A hopelessly bland and bizarrely self-serious monster movie.

If the issue of some thrillers is that they have nothing to say, the problem with “Him” is that it has exactly one thing to say, which it does again and again and again. “Him” does have some style, though.

Atlas, an often ridiculous sci-fi epic with dialogue cheesier than a Brie wheel but also an old-fashioned, human heart o’ gold, is a J.Lo movie. Through and through.

There’s just not enough there — action, comedy, romance, art — to demand (or, rather, earn) your full attention.

The film, set 183 years before the events of “The Hobbit,” is a return to Middle-earth that, despite some very earnest storytelling, never supplies much of an answer as to why, exactly, it exists.

Red One comes off a little like the holiday version of “Cowboys and Aliens” — enough so to make you nostalgic for leaner tales about folkloric figures starring Johnson, like “The Tooth Fairy.”

Disney should have left the original alone.

The wrong version of Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael must have been released, because this sloppy-looking film never should have been allowed into theaters. [11 Oct 1990]

Artificiality as an aesthetic is all fine and good, but Love Hurts feels a little too much like the charmless, ripped-from-the-Magnolia-showroom homes that Marvin is hawking to perky yuppies around Milwaukee.

If an algorithm designed a classic, big-screen spectacle for the small-screen age, “The Electric State” probably wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

A work of fierce interiority has been turned into a hollow exercise in exteriority.

Orion and the Dark is about fear and overcoming it but this movie directed by Sean Charmatz has too much junk clogging up the vision.

Criss-crossing patterns of ridiculousness and self-satisfaction run through “Argylle,” a tiresome meta movie that puts an awful lot of zest into an awfully empty high-concept story.

The force is not strong in “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” a shallow “Man on Wire” for social media influencers about a pair of Russian daredevils who stealthily scale urban heights to attain the precious treasure of a much-liked Instagram post.

Though it starts off promisingly enough with Carrey’s character marooned on a “piece of shitake” mushroom planet, it soon becomes evident that this outing is a soulless attempt to up the stakes and cash in.

For a movie so excited to tell a story about the CIA’s “most highly-prized and least understood unit,” it sure doesn’t do much to ensure you leave any more informed than you were when you sat down.

For a movie centered on brotherhood, it’s remarkably empty of any sense of kinship.

It’s really not a good sign when a movie ends with a bold, shocking flourish and much of the audience can be heard muttering through the credits: “Wait, um ... WHAT?”

The big problem is that Halloween Kills is less of a sequel than a half-baked interlude before the finale. It is a bloody, violent, chaotic and cynical mess and not even in a good or particularly scary or insightful way.

The nostalgia of “Michael” is for more than Michael Jackson. But blindly believing only in that celebrity, in that fantasy, is repeating a sad history all over again.

They Will Kill You may remind you of the marriage between madcap, social satire and bloody mayhem from “Ready or Not” but it’s a warning of how hard that combo is to get correctly.

Brightburn was a good idea. Unfortunately the creativity stopped there.

"Scooby Doo” was never the most unpredictable of shows but Scoob! has merely swapped the original’s blueprint for that of a superhero movie. You’ll be left mournfully munching a bag of Scooby Snacks while wondering, “Scooby-Dooby-Doo, where are you?”

Yellowbeard is a puzzlement. How could so many comedic talents produce such a mirthless movie? [27 Jun 1983]

The Bad Guys 2 has clearly lost its moorings.

For those who have spent the last few months hungering for a big-spectacle mess (they are, after all, a feature of summer moviegoering), now you can take in a big-budget flop from the comfort of your own home.

It’s too bad because there could have been a more fun movie in here — Clarkson imbues it with a distinctly feminine and teenage energy that makes good use of its soundtrack. But it spins itself into a knot trying to justify a silly story instead.

The one saving grace is King, a genuinely delightful young actor who manages to hold your attention and empathy even if her underwritten character barely deserves it.