A dark comedy caught in a white-light washout, it's neither mean enough to be funny, nor funny enough to mean much.

Habit is so desperate to be edgy that it loops all the way back around to derivative, and wastes any potential Thorne might have brought to play.

Nothing in the film remotely resembles any location between San Antonio and Dallas, the beginning and end points of its labored trajectory. For someone in Fresno or Akron, this may not be a big deal, but for those of us in these here parts, it’s a damned distraction.

It was maddening and frustrating to watch so much ambition wasted on delivering such lame junk. Very young children, I suspect, will like it, but the closer viewers are to puberty, the less likely it is to hold their interest.

I came out of Beyond Borders with the gnawing feeling I'd just been subjected to some sort of ghastly prank, Punk’d by the director of "GoldenEye" with Lara Croft as his willing confederate.

Plays like a bad adolescent revenge fantasy on Ritalin, all jagged editorial edges and silly, pumped-up testosterone.

It's all probably too slippery for the youngest viewers to grasp and too sketchy for the nostalgia crowd (for whom this revival seems most geared).

Fist Fight is not a complete dud, but it does grasp at the lowest hanging fruit for its humor.

Americans are befuddled by the inexplicable, and they demand explanations. With The Grudge 2 Shimizu delivers them and thus defangs the horror, leaving us in a well-lit room, pining for the shadows.

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

Given its many failings, nothing short of an extreme makeover could save American Mary. Scalpel, please.

Does not live up to its name. It's more like White Men Can't Box, Either.

A forgivable error, but an error nonetheless.

It's a huge, bloated, hulking movie.

The movie's not bad in the action department, especially if you're a perennial fan of the gun shots and verbal quips combo. But it's so cynical, so brazen about its cardboard iconography, so calculatedly cool, that you just start longing for that crystal dream -- any dream but this one.

As it stands, The Ruins is about as interesting as a pile of old stones and a monkey-dumb yanqui falling prey to the horrors of globalization. And that's pretty dumb.

Everything is a puzzle and it's as though Lynch lost track of his reasons for making this prequel and got hung up on filming the sordid details that TV won't allow: shots of peeled-back corpse fingernails; close-ups of oscillating uvulas; visions of strange-looking, backward-talking, gyrating weirdos; and uncensored whiffs of sex, cocaine, and families undone.

Attica! Attica! Everyone involved in the creation of this muddled, joyless, and deadly dull serial killer-meets-forensic psychiatrist snoozefest should be forced to spend – at the very least – 88 minutes behind Attica's bars.

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.

The entire plot exists for the sole purpose of the yawning revelation in the film’s last five minutes.

It’s too bad the filmmakers didn’t have a longer view of film history, though; maybe their jokes would have been more interesting if they’d been aimed at, say, "Somebody Up There Likes Me" or "The Pride of the Yankees."

Headlining a less-than-mediocre kids’ movie taints one’s brand rather than enhancing it. Just ask Shaq.

No matter your standard of measurement, this production falls short.

There's nothing righteous about this tired and tiresome good cop/bad cop NYPD procedural.

In the end, Collide is a cheap genre product produced with an eye on foreign market box office. Wake me when Dominic Toretto torques his way into Havana.

For those unfamiliar with the notoriously camera-averse philosopher and his thoughts, Derrida will most probably prove to be an unenlightening bore.

But in going to such great lengths to avoid that film’s grim weirdness, the Super Mario Bros. Movie filmmakers have flattened the concept into benign nothingness. They’ve course corrected into the side of a mountain. There’s no heartbeat here.

An odd mix, to be sure, but full-tilt performances from Mara, as meth-addicted, widowed mom-cum-kidnappee Ashley Smith, and Oyelowo, playing the stone-cold killer turned cornered kidnapper Brian Nichols, help this spiritual thriller rise (very slightly) above other, more hamfisted, heaven-friendly fare.

By halftime of this two hour piece of dreck, you’ll wonder why you weren’t more appreciative that the first one only wasted 80 minutes of your life.

Tepid, borderline offensive cyber-serial killer thriller.

This embarrassingly stupid, cheap, and hokey film owes huge and obvious debts to Seventies gems Death Race 2000 and Rollerball, but with none of the brains or budget of those films.

