Rodrigo Perez

Mufasa: The Lion King could have been a very great and worthy ‘Lion King’ successor, but thanks to the perceived requirements of what this franchise demands, it’s only just a good one, which is a shame, given its regal and majestic potential.

The trio of Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, and Joey King create an interesting dynamic; the ultimately well-intentioned film has some interesting things to say about late-in-life love, the many facets of self-absorption, and the way we use the notion of protecting the ones we love under the guise of selfish self-interest.

If Suncoast ultimately lacks major insights, it is hard to argue that it at least combats its slenderness with a poignant sense of empathy and compassion for draining emotional hardships.

The climax is entertaining and crazy but not necessarily as satisfying as it hopes to be. Still, for all its flaws and inability to deliver in the end, False Positive is a captivating take on the misrepresentation of the pregnancy “glow.”

Finders Keepers tries to find the humanity in the absurd, and while it surely has its share of moving moments, the conciliation of the sensational and profound is hard to reconcile.

Unflinchingly honest and grim, Sunlight Jr. is a valuable piece of work from a filmmaker who has a distinctive voice and concerns.

Straight Outta Compton, while often entertaining and dynamic, ultimately feels as if its meant to act as a kind of cinematic trophy to rest on a pedestal that celebrates not only N.W.A., but the successful and trailblazing members who helped define hip hop outside of the group.

Pulpy and silly, while still having Hitchcockian levels of taut tension and suspense, this first-date-gone-wrong thriller may not be logically coherent, but it’s still self-aware of itself enough and its outrageous moments that it still manages to be a relatively fun diversion despite its inherent inanities.

Freewheelin’ and almost similar to a long jazz riff that could have been reigned in, Husbands is occasionally fascinating and often tedious.

The overall shape of the movie can sometimes be akin to F-word abuse for comedy. It can be thrillingly funny at first, especially coming out of the mouths of heroes you don’t typically hear such foulness from (not Wilson, obviously), but by the 90th time you hear an F-bomb, it starts to lose its value and power. Still, despite all its flaws, ‘D&W’ humorously diverts in the moment, but as a durable movie or even a long-lasting MCU film, it’s no slam dunk. Nostalgia doesn’t necessarily cause deep self-harm in the picture, but it arguably doesn’t help the aim to create a memorable and enduring movie either. LFG? Sure, I guess.

For all its emotional horrors—witnessing the worst of ourselves and hoping for the best versions of ourselves eventually triumph over our inherent faults—Multiverse of Madness is arguably lacking the humanity, the heart, and soul of Marvel that works so well when balanced with humor and spectacle.

[Clooney's] out-of-current-fashion movies can feel quaint in some ways, but more power to the filmmaker who can make whatever the hell they want and do it well and do so on their own terms.

Despite some creative missteps, there’s still some fight left in “Christy” and Sweeney to make it to the next round.

Unfortunately, Zoom movies do not really benefit anyone, Morales or otherwise (but hopefully this means, she gets another opportunity to do it for “real” out in the world). Duplass’ Spanish is good (a nice plus), and the movie’s intentions are in the right place; it’s warm, warm-hearted, and even mildly bittersweet, but in short, no more Zoom movies, please, and thanks.

Billy Lynn has its moments, but its critical and unexpected folly is that the cutting-edge technology diminishes the picture emotionally, its ungainly look trivializes the drama and indulges it with an undesirable air of superficiality.

Fleck and Boden certainly have strong filmmaking smarts. They understand restraint, have terrific observational eyes, and know how to coax honest performances out of actors. So it’s perhaps a shame that Mississippi Grind is ultimately too underwhelming to stake with any confidence.

Song One is well intentioned, well-shot and has its musical heart in the right place, but it often feels incredibly familiar, and the more contrived, credulity-straining moments don’t help.

Godzilla asks you to care about its characters, achieves that aspiration, earns your trust, and then not only pivots towards a far less interesting character, but abandons most of its absorbing emotional legwork for a fairly rote and straightforward rock ‘em, sock ‘em monster movie.

A moving movie that tries too hard to please and thus never truly satisfies.

The Deepest Breath isn’t hiding the fact that there are daring hazards involved with athletes risking their lives for world records, but it isn't exactly forthcoming either, and the failure to effectively thread that needle is its biggest problem.

Yes, Naishuller is an inventive action shooter, and if highly-tuned, keyed-up action orchestration is your game, Nobody will light you up, no doubt. However, if you’d love to see the intriguing ideas—that the movie itself proposes upfront—about fatherhood, guardianship, violence, contempt, and neglect, at least semi-threaded throughout the action story, you’ve come to the wrong movie.

