The same weakness that has plagued a goodly portion of major releases this year that rely on past successes for their reason to exist rears up again: the lack of the new and fresh.

There have been complaints about MCU properties that feel like they exist merely to get people interested in the next movie or TV show, but it’s never felt so much like a snake eating its own tail as it does here. Or at least the spell has worn off for me.

If you loved the 2003 “Freaky Friday,” you’ll probably enjoy “Freakier Friday,” for the simple reason that it’s more or less the same movie, but with new characters added to the existing cast, and more complicated plot mechanics. Way more complicated. This is “Freaky Friday” to the fourth power.

Features some of the worst post-synching seen in any recent movie. If Eisenstein, the consummate craftsman, would have regretted Greenaway’s penchant for pointless and overdone circular tracking shots, he surely would have groaned at how the actors’ lips here and the words they speak are so often on different timetables.

The film is, in that sense, the ultimate fan film since it monotonously aggregates previously existing scifi/fantasy tropes. Rejoice, Gen X viewers, for now you can uncritically enjoy your childhood's junk food culture just because you're looking at the past through the rose-colored lenses of the future.

All the stylishness and enthusiasm cannot disguise the fact that the mystery itself never comes close to those concocted by Dame Agatha. Then again, no one else has topped her either.

That the filmmakers are able to pursue their theme to the extent that the true story on which the film is based obliges them to somehow has to be credited to Renner. His performance is very good, despite the somewhat stereotypical bro characteristics with which the Webb character is here endowed.

There’s a significant difference in quality between the mediocre scenario (and dialogue) and thrilling production design (and direction) in White Snake.

The all-live action section of this movie is lit and shot almost exactly like an episode of “The Adventures of Pete and Pete.”

Landsman’s film is enraging for all the right reasons, and more than a few wrong ones as well. It comes off as more of a puff piece than an exposé.

This is a film noir that is, despite some jittery, Tony Scott-esque action sequences, so cool, that you will leave it begging for a sequel.

In the end, this is a sufficiently rebellious film about women’s refusal to be forced into sandboxes fashioned by oppressing norms—about fighting for air and resisting the urge to sink into that quicksand, however beautifully decorated.

This is neither a trifle nor a truly Major Motion Picture; it’s an entertainment maybe in the sense that Graham Greene used the term. But one needn’t be so hifalutin about the matter.

The goofier and more random the movie is, the better it is, and it certainly gets goofier and more random as it goes.

On paper, this sounds like a potentially fascinating combination but the film emerging from it proves to be anything but that. Instead, it proves to be such an overly ponderous exercise that, by the time it finally comes to an end, you may feel so sapped of energy that find yourself struggling to get up out of your seat.

Even at a brisk 79 minutes (including credits), “Glorious” feels like an intriguing idea that’s been stretched thin to feature length.

Then comes another scene nonsensical scene, and another, and another, each seemingly disconnected from the scene that preceded it. Plot, logic, continuity, become even more meaningless than they were already, which is saying something. It's as if the movie itself has lost its mind. And it was at that point, dear reader, that the reviewer fell in love with the movie.

Lean, sincere, impassioned filmmaking, yet it fails to leave as much of an impression as it clearly wants to.

With a script by Eric C. Charmelo, Nicole Snyder and Shepard, The Perfection has a gory grindhouse sleaze overlaid with the tony gleam of the upper-crust, a very sick combo.

Setting up a political drama in stereotypical black-hat/white-hat fashion results in enjoyably cartoonish villains like flamboyant gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (deliciously played by Helen Mirren) and the usual blacklist martyrs, but it also deprives the story of the nuance and complexity for which it cries out.

Trocker is deft at creating situations that go right up to the edge of blatant symbolism or metaphor, bit resist the urge to pitch themselves over the brink and become blatant and simplistic.

The movie’s flabbiness, its unfocused flopping from scene to scene, its disinclination to provide any individual scene with any dimension beyond its immediate impact, practically vitiates the entire theme of Dickie’s ostensible mentorship of Tony Soprano.

As a date-night viewing option for this weekend, this nearly all-sung autopsy of a failed marriage would pretty much qualify as a Valentine’s Day massacre.

For Plummer’s plum of a performance alone, you might want to make an exception for The Exception.

Rourke, who comes to the film industry from the theater, has an eye for pageantry and staging that make even dull conversations about power struggles feel lively.

Small Crimes works in part but is strangely murky in others. There's a lot of dead air. It's the pettiness, the small-ness of the characters that makes the greatest impression.

While it may not quite be the modern-day “Casablanca,” it is nevertheless a grandly entertaining stab at old-fashioned storytelling...buoyed by smart and stylish filmmaking, a good performance by Brad Pitt and an even better one from Marion Cotillard.

Marshall's film does not only aim to document animal rights activism but also to propagate it, and in that it is less successful. This is a film overflowing with passion and compassion but often lacking the intellectual detachment necessary to distill conviction into a rigorous argument.