A work that proves hopelessly at odds with itself all the way to a conclusion that fizzles at the moment it should explode.

It takes its time—quite frankly, too long—to deliver the gruesome goods/

What’s missing, however, is a payoff worthy of his set-up, resulting in a diverting thriller that drags its way to an underwhelming finale.

As a showcase for the inimitable Dafoe it has its minor freaky-deaky pleasures. Ultimately, though, it goes nowhere—literally and figuratively.

There’s nothing very unsettling about its eventual horrors, in large part because the film is too infatuated with its sleek style to get its hands dirty.

Just as there’s no reference to the many falsehoods Diana has apparently told about her past, there’s zero overt mention of the controversy surrounding her signature triumph—thereby proving that the film cares more about rah-rah uplift than thorny inquiry or messy reality.

It all resembles a lot of cosplaying, although its central failing is foregrounding cacophonous mayhem and middling melodrama over the drollness that defined the first two Ghostbusters movies.

A hot-blooded crime story whose affectations outweigh its subversions.

Part Die Hard, part wish-fulfillment saga for a post-2024 present that didn’t come to pass, it’s a fantasy of feminist and U.S. might that’s chockablock with implausibilities.

It's content to be childishly silly rather than legitimately weird, veering between gags concerning age-old products and Jan. 6 with a mildness that keeps things pleasantly pedestrian.

Its formal showmanship unconvincing and off-putting, the film is a case study in the hazards of prizing style over substance.

There’s not much to latch onto here except the faint flickers of the better film this one, with more care and attention to detail, might have been.

Unlike its unique and fantastical title creature, it’s a commonplace monster mash which serves up only frenzied commotion and tired social commentary.

Undone by storytelling that, however well-intentioned, coats its real-life tale in a corny Hollywood sheen.

While its humor often sticks, its mayhem fails to land.

Love Machina’s scattershot structure does its subjects no favors, with the film taking a variety of meandering detours until its overarching purpose grows hazy.

In trying to have it both ways, it succeeds in neither, in the process stranding its charming leading man in a saga that needed to be either goofier or more gruesome.

Without greater context, though, Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case comes across as slight, and that notion is reinforced by a finale that draws no meaningful lessons from its tragic saga.

The epitome of a knock-off B-movie—and one that’s only mildly entertaining when it shows its cards and goes full-on gonzo.

It isn’t a debacle, but it also won’t have genre aficionados howling for more.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare would seem to be an almost ideal project for Ritchie—which is why its lethargy comes as such a dispiriting surprise.

So expansive and incomplete that it resembles a modern television series awkwardly edited into feature form.

Exhibits a superficial interest in ribald revelry and yet, in most respects, neuters its wilder impulses.

Only receiving a multiplex release because Warner Bros had to do so in order to maintain the franchise’s theatrical rights, it’s inconsequential and hackneyed to the point of being forgettable.

This rote affair would deserve the designation “for fans only,” if not for the sneaking suspicion that even they won’t be wowed by this return trip to Panem.

So rote that even an A.I. wouldn’t dare try to pass it off as original.

It’s as big a swing as any in Besson’s career, and consequently, when it wholly and embarrassingly misses, the blow back is borderline overpowering.

A sluggish and monotonous country-ified neo-noir that fails to innovate and, worse, to utilize its magnetic leading lady and her capable co-stars.