Simon Abrams

You never have to wonder or try to understand what the characters are feeling because they never stop telling you how to feel. The answer, invariably, is sad and fearful, but From Black is neither, really.

Viewers are not privileged with a more thoughtful, specific view of the institutionalized problems that Sudanese natives face because Sauper's not interested in making that kind of film.

A cynical, and consistently unpleasant film with creators who try very, very hard to push as many of your buttons as they can.

Arizona might have worked better as a smart-ass social commentary if its tsk-tsking of consumerist myopia wasn't so consistently on the nose and its plot didn't swiftly devolve into slasher movie cliches.

Bleeding Steel is also unfortunately just one film in a string of lackluster globe-trotting action films that struggle to confirm Chan's decades-old self-image as a pop cultural ambassador.

Some of the familiar and faithfully recreated twists and turns of the original “One Cut of the Dead” still land here, but not enough to make this leaden remake seem endearing or zany enough to pick through.

Point and Shoot consequently feels like a film made by a storyteller — not a journalist — who doesn't know he can ask follow-up questions.

A spectacularly miscalculated historical epic.

Emperor is lousy in the same way that many other mediocre slave narratives are: it re-presents a dark period in American history without being inspired or insightful enough to be worth your curiosity or emotional investment.

Sleazy Australian kidnapping drama Hounds of Love will make you wish you were watching a more traditionally nihilistic horror film.

Gibney may encourage viewers to condemn the police, but his self-righteous editorializing doesn’t make up for the lack of convincing evidence.

Oppressively bleak mood piece Alléluia is a horror film for people who like to be scared by a grim, joyless and thoroughly depressing character study.

This might have been a better movie if its creators embraced their fitful bloodthirst. Instead, they seem to hope that you like these stock characters enough that you’ll gasp when their friends and enemies inevitably bite the dust. A machine to kill vague people, “Whistle” never delivers on its frightful promise.

The canned British character study Mogul Mowgli disappoints on a few levels, especially given its admirable focus on authenticity and cultural identity in a kitchen-sink drama about Zed (Riz Ahmed), an aspiring British Pakistani rapper.

Lowe's attempts at getting into anti-heroine Ruth's head are largely unsuccessful, though her performance is sometimes effectively hysterical.

Disappointing because its creators don't do anything interesting with a fairly novel theme: a mother's possessive love for her estranged daughter.

Granted, the movie does feature a few endearingly goofy scenes where Cage acts like Humphrey Bogart, with sweat on his brow, a stogie in his mouth, and a haughty putdown for anybody who makes eye contact with him. But he basically already did that in Paul Schrader’s underwhelming 2016 Ed Bunker adaptation “Dog Eat Dog.”

A tone-deaf celebration of Manhattan’s ritzy Carlyle Hotel.

What makes The Vigil so frustrating is that it feels like a product and not a reflection of its subject’s identity crisis.

So often bogged down by pseudo-naturalistic long takes and generic cop/robber power dynamics that it makes one wonder what the point of watching such a film is.

The Conjuring is as toothless as it is because it's two different kinds of boring. The film's plot is explained exhaustively whenever loud noises aren't blaring, and random objects aren't teasingly leaping out at you from the corner of your eye.

Poser might have been more satisfying if its gauzy night-club aesthetic and bold, underlined dialogue didn’t smother viewers with trite observations about hipster artistes.

If you’re looking for meaning, humor, or comfort, you’d best not look for it here.

There are a lot of fragmentary ideas in The Real Thing, but they’re not cohesive or worthwhile as they’re loosely formed into one grey 232-minute lump.

Psycho Goreman isn’t clever or lively enough to be more than fitfully fun, especially given how much time is spent mocking generic, but painstakingly recreated plot contrivances.

The Christmas-themed home-invasion movie Better Watch Out starts out as one kind of unpleasant, then switches gears to a higher level of unearned nastiness.

Gender inequality may be a potentially complicating factor when it comes to sexual trauma (i.e., men can also be abused by women), but that provocative conceit isn’t considered with much care or intelligence.

The film's rote right-makes-might fantasy wouldn't be so obnoxious if pandering to the lowest common denominator wasn't its default mode.

Generally speaking, the museum seems like a modest, but vividly-detailed freak show.

There's not only nothing new here, there's nothing convincing either. And if I'm supposed to judge Bumblebee based on how well it succeeds at what it tries to do (rather than what came before it), it's still not very good.

And when the movie’s over, nothing is resolved that the filmmakers didn’t side-step or reduce to a few unconvincing symbols of hope for a more equitable future. You might like Enforcement if that’s a line you already want to buy; there’s otherwise not much here to change your mind.

Meet Me in the Bathroom is an impressionistic blur, more about what it felt like to be at the head of a scene than the actual scene’s character or identity.

Vivarium isn’t a fun watch, and not just because it’s generally claustrophobic and insistently bleak.

The film's nature as a work of propaganda would be more deplorable—or at least eyeroll-inducing—if it weren't so poorly blocked, scripted, performed, and choreographed. There is no joy in Seagal-ville, dear rubber-neckers, because pretty much everybody here has struck out.

