The script, by Bill Dubuque, goes sideways in a hurry. Characters do inexplicable things for no reason other than advancing the plot, and sometimes not even that. There is a jaw-dropping coincidence that is as ridiculous as it is obvious.

The story is the problem here, devolving into a ridiculous situation that produces far more groans than chills or thrills.

Owen and Binoche both are quite good, rising above the material for the most part. But even they can't save the film from itself, or from an ending that's downright bizarre.

Sometimes it’s absurdist comedy. Sometimes it’s dark comedy. Sometimes it’s out-and-out killing-people drama (almost, but not quite). It’s often funny, but it never quite hangs together as a coherent movie.

It’s not a disaster, and it doesn’t lack for ambition. But it’s wildly uneven and kind of blah, if that can be said of a movie with nonstop, often incoherent action, self-aware needle drops and not nearly enough smart-aleck quips from a cast we’ve seen deliver plenty of them in the past.

It’s formulaic. It’s predictable.

Free State of Jones is a well-intentioned slog through a potentially fascinating bit of Civil War history, brought to life only by Matthew McConaughey’s performance, and then only occasionally.

It never really comes together in a satisfying way, and given the talent involved, that adds up to a big disappointment.

There’s a fine line between homage and rip-off, between a clever mashup and a messy pileup of tired tropes. But, much like a rainbow, where that line appears is in the eye of the beholder.

Murray occasionally shows flashes of his comic genius, but only flashes.

Into the Storm plays like a special-effects demonstration in search of a movie, but you have to give it to the filmmakers: They take no half-measures.

The commercials were funny and unexpected. The movie, not so much, although there are some solid laughs.

It's not a total wash. Shaye's performance is reliably good and the sequences set in The Further (the netherworld of the "Insidious" films) have a kicky charge.

Despite its ostensive seriousness, Galveston is a tepid crime drama without talons sharp enough to sink into the audience.

It’s more creepy than scary. But at least, you reckon, this not happening to you.

Part of the problem is that, in trying to convey the chaos of abject fear, Espinosa makes it hard to figure out the architecture of the ship, so we don’t know where anyone’s running.

The Dead Don’t Die isn’t bad, exactly. It’s just that with all this talent and all this beautiful weirdness at hand, it could have been so much better.

The franchise... concludes with a genuinely stirring ending. ... But [Stewart's] acting hasn't improved, and the dialogue remains laughable. Bad actress, bad lines. Bad combination.

A harmless little mess of a movie whose cast you've mostly heard of, including Tim Allen, who also directed.

There are scenes here and there that are worthy, but many that aren't. Lipsky tries to use dialogue to cover up weaknesses in other areas - such as why these people behave the way they do. Some of the movie is inviting, some of it off-putting.

The laughs don’t add up. There’s no dramatic arc. Jackie doesn’t grow or learn from his downfall, so much as bumble his way out of it to an unsatisfying conclusion.

The movie is not uninteresting, but a viewer isn't breathlessly waiting to see how things will wrap up, either. By the third act, you even start to get impatient with the characters. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

The Minions themselves aren't as endearing as they are in the previous movies, maybe because there are fewer of them bumbling around, or maybe because they just haven't found their true supervillain love yet. Or maybe some sidekicks, no matter how loveable, just aren't cartoon-hero material

The look of the film is impressive, as are the effects. Overall, however, it's a big, loud, 3-D-drenched jumble.

An emotionally inert film that never pulls viewers into the spiraling web of deceit that the couple face.

In The Internet's Own Boy, writer-director Brian Knappenberger ("We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists") paints a portrait of Swartz as a martyr for the information age, but ultimately the story falls short of such mythic ambition.

About My Father isn’t horrible. It’s not great. It just sort of exists as a passion project for Maniscalco, an OK gig for most of the rest of the cast and another curious line on De Niro’s resume.

Joe Bell is a well-meaning film with a gripping story it can’t quite figure out how to tell.

The movie plays like a missed opportunity, with its by-the-numbers scares and a story that feels disjointed, hurried in some places, slow in others.

Crown Heights is soul-shaking only in the abstract. In execution, it’s deathly dull.

Gringo dabbles in several genres, none particularly well.

It’s a weird little genre, the sick-teen romance. “Five Feet Apart” winds up as just a pedestrian entry in it, because it tries way too hard on the melodrama front. Being a teenager is difficult enough. Being a sick teenager is presumably that much harder. Being a teenager in “Five Feet Apart” means suffering from something else, in addition: overkill. And that’s deadly.

