Forget “The Terror,” here comes “The Tedium.”

Berman and Pulcini’s movie feels as if it’s more haunted by unrealized potential than anything else.

Using the hyper-gendered spaces of college Greek life as a fertile palette, Takal and her co-writer April Wolfe skewer toxic masculinity, the white male literary canon, rape culture, patriarchy, and white male rage — all wrapped up with a bow in the stylishly entertaining package of a studio-backed holiday horror.

Even as the screenplay (which Clowes adapted) contains much of the source material’s pitch-black humor, it also falls short of realizing its subtle vision of an angry recluse learning to make peace with his surroundings.

Paradise Hills posits that its entire world is a shell game built on outdated ideas and a resistance to originality, but it’s the film itself that’s most woefully unable to ever go anywhere new.

The 1971 epic offers a stylish and scathing parable about the dangerous ways that the powerful can exploit religious zeal to stay that way.

With a little sleight of hand and a well-executed metaphor, horror can encompass both the fun and the artifice of filmmaking. Night’s End may not be perfect, but it’s perfectly flawed.

It both hurts and helps that Bibb and Duhamel have real chemistry, and their initially combative relationship — a staple of the romance genre — is believable and with some actual heat behind it.

There are some real missed opportunities here.

The way that the film resolves — or doesn’t — leaves the distinct impression that Waltz simply ran out of interest in this story, which would be an explanation as understandable as it is frustrating.

Demolition spends its goodwill early on, eventually giving itself over to cheap-feeling twists and a problematic final act.

The pacing is so frenetic that audiences will likely never have more than a millisecond to appreciate the textures or the visual spectacle of a shot before it’s already zipped ahead to the next sequence, always another song and dance to see, even if it’s woefully hard to actually enjoy.

M. Cahill’s new film about a woman who puts herself up for adoption in her early thirties is too unintentionally strange to be an effective drama, but too determined to be one to succeed as a comedy. The result is a drab retreading of well-worn beats without much interesting substance to show for the effort.

The Sacrament is a missed opportunity to further expand West's pallet. Instead of twisting conventions and playing with expectations, West plays into expectations.

And so we’re left with a very sweaty film that strains to be funny, but one that’s also itching to argue that it’s lack of funniness is precisely the point. Some problems can’t be solved by celebrities alone, and the most subversive thing about “Don’t Look Up” is ultimately how — in its own impotent way — it weaponizes its wild star power to make that point.

The ideas don’t cut that deep, but like its psychic protagonist, this movie knows exactly what its audience wants.

An uneven, intermittently thoughtful but largely preachy overview of WikiLeaks' rising influence that has less of an issue determining Assange's character than it does with telling a compelling story.

Save for a few clever twists and winning performances from O’Shea Jackson Jr. and 50 Cent (née Curtis Jackson), Den of Thieves is the kind of bloated crime thriller that could have been made in any decade — which is not to call it timeless so much as way past its time.

Brosh McKenna knows her tropes, and when she finally, finally brings rom-com vets Witherspoon and Kutcher together IRL (for an airport-set love declaration, of course), we’re reminded why these things work so well, how cozy and comfortable the inevitable it is, how wonderful to wrap everything up with a big bow, even if we saw that gift coming from a mile (or 20 years) away.

The algorithmic results don’t reflect well on the Russo brothers’ directing chops — their monumental spandex operas seldom required and never displayed the kind of muscular imagination needed to stage Michael Bay-like fight sequences — but The Gray Man is even more damning for Netflix itself, particularly so far as it epitomizes the streamer’s penchant for producing mega-budget movies that feel like glorified deepfakes of classic multiplex fare.

There’s nothing especially mold-breaking here, though an ending moment elicits a gasp even as Apartment 7A ends with a cruel shrug — and perhaps the best thing I can say about that is that now I immediately want to rewatch Rosemary’s Baby. Plus, Garner gives a captivatingly distressed performance as a woman being attacked from all sides, where the only way out is through a window.

This gory teen comedy blends laughably outrageous carnage with a legitimately scary plot to delightful ends. Throw in a winking fetish for cinephile culture and audiences are sure to go wild for the gutsy film.

The younger Mann goes through the motions of a gritty murder mystery with plenty of technical proficiency but only a modicum of soul. The Mann touch is not only in the DNA of the director but in her movie, which inadvertently makes the case that atmosphere is more hereditary than innovation.

This trite Irish trifle about a girls trip to Lourdes is so chalky and underbaked that its all-star cast (Laura Linney! Kathy Bates! Stephen Rea!) is left no choice but to chew on the scenery.