Unfortunately, this kind of sledgehammer comedy has worn thin over the many years since Mack Sennett first hit on it.

The mutilated, slobbering, howling possessed in Deliver Us From Evil crawl on all fours like animals, and furiously dig into surfaces until their fingers bleed, but they’re nothing more than a sideshow, freaks on display for your perverse enjoyment. It’s unsettling, but never terrifying.

Nothing here really works. Even a surprisingly flat score from horror master John Carpenter (who was originally slated to direct the '84 version) can't save Firestarter from being a colossal misfire.

Home Alone meets Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and then visits Working Girl – none of it works.

A self-indulgent, snarky, scattershot mess through and through.

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

As is, Welcome to Mooseport is clunkily earthbound as its characters and the situations plod forward while never getting anywhere.

With this latest thriller (comedy? My fellow audience members were laughing at scenes I highly doubt were intended to be funny) Perry implies that not only does she belong there, but she forged every link in her chains.

The deal-breaking problem with these films – among so, so many problems – is this: They don’t f--king ground the magic in any sort of reality, but rely on CGI for their showstoppers.

The problem is more the overall tone: unpleasant, divisive, snarling and deceptive.

Does anyone, young or old, wish to see a 72-year-old Pacino sporting spiky hair and goatee, hollering in his "Tony Montana" voice about having a boner? Is he in a contest with Mick Jagger to see who can keep up the wild-man shtick into the triple digits?

The film is drab and epileptic.

Most folks are just plain bored -- and I mean cross-eyed, wall-climbing, deep-down-to-the-molecular-level bored -- with this ubiquitous Endearing Wiseguys school of movie comedy.

The unnecessary nastiness, even sadism, of much of the violence also bears mentioning if you're expecting more of the benignly cartoonish silliness of Cube's lone directing effort, "The Players Club."

A classic case of preaching to the choir, since it’s doubtful the film will reach many of the minds that need changing.

Deanna is so irksome that even McCarthy seems to tire of her, and her bumbling, burbling, shy but gregarious persona is often discarded – not as a sign of character development, but because it would get in the way of a gag.

It's all so much blood and brine signifying nothing, not even a good time. Now somebody do us all a favor and cut that albatross from around Petersen's neck already.

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.

The blandness of The Wedding Planner burlap-sacks their appeal in an altogether dowdy outing for two stars who deserve much snazzier threads.

The rap stars-turned-actors who populate this film exude a real presence, if not a wealth of acting chops. Williams' script is a real muddle, however, reinforcing the worst clichés about video directors who make the leap to feature filmmaking.

And then there's the overacting. And then there's the hamminess of the script. And then there's

These days, Allen's pictures are more like snuff films, in which the viewer must suffer both gifted actors committing screen hara-kiri and a once-brilliant filmmaker soldiering on with his long, bullheaded decline.

The Celestine Prophecy's biggest stumbling block (and there are many to choose from) is that the film's dramatic arc hinges on John's awakening to the prophecy. But spiritual epiphany is tough to convey onscreen.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers here have no earthly idea how to execute this nifty supernatural conceit (Barbara Marshall’s screenplay appeared on the 2015 Black List), teetering between cheap laughs and cheap thrills without doing either very well.

Steel's target audience of 12-year-old boys would be better off staying home and busying themselves at traditional, character-enriching activities: sniping at family pets with BB guns, playing Nintendo, and masturbating.

Dull, unnecessary film.

Ridiculously overwrought.

With its eye-popping color palette and surreal sense of ever-heightening melodrama, Thunderbirds comes across as "Spy Kids'" poorer British cousin.

Even though everything about this project probably looked good on paper, upon completion The House comes up snake eyes.

And for all Lee's ballyhoo about racial stereotyping, one might expect him to adopt a less hackneyed approach to his portrayals of Italians and women.

Just plain dismal, an inexplicable mining of old, mid-level programming that has all the raging excitement of continental drift.

The horror that lies at the heart of the film is fairly obvious, and with no characters for whom we have a rooting interest, A Cure for Wellness is as difficult to swallow as castor oil.

But basketball … basketball doesn’t deserve the Ferrell treatment. Basketball is a sport of kings, a thing of beauty and elegance, America’s game. Which doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be mocked but that if it must be mocked it deserves to be mocked well, and Semi-Pro, unfortunately, isn’t up to the challenge.

