Stephen Whitty

Unforgettable isn't.

Going in Style has gone a little soft. The geezers-go-gangsta story is back, but in a remake that lacks the edge that made the 1979 original memorable. It’s cuddly when it should be cranky, nice when it needs to be a little nasty.

The Assignment is a movie about a heartless assassin, a mad doctor and a forced surgery. But it’s the movie that should be sued for malpractice.

Sequels are tricky things, and decades-late followups are the trickiest. T2 Trainspotting almost pulls it off, too, bringing back the original’s hallucinatory style, jolting musical choices and charismatic cast.

The new Kong: Skull Island really gets it right — the exotic adventure, the spectacular special effects, the towering terrors. It’s a big hunk of nostalgic fun, reminding us of the 1933 original even as it monkeys around with the classic story.

In a nice bit of sorcery, Disney’s taken their 1991 animated classic — and their 1993 Broadway hit — and combined them into a groundbreaking delight, anchored by a breakthrough performance by Emma Watson.

A stand-alone adventure, it’s also a salute to a series, a character and a quietly committed actor.

Since Dornan is as dull as a catalog model anyway — he wanders through the movie like an Abercrombie searching for his Fitch — the shopping-list look of the movie makes sense. But Dakota Johnson deserves better.

Robert De Niro is back doing standup in The Comedian, and it's a movie made to be heckled. Full of gross jokes (and an even grosser love story), it deserves the hook — and fast.

True, the movie's intense, and Jovovich is certainly in fighting shape. But after 15 years of this franchise, it's getting hard to tell Alice from the things she's fighting. It's all squint and grunt, slash and groan.

Diesel is the star (as well as a producer), in every scene. And he drags the film down with him.

The details of how the McDonalds literally invented the fast-food concept are fascinating. The period details feel right. All in all, the film's a slick, good-looking package. But it still feels empty. Where's the message? Where's the meaning? Where's the beef?

Kind of like all the other characters Annette Bening plays, year after year - never to nearly enough applause.

Although Affleck's been a decent director - capturing real local color in "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town," building tension nicely in "Argo" - his work here is dim and dull. Live by Night may be about rum, but the pacing is like molasses.

It loses some of its warmth, and most of its charm. And it ends up as nearly as cold and creepy as the space it takes us through.

Washington isn't a visionary director, something he's proved before in "The Great Debaters" and "Antwone Fisher." But he is a fine actor, and if nothing else Fences preserves his career-best performance, as a loving, bullying, wounded, roaring bull of a man.

Hidden Figures is an earnest movie, but not a very exciting one. The screenplay feels as engineered as a Gemini rocket launch, with every scene and line carefully calculated.

Silence is a slowly unfolding, deeply thoughtful film about questioning yourself. About questioning authority. About taking stock of where you've failed as a human being, and wondering how you can make amends — to yourself, to others, and to God.

Whenever the movie begins to falter — it cuts, sometimes confusingly, among at least three different timelines — Portman pulls it back together, and sets it back on course.

Jessica Chastain plays Sloane, and she's the kind of Washington power-player who'd scare off half the cast of "Scandal" — towering heels, pulled-back hair and a taste for the kill.

The movie's no knockout, but at least it gives us one good performance, and one great one.

It sounds a little too clever, but it's not. It's just clever enough.

Despite his draw to tragic subjects, Lonergan holds onto a sharp, dark, Irish sense of humor, and a feel for the absurd that comes out at the most unexpected times. A playwright's sense of what actors do, too. Affleck gives a career-best performance here.

Real films breathe, alive with imperfections, accidents, with everything that Lee's worked so carefully to guard against. Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk is long, all right, but only half-alive — as careful as a diagram, as chilly as a statue.

It's a tough, understated part to play, and Edgerton does a terrific job.

It's fun to have new version of an old Marvel favorite, and a storyline which adds some genuine mysticism to this ever-expanding franchise. But "Strange" is too often only odd when it needs to be truly magical, and Hollywood-safe when it needs to be brave.

Even when the storytelling falters - several crucial scenes take place in between the various segments, with major events happening off-screen - Jenkins' sharp eye and his film's beautiful cinematography keeps us watching.

Director Kelly Reichardt, who made the great "Wendy and Lucy," likes stories that unfold slowly and simply. Sometimes she'll just let the camera run, making us watch the awkwardness of people who can't connect.

Directed with calm passion and controlled outrage, the movie — named after the amendment which outlawed slavery, but left a significant loophole when it came to criminal convictions — is a study in profits. And power.