There’s probably just enough elevation by Pearce and Jarvis’ performances to overpower the novice inputs of Williams and Miller. Inside is mostly passable as a film about men and prisons that thinks – wait for it – inside the box.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 feels like a darker, the-end-times-are-near blockbuster in the vein of a big “Avengers” Marvel movie, and it’s unclear how being like everyone else serves a franchise that has been perfectly content to be its weird, wacky, lovable little self.

Good Grief arguably doesn’t quite get there in the end, but there is a promising sense of possibility for what the future could hold for Levy as a filmmaker next.

There’s certainly necessarily nothing off with Diane Von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge in terms of its craft, its breezy structure, its slick pace, etc. It’s a handsomely made documentary, but it always borders on fawning puff pieces, letting us into the life of the fashion mogul but still making you feel like it’s a surface portrait meant to resell something vintage, like a classic dress everyone already knows and admires.

Ninjago is mildly entertaining, and kids should find it pleasurable enough, but it’s missing that special spark, the kind of joyful flicker that compels children to ask for the movie on DVD at Christmas

Marvel’s ‘First Steps’ may feel somewhat unique in tone, carefree and blithe in a manner audiences haven’t seen before, and yes, these inaugural strides are the best version of these heroes to be experienced on screen. But unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily mean that ‘First Steps is essential, or even fantastic viewing.

Its patchy tone, plot, characters and sympathies make for a film that’s difficult to wholeheartedly endorse.

While its ambition does show a director still aspiring for great heights, its patchy execution only partly restores the faith.

As undercooked as ‘Jacqueline’ can be, the movie oddly comes to life at the end with its themes of pointlessness and God laughing at your plans finally coming full circle.

Gently involving, but never quite engrossing, there’s a first draft shape to the picture that feels slight and makes for a minor work.

The Nightmare can be deeply distressing and blood-curdling, and it can be a little silly, too.

A curious, half-successful mutation in the “Predator” bloodline, ‘Badlands’ wants to transcend the franchise’s primal instincts. Instead, it proves that sometimes survival means knowing what not to evolve. Or at least, pushing the envelope with greater execution and story conviction.

Admirable, ambitious and impressive, but ultimately aloof, Midsommar has its delights for sure, but it lacks the emotional depth to match the sharp insights it has into the evils of the ambivalent, wishy-washy relationship (run as fast as you can).

Ultimately, Glass is a killer concept that suffers from a wobbly execution. Shyamalan nails the intimate stuff, but that third act is just bound to shatter and confound audience expectation.

Ultimately, Thank You For Your Service is commendable and, well, serviceable. But it’s more of an honorable discharge rather than something you fete with medals of esteem.

While it’s hard to indict the movie for wanting to admire and honor this extraordinary girl, the movie loses its own inherent potency with a haphazard structure that jumps around far too much in time and a monotonous narrative about Malala overcoming oppressors to bravely speak out and inspire the world.

Well shot and well made, Kill Your Darlings is a very competently constructed effort on a whole, but there’s an emptiness and familiarity at its core that it cannot transcend.

Though not a poor effort per se -- David Chase's Not Fade Away does authentically captures the heart and soul of the music of the era and the intoxicating/naive dream of making it big -- the picture isn't exactly a remarkable one either.

Crown Heights works best when the political and the personal merge with the insidious nature of corruption and systemic cultural, societal and economic oppression.

A weird, uneven mixed bag, there’s much about Mojave that’s paradoxically maddening and doesn’t really add up. As the movie plot becomes less interesting and more straight-forward — like a slasher movie with the evil antagonist character slowly closing in on the hero — it becomes funnier and more purely enjoyable.

Yes, it’s the DCEU’s best film, but as we know, that’s not saying a lot. But, hey, that terrific second act that we should cling to even if it’s a distant memory by the time love defeats aggression. “Wonder Woman” might be molded by the mighty Gods, but as shaped by mere mortals her mettle and beliefs and can be only so wonderfully divine.

Alluring and captivating, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely can’t ultimately overcome its undeveloped arty tendencies, but its hazy exploration of dread and desire is still unique enough to make an impression.

Size may not matter in this diminutive story, but the film's slight, disposable quality hardly qualifies it as an essential tale to astonish.

Sentimentality, earnestness, and the ability to tap into naked vulnerability—normally [Gunn's] great qualities—get the best of him, turning ‘Vol 3’ into a largely maudlin, overwrought, overstuffed, and melodramatic mess that only works in fits and starts.

Both McConaughey and Ferrera’s characters embody the idea of an everyday hero: perhaps imperfect but unselfishly stepping up to help others in a time of crisis. While the movie’s artifice makes it a thrilling watch, its real-life inspiration is equally just as moving.

