The jaunty score of musical numbers (yes, there are songs) sounds vaguely familiar and yet instantly forgettable. Its only contribution to the film is to extend its running length unnecessarily by about a quarter of an hour.

It's a helluva comic book, to be sure, but it's a godawful mess of a movie.

Viewers with a low tolerance for schmaltz may suffer; one heartfelt speech even drew nervous titters from the otherwise indulgent preview crowd.

Only masterful performances keep this frankly sentimental film from foundering in a sea of syrup.

Instantly forgettable but intermittently funny movie.

Sea of Monsters most bizarre and apropos-of-nothing moment comes when the half-blood kids find themselves stuck on – I kid you not – what appears to be the Civil War ironclad ship Monitor, captained and crewed by a host of Confederate zombies.

The script is all too often downright clunky though it's saved by vigorous direction (especially in the dance sequences) and performances.

Not only is the franchise growing hoary, by now it's become downright laughable, leaving Lethal Weapon 4 feeling more like a bad Fox sitcom than anything else.

I like my shockers to be anything but predictable, and Saw is the very definition of predictability and, ultimately, tedium. That horse corpse has been flogged and flayed enough, already.

The opening montage is a jazzy, grabby thing, artfully layering the kids’ auditions to mimic the frenzied pace of the day. But that freneticism never really goes away, nor does the staccato timing.

Not a sequel, not a prequel, but a "reimagining" as the producers say. And they're basically correct, although I wouldn't put any real emphasis on the "imagination" aspect of that term.

You could fault A Madea Family Funeral for its many other shortcomings. It runs about 30 minutes too long; the tempo of the numerous dramatic scenes is on par with drying paint; characters lack consistency from scene to scene; the dialogue sounds like a first draft that needs major editing; its occasional technical sloppiness; and so forth.

It’s clear this director sees carnage as nothing more than an opportunity for music-video production values.

A terrific cast, good pacing and some smart, funny dialogue bring an occasional fresh breeze to what is essentially a stale formula comedy.

Maniscalco often talks about his father in his stand-up acts. Watching this film enforces the idea that maybe that’s where this story should have stayed.

Kline and Spacey are excellent here, playing off of each other like a couple of professional combatants; it's by far the most interesting thriller in the last six months.

There are a number of cheeky winks from the filmmakers specifically aimed at Harryhausen fans; in the end, though, Leterrier's Clash of the Titans is nearly as messy an assemblage of mythic odds and ends as the original.

The script by Andy Stock and Rick Stempson (Balls Out: Gary the Tennis Coach) can, at times, be a nasty piece of work, and no amount of laughter will fully obscure the gag reflex that occasionally forms in the back of your throat.

Luckily for Franco, Cranston makes for the perfect comic foil in Why Him?.

Gondry's update of vigilante crime fighter The Green Hornet's escapades is above all an exercise in frustration.

In the end, you feel like you’re the victim of a cruel bait-and-switch, lured into thinking Nobody’s Fool would be a crappy but nevertheless entertaining Tiffany Haddish movie, only to have it turn out to be a crappy but nevertheless crappy Tyler Perry movie. Talk about mixed feelings.

Some fine comedy performances bolster this thinly plotted film.

Bait equals bad.

If you're going to dig the same shallow grave for the thousandth time, at least have the verve of Eli Roth's shamelessly fun Thanksgiving – or at least make sure the entire cast knows if you're going for tension or comedy.

From the start, Need for Speed smells like a movie in search of a franchise. On that count, it’s somewhat fast but seldom furious.

The film is as bland as Melba toast served on a bed of parsley while snatching sips of water from a nearby puddle following a rainstorm (that actually, in retrospect, could have some flavor). It is the very antithesis of creative destruction.

May not be best chick flick around, but it's the flick with the best chick by far.

It’s overwhelming, but there are a few nice touches that aren’t completely lost in the bedlam.

It's the best date-night movie to hit the screens in a while, which, considering the competition, is very faint praise.

Most of all, I’m really struggling with why this movie was even made. Yes, it’s based on a true story, but is it one that needed telling on screen?

What should have turned out as a terrific movie about the crime of spousal abuse has instead received the equivalent of a ham-handed molestation by director Mundhra.

Not even the always reliable talents of McKean and Lynch can help pull this comedy out of its ironic slump.

They shoot rodents, don't they?