There is nothing safe about The Birth of a Nation.

The action inside the courtroom is compelling. This is a place where people duel with words, not swords, but the wounds can be just as deep and permanent.

It's an impressive achievement, and even Berg's taste for the obvious — like shots of Old Glory, still waving through the worst of it — can't overwhelm the humanity behind the drama. Real people, real danger — and real self-sacrifice.

Although the script is a little flat — just because the story is true doesn't mean it should feel so predictable — Nair gives the film tons of energy and joy.

Instead of ever getting truly "Magnificent," these multicultural gunslingers remain largely a meh seven.

The film barely lasts an hour-and-a-half. Maybe that’s the problem with the movie. There’s not enough movie.

It's fun for a while, on a simple, single-shooter, video-game level. And for a change, the movie's stunts plug into Statham's pre-Hollywood career as a champion diver; this may be the most watery thriller since "Thunderball."

All the flash and sizzle of modern movie effects can't make up for a once spectacular tale that feels not just scaled-down, but shrunk.

The terrific Hell or High Water is like a gritty new retelling of the Frank and Jesse James story — only with getaway cars instead of horses, and assault rifles replacing six-shooters.

It's a pleasure seeing Grant in a great part again, playing the sort of almost-cad he's best at. And Streep - who, in real life, can belt anything from Broadway to Bruce - is clearly having a ball singing badly.

Once the story drags Bourne out of retirement, it's just a bunch of fights and chase scenes, only occasionally interrupted by a few lines of dialogue.

It's not only filled with the usual special-effects eye candy, but smart, fan-focused writing.

The all-new, mostly female Ghostbusters reboot is in theaters, full of terrific special effects, icky green slime, a horribly haunted Manhattan and, yes, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. But the big laughs you’d expect from a "Bridesmaids" reunion of director Paul Feig and stars Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy never materialize.

Gorgeously photographed, and as loosey-goosey as its hero, Captain Fantastic takes some unexpected turns. Is Ben eccentric or irresponsible? Is he raising free-thinking iconoclasts — or training a new generation of Unabombers?

Alexander Skarsgard is more abs than actor as the ape man, and Margot Robbie's Jane looks about as 19th-Century as an Aussie surfer girl. Together, they produce all the real-life passion of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.

While the first "Independence Day" was genuinely big, dumb fun, its sequel only manages to be a bigger, dumber bore.

Swiss Army Man's greatest challenge is to its audience. Just, exactly, how much will we sit still for? Endless scenes of Dano in role-playing drag, sporting a rag-mop wig and giving dating tips to a corpse? Frequent closeups of Radcliffe's furry flatulent buttocks?

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is a seriously ridiculous put-on. And in this summer of overheated special-effects movies, it’s a cool blast of fresh air.

Hugely expensive and extravagantly stupid, Alice Through the Looking Glass is just one more silly Hollywood mashup, an innocent fantasy morphed into a noisy would-be blockbuster.

The Angry Birds Movie is just fowl.

The Lobster is a love story for the unloved. Dark-hearted and brutally sour - and imaginative, and sometimes very funny - it's set in an alternative world where relationships are mandatory.

Director Jodie Foster's Money Monster runs a trim 98 minutes, but it's still not quite worth the investment.

To be fair, Being Charlie has some action and a few good jokes. It's not completely unwatchable. It's certainly better than Reiner's last few awful movies.

Sometimes, more is less. Although it’s called Captain America: Civil War, the latest Marvel movie is actually a supersized “Avengers” picture -- overstuffed to bursting.

A Mother’s Day movie full of flat jokes, reheated clichés and two hours spent staring at your watch.

The Family Fang has a nasty little bite to it — and thank heavens for that.

It is sweet, and funny and quietly upbeat. Take a chance on it — and take your mom.

This Simone film hits all the wrong notes early. What is it trying to say about this enraged, iconic singer? Why does it want to say it? Since screenwriter Cynthia Mort apparently never asked those questions, director Cynthia Mort can't offer any answers.

The film borrows plenty, but it brings nothing new.

Quick, what do you call it when a movie takes both of the year’s biggest breakout action stars and wastes them in a bad Kevin Costner movie? Criminal.

Has the bare necessities, but not much more.

Stupid as a bag of hammers and twice as loud, Hardcore Henry sounds like the title of the worst Kissinger bio ever. Actually, it's an action movie that feels more like you are trapped in a video game. A really, really bad video game.

A quiet, restrained drama, Louder Than Bombs works a little like a photographer itself, changing its focus, showcasing scenes from different points of view, rearranging the order of the images.