Stronger feels genuine and certainly has the right intentions, but never converts to something truly enlivening.

It’s an inferior, often frustrating film, it’s hard to root for, and its consideration of its people of color is dubious, even as it features them as protagonists. But nonetheless, there’s some value, especially in is visceral qualities and the chilling nihilism of its violence.

A lovely, but uneven moral tale of love, forgiveness and heartrending misdeeds, Derek Cianfrance’s The Light Between Oceans is conceptually sound, and at times, beautifully gut-wrenching. But the plaintive picture often becomes engrossed in conveying at all times just how precious life and love is.

With the sound off, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby surely looks as radiant and extraordinary as some of the most dazzling movies ever committed to celluloid, but with the sound up and the experience on full volume, the movie is mostly a cacophony of style, excess and noise that makes you want to turn it all down a notch...or three...

Not particularly sophisticated, the searing intensity of revenge in The Equalizer is still occasionally arresting (and even entertaining) in its stylish hard-R violence.

Steeped in a nostalgia that often feels borrowed and canned—the space-age era impulses of progress and possibility from the 1950s and ‘60s—Tomorrowland asks that you never give up or lose hope, literally and figuratively, over and over again, to the point that the movie has little else to say.

As a “release it during an election year” film and response to the world’s current political crisis, clearly cobbled together at the last minute, it’s perhaps a fitting goodbye to a flawed character who has resurfaced suddenly to say, in the fleeting final minutes of the film, maybe we can change.

The fifth installment of the Terminator series cannot overcome the weight of its convoluted time travel leaps, its strained attempts at injecting twists everywhere, a clunky opening, and a painfully clumsy finish.

Low on ideas and high on atmosphere, Dixieland is a promising debut, but it likely won’t find you overwhelmingly writing back home about it.

Despite the oh gee golly wiz Midwestern yokel-isms and the aforementioned cartoonish makeup she wears—historically accurate, yes, but still bordering on the ludicrous in reality— Chastain manages to bring such dignity to the character, really plumbing the depths of her soul for the moments of pathos, heartbreak, and despair. Much of this comes to an incredible crescendo in the third act, when Tammy Faye is tragic, washed-up, but never willing to give up or radiate compassion, even when she’s being mocked.

ZSJL is a fan cut as much as it is a director’s cut, with all the indulgence that the notion applies. As for any continuation of the story, as the fans hope, that seems gravely unlikely considering the direction Warner Bros is headed. But for a director who had to abandon his grand superhero project because of a family tragedy and because a big movie studio tried to wrestle control of the film, which was too much to bear at the time, one supposes, this postmortem collectible for die-hard, is about as good as an outcome as one could get.

The Plague is a movie-movie, rather than a genuinely searching or affecting film about that most awkward age when fitting in with a group can seem like the most important thing in the world.

The filmmaker clearly has great skills and a knack for pulling strong performances out of actors. But the tone-deaf misjudgment of the film’s second half is catastrophic.

Unremarkable but occasionally enjoyable, Levy’s dramedy is pleasant enough, but it grows tired, losing focus by the end.

It’s essential to have characters and a good story around a ‘GvK’ movie because, without it, all your left with is an empty trailer of fight scenes. The irony is this overly involved story detracts from one’s engagement in the movie. Legends may finally collide in this installment, and it’s mildly entertaining in spots, but the whole endeavor is ultimately almost as hollow as the earth’s empty core.

As a comic book movie writ large, as an adaptation of an imaginative, gonzo, frenzied, devilish graphic novel not meant for kids, Birds Of Prey is arguably perfect as a blast of that kind of feverish dynamism. However, as a movie, Birds Of Prey can’t really break free from the cage of quirky insanity it is so content to nest in.

Boldness and ambition may get the best of the film, but just like Booksmart, which announced the promising beginning of an intriguing directorial voice, Wilde proves she’s not a one-hit-wonder, at least technically and artistically. Don’t Worry Darling may be a misstep, but Wilde’s still got a flair for cinema that feels worth keeping an eye on.

Despicable Me 4 is just messy and wearying, even at a scant 95 minutes.

Kill The Messenger hopes to solemnly lionize and exonerate Webb, but rarely does it reflect anything back to its audience other than reminding us how corrupt and unprincipled our system is.

Respectfully presented, Unbroken is competently made and even has a sequence or two that’s impressive, but it’s ultimately very familiar and eventually draining.

Despite the A-list team all returning for the sequel, the frisson is gone, and Enola Holmes 2 feels much more elementary, primary, and uninspired.