Apart from its dramatic predictability, Temptation is a snooze because of its languid pacing and rudimentary camerawork.

To be sure, Hitman is a lousy film, but like the video game that inspired it, it's also great fun, drawing as it does on everything from James Bondian Eurotrash panache to Vin Diesel's moribund XXX character.

I Dreamed Of Africa...and all I got was this lousy movie.

It’s maddeningly unclear sometimes, the whole doll/possession/ghost story, as the filmmakers play extremely loose with the film’s internal logic. Couple that with the stale scent of well-worn dialogue. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Feels so depressingly vacant that it registers less as a film than as a pointed lesson in what not to do in the wacky world of non-traditional dating. Hasn't anyone in this film heard of Friendster?

Certainly there are filmgoers who enjoy this kind of noncommittal metaphysical quest. I am not one of them. It makes me think that the filmmaker is more interested in showing us his vacation slides instead of sharing any real insights.

The too-too-precious title flashes like a cautionary traffic sign. Warning: Pretentiousness and Pedantry Ahead.

And, by comparison, it almost makes Basic Instinct's ending look coherent.

Makes for fruitful soul-fishing but lousy drama.

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.

It’s trashy eurosleaze with none of the sumptuous debauchery.

A dish of empty calories.

You have to hand it to Texas writer/director Stephens: He wrings out a barely watchable hundred minutes here using only washed-up actors and a washed-up genre.

Adding to weirdness is a tacked-on, live-action appearance from the real Aldrin, who reassures kids and terrified X-Files fans that there weren't, in fact, any houseflies on board Apollo 11.

Ultimately, it's a bore. Don't see the movie – read the book, play the game.

Not to harp on petty details, but this film is so colossally tone-deaf and off-key in every way that its collection of jarring missteps almost carries it into the arms of perverse comedy.

Usually, I am not so persnickety about such things, especially with first-timers, but the accumulation of mis-matched shots is so great that you have to wonder why some of the more experienced crew members weren't climbing the rafters to say “Whoa, Mel.”

Frankly, one's sympathy sides more with the class bitch who thinks she has the better voice and deserves the choral solo instead of Terri. In your heart you know she's right.

Unlikely to receive many curtain calls.

It's this overstuffed storytelling, mixed with lackluster pacing, that renders No Time to Die a torturous misfire, and an utterly disappointing exit for Craig's Bond. I hate to say it, but this is Bond's Rise of Skywalker.

For all the swords 'n' sandals hoodoo that makes up the wilting backbone of Jonathan Hale's script, the Rock is, nevertheless, fun to keep an eye on.

The collective charisma of Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, and Rene Russo is the only reason to slap down eight bucks for this limp action/comedy, but then, it's difficult not to want to avert your eyes out of embarrassment for the trio.

Batman & Robin fails to engage the spirit of Batman, Robin, or decent marketing in general, and instead ends up as a limp, excruciatingly shallow knockoff that leaves viewers cringing at the unavoidable one-liners that make up the better part of the script.

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

Ridiculous plot, dumb characters, foolish dilemmas. The only point to this movie is to make Macaulay a millionaire.

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

They shoot rodents, don't they?

Meandering, sub-aquatic mess: It's so bad it's good, but only if you slide in on a freebie.

An adaptation of Kody Keplinger’s YA novel, The DUFF is exponentially dumb.

Shoddily plotted and unimaginative, Species II is a slapdash effort at best, creepily unaffecting and minus the T&A this sort of film so desperately hinges on.

Chow's loyal fans are sure to be disappointed by CJ7, and the film faces one other significant problem in traveling to these shores: Any kid who is the right age to appreciate this pap is going to be too young to read subtitles.

If you're gonna hire one of the funniest American comedians working today – Zach Galifianakis – and shove him to the side of the frame, then frankly, you can take what happens in Vegas, keep it in Vegas, and keep the rest of the us out of it.

Check the credits: That move is ripped straight from producer Michael Bay's playbook.

Fails chiefly because it's senseless. How it even managed to bypass the straight-to-video route boggles the mind and is a speculative fiction far more engaging than any to be found onscreen.