The trope of horror-suffused female friendships is a fertile one, but despite a screenwriting credit from the very capable Nicole Holofcener (director of “Enough Said,” among others), Every Secret Thing comes up short.

Directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly overload their too-long film with subplots. Yet the actors — including a terrific Aiden Gillen (“Game of Thrones”) as Casper’s no-good father — perform as though unaware that any of this is a cliché.

Borrowing liberally from the "Exorcist" and "Omen" movies, and with little regard for credibility, The Ring Two has a familiar ring to it.

The documentary equivalent of a Southern Gothic novel.

They probably should have called it "Beneath the Dignity of the Planet of the Apes," but Rise of the Planet of the Apes is tolerable if you'll just keep in mind that the original feature was an overachieving B-movie.

Ignore the furiously overplotted, headache-inducing story -- derived from a series of comic books -- and focus on the exquisitely drawn Japanese animation.

The first half-hour of Jeepers Creepers is so frightening that it's almost a relief when the movie subsequently collapses into silliness.

Its faults -- banal dialogue, ludicrous and uninspired plotting, dull but vicious fight scenes -- make you realize just how much the summer action movie has declined in the last few years.

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.

Long-winded and often over-the-top Italian soap opera about a neurotic, middle-class Roman family.

Pleasant but lifeless love story.

Why doesn't anybody just buy a gun? I guess the female characters spent all their money on tight tank tops.

If you were wondering what “12 Years a Slave” might have been like as a two-part episode of “Masterpiece Theatre,” you might want to check out this unsatisfying but not uninteresting oddity. It renders another historical story about race with exquisite taste but not much in the way of passion.

There is probably an amusing movie to be made about camps that try to "rehabilitate" homosexuals - but this thuddingly stupid satire isn't it.

A toe-tapping, booty- shaking look at Cubans' love of music that gets bogged down in political thoughts that go unexplored.

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

The more dramatic revelations and tragic inevitabilities that turn up, the harder it is not to laugh. Give credit to its maker for directing with an earnestness suggesting a pretentious 22-year-old. Having passed through the phases of Interesting Apprentice, Mad Genius, Chastened Bankrupt and Shameless Wage Slave, Coppola at 70 may be the world's oldest student filmmaker.

Probably would have yielded a more interesting documentary than this sugary feature.

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.

A schmaltzy filmed record of a Nashville concert given by the legendary former rocker, who has morphed into the new Kenny Rogers.

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.

Sporadically hilarious but more often just plain crass and contrived.

Trimming half an hour from this bloated, 143-minute blockbuster would have highlighted the film's treasures, not the least of which is Johnny Depp's endearingly eccentric performance as Captain Jack Sparrow.

The Grudge offers a bit more exposition than did "Ju-On," but the plot is still wispy.

The fine supporting cast includes Steve Buscemi, as a cynical American doctor who at first doesn't get along with Rabe; and Anne Consigny, as the French head of a local school for Chinese girls.

Hard-core chick shlock, weakened by odd shifts in tone and a slack pace, but elevated by a luminous performance by Natalie Portman.

A good cast and disciplined direction add some distinction to Ric Roman Waugh's Felon, which is basically the old tale about an innocent man corrupted by a stay in prison.

The Pretty One does find a handful of genuinely sweet moments in which Basel and Laurel bond on letting their respective freak flags fly. Like the film itself, Kazan is at her best when she’s not trying so hard to be cute.

The film tastefully handles the sensitive subject, but it lacks the bite that a Michael Moore would have provided.

Familiar and predictable enough, especially if you have seen Hollywood serial-killer thrillers like "Se7en."

Burning Annie has funny moments, but it suffers from an overflow of characters.

A barbell of a movie that carries some weight at either end. What's in between is purely utilitarian, though.

With its array of chases and shootouts and a sinister political plot, the movie at least holds your attention and keeps things brisk-ish. But every scene still bears the tags of the place from which it was stolen.

None of this is particularly innovative, although Garcia and the elder Farmiga develop a nice spark and a gentle humor in their characters’ stolen day together.

The story is told in fractured time. This might not be a problem if his visuals were more fear-inducing.

The whole movie is indistinguishable rubble.

Okuda's debut behind the camera, Shoujyo, is a dirty old man's delight: schoolgirls galore in short skirts or, in Yoko's case, nothing at all. That may be enough for some viewers, but not for those who insist on a story that gives substance to its characters.

Recycles the teen romantic comedies of the last few years...and it's easily the worst of the lot.

The bickering and mishaps make for a semi-enjoyable if low-impact film that may appeal to the kind of nostalgics who buy Time-Life collections of '60s songmeisters.

Potash's film tells an important and disturbing story, but his presentation is uninspired and non-cinematic. It's best left to TV.

Tenderness and good intentions don't necessarily add up to a movie.

Burt Reynolds and Sally Field they're not, but you could do worse for mindless late-summer entertainment than Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell in Hit & Run.

It has no real reason to exist, other than to be a passable option for parents whose children are too young to handle PG-13 fare and feels like it.

Lawless outback, shotgun-toting banditos and even roadside crucifixions somehow add up to an experience that’s about as thrilling as your average trip to the post office.

Wears out its welcome fast because of its artistic pretensions and self-absorbed characters. You'd be better off renting "Manhattan" instead.

The screen version's Drama Club dorkiness is going to ruin the Rent brand of alleged downtown cool for everyone. If anything can re-shevel the disheveled multitudes of Alphabet City and chase the hipsters into pleated khakis and sweater sets, it's this film.

