Zhao, whose film Nomadland was everything this is not — spare, naturalistic, moody — struggles with so much going on. The fight scenes are repetitive and the dialogue often stilted.

In the frustrating The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Day gives it her all as Holiday but she can’t save a film that is overstuffed and also thin. Director Lee Daniels and screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks offer an unfocused, meandering work for much of the time, interrupted by devastating scenes that feel like a punch to the gut.

It's harmless family fun. [1 June 1992]

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.

Squibb and Kellyman, both terrific, are the real reasons to seek out “Eleanor the Great.” The film may trip over its own contrivances but their performances will leave you moved.

What is most surprising about the latest Charlie’s Angels, which was written and directed by Elizabeth Banks, who also plays the part of Bosley, is how little the “go girl” feminism of the 2000 film has evolved in nearly 20 years. Blame society or a lack of imagination on the part of the filmmakers, but there is nothing all that new about the ideas here.

The Amateur has a lot going for it -- but it takes also takes a while to get going. Once it does, it can’t quite maintain a level of energy and suspense needed to justify its runtime.

Jackson comfortably carries the film with a smooth panache, but his Priest — like the movie — doesn’t make much of an impression. Yet Superfly is also a generally entertaining movie, with good things in it.

The performances are triumphant. Bust out all the adjectives for Tom Hanks; following his "Big" splash, he is unquestionably the front-runner in the 1988 Academy Award race. Sally Field displays an unexpected comedy flair, as well as the earnestness for which she is noted. Equally effective is Rydell, better known as a director ("On Golden Pond"). [4 Oct 1988]

If there is a quibble, it’s that Hayek and Tatum don’t quite inspire the will-they-won’t-they tension that the movie seems to be asking of them. They work well together when they’re working together, but the romantic chemistry is a bit lacking.

The driving engine behind the film — a whirlwind 24-hour romance — is contrived, underwhelming and perhaps worst of all, unconvincing.

Its plot turns can be rash or implausible, and the movie increasingly feels like ideas and set pieces strung tenuously together.

The Crimes of Grindelwald is often dazzling, occasionally wondrous and always atmospheric. But is also a bit of a mess. Even magic bags can be overweight.

Director Kyle Marvin fails to build any real tension as he frighteningly shifts from farce to cringe to melancholy, but real footage of the big game is nicely knitted into the second half.

BREATHLESS may attract attention because of the ample display of Richard Gere, but it is a hollow, cynically exploitive film. [23 May 1983]

A novel like Coetzee’s invites readers to fill in the blank spaces. On a screen, we tend to crave more specificity. The result, coupled with a too-languorous pace, is a film that’s intermittently engrossing and always interesting, but less potent than it could have been.

A Working Man is exactly what you expect when you unleash Statham on a noble mission.

The main problem with The Spy Who Dumped Me is its strange dissonance of tone. There’s nothing wrong with trying to be a hard-knuckle action film and a goofy comedy all at once. But here, that effort results in moments of occasionally stunning violence that simply don’t mesh with the light-hearted vibe the filmmakers seek elsewhere.

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.

Conor Allyn is clearly a talented director and has a lot of reverence for the Western genre, but for as good and lofty as it’s intentions are, No Man’s Land comes up short.

Ackie’s performance is something to be cheered, reaching for the the kind of authenticity that Andra Day channeled when she also tackled a doomed musical icon in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.” But so much clumsiness, scenes featuring unnaturally heightened drama with little insight and the compromised authenticity of the performances drag I Wanna Dance With Somebody down — ultimately, it’s not right but it’s just OK.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom will not stand up to rigorous scrutiny, and yet, it’s kind of an enjoyable, preposterous and thrilling ride that ticks through nostalgia beats like a shopping list.

The combination works well enough, though it’d be fairer to deem “You’re Cordially Invited” a funnier-than-average wedding movie than it would be a top-grade Ferrell comedy.

Despite its flaws, this movie reminds us all of the sacrifices made by soldiers and to be mindful of how we treat them when they come home.

With Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson as the Three Men, you can forgive the artifice. All three have affable, winning personalities - not a hint of darkness in any of them. And it's refreshing to see a buddy movie without blazing Uzis and crashing cars. [19 Nov 1990]

Hawke takes a fairly one-dimensional character and gives it an intelligent and shaded performance.

Hill is a modern-day Peckinpah. But is there really a need for this pointless, graphic violence in the 1980s? Is this escapism, or is it just a distasteful, needless reflection of what has become horrifyingly common in the real world?

Project Power nicely mixes elements of sci-fi and crime thriller to create a cool trip with a wink, set against a soundtrack that includes 2 Chainz, Nipsey Hussle and Curtis Mayfield.

It’s counting on your amnesia to the past, on screen and off, and it will readily supply you with two hours of mindless escape. It does the job better than most, thanks largely to its hulking hero.

Christmas on the Square is pure, studio-lot fantasy and not really trying to be anything else.

