Much to my dismay this is not an unauthorized sequel to Abel Ferrara's 1979 East Village art-world freakout "Driller Killer." This is instead a dispiritingly mediocre tweener comedy from some very talented people who appear to be experiencing a delayed sophomore slump.

In contrast to its great title, Mad Hot Ballroom is anything but: Let’s just say I was not spellbound.

The film’s one saving grace is Bateman, the only actor on set who seems unwilling to give himself over to Magorium’s philosophy that the key to a fulfilling life can only be found in pathological regression. Maybe he just needs more whimsy in his life.

Although the plot is pretty bare-bones, it’s propped up by plenty of gratuitous dialogue and imagery that do nothing to further the story.

The Perfect Man is like Teen People come to life. It's perfectly PG, and it's probably not the worst thing a young lady could see, depending on your criteria. Cinematically, it's like watching your lawn grow.

An exercise in unintentional farce.

The only redeeming thing in Switch is Barkin's vulgar and adept physical performance of a man literally trapped in a woman's body. She's in a constant state of discomfort, whether it's trying to walk in high heels (a sight gag that quickly gets old), scratching her breasts, or sitting with her legs apart in a tight miniskirt. Her presence, however, is a small consolation in a movie that takes the battle of the sexes and turns it into a pointless skirmish.

It pains me to say it, but Afterlife, the latest installment in this seemingly eternal zombie apocalypse franchise, is considerably more entertaining than George A. Romero's most recent exhumation.

For fans, however, Saw VI is, pardon the pun, a cut above the rest but not, sadly, by much.

The film goes by in a wash of uninspired action and unmemorable comedy.

It's visceral bloodbathery at its most repellent, but worse than that, it's horrific like the aftermath of a suicide bombing instead of terrifying like the bomb beneath the table or the knife behind the back.

It's not wrong to wish these actors were working in the service of a better script or more assured direction, but it's probably also possible to simply take pleasure in their performances.

Cruising is more of an exploitation effort as opposed to a genuine mind-bender. The film concentrates on the gay underground in New York City, although Friedkin's take on a sexually charged mystery is more funny than challenging

Truly, the greatest torture of all is boredom.

The movie makes use of every avian pun possible, a pattern that becomes quickly monotonous and predictable, if not contagious.

It's the snobs versus the slobs! And this holiday's no picnic!

As forgettable as a puff off a generic-brand butt: filtered, flavored, and ultimately unsatisfying.

Who would have thought mass murder and cannibalism could be so dull?

Eager to please, but it’s so lacking in real-world skate politics that it more resembles the chugging PG-13 mediocrity of Top 40 pop-punk-lite than the hard-core Black Flagisms of Peralta’s scathingly real doc.

Sirens, is unable to rise above its intrinsic prurience.

It is, in a word or two, everything that Poe's tales and poems were not: interminable and picayune.

Hardly lives up to its name -- bedeviled is more like it.

As a satire this film would be hilarious, but writer Robert Harling's ("Soapdish") script doesn't quite hit the mark.

What the movie ultimately demonstrates is that the sum total is less than the individual parts when you add together Rocky, the Terminator, Indiana Jones, Mad Max, Blade, Zorro, Hercules, and the Transporter.

It's mediocrity at its most unremarkable.

It's a testament to Bill Nighy's cadaverous panache that this third entry in the ongoing exsanguinators vs. lycanthropes franchise (that's vampires and werewolves to anyone not weaned on Famous Monsters) is as tolerable as it is.

The trouble comes when somebody opens their mouth and you’re reminded this is supremely silly stuff, and overall a much lesser version of teens versus the titans of post-apocalypse industry – a copy of a copy of a copy.

The Blackening feels like a cash grab, a film so blatantly made because “horror is so hot right now.” There’s no love for the genre, and if you don’t admire something to some degree, it’s hard to properly satirize it.

A bad sequel to a good movie...The main concentration is on gross-out effects and lame chase scenes.

Like last year's "Lethal Weapon 3" -- another ridiculously uninspired sequel -- Another Stakeout starts with a terrific bang and goes nowhere fast.

There’s been an urge to excuse the director and blame the studio, arguing that Zhao just didn’t fit into the strictures of the MCU. Yet that doesn’t explain how weak the script she co-wrote is, or why it’s so insufferably long, or why it almost completely fails to tackle its own core conceits of blind loyalty, of the perils of immortality, of rebellion against faith.

Prinze, Lillard, and Biel are all pleasant enough to look at, but the film's Romeo and Juliet tropes are shopworn by now, and the movie gives us nothing else.

Chris Dowling’s second feature at first seems anodyne enough, but once the plot mechanics kick into high gear, the film becomes as unsurprising as a prix fixe menu.

