Insurgent exists primarily to either validate or defy the imagined depiction of events in the heads of countless teen fans.

It’s the lack of tension, overlong running time, and ultimately mawkish message that makes Needle a nonstarter.

Those audiences who have complained about the clunky exposition and mawkish emotional dialogue in Cameron's films will discover the "King of the World"'s own dramatic talents to be on par with the Bard in comparison to the shouty, over-emoted hokum on display here.

When teamed with her former husband, the director James Cameron, Hurd produced some of the most memorable action films of the Eighties, including The Terminator and Aliens. Her first collaborative effort with new husband De Palma, however, has produced one of the worst efforts from a major talent in a long while.

As improbable as Valerie’s endgame seems once revealed, it plainly demonstrates she’s nobody's chump. It’s not exactly a feminist reading, but one that gives Fatale a little backbone.

So while there's nothing incredibly new here in the narrative, it's also a reminder that Keery has natural charisma, and is turning that to increasingly interesting ends.

The rescuing of our public schools is a national necessity. I just don't know that we are aiding that cause by sending out oversimplified and dogmatic messages about not backing down.

This hunk-of-junk piece of IP commodification truly can’t be regarded with any further value other than that: a transactional piece of content.

Although Love the Hard Way is saturated with a doomed romanticism that feels more fictitious than real, the actors lend the movie a potency that it would not have had otherwise.

In short, the actors deserve a big round of applause -– especially Affleck, for finally wiping the smug look off of his face (OK, 80% smug-free); Garner, for her dead sexy mix of attitude and adrenaline; and the grunting, googly-eyed Farrell, for … well, for being "fookin’" nuts, I guess.

It's no "Dellamorte Dellamore," but neither is it "Uwe Boll," a smallish favor we should all be thankful for.

A bright idea, disappointingly dulled in the execution.

So often, romance subplots in Texas noir feel like afterthoughts, there to increase a little bit of tension. But South of Heaven’s most meaningful moments are in the interplay between Lilly and Sudeikis as the star-crossed lovers with time most definitely not on their side.

It points a determined finger (a middle finger, almost) at law enforcement, which cannot or will not recognize kidnapping victims in our midst, especially if they are undocumented and brown-skinned.

Product placement aside, there’s an admirable, even sweet, message about fellowship and misfit pride shot through the whole script, and Vaughn is rather touching as a kind of cuddly uncle figure to his fellow interns.

It’s like someone’s always turning the knob in one direction, and then in another in Mafia Mamma, rarely settling on any mood with clear reception. It can be a frustrating farrago.

It’s mildly entertaining while also masking criminal deceptions as romantic foreplay. Yet this remake has little of the real-life sizzle that Hawn and Russell added to the story.

Sharply edited while ranging all over the comic map – Lazer Team has its share of groaners, to be sure – it’s a solid debut from Austin’s gaming and comedy hometown heroes.

The last hoorah of Synder’s messy DC Extended Universe – one that could have been a thrilling goodbye and a reminder that not all of it was bland – will likely sink to the bottom of the ocean, a forgotten relic of an era. Momoa’s Aquaman deserved a lot more.

The story excels in its portrait of obsessive love and desire. Where the tale falls down is in its portrait of two comrades in poetry, the writers who inspired each other to new levels of artistry and dwelled with the muses wherever they cohabited.

Returning director Ron Howard somewhat belabors the Botticelli-inspired hallucinations Langdon suffers from following a konk on the head – though you really can’t oversell the creepiness of a beaky plague mask – but he continues to have an inspired hand in casting his supporting players.

Even for its flaws, Captain America: Brave New World feels like the series may be finding its soul again.

Even at 82 minutes in length, Superstar feels uncomfortably stretched.

It's been all the buzz on the “net” (electronic bulletin boards like CompuServe, Genie, or Prodigy) for some months now, but if as much care had been taken with the human elements -- the actors, the story -- it would have been a much better ride. After all, movies always happen in Virtual Reality.

Phenomenon flails about in a search for direction: inspirational drama, romance, social study, government intrigue- nothing fits or is explored very deeply.

All the advance signs looked discouraging, but I still kept thinking: How bad could a comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Jeff Goldblum really be? Well, let's put it this way … you won't ever hear me asking that particular question again.

There’s never any doubt that redemption is the end-game for Jones, but the claim for his saving is weak sauce; the case against him has been too emphatically, if unintentionally, argued.

It's a botched job through and through, made all the more distressing by Bullock's recent announcement that she's throwing in the romantic comedy towel for a while.

Its cheeky, good fun is what makes Psycho Beach Party an enjoyable, if weightless, romp.

When a cell-phone gag is the most exciting or inventive thing in a big summer dinosaur movie, you have to wonder if the species might not be ready for extinction.

Reminiscent of the opening moments of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," actually, only without the clever wit.

