This wildly distasteful premise is meant to be cute and enlightening, like a modern Frank Capra flick, but this is hardly "It's a Wonderful Life." Instead, the movie keeps tripping over itself.

The Snowman is like if aliens studied humanity and tried to make their own movie in an attempt to communicate with us. This simulacrum contains all the requisite pieces of a movie, but humanity got lost in translation.

The Cobbler definitely won't please the audience for Sandler's mainstream blockbusters, and it's unlikely to win him new fans among the indie intelligentsia, either.

As formula films go, The Bounty Hunter is more enjoyable than most, even if it packs in as many cliches as any.

Everyone here has been better, and funnier, in other things. This is a lazy story, wholly dependent upon the likability of its cast which, while considerable, isn’t enough to make it worth the trouble.

There is no substance, legal or otherwise, that can make this tolerable.

It is the cinematic equivalent of a greeting card: Both the sentiment and the laughs are plentiful, cheap and forgettable.

The whole thing is a total bore; even the supporting players aren’t motivated enough to attract attention. That’s good news for Lutz; he can’t be blamed for torpedoing the project, because everyone is doing subpar work here.

Gomez plays ... well, that’s one of the problems. Her character is so underdeveloped in director Courtney Solomon’s movie that she doesn’t actually have a name.

It’s a spectacularly wrong-headed, chemistry-free romance, and too dumb to know how sexist it is.

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

It’s an action movie without an exciting moment. It’s a special effects flick with chintzy visuals. And it’s a Gerard Butler vehicle without enough Gerard to go around.

General Education is kind of like a science-fair project slapped together at the last minute -- a sad, withered potato pierced with copper wires, rotting on the counter next to a resplendent baking-soda volcano. You can't help but feel a little sorry for the poor spud.

Life Itself is one of the worst kind of bad movies, because it achieves nothing that it sets out to do.

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

It means to be an interconnected story, in which one coupling leads to another in increasingly ridiculous fashion, until you're not only no longer interested, you're grinding your teeth, hoping it will end.

While the special effects are impressive enough, M. Night Shyamalan's film doesn't make a lick of sense.

It’s hard to imagine another comedy coming along this year that is this abrasive and free of laughs. It’s like everyone involved intentionally tried to create a horrible movie.

Beyond the leaps in logic, the most troubling part of this film is that it just feels like a defense of the excess of Christmas.

Two very important things to note about Vampires Suck: The film is a spoof of the "Twilight" movies, and the title is a good indication of where the level of wit lies.

Perhaps because the bar was set so low, Mother’s Day turns out to be surprisingly watchable.

Dinesh D'Souza's America: Imagine a World Without Her paints a genuinely troublesome portrait of the country — just not at all in the way he intends.

There is nothing the slightest bit heavenly about this project, which is wrong-headed in just about every department.

Moronic mace-and-mail mischief. [02 Jul 2004, p.1p]

Left Behind is a terrible movie, bad in almost every way, not even qualifying as so-bad-it's-good material.

Pure preaching-to-the-choir poppycock.

We get it, we get it: Capitalism is good, government is bad. But Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt? is worse.

All I can say is, no matter who made it, no matter who paid for it, no matter who it's about, "Melania" is a singularly bad movie.

In the past, I’ve given D’Souza the benefit of the doubt, going out of my way to be extra objective. I actually gave “2016: Obama’s America” a somewhat positive review in 2012 (3 out of 5 stars). But this thing is madness.

D'Souza fans and Trump apologists will flock to this, misguided moths to a misleading flame. In that way, it's a perfect representation of the current climate. In every other way, it's a mess.

What it lacks in originality, it makes up for in Lee’s performance. He is effectively stern as the king. More importantly, he makes Ha-seon funny and movingly genuine.

An amateurish-looking disaster that makes you wonder if it isn’t some kind of in-joke, a stunt to see how bad a movie can be and still find its way into theaters.

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

Sole Survivor is a puzzle whose pieces don’t fit together perfectly, but still create an cohesive whole.

The project drips with sincerity, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. What doesn't work is the tin-eared dialogue and the utter lack of momentum, both in the script or the direction by Nikita Zubarev.

