Tara Bennett

It’s the palpable, playful chemistry between Emmanuel and Sy that finally gives this version of The Killer a reason to exist. Their rapport is a little bit sexy, witty and plenty world-weary. Every time they reunite, the film crackles back to life.

Blink Twice confirms that director Zoë Kravitz has an artful eye and ear: Her debut feature is full of creative compositions, heightened sound design, and clever editing. However, where she excels in creating atmosphere and mood, she falls very short as a screenwriter.

When King and Efron are grooving to their boss/assistant bickering beat, Affair is the most believable and entertaining. As for the rest, it’s been done better and with more depth in a zillion other films.

While Hale and Wolff have separately done strong work in prior romance films, including Hale and Hutchings’ prior winner, The Hating Game, they can’t spark any sizzle here.

Perhaps what was once haunting and unsettling on the book page has not, in more overt staging, translated well to the screen.

Writer Josann McGibbon’s script plays it safe from beginning to end. The potential cleverness of the format is never tested or pushed to explore any truly weird choices for Cami.

Heart of Stone is so busy trying to start a franchise that it forgets to be a movie good enough to merit a sequel in the first place.

Glitch: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia is a fascinating look at the compressed life and death of the HQ Trivia app. It’s a familiar tale of tech failure, but the details – and the massive popularity of the app – make it an interesting one to watch.

Because the script never lightens up on these non-stop angst moments, Crater suffers from a case of tonal whiplash. One entertaining set piece of jet-pack play or a scene with the kids binge-eating a stash of never-before-eaten foods can’t possibly overcome the tsunami of melancholic moments the adult filmmakers can’t seem to stop indulging in.

If Eirene Donohue’s script gave us more scenes to really get to know Amanda and Sinh as fully formed people, maybe A Tourist’s Guide to Love could have been memorable. But there’s really no chemistry, heat, or wit between Cook and Ly.

Netflix’s adaptation of author Kate DiCamillo’s The Magician’s Elephant makes some fatal tone mistakes in trying to smoosh together comedy, tragedy, childhood wonder and animal exploitation—which clash pretty hard.

Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel try their best with an interesting premise that’s squandered by script with barely any laughs, gratuitous violence and unconvincing action.

The Drop has a great premise about an accident that forces a couple to revisit their relationship and needs, but it never really lives up to its promise.

Aside from an unexpected ending, director Robert Zemeckis is basically doing a paint-by-numbers version of the studio’s much better original, just with modern animation and Tom Hanks. And while Tom always tries his best, even he can’t make this redo memorable on its own merits.

The Invitation takes way too long getting to its most interesting ideas, leaving us with the distinct feeling of “too little, too late.”

Persuasion is a disappointingly limp adaptation of one of Jane Austen’s great romances. While Dakota Johnson does her best to give director Carrie Cracknell a contemporized, charming version of Austen’s heroine Anne Elliot, the screenplay’s foundational reframing of the character strips away everything that makes the book’s version interesting and quietly heroic.

The Twin wastes its desolate location, talented cast, and strong opening in a meandering story that hinges on a last act reveal that doesn’t pay off.

Deep Water aspires to be a boundary-pushing erotic thriller but is stuck treading water in the kiddie pool.

Power does get points for keeping No Exit’s runtime to a brisk and lean 90 minutes, but he doesn’t have as deft a handle on all the other various working parts of the story.

Only Kaya Scodelario rises above the mess, working hard to try and craft an earnest and accomplished heroine that is by far too interesting for the rest of the boring dolts in the story.

As a musical, only a few songs really stand out, which is always problematic. There’s also a staginess to the whole endeavor that feels awkward and ham-handed when transposed onto the big screen. But director Joe Wright does get excellent performances from his whole cast, and creates a lush and beautiful period piece playground for the characters to exist within.

What Anderson doesn’t give us is the inner lives of anyone in the film.

House of Gucci starts with such promise as Adam Driver, Lady Gaga, and Al Pacino give performances that bring out the emotional complexity of the historically dysfunctional Gucci family. But then Ridley Scott becomes infatuated with tracking the fall of the corporation and its familial machinations instead of zeroing in on the more compelling personal implosion of Patrizia and Maurizio. Too much of the narrative is given over to side characters and scenes that are overindulgent, which lessens the potency of the tragic story and our investment in where they all end up.

I can’t remember another movie throwing such a competent cast under a bus so badly. How they turn out and how they could continue in the mythology is just iced in service of a reunion that doesn’t land, coupled with a ghoulish use of technology that is downright uncomfortable to watch.

Three A-listers globetrot and double-cross each other in Red Notice, a derivative action film that should be much smarter and sexier than it ends up being.

Despite a great cast, Needle in a Timestack lets the fuzzy logic time travel tropes trample the characters and our care for them and their plights.

Director Karen Cinorre has assembled a cast and production crew who work hard trying to bring life to her frustratingly abstract sketch of an idea that never coalesces into a satisfying narrative, or characters worth caring about.