The critical failure of Bohemian Rhapsody is that, 134 minutes after the lights go down, the members of Queen just seem like four blokes who’ve been processed through the rusty machinery of a Hollywood biopic.

For a film that chronicles the rise of a creator obsessed with reanimating the dead, Mary Shelley is utterly lifeless. It contains a sparkling and startlingly raw performance by Elle Fanning, but Haifaa Al-Mansour’s disappointing followup to her remarkable “Wadjda” doesn’t push beyond paint-by-numbers biopic posturing

Pitt’s stardom has never been more obvious, and it shines bright enough here for everything else to get lost in the glare.

Combining the youthful raunchiness of “Superbad,” a detailed nostalgia for the era of video stores and AOL Instant Messenger, this playful sci-fi spectacle splits the difference between early “Stranger Things” and “The Terminator,” with immaculate soundtrack vibes courtesy of Fatboy Slim and Chumbawamba.

Though its darkness may be alienating, there’s something to be said about a love story that isn’t afraid to admit that one of the lovers isn’t the charming dreamboat he appears to be. And to Golding’s credit, there’s no vanity in his portrayal of Nicolas.

A star-studded new historical comedy that’s amusing at best, noxious at worst, and frantically self-insistent upon its own negligible entertainment value at all times as it strains to find the beauty in the mad tapestry of life? That’s right: David O. Russell is back.

Django deserves credit for refusing to fit its subject into the straightjacket of a survival tale, and Ketab’s expressive turn — much of which is captured in close-ups — provides the story with a richness that the writing struggles to achieve on its own.

It’s hard to ever shake the sense that everyone would be much better off just queuing up Östlund’s film and moving on.

From the flat battle sequence that’s shot with all the excitement of folding laundry, to the literal chess match that anchors the underwritten dynamic between Berg and his target, The Catcher Was a Spy shrugs through each bad scene as though it’s biding time for better ones to come.

Whenever things seem really dire, Martin saunters in with attitude to spare, and puts everything in perspective. With talent that big, the rest of the movie seems little by comparison.

V/H/S 2 smartly contextualizes its nightmarish cavalcade of violence by acknowledging the luxury of enjoying it from a distance.

Fans of the original film will still find something beautiful underneath, and “Riding Free” acolytes will likely delight in seeing a splashier take on a story they already love. Everyone else, however, might wonder when they can hope to be set free from this story, just like Spirit.

With Shaye’s performance as its anchor, the movie is often a perceptive character study, at least until it’s hijacked by the same bland trickery that so often fogs up horror movies with more to offer.

It’s smaller, quieter, and it feels true. Not soapy, not silly, not like something ripped out of an airport book buy. That’s the first step.

Both effectively terrifying and hilarious.

A junky, paint-by-numbers crime saga that stacks up to The Town like Cats does to Singin’ in the Rain. It pains a lifelong New Yorker to say this, but Boston deserves better.

Eventually suffers from a lack of new ideas beyond its initial premise that finds the two brothers inadvertently swapping roles. Once that happens, the movie takes one bland twist after another.

The film suffers from a pair of unfortunate missteps, the first of which is plain from the start and only gets worse as the film drags on.

The Planet of the Apes films had always been political, but with Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, things got angry. And it was awesome.

Gerwig singlehanded carries this blithe, generally forgettable story.

The whiz-bang joy of the first film is wholly absent, and Despicable Me 3 limps along for nearly an hour before finding its footing.

While Moriarty’s novel functioned as a compelling story about two women from different backgrounds converging during a pivotal time in American history, Engler’s film turns much of its attention to Norma’s story, jettisoning the very best part of the film along the way.

Though the title may be the cleverest thing about this cookie cutter affair, it’s refreshing to see a gay family film that doesn’t use its characters’ sexuality for dramatic conflict.

Godmothered has all the pieces for at least an amiable enough production. Instead, the result is a paradoxical combination of sweet messages and dull execution, good-hearted ideas and bizarre subplots, a dull affair that very clearly sprang from a good place.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is at its best — and its most unique, amusing, and fresh — when it’s tossing out those expectations and letting its freak flag fly. There doesn’t need to be carnage (or, hell, even Carnage), there just needs to be Venom, and more of it.

They Remain, the new thriller from director Philip Gelatt (“The Bleeding House”) hews closely to some predictable beats, but it’s an engrossing exercise in boiling familiar ingredients down to pure, unbridled creepiness.

The long take pulls you into the realism of the moment, heightening any sense of unease already established by the story. In Silent House, directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau ("Open Water") exploit the hell out of that uneasiness and keep pushing its limits.

