Peter Hartlaub

Watching The Goldfinch is like reading a novel where someone ripped out every third page from front to back. You can tell there’s a good story, with compelling characters, and maybe a strong mystery. But the connective tissue is missing to the point of constant distraction.

Aquaman continues to revel in the outdated 1970s superhero ideal that mankind is unquestionably worth saving. Add to that some awkward dialogue, a poorly conceived visual effects palette, and a soul-crushing and bladder-crushing 139-minute run time, and you have another disappointing entry in the DC Comics cinematic universe.

Unfortunately, it’s not much of a movie. The best thing “Happytime” has going for it is shock value, and that wears away after about 10 minutes. It doesn’t have an interesting story, and the jokes fall flat.

Show Dogs is really bad, even for a talking-dog movie.

The new version is a weak facsimile of an already mediocre film.

A film that looks way more fun to make than it is to watch. There’s a stubbornness to the comedic approach, mostly in its unwillingness to age since the first “Super Troopers.”

Mostly it serves as a comprehensive manual of bad places to hide from a masked killer.

Although it isn’t a top-flight horror movie — too slow for thrill-chasers, too ridiculously fictionalized for historians — the film serves as a proper 99-minute commercial for that San Jose tourist spot.

It’s a poorly made film, with rough edits, distracting staging and plot contrivances that can be predicted to the moment.

And then there’s the real problem with Pitch Perfect 3: The best thing about the first movie — the singing — feels like an afterthought.

Daddy’s Home 2 is an excessively negative, strained and predictable comedy.

Some people clearly had a good time making this film. Whether you have a good time watching it depends almost entirely on your Pony love walking in.

The filmmakers offer very few clues, just more aqua filters and low-contrast visuals. And with each new jarring edit, the viewer cares less and less, until the 100 minutes seem to stretch on forever.

The Nut Job 2 isn’t maddening like “Smurfs 2,” where you continue to hate yourself years later for spending the money. It’s an adequate babysitter that completely fails to inspire.

Captain Underpants is a very popular book series that doesn’t seamlessly translate to the big screen, and the filmmakers can’t solve this problem. The result is a cinematic wedgie: a little too dark, a little too nihilistic, a little too empty.

Smurfs: The Lost Village has the look of a film that was rushed, and made on a tight budget. At best, it’s an adequate cinematic babysitter.

We get a lot of hapless victims in an expensive endeavor that is surprisingly lifeless.

The Shack is unshakable in its religious message, and that’s admirable in a cynical world. But viewed objectively as cinema, it’s just not a very good film.

The film is a plodding 2 ½ hours long, with an abundance of livestock gore, endless dental trauma and a violent sex scene.

A Dog’s Purpose is peril porn; the animal grows old or faces tragedy and expires over and over, reincarnating into a new dog with the same brain.

The Bye Bye Man is the kind of mess that happened by committee.

The Ice Age screenwriters seem to be making up the rules as they go along, distracted by tired side plots to give the other characters a reason to exist in the film.

The sequel is even more silly, and much less fun.

There are isolated moments of humor, and even charm. The visual effects are at times outstanding. But these positives are overwhelmed by the uninspired whole.

The makers were clearly paying attention to the smaller details. But somehow, they missed all the big things that made the first Point Break a memorable escapist film of its time.

Yes, the life expectancy of a chipmunk maxes out at 10 years in captivity. So biologically, we must be coming toward the end of this franchise. That’s not the type of thing a critic looks up when filmmakers make more of an effort.

Every key plot turn is telegraphed at least twice, just in case you missed it the first time. Every emotional moment in the movie is foreshadowed a few beats in advance by the manipulative musical score.

Belongs in a less ambitious category of sequels, alongside the creatively lacking “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Ice Age” movies.