Probably it's a combination of those and other elements that leads to Diaz's bad teacher not being as bad as she might have been and Bad Teacher not as good as it could have been.

Without an actor like Dafoe at its center (and margins and everywhere else), it would be unwatchable torture. With him, it’s more like watchable torture, easier to admire than enjoy.

Unfortunately, “The Wasp” falls a bit short, as its slow storytelling and predictable plot twists leave much to be desired.

The film looks terrific, with a fantastical forest coming to 3-D life. Swooping birds, flying arrows and more make good use of the technology. But the best films use technology as a storytelling device, not as a substitute for story itself.

Immaculate goes all in on the yuck, but leaves the rest high and dry.

While the movie doesn’t break new ground, it’s a story pretty well told. If you’re a fan of war epics of movies about flying, you’ll find something that holds your interest.

Without Remorse is neither a classic nor a failure; it falls somewhere in-between. But like Kelly on a seemingly doomed mission, there’s Jordan, giving it all he’s got to save the day.

While the good outweigh the bad, it's a close race. But what is good, particularly a heartbreaking performance by Allison Janney, is really good, enough so that Colfer emerges as a talent worth watching on the page, not just on the screen.

With moments that harken to De Palma's "Carrie" (the claustrophobic toy box mimics Carrie's closet) and even "The Hunger," Greta is a mishmash of tropes masterfully compiled into a chilly and taut flick

The movie drags on way too long, but there are things to like.

There's nothing bad about Skateland, in fact, particularly for those old enough to remember the clothes, the feathered hair and the soundtrack. There's just nothing new, or anything that hasn't been done before, and better.

Spaceship Earth is an interesting look at the origins of one Arizona’s most interesting tourist attractions.

Obama is so smart and insightful, even in response to the canned and near-sycophantic questions during the question-and-answer sessions on stage, that it makes you yearn for a real interview, a tougher documentary, one that trusts both Obama and the audience more.

Although it brings nothing new to the con-artist fold, or even anything thrilling, Focus is a seductive enough rehash that benefits from the built-in pleasures of the trade.

Eventually, the film morphs from a horror movie to a border shootout. It’s not a seamless transition.

It’s easy to roll your eyes at what we see in “One Track Heart,” but harder to dismiss the happiness and peace on display here.

It may be haphazard and loosely focused. But thanks to Skarsgård it’s never really boring.

Slow-moving and occasionally ponderous in tone, "Creation" nonetheless is an intriguing portrait of a man and a time that changed everything.

Directed by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks), it’s a well-crafted procedural, but it’s also a whole lot of familiar tropes put together in familiar ways.

It’s engaging at times and wonderful to look at, but feels like it’s on the cusp of something bigger. But whatever that bigger thing is, it never arrives.

Delicacy is not a very good movie. But it is entertaining enough -- barely enough -- to make it worth seeing.

We’re left with some fun, funny and occasionally scary set pieces, but the slices don’t add up to a whole pizza, as it were.

Nanjiani is kind of like Bill Murray. There's just something about him that makes you anticipate something funny coming, if not now, soon, so why not start laughing? I don't know whether it would work in just any film, but here he's such an oasis of intelligence in a desert of comedic stupidity that I'd like to see if it would.

From its bland title to its fair-to-middlin' story, mediocre is the word that fits How Do You Know perfectly.

The balance between spunky kid film, buddy movie, comic book adventure and rugged violence is, as you might guess, difficult to find. But it’s kind of fun to watch “Project Power” try.

The filmmakers work at creating a new take on an old protagonist and then don’t really have much new to do with him once they’ve achieved that. It’s a good effort. Just not an entirely successful one.

A lush but fumbling literary melodrama outfitted with an attractive, generations-spanning cast and a puzzle box of three competing narratives.

[Pacino] and Green sometimes overplay their hand. That is, overplay the underplaying, which sounds patently ridiculous but is the exact description warranted here.

It's easy to get sucked into Begin Again, to enjoy the friendly performances and the goes-down-easy songs, and to not even notice until it's over that the film is more a feel-good fairy tale than anything else. We might not have seen much that was truly meaningful in the end, but it was warm and fuzzy while it lasted.

The overall feel is one of a generic, feel-good drama, albeit one with Harrison Ford stomping around most of the time as if someone kicked him in the shins. One suspects that this is a story that deserved better.

After a predictable opening hour, Paradise Lost manages to deliver a surprise or two as it switches gears into a full-on thriller. But it never gets close to the epic heights to which it aspires.

The jokes only make up for the pedestrian plot for so long. There was a time when animated fare with generic stories sufficed. But now we expect more from them, because they have, pardon the pun, evolved. The Croods, like its title family, hasn’t.

