Steve Davis

In its laziest moments, MBFGW3, like the 2016 sequel preceding it, dutifully plays these greatest hits on repeat to reassure its loyal core audience it hasn’t abandoned the memory of the first film, even at the risk of demonstrating its creative bankruptcy.

While the first film was nothing special – it often felt like a packaged product, in the worst Nancy Meyers sort of way – it still had some snap-crackle-and-pop energy now and then. This sequel, however, plays like soggy cereal.

It’s like someone’s always turning the knob in one direction, and then in another in Mafia Mamma, rarely settling on any mood with clear reception. It can be a frustrating farrago.

There’s something to be said for how Jesus Revolution occasionally evinces a period, albeit not in a very sophisticated manner, when a seemingly unbridgeable societal fissure divided the young and the old people in this country.

While the documentary offers a few delicate glimpses of a self the writer did not openly share during her 74-year lifetime – she lived as a lesbian, albeit privately – it falls short of conveying the vital essence of this modern and enigmatic woman of her time.

This is nothing like the absorbing Nordic noir of modern Scandinavian television and cinema. It more resembles good old-fashioned American mediocrity.

The Aviary, a modest mindf*ck of a thriller about two young women fleeing a cult in the New Mexican desert, goes round and round and round in a circle like a snake swallowing itself. A beguiling metaphor, but by the end, you’re left with a self-cannibalized movie.

Director/screenwriter Giarratana occasionally summons up a lovely moment, although the overall tone is inconsistent.

While Levi gives you someone to genuinely root for, once the movie reaches Warner’s debut game for the Rams in 1999, all nuance goes out the window as you’re pounded into semi-hysterical submission to cheer for a proverbial win for the gipper.

Regardless of whether Cry Macho merits a rating of good, bad, or ugly, Eastwood’s mere presence, despite any perceived physical frailties, can’t help but dwarf this slenderest of movies.

Honestly, both Sex and the City and Seinfeld tackled the romantic pitfalls of youngish single life in NYC more adeptly in their relatively truncated formats than this 91-minute movie, and with a helluva lot more verve and wit.

It’s overwhelming, but there are a few nice touches that aren’t completely lost in the bedlam.

Like the jelly-bean sugar high in one of the more manic running gags, it’s all terribly exhausting in the way most movies tailored to the under-10 crowd can be.

You’d think this chapter in Danish history would inspire passion in a native filmmaker, but the movie lacks fervency.

Renaissance man extraordinaire Michelangelo Buonarroti is frequently accused of greed in the incohesive historical drama Sin, but the only real transgression is his pride, whether it’s nurturing his own divine genius or badmouthing the mediocrity of contemporaries like Leonardo and Raphael.

As improbable as Valerie’s endgame seems once revealed, it plainly demonstrates she’s nobody's chump. It’s not exactly a feminist reading, but one that gives Fatale a little backbone.

The two leads are watchable enough, but the script keeps their characters emotionally separated, so you never see anything remotely like chemistry between them.

Every so often, a spark in Marinelli’s mesmerizing blue-gray eyes flickers and you can imagine the passion that drove the man to his madness. In those moments, Martin Eden subtly flames, if only briefly.

There’s little juicy about his life, except for maybe when he briefly left his stalwart, long-time male lover and business associate, André Oliver, for the sultry French actress, Jeanne Moreau. While House of Cardin devotes a few more than a glancing minute to this intriguing episode, perhaps it’s a worthy topic for another documentary at another time.

Though the movie’s raison d’être is unmistakable from the outset, the most compelling moments come not when God’s name is being invoked out loud and with great frequency, but rather when the loving symbiosis between two young people facing adversity and caring for each other is tenderly communicated without uttering any words, conveyed in something as simple as the direct gaze between two pairs of locked eyes. Now that’s the notion of a higher power in which we can all believe.

Movies shouldn’t have to meet a PC checklist so they won’t offend – who wants that kind of cinema? – but when they poke you in the eye one too many times, it’s fair game to poke back.

