Tomris Laffly

A cringingly syrupy tale of overdue bonding between an estranged father and his only offspring.

While Where Hands Touch demonstrates confident filmmaking from a technical standpoint, Asante’s plot choices around the ambiguous development of Lutz feel irresponsible, especially during these risky political times that uncompromisingly demand us to be the opposite.

The whole experience feels like a generic inventory of recognizable tropes—the possessed child, the creepy old woman, the deeply-concerned priests, and the Ouija board are all here. Except, the cumulative fear bizarrely fizzles before it reaches something significant or emotionally meaningful.

It’s bewitching stuff when it doesn’t feel like a waste of invitations.

Sadly, the film plays more like an artless quickie than a fully fleshed-out romance.

As visually uninspired and ideologically conservative as it may be, there seems to be something beguiling about the series that keeps one (including myself, admittedly) on a short leash.

The film’s tonal inconsistencies hurt its impossibly talented co-leads considerably.

There is some panache to the film’s visuals and a lot of heart in the actors’ collective dedication, but “Mother/Android” feels like a bland mash-up of genre staples to forgettable effect.

This vintage tale of camaraderie flaunts an old-fashioned innocence and some endearing defiance, exemplified by its sweet original song “Do-Dilly-Do (A Friend Like You).”

Where Bay’s movies where incoherent messes that necessitated heaps of migraine meds, Caple Jr. actually manages to pull off something articulate and rousing with “Rise of the Beasts,” thanks in large part to the ever-relatable presences of Fishback and Ramos, and a parting note that’s just witty enough in its suggestion of a bigger universe.

While Hardwicke’s direction is slick across picturesque Italian locations and various high-octane set pieces that are shockingly bloody, there isn’t a lot she can do to rescue Collette’s fish-out-of-water protagonist from a lackluster mafia comedy with romantic undertones.

Ultimately pointless, Overboard makes you wonder why it exists at all when it offers neither a fresh angle into modern-day relationships nor an improvement upon its predecessor.

On the whole, his (Griffin) indecisive The Wolf Hour tick-tocks its way to an underwhelming finale. And when it gets there, the most shocking realization you’ll have is how forgettable an affair it all has been.

With a confused tone stuck between satire and horror (that also informs Malkovich’s eccentric, out-of-place performance), and various half-baked ideas about cultural icons and toxic fandom, “Opus” mostly feels like a missed genre opportunity.

The film's biggest con doesn't come from this imposter protagonist so much as the messy script and direction that squanders an amusing-enough premise, and the apathetic performances from A-listers in search of a purpose other than fulfilling a contractual obligation.

Fanning delivers a performance of such astonishing depth and emotional range that her presence here is both a relief and strangely frustrating, since the film that surrounds the young actor is sadly no match for the qualities she brings to Potter’s profoundly personal narrative.

In a lot of ways, Crisis is a classic example of a movie that wants to be a little bit of everything, only to add up to a much lesser version of something you keep waiting to see.

Agonizing, blandly shot Desperados, which is among the most abysmal romantic comedies that came out of this century.

The Woman in the Window thoroughly struggles to keep the viewer interested in Anna’s fight to prove the veracity of her version of the story

It’s surely a worthy enough premise for a good time, but one “Summer Camp” squanders through dull jokes, an uninspiring story without any real stakes and an overall phony feeling that the film can’t shake.

While Chappelle neatly outlines the tragic events caused by his spiritually bruised protagonist, it’s hard to stay engaged with his philosophical query that divides arguments into distinct rights and wrongs early on, and only asks shallow questions.

Sadly, the film doesn’t live up to its charming premise, spending most of its runtime chasing its own tail with pointless jokes and dog-related puns that are only mildly amusing, along with an undercooked love story that doesn’t know how to steal our hearts.

There is a big difference between a campy film that doesn’t take itself too seriously and one that is just wall-to-wall miscalculated execution. For clarity, “The Trench” is firmly in the second camp.

When the inevitable finale with a thoroughly sign-posted twist arrives, you might realize you’ve already spent all your goodwill towards Milburn’s stylistically over-bloated film that chases one cliché after the next over the course of an overstretched running time.

I Love America is hardly a life-changing rom-com. But it’s a good candidate for your next airplane watch.

Koontz’s command over the material is so absent that it is at times hard to distinguish his film from a spoofy Western-themed fair where a group of friends play dress-up for amusement.

Three Christs opts in for frustratingly broad characters that feel like half-considered caricatures and Jeff Russo’s sentimental, strings-heavy score that flattens whatever modest edge the movie might have had.

The angst it spreads throughout feels all too mild and forgettable to cast an unnerving curse. You know, the kind you’d crave from a horror film with lasting scares.

Hilarity ensues, but so do the lessons. . . In this raunchy little escapade, actions have consequences.

Ultimately, the only respectable thing that remains consistent throughout The Stand In is the beguiling appeal Barrymore brings to both of the personalities, even though neither of them is particularly likable.

Mostly known for his behind-the-camera TV credits on shows like “Modern Family” and “1600 Penn,” Winer doesn’t bring much finesse into the generic visuals of Ode to Joy. In fairness to him, no amount of directorial elegance could have saved the artificial beats of a narrative that fails to create believable sexual tension between its “romantic” leads and amounts only to an utterly shallow showdown between brothers with long-standing scores to settle.

