Odie Henderson

Unfortunately, I didn’t laugh very much, and the story didn’t work as well as the movies that inspired it.

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.

This The Other Side of the Wind has a haphazard “well, he shot it, so we better include it” vibe. One wonders just how much of the existing editing Welles got to oversee himself; the answer is: probably not much. There’s a tight, 80-minute feature trapped in The Other Side of the Wind, one that Welles most likely would have exhumed had he not run out of money while filming.

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

Unfortunately, Durkin’s script is so shallow that every character is reduced to a simple sketch.

Uncle Frank commits the unforgivable sin of giving us one evil character whose demise suddenly unleashes a wave of understanding amongst family members who were, until this point, perfectly happy to enforce the harmful status quo that traumatized one of their own.

Driver and Cruz are perfect surnames for actors starring in a movie called “Ferrari.” That was just one of the many thoughts I had as the minutes slowly ticked by. At least the loud sound mix kept me awake.

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

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.

Big Ass Spider! wants to serve two masters, the ones who unabashedly enjoy this type of movie without shame, and the ones who openly mock it with false senses of superiority.

Because Disney wants your money, of course. I don’t begrudge their need for greed; I just wish they hadn’t given us yet another movie built on the pseudo-psychological cliché that adults need to reconnect with their childhoods in order to be better adults.

Alone gives us little reason to care if our hero makes it out alive, but I have to give credit where it’s due: Jessica isn’t written as some damsel in distress. Though she does make a questionable choice or two, she’s more crafty and engaged than a standard victim.

Basically, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is the same movie as “Avatar: The Way of Water,” the franchise’s prior installment. The only difference is that fire is the primary element, and the new villain looks like a gigantic, enraged chicken.

Thank goodness for Method Man, who understood the assignment and made the film watchable and fun whenever Jordan showed up. When he isn’t on screen, “Bad Shabbos” is a mediocre movie.

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

Fatherhood is at its best and most watchable when it’s just Hart and Hurd onscreen. Matt and Maddy’s undeniable and reciprocated love for one another radiates from the actors, even in their broadest scenes of comedy.

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.

Once again, Fastvold and Corbet have crafted a movie I admired more than I liked.

Fans of Lanthimos’s works outside his Emma Stone movies will find “Kinds of Kindness” worth watching. As for the rest of us: You’ll start out clapping along with “Sweet Dreams,” but by the end, you’ll be singing Peggy Lee’s immortal question, “Is That All There Is?”

You need a blackboard full of X’s and O’s to keep track of the petty plays this movie's running.

Unfortunately, “The Roses” is a toothless take on the material. The stakes are never as high as they were in the 1989 movie, and the film takes too much time trying to humanize these people. By the time they’re actively trying to sabotage and murder one another, the movie has completely lost its nerve. The end result feels rushed and weak-willed.

Coming 2 America is like attending your high school reunion: You’ll enjoy seeing the familiar faces of those with whom you once shared such fond experiences, but then you’ll realize that the nostalgia of that past is far more fulfilling than the harsher realities of the present.

I cop to not being a fan of Lynn Shelton’s work. Her films fall apart in their third acts. Rather than simply crumble as they have in her prior work, the third act of Laggies implodes in grand fashion, spewing contrivances, bad clichés and an ending that is simply unforgivable.

Despite an impressive pedigree in front of and behind the camera, “Shirley” fails to convey just how remarkable the career of Shirley Chisholm really was. The problem isn’t the narrow focus on one of her accomplishments, it’s the even narrower depiction of who she was as a person.

“Axel F” is a joyless affair, a mediocre simulacrum that made me long for the original.

Fiennes has an excellent rapport with Lewis-Parry, making their scenes as compelling and moving as anything “28 Years Later” had to offer. It’s too bad that every time the Samson-Kelson plotline gets good, we’re yanked back to dopey Jimmy’s goofy gang and its religious mumbo jumbo.

Dern is excellent, as usual, and her scenes with Arnett feel realistic. The screenplay by Cooper, Arnett, and Mark Chappell is really thin, however, and I didn’t find any of these people compelling.

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