There was a point, midway through the film’s major third-act climax, CGI beast raging against CGI beast, when a thought came to this humble critic: “This shouldn’t be boring.” And yet this is what happens, when there’s no emotional weight to the stakes, and the characters themselves feel as hollow as the earth they live on.

In the end, it’s less the Circle of Life and more the Line of Indifference.

Legacy wears its heart on its sleeve and you can feel the love for the source material. There’s an endearing and timely focus on building community, which is foundational to real witchcraft, and the message that our differences are what make us strong is one worth repeating at every opportunity. Unfortunately, there are key ingredients missing in the cauldron, and the film feels stilted by its narrative arc.

Concrete Cowboy is visually engaging, and might appeal to younger teenagers (its R-rating is primarily for language). But anyone already familiar with the dynamics of summer-vacation character-building may find it unsatisfying—even unconvincing.

Imagine all the best parts of E.T. (written, like this film, by the late Melissa Mathison) and all the worst parts of Hook, and you have a pretty solid picture of what it’s like to spend two hours with The BFG.

To have seen a disaster movie before is to have seen The Wave. But if there’s not necessarily anything remarkable or new about the film, Uthaug finds ways to make the familiar immediate, with a fraction of the money usually involved.

There’s a note of reflexive, self-aware irony to it, but portions of Knight of Cups feels as though they’re indulging in precisely this same kind of early-college navel-gazing.

A comedy of manners and femininity gets bisected by gnarly effects, and the two-tone approach works in its way.

Every time you think Hypnotic has fully lost you, it’ll do something just interesting enough to pull you back in.

To be clear, Dragon is not the worst live-action remake this year — congrats to Snow White on holding onto that prize. It’s just a slightly distorted copy of what came before. Its best attributes are fully a credit to the original, while its worst qualities all come from the foolishness of adapting a movie that was just fine the way it was.

Everything, Everything is a film that achieves its ends in appealing fashion.

Take away the delusions of grandeur, and the film is a perfectly acceptable – even enjoyable – tour vlog of a particularly interesting set of shows.

In spite of sensational direction from Trey Edward Shults and raw, emotive performances by Kelvin Harrison, Jr. and Taylor Russell, the polarizing two narrative halves of Waves don’t gel to produce a satisfying whole.

Andra Day’s Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of Billie Holiday elevates this film and allows us to overlook some of its shortcomings. Her onstage presence is absolutely undeniable. However, Daniels’ interpretation of the singer’s final years fails to fully explore key aspects of Holiday’s life that informed who she was beyond her addiction and activism.

The more affecting moments in Sully come when the film puts aside its posturing and really examines what it is to be heroic in a cynical age.

The strong atmospherics and performances aren’t quite enough to keep In the Tall Grass from feeling like, well, wandering through a bunch of tall grass.

It’s the awkward tween of gay coming-of-age movies: earnest and confident, but more than a little clumsy.

Morbius, at best, will be remembered as the latest effort on Sony's part to make its nascent Sinister Six franchise happen. And, like "fetch," it's hard to see that happening.

Here’s a film with all the right ingredients and a few too many wrong moves, yet one that’s admirable for trying as hard as it does.

The question is whether its lol-random approach will appeal to you, or whether its giddy need to throw everything at the wall just flattens into an obnoxious desire to please. Prisoners of the Ghostland knows exactly what it is, but that may not necessarily be a good thing.

At its core, it’s a simple and triumphant tale of sisterhood, but with so much ladled on top of it it begins to feel as though it’s grasping for a grandeur it doesn’t need. Sometimes, even the most intense emotions can benefit from a light touch.

John and the Hole is more of a collection of memorably uncomfortable scenes as opposed to a cohesive (w)hole.

While some viewers may get enough of a nostalgia kick out of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, the film doesn’t feel entirely fleshed out. There are elements that make for creepy experiences, keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat, but they often serve as short bundles of anxiety in a serviceable story.

Houston’s magic as a performer was in her unpredictability; her voluminous range, the trailing vocal journey her famous runs took us on from note to note, measure to measure. When she (and Ackie) come alive on stage, Lemmons’ biopic soars with vibrating energy. It’s all the moments in between that grow ever more frustrating — the thin characterization, the flattening of her story into Behind the Music story beats, rushing from milestone to milestone without taking a breath.

What really hurts the film is its messy screenplay and boilerplate direction.

At the end of the day, the best parts of Snow White are the parts that feel genuinely real and authentic. If only there were more of those, and less screen time spent dancing in the realm of mind-breaking absurdity.

The movie is too vividly realized to be boring, but it spends a lot of time scrambling out of the gap between pulpy fun and serious allegory. It’s also hobbled by the fact that it’s very much, as the opening credits say, Part 1; no real resolution is offered by the end of its 155 minutes. It’s just half a movie.

The film is a friendly, warm, and inviting documentary that dances and shouts without ever shaking its body down to the ground. There aren’t any revelations, there aren’t any demons, and there’s zero drama. It’s simply another rolodex of talking heads — including David Byrne, speak of the devil — that want to talk about Michael Jackson.