Odie Henderson

Chism's cast is game for her shenanigans, and the biggest pleasure of "Peeples" is watching them cut loose under her direction. This movie has one hell of a cast.

It’s refreshing that Lemmons focuses on the highs rather than the lows, even if it feels like buffing off the edges of her complex protagonist. But that won’t matter to Houston fans: They’ll get so emotional, baby.

These ideas are presented by a cast of well-seasoned actors who help the film survive its occasionally clunky dialogue. In fact, one of the film’s bigger pleasures is listening to these thespians plow through their numerous monologues. Their performances are the film's saving grace.

But the true strength of Residue is in its images. Gerima finds a poetic grace in his framing while forcing you to focus on unexpected things.

A Five Star Life shows something not often seen in American cinema, at least in films that aren’t police procedurals: It shows an ordinary citizen doing her job.

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.

I love this kind of backstage documentary, which is not surprising for someone who has "All That Jazz" and "All About Eve" on his all-time top ten list.

DaCosta, who helmed the much-maligned 2021 reboot of “Candyman,” keeps the plot moving so quickly that I had little time to question much of it.

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

This is a movie about a relationship that deserves to be nurtured and cherished. The most wonderful feature of “The Ballad of Wallis Island” is that it’s not the relationship you’re expecting.

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.

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.

This movie is bad in all sorts of ways, none of which has to do with the fact that Disney cast a Latina actor as Snow White. In fact, that actor, Rachel Zegler, is the film’s saving grace.

Daldry’s latest, Trash, co-directed with Christian Duurvoort, not only pitches the same Academy woo, it shamelessly mimics Best Picture winner “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Champions wants to be a clone of the 1976 sports movie classic “The Bad News Bears,” right down to giving us a Tatum O’Neal-style toughie, Cosentino (Madison Tevlin). While Tevlin is very funny and convincing, Harrelson fails to plumb the depths of unlikability in his character that Walter Matthau brought to Coach Buttermaker.

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.

My Mother’s Wedding neatly juxtaposes its subplots with the joyous event that serves as its centerpiece.

As tedious as Set Fire to the Stars gets, it remains watchable courtesy of the stunning black and white cinematography by Chris Seager.

Porno belongs in the “hot and murderous butt nekkid lady” sub-genre of horror alongside “Species,” “Lifeforce,” and the film it shares its villain with, “Def by Temptation.” Like that 1990 Troma movie, this horror-comedy details the exploits of a succubus, a female demon who tempts men to their own destruction via the deadly sin known as lust.

I wish the filmmakers had shown as much faith in the audience as its characters have in miracles.

PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie is not a good movie, but it should appeal to its intended audience. I admit I was bored, but to my surprise, I didn’t find it that much of a chore to sit through.

Unfortunately, Words and Pictures fails at portraying both titular nouns.

There isn’t a single original idea to be found here, nor a twist you can’t predict immediately. This film has what Siskel and Ebert used to call “the Idiot Plot.” That is, a plot that doesn’t contain a single credible moment, and would be over if everyone involved wasn’t an idiot.

Twohy's script contains macho dialogue so ripe it's embarrassing to hear it.

How to Make a Killing should be a lot more fun than it is. The murders are poorly staged and unfunny, and Powell’s performance is so one-note and smug that you can’t root for him even if you think his killing spree is justified.

This movie isn’t just tone-deaf, it’s ass backwards.

It’s sad when a film wastes the talents of so many fine actors. Sad for us, that is, because I’m sure they were all paid handsomely.

The end result is an inert bore. Golda fails as a character study and as an exploration of wartime mechanics. It succeeds only as Oscar bait.

To say that Oscar winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross go hard on the music would be an understatement. There were times when their beats vibrated through my theater chair, goosing me into thinking “Tron: Ares” is better than it is. Their contribution propels the action and makes you believe in the visual bedlam unfolding before you.

The film’s visual look is as inert as its screenplay, and its attempts to make the real racing scenes look like Gran Turismo gameplay by overlaying the game’s graphics with live footage fall embarrassingly flat.

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.

The result invites confusion and ultimately indifference on the viewer’s part. When one character makes a joking reference to Alec Guinness’ brilliant Ealing comedy “The Lavender Hill Mob” the comparison does this film no favors.

I went into Haunted Mansion expecting a hot mess on par with Murphy’s movie. Instead, I found an engaging and sweet action comedy, one that’s not only very funny but also quite touching. Much of the credit goes to the cast, specifically the lead performance by LaKeith Stanfield as Ben Matthias.

