While Nicholas Hytner’s new film The Choral is, above all, exceedingly polite, there is no need to be genteel about the movie’s qualities. This is a period piece of insignificant impact and distressingly drippy intentions, its filmmakers so concerned with their project being considered handsome and respectable that they fail to spark any emotional response beyond the most passive of shoulder shrugs.

The corporate-synergy-ness of it all is both deeply distressing and unintentionally fascinating.

When Ben Wheatley is having a laugh, he can make for a perversely pleasant genre tour-guide. When he starts to get high off his own supply, though, it’s best to hike back to civilization.

A movie so dumb that it has tricked itself into thinking it is smart enough to be self-knowingly stupid, the new astronaut thriller, I.S.S., is a true waste of inner and outer space.

At least Without Remorse gets one thing right: casting onscreen dynamo Michael B. Jordan as the out-for-blood hero.

Ares is a mostly disposable and thoroughly dumb product of lazy franchise fetishism from filmmakers who could not seem to care less about what story they are trying to tell. But as a two-hour visual screensaver to a thunderous and hypnotic Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, Ares rules.

A pharmaceutical-industry satire so flaccid that it’s in desperate need of Cialis, Death of a Unicorn is destined to fade into the mythical margins of cinematic history, with future moviegoers convinced that – like its title creature – the film never really existed at all.

There is no guts to Pain Hustlers’ try-hard gonzo-ness, resulting in a sub-Scorsese style that both underlines and loses its point.

Silent Night is all needlessly protracted foreplay, a true “when are they going to get to the fireworks factory?” tease of an action movie. And when Woo finally does light things up with only 15 minutes to go, the result is a limp pop of sparks, easily extinguishable.

Eventually, The Unholy reveals itself not to be an entertaining ride to Hell but an earnest sales pitch for the power of Christ. Fair enough. But for Easter 2021, I was hoping for something a little more enjoyably demonic and less been-there-redeemed-that. Let us pray.

If you’re going to make a movie in which a psycho slices away at both campers and counsellors in direct homage to the age of Jason Voorhees, you need to go scuzzy or go home. A proper slasher movie should make you want to take a shower. Here, I felt sparkling clean.

It is all extraordinarily interminable, even if Yates and company had the good sense to swap out Johnny Depp for Mikkelsen this time around.

While Ed Harris, as the cruel patriarch of the Redfellows, is not so much phoning his role in as he is sending it by carrier pigeon, it is Margaret Qualley and Glen Powell who do the most unintentional damage.

While there are several moments in the film, including two extended monologues, that remind audiences just how ferociously committed a performer Daniel can be, so much of Anemone feels a few dozen workshops away from being camera-ready.

The worst side effect of Hall’s thin and sizzle-free script is that it encourages Johnson and Penn to go overboard in a bid to compensate.

The film’s heart may be in the right place, but a melodramatic score, pastoral cinematography and deeply sentimental character arcs make for an altogether mediocre drama, not an urgent thriller.

Sound the alarm, hide the children and lock the doors: another Purge movie is here. And it’s deadlier, and dumber, than ever.

While one-time teen dreams Hewitt and Prinze Jr. earn their paydays by lending a semblance of gravitas to the silliness, their brief on-screen presence only underline the lifelessness of today’s fresh meat.

Jolt is a perplexing mix-up of genre and intentions. From one scene to the next, I had no real understanding of where the film might go next – but instead of anticipating the unpredictable, I came to quickly dread the arbitrariness.

The result is an indecisive and shapeless drama that never seems confident in the characters or situations it has created.

So for those asking the obvious: Yes, Awake should put you to sleep rather quickly.

Simien is no doubt a talented storyteller – his work on Dear White People, both the film and Netflix series, is evidence enough. But his vision here is clouded by corporate obligations and a woefully weak script by Katie Dippold, who herself is much funnier in every one of her other projects.

Alternately tedious, cacophonous and stultifying, the latest show of force from writer-director Alex Garland following last year’s equally frustrating Civil War just might be the most unnecessarily unpleasant cinematic experience you will endure this year.

Food, Inc. 2 follows the formula of its predecessor so closely, it’s difficult to understand why it was made at all.

While the content of the film is flat, Ackie truly shines as Whitney throughout the various stages of her career, and manages to bring the star’s energy and charisma to life.

For all the behind-the-scenes footage and ostensible opportunities to grill Michaels about everything and anything, Neville’s film walks away with the impression and insight that anyone paying even half-attention to network television over the past few decades already knows.

Even Dan Aykroyd and Kim Basinger together, acting their hearts out, can't move this turgid script to liftoff velocity. [15 Dec 1988]

Cherry is a mess. Nonsensically stylized, wildly overlong and constantly mistaking yelling for dramatic tension, the film unintentionally underlines everything that made the Russos’ Avengers films so sloppy .

