Rodrigo Perez

Desert Road is an admirably ambitious movie, but it just never lands and is too sparse and spare to work.

In some senses, Zhao bucks the Marvel formula, but goes so far off-piste, everything that’s enjoyable about Marvel—the breezy snap, crackle, and pop of escapist watchable entertainment—go out the window in favor of something far more muddled. In another sense, it’s not all that different, just not orchestrated very well with an ill-advised structure that mars the entire affair.

It’s a curious mix of contradictions, sentimental in its longing worship for “Ghostbusters” and yet cynical and manipulative in the way it seems to rehash every classic moment of the original, insulting the audience’s intelligence along the way by giving them every cameo, wink, and nod they never knew they actually didn’t want until it was slathered all over them like so much disgusting green ghost goop.

Certainly possesses a lot of energy, but it's never harnessed or focused effectively. As a buddy comedy, all four leads have done better, and you already know what those movies are, and this one doesn't stand among them.

Project Power, especially from these “Catfish” and “Paranormal Activity” filmmakers ultimately feels like a big let down— a captivating idea about the way the system preys on the disadvantaged and the constant exploitation and appropriation of black and brown voices, that fizzles out fast once the high of its concept wears off.

Ultimately Beauty And The Beast feels like a cynical rehash seemingly created just to make a fiscal year sound promising to shareholders. This is a product that’s more manufactured than inspired.

If your basic movie needs demand a little bit more -- logical premises; interesting, marginally original characters; dialogue that doesn’t reek of throaty, aspirational monologue after monologue -- Pacific Rim will leave you feeling hollow and wanting.

Not even the funniest actors on the planet could save what is an occasionally humorous, but largely unremarkable rehash.

Wild never really earns its hard-fought struggle for redemption and personal reinvention.

To say it’s a step backward for the franchise is an understatement.

Part escapist action-adventure, part would-be exhilarating quest of self-discovery, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty isn’t so much a mess because it wants to be everything at once, but because it employs hackneyed and mawkish methods to achieve a false sense of joyfulness.

It would be unfair and an exaggeration to say 'Part III' ends with a whimper, as there are a few moments to savor, but there's hardly a climatic bang and, sadly, absolutely nothing epic and explosive about this rather tepid and forgettable trilogy closer.

Quantumania is not all dud, per se. Even if it’s not as comical or entertaining as usual, there is a good cast involved here, Kathryn Newton is a welcome edition, and Paul Rudd can’t help but elevate sub-par material. But otherwise, Quantumania is shockingly unremarkable.

Theron can survive almost anything onscreen. Apex proves, once again, that she can carry weak material farther than most actors. It also proves that even she cannot quite drag a dull survival programmer up the mountain.

Without a marriage of inspired storytelling, straight up regurgitation doesn’t elevate new tech. Also, thinking about could and should, one needs to consider good taste, but that’s clearly not driving any of the decisions here.

Meant to appear as some kind of tribute to the victims and families of the Kursk, Vinterberg’s poorly strategized film barely justifies its existence.

It's not particularly funny or moving and it's terribly self-indulgent. Flamboyance and cartoonishness rule, there's hardly a moment of genuine emotion, and most overtures in that direction are superficial. As a picture ostensibly about love, revenge and the ugliness of slavery, Django Unchained has almost zero subtext and is a largely soulless bloodbath, in which the history of pain and retribution is coupled carelessly with a cool soundtrack and some verbose dialogue. Though it might just entertain the sh.t out of the less discerning.

Suicide Squad isn’t a terrible movie per se and judged against its forbearer, ‘Batman v Superman,’ it resembles a shining beacon of coherence. But Suicide Squad isn’t a very good movie either, a mediocre effort with commonplace ideas of rebelliousness and salvation.

“Superman” may leap tall buildings and succeed on most of Gunn’s terms, divergent from Marvel and old DC, inversely punk rock, and overloaded with bright, colorful hopefulness, but it won’t really soar like a bird or a plane for anyone who demands symbolic gestures of optimism are meaningfully made.

Its atrocious, expository dialogue, cumbersome plot, whiplashing character motivations, unintentionally funny moments, and often corny costumes, ensures, Dark Phoenix will be remembered in the annals of mediocre movies (and for somehow utterly wasting Jessica Chastain, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and James McAvoy in the same film).

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back isn’t a throwaway, and mainstream action/thriller fans should come out more than satisfied at the visceral nature of the film. But anyone hoping for more than a superficial on-the-run chase movie will probably wish Reacher had stayed home, instead of going back.

White interjecting its social commentary, “Snow White” otherwise tackles much of the same ideas—the notions of true love, the power of friendship, and the triumph of good over evil—but it’s all put together in a very familiar and garish package. The fairest in the land? Far from it.