I did my homework and watched the original "RED." It was just as stupid as this movie, yet I liked it a little more.

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.

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.

Watching Hercules, you can feel your intelligence being insulted in almost every frame.

The problem with “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the same as so many of these franchise-based films: They’re all soulless special-effects extravaganzas where CGI takes the place of character development, good writing, and emotional connection.

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.

If this film were a person, it would tell you it had a Black friend and voted for Obama twice. That’s how insultingly simplistic it is about race.

When we’re not being fed warmed-over narration and editing tricks that remind us of the Scorsese-directed examples, we’re trapped with a visibly disinterested De Niro. He barely gives one performance, let alone two.

Umair Aleem’s script is so paint-by-numbers familiar that it leaves you wishing you’d watched one of the better movies it’s ripping off.

In Secret is a costume drama with a gigantic accent on the drama. It's my kind of crazy, and I was quite entertained. To borrow again from Shakespeare, "'Tis Madness, but there's method to't."

The best I can say for The Super Mario Bros. Movie is that it’s infinitely better than its predecessor. But you don’t need a power-up to clear that bar.

It’s a fable that ties up too neatly to be believed, and it’s a story I’m tired of hearing.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Book Club: The Next Chapter was not only watchable but occasionally amusing.

Honey Don’t!, the neo-noir by director Ethan Coen and his wife, co-writer Tricia Cooke, is an unsatisfying mishmash of plot threads that neither intrigue nor coalesce.

Seeing the Ghostbusters in the Big Apple where they belong put a smile on my face, at least until I realized I was watching a sitcom about wiseass teens and their dopey parents.

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.

In addition to being a lousy musical, “Folie à Deux” is also a dreadfully dull courtroom drama.

There are plenty of things that go bump in the night. “The Watchers” proves they’re only effective if you don’t sleep through them.

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

The Son is so concerned with trying to get an emotional rise out of the audience, to choke us with its pathos, that it fails to create believable three-dimensional characters.

Five Nights in Maine is as evasive as a corrupt politician. Its coyness about what’s truly in its heart of darkness is either cowardly or lazy, or some measure of both.

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.

Paint is so haphazardly thrown together it’s painful to watch.

Julia von Heinz’s direction can’t handle the film’s tonal shifts, and the screenplay (co-written by von Heinz and John Quester) centers on two very poorly written leads who clash in ways that are supposed to be comedic but are mostly infuriating.

I suppose director Paula van der Oest was trying to go for some kind of European Gothic feel, but something this unsavory needs to move a lot faster than this. This contraption is slower than molasses in winter.

Even if you can’t stand the Minions (who are once again voiced in “Minionese” by Pierre Coffin), you might find this one tolerable. Especially if you’re old enough to get the 1976 jokes yet feel young enough to find bemusement in all the goofy slapstick.

You may think it unfair that I make comparisons between "Starbuck" and Delivery Man. Truth be told, my rating is higher because I'd seen "Starbuck." Had I not, Delivery Man would have been intolerable.

This film’s comic antics are relentless, exhausting, and devastatingly unfunny. Waititi’s script (co-written with Iain Morris) can’t go 30 seconds without attempting a laugh — and failing most of the time.

The most noticeable influence is “Universal Soldier,” a film that shares so many plot elements that Bloodshot can be classified as a blatant rip-off. That movie spawned three sequels; I can only hope Bloodshot’s bloodline ends here.

Night Swim has its characters make infuriatingly asinine decisions to serve its plot.

Bob Marley: One Love opts to print the legend, but it will just make you want to listen to “Legend.”

How can we be interested if the movie we’re watching is as unimpressed with itself as we are?

There’s a real identity crisis going on here. I can’t tell if director Tom Gormican is making a new horror comedy based on the original movie, a straight remake, or a feature-length fan fiction controlled by its characters.

Despite a high body count, director-cowriter Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s version is not gory enough to satiate gorehounds. The atmospheric cinematography, by Elisha Christian, and the bombastic score, by Chanda Dancy, fail to accompany or elicit a single good scare.

There’s a lot more nonsense here, all of which starts out intriguingly before overstaying its welcome.

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

While Lumbly brings a refreshing amount of Black anger and cynicism to his performance, Mackie is stuck in a kumbaya mode designed to not offend white viewers. It may be a brave new world, but it’s the same old story.

