The documentary feels like something that could have been deeply engrossing had the filmmaker selected an alternate narrative structure. He needed to deliver more than surface without substance.

Ice Road: Vengeance hits all the beats of a standard action movie as subtly as an out-of-control vehicle tumbles down a precipitous incline before crashing and bursting into flames. There’s nothing fun or exciting or even interesting here.

Elio is a complete misfire—an ambitious premise that never takes off.

While Florence Pugh and David Harbour try to inject some soul into the chaos, the film proves that no amount of punchlines can save a story that forgot its superpower. Sometimes you don’t need a group hug—you need a good old-fashioned throwdown.

A Minecraft Movie is not funny, exciting, or clever.

Every modification fails to improve the tale, and the whimsy and wonder of fairy tales are missing. It does not honor the original but shuns it instead.

The problem with Brave New World falls squarely on the writing and the story.

Love Hurts is a prime example of what happens when a film spreads itself too thin trying to juggle multiple genres—it drops all the balls. Ultimately, it’s a forgettable attempt at blending action and romance, proving once again that genre mashups rarely deliver a knockout.

The acting is sub-par, with Selena Gomez delivering the weakest performance. I don’t know Spanish, but even I can tell she struggles to sound like it’s her first language. As Emilia, Karla Sofía Gascón is stiff as a board and can’t sing. Zoe Saldaña is the only one putting an effort in, but even she can’t make horrible lyrics sound authentic.

It’s a given that Julia Garner can play fear, but Whannel barely taps into her skills.

As whacky as the characters are and as tense as the setting is made to be, the movie drags.

Kraven The Hunter doesn’t entertain. The only thing it does right is release the hostages after two hours.

Nosferatu is a failure on almost every level.

Dear Lord, this movie didn’t need to be made. It is profoundly awful. The foreshadowing is relentless. Sorry, Barry Jenkins just can’t direct animation.

Blitz disappoints on nearly every level.

It drags through a slow love story, lacks the original’s dark, gritty atmosphere, and misses the intensity that made the 1994 film a cult classic. Even the crow legend feels like an afterthought, leaving this remake bland and forgettable.

Unfrosted is dumb. Not only is it dumb, it’s stupid. It commits the sin of being a comedy that thinks its funny. The film goes wrong in so many ways.

There is certainly an issue here worth isolating and examining: that of veterans finding their oaths at odds with the state. How the movie considers this theme is dangerous and confusing. It’s an out-of-touch and partisan documentary, wasting its talents to stir mud.

Who wants to be subjected to water torture for 2 hours?

For a film meant to be a milestone for 100 years of the Walt Disney Company, Wish is a monumental failure.

Ultimately, The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future represents one of the sternest examples of sacrificing the heart of a film for the demands of a specific message. Every genuinely compelling moment is forced to become an object of one-dimensional dogma. And all of the film’s latent wonder is sacrificed at the altar of hollow reductionism.

Fangs Out is rough from start to finish.

I’m not suggesting Cherry should have a laugh track, because it is not funny at all, despite several attempts at humor.

It makes the mistake of developing the characters less in order to increase the chance of symbolism more.

Banks ends up with a glossy Hollywood flick disguised as a straight-to-VOD grindhouse title. It feels dishonest, forced, and overstuffed.

This “horror” (used as loosely as possible) debut will only frighten people who get startled by their own shadows every day, as it’s just a slog into nothingness.

The Friendship Game is deplorable from beginning to end. Fans of Peyton List may get a small amount of enjoyment, as the actor is good. Unfortunately, she’s the only worthwhile part of the film, as the direction, editing, and cinematography are woefully incompetent.

Behind the pseudo-intellectual curtain of Philippe’s pseudo-documentary, you will not find a wizard. You will find nothing at all.

The writer-director’s perverse, continuous, and purposeful avoidance of any semblance of genuine emotion or coherence results in an aggressively unpleasant experience.

The movie is never funny, scary, spooky, or interesting. Bakalova and Davidson are trying their best but cannot buoy the picture. Badly lit, poorly shot, and sporting even worse dialogue, the film offers nothing to anyone, though it thinks it has something important to say. Pretentious and dull is the worst combination.

An inkling of an inventive concept lurks somewhere deep within the murk. Unfortunately, you'll be hard-pressed to spot it amidst all the meandering diversions, prepubescent humor, imbecilic dialogue, and curious casting choices.

Alas, instead of a scathing critique of racial injustice, a revamping of the “man seeks revenge after his family is murdered/kidnapped” trope, the director delivers gratuitously violent, vulgar, clichéd, jaw-droppingly sexist, and racist cinematic bile.

The plot lurches from one awkwardly-staged, heavy-handed, poorly-lit, bathed in eye-scorching soft-focus sequence to another with little regard for tonal shifts or narrative fluidity.

For a film that asks its audience to erase so much of the series’ lore, it certainly enjoys feeding them “memberberries” throughout its runtime.

