The First Time sets out to be the thinking kids' teen sex comedy but misses the mark by failing its characters. [18 Oct 2012]

Dolittle’s animals are easier to relate to, with their humanlike self-esteem and family issues, than the film’s central characters.

There is no sense of dread or impending doom; instead it's just one jolt after another. It's like having someone jump out at you every five minutes, and about as much fun.

Even if your veins pump with more popcorn butter than blood, Alita: Battle Angel can get a bit too stupid to bear, like watching a pair of 13-year-old boys play a very expensive video game they designed themselves.

TRON: Legacy may well satisfy the fanboys who have waited almost three decades for its appearance. Enjoy. Who knows, maybe one day if you wait long enough they'll make a "Super Mario Bros." sequel, too.

Credit returning director Christopher Landon and screenwriter Scott Lobdell (Landon co-writes this time) with trying something different with the story. Blame them for not doing something better.

It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever, a couple of not-so-wise men said a long time ago — and in a better movie.

The best thing about the movie is Matthew Rhys.

Ghost in the Shell sidesteps questions of humanity and the effect of technology on the human spirit and opts instead for boilerplate sci-fi spectacle, eschewing existentialism for predictable plot and the glittery trappings of its 21st-century carapace

It’s better than a “Transformers” movie. Is that damning with faint praise? I’m not sure it’s praise at all. But it is true. Pacific Rim Uprising is, at least for about half the movie, better than a Michael Bay exercise in eardrum shattering. The sequel isn’t as good as the original, however, which probably isn’t a surprise.

The film, much like Willis' performance, never flatlines, but it never delivers the thrills you expect from this type of genre piece.

There’s a lot going on here, not much of it all that interesting. Although you do get to see Rob Lowe clomp around in the woods. And that's something.

The club scenes, initially exciting, are ultimately wearying, and the movie meanders about much of the time.

One of the joys of a good Brian De Palma film is his willingness to go over the top. In a film that isn’t so good, that excess becomes a lot less enjoyable. And Passion isn’t so good.

The Protégé has so many cool elements, so many reasons that it should be better than it is. Chief among them are Maggie Q, Keaton and Jackson. But they can only do so much, and ultimately the film feels flat. Like so many of the hapless anonymous bad guys, it just can’t hit the mark.

The one-note joke plays out longer and better than you might expect, at least for a while. But not forever.

The modern interpretation of King Arthur will entertain young viewers, eager to follow a story that doesn’t require Merlin’s magic to see where it’s headed.

There is a fine line between silly dumb fun and out-and-out stupidity, and “Red 2” crosses it one time too many.

It’s not as terrible as the premise suggests, thanks to some flourishes on Joseph’s part and an intriguing performance by Wes Bentley. Efron’s absurdly winning persona doesn’t hurt, either.

East of Wall looks great on paper, but when Beecroft decided to toe the line between fact and fiction, it ended up falling short of either. Neither a true documentary nor a drama, "East of Wall" lacks clear direction and the dialogue reflects that.

The promising beginning shows that it could have been something more than dumb. Alas, it’s not.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty just doesn’t work.

The atmosphere is appropriately creepy, and there are some starts, if not outright scares...But it just gets stupid.

A by-the-numbers romantic comedy as predictable as it is cloying.

I'm all for directors making audiences think, but ultimately, those thoughts need to lead us somewhere. "To the Wonder" didn't, to my mind. I'm not sure Knight of Cups does, either.

One of those message movies that never uses subtlety when a sledgehammer is handy.

Going in Style will probably be a lot more enjoyable if you’ve never seen the original. It’s not that the remake is terrible. It’s cheerful and undemanding, and an appealing cast makes the time go by painlessly enough. But the 1979 film is poignant and layered.

The Losers does a perfectly serviceable job of achieving its low ambitions.

It’s an unnecessarily complicated puzzle-box construction that only serves to cheapen the story and diminish its impact

There's nothing particularly off-putting about the movie. It's all right. But neither is there anything especially compelling. In the context of this cast, another descriptive word comes to mind: disappointing.

The danger in making a movie like Coming Through the Rye is in the constant referencing and hero worship of bigger, better, towering works of art — you can only exist in their shadows and pale all the more for the comparison.

What an interesting failure Margaret is.

The action-thriller is formulaic and obvious. In other words, it's just another Neeson movie, nothing more, nothing less.

[Costner's] utter conviction to such a daffy project is strangely endearing. You may never believe one minute of Criminal, but Costner sure does.

Star power can cover up a multitude of shortcomings in a film. Turns out stupidity isn't one of them.