Credit goes to the film’s visual effects folk, who made fur alive and gave texture to smoke. But retreading this story with a Cumberbatch, should send Hollywood bigwigs into the booby hatch.

Poison Ivy was directed by Katt Shea and produced by Andy Ruben. They collaborated on a script that is tightly written, loaded with portentous events and a few surprises. Obviously, they operated on a tight budget, but they have overcome the limitations by wise casting. Drew Barrymore is a revelation. [07 May 1992]

Burton’s Dumbo, while inevitably lacking much of the magic of the original, has charms and melancholies of its own, starting, naturally, with the elephant in the room. Of all the CGI make-overs, this Dumbo is the most textured, sweetest and most soulful of creatures.

Adults may find the plot predictable and the pacing a bit wanting, but the dynamic animation and beloved characters help compensate, as does the film’s cheeky self-awareness.

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

A Man Called Otto is less after realism than it is a modern-day fable, with shades of Scrooge and the Grinch. As a tale of a solitary man, Hanks has made it a poignant work of family.

Part of the problem is that the movie takes itself so seriously, making some of the irreverent humor of “Cobra Kai” unattainable.

The movie, like the magazine, contains a mixture of inspired graphics and hollow content. [10 Aug 1981]

Indian Summer is as sunny as a June day is long and as charming as a late-night marshmallow roast and just about as fluffy. There's not much to the movie, although it seems desperately to want to be taken seriously. [20 Apr 1993]

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.

Malignant at least has originality going for it. It’s also a thanklessly humorless and offensively sadistic film that fails to capture any sort of authentic emotion or make any meaningful statements about trauma.

A sumptuous-looking but slow-moving prison drama that at times will have you dreaming about an escape of your own.

Yet the slapdash vibe of “Day Shift” has its charms. It’s built almost perfectly to be the kind of thing you might, after some scrolling, absentmindedly click to watch on Netflix and end of watching for its sheer watchability.

21 Bridges is well crafted enough to pass the time, but anything more than that is a bridge too far.

Marry Me hangs on Lopez who is as glowing and glamorous as ever. Lopez, as they say, understood the assignment.

Roger Young's direction is crisply paced, but the script shortchanges the women. Lauren Hutton is unconvincing as the murderous counterspy, and Jane Seymour does little more than wait for Lassiter to come home. [28 Feb 1984]

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]

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

Life With Mikey is spun with delightful wisecracks, a childlike charm and the exhilaration of surmounting the odds - even though the sum of these parts cloys just a bit. [1 June 1993]

Slack when it should be terrifying, “Wolf Man” suffers from cheap sentimentality, laughably obvious script reveals, poor continuity and a creature that is less predatory than painful. Pity comes to mind.

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.

Last Christmas is about as buoyant as leftover eggnog. Clarke’s natural charm comes through — she looks ecstatic to be out of Westeros and playing a less upright character — but such a fleabag-screwup role feels better suited to a more comedic performer.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t does what sequels apparently must do these days — load up the characters, return to favorite bits and go global — but nails the trick, a crowd-pleasing return that already has a fourth in the works.

This seems designed to be a minor Marvel – a fun enough, inoffensive, largely forgettable steppingstone — a get-to-know-them brick on a path only Kevin Feige has the blueprints for.

Power fails, not because it is badly done; Lumet and an exceptional cast do their best to bring it to life. But they are ultimately defeated by an overplotted script that offers few surprises and no real revelations about today's politics. [17 Feb 1986]

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.

Now and Then will be deeply felt by women, and there's no earthly reason why men shouldn't enjoy it, too. [19 Oct 1995]

A Good Person seems to belong to a uniquely Dan Fogelman-esque subgenre of hyper sincere melodrama that sometimes clicks (“This Is Us”) and other times does not (“Life Itself”). Braff’s film is worlds better than “Life Itself,” but there are some similarities in how it strives for cosmic significance and ultimate tearjerking within a construct that the film tries to sell as authentically specific. In execution, it’s a bit more strained and contrived.

In many ways, the folks behind Jurassic World Rebirth are trying to do the same thing as their mercenaries: Going back to the source code to recapture the magic of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster original. They’ve thrillingly succeeded.

The Hunt is not great satire or even a great film. It’s an unstylish and heavy-handed horror-thriller that turns into a revenge gore-fest as it mocks everyone with a big clumsy paw.

The laughs run out early and the balance of the film relies on special effects to tickle the audience’s funny bone.

Fuqua is a lyrical director who directed Washington to an Oscar in “Training Day.” He’s not afraid to spend time in the still darkness with McCall and likes to focus on small moody elements, like rain hitting the gutters. But he can also deliver red meat: A sequence in which McCall fights off a passenger in the back seat of his car is a mini-masterpiece of taut, sinewy direction.

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.

It is a slick, well-made film, graced by the stirring performance of Paul Newman, but it offers little that is new about that crucial chapter in the world's history. [30 Oct 1989]

It’s often hard to see comedies for what they are, or what they might be, on first viewing. But “Eurovision” is that rare film that strikes the right chord from the start. And, weirdly, it might even spark some interest in the actual show.