Starring De Niro and Bobby Cannavale as two generations of “whaddya talking about!?” Noo Yawkers and directed by sometimes actor Tony Goldwyn, so much of Ezra feels like a “favour” film – a good excuse for a well-liked director to persuade friends to hang out with each other for a few weeks of shooting, without delivering something worthy of their collected talents.

Gran Turismo can never rise above its stakeholder’s portfolios because it’s never interested enough in its human characters.

Most of Nattiv’s film is a dry and frustrating affair.

With what is clearly Perrault’s first feature script, the stars here struggle to keep up their energy in what adds up to be 93 minutes of crude jokes.

Spiral too often gets in its own way and reveals its internal machinations before they’re due.

At this point in his career, Clooney is more than a seasoned director, yet The Tender Bar lacks any artistic vision. We’re left with the type of movie that you snooze through on a Sunday afternoon – or in a high-school English class.

Wasting Collette’s comedic talent and Monica Bellucci’s commanding onscreen presence, the film takes what could be a subversive comment on female rage and turns it into slapstick, failing to give any character enough dimension to warrant spending 90 minutes with them.

More an extreme theatre-school exercise than a substantive act of filmmaking, the new drama Wolf is one wild, rabid mess.

Director Ross and his stars have been eagerly comparing Undercover Blues to the Thin Man movies of yore. True, both feature a bantering husband and wife team that excels at crimebusting, but Nick and Nora Charles had more substance - and, for that matter, more style - than Jeff and Jane Blue. And unlike their modern imitators, Nick and Nora had the good taste not to smile so overbearingly that you wanted to punch them. [13 Sept 1993]

SOMEWHERE in the muddle that is Mr. Jones, there's a good movie trying to get out. And somewhere in the actor that is Richard Gere, there's a good performance hatching a similar escape. But, all tied up by an erratic script, spotty direction and a Hollywood ending, neither makes it, leaving us with the cinematic equivalent of the high-school underachiever - loads of potential, none of it realized. [9 Oct 1993]

While Robinson’s lecture is thought-provoking and his living tour of that same history is illuminating, the Kunstlers don’t add much in terms of directorial vision. Robinson is an apt orator and tour guide, but the literal translation of his lecture to screen lacks life and suffers from the inherent banality that comes with watching a recording of someone – no matter how charismatic – speaking to a live audience we are not part of.

For a film about memories, Reminiscence is ultimately truly forgettable.

Only the comedy is successful, and only intermittently. [14 Jan 1989]

There are some laughs here and the cast is accomplished, but this patchwork comedy is a tad threadbare. The bottom-line school of filmmaking. [18 Aug 1990]

By the end, the people being betrayed are the fans.

There is a specific tone to films scheduled for a holiday release – in short, they’re corny. And while that’s not always a bad thing, this year’s yuletide flick, A Journal for Jordan, feels particularly dated and often times emotionally cloying.

It's awfully hard to think of Alan Alda as an auteur. There's just nothing remotely distinctive about his feature work, except perhaps a sitcom softness at the centre - forgettably sweet to those who like that sort of thing, forgettably saccharine to those who don't, but forgettable in either case. [22 Jun 1990]

Even though the latest horror-franchise resurrection from intellectual-property gravedigger David Gordon Green (Halloween) isn’t sullying a spotless brand, The Exorcist: Believer still reeks of sulfur-scented soullessness. The moviegoing body may be willing, but the cinematic flesh is weak.

Throughout it all, Winton remains a cypher. There’s no curiosity here about him or the people he dedicated his time to. There’s no emotional journey to help us understand him and the stubborn modesty that made him so reluctant to share his story.

There are enough secrets, lies and tepidly chaste sex scenes – both of the straight and same-sex variety – to fill a hundred kitchen sinks. But the resulting drama is all drips and drops, no deluge.

While Ellis-Taylor is, as always, magnetic onscreen, Origin fails her talents, as well as both its characters and story, by reproducing the flaws of Wilkerson’s book with a stoic conviction.

The movie, about a doped-up black bear, is a much more lethargic affair, as if the apex predator’s supply was swapped out for some Ativan.

There is something perversely impressive about a movie that can make globe-trotting adventure seem so relentlessly boring.

While the original Now You See Me had a winking audacity that leaned into the absurdity of its bag of tricks, the newest installment feels rote and lacks the thrill of genuine surprise.

To director Gilles de Maistre’s credit, a story about two astonishingly different animals – who still share a friendship – is rife with footage that puts almost every Dodo video to shame. Yet sadly, nearly all human interactions weigh it down to the point of creating a frustrating, dramatic and heavy-handed film.

Harrelson never seems to have his head in the game, and not because he’s playing a character just waiting for his shot to coach the NBA. He and Farrelly appear to be slumming it in much the same way that Marcus is, as if their basic efforts working with a cast with special needs is feel-good and charitable enough.

One of those unmemorable summer movies about which the only good thing you can say is that it has charm. Nothing for everyone. [17 Jun 1994]

Too tame in its violence to be thrilling, too flat in its gags to be funny, and too PG-minded to be genuinely sexy, Morel’s film arrives and exits like a mild breeze – totally and utterly forgettable. John Cena deserves better. And so do we.

