Predictable.

Sitting through three totally unrelated documentaries in a row -- with all that puzzling (subtitled) dialogue and those long (enigmatic) silences? That's a migraine waiting to happen.

If you can check your brain at the popcorn stand and keep your expectations low, Dark Water is an OK genre exercise that maintains a consistently creepy tone.

Fails to dig out the dramatic meat, despite a yeoman performance by Danny Aiello.

Strands several generations of performers in a highly derivative script and hackneyed direction.

What everyone will remember about Goosebumps is . . . nothing. Except that it was kinda like “Gremlins.”

Never really gets out of the starting gate.

Too bad there is only about half an hour's worth of story here. Mostly, we just watch the teacher get high, and his classroom talks about civil rights are nothing but filler.

Initially shows promise, but filmmaker Frank Cappello (the early Russell Crowe vehicle "No Way Back") gets bogged down when Slater becomes involved with Elisa Cuthbert, a paraplegic survivor of the shooting who wants him to kill her.

What is Dick's excuse for outing one cable news anchor but not a rival counterpart who is far better known? The anchor isn't antigay, but Dick likes the other network's politics better. Hypocrisy? Your call.

Scenes that should be grotesquely funny deliver only chuckles rather than a big payoff.

A fairly painless, if not particularly stimulating, experience, Gray has no idea how to capitalize on the reunion of "Pulp Fiction" co-stars Travolta and Thurman.

Lacking either the narrative shiftiness or the trashy thrills of “Gone Girl,” this one is the kind of flick few will watch twice: It has about as many twists and turns as an L. The third act of a movie shouldn’t make you feel as though the first two acts were a waste of time.

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.

It's suprisingly flat.

A big warm cinematic jelly doughnut stuffed with youth, vitality, style, whimsy and other equally alarming properties. I tried to love it. But after 20 minutes, I sensed I was intruding on the movie's love affair with itself.

The sort of movie that seems to exist for no good reason except to keep the studio's pipeline filled with filmed product.

Gerren's story is fascinating, but Roberts dilutes it by going off on tangents about unsafe cosmetics and phony plastic surgeons. Both topics need exploring - just not here. There's more than enough drama in Gerren's life.

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.

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.

A dispiriting return to the tired, star-driven, pop-culture-ridden formula that DreamWorks Animation ran into the ground before its best feature in years, this spring's "How to Train Your Dragon."

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

There'll likely be more Z's in the audience than on the screen.

Fans of the cartoon should stick around for Lewis’ after-credits sequence, which introduces a dastardly rival band. It’s the movie’s best scene, setting up a sequel we’ll never see.

The classical music is soothing, the cinematography handsome and the acting strong, but the Swedish coming-of-age saga Simon and the Oaks is burdened with a sappy, soap-opera-ish script.

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.

Heartlessly efficient kidnap thriller.

A slapdash, sporadically funny cross between the infamous “Ishtar’’ and the mercifully forgotten “American Dreamz.’’

The results are too predictable.

Despite his innate appeal and nimble line readings, Grace can't surmount the deficiencies of the underdog character screenwriter Victor Levin ("Mad About You") has saddled him with.

Direction of all three films is no more than workmanlike, which isn't surprising since they were originally made for British television. The acting, on the other hand, is sometimes superb.

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

If you can stomach the lavish gore, The Beyond also treats you to a three-ring circus of atrocious acting, loopy dialogue, a cheesy wah-wah guitar and synthesizer score and endless jump-out-at-you shocks. [12 Jun 1998, p.053]

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

The result is anti-Army propaganda rather than a balanced piece of reporting.

Even a great British cast and obscenity-laden gangland dialogue aren't enough to make what amounts to an extended acting exercise into much of a movie.

The seething passions of Flaubert’s characters are absent, except when Rhys Ifans (as a greedy merchant) or the splendidly ruthless Marshall-Green are in the room.

Strained and mildly amusing. The real reason to see the movie is the delightful performance by Sara Forestier, who rightly won the French version of the Oscar for her portrayal of the carefree Baya.

Less an awful movie than a totally uninspired one. The under-5 set may find it funny, though I suspect their parents will be checking their watches a lot, as I did.

Filmmaker Alison Murray drew on her own experiences, but Mouth to Mouth would have benefited from more focus and fewer dance sequences.

You could do far worse in the current marketplace.

The actors don't seem to have been directed at all, and the movie is very sluggishly paced.

Makes a convincing argument that the decades-old Cuban blockade has outlived its usefulness.

This laugh-starved twist on "Big" and the many lesser body-swapping comedies of the era is basically a lecture on sexual abstinence.

The longer director Jan Hrebejk's film goes on, the more complex the relationships become, until the film becomes little more than a talkathon.

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.

It's based on a novel, but you'd guess it came from a coffee-table book. Marvelous design, photography and costuming mark this period piece.

It doesn't help that the central character, Jerome - earnestly played by Max Minghella of "Bee Season" - is essentially a passive observer.

Zellweger dusts off her Bridget Jones accent - and a constellation of annoying vocal and facial tics - for Miss Potter, an unrelentingly mediocre, TV-movieish biopic of beloved children's author Beatrix Potter.

