Tom Russo

But, oh, the action. Tommila and Jackson have a couple of escape sequences that are exhilaratingly choreographed, never mind that one employs a meat freezer as its key prop. Kids should dig these bits. After all, off-kilter as Helander’s sensibility continues to be, he’s got a passion for popcorn-movie energy that can be contagious — especially when he’s not trashing Santa.

The moments that elevate Wrath above the routine are right in line with Liebesman's "Battle: Los Angeles'' high points: frenetically shot u-r-there combat sequences that feel like the real thing.

What starts as a modest, agreeable riff on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tale — and, more relevantly, Tchaikovsky’s ballet — eventually veers into stultifying action, rote twists, and other badly forced contemporary tweaks.

Too well-meaning and too infused with genuine poignancy from Smith and Harris for the film to be dismissed as just a trigger for our snark reflex. But it’s a shame that the tears Smith sheds aren’t serving a better conceived story.

The story loses its convincingly scaled sense of jeopardy in the late going, and it ultimately unravels.

Still, not to put too fine — or juvenile — a point on it, a bigger problem is that there’s nothing but ’bot-on-’bot mayhem until the climax, when familiar ugly heads are reared over Tokyo.

Compared to the first two movie installments, this one is uncharacteristically scattershot in the life-lessons department.

As an orphan who dreams of joining the Paris Opera Ballet in the animated feature Leap!, Elle Fanning really hears it about the artistry and precision required to become a prima ballerina. The makers of this cheery but subpar confection probably should have been taking notes in addition to scripting them.

The movie may feel tonally consistent with the first, but it’s also overlong and thoroughly routine.

This doesn’t even feel much like Tris’s story anymore, just generically overdigitized combat. The main thing she’s diverging from at this point is the tone that hooked us in the first place.

An Australian crime yarn with a solid cast and tone, but not enough freshness — or enough of Pegg’s waggishness — to be memorable.

Disappointingly, this scruffy indie doesn’t live up to its promise either, despite a few flashes of subversive inspiration.

Wilson has some fun lampooning ’80s action tropes, but he’s also just doing Dwight Schrute with a twang at times. McBrayer and Garcia barely get to play one-note characters, let alone ones that you’ll remember.

The movie would benefit from spending even more quiet moments with Glover.

For all the energy that Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman, and their castmates pour into their gimmicky comedy, there’s too often a feeling that they’re straining to pump up flat material.

Tucci can be so focused on Giacometti’s artistic process that he gives short shrift to the art itself.

A sequel that has some snappy interplay, typically courtesy of Malkovich, but mostly feels like a cast working to manufacture what came naturally the first time.

Too glossy to truly immerse audiences in the horrors it depicts.

The role of investment banker Naomi Bishop seems right for Gunn, no question, and it’s one that she approaches with conviction. So why is it so hard to root for her, or for any of the characters here?

While the movie seems designed to be a breakout for Jang, it's Lee whose work actually makes an impression.

If the movie can’t maintain its interest in Chan, why should we? This narrative splice job simply doesn’t hold together. Call it a taut mess or a hot mess, take your pick.

For the haters out there, you could see where Sandler reprising his role as a cartoon Dracula in Hotel Transylvania 2 might just be the perfect metaphor: Yep, there he goes again, evilly sucking the lifeblood out of decent entertainment. Now come on, let’s grab the torches!

Thoroughly vanilla comedy, a movie jammed with well-meaning girl power messages but surprisingly little edge.

When the action is at its sharpest, such as with Henry’s mid-chase leap from a detonating truck onto the back of a motorcycle, it’s spectacular.

Colorful as the 3-D aliens-among-us comedy is to look at, though, Corddry is handed a role that’s beige as can be, and so are his castmates.

Save for a couple of crisp standalone segments incorporated as tone-setters, Washington’s first-ever sequel is a narratively and visually muddled disappointment, one that regularly confuses numbing brutality with vicariously thrilling righteous vengeance.

Butler serves the cause well, considering. Think that cause is a thankless one? Shhh, don’t tell Secret Service agent Channing Tatum or president Jamie Foxx, headed your way in June with, yes, “White House Down.”

The frustration, though, is how much the movie leans on made-ya-jump scares and contrived plot devices when its quieter chills and already fraught setups are so potent.