If you like Charli xcx’s songs and find her to be a unique and uncompromising presence in the often airbrushed world of pop, you’ll appreciate moments of “The Moment.” But that’s it. This is not a fully formed movie. At best, it’s a moderately intriguing pitch.

Truly every line of this gussied-up pile of trash is worthy of a yelled-out crowd response. It’s one schlocky horror picture show.

Dynamite actually — sometimes cheesily — is a lot like 1990s and aughts disaster flicks, except there is not much suspense as to whether or not the nuclear bomb will land, even though Bigelow casually tries to create some.

Clooney draws you in, but upon arrival there’s an emptiness.

Making mixed martial arts — described in the film as “the bloodiest and the goriest sport you’ve ever seen” — tame and lackluster is a challenge. But director Benny Safdie is up to the task.

Colman and Cumberbatch’s appealing energy is always a pleasure — and clearly the draw here — but I didn’t enjoy spending my night with the sourpusses it’s wasted on.

Too bad “Ballerina” drops the ball. Despite being led by an actress who once took on the role of Marilyn Monroe, it’s a much less attractive movie — downright ugly sometimes.

The timeless classic, a groundbreaking achievement for animation, has been turned into another pointless and awkward live-action automaton that vanishes from your mind the second it’s over.

It’s far from terrible and a pleasure to look at. But, perhaps inevitably, after such a raging success, Bong’s latest movie is a disappointment.

The overlong and too-steady movie tries to say so much — about the struggles of being gay in the ‘80s, gender identity, nontraditional relationship structures — that it all comes off as white noise. Albeit white noise that has a borderline oppressive desire to make us cry.

Dreamgirls director Bill Condon’s off-putting movie is a visual and narrative mess: polished where it should be gritty and ugly where it must be glamorous. Bland, almost always.

Robert Zemeckis’ film “Here” is an object lesson in how to take a touching idea and make an extremely annoying movie out of it.

This belabored movie, which is much more serious than its predecessor and takes nearly an hour to take off, feels like it lasts a Day-O.

There aren’t really game-changing shocks here so much as detours. Shyamalan takes what your non-serial-killer father might call the scenic route. The destination? Meh.

Director Greg Berlanti’s romantic comedy, which imagines that Richard Nixon’s administration really did film a fake, backup moon landing in 1969, is a mystifying misfire all along the way from initial concept to end credits.

Everything uniquely special and hilarious about the 1984 fish-out-of-water hit is gone, replaced by commodity streaming mush that looks like every other ho-hum action-comedy right now.

With a formulaic plot and adequate supporting players, Smith phoning it in presents a major roadblock for a series as reliant on two leads’ chemistry as this one.

The core problem facing the rather annoying new movie “The Fall Guy” — starring Ryan Gosling as a professional daredevil — is that we can’t believe. Never for a second does the viewer buy that goofy Gosling is an in-demand stunt person who sets aside his ego for the betterment of a project.

Director Philip Martin’s film is not poorly made per se, but its efforts to make the behind-the-scenes scramble to get the Duke of York on TV exciting are for naught.

There is also something a bit off about CGI that makes these behemoths appear less sturdy and imposing. Oddly enough, the most gravitas comes from Hall’s all-business scientist.

Not a bad idea — and one that already worked out pretty well for John Hughes’ “Weird Science” in 1985. But here it’s a single-joke skit that’s too self-aware to be distinctively funny, freaky or thrilling.

Presence is a brisk 85 minutes, which is nice if you have dinner plans, but it also exposes limited storytelling ambitions. It’s a mid-season episode of TV. We don’t get to know much about the characters, and don’t care either way about their fate.

It’s too bad Scott could not deliver a brilliant character study of one of the world’s great military leaders — and instead settled for letting a self-indulgent Phoenix fly over the cuckoo’s nest.

Nothing Cooper does is organic or authentic, and his show-off performance is always stilted. He arduously thinks through every single choice — it’s time to scream into a pillow; cue the laugh; ready, set, cry. Nobody goes to a movie to watch actors ponder their next beat. We want to feel, and his overwrought turn does not allow us to.

