Like its predecessor, Murder Mystery 2 is built on old-fashioned star power and the interplay between Sandler and Aniston. They’re good company to be in, and sometimes that’s enough.

More concrete examples of how mushrooms or dropping acid aided life are sorely needed.

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

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.

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.

The one bright spot is Cena, who is quite good. Like his character, who goes above and beyond to adeptly play Ricky Stanicky, Cena really and truly commits and brings a kind of unexpected depth and pathos to Rock Hard Rod. He’s flexed his comedy muscles before and should again, soon. Is it enough to save the movie? Not for me.

Next Goal Wins isn’t a tale of “woe” or “woah!” but “meh.”

Voyagers is simply a semi-effective thriller with about as much emotional intelligence as its lab-produced, hormone-controlled, sequestered youngsters.

Unlike Robert Eggers’ 2024 “Nosferatu,” which was beautiful but bleak to look at and featured an ugly, fearsome vampire, Besson imbues his main character with a swashbuckling sexiness that suits his star’s craggy appeal.

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 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]

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.

Simon McQuoid does a decent job on his feature directorial debut, giving us a constantly staggered hits of dopamine in the form of controlled violence.

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.

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

This is the first Hollywood film from South African director Donovan Marsh, and he does cook up some captivating action set pieces...which may have you laughing, rolling your eyes or even cheering (as a fair amount of people were in my screening), but it’s never boring.

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.

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

Besides the muddled story, the script is burdened with some of the clunkiest dialogue for a major film in recent memory. [3 Aug 1996]

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.

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.

Campbell and Crane get along about as well as a mosquito and a can of Raid. Unfortunately, their abrasive relationship has none of the delicious repartee of a Tracy and Hepburn, or a Grant and Dunne and only serves to slow down the plot. [05 Feb 1992]

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.

[A] dreary little waste of celluloid. [12 July 1993]

It's a rather insipid rendition of the Alexandre Dumas classic destined to stand in the shadow of earlier movie versions. Oddly enough, this Disney version of the rousing novel leaves a final impression somewhere between lifeless and bland.

All the buzz and talent around a tale that’s sold more than 12 million copies can’t thoroughly mask a sometimes corny, often clunky script, even if most of the lines are delivered by Daisy Edgar-Jones, whose poignant, grounded lead performance is the distinguishing highlight of the enterprise.

Was it attempting a freewheeling jazz form, or is it just messy?

Dark Phoenix is a whiff. The most suspenseful thing that happened had nothing to do with the movie at all, but the theater’s fire alarm that went off during a review screening during the epic climax.

Golding is simply not the right actor for the part. He’s not exactly bad, just miscast and misused. And despite the novel trimmings and flash around him, his character is woefully generic.

For all the hype behind these three characters meeting, and the years it took to get it off the ground, Glass is one big anti-climax.

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.

Roberts has clearly been given a bigger budget and it shows in the nicely realized submerged city the poor young women must navigate. He’s saddled with a terrible film title — 47 meters was the depth of the ocean floor in the first film — but none of that matters once the air tanks and masks go on.

"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?”

It’s so dated there’s even a mention of Halliburton.

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?

Look, we hate to break it to you, it’s not going to end well for many of this privileged set, as they hunt whoever is hunting them. Coherence is also stabbed a lot because a clear motive for the mass murder is really hard to understand.

It seems the filmmaker just can't decide where he wants to go with this movie. It's far too predictable and just not scary enough to be a chilling thriller. It's not clever or sophisticated enough to be campy. It's far too insipid to be taken as a thoughtful psychological drama. And it lacks the smooth, compelling or joyful ride expected of pure entertainment. [06 Aug 1992]

Locked Down is inevitably, and intentionally, of the moment. But I hope some of its off-the-cuff spirit lasts after the pandemic. So much Hollywood moviemaking is laboriously preordained.

The problem with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is the same problem faced by all of the installments — balancing the humanity with the metal.

While it might not knock it out of the park, Edge of the World is still a very solid watch if a little slow-going and might also just inspire you to revisit some of the classics its indebted to which is its own small triumph.

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.

