unsatisfying.

While it scratches an admittedly reflective surface, you keep hoping the nicely photographed Maineland would have dug a bit deeper.

They may not do enough to alter the climate change film landscape, but Klein and those impassioned protesters provide something that has been in short supply in the predecessors — namely, a modicum of hope for the future.

A heartfelt but dramatically flat portrait of a couple grappling with one tragedy whose lives are profoundly affected by the outcome of another.

The picture never successfully comes off the written page.

While the juvenile performances are bright and engaging, and there's no shortage of genuinely humorous observations about love and life in the Big Apple, there's an inescapable small-screen dynamic to the scope and rhythm of the production.

While visually dynamic, Lightning McQueen’s newest challenge still feels out of alignment with a languid end result that lacks sufficient forward momentum.

When there's a whole mess of zombie killing to be done, who cares about reflective writing or that time-wasting element of suspense?

Feels anonymously generic and charmlessly mechanical.

Less horrific than it is horribly didactic.

That butting of heads, as performed by actors as strong and soulful as Craig and Schreiber, lends Defiance an emotional charge, even as the film itself struggles dramatically to find its way out of those woods.

Manages to squeak by with enough charming set-pieces and amusing sight gags to compensate for a stalling storyline.

Though it's nice to see Mendes take a looser, not quite so studied approach to his filmmaking, some stops along the way -- like a detour to visit Burt's suddenly single brother (Paul Schneider) -- feel dramatically off-course.

Although Chris Perkel’s two-hour documentary can feel like an extended episode of “Behind the Music”...it’s admittedly tough to condense half a century of such remarkable musical diversity.

A thoroughly uninspiring drama that ultimately buckles under Michael Mayer's weighty direction.

Like its developmentally-arrested, misbehaving man-children, the long-shelved source material hasn’t aged particularly well.

Yet another feature comedy that began life as a TV show sketch and is still stuck in infancy (not to mention infantilism), "Run Ronnie Run!" has about 10 minutes of sharp, funny satire to its name before running out of laughs. [15 Jan 2002]