While 'Les Mis' ends terrifically, it cannot make up for the largely uneven experience that comes before it. There is no doubt an abundance of passion and commitment in Les Miserables but when the musical isn't connecting emotionally -- which is at least half the time -- it's a lot of blustering sound and fury that could either use a dialogue break or an edit.

There’s nothing lost in the translation of Fences, but its high fidelity means there’s little, if any, inspiration to be found within.

Admittedly heartbreaking and moving in its final moments, Hellion just can’t quite convince or coalesce its ideas of struggle, pain and fury in a meaningful or new way.

Chandor and Aaron Taylor Johnson deserve better, frankly, but they also both read this screenplay and still signed on. They push beyond the boundaries that have been set up for them, but they can only do so much because a bright and shiny polished turd is still mostly a turd, no matter how much campy lion mane costuming you try and bedazzle it with.

A very routine twelve rounds of tragedy, resilience and redemption, the boxing film Southpaw is a conventionally told dramaturgy high on intensity, but low on human insight or novel ways to tell a familiar story.

Super Mario Galaxy is nice to look at and dead inside, a committee-made franchise object masquerading as an adventure, and ultimately little more than an empty commercial for Super Mario branding.

Hypnotic features a well-crafted suspense sequence or two, a couple of clever twists – but also some wildly stupid ones, and a bone-headed over-explainer ending that treats the entire audience like dopes. [Work in Progress SXSW 2023]

An uninspired narrative and disengaged performances ultimately keep persuasive deep feeling and captivation at a far distance.

Those impatient with Malick’s cyclical fixations will easily find themselves worn out by Song To Song especially in the enervating third act that essentially repeats the entire movie and its theme exhaustingly.

Visual daring is nice, but it means little in the end when the ultimately safe and harmless story never rocks the boat.

The Peter Jackson-directed Hobbit sequel might be the more vigorous, action-packed, darker and more (superficially) engaging version of the series thus far, but that doesn’t actually mean it’s a keeper of any sort.

Ricki And the Flash is about mistakes, regrets, and of course, redemption, but all of it feels a little too neat, familiar and convenient even if no one’s quite belting out “Kumbaya” by the end.

Has its moments, especially any time Streep is on screen, but as it strains on at an overlong two hours, the glitter of fairy tale movie magic diminishes, leaving only a pale shadow.

Perhaps due to its rote, by-the-numbers story, all of the original film’s less tangible, hard-to-bottle qualities are absent: its delightfulness, its playfulness, and its natural charisma.

Deeply over-reliant on flashbacks, and ones that don’t particularly transition well, Jane Got A Gun is nearly a holding pattern movie.

Largely harmless and tame, but also shallow and uninvolving.

It's Middle America vs. big bad corporate America, and while the (not so) "bad guy" predictably finds salvation in salt-of-the-earth people, Promised Land often leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

While the poor, urban setting of The Deliverance is a little bit unique for the supernatural genre, the way the suffering and dreariness within the backdrop collides with the ghastly misery of the unrelenting horror of it all is just several steps out of bounds.

Visually dazzling, but dispassionate and hollow, the film often looks impressive, with some incredible action sequences to boot, but otherwise keeps the viewer at a considerable distance.

Frustratingly uneven, Kelly & Cal is too glib and prosaic to truly be insightful or impacting.

Semi-flat with only a few jokes and emotional beats that land, the picture is often dull when it should be poignant.

As a taut thriller, it works, but the “why” of it all, the substance that generally makes even Sheridan’s worst efforts still fascinating, is strangely and glaringly absent.

The film rests squarely on Farrell and Robbie. They have chemistry and a guiding hand in Kogonada, but ultimately A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is undone by a syrupy, over-romanticized screenplay untempered by the director’s usual delicacy and restraint.

Even if the movie is based on an existing property, a beloved French graphic novel, as a producer and designer, Besson should be lauded; ‘Valerian’ is out of this world. But next time, he might want to reread the comic for its characters, checking the little word bubbles to see if there’s actually something there.

Unlike a Ryan Coogler, who always brought an emotional, thoughtful touch to his superhero films, all of the empathetic grace notes Chung was previously known for are nowhere to be found, drowned out in a wet, soggy tempest of noise, screams, yee haws! and catastrophic weather.

Moore’s goal — save the country from the worst Presidential election of all time— is sound, but his ungainly presentation and shaky arguments make for an uneven polemic that never takes fire, even when doused in gasoline.

This visually clumsy and gauche, but spectacular, movie knows what it wants to be when it grows up for better or worse.

The Internship might be the best worst comedy of the year thus far.

