Randy Cordova

Basically, a lot of things happen; not interesting or believable things, but, hey, there's movement and action.

There is no sense of dread or impending doom; instead it's just one jolt after another. It's like having someone jump out at you every five minutes, and about as much fun.

The screwball plot is woefully thin and predictable, with inane situations and characters who barely act human.

The film evolves into one of those "watch the hostage fall in love with her captor" tales, always an icky plot development that's not any more appetizing here. There are some more twists to be had, but it's never more than marginally interesting.

It looks great, Abbott is twitchy and terrific and you really want to like it. But it's never particularly involving, and it becomes even less so as it progresses. Ultimately, it's just a gorgeous, gruesomely wrapped package with little inside.

Unfortunately, nothing in the film –Foy's performance included – cuts the chill, and you're left trapped in a big, wintry void.

Despite competent performances all around, you never feel much chemistry between the actors.

Just when you're ready to throw in the towel, Plummer does something that keeps you going; maybe it's the quietly affecting way Jack turns up the twinkly charm as age and illness are starting to take things away. Then there's Farmiga's ability to mine a laugh out of angst and yet remain human, and MacDougall's sly, sleepy charm.

A Kid Like Jake, isn't terrible, but it sure could be better.

The film, much like Willis' performance, never flatlines, but it never delivers the thrills you expect from this type of genre piece.

It's not a total wash. Shaye's performance is reliably good and the sequences set in The Further (the netherworld of the "Insidious" films) have a kicky charge.

It's sometimes compelling, sometimes frustrating, and usually chaotic.

It’s an action movie without an exciting moment. It’s a special effects flick with chintzy visuals. And it’s a Gerard Butler vehicle without enough Gerard to go around.

Unfortunately, the name is the only thing emboldened about this starchy biopic, a dry, talky affair that even Liam Neeson in full glower can’t bring to life.

There are a lot of funny people in Brave New Jersey, but the movie is not very funny.

The chemistry between Baldwin and Moore is strangely disconnected. The performers aren't bad, but they don't generate any kind of heat.

The makers of Wish Upon must love the “Final Destination” films, because they perfectly mimic the style, which is alternately nerve-wracking and slightly silly.

Lane is an endearing performer, but she needs something, anything, to work with. Here, she's getting by on sheer likability.

Somewhere, deep inside Justice Served, there is the kernel of an interesting idea. But you've got to look hard, because the finished product is pretty dire stuff.

On the Map is more like a sleepy lecture during the last week of high school: You may hear some worthwhile information, but it's not going to stick.

Going in Style will probably be a lot more enjoyable if you’ve never seen the original. It’s not that the remake is terrible. It’s cheerful and undemanding, and an appealing cast makes the time go by painlessly enough. But the 1979 film is poignant and layered.

Despite all its noble qualities, the movie boasts a stiffness that keeps it from ever feeling fully alive.

Krasinski is likable and Martindale can make the lamest dialogue sound believable. But even they can't make us invest in characters that are nothing more than a collection of stock quirks and tics stuck in wildly contrived situations.

"Unfun" isn't a real word, but boy, it sure describes The Legend of Tarzan.

A movie that never quite comes to life, despite its title.

Unfortunately, what the filmmaker has wound up with is something that feels like it should be playing at the bottom end of a triple bill at a drive-in.

[Costner's] utter conviction to such a daffy project is strangely endearing. You may never believe one minute of Criminal, but Costner sure does.

Ultimately, the film is never boring, but it's never involving, either. At the end, what you're left with is a modestly entertaining film that doesn't seem to have an original thought in its head. In that way, it's a lot like the characters it spotlights.

The effect is initially giddy but it ultimately wears the viewer down.

The Finest Hours is set in the early '50s. But did it really need to feel like it was made during the Eisenhower era?

Cate Blanchett gives a ferocious performance as the steely Mapes, and she mines some genuine emotion out of the material.

There might be a decent movie in here somewhere, if the focus had been on the right character.

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau never made a movie called Grumpy Old Men Go Camping. If they had, it surely would look a lot like A Walk in the Woods.

Newbie director Aleksander Bach handles the project with a competent precision. The film doesn’t rise above the genre and the plot is muddled, but he pulls off the basic elements with a distinctly chilly European style.

Pat and silly, the movie offers a wheezy moral that a buttoned-up American just needs a sensitive Latino and some ethnic cuisine to end the blues.