Unfortunately, screenwriter Christopher Bertolini has given Eckhart and Liebesman a story so riddled with war-movie cliches that it contains almost nothing else.

The problem with V/H/S, a compilation of sometimes scary horror shorts loosely bound by an overarching plot, is that, no matter how savage, evil or sadistic the killer, the victims almost always come off as bigger jerks.

While the acting draws us into the story; it plays like a daytime soap opera with really good actors and Australian accents.

In Run All Night, Neeson gives us more of the same, although with Collet-Serra's assistance, it's dressed up in a more interesting package.

The ambitious visual stylings don’t do enough to buoy a film that lacks a certain soaring spirit. If the adaptation is serviceable, it’s also dull — a disappointing fate for a story that’s anything but.

There’s a weird attempt at feminism here that doesn’t quite fly – basically it boils down to young women having every bit as much right to do bong hits all day and night as young men do – but at least there is an attempt.

There is a sweetness to Radnor's character and to his film. What there is not is a sense of urgency, of a desire to find out what happens next.

Maybe the Manson murders are not meant for easy explanation, which in part seems to be what Morris is getting at. Maybe we’ll never really know the answers. But we don’t seem to be able to stop looking for them.

Artfully shot and mooded-up with a jittery ambient soundtrack, Risk is compelling because the enigma of Assange is compelling.

Insidious: Chapter 3 is almost more a spoof of a classic like "The Exorcist" than it is an homage. It's not scary horror, it's silly horror, and the audience is in on the joke.

As statements go, it’s somewhat compelling. But really, the look of Like Me is the big draw here, and it’s what makes the film both interesting and well worth seeing. As for Mockler, it’ll be fascinating to see what comes next.

A decidedly dumb entry in the titan saga that’s still kind of fun.

The ways in which Love After Love is successful at portraying the grief process is also what makes it at times wildly unpleasant to watch.

You come to a Godzilla movie for the epic fights, and on that front, Dougherty delivers.

"Southern fried" is as good a phrase as any to describe The Paperboy...It fits, really, because it causes the same reaction. You eat a mess of fried okra or tater tots, and it's tasty going down. It's only after you're done that you feel a little queasy. [18 Oct 2012]

Screenwriter Jon Vitti and first-time directors Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis certainly give it a try, but their bag of tricks is mostly recycled and their sense of humor is aimed squarely at 12-year-old boys.

There was a lot of hype surrounding it, but after one too many awkward musical numbers combined with slow pacing, I was left checking my phone for when the 2-hour and 10-minute movie would be over.

Our teenage years are so overwrought with emotion; not to put them in play at all makes Brandy feel like little more than a cipher for Plaza’s deadpan dark humor. And that’s pleasurable enough for a quick fling, but hardly the foundation of a lasting relationship.

Overall, it's exactly as absurd as it sounds, but in the best way.

If you're willing to accept Killer Elite as a shoot-'em-up action movie with good actors taking the spots of the usual lunk heads (but spouting the usual nonsense), you'll be pleased with the film.

A Madea Christmas, for all its narrative shortcomings, also has plenty of laughs.

What you would expect from the third film in an unlikely franchise: less of the same.

Subtlety may not be Watkins' strong suit, but he knows how to frame a scene for maximum tension and dread.

Is it a ridiculous movie? Of course, that’s the point. Yet it’s still kind of fun, and it all but insists that you enjoy watching it.

Pete’s Dragon is a good movie. But it could have used a little more of the magic its characters are searching for.

Sing is like an album with a good song here and there, but too much filler and not enough hits

For all its thematic and behind-the-scenes innovations, cinematically Captain Marvel feels like a step backward for the MCU. Fresh off the heels of the all-or-nothing bombast of “Avengers: Infinity War,” the righteous representation of “Black Panther” and the giddy lunacy of “Thor: Ragnarok,” Captain Marvel is a retreat into a bland formula.

At Middleton is an almost completely inauthentic little romance that is so genuinely pleasant you’ll enjoy it anyway.

The film spends more time lingering on Emma's love affairs than it does in making sense of them; her declarations of passion and despair lack both.

Attractively staged and spiced through with raunch, About Last Night is still a pleasant enough romp, even if you have no intention of returning its phone calls.

"I didn't hate it" isn't a high watermark for praise, but when it comes to most Sparks adaptations, it's practically as good as winning an Oscar.

Even though Five Armies is the shortest Hobbit movie, it also is the least thrilling as it chugs toward the finish line weighted down with all the added characters and confusing subplots that have been tacked on along the way.

It comes down to a matter of tone, and Clooney can’t really settle on one. The Monuments Men is in no way a bad movie. Just, with this bunch, a disappointing one.