All told, either you get it or you don't. Film critics and senators with election prospects don't. Kids in the mood to laugh at stupid shit for 87 minutes do. I'll toss my hat in the latter ring with glee.

Working from a script that lacks the visceral ingenuity of a "Don't Breathe," Devlin's Nineties crowd-pleasing instincts end up holding him back.

The two leads are watchable enough, but the script keeps their characters emotionally separated, so you never see anything remotely like chemistry between them.

Roland Emmerich hasn't bettered us as a culture with Stargate, but he hasn't corrupted us, either.

I have never doodled during a movie before in my life, but holy hell, Parker's two-hour running time takes a lifetime. Plenty of time for mental doodling, too.

Ultimately, its most poignant details come from depicting a nonsexual friendship between a straight guy and a gay guy.

Purportedly a seriocomic contemplation on a civilization that's lost its way, the movie jabs at America's fascination with its false idols without ever hitting its target.

Daddy’s Home is one of those comedies that is not terribly good, but not nearly as terrible as it might have been.

More a meditation on the nature of life itself than anything else, and a welcome respite from Robin Williams, the emotion sponge.

Toils in high school hell and doesn't even manage to come up with one good shock.

It's nasty, brutal stuff, but it's also unlike anything else out there.

It's interesting, though, to think of double-billing Woods' Crow with Pacino's Prince of Darkness from Devil's Advocate: Scenery-chewing never looked so good.

Misbegotten is the only way to describe this remake of the 1975 film based on Ira Levin's cultural-zeitgeist novel.

For such a deft wit, Jane Austen sure has inspired some nitwitted entertainments. Actually, the Austen influence here is negligible.

Collette – usually a delight – sounds like she’s phonetically speaking a foreign language. Not even Judi Dench could sell these lines.

It's big, it's stupid, it's pretty kick-ass.

Whether it’s a case of miscasting is unclear, but without a willing hero to anchor this already dubious movie from start to finish, The Great Wall hits a brick wall.

Yeah, this movie's a dog, but you can't blame the producers for strip-mining the same old fool-proof formula to death … and beyond.

The movie sucks. It has an idiot story.

More honest than you might expect a promotional piece such as this to be, but less self-investigative than you might like, you come away thinking there are much greater depths for Snoop Lion to plumb.

The thing is, the music that Jed, Shelby, and their respective bands make is actually pretty good. The performance footage is polished enough that it looks like it could be plucked from a TV show like "Nashville."

White-bread storytelling made by, for, and about people who think joy and meaning can be acquired by simply taking a step or two out of life’s comfort zones and into African-safari packages and skydiving excursions.

The twentysomething talents behind Mystery Team are still in the comedy minors, but this nerdy, nutty, perfectly pitched first swing suggests there are major things to come.

It dispassionately plays like a video game with a high body count.

The entire film wants to be the retort to an idle comment uttered by a prep school lacrosse mom in the stands: "When did the Indians starts playing lacrosse anyway?"

Fred Claus is sadly just an early lump of coal under the tree.

Opus is an attack on media mouthpieces and mindless sycophants, but its barbs only scratch the surface before the inevitable mayhem takes over.

The film is so self-referencing, however, that a running gag about Wax/Travolta craving a “royale with cheese” moves the film’s energy backward rather than forward. Perhaps instead it was a reference to the film’s nutritional value rather than its screen precedents.

It is the perfectly cast Beckinsale who lifts Underworld out and away from the film’s many moments of silly gravitas and steers it into a truly interesting take on the whole vampires 'n' werewolves genre.

Pass the popcorn, dude; this shit rocks.

The film is slapdash entertainment not meant to be further contemplated after leaving the theatre.

Lost River is a film whose reputation precedes it. Viewers have decried it as a mess or lauded it as an artistic achievement ever since it premiered at Cannes 11 months ago. Ultimately, the film is really neither. Yes, Gosling’s ambition exceeds his accomplishment, but what he’s delivered is hardly a disaster.

With more than a passing nod to the far classier "Panic Room," this derivative seat-squirmer has a few good moments in spite of Johnny Klimick’s annoying score, its energy powered by the raw determination of its Mother Courage.

Effects-driven chills rarely work as well these days as good old-fashioned audience imagination (a fact firmly driven home by the breakaway success of The Blair Witch Project). Unfortunately, De Bont has wedged so much bang-pow drivel in his film that it ends up being about as tantalizing as a desiccated Gummi Bear.

This is the main movie that built the house of Troma, Lloyd Kaufman's production company devoted to low-budget camp. The Toxic Avenger tells the humorous story of a geeky weakling who is turned into a superhero when he is slimed by some toxic waste.

It's hard to say that any other edit would be better, because Brothers by Blood is one single, grey mass to the bone, an unfortunate use of a sterling cast and a book that deserves a more textured retelling.