At first, it’s fun and shiny, then you’re left with a crumpled mess on the floor.

Stark’s turgid approach feels both pompous and cold, and the film never connects emotionally.

A LEGO Brickumentary feels like one of those cheerful corporate videos that gets screened at team meetings, designed to rouse employees into a rah-rah fervor. The down side: Most videos of that ilk don’t last for 90 minutes.

The visual effects are impressive, and there is a certain kick to seeing the human characters dodging barrels in a life-size Donkey Kong. But we don’t really care about the humans; here, at least, Q*bert is more endearing than Adam Sandler.

The club scenes, initially exciting, are ultimately wearying, and the movie meanders about much of the time.

Visually, the film is sumptuous and the costumes are suitably wow-inspiring, but the humans are a blah bunch.

Everything feels pat and oversimplified, with no gray areas. That's not uncommon in films of this nature, but Christensen is unable to make the movie feel like anything more than propaganda.

Ultimately, the whole affair is forgettable. The original film was promoted with the tagline "It knows what scares you." If there was a truth-in-advertising law regarding films, this movie's ad copy would read: "Poltergeist: Meh."

The movie, like Jackie, loosens up a bit, and her relationship with Ian adds a nice bit of warmth. Hunt directs the film, and at times its tonal shifts are a bit jarring.

It is clean, crisp and passionless. You almost wish for some Bravo sleaze to add a little edge to the proceedings.

Supporting turns by Philip Rosenthal and David Alan Grier as two pals in the business are fun, but they can't prevent the movie's rather aimless nature or self-indulgent feel.

The movie makes some observations about the worth of human life — the title refers to the monetary value put on the life of the injured waiter — and the economic class system, but they're not terribly interesting or surprising.

It's no surprise The Boy Next Door is junk. What is disappointing is that it's not fun junk. It doesn't even merit a good hate-watching, because the whole thing is so meh.

Everything is lathered with a syrupy, string-laden musical score designed to gnaw at a viewer's tear ducts. It's about as subtle as having an off-screen narrator yell "Start crying!" before big scenes, and probably as effective.

First-time writer-director Peter Sattler keeps things glum and unsentimental, then tosses it all up in the air with a syrupy ending that derails everything. On another movie, the high-corn finale might have worked; here, it just feels patently false.

The movie is not uninteresting, but a viewer isn't breathlessly waiting to see how things will wrap up, either. By the third act, you even start to get impatient with the characters. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

The characters flutter about, argue and flirt, but they are simply too bland and vacuous to make much of an impression. It doesn't help that half of them serve no purpose other than to fill the camera frame.

Writer-director Amat Escalante was named best director at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for this project, and although it obviously is made with some skill, it also is unrelentingly dire.

Although everything here works for the most part, there is also a definite lack of oomph as the movie pushes toward the inevitable climax.

The filmmaker's seeming lack of skepticism makes for rough going if you don't buy into Kenyon's vision.

Documented is obviously a bit of advocacy filmmaking, which is fine, but most of the time it's not compelling enough to reach beyond the converted.

Although the visuals are spectacular — a barren Colorado River looks like a landscape from a science-fiction epic — there's not much else here to grab on.

Because the film is unable to settle on a tone, it's hard to get invested in much of anything.

First-time writer-director Tom Gormican keeps the dialogue moving at a rapid pace, which doesn’t obscure the fact that most of what is said is dopey and witless.

Most of the time, it simply coasts along at the level of a typical Lifetime TV movie.

It feels like a filmmaker’s exercise rather than an involving motion picture. Although you may never be bored with All Is Lost, you are rarely fully engaged.

Nick Ryan’s documentary looks at the disaster by using interviews, actual footage and re-enactments. The latter move undercuts some of the movie’s authenticity. Granted, there probably wasn’t another way to film it, but it muddies the film’s sense of truth.

The movie ultimately winds up falling between two stools, failing as both a biography and an action film. Martial arts fans will naturally be drawn to the story, but the film does nothing to open up the world to outsiders.

The gags are stale, the characters uninvolving and bits meant to titillate don’t.

Ultimately, At Any Price isn’t terrible, but you can tell that’s hardly the endorsement the filmmakers were seeking.

The movie is a pretty humdrum affair when it focuses on humans, even when actors are playing characters based on real people.