Despite some satisfying moments, by the increasingly cringe-worthy last third of the movie you’re just annoyed that it seems to want to cover all bases — to have its, er, cannoli and eat it, too.

The greatest tension in Larsson’s “Millennium” series is how Salander so bristles with unease in the world, even while she expertly manipulates everything in it. No such conflict is found in The Girl in the Spider’s Web, a commonplace thriller for an uncommon heroine.

Doesn't deliver the chills it should, but leaves an uneasy feeling. [26 Oct 1990]

The filmmakers haven’t gone so far as to put you in the game, too. A lot of it is watching all the characters find keys and have their own revelations, so by the time you get to the fifth room, it’s understandable if interest is starting to wane a bit even with the addition of a link between the six people.

Rodriguez and her fans deserve better than Miss Bala, a disappointingly bland and formulaic Hollywood remake of a much grittier and bleaker Mexican thriller.

“Axel F” is not exactly Murphy’s finest hour, either. But Murphy just saying “Jesus!” is funny. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 30 years for our next Axel Foley fix. God, we’ve missed him.

This is a very big, very (very!) loud, very jumpy horror flick, and the screams will come, and they’ll be audible. Which is precisely what “Alien” fans are surely waiting for.

It’s hard not to think of the title when contemplating the overall effect of a film that spares no expense to entertain, yet ends up feeling a little aimless, perplexingly bland, and — what’s the word we’re looking for? Oh yes. Gray.

It’s hard to pinpoint why this next level of Grace’s very bad wedding night, again directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, feels darker and heavier — and hence, less enjoyable — than the original, which managed to maintain a bouncy feel, even with bodies combusting at an absurd rate. But if we have to blame someone, we’re gonna go with the doctor from “The Pitt.”

It was a Hail Mary to bring back the “Jurassic Park” originals. But their big meeting with the “Jurassic World” cast has the unintended effect of reminding how little we have come to care about the new cast.

American Animals would be a legitimate cautionary tale if it wasn’t invalidated by its own existence.

Romeo Is Bleeding continues the trend of modern manifestations of the film noir. It has the basic elements: crooked cop, lethal female, vicious gang boss, tawdry locales, bloody corpses. Everything, in fact, but style. [14 Feb 1994]

Though “One Love” drifts into increasingly conventional biopic scenes, its spirit remains fairly true to Marley — enough, at least, that you overlook some of its faults.

Writer-directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly offer up a commentary on the value of work. There’s a critique of capitalism, and an intriguing buddy relationship between two women with very different lives but shared goals.

The best reason to see “Pinocchio” is, unsurprisingly, Hanks, who brings a soulful melancholy to Geppetto.

There were some lofty ideas behind “Immaculate” that seem underserved (about bodily autonomy and such) and she gets several memorable movie star moments, but I want more for Sweeney than whatever this adds up to.

Parallels to “My Best Friend’s Wedding” come early and often.

The action comes fast and furious, and the banter is pleasant enough. Diaz, especially, makes the proceedings decently enjoyable and some of the sillier lines believable.

And for all the comedic talent in the film, from Curtin to Lloyd, who seem game for anything, there are precious few genuine laughs to be had. Perhaps the script should have allowed for more improvisation.

I kept rooting for the surprisingly lifeless “The Last Dance” to pull way back on its save-the-world plot (and its CGI) and lean more into its most potent effect: Hardy’s split-personality double act.

Bloodshot is just smart enough to be more than trash, and just trashy enough to be less than smart. It will do fine if you’re looking for a lesser simulation of a good movie.

Tigertail comes off more as an idea of an arthouse movie than one propelled by its own volition.

The Alto Knights, despite its pedigree, doesn’t rise anywhere near the heights of its glorious predecessors. It is, rather, an enjoyable if choppily paced look at a relationship between two men, where unfortunately we’re arriving pretty late in the game.

Presumably one of the reasons to bring actors into remakes of animated classics would be to add a warm-blooded pulse to these characters. Zegler manages that, but everyone else in “Snow White” — mortal or CGI — is as stiff as could be.

McMurray has a deft touch juggling action sequences, humor and intimate dialogue.

All the momentum that “Wicked: For Good” does gather is owed significantly to its stars. To a large degree, these movies have been the Erivo-and-Grande show, a grand spectacle of female friendship that rises above all the petty biases and misjudgments to forge a vision of harmony in opposites. It’s a compelling vision, and Chu, as he did in the triumphant “Defying Gravity” culmination of part one, knows how to stick the landing.