While the off-kilter film is a fine showcase for the personalities of two of our best emerging comedic stars, Rachel Sennott (“Shiva Baby”) and Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”), the humor falls short of being very funny.

Waffling Disney can’t decide if it wants this thing to be a quirky and fun but unsettling movie like “Beetlejuice,” with some real guts and creativity, or another schlocky ad for a Disney World FastPass. At times Simien’s film is surprisingly dark and emotionally honest, while at others it’s kitschier than “The Country Bear Jamboree.”

The will to live is missing from Netflix’s not-quite-sequel Bird Box Barcelona, and so is our will to watch.

Like in "Crystal Skull,” director James Mangold’s movie aims to merge Indy’s earthy supernatural framework with science fiction, to mixed results. The love-it-or-loathe-it ending is a real doozy.

Despite real actors, CGI and brand-new material, “Mermaid” is the studio’s latest flesh-and-blood cash grab that’s more lifeless than far better two-dimensional painted drawings.

The utopia-via-laboratory aspects of “Vol. 3” resemble “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” — only it’s the Wrath of Gunn. This chilling paperweight clocks in at 2 hours and 30 minutes, making it the fourth longest Marvel film so far. And it’s wildly self-indulgent.

Crowe — knowingly, I think — clowns around from start to finish. Even if the horror doesn’t have you screaming, his Italian accent will.

Cage is amusing though, and exemplifies the old stage wisdom “if you’re having fun, they’re having fun.” However, that’s the biggest problem for Renfield: Whenever Cage leaves the frame, which is often, we immediately stop having fun — as if Dracula commanded us to.

Lazily bopping around to exotic locales in France, Turkey and Qatar, it’s a generic collage of mega-yachts, luxe hotels, fancy parties, disguised identities and tame fights that add up to a big nothing.

Sorry to Raid on your parade, “Ant-Man” fans, but the third chapter is a pile of dirt.

Knock at the Cabin, the “Sixth Sense” director’s latest anvil, is less “Old” and more Old Testament. No fun here! Yeah, there’s much more competent filmmaking and acting on display, however it’s all wasted on a strained and ponderous story with stratospheric delusions of grandeur.

A movie needs more than a smart idea and an impressively visualized concept of the future to run smoothly. Two-thirds of the way through, “The Pod Generation’s” battery is already at 1%.

Directed by Maria Schrader, the film that’s part of one of the most reliably galvanizing genres — newspaper reporters doggedly chasing down a tough story — is a disappointing, sleepy metronome with made-for-TV diminutiveness.

Ticket to Paradise would be a better time if it was as campy as its lead actress’ frozen hair.

There’s so much anguish, we eventually become numb to it over the nearly three-hour film. We come to know her only as a victim, not a fleshed-out person. Is that take enlightening? Meh. Entertaining? Not really. Long? Extremely.

Pugh, a sensational actress, keeps our interest as she grows increasingly suspicious and sees disturbing visions in mirrors and on windows. She brings class and gravitas to a movie that would otherwise be kinda trashy.

There’s nothing wrong with some silver screen sorrow, but not when it amounts to indecisive mush.

Johnson still does whodunits better than Kenneth Branagh’s horrid Agatha Christie adaptations he keeps torturing audiences with. Yet despite the giggles and the beefier budget — explosions, an exotic locale, massive sets — “Glass Onion” comes off slight.

After some early thrills, director Baltasar Kormákur’s movie ceases to excite because the creature has no more surprises left. He just jumps through the window — again.

Novak’s forever-skill as an actor is likability, and that approachable magnetism is on display here. What doesn’t work in this otherwise naturalistic movie are the punchlines he’s written for himself. Too planned and stilted, not terribly funny. The huge size of all the actors’ humor never matches the intimate way the film has been shot.

At Crimes, you gag a lot more than you giggle.

The first “Sonic” worked unexpectedly well because it thrust the wisecracking alien into a small town filled with humans — a hog out of water — and gave Carrey the opportunity to once again do the physical comedy he’s best known for. Now the novelty has worn off, the charms of the original have evaporated and there’s nowhere for the series to go.