The prior end to this series, “A Madea Family Funeral,” was actually a decent movie. Madea should have quit while she was ahead.

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.

This is a very bad movie that manages to be as insulting as it is stupid.

This is one of those super-convoluted conspiracy theory movies where nothing makes sense and you simply stop caring. Saviors show up inexplicably at just the right time. People come off as evil for the sole purpose of misleading us. There’s no character development, a lot of patriotic posturing and the villain gives a lecture that must have been written before they cast a Black actor as its recipient. Despite endless gunfire and a lot of shit blowing up, most of the action sequences fail to quicken the pulse.

Not since Morgan Freeman’s Joe Clark in “Lean on Me” has a real-life person’s ass been kissed more by a movie. At least that movie had superior lips.

By the time the film settles down to give us a few solid dramatic scenes, I appreciated the effort but had long since stopped caring.

This is three movies in one, each of which is progressively worse.

Come Away evokes memories of “Radio Flyer,” the equally appalling 1992 child abuse drama where fantasy and cruel reality merged in ways that were shockingly offensive.

The plot is completely forgettable and Story’s direction is atrocious here. He can’t balance the numerous attempts at unfunny comedy with the sudden outbursts of extreme gunplay. The action sequences lack any sense of excitement and only once do the stars of comedy and action align.

The ultimate invasion of its subject's privacy.

If only Blood and Money weren’t stretched so thin. More development of character, suspense and plot would have gone a long way toward making this stick to one’s crime genre-loving ribs.

I really enjoyed listening to Statham talk. His fight scenes have their predictable, violent payoffs, but his rambling monologues are unexpectedly, gloriously entertaining. This film’s tagline should be “Come for the stabbing, stay for the gabbing!”

This movie is one big, unsatisfying tease.

Whether you think Casanova's a hero worth idolizing, or a dull-as-dishwater man whore from a sexist past, Casanova, Last Love will make you believe he deserved better than this.

I cop to laughing out loud numerous times, and I was captivated by Vianne’s big “what’s good for the goose” style speech at the end. If “A Madea Family Funeral” is indeed the final “Hallelu-YUHRR” for Madea, it’s not that shabby an exit.

I admire Maniscalco’s decision to make his character the butt of the jokes, literally and figuratively. If only the jokes were funny. He has zero romantic chemistry with Bibb, who appears to be acting in another movie entirely, but he and De Niro make a credible father and son.

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.

The resulting mishmash is as exciting as getting a tow from AAA, and just as slow.

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.”

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.

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.

Director Antoine Fuqua traffics in fan service of the highest order and the lowest quality. This is nothing more than a 127-minute series of poorly executed recreations of milestones in Jackson’s life.

At a scant 84 minutes, you’d think it would move fast enough to make you forget its massive lapses in logic in favor of chills and thrills. Alas, that’s not the case here.

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

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.

Gemini Man never pretends to be anything but a time-wasting contraption hoping to entertain its viewer. I can’t reasonably be mad at its honesty, and despite the horrendous dialogue its actors are often forced to speak, I found myself enjoying a fair amount of it.

In the current economy, Monopoly makes a more appropriate board game upon which to base a horror movie, but for what it is, Ouija is better than expected.

With a bigger budget and a longer runtime, Cell could easily have been elevated above its current station as a worthy 2 AM viewing on cable — not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s cursed with some really cheap CGI, but blessed with actors who are game for, and respect, the material.

It’s tedious at best, almost unwatchable at worst.

Traffik begins with that classic cinematic lie “inspired by true events” and ends with statistics for women who have been victims of human trafficking. Between these two bookends is a steaming pile of exploitative horse manure masquerading as a feature concerned with the sexual enslavement of women.

Science fiction is often used in allegorical fashion. It may not be fair to judge Automata by this gauge, but the film is so deathly somber and heavy-handed that I can only assume director Gabe Ibáñez wanted to tell us Something Important.

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.

There’s a rather disturbing sense of privilege in After the Fall. It can’t help but justify Ben’s actions by stacking the deck against the victims.

Best Man Down is billed as a "warm and funny comedy," a subjective description with which I do not agree. I would not consider this a comedy, let alone a warm and funny one. There are no laughs, and most attempts at humor are mean-spirited or embarrassing.