But instead of being the hippest kid on the block, this plays like some ranty, paranoid comic thriller. It'd be more fun watching Jimmy Stewart get the beat-down from Claude Rains on the Senate floor; when Mr. Williams goes to Washington, the result is a total snooze.

Perhaps one of the most unbearable viewing experiences of the year, complete with a formulaic script, lousy acting, and muddled direction.

Absolutely marvelous special effects are the salvation and the curse of this movie.

Make no mistake, I'm not saying Dr. Giggles is a cinematic watershed or anything like that, but it does manage to mix humor and horror in a way that very few films ever manage successfully.

Borrows from other movies almost shamelessly.

The movie brings no new material to the screen and banks on the fact that its underage audience has an unschooled memory. Don't insult your kids with this choppy, unimaginative film product.

Theologically muddled, narratively simplistic, and somehow pulling off a bigger waste of a legacy character than the near-blasphemous return of Sally Hardesty for 2022's ill-fated Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist: Believer proves that double the possessions does not mean double the fun.

Moonwalkers blends a strange mélange of Swinging Sixties, drug-addled humor with that slow-motion, gangster gunplay that Guy Ritchie trademarked in his early work.

The actors are all good, although not much rapport is conveyed, despite one hot sex scene.

This sugarcoated Christmas tale is reminiscent of an old Roy Rogers movie, a musical Western with a moral message – except that this version features Willie Nelson as a modern-day singing cowboy and saint (aptly named Nick).

Paul Blart: Mall Cop deserves to be cited for loitering.

In another universe, the juxtaposition of family and tragedy might’ve produced something unique; instead, it feels like a pastiche of borrowed story beats from better movies.

For a protracted toy commercial, UglyDolls is surprisingly charming, not least because it is that rarest of films that is genuinely aimed at small children.

Despite some briefly breathtaking, computer-generated special effects, Virtuosity is 95 minutes of unsubstantial firefights and meandering plot twists.

Cassel’s feline visage, covered in a velvety layer of fur for most of the movie, doesn’t fare much better. At times, he resembles an angry cast member from Cats rather than the tormented fiend trying to find his human self once again. It’s beastly.

While its characters attempt to go deeper, As Above/So Below’s stabs at scares and sentiment only seem that much shallower.

In the end, your appreciation for horror-Westerns will determine where you stand with The Pale Door. If you are willing to look past the film’s genre shortcomings and find happiness in the little things – such as Sage’s Creole accent, or several cinematic nods to iconic entries in the genre – you might find the film to be worth your while.

Jovovich's physicality and chilly mien (she was originally a "project" of the Umbrella Corp.) carry the series from start to … whenever it finishes, which might not be for quite a while yet.

When Bardem is onscreen, the emotional stakes are high, engaging you in a way the principal storyline fails to do. It’s a masterful turn by a masterful actor, one that’s blissfully on-target in The Gunman.

Across-the-board, the kids are extremely adorable to watch (not an easy thing to pull off) and will appeal to the other kids in the audience who might identify with them and see the story from the kids’ point of view. But looking at this film from any other perspective, will give you brain rot.

The film is as thin as a picture postcard.

Flawed but often entertaining teen horror flick.

There's barely a belly laugh here, and judging from the deafening silence in the theatre where I saw the film, it's not just me.

Escape the Field won’t change the world, but it is a solid showing for everyone involved, and it works overtime to keep the audience entertained throughout – at least until the sequel-bait ending for a movie that will probably never happen.

Granted, femme-centered film comedies are a thing to cherish, but The Other Woman only gets it half right.

The result is a cheerfully unfunny low-brow affair which simply can’t compare with the many genuinely entertaining James Bond spoofs that seem to crop up every decade or so, such as "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery or the more sublime pleasures of Jean Dujardin in the "French OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies."

Too bad their characters are comprised of nothing but the most hackneyed clichés and that it apparently never occurred to anyone to add even sketches of believable character development.

Mutant Aliens would have been brilliant as a short; there's just not enough story for a full-length feature, so the film seems strung together.

Rises above its problems to deliver the essential goods.

For a comedy, The Sitter is frightfully spare on full-bodied laughs.

Unimaginatively filmed and of a misbegotten construction, Tammy goes all in with its namesake character (played by McCarthy), hanging the entire movie around a person who is immediately and irreversibly established as being thoughtless, unperceptive, destructive, and uneducated.

The real problem is that the story is just incoherent, and the faster it moves, the more frantic it seems.

