One of those increasingly depressing affairs, like watching air come out of a balloon. You start to feel bad for everyone involved, even the man responsible for it all, Ricky Gervais.

The directorial pyrotechnics keep Solace from “dragging” in a narrative sense; the very real boredom it nonetheless elicits is more existential.

At the very least, the makers of That Awkward Moment should get credit for savvy casting.

One doesn’t need perfect vision to quickly surmise that this sudsy affair among Manhattan swells is a glorified Hallmark Channel melodrama.

It’s a flat-out disaster, the kind of film that its cast and crew hope gets buried as quickly as possible as they race to move on to other projects.

It would have been one thing if Alone with You at least worked as a genre outing on some level. It doesn’t—the film’s chills and scares are nearly non-existent; plot, stretched to the seams, unable to sustain a feature's length; and camera work, amateurish.

The kind of meat-and-potatoes genre picture that might be passable if the people involved in making it had given the same thought and concentration to the development of the plot and the ending as they did to the fairly involving set-up.

It is all very terribly tiresome.

Nothing nearly so wacky or grotesque goes down in this romantic thriller, but you’ll wish it would.

Let’s look on the bright side. The running time is barely 90 minutes. And there are but three fairly amusing characters who save this inferior attempt at family entertainment, at least for me.

Wayans has always been an underrated physical comedian, and the movie works best when he’s allowed to unleash that side of his persona, but that’s too rare and not enough to rescue the rest of this comedy ceremony.

Ultimately, no one could save the script by John Whittington, who relied so completely on his concept that he failed to write jokes or characters.

Still, there is more pleasure to be had in the dwindling returns of CMT's “Nashville” than in this country soap-opera.

What Hawley has delivered is a garden variety bad movie, proving the TV wunderkind of “Fargo” and “Legion” was not quite ready for the big screen.

Take away the noise surrounding it, and Sound of Freedom has distinct cinematic ambitions: a non-graphic horror film with what could be called an art-house sensibility for muted rage and precise, striking shadows derived from an already bleak world. If “Sound of Freedom” were less concerned with being something "important," it could be more than a mood, it could be a movie.

Believe it or not, Action Point in 2018 feels too safe. There’s way too much plot and even the stunts that gave Knoxville concussions feel routine. It’s not unlike seeing a once-great athlete attempt a comeback. There are flashes of what once worked, but it’s also a little sad.

Best Man Down is billed as a "warm and funny comedy," a subjective description with which I do not agree. I would not consider this a comedy, let alone a warm and funny one. There are no laughs, and most attempts at humor are mean-spirited or embarrassing.

Whether you're new to Inside or a fan of the original, the change that Vivas and his team do make to the ending will leave you scratching your head.

The Captive may appear to bite off a little more than it can chew but it's one of the most satisfyingly baroque thrillers of the year, and thanks to a perfectly judged performance by Ryan Reynolds, it's quietly heartbreaking, too.

Still, I laughed — enough to feel mortified at myself.

Kirkland does some fine work here, but her Margaret deserves a better script and a better movie.

To Marcello and and co-writer Jay S. Arnold’s credit, there are a handful of surprises that defy some of the more expected youthful rom com tropes. But the rest is a lot of the same teenage romantic tribulations we’ve seen before.

This movie is atrocious, never making a lick of sense, wearing its “message” on its sleeve like a bad term paper, and then ending in a way that should make you angry more than eager to see if it makes any sense.

By widening the scope of their based-on-a-true story, the makers of Revenge of the Green Dragon make their subjects look like the products of unimaginative cultural assimilation.

There's something off-kilter about it, in a good way. It has a confidence that might not be earned but is still enjoyable to see. It's tapping into something true and knows it.

It’s not a film so much as a lecture punctuated by a patronizing moral, and more importantly, it’s not much fun.

Unfortunately, more bland than broad humor otherwise stands in for Polsky and Herzog’s personalities.

A disjointed and at times off-putting mess that veers wildly and unconvincingly between a road movie, a family drama, a violent crime film and an offbeat sci-fi thriller before arriving at a finale so loopy that even if I spoiled it here and now, many of you would just assume that I was kidding.

It’s not involving; it’s not scary; it’s just kind of miserable.

A genre movie that's at war with itself.

Coffee & Kareem is stock R-rated buddy-cop comedy shenanigans by way of cuteness, and it ain't "Stuber."

Beyond some effectively icky make-up effects, Contracted: Phase II sells nothing that viewers absolutely must buy.

You might come to Camera Obscura expecting nothing more than a kite-high concept like "camera that photographs future murders." But you too will be disappointed if you expect anything more from the film since its creators do not offer satisfying cheap thrills and/or thoughtful consideration of a veteran/artist's tortured post-war psyche.

How can a movie this visually glossy be so devastatingly uninteresting and dull?

If you liked “Frozen” but wish it had been angrier, The Huntsman: Winter’s War is for you.