Fuqua’s movie, unqualified to create anything other than superficial poignancy, is empty, tiresome and uninteresting, satisfied with repeatedly communicating that if you exploit the innocent, harm the oppressed or abandon your code of conscience, Robert McCall will be there to set things right and severely punish you several times over.

Packing a promising first act that quickly goes south and and a select few fun action beats, Ang Lee may be a disciple of technology, but if he’s going to trade the potential of meta-commentary on aging, youth, an actor’s legacy and more, for something meant to be slick entertainment, he’s still going to need a more convincing sermon.

The Electric State really aims to be an epic, spectacularly shaped, crowd-pleasing blockbuster, but missing the mark so often, it just veers more and more off course, to be a loud, blustery, hectic extravaganza that’s all noisy dressing and no depth or humanity. It says nothing and offers little other than a folding laundry distraction.

Zoolander 2 is no disaster, but it’s almost worse; a tedious jag that barely works as a disposable and mild, if-its-on-cable-TV, diversion.

Aloha is bittersweet overkill. Familiar and unwieldy, the dramedy is one long, sustained and ultimately overwrought note of happy/sad wistfulness that loops itself into an echo of strained feedback.

[A] benign, only marginally-amusing-at-best nostalgia cash grab.

It’s, unfortunately, just one-dimensional, a little first-draft-y, perhaps rushed and hurried, and never as powerful or emotional as the film obviously hopes to be.

For some audiences, Bleeding Heart may deliver some much needed catharsis, but it’s ultimately a hollow film that isn’t concerned with consequences or the echoing cycle of violence, just vanquishing the bad guy, reclaiming a dime store sense of “freedom,” and not much more.

Its insistence on trying to balance wannabe sincerity and earnest actions with laughs is a tonally misconceived idea. Ultimately more forgettable then deplorable, Baywatch isn’t so much a disastrous spill in the ocean as it is disposable garbage making a mess.

An uninspired movie, The Drop would be utterly forgettable if it weren't for the fact that you’re left wondering how all this talent created something so unexceptional.

Decker is good at articulating sinister moods and unstable psyches, but anything resembling a cogent narrative is challenged.

While it’s Lawrence’s most mature and relatively subtle effort to date, it’s also, unfortunately, a slog. The director’s well-intentioned patience ultimately means nothing when its interminable pacing makes the movie feel twice as protracted as its longwinded, two-hour-plus running time.

The Wolverine wants to have it both ways: a dark character story and an action-packed superhero film. But it never reconciles the two notes, and thus becomes more and more atonal as it wobbles towards its symphonically jarring ending.

Accidental Love is mostly a mess, a curiosity for fans, and a mangled misfire you'd understand anyone hoping to omit from their CV.

The Fence presents a theatrical style that paralyzes the film into a tense but frustrating checkmate for much of its running time.

Both Stearns and Gillan commit to the detached tenor. Still, it’s often more distant and isolating than it is funny, therefore leading to a movie that feels misjudged and far too remote, even for those well-versed and conversant in this weirdly lopsided style.

It also portends to be a sincere moral fable about avarice and the way it corrupts people—via the bookends of the beginning and end of the story—but it hardly convinces and leaves one a little puzzled at the jejune attempt at blurting something meaningful after 90 minutes of wacky crime tales and dishonest people.

While it has its moments, a few good laughs, a few impressive thriller sequences, and Evans with his delectably douchey little trash stash, “The Gray Man” is generally an unremarkable swing and miss that wants the best of both worlds, but can’t really thread that needle.

Make no mistake, most audiences will find ‘Believer’ revolting, but that’s also the point. It’s fascinating in the way it swings for the fences, is full of conviction, and is overflowing with stimulating ideas about acceptance, denial, community, and more, many of them engaging, many of them handled with no sense of taste (to which Green would probably argue is what Friedkin’s film did; good taste be cast out!).

Knock Helgeland’s unpersuasive plot, his broad writing platitudes, and some of the more ridiculous twists of the genre all you want, but the filmmaker at least seems to know, understand, and capture the milieu and people of these communities. Sure, that’s not enough to save Finestkind, but there is something there.

Intimate, but never actually involving, The Glass Castle at least has admirable performances to watch.

“Rebel Moon” is nearly unwatchable and one of the most stunning misfires of this scale in quite some time.

While stylishly capturing the verve, exotica, and free-spirited mojo of swinging '60s London, uber-prolific English director Michael Winterbottom's portrait of legendary U.K. smut impresario Paul Raymond is otherwise a shallow misfire.