It’s Hauser who keeps the movie from tilting over, even though Eastwood and Ray initially seem to patronize the character. The knuckleheaded scene-stealer from "I, Tonya" and "BlacKkKlansman" has the chance here to play a fuller, more rounded character for a change, and he’s unexpectedly up to the task. The performance is an eye-opener. With a little refinement and polish, we may have found our long-awaited Ignatius J. Reilly.

There’s some gorgeous animation and impeccable camerawork on display here. But as George Lucas’ 2015 fiasco "Strange Magic" demonstrated, beautifully executed visuals will get you only so far. There’s no emotional core to Abominable, which mostly proceeds at a glacial pace as the travelers’ journey across China.

As the whimsical setup in Yesterday deteriorates until its unimaginative conclusion, the familiar Lennon/McCartney collaborations (along with a couple written by Harrison) provide the only solace, timeless songs that make it better. Viva Los Beatles!

Times sure have changed since the old Shaft made women swoon by simply treating them like sh*t. As for the new Shaft, is he still a bad mutha? Shut your mouth.

The movie remains patchy as it continues to jump somewhat arbitrarily from day to day without fully realizing its subject matter. The one dependable constant in all of this is Christo himself. Smiling ecstatically one minute, despondently hangdog the next, he exhibits a genius lunacy on par with his life’s work.

It’s a tale full of sound and fury, signifying something that’s nothing less than appalling.

Perhaps the fault lies not in our stars, but in our shameless need for a sappy ending.

Screenwriters Nina Fiore and John Herrera have modernized Keene’s decades-old storyline without completely chucking the quaint qualities of the original.

Henson aside, the most memorable performance comes from musician Erykah Badu in the smallish role of a trippy, weed-dealing psychic seemingly from another planet.

Some kids may find the whole affair traumatic, particularly when the poor pooch finds herself dehydrated and chained to a corpse in the wilderness. Then again, that’s nothing compared to those same kids’ parents’ recollection of a Disney flick in which a tearful boy must shoot his rabies-inflicted yeller dog in the end. Bless the beasts and the children.

Speaking in a barely audible rasp bordering on monotone, Kidman bravely submerges herself in a performance with some genuinely harrowing emotional moments, and yet the unswerving conviction she brings to the role is conspicuous.

40 Years in the Making is a cliquey undertaking that leaves you mostly on the outside looking in, but after witnessing the joy of its participants at the end, there’s little to begrudge.

With more than a passing nod to the far classier "Panic Room," this derivative seat-squirmer has a few good moments in spite of Johnny Klimick’s annoying score, its energy powered by the raw determination of its Mother Courage.

What ultimately disappoints here, however, is the conventionality of the movie’s narrative arc, its mushy characterizations (as the cosmetic company heiress who befriends Renee, a squeaky-voiced Williams is utterly dispensable), and a rushed conclusion that ties up the loose ends with a sloppy bow that diminishes the movie’s message.

To its credit, this third GND installment earnestly attempts to give some degree of lip service to diverging perspectives on the socio-religious-political scale without too much proselytizing, although there’s never any question about who’s side it’s on.

You could say it’s toothless most of the time.

Although it has the smell of self-importance, like a Michael Cimino movie on steroids, Den of Thieves ultimately fools no one. It’s all about the guns.

A nagging question persists throughout Darkest Hour: Is Oldman’s compulsively meticulous turn here anything more than a brilliant impersonation? The answer is yes, but it’s a performance that always stands apart from the rest of the film.

Unlike "Manhattan," this perfunctorily conceived film about an unhappy woman starved for romantic and personal fulfillment never lives up to its brilliant production values.

The film wears its ambitions on its sleeve as it daisy chains from lover to lover, intently focused on maintaining the rhythm of its segues from vignette to vignette to the detriment of any profound insight into its linked characters’ mostly unhappy love lives.

No wonder the movie feels something like a retread: It gets you there, but the ride is neither nowhere as smooth, nor nearly as compelling.

The jaunty score of musical numbers (yes, there are songs) sounds vaguely familiar and yet instantly forgettable. Its only contribution to the film is to extend its running length unnecessarily by about a quarter of an hour.