Indeed, the biggest acting coup here comes by way of Courtney Love, whose cameo as an obliging waitress is the best thing the film has going for it.

Definitive modern cinematic eye-candy with all the connotations of empty calories that term implies.

Without endearing characters to sell this mixture of comedy and dread, Danger One quickly succumbs to its low-budget annoyances.

Monk would probably make a nice rental on a dull evening, with some kind of salty snack and a drinking-game accompaniment. (Drink whenever Scott cries, "Oh, shit!")

Fortunately, Brian Cox delivers a bravura performance that keeps things watchable, if not always dramatically truthful.

The whole production is simply as mediocre and half-baked as Hollywood gets.

At its core, a very manipulative piece of work.

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

This new film version, sad to say, is a hollow shell of the original series.

All that's missing from the director's new vision of the world is the pipe organ and the choir of angels.

It's the type of film that begs to be called “charming” and by doing so instead ends up grating.

The script, written by the three brothers, is ludicrous and incomprehensible, and plays cat-and-mouse games with what could have been some deeply funny comments on race, wealth, and, in one inspired changing-room scene, eating disorders.

Jurassic World Rebirth struggles to find a reason to exist, so composer Alexandre Desplat peppers in the original, wonderful Jurassic Park theme by John Williams just enough to remind you that you’re watching a sequel, not a rip-off.

Writer/director Damien Lay’s screenplay has some head-scratchers in addition to its flat dialogue, but it’s clear that the airplanes rather than the characters are his real passion. Unfortunately, his film never takes flight.

Moog is an inventor's movie all the way.

West (Con Air) saturates his imagery in a sickly, sulphurous stew of rotten-egg yellows and oranges, making a mediocre picture downright repellent at times.

The first "Nightmare on Elm Street" was wickedly surreal, but the wacky dream sequences were offset by the sitcomlike, almost satirical flatness of ordinary suburban life; that was the really scary part. Freddy Vs. Jason is innocent of such nuances.

Such an important and tender subject as assisted suicide deserves more than this mawkish, soapish nonsense.

Works just fine for the first half hour or so, but quickly devolves into a case of too much affection and not enough affliction.

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."

The film finds some momentum once the bodies start dropping – but maybe that was only the sweet relief in knowing the end was nigh.

Cobbled together on what appears to be a very low budget, Glass shatters under the weight of too many comic book allegories-cum-history lessons, weirdly abrupt plot machinations, epically puny bouts of brawny fisticuffs, and a third-act bit of outright what-the-f**k-ery that gives even the lamest deus ex machinas a bad name.

Director Chappelle lays on the spook factor heavy in the first 30 minutes or so, but the film quickly devolves into a simplistic slash 'n' bash shoot-'em-up which goes nowhere fast.

What this really comes down to is the film's central lie. Made of Honor pins its hopes on a character who acts utterly without honor, and on an actor who has only two settings – sensitive or smarmy. The smarm wins.

In Movie 43's better-suited afterlife in the home-entertainment market, those sort of quandaries can be hashed out between bong rips and bags of Cheetos.

Just as clichéd as its predecessor, and lacks the old-school charm of films like "Wild Style" and "Breakin’."

Deathbed scenes and colonoscopy humor, Bible quotations and Maury Povich "Who Is the Real Baby Daddy" episodes: All cohabit with equal relevance in the world of Tyler Perry.

Not surprisingly, it’s better to just read the book.

The laziness is what irks me most about Blended. Everything from the re-teaming of the two stars and their "Wedding Singer" director, Frank Coraci, reeks of moviemaking by checklist.

Given the likely reception to this movie, it’s unlikely there will be a sixth wave anytime soon.

In context, it's utterly, dismayingly typical.

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.

While the totality of Jupiter Ascending is just too much for its own massive narrative heft to support, kudos to the Wachowskis for beating back against mainstream Hollywood by casting actors of all races and genders in key roles, something they’ve been doing since their 1996 debut "Bound."

No one would mistake the Benzini Bros. Circus for the greatest show on earth – the Depression-era traveling troupe is a junker compared to the gold-standard Ringling Bros. – but still, a film has to try pretty hard to render lions and tigers and trapeze artists so uniformly underwhelming.

Just watching the trailer for Oliver Stone's new football epic a few weeks back left me with a grating headache; watching the whole sweaty film practically put me in the ICU.

Co-writers Don Calame and Chris Conroy utterly fail to notice the wealth of black-comedy gold inherent in the very notion of sprawling supercenters and instead go for the dumbest gags they can find.

