Nell Minow

One element of this film that works well is that the actors understand the assignment, no winking at the audience, except for British comedian/presenter and co-writer of the screenplay, Jimmy Carr, playing a vicar who cannot help running the liturgy texts together to make them sound dirty.

While “Oh. What. Fun” has an excellent director, Michael Showalter, who also co-scripted, some nice music, and top performers, including Danielle Brooks as a delivery driver Claire meets on the road, and the exquisitely lovely Havana Rose Liu, very appealing as Jeanne’s daughter, it keeps undermining our sympathy with off-kilter stakes and inert efforts at humor.

Barron’s Cove is a pulpy thriller awkwardly tied to a soapy story of bad dads and the wreckage they leave behind.

Stewart and Erskine light up the movie with vivid, layered, authentic performances that capture our interest but throw the movie out of balance. One more screenplay draft would have been worthwhile; there are glimmers of a better version that create some optimism for Angarano’s next film.

The mechanics of the chase scenes are well-designed, but the overall look of the film is lackluster, the characters are thinly imagined, and the dialogue is oddly obscure in a movie intended for children, especially one that wants to stay on the fun side of scary.

Parents with young children who hope this is a sweet and inspiring film about an underdog Little League team will find that there is too little baseball and too much about a family confronting a devastating loss. Those who are more interested in the story of the adults will find there is too much baseball. Steee-rike.

We can never quite settle into the connection to the couple because while it makes it indisputably clear, despite some claims of Photoshopping, that they really do scale the tallest and most iconic structures in the world, there is a discomfiting artificiality to the storytelling.

As mundane as its title, with characters whose color-by-numbers personalities and motivations shift randomly to fit a predictable storyline, “A Family Affair” is a low-wattage rom-com.

Compared to the original or to more recent films like “Boss Baby” and “The Bad Guys,” it is slapdash and lightweight.

Foster is at his best in roles like this one, where his emotions are tightly coiled and always close to exploding, but the storyline does not give him much to work with and Wallace cannot make much out of a blandly-conceived role.

The exceptionally talented Richardson does her best with a woefully underwritten character.

Four brilliant, accomplished, gorgeous female actors play four friends who take a bachelorette trip to Italy in this dumb, dull, dud of a waste of their time and ours.

The scenes under water are exquisitely beautiful, but it is the screenplay that feels soggy.

Jesus Revolution is more of a wistful wish to bring in a wave of new followers than an effort to understand what they'll need once they’re there.

Luke and the other actors do their best, especially Zosia Mamet as June’s friend and Melissa Leo as Charlie’s mother, but the dialogue never creates vivid, specific, consistent characters.

The Score is an ambitious effort, a movie that is both a tense crime drama and a musical. Skillful attention has been paid to both elements by writer/director Malachi Smyth and a strong cast. But these elements are never integrated enough to become organic, and never come together to create a satisfying whole.

You might think that a movie about the construction of one of the most iconic structures in the world would be carefully put together. But that is not the case with the sumptuous, often frustrating Eiffel, the story of a man whose name is as joined to the Tower emblematic of Paris as the 133-year-old beams that are still sturdily riveted (not bolted) together.

Father Stu understood how to connect to skeptics and non-believers. Instead of reaching a broader audience, Wahlberg and Gibson preach to the choir.

It is over-plotted, with three different storylines mixing comedy and adventure.

The setting plumbs the depths but the movie stays on the surface.

Instead of exploring the more complex dynamics of adolescent social structure, it limits itself to an artificial set-up and a superficial level of storytelling, more afterschool special than feature film.

The wolf and the lion make a great team; the humans and the script do not.

The biggest problem is that the most touching moments are hammered so hard. "Redeeming Love" could have tried to reach a broader audience but settles for preaching to the choir.

As well-paced and cleverly deployed as all of the slapstick is here, it's hard to watch Jeff get slammed in the head or Pam step on Legos without wincing more than we laugh.

The frenetic silliness and uneven tone are unfortunate distractions from the genuine pleasures of the film, including Cabello's appealing performance as Cinderella, and the creative and energetic musical numbers.

The movie's dialogue is clunky and the acting is uneven, which keeps the tone more preachy than dramatic.

The movie's characters are less compelling, however, and the film never deeply engages the issues of consent, culpability, and justice it asks us to consider.

These are important stories that should be seen, but audiences need more than scripts that are primarily acting exercises, with very little insight beyond everyone blaming everyone else and reminders that bad choices by addicts and those around them lead to bad outcomes.