Stephanie Merry

Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago may not be entirely brilliant, but it’s at the very least inspiring.

When it comes to writing the poetry that Kalindra recites, Murray knows how to do more with less; he needs to apply that lesson to his filmmaking, too.

The film serves an effective marketing tool after all, with some lively footage and funny interviews. It’s just too bad viewers can’t see the actual play.

It’s John Goodman who steals every scene. As a scary loan shark who might cough up cash to get Jim out of his pickle, Goodman elevates the material, showcasing the dark humor that Wyatt was clearly going for. But, overall, that comedy just doesn’t land.

The Duelist will leave viewers scratching their heads over any number of questions, but the most gnawing one might be: Why did everyone get so dressed up for a bloodbath?

It may not be wholly original or without its flaws, but Magic in the Moonlight offers a pleasant vacation from reality, and what more could you want from a summer movie?

Fans of the play will be pleased. And for those that love the Four Seasons’ music but haven’t made it to the play, you can put your fear of missing out to rest. This is a much more affordable way to very nearly re-create the experience.

Laxton knows how to get the audience down but hasn’t quite mastered the art of lifting them back up.

The drama stars Edgar Ramírez as Roberto and Robert De Niro as his legendary coach. The two are exceptionally well cast, but they can’t save an unfocused jumble of a movie that doubles as a cautionary tale about the importance of film editing.

This isn’t a sports movie so much as a procedural about backroom dealings, double-crosses and high-stakes trades.

The movie’s great strength is the way it captures these dancers, sometimes in slow motion, as they contort their bodies in ways that don’t seem possible. When it comes to the narrative, though, the movie struggles a bit.

[A] dreamy, entrancing and occasionally overstuffed documentary.

The Book Thief has its moments of brilliance, thanks in large part to an adept cast. But the movie about a girl adopted by a German couple during World War II also crystallizes the perils of book adaptations.

Monster Hunt has visual appeal to spare, but the allure ends there.

A movie that’s visually stunning and often poetic, but also leaves too much unsaid.

Every element of the movie feels fabricated, from the stilted conversation to the ­all-too-convenient obstacles the movie keeps throwing in the path of progress.

For all its intimations about finding one’s true self and the complicated setups for a big misidentification, The Pretty One is just another romantic dramedy.

In the end, Viceroy’s House works, but mainly as a historical refresher on the 70th anniversary of Indian independence. As drama, it’s a reminder that truth is sometimes more affecting than fiction.

The film’s subtly observed moments are more powerful than any of its technical wizardry.

What was a steamy battle of wits in the novel looks more like a chemistry-free charade onscreen. Instead of character development the audience gets torture galore, whether it’s Dominika being doused with freezing water while naked and tied to a chair or a particularly sadistic character flaying someone alive.

The movie turns out to be something we’ve seen before: an underdog tale mixed with a redemption narrative.

Front Cover is weighed down by heavy-handed dialogue and a melodramatic score.

Horovitz may have made a questionable decision in adapting this particular play for the screen, but his casting was flawless.

“Murder” may lack urgency, but it does have style. The sets, the costumes and the vistas are stunning.

Central Intelligence won’t win any points for originality, but that doesn’t make it any less funny.

This biblical action drama that feels excessive in every way imaginable, from running time (nearly 2 1/2  hours) to melodramatic acting to the conspicuous amount of computer generation.

At its worst, the movie is a blunt critique of materialism, but there are some smart moments along the way in this methodically paced drama, which puts more emphasis on atmospherics than storytelling.

The three actors excel in their roles, and director Matthew Saville gives additional insight into the men through small yet informative details.

For a moment, the movie tries to be about something deeper — some existential epiphany, perhaps. The book didn’t deal in platitudes. It was content to be lightly educational, but mostly just entertaining. The movie aspires to be more than that, only to reveal how much less than that it really is.

It seems like a waste of talent, but worse still, Cesar Chavez squanders an opportunity to revisit a story worth retelling.

Good camerawork only goes so far. Love drags on and on, alternating between arguments and intimacy, breakups and makeups. The movie never passes the authenticity test; if this is what sex feels like, we’ll all soon be extinct.

Overall the movie is a fun peek at the birth of Lego bricks and their ever-evolving place in the world.

The film is artfully shot with eye candy galore: sumptuous dresses, beautiful people and scenes from Pierre and Yves’s time in Morocco. But for all its visual stimulation, the story does little to awaken emotions.

Though it purports to be about the delights of disorder, “A Little Chaos” feels like yet another by-the-book period romance, only without the genre’s requisite spark between the main characters.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is uproarious and flamboyantly raunchy, utterly stupid yet also occasionally winning

Some of the portrayals are over-the-top in their villainy, and the dialogue, acting and music all tend to be melodramatic. But all of the overt heartstring-pulling doesn’t add much. Given the awful calamity, the truth would have been enough to amp up the emotions.