The film is curiously schizophrenic. Brill’s screenplay mixes traditional rom-com generics with sporadically funny R-rated vulgarity and ludicrously dumb gags.

The Greatest Hits is way worse than just a sophomore slump, more accurately, a long-the-works opus that should have just stayed in the vaults.

No One Will Save You is a very bizarrely unremarkable, abnormally lifeless movie, seemingly starting right out of the gate in the second act and then trying to reverse engineer the audience’s sympathy—and everything else— for the unknowable protagonist.

A movie that is fundamentally ill-conceived, poorly written, and missing most of the basic charms that made the original “Wonder Woman” such a delight (minus the last act). Directed again by Patty Jenkins, the film is also something of a nonsensical mess narratively, even by the most lenient and forgiving standards of superhero movies where fantastical, impossible things routinely occur. Suspension of disbelief is crucial to this genre, but ‘WW84’ is constantly breaking or conveniently upgrading its rules in ways that definitely break or at least always test your suspension of disbelief.

The Dirt is ultimately supposed to be an unapologetic tribute to living the fast life, but in the end, it’s just painfully dated and pointless with zero depth or insights.

Never once does it carry any of the unclassifiable “It factor” charm that sometimes elevates a mediocre movie. Nope, “Red Notice” is just deeply unexceptional and pedestrian: a lot of lights shining on three worldwide-class superstars, with perfect white teeth with explosions and gloss all around them, and never once creating anything that resembles a captivating spark.

Pain & Gain fails at being an entertaining and ridiculously fun Michael Bay movie and curdles into something much more tone deaf and obnoxious.

As the clock ticks, the film asks, who can this qualified woman trust, but mostly, we’re just looking at our watch, waiting for the dull torment to end.

It’s incredibly soulless, disposable, and as generic as they come.

The McConaissance finds no purchase here. Mining for something adventurous and coming up empty handed, ultimately the dramatically-challenged Gold digs for something fiery and collects zero treasure along the way.

Charlie Countryman opens up with an interesting first section, but only backslides deeper and deeper in its overwrought and incoherent second and third acts.

Campy and cartoonish, Burton’s Big Eyes is not the return to form many were hoping for. It is another phony and hollow piece of sugary kitschploitation masquerading under the guise of an “important true story” that places a nearly grotesque premium on style over any traces over substance.

In the depths of the abyss below, The Gorge mostly turns into a high-concept action film that’s so dull, predictable and ugly to look at it’s extremely easy to tune out and have your mind go on autopilot while the otherwise charismatic Teller and Taylor-Jones are wasted.

Fountain Of Youth may feel superficially dynamic, and cinematically, it sure tries its best to trick you into thinking it’s a vigorous thing, but it’s just a cup filled with empty calories, sustaining nothing and ironically, only just wasting precious minutes off your life.

There’s some interesting ideas floating around about identity, manhood, and what it means to connect with someone in an over-connected world, but A Case Of You (named for a Joni Mitchell song that’s not actually in the film) never actively explores them. Instead, it delves into generic rom-com and ropey cliché to little comic effect.

A would-be but not-actually-inspiring movie about a landmark LGBT rights case that loses sight of the flesh and blood people at its heart, gets bogged down in tedious municipal politics and fails to find a way to compellingly dramatize an important story.

It’s maybe not excruciatingly bad, but certainly even less nourishing and satisfying than even the most fleeting and calorically empty of sugar highs.

The film is not unlike a classic rock supergroup reuniting to play all the greatest hits, with the payday at the end as the only true motivation, rather than returning with something new to say about their work.

Look, America certainly needs relief, support, escape, and laughter, yes, but good god, ‘Barb & Star’ is not it.

The film plays nary a note of reprieve and the dank aesthetic does nothing to help the mood. “Low Down” is unequivocally a downer.

Labelling Live By Night a disaster is a little uncharitable; the baggy drama is perhaps more painfully mediocre than full-blown folly, but it’s close.

It’s all largely an ugly, vulgar, vacuous time that’s disposable and never as amusing as it clearly thinks it is.

A major gaffe, God Help The Girl finds a great artist taking on a huge challenge and stumbling painfully on its ambition almost every step of the way.

The heroine of the film may not be in distress, but oh boy, is this movie in desperate need of saving.

Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus is, without question, bold, distinct, and idiosyncratic filmmaking with its own voice. Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good or in any kind of reasoned key.

Forgettable and only mildly entertaining, 300: Rise of An Empire seals its own fate at the initial story level by being so deeply invested in its own mythmaking and playing super safe.

Largely inert and undramatic, what you're left with is a tedious sentiment: “by the grace of god” this horrible crisis ended without violence, explosives, or spark. Congratulations?