Cinderella fails spectacularly on just about every level.

Every so often, a motion picture comes around that’s so dreadful you wonder what prompted anyone to want to waste their time making it and your time watching it to such a degree. When I’m a Moth holds that dubious distinction.

The actors do what they can, but even the talent assembled here can’t help getting swallowed up in the Shyamalan vortex of nonsense.

None of the set pieces are inventive, and the dialogue is either overly serious or hacky ha-has. In addition to the bland everyman at the center of the story, all the supporting characters are soulless mouthpieces.

An eccentric local priest spouts nonsense, blood gushes out of the shower, bodies twist and contort at impossible angles, and creatures from hell crawl towards the camera. By the time the convoluted, shrieky finale arrives, it all blends together into nothing more than dull background noise. Your investment in the story will be indirectly proportional to its running time.

It's jaw-dropping how slapdash Sheridan's approach is to what's supposed to be the heart and soul of the story – the bonding between Hannah and Connor. The characters are so cardboard, it's a wonder they don't catch fire.

Perhaps the worst thing about the writer/director/star’s feature is that it basks in the excess it purports to condemn, confident that pounding the viewer into submission is the way to go, in addition to ending on a hypocritical note that defies everything that’s occurred up to that point.

While I can understand and accept poor writing, it is deeply offensive to me that Wittock brushed under the rug the extensive abuse that Jeanne faces from Margarette and Marc. It normalizes non-consensual sexual behavior and parental abuse, both prevalent and very traumatic experiences. Therefore, despite all the good present in Jumbo, it would be immoral of me to recommend it.

Its cardinal sin is a complete, total, utter, extreme lack of originality. The title does it justice, really. Sacrilege will most likely be viewed as such by horror film aficionados.

Watching the multiple, nonsensical, seizure-inducing sequences, set to bottom-of-the-barrel, thunderous EDM and homemade melodramatic beats feels like being smacked in the head repeatedly by a blaring subwoofer.

The whole movie feels like an overlong Kickstarter set up for a The Disaster Artist-like treatment. Honestly, that would provide a far more fascinating story than the pureed plot provided here.

Monster Hunter is red meat to any cynical moviegoer of the modern age looking for exhibit A. It’s been commodified and globalized to the point of nonidentity.

No one would rationally expect the man behind Disneynature fare such as Penguins, Elephant, and Diving with Dolphins to make his directorial debut with a demonic horror feature.Yet here we are, witnessing David Fowler perform a 180° swivel, from anthropomorphizing animals to slaughtering human beings in Welcome to the Circle. The results clearly demonstrate that he should’ve stuck to voicing chimpanzees.

Waiting for the Barbarians isn’t a terrible film, it just never delivers on any of its promises.

From its unimaginative opening, involving a dumb tourist falling to her death to the anticlimactic day-lit finale (if you get this far, you deserve some sort of Steve Irwin award), Black Water: Abyss will make you want to Crawl back into Lake Placid. To reiterate: if you’ve come for the croc, you’ll be sorely disappointed. If you’ve come for anything else… well, why did you come at all?

Ultimately, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga fails to transport us into this hyper-realistic world of Iceland as Ferrell is equally unable to endear us to his character of Lars in a film that didn’t need to be two-hours long.

A commendable subject matter does not a good movie make. Tape is inherently misguided, a queasily voyeuristic project, rendered nearly-unwatchable by its pseudo-artistic tendencies and patronizing tone.

There is potential that elevates The Luring from traditional small-budget horror output on a visceral level, but sadly there are no amount of balloons that could elevate this to a recommendation.

Caught between worlds, Disturbing the Peace isn’t as fun as it begs to be or as eloquent as it’s trying to be.

It’s insulting to think that children will see a movie solely because you have animals that talk and act silly.

Aside from a decent cast trapped in a shoddy everything else, there is nothing to recommend here.

Nothing here is left to the imagination, Pesce running down the list of clichés and ensuring he includes every single one. Once the realization that this is yet another cheap-o retread settles in (about 10 minutes in), the rest becomes agonizingly painful to sit through.

Its portrayal of Britt-Marie sometimes feels condescending, several of its plot turns make no sense, and its visuals add nothing that wasn’t already there in the original book.

Corporate Animals tries to be a comedy about class struggle, hubris, cult of personality, and corporate culture using cannibalism as a metaphor. It is a fantastic idea that never gels into anything worth watching, and I suggest you miss it.

Everything is one-note, dull and, worst of all, pretentious to the nth degree.

Hardcore gorehounds will be disappointed by the lukewarm scares. Fans of throwback films will groan at the lack of tongue-in-cheek references. Anyone who’s seen a film will groan at the stupidity of it all.

Goi and his screenwriter Anthony Jaswinski must have thought that simply stuffing the film with as many shock tactics as possible would suffice. It doesn’t. This ship goes down with her captains.