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

Grudge Match belongs to a fast-growing genre I'll call "Senior Citizen Action Porn," or SCAP. Proud members of SCAP include "Red" and its sequel, "Red 2," the "Expendables" series, and the best of the 2013 crop, Arnold Schwarzenegger's "The Last Stand."

Argylle is a cynical cash grab that has the audacity to use that “new” Beatles song, “Now and Then” (itself a cynical cash grab pieced together with far more skill than this movie) as the basis for its score and the “love theme” for Aidan and Elly.

For those who like their romance movies filled with unnecessary mysteries, murdered dogs, poached lobsters and the ghosts of deceased little girls, Dirt Music will fit the bill. All others need not apply, not even if you’re into the kind of Nicholas Sparks-style drama this movie shamelessly marinates in for an interminable 105 minutes.

This has to be an intentional wink from Stallone and his contemporaries. They know their days are not only numbered as action stars, but probably should have ended long ago.

Proud Mary doesn’t deserve the lack of faith its studio has in it. In fact, it’s almost good, so close to success that its flaws truly become frustrating.

Its plot is an unholy blending of “Taken," “The Searchers” and "Angel Heart." As befitting a January release, it’s also an early candidate for the 2016 worst movies list.

Though “Red One” is a bit of a slog, it’s still better than about 98 percent of the Christmas movie junk flung at us by the studios and streaming services every holiday season.

None of this is visually compelling, and “Mercy” plays like it was written as an AI system’s prompt response.

Director Patrick Hughes’ latest is both 112 minutes, and a hodgepodge of so many other movies that it becomes the most obnoxious of cinematic collages.

If you want to see the 1992 Los Angeles riots turned into a bad sitcom and an even worse Lifetime movie, buy a ticket to Kings.

The Last Victim plays like a bet between the filmmakers and some sadistic bully who triple-dog-dared them to fit all its disparate plotlines into a cohesive whole.

Love Hurts is an absolute mess, but its hero almost saves the day.

This is an astonishingly bad film.

The word convoluted does no justice to just how poorly designed Girl on a Bicycle is. It is also stereotypical, unfunny, unromantic, absurd, sitcomish, insulting to several European ethnicities and a slave to what Roger Ebert used to call "The Idiot Plot Syndrome."

Cut out thirty minutes, and this might have been a lean, mean Eighties-thriller throwback blessed with a killer lead performance.

Your kids will probably love this movie, which means you’ll be watching it often. Excuse me while I giggle with unSmurflike malice.

The somewhat inappropriate story won’t matter to youngsters who’ll be hypnotized by a color scheme so bright you need sunglasses to view it.

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.

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.

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.

You’ll see some durable makeup in Nina. What you won’t see is any justification why this film should exist.

Johnson tries her best, and O’Connor is good for a few laughs, but “Madame Web” is a lost cause. The special effects are confusing and the action scenes are poorly edited. By the time we get a rote explanation of Webb’s powers, it’s too late to care.

There is little else worth mentioning about this derivative, clunky, haphazardly written and visually dull sports movie except the performances by Christopher McDonald and Michael Nouri.

Reagan is the worst kind of hagiography. It’s a wretched 2½-hour bore that’s uncurious about its subject.

Ghost Team is neither scary nor funny.

If you came looking for the psychological sexing, or even just regular, good old fashioned erotic screwing, you’ll find it only if you’ve brought it to the theater yourself.

All you need to know is that this slow-moving, sci-fi origin story was made by Norwegian co-writer/director André Øvredal, the man who previously gave us the far more entertaining “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.”

A Haunted House 2 tones down the gay jokes but ups the streak of animal cruelty.

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.

The current incarnation of Seagal is no fun at all.

I can’t recommend Mega Time Squad but it does have a few things going for it.

Horror movies don’t have to make a lick of sense as long as they get under your skin, engage in some intriguing myth making, gross you out, or simply terrify you. The Toll tries to do several of these, failing so badly that you may be angry at yourself for watching it.

Hippie-swooning temptations aside, I remained tethered to The Marijuana Conspiracy thanks to the excellent performances by the actresses playing the main roles. They transcend their thinly-drawn characterizations and display the convincing level of camaraderie shared by a group who have gone through trouble together and emerged victorious at the end.

It’s full of pure, unadulterated love for “The Greatest,” so much so that the viewer can’t help but get enveloped in its adoration.

Had this been made back in the 1940s, it would have fit nicely in the same genre as Detour or The Maltese Falcon. It has a streak of hopeless nihilism that’s characteristic of the finest noir.