A middle-aged bromance tucked inside a French crime thriller, a slick and brutal B-action picture that finds writer-director Edgar Marie channeling Nicolas Winding Refn channeling early Michael Mann.

Grudge Match belongs to a fast-growing genre I'll call "Senior Citizen Action Porn," or SCAP. Proud members of SCAP include "Red" and its sequel, "Red 2," the "Expendables" series, and the best of the 2013 crop, Arnold Schwarzenegger's "The Last Stand."

Judy Greer assembled a monumental cast for her directing debut, A Happening of Monumental Proportions. Then she stranded her fellow actors with material that doesn’t even begin to tap into their talents.

This second sequel is escapist in a next-level way: it escapes from drama as well as life.

Sadly, Jones’ passion has not made it to the screen in a way that’s likely to make viewers feel the same excitement he had about the project so many years ago.

The movie is a very sincere and good-hearted adaptation, but it loses focus by trying to include too many elements of the real-life story.

The film makes one damning if unoriginal observation—the "reality" presented on reality TV is manufactured—and then does nothing to expand on it.

It's a PG-rated movie about a goofy genie and a dad who learns a life lesson, so the bar may be low for families looking for a bit of Hallmark-esque escapism this holiday season. But that doesn’t mean one can’t wish this was better.

Awake has just enough scares and strangeness, plus a sense of dread and paranoia, to make its horror creepy and enjoyable. It’s not a flawless thriller, but enough different elements click into place, like Rodriguez and Greenblatt’s performances.

So of course, Hardy applies that same intensity to the comic-book anti-hero origin story, Venom. And his fully committed performance is pretty much the only reason to see it.

As well-paced and cleverly deployed as all of the slapstick is here, it's hard to watch Jeff get slammed in the head or Pam step on Legos without wincing more than we laugh.

A preposterous screenwriting-for-dummies exercise directed with all the flare of a mid-‘90s tourism video.

It’s a shame. Argylle had the potential to be a whissmart parody. It unfortunately just seems to get tired of being the butt of the joke before it can deliver the punchline. But in attempting to avoid becoming a gag—laboring to connect this film with the Kingsman franchise—Vaughn imbues his film with anonymity, making it merely forgettable.

With its gleefuly nihilistic and destructive ending, What Lies Below ends on such a flat note that it makes everything before it seem like an inconsequential and/or needlessly convoluted set-up.

It is the kind of movie you watch on an airplane — perhaps on the way to someplace luxurious and relaxing like the South of France, the film’s setting — while falling in and out of naps.

For those who like their romance movies filled with unnecessary mysteries, murdered dogs, poached lobsters and the ghosts of deceased little girls, Dirt Music will fit the bill. All others need not apply, not even if you’re into the kind of Nicholas Sparks-style drama this movie shamelessly marinates in for an interminable 105 minutes.

All in all, Very Good Girls is a very bad excuse to subject those of us who have enjoyed Fanning ever since 2001’s "I Am Sam" to seeing her flash her bare fanny, fondle herself provocatively and cavort in her underwear for no dramatic purpose. Yes, she should be allowed to grow up onscreen. But without a story that justifies it, it just feels sad and desperate.

The lack of a solid narrative means Stardust cannot compensate for the production’s modest budget, which lacks a noticeable amount of Bowie songs and includes many scenes filmed on the cheap.

Rather than presenting something akin to the heady youthful cravings of Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as contemporary versions of Romeo and Juliet, the equally tragic Marguerite & Julien often feels more like a version of Richie and Margot in Wes Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums” crossed with the pre-teen runaways from “Moonrise Kingdom,” but minus the humor and insight.

The Hunter’s Prayer is like a Luc Besson film put through a deflavorizing machine to remove any element that could be distinctive, energetic, or fun.

Can You Keep a Secret? doesn’t elicit warm laughs so much as heavy sighs, even though the film has some zippiness — there’s a slapstick spirit to the movie that doesn’t shine because the jokes are plain, the couple is tough to root for, and the general tension behind this weird situation is on the lazier side of rom-com premises.

Full antihero equality will only be achieved when women are permitted to carry a crime drama by being so charismatic that viewers would consider following them into hell rather than give up the buzz they get from watching them be bad.

One True Loves is so frustratingly superficial that it fails to gain a modicum of sincerity.

The only really surprising—and, therefore, the most disappointing—thing about Morbius is the fact that it’s an honest-to-goodness horror film. But only for a few seconds.

One of the dumbest variations of the weather-based action thriller subgenre that I have ever seen, you can be rest assured that I know what I am talking about.

If The Turning leaves you screaming, it’ll probably be out of frustration over its abrupt, unsatisfying ending and not the actual frights that precede it.

Despite having a life story seemingly tailor-made for the big screen, it transforms his potentially fascinating tale into a narrow and borderline fawning hagiography that will no doubt find great favor among his fan base, while inspiring shrugs of indifference from those less invested in his tale.