Holbrook is talented. There is no question about that. The guy wrote, directed, produced and cut Beloved Beast together. It’s just a shame that this strange yarn couldn’t be reduced to the essentials and given real power. Had we been offered less movie with more meaning, the impact would have been far greater.

The problems with this story stem from its convoluted and utterly ridiculous script that refuses to make any sense.

Designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator, in equal parts juvenile and offensive, Purge of Kingdom is the worst film I’ve seen so far in 2019. If a fart gag makes your sides split with laughter, go right ahead – otherwise, avoid at all costs.

Nihilistic and offensive, it leaves you with more than a sour taste – nausea, perhaps, or a need to bathe in Listerine.

Everything culminates in strained dramatics and forced tension as the audience is sure to be scratching their heads in confusion.

Nary a moment rings true, nary a moment elicits anything close to chills or dread – or, at the very least, unintentional laughs.

The whole film plays like a hunk looking at himself in the mirror.

The direction keeps things visually engaging, and the editing is flawless. Sadly, for me, the stories don’t connect well enough to justify the whole fated aspect and all but a single song, in this musical, are some of the worst I have had to ever endure.

There isn’t much in the way of original content to recommend in this experience beyond the film’s obvious use as easy fodder. The earnestness in which The Church was made ensures its status as an endearing failure, though sadly not as much else.

As it stands now though, the acting is good, but the narrative moves like molasses, leaving the audience at a distance.

Its premise may not be particularly original. But with it, Knuckleball could still have made for an effective movie, a horror film that’d also have doubled as a meditation on family. In actuality, however, Knuckleball ends up falling into a subcategory of horror films that I like to call “music-dependent.” Take away Michelle Osis and David Arcus’ scary-sounding score, in other words, and the film’s myriad flaws become woefully apparent.

A mildly stylish feature without any clear vision or purpose.

For American viewers, the film will hopefully provide an incentive to learn more about the Philippine-American War, an important but frequently ignored chapter in American history. Thanks to all of this, Goyo: The Boy General avoids being a complete disappointment, and you’ll at least be glad you watched it.

In the end, two things prevent Big Kill from being a complete flop. First, Mark Atkins’ cinematography is gorgeous, containing sweeping vistas that would’ve made John Ford proud. And second, although most of the characters are caricatures, several of the actors clearly get a kick out of their roles, particularly Patric. If only the rest of the movie were as entertaining as they are.

Of course, the argument can be made that a film is a work of art, which grants extended artistic license. Fine, then why not use the events as a basis for a fictional story rather than deliver unabashed inaccuracy in the name of art?

This film is arguably one of the most unsatisfying films I’ve had the disservice to watch.

In the end, what’s left is yet another bad Amityville movie that fails to entertain or scare. Still, the house does look scary. Maybe if they try one more time…

What could have explored the real complexities behind a serious issue instead became a self-congratulatory pat on the back for holding a specific viewpoint, and a boring one at that.

Topical resonance is all that the movie musters, as it changes subject matter on a whim and doesn’t give the audience enough background information on the issues or the interviewees to make a whole lot of sense.

The directing style of Strange Nature fails to bring any atmosphere, the acting is so nondescript that it barely registers (with two notable exceptions), and a lack of cohesive vision leaves the movie uncertain of what it truly is. An absolute waste of time for all involved, especially the audience.

It’s Cangialosi’s writing and direction that result in a watered-down, emotionally manipulative experience.

A Wizard’s Tale is blandly animated, badly edited, terribly, terribly written and its dearth of creativity hurts its core conceit. While most of the voice actors try their best, it is all for naught.

Sunset Society manages to abuse what little b-grade credibility it earns through its cast and premise with an unbearable slog through monotony and surprising tameness.

A failure on virtually every level, Peppermint is a slapdash, half-hearted affront to anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in its crosshairs.

This isn’t a movie, it is anti-cinema; an endurance test to discover how malleable a human’s brain is.

The Meg is simply toothless.

Beach House has all the makings of great low-budget horror: limited cast, isolation and a somewhat plausible variable. Sadly, these elements get lost in messy camerawork and a mundane screenplay.

Emily Blunt’s Victoria and Rupert Friend’s Albert come across like museum mannequins – utterly devoid of any genuine passion.

It’s intellectually and socially detrimental to both literature and cinema, simultaneously.

Reflecting on Sokurov’s other recent work – like “Russian Arc” for example – The Sun is a giant step down. It’s an outrageously long-winded drama that’s awfully directed with the skill of a high school play.

The animals are often caught in a stare as if they, too, are looking for the tale that Anderson forgot.

If only von Trier could work beyond the poster art concept. Antichrist stubbornly fails as a gothic nightmare and meanders as a misanthropic two-character drama.

Sadly, everything is predictable, which is to the detriment of the mostly fine, young talent that appears in this ineffective retread.

Sloppy, not funny, downright stupid, ridiculous as well as horribly themed and shot.

This is shtick that’s minimally a generation past its expiration date.

Summertime junk food.

Downloading Nancy is an excruciating experience.