You can make a movie that’s both sweet and crass; just look at Judd Apatow’s comedies. But the mix doesn’t work here, maybe because both the vulgarity and the cheesiness are so amped up.

The movie, which marks the feature debut of writer-director Kate Barker-Froyland, has the low-key appeal of “Once,” with its extended scenes of music and drama-free romantic subplot. But the characters in Song One are stubbornly bland, despite their quirks.

I’m on to you, Spurlock. There are holes in your story about five lads who don’t appear to ever drink, smoke, fight, curse or partake in romantic dalliances of any kind. At least, not on screen.

None of the movie’s faults can undo the power of Binoche and Owen. Their interactions look so naturalistic that they seem unscripted.

The movie doesn’t offer much more than fleeting and superficial pleasures.

Riddick can be cheesy and silly, not to mention excessively violent, but it’s also fun.

As quickly as the technical elements pull the audience in, the plot pushes us away.

With the exception of one heartbreaking and well-acted scene towards the end of the movie, the atmosphere is oppressive and the characters act as if their personalities have been shot with novocaine.

The movie feels at once too busy and too derivative. That’s no easy feat, but it’s also one sequel-makers probably shouldn’t aspire to.

Don’t overthink it, in other words. All “Showman” asks of you is that you give yourself over to the holiday-cheer machine, if you can. Like the circus, it’s an experience that’s been engineered for this precise moment in time, and not one minute longer.

It’s the actors, plus an exuberant Mary Steenburgen as quick-witted lounge singer Diana, who make the movie more than a middling copycat.

Norwegian director Roar Uthaug has had past success with nail-biting suspense, as in his well-received 2015 disaster movie “The Wave.” He can’t quite replicate that same tension here, however. Watching a tiny-but-tough woman survive one danger after another tests not only our credulity, but our patience.

Of course, action movies don’t have to be believable or poignant. They just have to get your adrenaline pumping. But the movie lacks inspiration in that department, too, owing to action sequences you’ve seen before, familiar music and dialogue so predictable you could make a game out of guessing the next line.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is as visually imaginative as its predecessor.

In the end, there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before. But there’s also nothing as agonizingly awkward as James’s prose.

In the world of Freedom, slaves and the people who help them are Christians, and the bad guys don’t believe in God.

Ultimately the movie feels like an empty exercise. Sure, it’s a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of fame. But when the one figure most worthy of our sympathy is nothing more than a beautiful blonde robot, what’s the point?

The performances are fantastic across the board, with Costner acting in his trademark low-key naturalistic style and Spencer as the picture of no-nonsense maternal love. But their efforts can’t make up for overly simplified characters, not to mention melodramatic exchanges that sound exactly like written dialogue.

A Night in Old Mexico succeeds when it comes to suspense, and the ever-evolving plot will keep viewers guessing. But the movie doesn’t have the same kind of emotional depth that Duvall and Wittliff managed to pull off decades ago. Worse, the dialogue often sounds stilted.

By the Sea is dazzlingly gorgeous, as are its stars. But peeling back layer upon layer of exquisite ennui reveals nothing but emptiness, sprinkled with stilted sentiments.

Flower can’t quite nail the necessary tone, aiming for dark, but missing the comedy.

With strong performances, plenty of chemistry between the leads and pithy dialogue, the movie is fun until things get serious — which is to say, until things get unbelievable.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies delivers what its title promises: a little romance and some undead villains, plus a bit of comedy. But this overly busy riff on Austen’s winning formula doesn’t justify all the tinkering.

In the end, Davis ends up a wasted resource. She does her best to elevate the material, but the story fails to live up to her considerable talents.

As the movie wears on, the plot points become increasingly far-fetched, and what started out as a moody if by-the-book thriller becomes increasingly silly. All the while, Roberts gives her all.

The plot is so similar to “The Big Chill” that it almost could be called a remake, except that it isn’t nearly as funny, it follows millennials instead of baby boomers and the characters tweet.

“Kingsman” is essentially a live-action cartoon, one that aims for an audible reaction and little else. That may not be the world’s loftiest goal, but whether it results in a gagging eww or a chuckle, it’s a plan that usually succeeds.

Dough never leaves any doubt about where it’s going or what it’s trying to say, serving up a recipe that we’ve not only had many times before, but we’ve had enough of.

The Brothers Grimsby is fitfully, sometimes outrageously, funny. But Cohen’s shtick of showing the backwardness and stupidity of unprivileged characters is starting to feel lazy, not to mention classist itself.

A simple retelling of these stories would have been more dramatic, more effective and more powerful.