While the result is an often fast-moving and very Damon-y Jason Bourne, it doesn't at all feel as original or as well crafted as the series once did.

The problem is, Draft Day doesn't really capture that sense of urgency until late in the film.

An effort to spin high art out of a guilty-pleasure cult classic, this new Suspiria is -- like the original -- off-the-charts bonkers. But it’s also off-the-charts unpleasant, a cold, hard-to-embrace slog made up of mostly of stomach-turning moments of body horror interrupted by long stretches of stylish but mind-numbing pretension.

Rather than focusing on the most fascinating part of the story -- that would be the establishment and subsequent dissolution of free state after which the film is named -- his film devolves into a series of belabored points, high-minded pontifications and audience manipulation.

Even with that pedigree, Ponsoldt's film doesn't snap and sizzle as much as it just lays there, leaving moviegoers who haven't been converted to the Wallace cult to long for the end of this particular "Tour."

What Monsters University fails to do, though, is to scare up any real emotion.

It's that end -- the film's final sobering five minutes -- in which Blue Jasmine is at its most effective. Credit is due there to Blanchett's table-setting performance in it and in the hour and half preceding it. It's also due to the courage Allen displays as a storyteller in ending this particular story in the way it has to end.

Visually and tonally, Miss Sloane -- like Chastain's one-note performance, in which she does little but bark and glower -- is slick but soulless, a film that takes itself far too seriously and misjudges how smart it really is.

Unfortunately, director Jake Szymanski's bad-boy farce from there quickly becomes a textbook example of the law of diminishing returns.

There are lulls to be had here, but there is a smattering of laughs, too -- and some pretty good ones, at that. If, that is, you'll give yourself permission to laugh at Wayans and company's lowest-common-denominator antics.

It's an oddly inert film that suffers from its lack of focus on the stories that stand as Tolkien's chief literary contributions.

This unintentionally fractured ends up one big mess. It's a pretty mess, mind you -- which is fitting in a way, given the sordid affair that birthed it -- but a mess all the same.

More seriously -- and substantively -- "A Late Quartet" was a quiet but thoughtful meditation on the power, and the necessary pain, of human connections. By comparison, Quartet is a flimsy bit of cinematic puffery that takes every obvious path on its way to its even more obvious "seize-the-day" message.

So we get no zippy, Tony Stark-flavored one-liners. No comic-relief characters. No nonsense. But that means we also get no up, up and away, either.

New Orleans makes for a distinctive backdrop, but that's really all just window dressing, and it goes only so far in covering the fact that The Runner -- from its moody, electric-guitar-driven score to its faintly 1990s, Grisham-flavored sensibilities -- runs out of narrative inspiration before it crosses the finish line.

Its smattering of enjoyable moments aside, this is one of those horror films that will beg to be remade -- just smarter -- once this initial outing fades into the memories of moviegoers.

There's no sense of pacing here, as would be the case in a single feature-length narrative in which a wise filmmaker would vary the intensity level. Instead, what we get is a ceaseless visual and emotional assault. That makes for an exhausting movie-going experience. This is by no means a feel-good film. This is a feel-bad film -- and at times a feel-icky film.

The result is a film with a scattered feel. That's particularly true in the film's rushed third act, as it skips around all herky-jerky, cramming in resolutions to the various conflicts but never quite giving any of them adequate time to gel.

Thoroughly, and disappointingly, pedestrian.

For a movie like this to last, you've got to have a certain amount of pathos to serve as connective tissue between those jokes. That's where Sisters is most lacking.

Beautiful Creatures is still an unabashed imitator, hewing closely to the "Twilight" blueprint. Some might go so far as to call it a blatant ripoff, as the differences between the two are cosmetic at best.

Never elevated beyond much more than mere presidential puffery.

At some point, Lee as a storyteller must step in to move things along, to dig the rudder deep into the narrative waters and steer this ship. The destination is almost irrelevant - just steer it somewhere.

Part 2 really is a continuation of "Part 1," both from a story standpoint and from an artistic standpoint.

There's no "place" in this place, no clear destination -- and no real payoff in a film that stands a cinematic curiosity but little more.

Celeste and Jesse Forever isn't a movie many people will outright hate, but if this is the most original romantic comedy that Hollywood can muster, forever can't come soon enough.

Boudousque is young yet, and so he has room to grow as an actor, but he's got nothing but upside to him at this point. It'll be fun to watch his career grow from here.

You won't feel like a hostage watching it. But don't be surprised if you feel a little as if you're doing homework.