There’s an intriguing story to be told here, but there’s a better way to tell it. To borrow from the Bard, the spots in Lady Macbeth simply won’t wash away.

The result is a visually fantastic but sometimes exasperating entertainment that (once again) gets lost in its own chaos. It’s one funned-up spectacle of a movie.

No matter whether the cast is male, female, or somewhere in between, the absence of a well-constructed story, particularly when the humor goes south (literally), will doom any movie to quick obscurity, no matter how many d**k or p***y jokes get told.

Paris Can Wait may be a film à clef of sorts – there’s a hint of the autobiographical in it, the suggestion of something experienced – but even that angle doesn’t make the movie terribly appetizing. What it needs is a little salt.

The movie is utterly ineffectual as a techno-thriller.

Despite its best intentions, The Lost City of Z never finds itself, doomed to aimlessly wander to an unsatisfying conclusion of a dream that betrays the best of men.

By the end, however, the movie’s predictable wind-down and ho-hum twist at the end make this Life hardly worth living. In space, no one can hear you yawn.

It honors this extraordinary couple’s defiant and unwavering love for each other, but it doesn’t celebrate it much beyond a cliched falling-in-love montage and a chaste wedding-night scene. You can look, but you better not touch.

While occasionally engaging, The Comedian isn’t very funny.

Collette – usually a delight – sounds like she’s phonetically speaking a foreign language. Not even Judi Dench could sell these lines.

The borderline campy The Bye Bye Man is a horror movie in search of an urban legend. Based on a chapter in the 2005 collection of allegedly strange-but-true paranormal tales "The President’s Vampire," the premise is second-rate Stephen King.

It’s meant to be thrilling fun, but it never takes off in the way imagined.

The movie’s disjointed weirdness begs the question: Was Hess ever in the driver’s seat?

Animated films have trended toward a perceptive intelligence in the past few years, but Storks wades in shallow waters most of the time.

Any adult attending this film with a pre-K offspring may need to reassure the child afterward that little Tigger back home won’t devour him in his sleep. No kidding. They’re that scary. The Wild Life is an ailurophobe’s nightmare.

If the movie isn’t so fabulous, should die-hard fans who can quote the show by heart see it? Absolutely. (The gays are sure to love it.)

This is a guy who marched to the beat of his own drum, even one that’s got two spoked wheels and some handlebars.

Scatologically speaking, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is best described as one of those summer movie turds: It passes easily and then disappears with a single flush. It’s crap any way you look at it, though there are less pleasant ways to spend your time on a day marked by triple-digit temperatures.

For most of the film, Bateman, the director, manages to bring out the two principals’ anguish without resorting to sentimentality, until the unsatisfying last quarter of the film.

Admittedly, the original had its unruly moments, but there’s little to no discipline here. The storyline goes in six different directions, and the actors are unleashed in an apparent free-for-all as they vie for center stage at the Parthenon.

As Christy, Garner gives an earnest performance, her perpetually worried expression put to good use here as the Beams grapple with the unimaginable possibility of losing Anna.

The characterizations are sincere, but overly familiar.

It’s a frustrating thing to unsnarl. Straddling the thorny fence of dramedy, Love the Coopers is a sometimes too serious, often not funny entry in this year’s tra-la-la movie sweepstakes.

The not-so-fresh Prince charts a familiar cautionary tale about the bad choices economically disadvantaged young men sometimes make early in life, but to its credit, it seldom feels hackneyed or cliched.

It’s hard to completely accept the up-and-coming Wolff as a total geek with no social or love life. With those puppy-dog brown eyes and enticing grin, the guy exudes intelligence and charm from top to bottom of his lanky frame. Up until now, the actor has shined in secondary roles, but in Paper Towns he proves he may be the next prom king.

In the end, the preordained ménage à quatre that culminates the evening’s funny games titillates neither mentally nor erotically. Without any such catharsis, the whole thing feels like a big tease. No doubt what The Overnight could use at this point is another happy ending.

Perhaps the film’s most telling moments, however, are wordless ones in which no actor appears. They’re the bird’s-eye views of American tableaux – suburban tract houses, elementary schools, interstate highways – that mimic similar sky-high perspectives just before a drone fires its missile.