Directors Aaron and Adam Nee’s movie sits frustratingly for two hours on the tarmac of comedy as we the angry passengers await takeoff.

The Batman is the first caped crusader adventure in a while to come off as completely purposeless. Christopher Nolan’s movies reframed the comics as realistic, psychologically complex tales of an urban blight, and Affleck’s Bruce was built to fit into a wider DC universe. The Batman is here just to ensure that Marvel has box office competition.

Uncharted, you say? That’s a funny title for an action-adventure movie that doesn’t stray one inch from the well-trodden path of what came before it.

Should a serial killer blood-bath be so comfy and nostalgic for an audience? Not if it wants to maintain our interest. Over two hours, Cinco de Scream-o lumbers along with routine kills and few surprises even when it makes lame attempts at shocking us.

Writer-director Matthew Vaughn, who’s helmed all three, needs to either call it quits or hand over the reins to someone with some self-control. The formidable talent of Ralph Fiennes can lift his movie some, but the man’s not Hercules.

Berry wears two hats effortlessly. Her direction is gritty and assured, and her leading performance hasn’t lost an ounce of that star quality — to simultaneously be so weak and so strong — that won her an Oscar for Monster’s Ball.

Anderson’s film is told via a prologue and three episodes that bring to life the quirky publication’s stories. They just barely engage the audience as we watch the director’s entire mobile phone contact list show up for about 15 seconds each.

Those confessionals can and should deliver an emotional wallop; however, Sara Colangelo’s direction isn’t skillful or nuanced enough to give the scenes power. The speeches from actors, such as Laura Benanti, about the worst day in all of these people’s lives feel too rehearsed and polished for us to believe them.

The talented quartet saves the movie, but making it great would take a rewrite.

This wannabe works oh so hard to be a contemporary detective noir, with its shadows, damsel in distress and brooding narration. But it never finds the suspense or sensuality of that genre.

The Protégé should’ve been a home run for director Martin Campbell, who did brilliantly with Casino Royale, Daniel Craig’s first James Bond film. He brought seriousness to the old franchise without sacrificing its charm or decadence. Instead, we get old clichés.

The supporting voices are sublime. Alongside Hudson are Audra McDonald, Tituss Burgess and Broadway’s Hailey Kilgore and Saycon Sengbloh. But the music, absent a believable 1960s sense of place or real concert atmosphere, doesn’t rouse so much as please, not unlike the familiar movie it’s a part of. Respect settles for being respectable.

To bulk up the thin material, the film steals from countless other, better adventure movies to create an altogether less satisfying combo plate that costs $30 to rent on Disney+.

The fights, taken on their own, are occasionally OK, but not enough to lift this joke-and-fun-free slog.

That idea was fun once, maybe even twice, but by the fifth outing the formula has given way to preachiness and predictability.

The Tomorrow War, in trying to become the new Independence Day (this release date is not arbitrary), throws Alien, The Terminator and A Quiet Place in a blender. And, like that gross kale smoothie you made once, the result is gray goop.

I’d rather put Baby Shark on repeat all day than spend another 90 minutes with this adult horse.

When the massacre starts, the movie gets better. But the methods of murder are, like everything else, awfully self-serious and limited to mostly just plain old guns and knives.

Despite being a She-Hulk who’s seemingly impervious to physical pain, Jolie turns in her best performance in a while — arguably in over a decade. She’s relaxed, determined and maternal here, and connects well with Little, who is a big talent.

Crystal, for what it’s worth, stays genuine through the increasingly viscous plot. He still has that warmth beneath his zingers that you don’t find in the frigid comedians of today. Nonetheless, we resent his movie’s aggressive efforts to force us into crying with strained, untruthful moments by the bucketful.

Indeed, Clancy has written 20 books featuring John Clark. But, even with a star as charismatic and physically formidable as Jordan, audiences won’t be hungry for a single sequel.

The adequate Netflix film, which was supposed to have been released two years ago, is funny in spots, but it flatlines early and gets way too gross.

Basilone’s movie becomes an intriguing puzzle that frequently bugs you, but you’re nonetheless determined to make it to the end.