The filmmaker's seeming lack of skepticism makes for rough going if you don't buy into Kenyon's vision.

At once hopeful and melancholy, it won't necessarily leave you with deep thoughts to think, but rather a feeling that you can't quite name but sticks in your head like a wistful tune in a minor key.

Murray doesn't ignore the abuse of power. He just eases into it.

Everything is lathered with a syrupy, string-laden musical score designed to gnaw at a viewer's tear ducts. It's about as subtle as having an off-screen narrator yell "Start crying!" before big scenes, and probably as effective.

Written, produced and directed by Christopher Nolen, who gives himself a small role, the movie fails as both a comedy and morality tale.

Arlo & Julie is a comedy, a mystery and a romance rolled together, yet it barely adds up to one movie.

Everything feels pat and oversimplified, with no gray areas. That's not uncommon in films of this nature, but Christensen is unable to make the movie feel like anything more than propaganda.

On the plus side, Jones is a really good makeup artist, and he is adept at creating gross-out dead people and wounds, and violent acts intense enough that they make you want to look away. On the minus side, the acting and story are so bad you want to look away anyway. Follow that instinct.

If you’re a major fan of the "Love Live!" world, this is possibly enjoyable. If you’re not, it is shrill, garish, confusing and badly paced, with cheap-looking animation and characters that resemble Walter Keane’s big-eyed waifs.

Like all faith-based films, it’s preaching to the choir. But as cinematic sins go, Hollywood regularly commits worse.

The cast is excellent, anchored by the one-two punch of Colunga and Yañez.

While 43 points heavily to the corruption and the lies of the government, the truth about what happened to those students still remains a mystery. Perhaps the true point of the film is to spur discussion and not let the story fade as just another unsolved crime against the poor.

Sizemore seems to be operating in his own dimension outside the confines of the film and script, just doing whatever he wants. That's not a compliment. Mills' direction is the movie's high point. It's assured, and he stages scenes with skill.

The characters are fully rounded, and you wind up emotionally invested in them.

Somewhere, deep inside Justice Served, there is the kernel of an interesting idea. But you've got to look hard, because the finished product is pretty dire stuff.

It is high-spirited, buoyant and full of laughs.

It’s a genial, pleasant farce that grows more enjoyable once it calms down and stops being so frantic.

If it balanced out the wild drinking, dancing and sexual scenes with moments that dug under the characters' surface, it could've been a more solid film.

¡He Matado a Mi Marido! seems to be inspired by the kind of bold comedies that Pedro Almodóvar specializes in, with divas at center stage and madcap situations. But writer-director Francisco Lupini-Basagoiti is no Almodóvar, mistaking stupidity for zaniness.

The screwball plot is woefully thin and predictable, with inane situations and characters who barely act human.

The handling of the faith aspect is actually one of the stronger parts of the film. Some movies like this lay it on thick, basically existing as a religious recruitment video. Here, and here alone, Ellis lays off and lets the audience think things through. The message is more effective this way.

While not everything works in Todos Caen — "Everybody Falls" in English — the film is breezy and engaging, with sharp and snappy dialogue. Most importantly, you want to see the two main characters wind up together.

Maybe there’s a place in the film world for El Coyote as a cult artifact, something that years from now enthusiasts will defend as a kind of dada experiment. In the moment, though, as you suffer through it, it’s just an ill-conceived mess.

Make no mistake, “Hold On” proves De Ette a talented singer, one destined for success. We didn’t need a movie to see that. A music video would have sufficed.

Too often the jokes don’t land. Neither does the physical comedy. The story doesn’t really hold. It’s clear that Schneider and his daughter love each other, and this film is a way to express that. But it’s a lot to ask of the rest of us to watch it.

It’s not like the first film was some sort of idiot-comedy version of “Citizen Kane” or something. But that film played like a good buzz. The Binge 2: It’s a Wonderful Binge plays more like the hangover that comes after.

Using the horror genre to tell a faith-based story is an interesting idea, even if it doesn’t really work in the end. And then Beck shows up, and that’s the scariest thing of all.