To get at the heart of what’s wrong with The Face of an Angel all you need to do is consider the professional stones it takes to adapt the Amanda Knox case into yet another movie about the existential/amorous crises of a white male filmmaker. (And then have the nerve to dedicate the results to the memory of the murder-victim in the real-life case!)

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.

The result is a disappointing, shambling piece of melancholy with a few interesting scenes here and there that never cohere in such a way that allows the legendary actor to disappear into the character.

The whole thing ultimately collapses in a heap of unintentionally hilarious melodrama.

If you can fend off the recurring bores of Happy Death Day 2U, Landon and Lobdell have some chuckles reserved up their sleeves.

Yes, Burying The Ex, I thought as I watched, I AM on your side conceptually already. Now could you start being genuinely funny? Or scary? Or something?

There is simultaneously too much and not enough going on in writer/director/co-star Josh Lawson’s feature debut. He crams in too many people and plot lines but offers too little in the way of character development and credible emotion.

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.

Not dunking on social media teens is a refreshing angle, enough to make you want to care about their inevitable deaths. But the movie's by-the-numbers horror will make you feel otherwise.

Unfortunately, Words and Pictures fails at portraying both titular nouns.

There is absolutely zero tension in “You Can’t Run Forever.” It all feels like a lark, a project that would completely dissolve if not for the Oscar winner at its center.

There’s clearly a biopic in Morrissey’s true story. You can hear it in the timbre of his voice and the wit of his lyrics. However, it is not in England is Mine, a flat, disappointing drama that casts Morrissey as a mopey teenager. The man who wrote “How Soon is Now?” deserves better.

At least, director Gille Klabin tries to amp up The Wave with aggressive visual style, but it’s still a movie that’s rotten at its core because it suffers from the same problem of all those “American Beauty” clones in that it never satisfactorily answers the question “Who cares?”

A frantic jumble of retro kitsch and random pop-culture references.

While I like the laid-back attitude the filmmakers apply to the theoretically devastating situation, it quickly becomes apparent that attitude is the only thing the film really has to offer to viewers. Although there are a few amusing moments here and there, the comedic situations are too droll for their own good and too often seem to waste potentially interesting ideas.

A depressingly rote piece of corporate product that has so little on its mind other than presumably making hundreds of millions of dollars that you half expect the ticket sellers to hand out copies of Comcast’s latest earnings report along with the 3-D glasses.

Throughout Clara’s Ghost you can’t help but think that you’re watching a quaint home video that would appeal to the members of the subject family only — the unnecessary square aspect ratio certainly doesn’t help with the amateurish feel of the whole thing.

The actors never once seem engaged with the material beyond the surface. Thus, Crooked House feels as lifeless as the corpse at its center.

A numbing and soulless spectacle of 3-D, computer-generated imagery run amok, Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings presents an enduring tale by pummeling us over the head with it.

For better and worse, Gone in the Night feels like the directorial debut of a podcaster, somebody who knows the value of storytelling novelty and has a gift for narrative economy, but also suggests more by the grace of good casting than their own singular talents.

Slapstick mishaps and—ultimately—feel-good triumph of sorts ensue, with plenty of perky training montages in between.

Locked starts promisingly, and then almost refuses to really go anywhere, trapped by its own concept and unwillingness to do anything thematically richer than “wealthy people be crazy.”

At least it's admirable that Donohue manages to do almost all his shooting with either web cams, phone cams or surveillance cameras. But that does not translate into an entirely enjoyable viewing experience. Plus, there are almost no real shocks or scares to rattle you out of the stupor that inevitably develops from observing someone else fiddle with their laptop for much of the running time.

Nothing is compelling about these characters, and Bennett and Riley have little chemistry with each other playing them, even though they’re supposed to be estranged exes experiencing an unexpected spark.

While "Red One" may scratch at some interesting ideas about lamenting the world's cruelties, it lacks the narrative depth and commitment to fully explore its angst.

There are movies about ugly, vile people, and there are ugly, vile movies. Triple 9 is the latter.

A mediocre film that's unaware of the poor choices it's making is much harder to watch than a bad film that relishes its stupidity and poor taste. At least the second kind of film can be fun.

Five Nights in Maine is as evasive as a corrupt politician. Its coyness about what’s truly in its heart of darkness is either cowardly or lazy, or some measure of both.