It’s surprising how much you miss the star power of the original Avengers bunch. Or maybe it’s not surprising. Whatever the case, watching this movie too often feels like you suspect there’s a better party going on next door, but you can’t get in.

In fact, the problem with the film is that, despite an excellent cast that includes Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy and Rupert Everett, it doesn't really know what it is. A little of this, a little of that and by the time it's done, it adds up to not much at all.

While Leatherface, a prequel directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury (“Inside”), works OK as a gory horror film (necrophilia, beheading, partial defenestration and beating eaten alive by pigs are a few of the delights), it makes less sense as part of the surprisingly (and needlessly) expansive “Texas Chainsaw” universe, as it were.

Cash was the star, after all. Saul Holiff was an important part of that, but My Father and the Man in Black makes a rather clunky case for it.

[Jennifer Aniston's] performance in Cake is rightly being praised as a dramatic breakthrough (no one doubts her comedic chops). She's really good. It's just too bad the movie does her no favors.

There are some fun bits in the film. Law is kind of funny, in and over-the-top, does-he-mean-to-be-like-this way. Hunnam is game for playing Arthur. But Ritchie, in his attempt to ensure there’s never a dull moment, makes it all exhausting.

The movie is a pretty humdrum affair when it focuses on humans, even when actors are playing characters based on real people.

It's a competently made movie - in Jackson's hands it could hardly be anything but - yet rarely a moving one.

Admission is pleasant enough. Even when off a bit, the talent of the cast assures that. But it’s still a disappointment. You might say it, ahem, doesn’t make the grade.

While it’s visually arresting, it’s a disappointment. It’s too on the nose as a political allegory, and too lacking in coherent narrative to satisfy as a hipster comedy-drama.

Every third person on the planet will go to see this movie, and they will find exactly what they seek, nothing more but certainly nothing less. It's that nothing more part that ultimately disappoints.

If nothing else it’ll dazzle your senses, even on a small screen.

Director and co-writer Terry George (“Hotel Rwanda”) tries his best to give the film an epic sweep, but he substitutes quantity of plot threads for quality of story.

Despite the seriousness of the subject matter and the characters’ complex emotional journey, the film turns into something of a thriller with twists that, given the context, beleaguer believability.

There are some laughs (a well-placed police baton, for one). But Metal Lords feels unfinished, rough, like a solo the guitarist never mastered.

Really, every actor is likable and, all by themselves, good here. It’s that each situation is more ridiculous than the last and none of it fits together, even when everything gets tossed into the narrative blender toward the end.

Suburbicon is a hybrid of two ideas — two movies, really — and it isn't clear whether either would have worked separately. What is clear is that they don't work together.

You just have to hope for some fun along the way. The movie delivers that every now and then, but not nearly enough. Bigger! Dumber! Something! I’d settle for just better.

The star wattage is blinding, but the film fizzles out.

Redemption doesn’t have the chutzpah to let loose and be as dumb as it needs to be, so it instead bores the audience comatose with long stretches of sad-face Statham putzing around an apartment to justify the too-brief bursts of giddy bone-breaking.

It’s all very British, enough so they should serve tea and crumpets during screenings. Some of it is also entertaining. Just not enough.

Even with the talent involved, almost everything about Labor Day plays less like something you’d buy a ticket to watch and more like something you’d buy in an airport bookstore to read.

Rob Minkoff’s film has the generic feel of a kids’ movie that’s trying to please everyone. It’s not horrible. In fact, it’s agreeable enough. But nothing more.

It’s stupid by design, but it’s not stupid enough. … It plays like an idea in search of a film. Desperately in search of, and never quite finding it.

The tone is so uneven, the shifts so jarring, that they overtake the movie’s modest pleasures.

It's more thought experiment than film, and although it's laudable for its daring to be unlike any film you’re likely to have ever seen, it ultimately doesn't have more meaning to import than a well-photographed daily affirmations calendar.

There are some nice messages of inclusion, but they’re crowded out by a big dumb action scene at the end.

Grovic knows all the tricks of the trade, such as keeping the lighting dark (often too dark), in an attempt to add atmosphere. But in the end it seems like a series of shortcuts.

This well-intentioned buddy-road-trip flick lacks the danger, the drama and the sex appeal that most moviegoers will be looking for.

The film is not without charm, much of it provided by Larson as the sneakily demanding Brie. Liu is also funny and vaguely dangerous, while Henke is an agreeable presence. As for Hall, he's not asked to do much more than mope.

Writer and director Drew Pearce makes his feature debut in a confused, jumbled film that never quite gets its story straight.

Documented is obviously a bit of advocacy filmmaking, which is fine, but most of the time it's not compelling enough to reach beyond the converted.