Maybe the real message here is that Brooklyn hipsters are absurdly annoying, whether it's past, present or near future. On that front, Creative Control succeeds. As a compelling film about the alienating effects of technology, not so much.

Between the siblings' adventure scenes, family tragedies and familiar characters it's hard to stay engaged with a film so gloomy, sad and sluggish. In the end, you’re left wondering what was real, whether it was all just a dream or if you're just too grown up to understand.

Cloud Atlas is ambitious in nature, epic in scope and, ultimately, a big, overstuffed mess. [24 Oct 2012]

Although it contains some interesting characters, God's Pocket, like the neighborhood it depicts, is the kind of place you can't wait to escape, even if its inhabitants cannot.

We’re the Millers plays like a “Saturday Night Live” skit that goes on too long.

Cate Blanchett gives a ferocious performance as the steely Mapes, and she mines some genuine emotion out of the material.

The general dippiness isn't helped by the dialogue: "Every word in Italian is like a truffle!" Gilbert exclaims as she learns the language. Equally annoying is the gauzy lighting, which gives Roberts a sweetly angelic glow most of the time.

While the actors certainly have charm, the farcical plot is so formulaic that the comic fizz often feels forced.

Guilt, grief and the struggle to move on are big themes, but unfortunately, director Burr Steers and his script writers aren't interested in exploring them.

There are too many misses among the hits. Once you get past the premise, there’s not a lot farther to go

There's a great film hiding somewhere in the wreckage of "Love Ranch."

A by-the-numbers, good-vs.-evil tale.

Writer-director Amat Escalante was named best director at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for this project, and although it obviously is made with some skill, it also is unrelentingly dire.

It’s so ridiculously overstuffed it’s kind of fun. That extends to, or perhaps begins with, the look of the film. It’s rich, overripe, yet still kind of seedy.

An improvement over its predecessor.

The biggest problem is the whiplash-inducing tonal shifts. Director Jeff Tomsic, working from a script by Mark Steilen and Rob McKittrick, swings from violent slapstick to tender moments in slapdash fashion. You can’t get a handle on it, though maybe that’s fitting in a movie about trying to keep from being tagged.

It's hard not to be disappointed with The Change-Up, which in the end follows the basic conventions of the switched-identity genre, if more profanely, changing up not much at all.

If it weren’t for his voice, Kutcher would have been the ideal choice to star in Jobs, a well-meant but ultimately unsurprising biopic.

Oh, all right, some of The Other Woman is funny. The parts with Leslie Mann, mostly, who makes this hit-and-miss, problematic comedy directed by Nick Cassavetes far more entertaining than it has a right to be.

Of the bunch, Plaza, Minghella and Parker fare best, though Parker's Ben is weighed down with cliches. Alex ostensibly is the focal point of the film, but Ritter is relegated mostly to observer status, healing while watching the melodramas unfold around him. A few of them are interesting. But not enough, not in a story that seems familiar because, after all, it is.

There are a lot of funny people in Brave New Jersey, but the movie is not very funny.

The plot is lacking in emotional weight, even though the adversities are right there on paper.

Daisy Edgar-Jones is affecting and effective as Kya, known to redneck townsfolk as “The Marsh Girl.” If only the filmmaking and screenwriting were as good as her performance. It’s really just a swampy Southern Gothic soap opera at heart, with designs on being something more.

The visual effects are impressive, and there is a certain kick to seeing the human characters dodging barrels in a life-size Donkey Kong. But we don’t really care about the humans; here, at least, Q*bert is more endearing than Adam Sandler.

Half of a Yellow Sun winds up being one of those movies in which a pesky event of great historical import keeps getting in the way of a soap-opera romance.

You shouldn't be able to read a book faster than you can see it play out on-screen.

It’s too bad The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It isn’t a vampire story, because the filmmakers are bleeding this franchise dry.

A movie with a title like Puerto Ricans in Paris comes with certain expectations. Low ones. Thanks to the efforts of Luis Guzman — and they are mighty — Ian Edelman's slight film manages to rise above them. Not by much, but above them, still.

It will quench the thirst of die-hard fans who always want more. But does that thirst justify “The Matrix Resurrections?” Maybe. But it can’t make it a great movie. And despite Reeves’ willingness to jump back in, neither can anything else.

Verbinski manages some squirm-worthy moments, and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli creates a creepy look throughout. But the story doesn’t make sense as it goes along and then devolves into absurdity.

Ultimately, the film is never boring, but it's never involving, either. At the end, what you're left with is a modestly entertaining film that doesn't seem to have an original thought in its head. In that way, it's a lot like the characters it spotlights.

You come away from watching the film with a moral bellyache.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is ultimately an OK entry in a legendary franchise. It’s fun enough, but why bother?