The buddy movie balance of “Uncharted” never clicks. Wahlberg, who was once attached to play Holland’s part, plays Sully like Nathan’s roguish, less tech-savvy elder. But they lack the needed chemistry and the script, by Rafe Lee Judkins, Matt Holloway and Art Marcum, doesn’t give them enough comic material to do much with.

CUTTER AND BONE can't decide whether to be a buddy movie, a menage-a-trois drama, or a murder movie, and hence fails at all three. Too bad, because Czech-born Ivan Passer has an obvious talent for creating mood and atmosphere.

Light of Day flounders because of Schrader's simplistic symbolism: the rebellious children, the unhearing mother, the lifeless father. The story limps from one predictable scene to the next. [17 Mar 1987]

This is an unusually soulful coming-of-age movie considering the number of spinal cords that get ripped right of bodies.

Richardson, throughout, gives an empathetic and endearing performance, and Hardy matches her for charm, even if he doesn’t convince as a self-described “maths nerd.”

For a movie predicated on satisfying fans, The Rise of Skywalker is a distinctly unsatisfying conclusion to what had been an imperfect but mostly good few films.

The special effects are terrific and the idea, based on a story by Charles Band and Kenneth J. Hall, is clever and could be downright scary. But the pacing is soooooooooooo slow you can fast-forward by five minutes and still be on the same scene and practically the same word. [30 Aug 1989]

It is mainly the characters who have suffered in Jewel of the Nile. The bouncy relationship between Turner and Douglas has been lost; she appears mindlessly headstrong, he devotes his time to extricating her from trouble. A superior comic, DeVito has a one-note role of constant choler. [16 Dec 1985]

Beneath it all is the story of a child’s love and guilt — and an education and judicial system letting her down — which propels her to bring her parents back from the dead, but that gets a little lost in the gross-out humor, Addams Family-level weirdness and shock-for-shock’s sake visual gags like a demonic teddy bear. For all the lovingly crafted spectacle, Selick’s agonizing, shot-by-shot film, is as overstuffed as that bear.

Hunnam’s presence, alone, keeps the movie grounded. But the movie time and time again exalts the gallantry of its gentlemen heroes at the expense of those unlike them. It gives this glass of Gritchie’s English Lore a bitter taste.

The editing is more than a little rough and the plot gets a little stretched, but just as things start to get seriously hairy, the Pierce brothers suddenly have something really interesting to say about erasure and how families can abandon their histories.

Slumberland is not a terrible movie and it may very well spark your imagination or tug at your heartstrings (though sweet kids crying over dead parents is about as low-hanging as the fruit can get). But it also could have been so much more had it not gotten so bogged down in its own superfluous flash, which, by the end, just feels exhausting.

Like countless studio comedies of the past few years, Night School is a straightforward concept that relies too much on the charisma of its performers to carry a weak script.

Ball’s command of the camera and his ability to hurtle his character through science-fiction realms has visibly grown through the three movies. For too long The Death Cure stays in one place; it’s best when on the move. And now, it’s probably time for Ball to move on, too.

Overall “The Old Guard 2” is fine, a bit of a background movie that’s probably easy enough to tune in and out of (though Schoenaerts, a standout, gives it some real pathos). Its greatest sin is the non-ending, which might have moviegoers engaging in their own rants about wasted time.

There’s a stale emptiness to Living that doesn’t entirely dissipate in even its most moving scenes.

The significant and seemingly random changes, embellishments and omissions make you wonder why they even needed the tether of Nowak in the first place.

Shelter is everything you expect a Jason Statham movie to be, no more and no less.

It’s pretty clear after watching the new live-action Aladdin that doubts about Will Smith’s casting as the Genie are overblown. It’s the guy behind the camera who should be doubted. And stuffed into a small lamp forever.

The talk is mostly in grunts and whoops, and the film sometimes reaches the brink of a Mel Brooks travesty, but never falls over. [18 Jan 1982]

These are interesting and fraught times that deserve an unflinching look at the perils of data rights and online privacy, but The Great Hack is a reminder that documentaries are not always journalism.

It’s not the quality of the acting that limits Eastwood’s film. It’s a threadbare script that fails to find much of a story to tell behind the headlines.

