Song One is an odd little movie. It seems as if there is more going on than there is, which you realize after it's over. As pleasant diversions in the moment go, however, you could do much worse.

It's also a head-scratcher: How did a movie this stubbornly old-fashioned ever get made by such a trendy French director as Francois Ozon.

It's not a fascinating (or even particularly interesting) character study — the film never lets you get close enough to its leading man to understand his damage — but it's nevertheless an intermittently moving one.

McKenzie and Taylor-Joy are both affecting as two sides of not-quite-the-same coin. Their performances are the best thing about the film, which is good — but not as good as it might have been.

Scenes go on too long. Jokes outwear their welcome. The plot, though perfunctory (it’s no more complex or intriguing than the average hourlong television crime procedural), gets muddled. Even though McCarthy keeps the laughs coming, The Heat doesn’t really pack enough.

It’s mostly a biography of Holiday — nothing wrong with that, certainly when you’ve got a performance as stunning as Andra Day’s in the title role.

It’s all insanely violent and gleefully silly. Stab wounds and bullet holes just don’t slow some people down the way you think they might. Through it all the best part of the film remains the dichotomy of a bland wimp (a character Odenkirk plays so well) who can flip the switch to becoming a remorseless killer — and seeing Odenkirk as the one flipping the switch.

It’s cute and entertaining, in a Saturday morning cartoon kind of way, but this one is just for the kiddies.

Good in spots, overall Cage is fine. Nothing more, nothing less. Kind of like Seeking Justice.

As much as Swinton Byrne and Burke add lived-in qualities to their characters, there's really not much to like about the leads or their toxic relationship that unravels at a mind-numbing pace.

The story is just so downright weird that the film can't help but be compelling. Just not as compelling as it could have been.

There is something to be said for giving people what they want, but there are no surprises in Randy Brown's script, and Lorenz plays it safe. It's feel-good stuff; you wonder what Eastwood, a terrific director, might have done with it behind the camera.

It’s got a great beat and you can dance to it (or Jackman, Efron and the rest can, anyway). And Barnum would have loved it.

It's hard to know whether to take it to task as a film critic or as a dance critic. It isn't that it fails on either level - it's a serviceable movie - but it neither attempts nor achieves much of value.

There are no surprises here, just a by-the-numbers comedy that's better, and funnier, than it has a right to be, thanks to the efforts of the actors in it.

Song to Song isn’t the sleepy disappointment Malick’s last two films were, but it’s hard not to wish he’d wake up.

It has a great voice cast, a kinda-sorta interesting premise and the 3-D is effective, but somehow it just doesn't add up.

The Void is a horror film that goes off the rails — not by accident, but on purpose. And not just a little. It’s gloriously off the rails, unhinged, absolutely bonkers.

A Minecraft Movie is a fun romp that kids, whether they're fans of the game or not, will likely enjoy. The missed opportunity is the older generations of players. There's not enough storytelling or humor to get us invested in Hess' Minecraft world.

Winslet and Davis salvage what they can from the movie — a heroic effort, almost, making it a fun trifle, albeit one with some deadly serious overtones.

What raises it a notch above the typical slick Hollywood romances are its stars, Ludivine Sagnier and Nicolas Bedos.

It’s kind of funny, it’s kind of revealing, it’s kind of insightful as a glimpse into Hughes’ increasingly twisted mind, but it never adds up to more than the sum of its parts.

The Man Who Knew Infinity is a good movie about a great subject, but one that should have been bett

American Reunion depends more on the audience's feelings for recognizable characters than telling an original story, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

The zombification of Austen’s material is frequently funny and sometimes clever, but the film stumbles hard when it loses sight of just how ridiculous it is.

The intentions are noble, but the film’s eagerness to honor Mandela instead shortchanges him. Mandela was a man who broke the mold; “Mandela” is a film content to nestle very neatly into it.

You come to this movie hoping that Johnson and Hart make you laugh. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. The hit-to-miss ratio is higher than you might expect, and both actors could accurately be described as pleasant, if not especially creative.

Bright Days Ahead offers an interesting twist on the May-December romance.

Paint is one of those good ideas that doesn’t quite make a good movie. Until it does.

In spite of the compelling raw material in the lives of its ostensible subjects, it strikes out as an act of storytelling.

The Intern is idiotic, unrealistic, Boomer wish fulfillment that has no business working on any level. I quite enjoyed it.

17 Girls doesn't try to explain its many mysteries. That would have made for a better film, but this one does a nice job showing its effects.

Scott Frank's atmospheric thriller is a step up from Neeson's usual shoot-'em-ups. Not a giant leap, but a step up nonetheless.