Robin Bissell’s The Best of Enemies may not be some kind of game-changing corrective to all the retrograde films about race in America (we’re talking about an uplifting historical biopic directed by the executive producer of “Seabiscuit”), but this sturdy drama has the good sense to recognize that allyship is only valuable when it’s hard. When it’s a sacrifice. When it forces white people to put some of their own skin in the game.

Like Stephen Walker's delicate nonfiction portrait "Young@Heart," it's a genuine heart-tugger about senior citizens rediscovering their youth by singing pop music; like Craig Brewer's crowdpleasing "Hustle & Flow," it sympathizes with a struggling rap artist without glossing over his flaws.

Prior and Zagorodnii are both so watchable, and their chemistry so electric, that it’s easy to get swept away in their romance. Historical accuracy be damned.

Over time, Gold becomes nothing more than a masterclass in watching a great actor try to build a fortune out of dirt.

Army of Thieves is content to dig into its heist DNA over everything else (including, unfortunately, the rom-com sensibility it seeks between Sebastian and Gwendoline). That means unique, clever heists on a fast rotation, big twists, and major revelations, and some genuinely accomplished chase scenes.

A Tourist’s Guide to Love is a road map for how to love adventure abroad, with dashes of Vietnamese trivia and spiritual facts along the way.

When all the dust settles, we’re left right where we started, and with nothing to show for it but a fleeting reminder that peace is impossible without negotiation. It’s a lesson that history has failed to teach us, filtered through a movie that doesn’t understand why.

The Tomorrow Man suggests "Take Shelter" by way of "It’s Complicated," an unseemly combination that never quite gels. But the actors work overtime to mine substance from the material, and Jones gives them plenty of room to rescue this curious movie from complete oblivion.

For their part, the Garrity family is asked to carry more weight with less substance, and their non-characters struggle to support the emotional burden of an intimate life-or-death journey, the destination of which is a lot sillier than it was the last time around.

Overwrought with visual style but relentlessly one-note, The Front Room is willfully annoying and dubious in its purpose.

Costner is fully in traditionalist mode here, painting a quote-unquote sweeping American saga that feels like an expensive miniseries compressed into feature form.

At their worst, Affleck’s roles are stern and lifeless without soul, pretty sculptures with nothing inside. It was only a matter of time before he made a movie that embodied that lesser side of his career.

Despite building their adaptation around the cyclical predictability of American capitalism, Gore and Kulash can’t help but twist history’s biggest toy craze into a hollow and half-invented corporate fantasy about three women who bought low, sold high, and reinvested all the profits in themselves. If only it were that easy.

It's been so long since Lee made such a thoroughly amusing work that fans should have no problem excusing its messiness. But make no mistake... Oldboy is all over the place, sometimes playing like a subdued melodrama and elsewhere erupting into flamboyance and gore.

Damon and Affleck are low-key one of the most perfectly measured duos of the last 25 years . . . so it’s no surprise that they bounce off of each other so well here, but their natural chemistry is more pronounced in the context of a movie where everything around them feels so forced, and their characters’ grounding idiocy is more refreshing in the context of a movie that betrays that realism at every turn.

Ultimately, “Golda” holds three firm beliefs: That Meir is a leader to admire, that Mirren is an actress to adore, and that all interactions must be reverse engineered to fit this limited scope. It makes for a superficial biopic and blinkered bit of history, but does give the venerable performer a new accent to chew on and the chance to blow some smoke.

While the decision to digitally move the dogs’ snouts when they speak English to each other is almost off-putting enough to negate the effect altogether, fur-and-blood puppies aren’t the only pleasantly old-fashioned thing about this “Lady and the Tramp.”

This miserable chimera — skinned with Black’s wicked sense of humor, but too underdeveloped to survive on its wits alone — should never have been let out of the lab, as it poses a serious threat of boring people to death.

The Protégé never even begins to cohere as a story about paying for old sins (the ending is a “huh” of the highest order), and its ostensible villain is almost a complete non-entity, but watching Q repel down the inside of a high-rise or seduce Keaton from behind the barrel of a gun makes it obvious that she knows more about selling action on screen than most Hollywood actors could ever hope to learn.

Leto’s performance works because he’s so utterly believable as a soulless ghoul that it’s easy to buy into the happy-to-be-here warmth of his emergent humanity.

It’s a slice of life, surely, but a meager one at that.

Shamelessly familiar and profoundly alien in equal measure, The Greatest Showman takes a billion of the world’s oldest story beats and refashions their prefab emotions into something that feels like it’s being projected from another planet.