Ultimately, Tron: Ares is all voltage and no current—an aesthetic overload that confuses stimulation for meaning.

There’s a terrific ensemble at the heart of Magic Magic, including its talented director, but this psychological horror is only creepily superficial and has very little of anything insightful to say about people, its characters or its lead.

To her credit, Zlotowski’s film does capture the lulling feeling of a séance, but there’s a gossamer-thin thread between the mysterious and the mystifying and perhaps her delicately ephemeral film just doesn’t know how to recognize the difference.

Murphy and Hill do lift the film often, the former being wryly sarcastic and meanspirited but cool, the latter finding much comedy in being overly vulnerable, earnest, and painfully sincere. But otherwise, this comedy has no safe spaces for anything resembling authentic human behavior, the kind that anchors comedy to feature truths that make laughs all the more lacerating.

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. [

Atlas is rote and routine, using the concept of sci-fi and artificial intelligence in the most obvious way: A.I. runs wild, attacks humans, and becomes the central enemy of the entire world; the ultimate threat that humanity must face, battle, and hopefully defeat. But all of it is conventionally realized, uninspired, dull, and something you’ve seen done more inventively a thousand times before.

Outcome—and it’s bad scenes shot behind obvious blue screen and fake, manufactured sunsets—is terrible. But what makes it memorable is the queasy way the movie keeps collapsing into the very pathology it thinks it is exposing. It wants to mock the famous for living inside a bubble of privilege, paranoia, and vanity, yet it ends up sounding like it was made from inside that bubble.

Much like ‘A Child Of Fire,’ “The Scargiver” is exhausting, enervating, and exasperating, frantically flailing around with explosions, lasers, laser lightsaber-like swords, grenades, et al., but always failing to make you give a damn.

When Horns thankfully concludes, relief sets in; this hellishly misguided effort concludes with an inferno and sequels are never sprung from the equivalent of a mouthful of ash.

Much more of an adolescent male fantasy than a relatable, genuine film about love or relationships, “5 To 7” is deeply naïve and has very few, if any real insights to the heart or human condition.

Resembling a patched together sketch of an idea, and a thrown-together filmed play, set (mostly) inside a house, Locked Down should have just been terminated in the lab, instead of rushing out like a vaccine of entertainment that cured absolutely no one of their doldrums.

Tiresomely told, uninteresting, and turgid, Electric Slide is as insipid as it gets — a meaningless movie about almost nothing at all.

The Mummy is a dated, empirically dismal, laughable excuse to kick off a franchise, and it should have remained entombed.

For all its rage about moral decline and the psychic poison of content culture, Faces Of Death never rises above the same cheap sensationalism it pretends to condemn. Instead of confronting the sickness, it feeds on it and spits out something just as rancid as the faux snuff films it claims to abhor.

Bafflingly witless, The Clapper is an oblivious non-starter with myriad deficiencies. Artless and clueless at every turn, writer/director Dito Montiel’s inane movie is a one-note half-gag somehow stretched into a painful 90-minute movie.

American Ultra hopes to leave you both shellshocked and blissfully stoned, but as perfect storm of aggressively repulsive choices, it’s a queasy bad trip worth avoiding at all costs.

In doubling down on would-be humor, the already poor, perspiring, flop-sweat CGI mess of Venom actually gets worse and arguably even more incoherent, thanks to the unbearable, overweening quarreling between Brock and Venom and the vaudevillian crazy legs antics and presentation.

Based on the story of a man beaten so mercilessly he had to construct a fantasy world in order to survive his great pain and suffering, Robert Zemeckis’ insipid Welcome To Marwen is a painfully schmaltzy misjudged disaster, and superficial retelling that dishonors a layered and agonizing story about trauma.

Contrarian so-bad-its-good specialists with PhDs in advanced irony once hailed the “Venom” films as entertaining campy classics and tongue-in-cheek antidotes to the more conventional superhero genre, but you will not be surprised when none of those scholars pipe up in support of this grueling cinematic slog that further underscores just how bad the entire affair was all along.

Elusively told to the point of irritation, joyless and shot in chilly incarcerating rooms, War Story has the look and feel of an exhausted ashtray and borders on the pretentiously unclear.

Bright tries to create a unique and dynamic world with the juxtaposition of harsh police life, crime and modern life contrasted with this imaginary magical realm, but it’s contrived, unconvincing and most of all calamitously preposterous.

The now pat, unimaginative knock on McG was that he was the Guy Fieri of filmmakers, — loud, crass, garish, tacky, hacky, double fisted with Monster Energy drinks and reeking of Ax Body Spray. But you know what? Sadly, that shoe seems to snuggly fit and he seems more than willing to wear it.