Odie Henderson

Novocaine is a numbing experience that’s best seen on cable at 3 a.m., preferably after you’ve numbed yourself with the vice of your choice.

The true stars of “Jurassic World Rebirth,” the dinosaurs, are often left unidentified; we’re not sure if they’re real or some genetically engineered, made-up monstrosity. The film is so disinterested that it simply throws them onscreen with occasional bits of human beings stuck between their teeth.

The overabundance of CGI is one of the bigger problems with Midway because, far too often, it feels like you’re watching a video game or an F/X highlight reel.

Like a bad '80s flick, Stage Fright, could have been so much fun.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere has enough good material to make you wish it were better. Unfortunately, it owes debts to the biopic genre that no honest film can pay.

When Dafoe is onscreen, his unpredictable energy drives a deserving stake into the film’s stodgy heart.

Ron Howard’s latest directorial effort is a tedious, mediocre retelling of the June, 2018 incident where 12 Thai adolescents and their soccer coach were trapped in a flooded cave for 18 days.

I’ve said this a million times before, so it will sound familiar: All a rom-com needs to work is characters you want to see end up together. “Eternity” fails this test big time.

Contrary to Gil Scott-Heron’s song, the revolution of “One Battle After Another” feels more televised than live. After 161 minutes of it, I was tempted to turn the channel.

The film’s heart is in the right place, but its focus is not.

If nothing else, Braff gets good to great performances out of his cast. The standouts are Pugh and Freeman: She’s a violent slash of petulance, while he remains a master of barely concealed wrath. Both actors are willing to plumb the depths of desperation, but their hard work is wasted in a film unworthy of their talents. A Good Person is a mediocre movie.

As far as rehashed sequels go, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” could have been worse. That it’s slightly better holds out hope that the inevitable third film will be a major power up in quality.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget isn’t a bad movie; it’s just an unnecessary one. Whoever thought audiences would be clamoring for the sequel to a 23-year-old film with such a satisfying ending to its story must have been out of their clucking mind.

Unlike the recent "God’s Not Dead," which is the "Beaches" of faith-based films in that it embodies every single complaint against its genre, Heaven is for Real attempts to cast a wider audience net.

The film evokes all of the usual biopic tropes while painting a standard picture of an extraordinary hero.

Thankfully, Ella McCay is not as bad as its predecessor. Had this film been a total disaster, it would be easier to dismiss. But every so often, there are glints of the James L. Brooks brilliance I loved so much.

The Penguin Lessons severely falters when it deals with the dangers of military occupation. It’s hard to watch a serious subplot involving people being “disappeared” by the government juxtaposed with scenes of cutesy penguin mayhem and classroom hijinks.

You’re going to Madea’s house to laugh, forget your troubles and perhaps get a good Christian message. To Perry’s credit, he does a far better job of folding that message into the film than usual.

Samuel’s sophomore full-length feature is an ambitious misfire, a noble failure that starts off like “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” and ends like “The Passion of the Christ.”

The Oath seems to build to that moment where Haddish grabs the screen and takes control. But when her big scene comes, it’s completely unsatisfying and muted, a missed opportunity floating among other missed opportunities.

The singing talent is there, but Eastwood and writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise opt for a more realistic depiction of events. They transform Jersey Boys from jukebox musical to movie biopic, exchanging one much-maligned genre for another.

Allowing the viewer to piece things together on their own is always welcome, but the film’s desire to surprise and outwit makes it contrived.

Imitation and musical enthusiasm are all there is to this performance; in the dramatic scenes that make up the majority of Maestro, Cooper is the weak link that drags everything down.

If only this movie were as interesting as the truth. Tatum’s sparkling charm can only take him so far; the script, by Cianfrance and Kirt Gunn, spends way too much time on a romantic subplot filled with sitcom scenarios and uninteresting characters.

Moana 2 is disappointing, but it’s also watchable. I appreciated the attempt to tell a story that wasn’t based solely on the studio’s IP. And the visuals will entertain the kids too young to endure all 160 minutes of “Wicked” this holiday season.

It’s a daring choice to force audiences to spend 2 hours with someone they won’t like, but “If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You” is more of an experiment than an empathy machine. It overstays its welcome by at least 30 minutes.

The movie is big and ostentatious when its delicate, sad story needed to be more quietly told. Anderson definitely understands this idea; despite playing a chaotic and unlikable character, she’s the most stable element here.

The Boogeyman becomes an exercise in diminishing returns, though it is not without its pleasures.

An outrageously dull documentary.

The Gambler should have been called “Three Supporting Characters in Search of a Lead.” A gaunt Mark Wahlberg stares out from the poster, his name is above the title, and he’s in almost every frame of this remake, but his character may as well be non-existent.

If you ever wanted to see a wartime movie that feels directed by a kinder, gentler Michael Bay, Come What May is right up your alley. It plays like a more cultured — and very French — version of “Pearl Harbor," complete with bad CGI battle sequences, jaw-dropping plot coincidences, over-the-top nationalistic gestures and dialogue that often sounds swiped from a soap opera.

This isn’t really for kids (I’d say it’s PG-13 level), and it’s so entrenched in its country’s myth-making that I wonder if sheer spectacle alone will be enough to entice American viewers.

Far too much of this movie is a replay of scenes and plot elements that Friedkin’s film did better, and without CGI. The anticipated head-spinning and pea-soup vomit were far more effective with practical effects.

This one works overtime, shifting gears repeatedly without once providing enough substance for the viewer to engage.

Even if I like the film, as I did with “The Little Mermaid,” I still conclude that corporate greed is the sole reason for its existence.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie so fully collapse in its third act as this one does, and it does so without warning.