It helps that Hathaway is rivetingly dangerous as a woman who’s capable of nothing and anything all at once, and that “Mothers’ Instinct” inherited an ending that — at long last — allows it to square the raw emotionality of its characters with the daytime TV luridness of their situation, but that pitch-perfect finale only serves to reinforce how the rest of this movie struggles to articulate the profound sadness that undergirds even its frothiest moments.

The Banishing ends with such a walloping undertow of “wait, that’s it?” that it earns little more than the backhanded compliment of realizing you expected a lot more from it.

As Last Vegas glides along, satisfying expectations while always aiming low, it makes peace with being inoffensively mediocre. Like Vegas itself, the story goes down easy, but its appeal is hard to remember once you leave it behind.

Luck is a terrible idea for a movie, executed poorly, and by someone who used to know better. The best thing I can say about the finished product is that, unlike most forms of bad luck, this one is wonderfully easy to avoid altogether.

Equal parts confounding, challenging, and insanely fun, “Dashcam” is horror at its most inventive.

[Dolan's] crafted the semblance of a substantial movie that never quite gets where it was supposed to go.

Cathartic and outrageous as it can be to hear the juicy — but wildly unsurprising — details of how Abercrombie operated behind the scenes, Klayman’s film doesn’t ground them in any greater sociopolitical context.

Madness is difficult to convey on screen, and less is often more. McLean opts for most, sacrificing Radcliffe performance — so alert and responsive that you can feel the life draining out of his body once the Amazon takes hold — at the altar of some empty affectations.

Undoubtedly one of the weirder, narratively sophisticated adult dramas released by a major studio this year, The Counselor is also just enjoyable enough to hint at the unrealized potential of the main talent behind its creation.

Barker-Froyland's intention was clearly to make Song One all about music and how it can bring people together. But the result is all about Anne.

Though the inimitable Colman can’t help but muscle an admirable performance out of the overly sentimental material, her immense talent dwarfs the melodramatic surroundings.

It's painful to watch Red Hook Summer stumble, because the man behind it has tried so hard to get his groove back. However, it's energizing in the fleeting moments when he does just that.

Like a fine conversation, which her solid script mostly delivers, Coppola keeps the tension in the air like a lightly bouncing ball.

More frustrating than a misfire, “Jeanne du Barry” suffers instead from near total myopia, roaring to life with wit and ingenuity when the constellations align and the lead’s star can shine, and dwindling before the risk of any possible eclipse. The film burns hot and bright — and quickly flames out.

Spurred on by its murky spectacle — and a third-act twist that raises the stakes in a very enjoyable way — Underwater always seems like it’s about to drown in its own narrative disinterest, and yet it somehow finds a way to keep moving forward.

Despite appearances, The Independent isn’t much interested in the implications of a three-horse race for the Oval Office, or the viability of a down-to-earth superman uniting the country with promises that appeal to both sides of the aisle. No, that stuff is just a pretext for a tense but ultimately toothless polemic about the value of truth and the need for an independent press

With the help of a hideous haircut, Eisenberg gives a convincing performance as a repressed loser who never discovered who he is and has officially run out of time to start. But Trengrove’s script is as directionless as his protagonist.

The Gallerist is one of those movies where the actors are having all the fun, clearly enamored with the chance at working together, while they forget to let the audience in on the entertainment.

More shark action would be welcome in this film about sharks. As a basic disaster flick? Thrash works, and offers up less than 90 minutes of admirably silly and occasionally chilling action, even if it could stand to take a bigger bite out of the story.

For all its of-the-moment charms, Escape Room can’t shake its more basic genre trappings, eventually giving itself over to tired and predictable revelations and flimsy twists.

When Tomb Raider digs into its more creative action, it’s about as entertaining as popcorn entertainment gets these days. It’s when the film falls back on the old tropes that things grind to a halt.

Child’s Play at once repudiates Mancini’s franchise by attempting to make it bigger and bolder while falling back on ingredients we’ve seen before, and seen better. While it sets out to skewer the algorithms that could destroy the world, the remake hews to a mechanical formula — and winds up a product of the same tendencies it’s trying to indict.

Noelle is the sort of film destined to be discarded, a cheap holiday tchotchke with no staying power.

Blomkamp might have directed the best 90-minute sports movie of the decade — it’s just a shame that Gran Turismo is nearly two and a half hours.

Meredith Danluck’s State Like Sleep doesn’t really go anywhere, but it lulls you into enough of a stupor to enjoy the time it takes to get there.