Not only do its two stars have zero chemistry with each other, but the story goes out of its way to over-explain and over-justify the preposterous premise, adding needless complications (like a whole side-plot about his family’s business) and motivations to make everyone more likable and empathetic.

It’s perhaps appropriate that the latest Aquaman movie is about a lost kingdom. In many ways, this mini-franchise is just that, a Jason Momoa kingdom that could just quietly sink below the cinematic waves.

Luckily, Neeson has a way of lending his rough-hewn dignity to even the most perfunctory of plots — because this one, it must be said, is perfunctory.

Director Julius Onah does well with the action but fumbles the quieter moments and supervises editing that’s the opposite of crisp, not helped by script writers who ape military language — “Negative, the package is the priority” — and grandiose sentiment — “The country is lost.”

The writing is wry and occasionally quite funny. It’s not unsurprising that it made for a good play. But on film it moves at a languorous pace. Like its characters, it’s not interested in getting anywhere anytime soon.

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.

Green wobbles as he tries to land this plane and what had been an intriguing premise to talk about fame and the parasitic industries that live off it turns into a gross-out, run-for-it bloodfest and a plot that unravels. It becomes what it intended to satirize — a pop spectacle.

Crazy People is the inspired work of writer Mitch Markowitz ("Good Morning, Vietnam") who started as director but was replaced by Tony Bill. Markowitz's script is bright and original, suffering only in the late portions when the plot has to be tidied up. [11 Apr 1990]

It’s not a bad idea and Union proves more than capable of nailing her Liam Neeson/Bruce Willis moment of save-your-family action stardom, but the movie has trouble sustaining interest even over its brisk 88 minutes.

Is this horror as comedy or comedy as horror? Neither. It's wasted Hollywood talent as tragedy - another lamentable example of a beautiful, multimillion-dollar movie that is breathtaking but so poorly executed that it's forgotten the moment it ends. [21 July 1999]

RoboCop 2 offers yet another argument against the issuance of sequels. [21 June 1990]

It is like an Austen amuse bouche — an entry-level cover version that tries to rev up the humor and speak directly to Gen Z by using its lingo — or at least an advertising executive’s idea of what Gen Z sounds like. But something feels off about the way it is executed.

Tracy Torme's script is laden with plot holes and humdrum dialogue, and Robert Lieberman's direction does little to cure the deficiencies. [16 Mar 1993]

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.

Mostly, Jackpot! is an action-comedy vehicle that pairs Awkwafina and John Cena for a romp through a few clever economic inequality gags and a lot of cartoonish mayhem.

Pearce, sweaty and grungy, steadies Memory; it’s his film as much as Neeson’s.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra and the design team do a great job in every department but are let down by a derivative and baggy screenplay by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani that goes from one violent scene to another like a video game in order to paper over a plot both undercooked and overcooked.

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.

The gorgeous Elizabeth McGovern makes up for the sketchiness with rare depth of feeling.

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.

As much as Neeson might seem to have the special set of skills required to play Marlowe, his detective feels hollow and maybe a little too tired.

The good news is that Without Remorse is pretty great when it comes to the action, and there is a lot of it.

After a bit of a slow start, “Moonfall” gets absolutely trippy in the last third as it details a mind-blowing alternative history to mankind that spans millennia and distant planets and backs it all up with gorgeous, massive special effects. Logic is abandoned altogether but few will care.

The uplifting Edie is worthy of your time, mostly thanks to Hancock and Scotland’s natural beauty.

Plotlines are abandoned at will, there are set ups for things that never come back and some suspiciously malleable “monster-logic” that makes the whole endeavor seem a little lazy and half-baked.

Jenna Ortega’s stark rise as Gen Z’s goth-glam princess takes a pointless, awkward turn in “Miller’s Girl,” a new romantic horror movie about cerebral people that’s simply tiresome.

The only real heroes in this lumbering, over-inflated epic are the army of special effects coordinators and technicians who create a fantastic, otherworldly environment peopled by creatures more weird and threatening than Jabba The Hut. Freddie Francis' photography is constantly impressive. But technical wizardry alone cannot save Dune from a crash landing. [3 Jan 1985]

This party isn’t worth a trip much further than living room.