Piercing, the latest horror film by music video helmer turned feature horror writer/director Nicolas Pesce, is more frustrating than it is actually bad. Because Piercing, an adaptation of Ryu Murakami's novel of the same name, succeeds as a darkly comic provocation. I think. Sort of?

I wanted to root for and care about the world of “Night Raiders,” but I never felt like Niska and her daughter said more about themselves than their predictable behavior advertised.

In this context, Farnworth’s appropriately broad performance is exceptional. She doesn’t have much dialogue that’s worthy of her playful, all-in line readings, but Farnworth deserves all due praise.

If nothing else, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reminds us that nostalgia is often used as a mandate for spectacularly lazy filmmaking.

There aren’t many surprises here, because the bread crumbs that lead to the movie’s big finish are plentiful and very stale. Seriously, the plot twists in this movie are so obvious and unappetizing that you couldn’t miss them if you tried.

Unfortunately, Archambault’s churlishly over-the-top performance makes it impossible to take 14 Cameras seriously, no matter how you interpret Gerald’s actions.

Unlike “Stranger Things,” The Wretched is a little too cute about teen angst, and not light enough on its feet to make you want to root for its ostensibly typical adolescent.

This movie doesn’t work well as an edifying documentary, but it might go over well with anyone who wants to follow its unconvincing conspiracy-theory-like logic (apparently, genetic research is bad because it's "playing God" and is partly underfunded and overseen by the Chinese government and cocky American scientists!).

The Nowhere Inn . . . is a collection of comedic and musical sketches that are not funny, weird or thoughtful enough to sell its creators’ insistent, but mostly trite and undeveloped, ideas about the performative nature of self-fashioning and creative authenticity.

But all the charm in the world wouldn't make Ra.One's sanctimoniousness seem any more genuine.

The main distinguishing feature of this film is its almost-novel nesting-doll plot structure, and passing thematic interest in its narrative's formulaic nature.

Rather than dig into what’s specifically changing about their relationship, Duplass and Eslyn focus on armchair psychology and black-box speeches to explain away what’s really going on with these two men.

Too bad The Djinn is often as plodding as it is impersonal. This movie crawls whenever it needs to sprint.

A tepid situation comedy in indie drama drag, "The Black Sea" lacks a sense of urgency beyond a few moments of canned tension between Khalid and Georgi (Stoyo Mirkov), a haughty Bulgarian fisherman.

There doesn’t seem to be a romantic-comedy cliché missing from the bland French domestic Back to Burgundy, a wholly contrived post-adolescent coming-of-age yarn.

If Retaliation were a friend, you’d eventually avoid them.

Pseudo-sensitive bro-dude rom-com Date and Switch comes out today, and it already feels dated.

What’s really wrong with Richard is that he’s a boring monster.

The turgid revenge thriller The Foreigner is an all-around lousy movie.

An unbearably preachy post-financial-crisis civics lesson in heist movie drag.

There's nothing specific, thoughtful or emotionally involving about Election Night beyond a basic need to push buttons, and get a rise out of viewers. The good guys are actually bad, and the bad guys are too indistinct to be hateful. Vote with your wallets, and go see something else.

Most of the documents that Lapa quotes from are, as presented, unrevealing — even offensive.

The kind of childish genre movie that gives genre movies a bad reputation.

There’s not enough cold sweat ambience here, and that makes it even harder to root for a modestly budgeted chiller whose creators clearly started their project from a place of cinephilic affection. Even sympathetic genre fans will have trouble finding something new about such old hat material.

Unfortunately, the movie’s unexpected plot twist violently re-directs its treacly uplift narrative for the sake of a Hail Mary conclusion that’s almost ridiculous enough to be campy fun. It’s not though, since the twist in question feels like a last-ditch effort to convince viewers that the movie’s otherwise plain story, credited to Vera Herbert (series writer on “This Is Us”), has more depth than it does.

The arbitrary value of life in I Am Not a Serial Killer makes its nature as an ostensibly character-driven mystery that much harder to swallow. Don't bother with this nonsensical time-waster.

While Sniper: The White Raven sometimes delivers solid meat-and-potatoes action movie violence, the rest of the film only confirms the hellish nature of war, which we’ve all seen before.

This sleepy and visually murky black-and-white drama belabors the same banal truisms about memory and role-playing during wartime –basically, it’s impossible to maintain your autonomy when you’re only a pawn in a complicated game — and tends to be more interesting to think about than to watch.

There’s a definite beginning, a doughy middle, and a gaping end to “Project Wolf Hunting,” but they somehow don’t cohere into a feature-length spectacle.

The biggest difference between the two films is that "Unfriended" is dynamic and cruel while Unfriended: Dark Web is unbelievably stupid and sadistic. Neither movie is especially smart or incisive about the Way We Live Now, but they don't really have to be.