The bad news is that Pink Cadillac treads on old ground and never really takes off. [24 May 1989]

The real problem with I Feel Pretty, written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, is not in its message or conception, but in its ragtag execution.

Washington earns his audience’s tears with an unrushed, unshowy style, letting an adult and very human relationship evolve on camera, skipping back and forth through years as it goes from love, birth, death and acceptance.

In an extremely physical, committed, even exhausting performance, Pattinson takes what could have been an unwieldy mess and makes it much less, well, expendable.

At a certain point, it becomes clear that not only is The King’s Man a tonal mess, it’s also just a set-up for a movie with an even more enticing cast that’ll leave you feeling even more conflicted.

Raimi doesn’t take “Doctor Strange” to an entirely new tonal place, like, say Taika Waititi did with Thor. He mostly sticks to the framework established by Scott Derrickson.

Not all of it works, but it’s never uninteresting or uncreative — especially when it comes to finding inventively horrible (or horribly inventive) ways for people to die.

Someone Great has not exactly rewritten the rom-com rule book. Where it distinguishes itself is in the fresh faces of it cast (the rom-com is not known as the most diverse of genres) and in focusing on the hard realities of breakup rather than the fairytale of falling in love.

Neither the divers nor kids, government officials nor families and volunteers really come into focus, staying as murky as the miles of submerged cave.

Ultimately, Pain Hustlers feels like a retreading of the same ground covered in other recent works, bringing nothing especially new to the table and, in splitting the stylistic difference between slick/breezy and poignant/authentic, succeeding fully at neither.

Of course, it all comes down to a Shyamalan-style final twist — the most entertaining part of the film, but it comes way, way too late. Listen, we’re all up for some summer fun on the beach. But by the time we’re allowed in on the secret here, we’re feeling a bit tired.

The movie’s premise is one long Uber ad, but it’s a clever enough buddy comedy setup, and both Nanjiani and Bautista are good comic performers. So what’s missing here?

Maybe the movie will direct some eyes toward the existence of the Arthur Foundation, but while the movie goes down easy enough it is, on the whole, a bit unsatisfying.

A feminist recasting of the familiar story is welcome, of course, but the screenplay focuses so insistently on its female-empowering message that it feels at times like we’re just getting hit over the head with it.

It’s an intriguing premise that “I.S.S.” can’t translate into a coherent thriller.

It’s also all over the map, in every way possible. It’s visually gorgeous at times but then boring to behold at others, emotionally poignant at times but stunningly cloying at others. It’s also confusing (though to be fair, many might call the book confusing, too.) Mostly, it’s just a frustrating whole comprised of some pretty promising parts.

It’s not plot deviations from King’s novel that hamper Pet Sematary. It’s that, from early on, Kölsch and Widmyer, rely less on the detailed accumulation of atmosphere that King built his tale on, than jump cuts and music cues to build suspense. It puts Pet Sematary on a more familiar genre track.

It’s a empty chamber for movie spectacle and nothing else, where the only option is to pile elements on top of each other until you have, you know, a giant evil ape swinging a vertebrae like a lasso while riding a kaiju controlled by a crystal.

At a certain point, the experience of watching this all unfold through Enzo’s eyes becomes the alienating element. You’re not experiencing the big moments yourself, you’re just experiencing Enzo experiencing them, leaving you to wonder if the story and performances alone are anything special without the dog’s metaphors and poeticisms.

It Lives Inside is still a welcome respite from the other long-in-the-tooth horror franchises populating theaters this time of year in that it’s just something new – new faces, new themes, a promising filmmaker to watch – but I wish it would have embraced more of the things that make it unique as opposed to trying to fit in with its genre brethren.

Real Men is a far-out farce about male bonding and role reversals that sinks under the weight of its own absurdity. [16 Jun 1988]

It’s starting to seem like every franchise film, when in search of a story, throws a battle against the wall and hopes something sticks. Not only has this gotten tiresome, but it also sacrifices what we came here for in the first place: Jolie and Pfeiffer glowering at each other.

There’s a lot of gross, both kinda and mega, over this film’s 93-minute running time. Also a lot of poop jokes, and penis jokes, both canine and human. You get the picture.

Plane is as broadly sketched as its title. Puerto Rico doubles here for Philippines, and most of the story elements, too, feel like they’re stand-ins for basic plot conventions.