Much sillier - and the movie's nearly two-hour running time seems to last nearly as long as a vampire's afterlife.

Curious George skews very young, but parents should be warned that it arrives not only with the worst ad slogan in recent memory ("Show me the monkey"), but a full line of plush toys and related tie-in merchandise.

Under the direction of Allan Moyle ("Pump up the Volume"), Nairn, McCarthy and Balaban give confident, believable performances but overacting plagues the rest of the cast.

Well-meant but rambling little indie melodrama.

None of its characters is especially interesting.

What the filmmakers do to the splendid Moore is simply criminal.

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.

A central problem: Efron isn’t funny.

The biggest load of New Agey hogwash to grace the big screen since Spacey's "Pay it Forward."

At best, the film serves up mild chuckles, with occasional cute jokes.

This lavish coffee-table-book of a movie gradually reveals itself as an uninvolving, crashing bore.

A sappy look at the title character, a 12-year-old boy who's a math and music prodigy.

Uneven but occasionally hilarious teen comedy.

Better Than Chocolate is well-filmed and for the most part well-acted. But its technical professionalism only serves to make the amateurishly crude patches of Maggie Thompson's script more obvious. [13 Aug 1999, p.062]

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.

In general, it's a confusing, rather shapeless disappointment.

Jacquot's lavish décor and costumes are like the perfume the women use instead of bathing: They may cover up the willful carelessness at the center of the project, but it's still there.

Only intermittently does the film treat us to more than snippets of Beal’s woozy, misshapen folk-blues, but perhaps these are best taken in small doses anyway.

The crime and aftermath (based on a real story) are the best parts by far, but these come well after many overextended scenes of selfish, squalid people treating one another like dirt.

There isn't anything especially wrong with Who Do You Love but there's nothing here that cries out to be seen, either. Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/who_do_you_love_VZgyGvsv0ruc9teHrzQIlJ#ixzz0kcaj8Mwl

Overall, however, it's sappy and predictable -- fun to watch, perhaps, but instantly forgettable.

Like a preoperative transsexual, Transamerica is neither one thing nor the other. It yanks at the heartstrings too much to qualify as an edgy comedy-drama, but it's far too bawdy to make it to the Hallmark Channel.

The point isn't really to make you laugh. The film is supposed to make people feel good about their families, and it does a fine job of it.

A Quentin Tarantino knockoff from Japan, Why Don’t You Play in Hell? has some of the master’s nutty energy but little of his cleverness.

The Good Night is at heart a mediocre Sundance variation on the Dudley Moore-Bo Derek alleged classic "10."

So the film is a head-spinning mix of dead babies and romantic dinners, pillow talk and mass executions. Blood and honey don't taste right together.

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.

In the end, this relentlessly nihilistic crime-caper thriller adds up to less than the sum of its impressive parts.

So swaddled in good intentions that it's like taking a very short journey cushioned on all sides by air bags. That are stuffed with cotton candy.

Still, it was a beautiful wedding.

Vincent Bal's film should appeal to kids, cat lovers and felines. I give it two stars, and my cat, Audrey, gives it three meows.

The movie is saved by its well-trained four-legged stars and the likable Liam Aiken ("Road to Perdition"), who plays 12-year-old loner Owen Baker.

The trouble with authenticity in a punk rock film is that it comes off as amateurish, and while "Dolls" has a feverish energy -- and some good songs -- it suffers from crude performances and a trite rise-and-fall plot.

Even for a French drama, Summer Hours is so slow as to be practically still.

A promising film that is dragged down by the weight of its gray morbidity.

Director Marvin Kren delivers a lot of cheap scares, but the film doesn’t approach the dread-soaked suspense of the 1982 version of “The Thing.”

Corddry leads a game cast, but the film is rough around the edges...It would play better as a TV sketch.

Rambles on for nearly two hours with subplots that go nowhere -- and half-baked leftist political commentary -- before focusing in for a quietly devastating climax.

Updates are fine for some stories. Not this one, though. Moving the action to a contemporary urban setting is akin to fitting a fairy with cement boots.

Heck, between this and “Cats,” maybe Universal is now just specializing in confounding talking-animal movies. At least this one leaves you feeling kindly toward other species, rather than freaked out by them.

Pretentious and trite.

Mojave is a movie-length standoff between two detestable villains. One is a serial killer. The other is a filmmaker.

The documentary is unapologetically one-sided, and spends more time canonizing Abu-Jamal than exploring the murder and trial themselves. Still it raises issues of racism in America (flashback to George Wallace) that are worthy of discussion.

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.

At its best, the film just sits back and lets the weird times roll.

Basically the Mike Tyson saga reduced to its B-movie essence.

So exploitative and misogynistic that its last-minute dramatic turns and pleas for tolerance and understanding come off as manipulative as its heroine.

Concert sequences are engaging, though I was disappointed not to see any animated flourishes.

While I have no argument with Leeson's political views, her presentation -- mostly a succession of talking heads -- is dry and uninspired. These women deserve better.

If “Once” was a bracing blast of cool spring water, Begin Again is a can of Fanta. If “Once” was a piano, Begin Again is a keytar. If “Once” was Otis Redding, Begin Again is Bruno Mars.

This atmospheric, cool-looking but gimpy thriller based on a John le Carré novel makes “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” look like “22 Jump Street.”

The presentation is conventional in style but uplifting in spirit, and worth seeing even if you know nothing about basketball.