Worse still: because The Emperor's New Clothes is often beholden to the whims of Brand (star of "Get Him to the Greek," and that tedious "Arthur" remake nobody saw), it too often feels like "Button-Pushing Encounters with Russell Brand."

Whatever promise the “V/H/S” horror anthology franchise started with is barely present in V/H/S/85, a low-energy potboiler that promises to transport genre fans back to the analog past for some reason.

Plays like a sampler of Dreamworks Animation's worst creative impulses: sugar-rush pacing, pandering meta-gags, and a slick, flavorless animation style.

Writer/director Sam Hoffman's trite dramedy about personal redemption delivers mediocre performances.

If you're wondering where the Jim Carrey of "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and "Dumb and Dumber" fame went, don't look to Mr. Popper's Penguins for answers.

Hovannisian's documentary would be much more convincing if he picked a single aspect of Tankian’s activism—or composing, or personality—and considered it in greater detail.

This new holiday chiller mostly idles when it should charge at its most unsound ideas.

It's monumentally terrible. "Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son" now has competition for worst picture of the year.

While it has a couple of appreciably goofy flourishes, the proudly crass horror-comedy Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is sadly more boring than offensive despite its superficially controversial high-concept premise.

The Good Doctor isn't a ponderous bore because Blake isn't a strictly good or bad character: It sucks because he isn't even a compelling character.

For better and worse, Gone in the Night feels like the directorial debut of a podcaster, somebody who knows the value of storytelling novelty and has a gift for narrative economy, but also suggests more by the grace of good casting than their own singular talents.

Tepid ghost story Insidious: Chapter 3 tries and fails to emphasize character-driven drama over cheap, jump-scare-intensive thrills.

A coming-of-age drama that's also Southern Gothic ghost story, is an unusual, ambitious failure, mostly because the film's hyper-naturalistic style is meant to evoke a supernatural mood.

Barker's tactlessness wouldn't be so bad if he weren't too high on his own patchwork rhetoric to ask his subjects what specifically motivates them.

The three lead actors are limited by their characters' kiddy-pool-shallow behavior.

Killing bigots is a fine enough pretext for this sort of watered-down post-grindhouse entertainment, but if you’re honestly going to go there, you can’t stop til you’re past the point of apology.

There’s ultimately too much strained seriousness in The Song of Names' dramatically flimsy and symbolically heavy episodic narrative, making Girard and Caine’s already dated feel-good historical drama seem especially tacky.

Director Jackie Earle Haley's Criminal Activities is the worst kind of Tarantino clone, one with no gas in the tank, and no clue about how to pull off Tarantino's swagger.

Pegg and Temple’s responsive, well-attuned performances are actually the most frustrating things about Lost Transmissions since they’re good enough to make you want to care, even when their characters don’t seem to be worth caring about.

Watching Smith's buddies pay him heartfelt tribute is one thing, but that doesn’t make spending so much time (115 minutes???) with his fawning co-conspirators feel much less oppressive.

Amateurishly realized sensationalism trumps character-driven drama throughout Killers.

Wan’s never been the most technically adept or sophisticated storyteller, but his weaknesses as a filmmaker are especially apparent throughout.

If you enjoy watching barrel-penned fish get got with a BB gun, you're bound to love Vicious Fun. Vicious Fun courts that kind of glib dismissal since so much of the movie reassures viewers that its creators are also addicted to the formulaic slasher movies that they kind of, sort of mock.

Kung Fu Yoga doesn't feel like a young man's film. Normally that would be a cause for celebration, but in this case, Chan's latest doesn't just address, but rather shows his age.

Eventually, the lack of werewolf-related carnage is the least concerning thing about My Animal.

Nothing in “Shelter” develops beyond the suggestion of an idea. A sleepy vehicle for action star Jason Statham, “Shelter” piles on cliches and expects viewers to supply enough goodwill to compensate for its shortcomings.

Trash's creators never say anything thoughtful or useful about the extreme violence they liberally — and irresponsibly — use to characterize third-world adolescence.

Beyond isolated moments of dickish charm — and his climactic four-way fight involving a sword, a crucifix, and two steel pipes — Chapman just comes across like another pseudo-heroic American behaving badly abroad.

You could get mad at Seifert for being so bad at being so nakedly manipulative. Or you could just give up all hope, and counter-intuitively root for Monsanto. This is a David-vs.-Goliath movie, but David's aim is so spotty that Goliath has nothing to fear.

The Take is just really lousy.

Still: the cold half (ie: the important half) of Lords of Chaos is so ugly and mean-spirited that I couldn't really enjoy the other parts of the film that work, not even Rory Culkin's fantastic lead performance, or the on-screen chemistry that he shares with supporting actress Sky Ferreira (as photographer/love interest Ann-Marit).

Sonic the Hedgehog is the worst kind of bad movie: it's too inoffensive to be hated and too wretched to be enjoyable.

Funny Bunny may be effectively alienating, but never in a commendable way.

Throughout the film, Mindless Behavior's four interchangeable members only project youthful enthusiasm and PR-friendly love for their fans.