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]