Demolition is a wreck.

Directed by, and starring, Don Cheadle, it's more about truth than facts. Did this all happen just the way it's laid out? Definitely not. But if the notes are wrong, the themes are right.

There's never an emotional moment here to compete, or even compare, with his last film, "Boyhood." But there's not supposed to be. Everybody Wants Some!! is as laid-back and low-pressure as a Saturday afternoon at someone's dorm room.

It's all angst and no adventure, a lot of fury and little fun.

The only thing that's revolting is how dull the series has gotten.

See Remember. You won't regret it — or forget it.

As the colonel, Mirren is terrific — a fierce warrior willing to bend as many rules of engagement as it takes. As her commanding officer, the late Alan Rickman is just as dedicated but a little tired of bloodshed.

It's tasty at times, but feels like a very special episode of "30 Rock." Halfway in, you're still expecting Kenneth the Page to show up.

Remember “Olympus Has Fallen”? This one is worse.

Director Alex Proyas’ movie feels like a bad video game.

Hugh Jackman doesn't play Wolverine in Eddie the Eagle, which is too bad. The film deserves to be slashed to bits.

Backtrack eventually moves beyond its shamelessly borrowed set-up to create a few chills of its own.

When the story does wrap up, it's all too little, too late, and far too long. Which given everything stuffed into it, just leaves the super-sized Triple 9 triply disappointing.

In the end, you get a Sunday morning sermon when what you really want is a Saturday midnight screening.

A movie that really mined that story would be worth the gold. This one barely doesn’t even capture the bronze.

This smart, raunchy comedy is a movie aimed at women. Full of frank, just-us-girls talk about men and wicked gags about drunken sex and intimate "landscaping," it's probably a poor choice for date night. But it's a great pick for girl's night out.

This isn't a movie, it's a rapsheet, a series of assaults committed against its cast and its viewers.

There's noise and movement, an all-out war, and the usual happy ending, but no real blood, no real life. And not much fun.

Despite some great effects, and one good performance, it never quite gets underway.

This movie has almost nothing redeeming. And it’s flat out gross.

Moonwalkers is supposedly a comedy. So its clever conspiracy quickly goes disastrously wrong.

Director de Aranoa keeps things moving, though, with a firm sense of pace and a rough, punk-edged soundtrack.

Old silver-fox Gere looks great. He’s almost embarrassingly charming — which is the point — but there’s not much else here.

Pretty as Bratt and Munn are, they're not distracting enough to cover up for the screaming Hart and grating Jeong, who seem to be in a race to see who can play a more annoying character. In the end, it's a tie — they both win.

That grim realism sometimes makes The Revenant about as appetizing as a three-course meal of turkey jerky — but also serious enough to remind you of classics like "Jeremiah Johnson" and "Little Big Man." It's a gruesome adventure story that rarely lets up.

This movie has Chris Hemsworth, in between "Avengers" movies, and a lot of computer-generated sea life. It uses a lot of fancy lures, but it never hooks you.

No one has been too naughty to be subjected to this reindeer poop.

Jackson is terrific, of course, although he's the spice here, not the main meal. As Lysistrata, Teyonah Parris is a fierce, finger-snapping leader while, as her man Chi-Raq, a cast-against-type Nick Cannon, is surprisingly tough and moody.

Youth is fleeting. "Youth" is not. In fact, you may feel yourself getting older just watching it.

It's really a movie about love at first sight, about the dizzying early days of a relationship, about a passion so strong it can't be described, or denied. And that's something everyone can identify with. If they're lucky.

Give Lawrence credit for a seriously emotional performance, at least, and thanks to supporting actors Moore, Sutherland and a sly Woody Harrelson for adding color and comedy.

Got your holiday turkey yet? Well, don't worry, Diane Keaton and John Goodman have one waiting for you at the movie theater.

So, Bobby, seriously, what the hell is happening? You got a new movie, or what you’re billing as a movie, except it's already on cable and I figure a month from now it'll be in one of those Redbox things. And it's called Heist, I guess because it wants to separate me from my money.

Craig is cruelly efficient. Dave Bautista makes a good, Oddjob-like assassin. And while Lea Seydoux doesn’t leave a huge impression as this film’s “Bond girl,” perhaps it’s because we’ve already met — far too briefly — the hypnotic Monica Bellucci, as the first real “Bond woman” since Diana Rigg.

Gradually the film turns its very specific story of one immigrant into a moving group portrait.

For a movie about purpose, Captive never finds its own.