Ultimately, the plot (irrespective of how faithful it is to real life) isn't the problem - it's the unevenness with which co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (both making their directorial debuts) approach it that limits the film's success and mutes the experience of sitting through it.

There are moments of pure poetry in the movie but the production as a whole seems overlong and repetitive and takes a detour or two that distract from the aching beauty of the central story.

It’s as if the film’s reason to be is its aesthetic, with everything else being of secondary concern.

Vice feels like a documentary-wannabe that never achieves whatever it’s trying to do. It rehashes events and information that have long been part of the public record and, despite the abundance of acting talent at director Adam McKay’s disposal, none of the characters achieve escape velocity.

This movie isn't afraid of venturing into the realm of bad taste -- in fact, it revels in it.

The Nutty Professor aims for guffaws at the lowest level -- anyone with a double-digit IQ will get every joke. Whether you laugh at them or not is often more of a matter of taste than a question of having a sense of humor.

Where About Cherry fails is in its depiction of interpersonal relationships. Nearly all of them are flat and uninspired.

The overall experience fails to satisfy on a basic level. This is one of those films it's easier to be impressed with than it is to like.

Batman is largely content to skim the surface and bask in the light of its visual style.

Despite numerous faults, Damage is still a worthwhile motion picture. It presents a stark depiction of a man on the edge who is driven to act by needs he can neither understand nor control, and the pain that such an obsession can cause. There's a lot here, just not as much as there could have been.

It is neither as clever nor as funny nor as inventive as the daring title might lead one to expect.

Captain Marvel, coming only a year after the fantastic "Black Panther," is a disappointment. The acting and special effects are solid but the writing, by co-directors Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck (elevated from the indie productions where they made their mark) with an assist from Geneva Robertson-Dworet, is lazy.

It succeeds in many of the ways a sports movie should, and, by employing a slightly different viewpoint for most of the production, manages a sense of freshness.

Clash of the Titans is a flawed but mildly entertaining regurgitation of Greek mythological elements, but it's also an example of how poorly executed 3D can hamstring a would-be spectacle.

You may end up being pleasantly surprised, especially if you have a ten-year old girl in tow.

Quantumania is the best of the three Ant-Man movies, outshining the previous installment by a good bit and even edging out the first one. It can be amusing when appropriate and serious when necessary and maintains a high level of energy to go along with its eccentricity. For all its epic aspirations, however, it feels slight.

This is one of those unusual films that is capable of enthralling those under twelve while not sending older members of the audience rushing for the exit.

The problem is that the writing is too weak for me to come close to recommending it.

The pacing is uneven, the frenetic action is rarely suspenseful, the dialogue is neither witty nor intelligent, and the anticlimactic endgame drags out to an improbable conclusion.

Sadly, Madame Web fails to rise above its pedigree as a lesser superhero movie. It does nothing to convince viewers that there’s value to be found in a story not featuring a marquee comic book character.

When compared to the recent influx of musical biopics, this one sits somewhere in the middle; there is too little depth to elevate it to the top, but the soundtrack is too strong to let it sink to the bottom.

An exercise in mediocrity. It's curious how little of the TV series' charm and appeal can be found in this uneven, plodding excuse for a reunion.

Remove the musical elements and the 2024 version, directed by newcomers Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., resembles an amateurish imitation of the 2004 original. Add in the mostly-awful songs and it becomes an in-your-face assault on the senses.

There’s still quite a bit to like here, from the strong sense of atmosphere to the layers of a Hitchcockian plot, but this is not a complete movie. And when viewers are laughing at a movie rather than with it, something has gone awry.

For many adults, sitting through this will be an exercise in tedium. It offers about as much as an oversized, overlong Saturday morning cartoon and if that's where expectations are set, it probably won't disappoint. Talk about setting the bar low, though.

The "Da Vinci Code" was adequate but forgettable. "Angels & Demons" was godawful. Inferno is somewhere in between - watchable but by no means worth the money and effort necessary to see it theatrically.

Pretentious and self-indulgent -- those two words come to mind when considering CQ.

A mediocre diversion -– a movie better watched at home where the remote control can be used (if necessary) to fast forward to the film's best part: the obligatory end credit outtakes.