The don't-get-caught '80s and holier-than-thou '90s do battle in True Colors, a political drama of all-too familiar dimensions. The painstakingly obvious screenplay by Kevin Wade (Working Girl) plays like an eighth-grade civics primer: ethics and morality are good, greed and corruption are bad.

Selick is widely and rightly regarded as a master of surreal, dark humor, and wildly inventive animation technique, and Monkeybone is the first tarnish on his otherwise spotless reputation.

Buscemi and Miller do their best with what they have, finding at least some small redemption in two dislikable characters written into an improbable situation, but emotional honesty in the service of nonsense is still nonsense, no matter how many scabs it manages to pick at.

It all falls apart at the end, however, and in such a loud and abrasive way that it makes Brian De Palma's "Raising Cain" look like a model of restraint.

Fur dares the viewer to look into the eyes of Kidman and Downey Jr. and not see a whimpering housewife with a crush on Chewbacca.

Completely miscast with uninspired production, this remodeling of Blithe Spirit is a faint shadow of its Coward roots, a resurrected retired poltergeist without its same purpose or vigor.

This comedy has a few genuine laughs, but The Bronze never even comes close to making it to qualifiers.

That edge between emotional incompetence and modern macho hubris is where Waddell finds something interesting to say, but it's too often buried under barely competent filmmaking (please, filmmakers, I am begging you, do not scrimp on your sound mix), stilted performances, and some horribly outdated gags and clumsy stereotypes, all further undermining a rom-com that is rarely romantic nor that comedic.

War, Inc. is neither all that interesting nor all that cool.

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

What there is here is Damon Wayans ripping up the screen -- which is entertaining but doesn't go far enough -- but this film really isn't about anything else. My 4 1/2 year old cracked up at the butt jokes but doesn't know what “turd” means so he missed much of the verbal humor.

A dull, tired mess.

How the devastating story of the senseless murder of a 14-year-old could be stripped of emotion is a feat in itself, though one of dubious achievement.

At least this excursion into mediocrity is relatively brief, although, as mentioned, a vastly shorter cut would be much preferred.

The Green Inferno feels like a retread of a retread.

While it’s possible that Annabelle might give a few audience members goosebumps, anyone who’s ever seen "Rosemary’s Baby" –or pretty much any film James Wan’s had a hand in since helming 2007’s "Dead Silence", the "Saw" franchise excepted – will figure out what’s going on within the first 30 minutes.

There's absolutely nothing here you haven't seen before, and while some kids might be mildly entertained, they would probably be even happier just staying home for the daily Power Rangers re-run.

The film struggles to carve out a distinct aesthetic for its violence, alternating between crass comedy and cartoonish violence with no sense of how to combine these two into something sustainable.

Worst of all, its mix of horror and comedy never walks the tightrope of shrieking absurdism that the originals did at their peak (and it's easy to forget that they started as a straight horror franchise). Instead, it ends up with the off-putting meanspiritedness of late-era Charles Band, the king of 2000s straight-to-video exploitation.

With a running time of 78 minutes, Awake is relatively painless, playing a little like a lesser story from one of EC Comics Shock SuspenStories – or a lot like Joseph Cotten's "Breakdown" episode of Alfred Hitchock Presents – updated for the Fangoria generation.

It starts out promising, using the conventions and trappings of the fondly remembered Ward cartoons, but after a bit of good silliness with maps, stock footage, and the flustered narrator, a convoluted espionage plot, and way too much effort in fleshing out our two heroic villains results in a film that's as hard to follow as it is to laugh at.

Another addition to Universal’s Pictures Classic Monsters arsenal of crap (remember Van Helsing?), director Shore, in his feature debut, displays a fine sense of pacing but little else.

How can a movie narrated by Junior Brown and backed with wall-to-wall southern rock – a movie that at one point features co-stars Nelson and Carter tied together, surely a first in celluloid history – be so uneventful? Why, it's lazier than Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane's good-for-nothing hound dog, Flash.

Lucky You is redeemed slightly by the presence of Duvall as Huck's father, poker legend L.C. Cheever, who clearly spent more time being Huck's teacher than his dad. Their inevitable face-off at the final table of the World Poker Championship has just enough Oedipal overtones to give the movie a little heft.

Very little here begs to be paid attention to.

Kids may come out of Karate Kid: Legends crane-kicking in excitement from the handful of fights, and older fans can relish the nostalgia, but for everyone else it’s wax on, nod off.

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.

Its kooky hybrid of slapstick gender jokes already had whiskers on 'em in Shakespeare's day.

It’s McHattie’s bizarre turn as the beleaguered town’s mayor that steals this show. Taking his cue from another infamous Ontario public servant, he gives a performance that can only be described as bat-shit crazy. Fitting, eh?