Despite an A-list roster of talent, including people behind the scenes who theoretically should know how to resurrect this brand and move it forward, Terminator: Dark Fate is just another bad “Terminator” movie in a string of bad “Terminator” movies (although better than “Genisys”).

Arteta (The Good Girl, Cedar Rapids) has an underrated ability at crafting comic, humanistic movies out of commercial concepts. But Yes Day slides too often into contrived, loudly scored montages of “fun” that don’t transfer to those of us watching. And while Garner and Ramirez are both very fine actors, neither of them is funny.

It can be divertingly bonkers, but ends up a rather grim and slipshod “John Wick” ripoff.

The Tender Bar is a gentle, oddly crafted but loving look at men, fueled by a soundtrack of classics like Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” and Steely Dan’s “Do It Again.” It’s a valentine to guys who step up.

It's fitting that director Brian De Palma's latest effort, Carlito's Way, begins and ends inside a train station, because this is a movie that's seriously derailed. [09 Nov 1993]

Knowing that the story comes from a real place is important for the experience. It gives “My Mother’s Wedding,” a perfectly average film that doesn’t quite land the way it should, an emotional depth that it’s otherwise lacking.

Abominable is sweet and simple enough, but its emotionality always feels thin and, like much of the film, paint by numbers.

At a certain point, somebody says “I just hope this goes better than last time.” It’s a cheeky reference to the first film, but also a rather dangerous line to include in a sequel, because they almost never go better than last time. This one doesn’t either, but at least it’s upfront about what it’s doing: just making stuff bigger and crazier.

Walt Disney Animation’s Wish is stunning to look at with textured and rich watercolor-inspired animation and easter egg treasures for audiences nostalgic for the classics. But it is also more concept than story: A strained and forgettable attempt to pay homage to the studio’s 100 years.

It’s an odd paradox that this movie feels both high-minded and also at times frustratingly pedestrian.

That a movie called “The Sheep Detectives” tries to impart lessons of morality and mindfulness is, of course, laudable. A wide swath of entertainment aimed at children makes no such attempt. But “The Sheep Detectives” could have used more slapstick and less CGI sincerity.

The plotting is clunky and haphazard. But when together, Thompson, Hemsworth and Nanjiani turn Men In Black: International into something funny and silly: a pleasant enough lark in formal wear.

A movie as frothy and insubstantial as the foam on a nice cappuccino. It’s also about as believable as some of the woefully stereotypical Italian characters here.

For the big tonal swings in A Simple Favor to work, the characters needed to be more plausibly grounded. Lively and Kendrick’s early scenes ping-pong nicely with odd-couple chemistry, but “A Simple Favor” loses the thread, and never shakes the feeling of a rushed Gillian Flynn knockoff.

Five years after we just went through (at least a lot of) this, “Eddington” somehow seems both too late and too soon, especially when it offers so little wisdom or insight beyond a vision of hopelessness.

Jon Favreau’s The Lion King, so abundant with realistic simulations of the natural world, is curiously lifeless.

Six films in and with more on the way, too much of a good thing is becoming more of a pressing question in “Despicable Me 4,” a silly and breezy installment from Illumination Entertainment that passes by with about as much to remember it as a Saturday morning cartoon.

The real heist of Crime 101 is an old one: If you’re going to steal, steal from the best.

The Philadelphia Experiment offers the basis of a good sci-fi thriller, but it's top heavy and never makes it off the ground. If the movie had dealt more with reality and real human reactions to bizarre situations, it would have offered a good screen scare. [28 Aug 1984]

The movie could have benefited on a little focus and not so much fan service, especially considering how good all of the ensemble actors are in these roles. Perhaps that’s why Fellowes couldn’t choose just one.

Antebellum will inspire conversation, just probably not the one the filmmakers anticipated.

The creators of Superman III give us a picture puzzle of assorted plots that never meld coherently. [13 June 1983]

Except for two or three explosive moments, the film plods along to the expectable, heartwarming climax, never achieving the potential of a new star in a time-proven role. [27 May 1985]

The craft and thick Gothic atmosphere of The Devil all the Time is impressive. The movie has such fine-wrought texture that it holds you in its cold grasp. But it’s also somewhat oppressive.

It’s a goof, and there’s something to be said for watching Grohl and the gang having so much fun.

The Secrets of Dumbledore, lacking in much magic, is a bit of a bore.