Amusing enough to watch and passes the time, but it's the kind of movie you're content to wait for on your friendly indie cable channel.

I’m giving Life of the Party three stars — a solid B, if you will — on the strength of at least a half-dozen laugh-out-loud moments, some truly sharp dialogue, a tremendously likable cast, and the sheer force of its cheerful goofiness.

From the opening scene right until the wholly expected finale, Lonely Planet is pure romantic-drama escapism. It’s so thin that if the original material had been in book form, that book would have been a pamphlet.

It lands just this side of camp, with a perfectly cast Kevin Kline hamming it up as the aging bounder Flynn, and Susan Sarandon really hamming it up.

This is an entertaining B-movie bolstered by performances from a cast that often rises above the predictable material.

Of Amanda Bynes let us say that she is sunny and plucky and somehow finds a way to play her impossible role without clearing her throat more than six or eight times.

Maybe what makesFlipped" such a warm entertainment is how it re-creates a life we wish we'd had when we were 14.

Mad City might have been more fun if it had added that extra spin--if it had attacked the audience as well as the perpetrators. As it is, it's too predictable.

The 'Burbs tries to position itself somewhere between Beetlejuice and The Twilight Zone, but it lacks the dementia of the first and the wicked intelligence of the second and turns instead into a long shaggy dog story.

Even though Pain & Gain does indeed mine laughs from some very violent acts, there is nothing in this movie that glamorizes those three meatheads. Kudos to Bay and his screenwriters for making sure we’re laughing at them, not with them.

Rod Lurie has made a first-rate film of psychological warfare, and yes, I thought it was better than Peckinpah's. Marsden, Bosworth and Skarsgard are all persuasive, and although James Woods has played a lot of evil men during his career, this one may be the scariest.

Costner’s performance is filled with memorable moments.

Yelchin is agreeably offbeat and convincingly two-fisted in the role, and Sommers, who’s always had a knack for fast-paced action with a light, comic touch, provides a few entertaining scenes here and there. Unfortunately, the horrific stuff in Odd Thomas seems gorily incompatible with the film’s otherwise breezy screenplay.

It is not an entirely successful movie, but it is new and fresh and not shy of taking chances. And the dialogue in it is actually worth listening to, because it is written with wit and romance.

By the end of Children of the Corn, the only thing moving behind the rows is the audience, fleeing to the exits.

Little Darlings really wants to be two movies at once: A fairly serious film about teenagers and sex, but also a box-office winner like "National Lampoon's Animal House" or "Meatballs." That's why we get awkwardly forced comedy like the food-fight scene. The movie also suffers from uncertain direction.

An ungainly fit of three stories that have no business being shoehorned into the same movie.

The Tomorrow War is an earnest effort to bring something new to the time-travel action genre, but this movie is a 2021 vehicle made of parts from the 2010s and the 1990s and 1980s.

The movie does not propose to be a comedy, a musical, a film noir story or a medical account. It proposes to be a subjective view of suffering, and the ways this character tries to cope with it. Understand that, and the pieces fall into place.

The quality of the acting is so much better than the material deserves.

Larry Clark's Bully calls the bluff of movies that pretend to be about murder but are really about entertainment. His film has all the sadness and shabbiness, all the mess and cruelty and thoughtless stupidity of the real thing.

The characters involve us, we sympathize with their dreams and despair of their matrimonial tunnel vision, and at the end we are relieved that we listened to Miss Watson and became the wonderful people who we are today.

There will be better movies playing in the same theater, even if it is a duplex, but on the other hand there is something to be said for goofiness without apology by broken lizards who just wanna have fun.

Unwise casting choices in two key roles. Increasingly ludicrous plot developments — even for a slick, escapist thriller. Dubious science about the potency of a nuclear warhead. Intellectually lazy pop psychology, much of it heavy on the daddy issues, as character motivation.

But Parker's visuals enliven the music, and Madonna and Banderas bring it passion. By the end of the film we feel like we've had our money's worth, and we're sure Evita has.

There are few things more depressing than a weeper that doesn't make you weep.

Back in the day, Gigi & Nate would have been a prime-time network “Movie of the Week” or an “ABC Afterschool Special,” in that it has a pleasant but not particularly striking look; endearing performances from a familiar cast of esteemed veterans and earnest newcomers, and a storyline designed to provide a few initial chuckles, some light romance, a devastating family setback and finally, a happy ending.

Given that director and co-writer Florian Zeller’s “The Father” was a powerful and nuanced and creatively presented original work with Anthony Hopkins winning an Oscar for his moving portrayal of a man with advancing dementia, it’s truly shocking how Zeller’s “The Son” is such a tone-deaf, emotionally manipulative, leaden stumble into the abyss.