An efficient, if overly mechanized, delivery system of thrills 'n' chills.

Shamlessly dumb movie.

The real problem with this Aliens encounter is that it's patently a Nick at Night midweek movie that inadvertently got greenlighted for a big-screen opening.

Benjamin Walker, as Lincoln, may not have the gangly gravitas of Raymond Massey's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" – he looks like a young Liam Neeson doing a younger Bruce Campbell, frankly – but he does have a sly, self-effacing sense of humor that feels ever so Lincoln-esque

Bottom line: This Orphan is an atmospheric and occasionally vicious little git and an above-average entry into the "cuddly hellspawn" genre, overlong at two-plus hours, but nowhere near as excruciatingly overdone as others of its ilk (Devil Times Five, I'm talking to you).

While this approach might make for an exciting celebration of the genre, it unfortunately leads to a rather lackluster and repetitive documentary unlikely to capture the interest of anyone other than devout followers of Christian music.

Why remake Craven's original at all? Oh, yeah, I forgot: Reheated depravity sells. To avoid existential despair, keep repeating: It's only a remake; it's only a remake; it's only a remake.

Honestly, both Sex and the City and Seinfeld tackled the romantic pitfalls of youngish single life in NYC more adeptly in their relatively truncated formats than this 91-minute movie, and with a helluva lot more verve and wit.

It sounds like great fodder for sensationalism and special effects, but Fire in the Sky is disappointedly earthbound.

This pseudo-Phildickian actioner is chum for the bigger fish to come this summer; for Moore, it's a slummer.

Stylistically thrilling but ultimately tedious French import.

The film feels rote, an exercise of base and pedestrian concerns that never moves beyond anything resembling a statement. Of which there is none, except perhaps von Trier regarding his navel, which I suspect he wouldn’t have it any other way. For the rest of us? We suffer, which is most likely by the director’s design.

The kindest thing that might be said of this Eighties nostalgia trip is that its formulaic plot and overall mirthlessness are meant as mimetic tributes to that blasted decade.

The Boy’s overriding concern is telegraphed enough in advance that fans of Gothic suspense will almost certainly have guessed it 45 minutes in.

What Carlei captures perfectly, and what gives Fluke its affecting moments, is a sense of uncanny canniness that the “lower” animal world so often displays. That and a neat little plot twist (not to mention a touching rescue scene involving a chimpanzee and a terrier) make Fluke an interesting, offbeat family movie.

Watching Heavyweights isn't as bad as either war or fat camp, but its few bits of truly comic dialogue (courtesy of co-writers Brill and Judd Apatow) and inspired acting aren't enough to save the film from its syrupy and predictable theme.

For Sandler's core audience of developmentally arrested males, it may all be a little too cute.

Sure, Peeples has a nice (if unmemorable) voice, but the vapid storyline with fantastic overtones transports Jem and the Holograms into another dimension, one that’s utterly flat. Control. Alt. Delete.

For all its run-of-the-mill dick jokes and slapstick humor, the antics are fairly funny, in that you-know-what-you’re-getting-yourself-into kind of way.

Fails in a pretty spectacular manner but, to its everlasting credit, it goes down swinging and sometimes even connecting.

To put it as kindly as possible, Fuqua is a well-intended tyro who wrongly assumes that his obvious love for action movies qualifies him to make them himself.

Maybe Halloween Kills will make more sense when the finale of the trilogy, Halloween Ends, gives those themes some context. But as a sequel to the deliciously absurd 2018 resurrection, it’s a ponderous bore, far-too-intermittently broken up by spurts of the franchise’s signature gore.

It's a fine message, but, in the case of the film itself, a little originality would have gone even further.

If you and the film find yourself on the same wavelength, there is a fair amount here to like. Like many actors moving behind the camera, Pettyfer may err a bit too much on the side of loud performances, but cinematographer Jarin Blaschke (The Witch) adds some much-needed desperation to these characterizations through his unsentimental depiction of rural Pennsylvania.

Arthur Newman is overwhelmed with arty ambitions and a heavy-handed acting style. Ultimately, all the weight prevents the film from taking off and soaring.

This is a gutsy, oddly inspiring film that embodies both the risks and rewards of artistic boldness.

You know Westerns are in the middle of a comeback when even low-budget filmmakers are trying their hand at the genre. Big Kill, the latest such film, may not operate on the same level as a movie like "The Sisters Brothers," but there’s certainly a bit of charm in watching a filmmaker play it straight with a few of our favorite Nineties stars.

This movie simply reeks.

The result is disjointed and, ironically, even falls victim to the very thing it condemns: privileging the white family’s story while relegating the African-American family’s story to background noise.

What’s missing from The Woman in Black 2, and what it needs most and has least of all, is suspense.

The story never drags – it’s too frenetically paced for that – but it’s still kind of a drag.