The Night Before wants to make you laugh and cry, but it doesn’t give us enough opportunities to do enough of either.

While some of the sequels have been entertaining enough, A Good Day to Die Hard signals that it may be a better day for John McClane to retire.

Lola Versus isn't a bad movie. It's just not a particularly noteworthy one. It's too self-consciously ... everything.

The resulting film winds up like a compelling story about an iconic civil-rights event buried beneath an avalanche of stereotypes and bad writing.

Good intentions can only take you so far. So it is with Freeheld, a well-meaning movie whose sterling intentions, timely and provocative subject and terrific cast are muted to near oblivion by uninspired storytelling and direction.

What’s really missing is the sense of magic. Some films feel like classics from the start. Others don’t. The new “Pinocchio” falls into the latter category. Watching it makes you believe sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone.

You can’t help feeling as if Miller has missed an opportunity. Punk rock was all about manic energy, unbridled (and often unfocused) passion. CBGB plays more like a folk tale.

Aardvark, while it has its moments, never lives up to the potential the cast would suggest.

Lee Toland Krieger's film masquerades for a while as a romantic drama brainier than most, getting good mileage out of an intriguingly odd performance from Blake Lively. But ultimately, the movie relies far too much on contrivance and coincidence.

It all falls flat. Not completely — there is simply too much talent involved for the film to fail completely.

Shankman gets enormously entertaining performances from Tom Cruise and Alec Baldwin, so much so that it's a problem: The movie's not about them.

The story of how Moore made the movie is ultimately more interesting than the film he’s put together. It’s not for lack of trying. It’s more a lack of a cogent story.

The Exorcist: Believer is the first film in a planned trilogy. Better luck next time.

Really, the movie is the third cheeseburger, the fourth beer, the fifth ice-cream sandwich. It’s gluttony, which is kind of enjoyable when you’re in the middle of committing it but leaves you feeling sluggish and remorseful later when you’ve had time to think about it.

At its best, it hits the gut with the free-fall feel of a theme-park ride. But it’s a long and winding path back to the gate, and “Valerian” loses its way many times, however beautifully.

If you’re going to keep your audience guessing, you need to provide them with answers they care about. Beckett doesn’t.

If it wasn’t for her, it would be near-unwatchable.

Table 19 is an odd little movie, and a frustrating one.

How do you make a legend as imposing as Shakespeare flesh? All Is True suggests you can't, if not even Branagh, Dench, McKellen, et al. can bring him down to earth. Maybe it's for the best that the real man is unknowable, that man is simply the work itself.

The film goes all in on its deranged version of the founding of the nation. It wears you down over time, but especially early on it's too satisfied just to be shocking and irreverent.

Meanwhile, the Russos are ensuring that you never forget you’re watching a movie, and a stylized one at that. Note the names of the banks Holland’s character robs, for instance, or other little details. Granted, the person telling the story — Holland’s character — is an unreliable narrator for much of the film. But there’s a fine line between spicing things up and showing off.

While Cuaron’s technical chops are beyond question, his storytelling could use some honing here.

The Marksman is not awful. It’s not particularly good, either, but it’s not the disaster it should have been. Part of that has to do with the way Lorenz stages the action — well-choreographed and tense. Part of it has to do with Perez, who combines being adorable with a kind of hard-won wisdom beyond his years that makes for a completely winning character.

Avatar: Fire and Ash will doubtless join its predecessors in the billion-dollar club. It can't miss. It follows the formula of the previous two films — stunning advancements in film technology coupled with mind-numbing plot, evidently a lucrative combo. Don't get me wrong, these movies look great, genuinely so. They're just so dumb.

The end result is as dour and unilluminating as British weather.

We’ve seen it all before — maybe not quite as spectacular, maybe not quite as dumb. It’s Washington who ultimately makes “Gladiator II” stand apart from the first film and makes it a lot more fun than it has any right to be.

A fast-starting film that quickly piles meta, self-referential elements on top of each other until they no longer make much sense, and the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own coolness.

Whether you like The Meg depends on how much you like seeing Jason Statham in and out of a wetsuit, doing action-hero things. He's certainly good at it, and he's the best thing about the movie, not that the competition is particularly fierce.

There are some things to admire in the film, based on the French movie "Pour Elle," most of which involve developments that would give too much away.

It’s long on violence and short on storytelling. It aims high, working in the realm of myths, but it does so in hit-or-miss fashion.

Give credit to Esmail, however, for coming up with an inventive way to tell the story, even if the execution doesn't live up to the idea. He shows great confidence as a director, and the film has a unique look, with heightened reality providing clues that this really is a different world, or worlds, even.