If animal slaughter makes you queasy, this movie isn't for you. Along with several cockfights, there's a long scene in which a pig is butchered. The folks at PETA would be most unhappy. People don't fare much better than the animals, with blood flowing in a seemingly unending barrage of violence.

Watching The Italian Job in a theater makes you long for a fast-forward button - to skip past 90 eyeball-glazing minutes of generic caper plotting and cut to the chase, as it were.

I was too bored to hate the movie. Besides, who hates a stuffed animal? If it actually said something intelligent or surprising, you’d be alarmed, not pleased.

If it weren't for the estrogen-fueled action scenes -- choreographed by director Cory Yuen with wit and style -- So Close would be as disposable as the shampoo ad it all too often resembles.

Raja, which is basically a dark comedy about how this odd couple manipulate each other, is extremely well acted, though the direction by Jacques Doillon is on the leisurely side.

An intriguing, if seriously flawed, film noir.

A surprisingly upbeat look at that Middle East hotspot.

It’s the first R-rated, woman-directed comedy in years! — here’s the rub: The funniest thing about it is the men.

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.

Playing for only one week. Parents of tweens, you've been warned.

Levy's innovative movie should appeal to mumblecore fans while perplexing mainstream audiences.

After a dreadfully clunky start, Left Luggage picks up and becomes quite moving.

Grant hasn't had any real chemistry with a female co-star since Julia Roberts in "Notting Hill," but Barrymore works so hard at it and is so charming that you might be fooled.

Unfortunately, the cast of characters you’ll find here is a pale imitation of her Hogwarts heroes.

Treads an awfully thin line between the provocative and the exploitative.

Fails as a detective story, but it does offer an entertaining look at the punk scene in the 1970s.

Watching The Photograph is like looking through a friend’s old photo album — it’s not as exciting as your friend thinks it is.

You could say the 3-D animated kidpic How To Train Your Dragon is "Avatar" for simpletons. But that title is already taken, by "Avatar."

Here's a tagline for Disney's Sky High: "Like Harry Potter, only stupider!"

Dinklage is a terrific actor who’s always engaging to watch, and he elevates this screenplay’s plot holes and lame dialogue.

Morrow fares less well with the script, which he also produced and collaborated on.

This new movie features stylishly filmed and choreographed battles. But in between the set pieces is a lot of sentimental blather that slows down the film. More action, less talk should be the order of the day, but it isn't.

For parents of very young children looking for a weekend distraction, “Color City” is passable fare — and will at least inspire kiddies to finish what they start, coloring-wise.

Like the rest of Dear Mr. Watterson, it’s a good-hearted gesture. But unlike Calvin’s alter ego Spaceman Spiff, this film never manages to achieve liftoff.

Romero's we're-all-doomed-and-maybe-we-deserve-it pessimism is so extreme he would fit right in with a real group of brain-eaters: the French.

An unsatisfying drama that premiered at Sundance '07 and was supposedly delayed because of the Virginia Tech shootings.

By the end, we wind up pretty much where we were four years ago when the pictures first appeared in the papers: Inexperienced troops did disgusting things, but it's a mystery who else knew.

The attempts to out-Matrix "The Matrix," with bullet-time super-slo mo, are staged with such theatrics that they're unintentionally funny. This movie also has "Blade Runner" on its mind, and Raymond Chandler, but mostly it's a weak little sister to "Sin City."

Recycles gags from various, more successful gross-out and romantic comedies, but without any zest or imagination.

Tells us just about everything we might want to know about her - except why she did what she did. That important information will have to wait for another film.

A postcard-pretty psychological drama that's too moody and enigmatic for its own good.

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+.

Pretty and pleasing, but no more. A bon-bon, not a meal.

Only sporadically entertaining.

Despite the allure of the actors and some witty lines, it's ultimately quite wearying to be confronted with such determination to turn youth and good looks into existential burdens.

Unfortunately, the vehicle chosen for the corn-rowed cutie's Hollywood coming-out party is pretty lame.

Much of Tomcats is actually boisterously, crudely entertaining.

I might forgive the slow start if it weren't for the slow middle and slow end.

Screenwriter Marc Lawrence, who worked on the original, throws in unbelievable plot twists merely as excuses for comic mayhem.

This generic exercise in computer-generated animation may provide passable entertainment for very young children, but adults will be less than enchanted by its preachiness, talkiness and Communist Party-line political views.

Tonally, the film swings between whispery romance and ominous horror as it explores the dark side of love and lust, including an amusingly gory meditation on the notion that the person you think is your beloved might just rip your heart out.

Better than any automobile flick put out by Hollywood in a while and, thanks to some genuinely exciting moments, it is easily the most entertaining so far of this summer's big, brainless action movies.

Only marginally interesting.

Barrow's frozen vistas are a perfect match for the noir tone of On the Ice. Unfortunately, the emotional landscape of MacLean's stoic main character, Qalli, is often as blank as the tundra.

Despite its stomach-turning images (and maybe because of), it is a daring, provocative work by a talented helmer who gets off pushing the envelope. He should be supported, no matter how outlandish he gets.

Given the scarcity of movies about lust from the female point of view, this is kind of a bummer.

The dialogue is ridiculous, the acting wooden - but that's not why we go, is it?

Fails to deliver the dramatic punch.

A cinematic petit four.