Tomris Laffly

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.