If you’re a literature junkie, and I cringe at typing the phrase because it sounds so quaint in a world of 140-character expressions of self, then the film has its fascinating moments. The performances aren’t really among them.

There’s a story within a story here, one more compelling and relatable than the other. Perhaps that’s by design. But even if that’s the case, it doesn’t mean the two parts co-exist comfortably, no matter what the intent.

It has a serviceable, conventional approach that summarizes the extraordinary achievements of a remarkable woman but offers little more than predictable and inspirational Pinterest-quote fare that would have been better suited for an HBO TV movie.

It’s as if Boyle is saying he isn’t afraid to visit the past. And he does it about as successfully as one could — T2 is a movie worth seeing and enjoying if you’ve seen the first film (less so if you haven’t). What he’s not as successful at is telling us why.

It’s a jumbled, intriguing, inconsistent mess — and yes, it is uncomfortable by design.

Ornamented heavily with creative visual pleasures, the film is bogged down, not just by weighty thematic issues — death, divorce, bullying, unfairness — but by professions of its own grandeur.

I like movies like “Rosario” — creepy little horror films with enough scares to keep you on edge and enough of a story to keep you invested.

Annie has never been the most sophisticated of children's stories. The latest version is formulaic and predictable, but it has its charms, not the least of which is Wallis' easy smile and sassy screen presence.

Green Book is not unthoughtful in its crowd-pleasing. It’s just that such crowd-pleasing feels inappropriately quaint for 2018.

If anything, Carnage does too little to adapt to the new medium, and the result is a film that makes its audience feel as trapped as its characters.

As far as missteps go, Prince Avalanche is at least an interesting one, which is better than Green has done in awhile.

Nothing fresh is being brought to the table, but it's a sufficient bit of fun for anyone who longs for the days of Brosnan's spy swagger.

Eleanor the Great ties all the loose ends up in a neat bow, with the forgiveness of Eleanor. It's one of the types of movies that you'll watch once and not think about again.

It doesn’t offer anything new to the genre, but chugs along pretty well until the plot holes begin to pile up.

Of course with this kind of film, not every joke lands. You’re hoping for a good proportion — more hits than misses. The ratio isn’t quite as high as you’d like with The Binge, but it’s close enough.

The Secret Life of Pets is a pleasant-enough movie that would have been much better had it lived up to its title.

Despite a couple of powerful performances, a big-name cast and an ambitious structure, Lovelace...feels oddly half-baked, almost unfinished.

The Batman is impressively made. The acting is first rate, and the chemistry between Pattinson and Kravitz is magnetic. It’s meant to be an important statement. It’s just not a lot of, you know, fun. Or as someone famously put it in another Batman movie, Why so serious?

It looks nice, but it's not really going anywhere.

It’s fun while it lasts, but ultimately forgettable, kind of like the people they stole from.

Clooney’s hollowed-out performance — truly, he seems exhausted by life and disgusted by humanity, with a notable exception — is effective. But as a director, he creates two distinct worlds and struggles to bring them together.

Less obvious is how his parents will react should Ravi break ways with tradition and confess his true feelings. Their struggle to maintain their sense of cultural identity in a rapidly changing world is far more moving than any grown man’s commitment issues, even when that grown man is as ingratiating as Ravi.

The big-screen version of Entourage is constructed like the series, another chapter in a sequel-ready story. If you wanted something more, you won't get it. But you will get this, and if it does well, likely more of it.

No, Atomic Blonde isn’t lacking in sex appeal or swagger. But what it is in want of are stakes.

Yes, it’s a boxing comeback story. But the car accident makes it different, and Teller and Eckhart make it better than it ought to be.

Put this title on your Netflix queue in the first place. Just give your own Mr. Right a break and don't waste your date-night dollars on the big screen.

Treading the same raunchy path as "Neighbors" and "Superbad," the contrast of child actors uttering obscenities and utilizing sex toys as weapons is a comical mix of one outrageous mess after another.

It never quite adds up. You can’t shake the feeling that both Scott and McCarthy are aiming for something here that remains out of their reach.

The acting is first rate, the story still heartbreakingly urgent. But ultimately Parkland plays more like a re-enactment than a film in its own right.

Sam Levinson’s film is meant to be a harsh, unyielding examination of a relationship, and thanks to stunning performances by Zendaya and John David Washington, it sometimes is.

It’s when bullets fly that Bay is at his best. He stages the battles well, and builds tension effectively and at times inventively.

Although it has some serious flaws, it rises above genre fare, thanks to Greg Kinnear's intriguing performance and the work of a good cast.

It's exactly what it appears to be: a funny-enough stoner comedy with a likable cast.

