It’s ironic that a film about bucking formula is itself so formulaic. There’s nothing wrong with such inoffensive pleasantness, but if Late Night wants to advocate setting fire to the system in pursuit of more meaningful art, it should have led the charge.

The acting is really good, particularly Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby. But boy, with a running time of nearly 21/2 hours and a near-constant bombardment of visual overstimulation, it’s exhausting.

The plot is ingeniously engineered, but the narrative is like a low-res image. It gets the idea across, but without the kind of details that make it memorable.

By the time the film reaches its implausible climax, it is far too late to rescue the story from the limbo that lies between ugly history and slick entertainment.

Mortal Engines is an entertaining movie if you don’t ask to many questions of the story and stick to what’s put in front of you onscreen.

Unfortunately Jean-Marc Vallée’s film doesn’t measure up to Gyllenhaal’s performance.

While Blyth's portrayal of a well-despised character can't go unnoticed and Zegler brings brightness to a bleak world, the issue is there isn't enough time to develop their relationship and make sense of Snow's turn from normal to bloodthirsty.

Rudderless is a quietly ambitious film, and if it eventually collapses under the dramatic weight it's asked to shoulder — and it does — at least it's trying.

Wahlberg and Washington are so good together, quips flying as fast as lead, that much is forgiven.

Rough Night has a couple of halfway good ideas, but they never add up to a whole.

Melfi, who also wrote the script, goes for broke on the sappy front. It's a credit to Murray's skill — or maybe the strength of his personality — that he never submits completely to all the heart-string tugging.

It's all well done and cute and forgettable.

Though it's certainly well-acted, the quiet film is a retread of familiar recent dramas about doomed heroines like in "Still Alice." But this version prompted me to look up one-way flights to Portugal instead of weeping about a character's looming destiny.

The Apprentice — its title a play on Trump’s original identity in relation to Cohn, as well as the reality show that helped get him elected president — is well-made, entertaining in its way (particularly for fans of good acting) and not at all surprising.

The movie makes some observations about the worth of human life — the title refers to the monetary value put on the life of the injured waiter — and the economic class system, but they're not terribly interesting or surprising.

Competent, pretty funny in places, awfully nice to look at, that sort of thing. There’s just not a lot of excitement, though.

Director Marc Forster moves from one thing to the next so quickly the movie plays like a two-hour-plus trailer. Something feels like it's missing here, even at that length.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is certainly funny. It’s just not the flash of inspiration the first movie was — it can’t be. Baron Cohen revealed more out of contemporary America (and a lot about Arizona) with the 2018 TV series “Who Is America?” The new movie will make you laugh, but too often it’s more of the same.

Is it a good movie? It’s OK. But is it funny? It is, and ultimately that’s all it sets out to be.

My Spy is best summed up as fun and expected, but also, at times, surprisingly violent for a story where the main character is a nine year old girl.

The Quiet One could have used a lot more complexity.

Aster, who also directed the excellent “Hereditary” and the somewhat less excellent “Midsommar,” has the audience where he wants it — off-kilter, uncomfortable, bewildered. It’s his comfort zone, but not ours. Whether you enjoy this kind of manipulation will go a long way toward deciding how much you like the film.

If you can ignore the implausibility -- nay, the opacity -- of the plot, the film is wonderfully cinematic, with great photography, exciting editing, fresh camera angles and some impressive CGI.

He (D'Souza) reaffirms many of the complaints against Obama, and when he sticks to the facts is much more persuasive.

Fans of fancy period costumes and supernatural effects both get plenty to gawk at, but the story offers no real surprises, and that includes the big plot twist.

Wonder will make you cry — that’s one of the main purposes of its existence — but it’ll also drive you a little crazy.

Ultimately Coming 2 America isn’t a sequel that ruins the original. But it doesn’t improve upon it, either.

Ole Bornedal's film hits enough high notes to make it a worthwhile addition to the exorcism-film heap, somewhere in the lower middle.