Even with an embarrassingly rich cast, The Estate chokes on its own airlessness.

For a tender movie that follows an old man on a long and demanding multi-bus excursion to honor his late wife’s wishes, the placid affair has curiously little emotional range, and an even narrower sense of stakes

Atlas does have Jennifer Lopez in all her starry glory in the driver’s seat. It’s not nearly enough, but it’s something.

It would have been one thing if Alone with You at least worked as a genre outing on some level. It doesn’t—the film’s chills and scares are nearly non-existent; plot, stretched to the seams, unable to sustain a feature's length; and camera work, amateurish.

While it’s based on the bizarre 2007 story of the female astronaut who drove 900 miles in adult diapers to confront an ex-boyfriend, Lucy in the Sky doesn’t include that intimate detail. Then again, the movie shits the bed in so many other ways, it may have been overkill. Director Noah Hawley (TV’s Fargo) omits the headline-making undergarment, instead stocking up on paper-thin observations about workplace misogyny and mental health in a cloying feature debut that begs to be scorned.

The human dimension that gives the film brief jolts of energy never takes root. Instead, audiences are left grappling with a stuffy maze, albeit one presented with handsome production values and a filmmaker’s striking visual touch.

A tedious and only occasionally amusing comedic riff on “The Purge” franchise.

Sure, Ghosted feels mostly awkward, but everyone seems to be in on the joke for some shameless fun. And that’s all you might get from this movie, a little pick-me-up before you ghost it forever.

A throwback buddy action-comedy that offsets its run-of-the-mill sense of humor with a pair of appealing leads.

While the YA genre can be very capable of unearthing outsized desires and rebellions in all of us, the problem here is the source material itself. Or rather, the timing of its screen adaptation.

Scherfig’s latest effort pursues something naively magical, only to end up with a mélange of miscalculated, cheap sentiments.

The first thing you need to know about Expendables 4 is that its studio somehow made the grating decision to fashion its title as Expend4ble. It’s a needless spelling challenge for a dull and vulgar flick with a lot of empty-calories muscle, but little-to-no skill or fun to spare.

Aimless, immature, and frustratingly amateurish, Richard Bates’ “King Knight” feels like it was made exclusively for those involved in it, with no regard for an audience’s patience or time.

Someone must have said, “... like 'Ghost,' but you know, for teens!” when pitching Endless, Scott Speer’s shameless and embarrassingly vacant rip-off of Jerry Zucker’s wildly successful, otherworldly 1990 romantic drama. But I bet no one in that room expected the outcome to be quite this irritating.

It’s just a sad, unimaginative affair in which an impressive lineup of talented names goes to waste before our eyes.

So if you’re in search of a new horror film to watch in the countdown to Halloween this October, look elsewhere—no need to go exploring this particular noise in your streaming pool.

Me Time has some structural problems that drag the story, taking too long to reintroduce Huck in the second act, and littering the overall canvas with too many side players throughout. But it comes with enough rewards nonetheless thanks to an idiosyncratic group of lovable people who just need to get a little crazy in order to survive as their true selves.

The weapons look fake, the stiff action sequences play like poor re-enactments, and you frequently wonder how anyone managed to keep a straight face while firing off some embarrassingly simple-minded lines of dialogue. Even the bright red, corn-syrupy blood splattered around looks like it’s from a different decade of cinema.

A wooden ensemble, paper-thin frights and dull TV-special looks don’t help matters. ‘This place doesn’t suck,’ someone observes early on. If only.

It fails to rise above certain clichés, dulled further by stiff performances and a clumsy handle on the movie’s interwoven time periods.

In writer/director Chad Faust’s Girl — a wobbly and desperately unimaginative mesh-up of contemporary noir and a Southern-fried tale of ancestral trouble — Thorne continues to broaden her range, serving up a quiet performance of emotional burden and impressive physicality.

This is a film that chooses to keep things crisp and feather-light. And there is nothing wrong with the movie equivalent of a modestly happy floral cologne you’d splash on for a little daytime pick-me-up.

Ideologically scheming and visually inelegant, this is truly tacky stuff.

This ambiguously humorous film with a shaky pace and viewpoint sets forth a tough proposition: will you be patient for its 80+ minutes of running time, accept that nothing much will actually happen throughout that duration and settle for occasional jolts of rewards only?

The film unfortunately anchors itself in an exploitative mode, insincerely using terminal illness as inspirational fodder.

Happy Clothes gives us an intriguing snapshot of a creative force who can mix patterns and colors more fearlessly than anyone in the business. But it ultimately leaves us craving move.

You want to be moved by this seemingly conservation-minded affair, but Autumn and the Black Jaguar sadly turns into a cringe-inducing experience fast in a number of ways, undermining the intelligence and taste level of its young audience in the process.

What One of Those Days When Hemme Dies lacks in budgetary means, it often makes up through the sharp intentions of Fıratoğlu, a thoughtful filmmaker we will hear from again on the international festival circuit.

For Worse might be a tiny step among its kind, but it still feels like a leap for its thoughtful auteur, ultimately celebrating new beginnings as an ageless milestone.