There's nothing particularly earth-shattering here, but maybe that's appropriate for a film honoring food that aims to be mouthwatering but unpretentious.

Quirky, funny and a little claustrophobic (by design), it’s confident enough in what it’s trying to accomplish to take the chance on the title. And what he’s trying to accomplish is ambitious.

It lays on the pathos, moralizing and forced whimsy thicker than figgy pudding, but it’s still entertaining, heart-warming family fare, thanks in large part to charmingly sincere performances.

Too often Washington is made to simply sit and observe -- which is not a fatal mistake because he is such a good actor that even then he's worth watching. Worse, though, at times he's gone altogether. That's not the only flaw in the fairly straightforward thriller, but it's the biggest.

Even as big-budget blockbusters go, this is a hard movie to connect with.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. is a surpassingly strange, often frustrating movie.

Ultimately, Revenge of the Electric Car is like meeting with an overeager salesman. In real life, that's not necessarily an unpleasant experience, but it also doesn't last 90 minutes.

For fans, counting up how many superheroes can emerge from the clown car of one three-hour movie is half the fun. For casual moviegoers — say, those who might skip minor installments such as “Ant-Man and the Wasp” — it accounts for half the exhaustion, a bit of world-building fatigue to go along with the sensory overload of a fantasy realm that seems stuck in perpetual apocalypse.

What spares Learning to Drive is an awful lot of comedic talent and artistic good will. Clarkson and Kingsley imbue average material with easy charm and wit, clicking onscreen with the smooth platonic chemistry of old friends.

It's clear this movie is for a certain audience, but at least the film embraces its genre and the jokes stick the landing. It's definitely worth a watch for fans of movies with an early 2000s rom-com aesthetic.

Despite being peppered with dynamic fight scenes, the film drags. And the tacked-on vigilante subplot...doesn't help.

Ultimately “The Last Showgirl” is worth watching for its final scene alone, but a lack of character and relationship-building leads to the film being as deep as a kiddie pool.

Whether Army of the Dead is any good isn’t really an issue. It’s more whether it sets out to do what Snyder intends for it to do. If he intended it to be an over-the-top exercise in zombie mayhem sprinkled with the occasional human emotion, he succeeded. The nice part is that this time he has actually managed to make it fun along the way.

Is it a good movie? It’s … a movie. That’s not the slight it sounds like. It’s certainly no masterpiece, though not for lack of a great performance from Lady Gaga. It’s an investment, but watching this cast do these things is worth the price of admission.

You also aren't sure what the film is about or if it's about anything at all, except fluid filmmaking.

The movie is never boring, but there may be some information overload for laymen in the audience.

If the story is somewhat lacking, Cox is terrific.

There’s a limit to how much patience one has for spending time with terrible people living large. But for all the lackluster familiarity of the film’s style, the story is too interesting, too baffling to deny.

The good news is that it's better than the second "Men in Black." The bad news is: not all that much. There are a couple of clever ideas, a few funny moments, a wealth of computer-generated special effects. But it's hollow at its core, and the asides have lost some of their spark.

Shipka is both funny and gritty as the wry observer unwillingly drawn into the action, the kind of role at which she excels.

I liked Dean. And I liked Martin’s direction. I just hope his next outing is a little more ambitious.

The problem with Peyton Reed's film is that when he shrinks the always-affable Paul Rudd, he shrinks a big part of Rudd's charisma, too.

You know you're being manipulated but you don't really mind, because it's fun to watch this bunch work.

The best thing about the film is neither the top-notch CGI nor the shallow moral lessons but the performance of Will Poulter ("Son of Rambow") as Lucy and Edmund's insufferable cousin Eustace Scrubb.

This is an incredibly creative film, but, unlike other Gondry films such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the documentary "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?" it doesn't add up to much.

Memory is a good-enough movie that could have been a lot better. Neeson is to thank for most of the good. Turns out he, like his characters, does have a particular set of skills. They involve acting.

Just good enough to pique your curiosity, but never quite good enough to captivate.

It's sometimes compelling, sometimes frustrating, and usually chaotic.

Brand ultimately can't make a watered-down Arthur as sweetly charming as the original, but he certainly makes it better than it would have been otherwise.

The film is not without its flaws, but the story it tells is both terrifying and inspiring.

Thanks to Highmore's performance, George is worth sticking around for - and thanks almost exclusively to Highmore and Roberts, so is The Art of Getting By.

It’s good, it’s intriguing, but in the end it’s nothing to howl about.

There is so much to enjoy about Encanto — the songs, the gorgeous animation, the cultural traditions. All of which make the script’s serious shortcomings all the more surprising and disappointing.