Soren Andersen

There’s gunplay aplenty here, but nothing about “The Kid” sets it apart from the many Billy the Kid movies that have preceded it.

The picture’s time shifts are smoothly handled by Kwak. But eventually confusion sets in.

For most of its length, Stillwater goes along as a meticulous examination of its central characters. And then suddenly near the end it jumps the tracks.

The chase, chase, chase pace is tiring, not least because it’s not clear who many of these people are and what agendas they’re following. Mixed-up confusion is the result.

The gunplay is primary though there are some obligatory scenes of martial arts fights.

Woodley and Claflin make an attractive pair, but they’re not particularly convincing playing people deeply, deeply in love. There’s something lacking in the conviction department there.

Smith, on the other hand, throws himself avidly into his work, communicating a, uh, biting malevolence and sick glee in his portrayal. The picture only truly comes alive when he’s masticating his scenes. Otherwise, “Morbius” is dead at its center.

Beatty directed and wrote the script, but from a man who made the weighty epic “Reds” and the corrosively funny “Bulworth,” Rules Don’t Apply feels curiously weightless and as forgettable as its title.

So it goes, with Sonic, fleet of foot and quick of tongue, racing from one dire situation to another. It’s exhausting, but the makers knew exactly how to tailor it to its game-mad audience.

You get a sense [Eli Roth]'s struggling to rein in his penchant for gory frights, and for that reason “Clock” feels like a movie at war with itself.

In the matter of searching for work in a difficult economy, Get a Job traffics in fairy tales that come complete with happily-ever-after endings.

Its take-no-prisoners pacing [takes] it up a notch from the average low-budget shoot ’em up.

Every plot twist is easily anticipated...The ending hints at the possibility of a sequel, but that’s a prospect that leaves one cold. As far as “Demeter” is concerned, enough is enough.

Freighted with symbolism and beautifully mounted, Youth is dreamlike and at the same time stultifying.

Humongous undersea cities, enormous herds of aquatic creatures and a superabundance of monsters are laid before the viewer. The goal: Make people go, “Wow!” Pardon me, but the overall effect is more like, “eh.”

It’s all big action. Big colorful visuals. Outsized vocal performances.

None of this is especially promising or, frankly, funny. In fact, for much of its length, “Despicable Me” is painfully unfunny.

There is advocacy. And then there is propaganda. The Trolley, with its overcooked rhetoric, falls into the latter category.

The Book of Henry launches itself into cloud cuckooland and never returns to Earth.

Forster gets decent performances from Lively and Clarke, but the overall impression “All I See” leaves is of a picture that fails to live up to its filmmaker’s ambitions.

Angel Has Fallen plays out exactly as you would expect from a potboiler of this type. No surprises here, other than that it exists at all. It’s the kind of movie one expects to be released at the shank end of summer. Time to turn the page to fall.

Similar to the scenario of the original picture, it’s a band of grizzled soldier types who battle the alien menaces. Missing, however, is a formidable leading-man presence in the Schwarzenegger mold.

Curiously though, director Michael Dougherty and his filmmaking team obscure the battle footage in darkness, smoke and downpours, making murky much of the imagery.

With all of Shults’ dark-night-of-the-soul mood manipulations, the film promises more than it delivers. Its buildups are impressive, but in the end its frights are mild.

It’s somehow only fitting that with Scarlett Johansson in the lead role, Ghost in the Shell leaves you with the feeling that something has been lost in translation.

Daddy’s Home is a movie with a one-joke premise: Will Ferrell, he’s a pincushion of punishment. Make him screech. Watch him squirm.

So yes: Wow! Gasp! There are some really pretty pictures here. But wow! Gasp! The story is really pretty … stupid.

Yep, we’re in Tarantino territory for sure: way too self-indulgently long, and way, way overboard with that N-word.