A frustratingly bland young-adult feminist comedy without good jokes, Moxie is a cross between a hokey ’90s family sitcom and a vastly superior teen film, such as Lady Bird.

But a happy reunion can’t re-create the original’s spark, innocence and masterful comedy.

Day’s performance is a beacon surrounded by mediocrity and mismanagement.

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo of “Avengers: Endgame” fame, the well-worn drama gets high marks for style and proficiency, but you don’t have to be Nostradamus to know exactly where it’s going every step of the way. At the movies, stories like this one are a dime bag a dozen.

The promising satire then shifts to a typical thriller with bloody shoot-outs, druggings, tazings and a car dramatically plummeting off a cliff. That business wears thin fast. I Care a Lot is almost two separate films, and I much prefer the first one.

Wright is relaxed and almost meditative as she takes in the beauty of the horizon, and her simple directing captures the majesty of nature.

Subtlety is kicked to the curb in favor of volcanic drama, and nary a moment goes by without some screaming or an inspiring message.

At the film’s most entertaining heights, it recalls the novels of Ray Bradbury and the Matt Damon flick “The Martian.” But its final twist is an extremely implausible, easy way out.

The action-adventure aspects of “Christmas Chronicles,” with sleigh chases and a reindeer fights, are cluttered. More appealing are the real-world storylines, such as the siblings dealing with their mom getting serious with a new beau.

Of course, nobody watches a Jackie Chan movie for the sophisticated plots or deep characters. They come for the martial arts. But those, too, settle for being not much more than a kick in the park.

The book is a fascinating, insightful, touching window into a unique community with immense struggles. On-screen, it’s exploitative.

The sleepy horror movie is an onslaught of spooky images that, while well-done, are watered down by sheer abundance. We stop being scared after the first 15 minutes because there is nothing new to see.

For the most part, the film is second-rate horror, but watchable enough.

Scott Thomas sounds like she’s about to pull out a shiv and knife her new boss right then and there. The actress is so good, you wish she could reprise the role in a better film that actually deserves her.

Laughter and enjoyment is stifled by the constant question of whether we’re allowed to laugh or enjoy anything at all.

“Grandpa” is, at least, not as moronic as much of De Niro’s recent résumé. But that’s a low, low bar.

The Artist’s Wife can, at times, come off as a collage of other, better movies.

The film’s worst offense is that it works way too hard for it to be a light watch.

Trying to understand the story can make you feel like you’re sitting on a stool in a dunce cap.

Director Josh Boone’s goal was to jettison the usual comic-book trappings and make The New Mutants a horror film. He succeeded on the first part, but not the second. Nothing is scary or heroic. Perhaps unsurprising coming from the guy who directed “The Fault in Our Stars,” it’s all teenage troubles: love, sex obsession, a tinge of self-harm.

The director of all this airiness comes as a surprise — Thea Sharrock, the British theater artist known for her Broadway production of the play “Equus,” in which a naked Daniel Radcliffe stabbed the eyes out of a stable full of horses. “Ivan” is about as far from that as you can get.

Firth, who can still be a heartthrob when he wants, douses the smoldering embers of old romance and turns Archibald completely tense and awkward. It’s a wise choice that makes his eventual transformation more poignant.

If you’re into seeing Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson play truly despicable government officials, have I got a movie for you!

Regina Hall is always extraordinary — even in projects that are mediocre.

Whatever sophisticated point Decker and screenwriter Sarah Gubbins aim for here is undone by its pretentious academic characters, whose arrogant droning would make you switch seats if you were next to them at a coffee shop.

The lovable Ross, who does her own singing, doesn’t have her mom Diana’s diva energy, and Johnson speaks with only a rote understanding of music. The film’s one twist is as predictable as tomorrow’s itinerary.

Most of their scenes come off as low-stakes dueling stand-up routines, rather than a plot that builds.

The idea of combining creature-feature invisibility with domestic-abuse gaslighting — playing with someone’s reality to make them think they’re going insane — is inspired. This middling horror film, regrettably, is not.

You never believe Buck is the genuine article, so moments of danger and even cute mannerisms don’t land. Even the best-trained contestant at Westminster has some unpredictability.