That’s the problem with this well-meaning but ultimately hollow film romance: You don’t see it; you don’t get it.

For all its unsubtle sentimentality (including a you-can-see-it-from-a-mile-away plot twist), it remains unclear whether Little Boy intends to celebrate the conviction of belief or to mock it. It’s an unfortunate confusion that permanently stunts its growth.

The premise is ripe for potent melodrama, but director Jacquot (who gets co-screenwriting credit) ultimately doesn’t finesse the situation.

When Bardem is onscreen, the emotional stakes are high, engaging you in a way the principal storyline fails to do. It’s a masterful turn by a masterful actor, one that’s blissfully on-target in The Gunman.

Call it humanism, call it advocacy, call it old-fashioned entertainment – there’s little difference in the end. Whatever you call it, Spare Parts stands and delivers on its own intriguing merits.

Whatever the case, Foxcatcher provides little insight. Art can shape the truth in ways that resonate beyond the obvious. Regrettably, the truth-shaping here grapples for significance, without any apparent aim. Catch as catch can.

The antithesis of a feel-good movie, Listen Up Philip is a challenging experience, largely because it refuses to compromise its protagonist’s dogged preoccupation with himself.

What’s missing here is the full adrenaline rush associated with this dangerous but exhilarating sport and pastime. The documentary’s start/stop narrative structure never allows anything to accelerate full throttle.

The movie works best as a whodunit with a pointed twist.

Though Take Me to the River also offers up some civil rights history lessons between recordings, it feels like a mishmash effort overall, more a home movie than a theatrical release. That’s fine. If you approach it on those terms, you can’t help but feel the love, too.

It’s a pity party to which you’d like to RSVP an unequivocal “no.”

This is an action flick for those who like form over substance in their popcorn movies which explode onscreen every summer.

A well-meaning but misshapen movie about the folly of pursuing answers to unanswerable questions.

This is a movie tailor-made for cheering on the not-so-little guy to find his self-esteem, dazzle the judges, and win the girl.

The central conceit in 3 Days to Kill – the family man moonlighting as a gun-for-hire – is hardly a fresh one. It worked in films released 10 or 20 years ago (see True Lies or Mr. and Mrs. Smith), but here it feels played out, clichéd.

While retaining the core story of a bionic man tormented by the memory of his former human life, the film doesn’t play with the concept or give it new dimension. The whole enterprise raises the question: Why do filmmakers insist on remaking movies for no good reason?

It’s the subtext of 19th century gender politics that keeps this footnote in Dickens’ life mildly interesting, but it’s a not much upon which to rest an entire movie.

The saving quality here is Thompson’s performance as the prickly Travers.

It feels like a veiled apology for Babs Johnson and other exercises in bad taste. In my book, the filthiest person alive will always win the prize.

For both kids and adults, CWCM2 is little more than a vague memory as soon as it’s over.

Does the world need another movie about a bunch of miniature, blue-skinned humanoids with bulbous noses and perky bobtails; gnomelike creatures who wear floppy caps, live in mushrooms, and use the word “smurf” in every other sentence? Someone apparently thinks so.

The seen-it-all-before elements of this supernatural thriller directed by the filmmaker who gave us "Saw," however, are more hoary than horrific. It might as well be retitled "The Amityville Exorcist."

That’s the central problem with The Way, Way Back – it’s more manipulative than truthful.

Given the outlandish premise, you'll wish the film twinkled with a more savvy sense of humor and adventure, like the chapters of the "Toy Story" series, for example.

Frankenheimer resorts to gunfire and explosions to bring the film to its predictable end. It's when things get mundane that you find yourself wishing that Brando would reappear on the screen to make things interesting again.

A welcome antidote to most of the crap that for passes today for horror and other supernaturally themed movies.

The metaphoric title about the danger in beautiful things sounds like something from Byron or Keats, but this compressed film adaptation of an Oprah-endorsed bestseller plays like the Dickens.

Cape of Good Hope is a hopeful piece of humanism that is difficult to begrudge too much.