It's a stupid farrago of aborted ideas, misguided actors, lame direction, submental writing and follow-the-dots plotting that never comes anywhere within a 10-mile radius of what I used to call coherent filmmaking.

After Words is part adventure, part love story, part travelogue, and all as synthetic as rayon.

The truth is, the film represents a troubling trend in films today, where production and marketing types think they can get by providing shallow examples of things that are popular in the social justice zeitgeist — women being tough-as-nails lead characters, for example — and act like that’s enough. It’s not. Give us real characters; give us good writing; give us a compelling story. Otherwise, don’t bother.

Identity Thief is so bad it’s hard to believe it wasn’t directed by Judd Apatow or the Farrelly Brothers.

This movie is as lifeless as the bodies Morbius drains and throws on the floor.

The best thing about reviewing the new PG-13 horror movie The Turning is that you don’t have to worry about spoiling the ending because it doesn’t have one. It just, sort of, stops.

The salacious sadism in Everly is nothing more than "Die Hard" meets Victoria’s Secret. That is not a recommendation.

Another ho-hum slacker heist flick.

The filmmaking works in and of itself, but that Lakewood feels so emotionally in tune with its lead actress is a feat all on its own.

Not a great movie, but satisfying enough to hold attention and win your affection - a rare blue-plate combo on today's overcrowded menu of movie chaos that sticks to your ribs and stays there.

Despite a lot of silliness, primarily thanks to Nivola’s absurdist performance as the Rhino, Kraven the Hunter is entertaining—far more so than expected based on Morbius and Madame Web. If only it wasn’t so convoluted or dragged down by extraneous characters. If only the CGI was better.

Despite the work of a first-rate cast, it doesn’t feel real to me.

A vulgar, happy-as-cancer aberration that takes the dysfunctional family idea to a new low. Whimsical, yes. Happy, never.

By the way, for reasons nobody bothers to explain, Las Vegas is played by New Orleans. Go figure.

Dementedly written, and directed as though it was under the influence of something stronger than cough syrup.

The movie doesn’t know if it wants to be a comedy, a morality play or a cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for. I wish for fewer disasters in my future like A Long Way Down.

My reservations about Copperhead are outweighed by the noble intentions that inspired it.

The movie sinks without a trace.

On a scale of one to four stars, any film with a bit part for Helen Mirren, no matter how small and insignificant, deserves at least one. But nothing else about Berlin, I Love You rates a single mention.

It opens our eyes to a subculture about which most of us know very little, but it is so unsteady in its focus that interest wanes.

Ghosted, the new feature film on Apple TV+ from Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, and director Dexter Fletcher, is 50% romantic comedy, 50% action blockbuster, and 100% forgettable.

The formulaic cat-and-mouse game played to the death rattle by Michael Douglas’ rich, vicious corporate maniac and Jeremy Irvine’s nice, clean-cut, homespun country boy in Beyond the Reach is so old it’s hairy.

It eventually fails, not because of its philosophical ideas, but because it introduces so many of them at the same time that even a viewer with a score pad can't keep up.

Not a masterpiece, perhaps, but technically polished, with inspired performances and enough suspense that by the time Mr. Hamm found the redemption that freed him from his own demons, I was so wired I needed a Valium.

Ms. Sevigny is not called “the queen of the weirdo Bs” for nothing. (In fairness, she was a weekly television addiction as one of the polygamous Mormon wives on the hit TV series Big Love.) But not since she performed real-time fellatio on scruffy Vincent Gallo in the forgettable 2003 bomb "The Brown Bunny" has she stooped this low.

Sensitively acted, carefully written and directed with heartfelt compassion, Bringing Up Bobby is an engrossing little independent film made on an austere budget in 22 days.

It simply turns into another slash-and-dice horror flick, replete with enough screams for three more installments of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise.

Everything is tenuous, including a performance by Keanu Reeves that borders on catatonia. Just because he stopped shaving doesn’t mean he can suddenly act.