Heart Of Stone purports to have characters made of sturdy, gritty, golden, unbreakable stuff, but that’s a tagline, not a movie or story; it’s really just flimsy work easily tossed off and broken as it tumbles into the ever-filling bin of barely-one-use Netflix movies.

A Good Day To Die Hard isn’t dead on arrival because that would suggest it has a pulse.

A superficial tale about the casualty at the center of the story, Extremely Wicked, rings hollow and false and is really just as interested in the sensational and salacious as any other reductive thriller.

The wandering, strictly bush league movie, unfortunately, cannot reprise the unbridled strut of Quintana’s ‘Lebowski’ braggadocio, suggesting perhaps we should leave the resurrection of beloved characters to the professionals.

At this point, the Monsterverse needs the much simpler, dumb-fun, pleasurable joy of “Kong: Skull Island” because ‘New Empire,’ just ain’t cutting it beyond loud and senseless brawls that aren’t even a delight to watch.

Acerbic and purposefully vile, LaBute’s story is clearly self-aware of its various cruel manipulations of character and audience, but the formula itself -- taken from his early modus operandi -- is simply becoming more and more rote.

Ill-defined, overlong and wandering with unlikable leads (even Alan is too feeble and useless to sympathize with), The Mend would be a disaster if it weren't for the fact that the lack of vision is marginally absorbing in a kind train wreck, “will this movie ever reveal what the hell it’s about?”-like manner.

Paradise is neither a good film nor is there any evidence it was a good script.

Venom isn’t sure what film it wants to be, and it makes for an unintelligible, queasy roller coaster ride.

Ultimately, put its questionable politics aside, Without Remorse, even as a simplistic action thriller is joyless and lifeless, an arid space of empty macho bullshit with a lead character who is the equivalent of a bulging forehead veins meme.

For anyone who even gives even the remotest care about movies, god forbid you dare to waste your time with this utterly disposable discard.

The Dark Tower is a tepid non-starter from minute one.

With a weak script, no visual engagement, and limp comedy despite the comedic actors on board, Kinda Pregnant was always a sure-fire miss.

Given how poorly made, poorly written, and poorly crafted “The 355” is —with action that is casually visceral, but actually borderline incompetent and super sloppily staged—the final product reeks of superficial vanity project intended to “let girls be badass” rather than trying to circumvent, better, or elevate the genre (or women for that matter).

It’s just dull, deeply bland, and unsophisticated, with little to say about any of its themes of intolerance, fear, misogyny, and gaslighting, other than these feelings exist.

The cavernous emptiness of The Canyons cannot sustain itself, and it makes for a mostly flat, strained and uninvolving experience (not helped by the pace which makes 90 minutes, feels like a sluggish two hours).

Unexceptionally directed by Roar Uthaug (Norwegian hit “The Wave“), Tomb Raider is superficial even for a mainstream tentpole, clumsily and unpersuasively put together and tests and breaks suspension of disbelief at every turn.

Need For Speed possesses eye-rolling, tone deaf dialogue, passable performances (unless you’re Dominic Cooper or Kid Cudi) and plotting so conventional, there’s not even one surprise U-turn anywhere.

Featuring a fittingly shallow funk-lite score by Christophe Beck, Gringo, is ultimately like a Taco Bell version of the ‘90s crime genre; tasteless, cheaply made and just as inauthentic.

The premium placed on upmarket, glossy, muscular cars is so conspicuous that Fuqua scored buyback product placement cash. Elon Musk would surely be enamored. It’s essentially that kind of movie, “The Matrix” and Nolan-lite for dudes who check their bitcoin futures during the movie on their smartphones. Sick, bro.

This is a B-movie of the week at best, which should be starring also-ran actors looking for a paycheck, not some of Hollywood’s finest.

With no plot to speak of, a baggy tangent across Europe in the mid-section, and no forward momentum, War Machine soon descends into the quicksand of its own design and never recovers. From there it’s an enervating slog of two hours that invites sleep.

This pleasingly mellow portrait of a bunch of kids making movies is also an instance of defanged nostalgia — when it was an occasion to highlight the economic, political, cultural circumstances that made this kind of creativity possible.

Get A Job is such a baffling endeavor the callow movie could conceivably come with its own milk carton campaign asking: “Where is Dylan Kidd and what have you done with him?”

The risible Stoker is a brutally empty, deeply unfortunate movie, and Park Chan-wook's jackhammer of a tool he calls a brush is, on this evidence, something that should be locked away.

The Last Knight is like a Red Bull-charged Bay yelling “I regret nothing!” as he jumps out of a plane backwards with no chute, detonating a megaton nuclear explosive while firing Uzis at his skydiving pals above him because hell, dude, that sounds like a wicked fond farewell. [