Nick Allen

The story might play out like a missed opportunity in some ways, as it’s staggering that a movie in which Jamie Foxx fights vampires can be so set on killing its fun with backstory. But while the worst parts of Day Shift want to be cute with all of this, Perry’s movie is saved by the inner bad-ass that comes out when it matters most.

Hermia & Helena’s touch-and-go approach weakens the movie’s key expression of being a relatable story about being lost during your late 20s/early 30s.

The bad news, I’m sorry to say, is that The Christmas Chronicles 2 doesn’t contribute much that's worthwhile to the first movie's blueprint, and focuses on mildly amusing indulgences — more elf-centric shenanigans, more Santa mythology, more roller coaster sleigh rides.

Lacking personality or insight, King Jack is a ho-hum tale of young aggression—been there, bruised that.

This movie has Jeunet doing “The Jetsons” while ruminating on what a robot uprising might inevitably look like, but that proves to be less exciting than one could ever imagine.

While Suntan is more than just a tale about an older man becoming involved with a younger woman, it's unfortunately not as profound when it later claims to be a statement on the movie you think you're watching.

The frantic adults and kids in Trish Sie’s The Sleepover are often screaming, but that doesn't mean they’re getting anywhere. You’d think that a story about a mom's cool secret and kids breaking curfew would be a lot more fun, especially with a charismatic cast like this, and yet The Sleepover is mostly about killing time, specifically that of your own.

This is a story that errs toward the familiar instead of embracing strangeness, its freaky kid becoming the distraction when you just want more time with the hole in the ground.

It has taken so long for a feature-length The Flash to finally hit theaters, and he’s too late. Barry is barely the lead character of his own movie.

By trying to make a grand statement to a post-lockdown theatergoing audience about what they are willing to believe—but also about how far they are willing to go for others—Shyamalan trips over himself and neglects to give them much of a movie.

No movie with Nicolas Cage, directed by the wonderfully weird Japanese director Sion Sono, should be this taxing, drawn out, and plainly boring.

There’s something to making a prequel just for the hell of it, and giving it to an actor/writer/director whose charisma has worldwide appeal, but Army of Thieves could have had much more fun with the assignment.

Tone is a revealing element for this project, which it borrows from the B-movie, apocalyptic seriousness of a later “Transformers” sequel. One of the movie’s biggest surprises is then that it has outtakes, which even include poking fun at how easily the intimidating alien’s costume head can fall off.

Even with the poetic, vicious grin we can see from Brake’s gummy smile, feasting on the dreams of lovable people misguided by materialism, there’s far too little to fear, or think about.

Despite the sincerity that’s in every scene with Rylance’s performance, the movie's good intentions remain wistful, and thoroughly frustrating.

The World is Full of Secrets concerns text more than anything else — not the visuals within filmmaking or performance, but the stories being told. As an experiment with the sensory experience of film storytelling, it backfires. To best engage Swon's massive amounts of text, you’re better off closing your eyes.

The premise isn’t thoroughly uncomfortable so much as it is simply tedious; Barbara Hershey’s focal character Tabitha is made to appear more and more helpless in the film’s scant psychological thrills, and yet we’re stuck with a flat anxiety for a feature's length.

There is a lacking critical quality to the story as it goes along, touching upon the film’s many idiosyncrasies but leaving them alone.

Take away the noise surrounding it, and Sound of Freedom has distinct cinematic ambitions: a non-graphic horror film with what could be called an art-house sensibility for muted rage and precise, striking shadows derived from an already bleak world. If “Sound of Freedom” were less concerned with being something "important," it could be more than a mood, it could be a movie.

Plane rushes through its emotional and explosive beats so that it can get to the next crisis without having to fill out the previous one, and it wildly skims on the good stuff in the process.

But even with its all-around noble dramatic intent, particularly from Butler, the film struggles to leave a mark.

With little wit to its name, Sherlock Gnomes becomes far more tedious than playful.

A movie that bases part of its drab period fiction on the fantasy of getting Freud’s friendly advice, all for the price of a good cigar. But the script, based on a revered novel from Robert Seethaler, concerns more serious themes than Freud's off-hand advice, though its shallow storytelling gives little to contemplate.

You don’t get entirely skilled comedy from the Impractical Jokers, but you do get to see four guys who have turned forcefully messing with each other into a welcoming, idea.

Though it has a few big laughs, Uncle Drew mistakes its goofy pitch for a free pass to be very simple with its comedy, and sappy with its emotions

Half-nifty, half-cheesy.

The big problem throughout Uncle Kent 2 is that while it can offer some amusement, it all feels like an inside joke.