Randy Cordova

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 kind of fantasy that a 15-year-old boy would love, although parents probably should keep younger teens far, far away. This movie pushes the boundaries of its R rating about as far as they can go.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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."

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Olivier Megaton (he helmed "Taken 2") starts things off at a sluggish pace and never picks up speed. Even the action scenes, which often are filmed in jittery fashion, don't generate thrills.

It's all-around generic, made notable by its weirdly schizophrenic tone. Sometimes it strives to be a character-driven thriller in the Jason Bourne mold. In other moments, it goes for over-the-top action and violence. But it's never very exciting.

¡He Matado a Mi Marido! seems to be inspired by the kind of bold comedies that Pedro Almodóvar specializes in, with divas at center stage and madcap situations. But writer-director Francisco Lupini-Basagoiti is no Almodóvar, mistaking stupidity for zaniness.

Director Michael Goi is big on jump shocks that get increasingly tiresome.

Written, produced and directed by Christopher Nolen, who gives himself a small role, the movie fails as both a comedy and morality tale.

Strangely, almost everyone must have been in the middle of some weird creative dry spell. Some stories are pretentious, some are annoyingly whimsical and some are just out-and-out obnoxious.

The film is based on a popular series of young-adult books (big surprise), but one figures only die-hard fans will enjoy the result. The movie is slow-witted and moves at a glacial pace.

Nothing feels believable in “Big Stone Gap,” a bungled, charm-free look at small-town life in the South in the late '70s.

Life Itself is one of the worst kind of bad movies, because it achieves nothing that it sets out to do.

If you like a little bit more in a movie — say, characters that are mildly interesting or a plot that's a wee bit logical — stay far away.

The script, written by the actress, is downright wretched at times.

A brittle, pompous drama.

When an inane ending appears out of nowhere and purports to add depth to a movie which has little? That's just maddening. And the twist in Serenity leaves you feeling both cheated and annoyed, which surely isn't the filmmaker's intention.

The whole thing is sentimental corn, which isn’t bad if it’s handled with conviction and sincerity. But the direction by John Stephenson (better known for special effects than directing) is resolutely stiff and hollow. That’s murder for a movie dealing with miracles.

This wildly distasteful premise is meant to be cute and enlightening, like a modern Frank Capra flick, but this is hardly "It's a Wonderful Life." Instead, the movie keeps tripping over itself.

If you’re a major fan of the "Love Live!" world, this is possibly enjoyable. If you’re not, it is shrill, garish, confusing and badly paced, with cheap-looking animation and characters that resemble Walter Keane’s big-eyed waifs.

Elvis Presley made some bad movies, but let's give the King his due: He never made anything as outright awful as The Identical.

Agonizingly stupid and painfully illogical.

It’s hard to imagine another comedy coming along this year that is this abrasive and free of laughs. It’s like everyone involved intentionally tried to create a horrible movie.

The project drips with sincerity, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. What doesn't work is the tin-eared dialogue and the utter lack of momentum, both in the script or the direction by Nikita Zubarev.