Allen builds to a climax that is ridiculous and a comment on … I don’t know. Fate? Folly? There are plenty of both in Irrational Man, but they’re not often a comfortable mix.

Blomkamp regular Sharlto Copley is quite good — as Chappie, in a motion-capture performance. (He also provides the voice of the robot.) If this were somehow a commentary on man's increasing lack of humanity or something, that would be fine. Instead, it's just good work buried inside a movie made up of intriguing ideas that never really go anywhere.

Despite all of the unlikely scenarios and dubious plot developments, Plummer shines. There are moments here when we understand why he took the role, and many more when we are glad he did. But not enough to make Remember a better movie all the way around.

There are some funny parts, of course, because the cast is so talented. But it’s too much work for too little payoff — sound and fury signifying nothing. Nothing but Minion fart jokes.

The film’s focus is too easily distracted by celebrity and turns less documentary and more fawning love letter to an industry already in love with itself.

There's no question that Black women are underrepresented in movies. There's also no question that when they get a chance to perform, they deserve a better movie than For Colored Girls.

To pretend that the film’s pleasures are more than modest is just that — pretending.

Despite its familiarity, A Bad Moms Christmas is a touch better than the first bacchanal.

More curiosity than movie, “Michael,” a biopic so reverential towards its subject, Michael Jackson, that it borders on worshipful, can’t seem to figure out what it is.

Check your driver's license - if you have one, you're probably too old to get the most out of it. If not, you may find your satisfaction a little harder - though not impossible - to come by.

Paolo Virzi’s film, based on a novel by Michael Zadoorian, holds few surprises, leaving us with some enjoyable set pieces in a disappointing movie.

J.A. Bayona's film never figures out what it wants to be, casting about for a coherent tone. Thanks in large part to Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow's script, it doesn't find one. But at least it has some fun making the effort.

Now You See Me is a movie about magic, but its most astonishing trick is how little mileage it gets out of a stellar cast.

I Feel Pretty is a good idea that never quite clicks the way it should

The scares don't stay with you. They're the horror-movie equivalent of junk food.

Individually they are all good here, though Hardy's skills don't necessarily translate that well to romantic comedy -- which could have been used to good effect, but McG doesn't have the touch to pull that off.

Welcome back, Whit Stillman -- with Damsels in Distress, the hipper-than-thou club is back in session.

There are some compelling elements here, probably too many for one film, but they're too often presented in a cliched way. Connor and co-director Michael Worth go for the easy sentiment, the expected route, leading to middling results.

This is a first-rate cast in a second-rate story with some entertaining bits and some maddening holes. That combination works for late-night channel surfing. Anywhere else, not so much.

Supporting turns by Philip Rosenthal and David Alan Grier as two pals in the business are fun, but they can't prevent the movie's rather aimless nature or self-indulgent feel.

A Kid Like Jake, isn't terrible, but it sure could be better.

It delivers plenty of exciting action with some CGI-assisted visual flair, from stampeding bison to a starkly beautiful image of a frozen lake with our hero flailing on the wrong side of the ice. Hughes’ efforts to bring emotional drama to the proceedings fall flat, however, relying on coming-of-age clichés that strip the story of any real surprise.

It should be funnier. It should be better. Instead, it just sort of is.

How disappointing that a movie about challenging authority should be such a slave to convention.

The audience should be given game controllers upon entering the theater. It wouldn't mean the film would make any more sense, but at least you'd feel like you had some say in the matter.

Give writer and director John Logan points for creativity, exceptional inclusion and casting Kevin Bacon. But the movie could have used a lot more of the camp-slasher horror part.

McCormick is particularly grating in upholding her half of the romantic duo. Sure, she can dance, but act?

To stay fresh, you have to evolve. Rodriguez and Miller have stayed the same.

Doesn’t plumb the depths of adolescent emotions and high-school politics so much as skims the surface in a psychedelic dinghy.

Gordon is an eclectic director, and he has trouble with the tone here. It’s not that cynicism can’t evolve into something more useful in film. It’s that the reasons should be more convincing.

Despite its looks, talent and pedigree, Transcendence never becomes the movie it could have been.

The food, it must be said, is beautiful. (Mario Batali and Marcus Wareing were consultants on the film.) And Cooper, despite the shortcomings of the role as written, goes all in. So does Miller. This should be a better movie than it is.

The film is a live-action cartoon down to its main character's name -- Wilee, "like the coyote." It's just a few sticks of dynamite and a 10-ton anvil short of going full Looney Tunes, and is all the worse for that restraint.