Nothing like a trashy, all-hell-breaks-loose onslaught of blood, bullets and babes that borrows inspiration from a recycling bin stuffed with leftovers from ‘60s grindhouse films, Japanese horror, “Kill Bill,” “Saw” and splatter-fest videogames to cleanse one’s visual palate of those highbrow Oscar contenders.

The movie has an undeniable black hole at its center in the fact that it barely mentions Axl Rose, and includes no original Guns N' Roses recordings.

The movie is shamelessly manipulative on several levels, and the cast members do their respective bits effectively.

A surprisingly effective new horror flick.

Director/co-writer Chris Dowling infuses his sports drama with a grungy sense of place, making Run the Race feel a bit like a Christian version of “Friday Night Lights.”

This has to be an intentional wink from Stallone and his contemporaries. They know their days are not only numbered as action stars, but probably should have ended long ago.

Once in a while, you see a film where it's clear that everyone involved is operating at the peak of of their skills, yet the whole is so misguided that the result is still awful. Such is The Desperate Hour.

Sony’s latest Spidey yarn is a charmless stinker that’s only well-polished enough to make you resent the stench.

It’s the circle of life. Someone should write a song about it. And wouldn’t you know? Jonathan does just that in one of the many endings Lullaby has to offer.

Genuinely inept in every way, “Scream 7” is far and away the worst of the franchise, a shallow rendering of things that worked better in other films.

Proud Mary doesn’t deserve the lack of faith its studio has in it. In fact, it’s almost good, so close to success that its flaws truly become frustrating.

Dee Rees’ The Last Thing He Wanted is incomprehensible to an almost impressive degree — usually when a movie's narrative gets so out of control, it over-corrects itself at some point before the end. But not here.

More is often less in “Rebel Moon—Part 2: The Scargiver,” not only when it comes to the movie’s sweaty, vein-activating performances, but also its over-exaggerated and under-choreographed action scenes.

Its plot is an unholy blending of “Taken," “The Searchers” and "Angel Heart." As befitting a January release, it’s also an early candidate for the 2016 worst movies list.

Vaguely more tolerable than you might expect – enjoyable, even, in sporadic bursts.

This narcissistic quality is the film's true undoing.

A tedious and only occasionally amusing comedic riff on “The Purge” franchise.

The narrative outline of Self/less is a philosophical theme park, readymade for daring, complex filmmaking. And Singh and his writers never go on any of the rides.

Wahlberg should not be cast in any role predicated on the idea that he’s good with words and ideas. Hauser is one of the best actors in the English language and will escape this disaster and do more great work, so there’s that.

Here is a film that pays lip service to the importance of creativity without ever displaying a demonstrable shred of it during its seemingly interminable run time.

This is a modestly scaled B-movie by one of the best genre filmmakers of our time, Walter Hill, that has enough skill and personality going for it to make it worth checking out, even if it doesn’t quite live up (or down, depending on your perspective) to its borderline sleazy premise.

A wildly inconsequential action comedy that contains a couple of genuine laughs but which otherwise feels like an extended version of its own television ads.

There are moments of tenderness and honest human emotion buried in the frustrating A Long Way Down but one has to work far too hard and give far too much credit to the over-qualified cast to grab at them.

Yes, it's all as clunky and tasteless as the description suggests, and the awkward casting doesn't improve this overlong drama.

While the performances are stronger and the narrative is more coherent than you’d see in a “Madea” movie, for example, Perry’s latest still features many of the auteur’s trademarks: dizzying tonal swings, awkward blocking, drab lighting, jarring edits and a mixture of the salacious and the puritanical.

Whatever difference Zada's relatively minimalist approach to scenes might make, it does not outweigh the overarching feeling that the movie falls into a predictable, repetitive routine.

Its narrative and visual approach almost suggests a compendium of the clichés one should avoid in a film like this.

For the most part, A Farewell to Fools rollicks along on its own bizarre and not successful path, comedic moments falling flat, emotional moments running shallow, but in that moment we can feel something else striving to break free.

This isn’t just a mediocre movie — although it is most definitely that — it is a wasted opportunity to fulfill the promise of that opening line from 35 years ago.

While most other films sprint through expository dialogue, and bluster their way through action scenes, The Last Witch Hunter is measured enough to make you want to suspend your disbelief.

The Color of Time has considerable ambition, but no inner life.

Sleepless is one of those movies that needed to be a lot better or a lot worse to make much of an impression.

No one needs a paycheck this badly. This goes far beyond the one-for-me, one-for-them theory of role choices.

To be honest, the film does not exactly make a convincing case for the idea of Berlin as a hub of passion, or really for its existence as a movie.

If you love rape jokes, Get Hard is your movie.

What exerts an odd fascination here is that each character heartily embodies a different variety of solipsistic creep; you start feeling sorry for the creators of the movie for having to live among such awful people. Then it dawns on you that the film’s creators don’t find these people awful at all — they find them normal. Terrifying, really.