While Super Troopers 2...may be just enough to satiate any remaining die-hards, it’s not likely to convert many new moviegoers to their syrup-swilling, “meow”-ing ways.

Food, family, a big karaoke scene … and a spotlight on an immigrant community underrepresented in Hollywood. There are worse ways to spend 96 minutes.

Lethal Weapon 3 offends on all levels. With its empty-headed direction and lazy acting, the film deserves to be ignored. [14 May 1992]

Mazursky lets it all run too long, by a half-hour at least, but he also offers a menu of rare delights. [27 Aug 1982]

At certain points that strain all credulity, you’re just hoping Crowe will look up and wink, and maybe whisper his famous “Gladiator” line: “Are you not entertained?” Because then we could laugh along with him — as we can with a humorous tweet he recently sent, promoting the film.

How jokes this offensive can make it to the screen in 2019 is beyond comprehension and a bit of a shame, considering that this has so much else going for it including a delightful late-game appearance by the original Shaft, Richard Roundtree, who looks fantastic, by the way.

The Goldfinch is stoic and sad, occasionally brilliant and more often confusing.

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.

This predictable family drama leads up to an equally predictable battle of goliaths who fight with one arm only. Over the Top boasts one distinction: it is the first major movie about arm-wrestling. Don't look for a cycle to follow. [23 Mar 1987]

There’s always something a little off about Father Stu, a sense that the filmmakers have taken a lot of liberties with a real life to make it extra saintly.

This is a complex man and artist worthy of a complex story, not a would-be-feel-good farce.

It is a slick, well-acted mystery with enough stomach-turning horror to make The Exorcist seem G-rated.

Lawrence of Arabia it ain't. But who cares? The fighting is great, the action nonstop and this guy has killer legs from hell that can drop a 500-pound ninja before he can say Bruce Lee.

The ever-astounding Robin Williams is the battery that makes Toys work. He is at the peak of his inventiveness, yet he never loses the handle on his character. [15 Dec 1992]

The 355, directed by Simon Kinberg (“X-Men: Dark Phoenix”) who co-wrote with Theresa Rebeck (“Smash”), is not an instant classic by any means. It is, however, a straightforward and solidly entertaining spy thriller that (mostly) avoids the impulse to pat itself on the back too obviously.

A Kiss Before Dying longs to be a thriller in the spirit of Alfred Hitchcock, but tailspins into the mire of Bret Easton Ellis. This is a witless, poorly constructed movie, stumbling over plot holes as big as Hitchcock's belly. [22 Apr 1991]

This limp, half-hearted, breezy remake makes some modest improvements. The film, directed by Calmatic, bounces to a hip-hop beat and the gameplay action is smoother. But the drop off in personality from that original trio is like going from the Lakers to the G-League.

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.

A taut, even thoughtful thriller that offers 90 minutes of almost unrelieved tension. The plot is full of unexpected turns, the acting is terrific and the direction holds attention throughout. No "Cobra," this. [1 Oct 1986]

Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco has co-written and stars in this big sloppy Italian American kiss about family that not only leans into stereotypes — working-class Italians on one side, WASPs on the other — but plows the field with them.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is visually marvelous, inconsistently acted and rather incoherent in that fantasy genre way.

It’s a manic movie in a familiarly corporate kind of way that provides kids with a computer-generated candy rush. The movie’s own business imperatives occasionally show through like a leaky diaper.

Here fails to connect all these centuries of human experiences, other than to celebrate the human experience in all its messiness, triumph and sadness.

The Exorcist: Believer never manages anything like the deep terror of the original, and the film’s climactic scenes pass by with a lifeless predictability. Been there, exhumed that.

The story is not only derivative of so many other dystopias and kids with power sagas, but, and perhaps worst of all, it never even really gets going — a clear and infuriating set up for some future installment.

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.

It’s not complicated. But there are worse things in life than 88 minutes of uncomplicated chuckling.

It’s hard to understand how “Ella McCay,” the first original feature from writer-director Brooks in 15 years, goes so utterly haywire.

For much of the film, it’s difficult not to imagine the Saturday Night Live sketch that’s probably already being written. More than the age difference, though, Platt’s performance is a constant reminder of Broadway artificiality in a movie striving for something real.