Nobody Knows I’m Here wants to make a statement about the harsh price of fame and the awful, hurtful machinations that settle the bill. It just takes too long to get these ideas into the plot thanks to the clichéd handling of its protagonist’s dark past.

Even at a mercifully short 94 minutes, this movie is exhausting. That would be fine if it weren’t also overly sincere, familiar, and dull.

Horror ultimately gives way to irritation as the film veers into violent shock tactics and misplaced blame. What begins as a righteous indictment devolves into an unnecessary vendetta.

The bigger sin here is that “Nobody’s Fool” wastes its comic goodwill and performances by wallowing in the same tired story elements Tyler Perry has been milking on TV and in his movies for decades. He’s done this before, and you’ve seen it before.

I liked the “Freaky Friday” remake. It had some real emotional heft to it, much of it due to the excellent performances by Curtis and Lohan. This time, all the characters are one-note, especially the teenagers.

Director Edgar Wright’s version is a more serious affair that not only has a duller hero than its predecessor, it’s also a half-hour longer.

The Woman in Black 2 might have served as an effective tribute to movies like "Curse of the Cat People." That is, if it hadn't completely squandered all this goodwill in its last third.

Director Jason Moore and writer Mark Hammer have fashioned an action movie/romantic comedy hybrid that’s too violent for comedy fans and not thrilling enough for thrill seekers. It’s not romantic at all, despite the best efforts of Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel.

Truth be told, Get on Up isn’t really interested in exploring how important Brown’s music was to any of the numerous styles it influenced. Instead, it just wants to play some of the big hits you love while ticking off a checklist of standard biopic milestones.

I enjoyed the first three adventures of the Dragon Warrior, but the best thing he can do now is to give this series a much needed skadoosh, sending it to rest in the cinematic spirit realm.

When Boston Strangler focuses on the two journalists who wrote about this case, it is quite involving.

God’s Creatures is yet another movie about a mother realizing too slowly that her son may be a dangerous sociopath. Screenwriter Shane Crowley’s thin characterizations do little to make this tired trope worth revisiting, instead opting to shroud the film in mystery regarding its central crime.

Imagine the most overdone, Philip Glass-style horror movie music playing over glossy footage of a university art class, and you have some idea what your eyes and ears are in for while attending The Time Being.

Though the visuals are often quite stunning, you’ll wish that “Wish” had a better story. Not even Magnifico is powerful enough to make you forget.

As the plot swings haphazardly between drug-induced hallucinations and reality, we lose trust in what we are seeing.

Individual parts of “The Bride!” work, but as a whole, the critic in me found it confusing and irritating.

I’m not implying that a horror movie needs to be coherent to deliver the chills — watch any J-Horror movie for proof that this concept can work. But “HIM” doesn’t even try to be scary. It’s too busy bombarding us with nonsensical, quickly flashed images that divulge nothing.

The History of Sound is even more repressed than its characters, and at over two hours, that’s far from entertaining.

The back and forth between the two actors becomes fraught with confusing allusions and muddled metaphors before ceding control to some unsuccessful supernatural elements.

The Hangover Part III plays more like a caper film — “Alan’s Eleven,” perhaps — than a comedy. While Phillips ably handles the action sequences, he and co-screenwriter Craig Mazin can’t juggle both genres in the screenplay.

The problem with gruesome true stores is that, if the outcome is known, a film needs to work well enough for you to patiently wait for it to get to the climactic re-enactment of the crime. Mope does not garner enough interest in either a storytelling or visual regard.

If only this movie weren’t as slow as a sleepwalkng turtle. The story is constructed like one big, dark joke whose punchline isn’t worth sitting through 110 minutes to hear.

The three leads do a good job creating their characters, with cinematographer Kristian Zuniga giving each of their tales a specific look and color scheme. But this also suffers from that indie fever where the camera and framing goes askew and "documentary style" for no reason except to distract you from how familiar the story is.

Couple the broad acting and cliché-ridden screenplay with the fixed-frame format, and “Here” comes off like a bad sitcom, or even worse, a school play made by a bunch of fifth-graders who decided to tackle Eugene O’Neill or “Death of a Salesman.”

Director Kenya Barris, who also co-wrote the script with Jonah Hill, intended to make an edgy, race-based cringe comedy; the result is afraid of its own shadow. This Netflix release commits an even bigger sin by wasting the considerable comedic talents of former “Saturday Night Live” castmates Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

I Declare War is like high school English class, rife with confusing symbolism and full of sound and fury that ultimately signifies nothing.

Viper Club is being released by YouTube Original Films, which is appropriate because it looks like it was shot and framed for the tiniest YouTube window possible. This is an ugly looking film filled with headache-inducing, shaky close-ups and questionable editing.

Black folks don’t need the classes in Racism 101 “Master” offers; life gives us PhD’s early on. It’s not for horror fans because it’s a complete failure as a horror movie.

Strays is a live-action flick about talking canines. As a movie, it is not a good boy; it is a bad dog. But if I were currently 12, I might have reacted in a more positive way.

While Mafia Mamma fails as a comedy, it succeeds in delivering the graphically violent moments one expects from a movie about the Mafia.

At 103 minutes, this film has way too much dead weight. Scenes are repeated over and over, and some of the acting would not cut it in a school play. But in the rare moments when Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween is firing on all cylinders, it displays a cleverness which hints that, with more time and a few more iterations of the script, this might have been a good movie.

Samaritan proves, to paraphrase Tina Turner, that we don’t need another superhero.

This musical should have taken center stage in Theater Camp. The dreadful story surrounding it deserves to get the hook.

How can a movie this visually glossy be so devastatingly uninteresting and dull?