Almost insufferably sufferable. It's a chick flick of the tallest order, with schmaltz galore and the sort of ongoing romantic hubris that practically screams, "This is codswallop, right?"

It's even worse than you thought it might be.

This ship has sailed, sank, and not to put too fine a bowsprit on it, sucks.

Dear Evan Hansen is a rare musical that must be seen to be believed. Few shows are less equipped to grapple with their subject matter; watching someone Wikipedia the plot synopsis of the musical in real time remains one of the last true pleasures available to us as a society.

The movie is toothless and uninspired, and as directed by veteran filmmaker Joel Zwick (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), the film is a disgracefully shoddy affair.

Despite an ambitious script from Wadlow and Beau Bauman, it's extremely difficult to care, seeing as how these tropes have already been recycled enough to make Greenpeace proud.

In Seagal's movies, the interesting stuff never derives from what happens, but rather from how it happens. Exit Wounds is certainly one of his best efforts, although the distinction is a dubious one at best.

Will make monster fans ache for what might have been.

The Intruder is a delightful use of the conventions of melodrama to subvert traditional horror archetypes.

The first impression is definitely one of all style, and precious little substance.

No doubt, the under-10 crowd will love this bathroom vulgarity, even more so when their adult chaperones experience a flush of embarrassment.

Somehow All My Life seems oddly lacking in stakes, which is so weird considering the story (the main symptoms of onscreen Chau’s deadly but photogenic disease seem to be a little tiredness and sweatiness).

While expertly executed animation-wise and passably entertaining for very young kids (less so, their parents), is still as dull as the hull on Rocketship X-M.

There is running, hiding, fighting, shooting, bleeding, biting, slicing, dicing, and damnably little entertainment value in any of it.

The religious charlatans who are the primary characters in Don Verdean are ripe for comic deflation, but the film’s unsteady tone has no discernible target.

What a clunker.

What if the filmmaker had found a way to reconcile his two storylines into a cohesive whole? Wouldn’t that have made a wonderfully affecting film? Why yes, it would have.

While this is no "Clueless," to be sure, it's also, thankfully, no "Born in East L.A."

The chickiest flick you're likely to see this season. Depending on your taste in romantic fare, you'll either find it toe-curlingly dreamy or ploddingly predictable.

The man behind the "Rush Hour" franchise proves that dropping sly nods in Alfred Hitchcock's direction does not necessarily a fine caper make.

Certainly movies are a business, but it's only good form for them to at least pretend that they have some reasons for existence other than the purely mercenary. The goal of entertainment has been forgotten here in the mad dash for formulaic guarantees. These comedy nun pushers have forgotten that there's no bottom line at heaven's gate.

They're admirable attempts to update the old cartoon's broad social satire and add some depth to these characters, but they're played too gravely (gravelly?) to work in this wild world, and they don't prompt the same silly satisfaction that the show did.

The problem here, and what makes it so inferior to Evans’ films, is the editing. It is a page that Berg perhaps lost, but the action is the very definition of discontinuous.

There's just not enough real heart to go along with the cutesiness.

This newest laff-riot from the once and future director of The Decline of Western Civilization documentaries is a lamentable mess, chiefly made up of stale gags that went bad sometime during the Kennedy administration and a stunningly unengaging romance that has all the snap of a moist cotton swab.

A formulaic wedding comedy about mismatched families, but thanks to several appealing performances this rote exercise turns out better than most.

While it’s far from bad, it also falls far short of the icy frissons produced by the original.

A twist ending in search of its movie.

The pleasure of The Chronicles of Riddick comes mostly from the fascinating and outlandishly detailed production design, which sprawls across the screen in nearly every shot, with the Necromonger’s gigantic starships looking similar to those strange stone heads on Easter Island.

This kind of angel stuff is classic Hollywood fare, especially at Christmastime. Thus, it's all the more wonder that director Nora Ephron has missed and mishandled so many of her cues.

Submergence – despite much lovesick gravitas from its two leads – never quite coalesces into the epic romance that it should. It fizzles when it should ignite, leaving the viewer with a palpable yearning for something other than a shrug.

For better or worse, the film plays like an extended TV episode, jumping from each character’s story arc to the next, rarely lingering longer than the time it takes to land a few low-bro love jabs before moving on to the next scene.

Terminator: Genisys is a catastrophic misfire on nearly all counts. It’s only saving grace? 2015 Oscar winner J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) as a Mulder-gone-to-pot-esque cop who believes in these “goddamn time-traveling robots.”