It is a fine adventure with two genuine movie stars that may very well become a rewatchable staple like the films it references. But on first watch, it mostly comes across as an earnest and safe homage.

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

The biggest challenge for Styles, and for the studio that lists him as one of a six-actor ensemble — albeit at the top of the list, they’re not stupid! — is to mute the confident pop-star magnetism, in service of the story. This he does. At times, though, it seems he’s pressing too hard on that mute button, erasing personality from his portrayal.

Ticket to Paradise goes down as a footnote to the many superior rom-coms Roberts has sparkled in before. And if I wanted to watch Clooney in a tropical locale, I’d choose Alexander Payne’s lovely “The Descendants.”

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.

Hill and “black-ish” creator Kenya Barris have written a rom-com with teeth, a film not afraid to air long-simmering cultural grievances.

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.

Although it might be a stretch to categorize this as a movie, A Dog’s Way Home is harmless enough and a nice little adventure that’s fit for the whole family. But you might want to have the tissues ready.

What “Blonde” IS is ambitious. Far-reaching, at times perhaps too far.

Director Rob Cohen gets the most out of the buddy relationship between Bowen and Draco. Cohen also provides imaginative battle sequences, especially a pursuit through a forest. But the script, credited to Charles Edward Pogue from a story by Pogue and Patrick Read Johnson, sometimes veers into the obscure. [28 May 1996]

A well-cast and often entertaining but campy and sometimes obvious thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and James Norton.

There’s nothing especially revelatory about Vacation Friends. There are a few genuinely good laughs to be had involving drugs, golf and a catamaran, both during the vacation and the wedding. And there’s some tedium during the inevitable falling out segment. But it’s enjoyable in a way that doesn’t make you think about lost time and experiences over the past year.

Great Balls of Fire is fun to watch, especially Quaid's gymnastics and clownish grimaces. But the movie lacks authenticity; it seems to be laughing at itself and at the era it purports to chronicle. [29 June 1989]

If any narrative thread holds the movie together, it’s each character dealing with their own version of anxiety, fear and stage fright as performers. While a laudable message for a kids movie, it’s drowned out by the movie’s commercialized blare.

That the comet is a stand-in for climate change is hardly a secret going into Don’t Look Up, Adam McKay’s exceedingly watchable, funny and star-studded yet somewhat chaotic satire.

Henson does as best she can with this material, attempting Lucille Ball-level physical comedy. But she’s laboring and often overshadowed by the one unpredictable spark in the film — provided by Erykah Badu.

Director Daniel Petrie keeps the whimsy under control most of the time, and he draws evenhanded work from the actors. The script by Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein, based on Neil Tolkin's story, rarely rises above the level of comic-strip balloons, but that's as it should be. [23 Dec 1994]

The film allows Witherspoon and Kutcher to show off their naturally funny sides, especially when they’re fishes out of water. But many of the scenes drag on and sometimes the exposition is chalky.

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.

The only time Bohemian Rhapsody works is when it finally retreats from not just the standard biopic narrative but from storytelling altogether.

Virtually no one associated with this film should be congratulated in any way, having ruptured any bridges between Hollywood and senior citizens or for the shocking misuse of Diane Keaton’s considerable skills.

It’s no train wreck. Leitch’s film is colorful, cartoonish and well-choreographed. But the more-is-more manic energy of “Bullet Train” eventually peters out, since that’s all the movie was ever running on. Well, that and Pitt. His charm alone does wonders for the movie, raising it at least to the level of watchable.

Amsterdam reaches for something contemporary to say about race relations, concentration of wealth, veterans and fascism but ends up with a plodding, mannerist noise.

The pacing is sluggish when it should be quickening, and nothing in how Little turns out will surprise anyone. Yet the trio of Hall, Rae and Martin makes Little a consistently pleasant experience.

Made in America has a deficit problem - it's a comedy with woefully few good jokes, a leading man and woman with a serious lack of chemistry, and a plot that has as much credibility as a campaign promise. [27 May 1993]

Reminders of Him is a well-crafted, well-acted sad-happy Hoover adaptation.

This is a movie with a plot that’s as predictable as a well-tuned washing machine...What saves this movie from insipidness is an endearing performance by Walter Matthau as the cantankerous Mr. Wilson.

Spenser Confidential is a bit of a mess tonally with a plot that keeps attracting new weird layers, like lint on a sweater. It wants to be funnier than it is. It hopes to be deeper than it is.

The deft tonal balance of “Hit Man,” let alone of “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” is missing in How to Make a Killing, a disappointingly flat almost-remake that has neither the biting farce nor the chilling darkness to match its black comedy ambitions.

An extremely pleasant, supernatural comedy. [12 Nov 1984]

It’s hard to overstate just how much the relative success of this film comes down to Hardy and his go for broke performances as Eddie and Venom.

While much of Bissell’s film is poignantly rendered, especially the spirited lead performances by Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell, it has its flaws and its omissions.