The incongruity is shocking at first but wears off after a while, making Strays a good and funny bet for stumbling over while channel-surfing (or whatever the streaming version of that is), but not a lot more.

If you have a yen for martial-arts action, Man of Tai Chi could do the trick depending on how seriously you take Reeves’ performance. At the film’s worst, it’s empty yet still attractive (much, it can be argued, like Reeves).

The director is known for visually quirky choices and offbeat interviews and asides. These techniques can be a mixed bag; sometimes they help lighten up a deadly serious segment, other times they seems silly. But it’s distinctive, and “This Is Us” could have used more of it.

Character development, dramatic tension and emotional resonance all get short shrift in the checklist exposition by writer-director Gavin Hood.

MaXXXine isn't a bad movie by any means, but compared to "X," it just feels like another failed horror movie sequel.

It's plenty gory. And it definitely rocks. As for hilarious? It must've felt that way to Grohl, who liked the "Pearl Jam high-five" joke well enough to use it twice.

Deserves commendation for its fearless bravado, if for little else. [25 Oct 2012]

It feels like a filmmaker’s exercise rather than an involving motion picture. Although you may never be bored with All Is Lost, you are rarely fully engaged.

It’s a good movie about great heroism, and you wish it was more.

Ficarra and Requa never quite strike a successful balance between comedy and drama, making the whole thing feel a bit off.

Fast-moving, stylish and gritty, but also predictable. [25 Oct 2012]

It’s not as good, nor as involving, as “Love Actually.” But like that film, it has Bill Nighy, and that’s good for something.

Bang, boom, bam. That’s about the size of things in No Escape, a movie banking on its admittedly first-rate action drowning out its political tone-deafness.

If it doesn’t have the family drama of “Walk the Line” or the psychodrama of “The Doors,” Bohemian Rhapsody does deliver what any music biopic must: convincing characters and some kick-butt simulated concert experiences.

If Sick isn’t a great COVID-inspired horror film, at least it’s a start.

The singing is terrific, particularly whenever Hudson belts out a number (and there is really no other way to describe her powerhouse vocals). But the story is trite and predictable, if heartfelt.

It's not a top-shelf Apatow production, and by the end, it's obvious Wanderlust was a lot more fun to make than it is to watch.

There are a few big laughs, but there are also long stretches in which nothing funny happens.

Madagascar 3 has a problem: It rarely slows down enough to let us really enjoy it.

Taking the bad-cop genre to the extreme, Filth lives up to its title and then some, but a no-holds performance by James McAvoy is reason enough to watch.

It’s a weird film all the way around.

Sure, these roles aren't exactly a stretch, with Duvall being crotchety and Downey being sharp-witted. But that familiarity is part of the appeal. They're good at this. Really good. After all, as has been noted, they're not movie stars for nothing.

The film does not have the courage of the book, which felt no need to tie a nice pretty bow on everything. But it's fun enough for a good while (it's only 81 minutes long), and that's enough.

Grunberg and Boyar have a charming, if broad, chemistry. It’s all kind of cheesy, of course, but it’s meant to be. And the effects, when not deliberately silly, aren’t bad.

Props to Bad Milo for its fearlessly pulp approach in exploring well-worn characters and their ho-hum dilemmas, but you know you’ve got a dull story on your hands when not even a butt monster can jazz it up enough.

Though the stories explored in Bombshell are explosive, the film's uneven pace makes them merely sizzle like reading a news brief instead of an illustrative Vanity Fair profile.

The film soldiers on through a couple of possible endings, and if its real destination is never truly in doubt, Mbatha-Raw makes the trip interesting.

It would benefit greatly from having real actors in the major roles. That the bad guys -- who are actors -- are more charismatic is certainly not due to the fact that we are on their side. It's because they know how to make us want to watch.

Uplifting, it's not. But Low Down is a worthwhile look at a deeply flawed man, his daughter, and the unusual bond that existed between them.

Napoleon isn’t a failure on anyone’s part. But it’s not a rousing success, either. It’s not really a rousing anything, which is the problem. Maybe Scott should have gone in even more on Phoenix’s quirks and mannerisms, which are the most purely entertaining things about the film. Whatever the case, it doesn’t quite measure up.

Just when you're ready to throw in the towel, Plummer does something that keeps you going; maybe it's the quietly affecting way Jack turns up the twinkly charm as age and illness are starting to take things away. Then there's Farmiga's ability to mine a laugh out of angst and yet remain human, and MacDougall's sly, sleepy charm.

It doesn’t help that Barrymore and Collette don’t have much chemistry for best friends forever, but Collette’s work is so compulsively watchable that Miss You Already is worth a watch for that reason alone. And precious few others.