Mr. Destiny is a sedated puppy of a movie - meant to be all warm and cuddly, it just lies there like a furry lump, waiting for an invigorating spark that never comes. You almost feel sorry for the inert thing - it wants so much to be loved, and does so little to earn it. [16 Oct 1990]

The cast, including the Sheen clan, brings more grace to this material than it deserves, but that only seems to highlight the problem - it's like putting leather-binding on a Hubert Humphrey monologue. [22 Mar 1991]

Honey Don’t! attempts another go at a mock, low-brow outing reimagined through a queer lens, but suffers irrevocably from an uncompelling mystery, patterned by a series of gags that leads nowhere.

Even though Frank Marshall's latest film Alive is based on a true story of survival, it lacks the very qualities it means to celebrate - spark, imagination and spirit. [16 Jan 1993]

The band’s story should be a compelling one to tell. But The Kids in the Crowd glazes over the kind of story Simple Plan deserves, instead tending toward a superficial kind of fan service.

Certainly, this is meant to be a bittersweet tale of the ties that bind the generations, of the love-hate relationship between a demanding Daddy and his amiable offspring. But nothing really develops, nothing ever connects. [02 Mar 1984]

The actors do their darndest but the script puts few psychological thrills in the thriller, leaving them to work in a vacuum. [27 June 1992]

Admittedly, Home Alone is a tough act to follow, but the Columbus-Hughes aura will probably need vigorous polishing after Only the Lonely. [25 May 1991]

The kind of schlock that is impervious to criticism. Take it seriously and you look like a fool; evaluate it on its own comic-strip terms and you are reduced to talking about costumes and special effects. [04 Apr 1979]

Shyamalan 2.0 is shaping up to be an elegant filmmaker whose work could use more torque. Images like Fanning’s golden locks disappearing into the cold grey fog or reflections layered upon reflections during a climactic stand off caught my eye, if not my breath.

Watching a merely adequate thriller is like eating an ungarnished hot dog - it goes down all right, but where's the spice and what's the point? Narrow Margin combines a solid cast with workmanlike direction and a decent if undistinguished script. Add it up and...you guessed it...all dog and no garnish. [24 Sep 1990]

Thematically, structurally, narratively (hell, pick your adverb), this effort goes way past thin - Flesh And Bone is anorexic. [05 Nov 1993]

Even when the maximalist visuals grab hold – as in, by your collar with an unpleasant yank – it is hard to feel much but exhaustion.

This film is a dud all on its own, a watered down Woody Allen facsimile that is long on F-bombs and short on wit, with an internal logic that falls apart with barely a half-cocked glance.

As interesting as reading the computer code that was used to create the original Mortal Kombat video game, and about as fun as getting your spine torn out.

It’s all too silly to arouse, but too garish and annoying to be thoughtful. It feels as if Fennell is torn between having her cake and eating it out, too.

More often than not, Heads of State feels as if it is missing its own leader, as if the director was simply a package lost in the Prime delivery mail.

A House of Dynamite doesn’t so much self-destruct as fail to even ignite a spark.

Imaginary is as dour a slog as M3GAN was a bloody bit of self-aware camp.

In a more controlled and less punishing film, Lawrence’s deeply committed performance would be the discussion of the year. Yet she has tossed herself to the wolves here, the star provided no care or cover by her director. What is the point in going so raw, so feral, if the result is so scattered, so interminable, so irredeemably silly?

When you combine the megawattage of Gyllenhaal and Adams with Ford’s directorial … well, “prowess” would be too strong a word, so let’s go with “vision.” So, when you combine those two actors with Ford’s vision, what you get is a ridiculous, high-camp mess that could easily be mistaken for substance, if it weren’t so irredeemably silly.

The boorish, juvenile Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is the proverbial turd in the Jacuzzi – you can’t pin down who’s responsible, but it’s a floater that ruins the party.

Like the nasty comic books of many a misspent youth, Creepshow 2 is, deliberately, a sometimes lurid and overdrawn anthology. It consists of three unconnected tales of modern American death, a Creepshow comic book come to life. It is as if Romero and director Michael Gornick are determined to spare grownups the embarrassment of taking horror seriously. [01 June 1987]

If you have missed Janis Joplin, and if you have looked forward to Bette Midler's debut in a role she seemed born to play, you should leave the theatre at that precise moment. Almost everything else in and about The Rose, except a few concert sequences and the occasional occasions when Miss Midler falls out of character and into her stage persona of The Divine Miss M, is infuriatingly tedious, depressing, pretentious, obvious and downright pushy. [10 Nov 1979]

The movie, which banks on the popularity of the rest of the series rather than concern itself with details such as motive, doesn’t add up to much. Annabelle: Creation is a series of slowly opened doors and close-ups of a truly ugly doll whose makeup must have been done in the dark by a deranged artist similarly possessed.

A lazy, hasty effort that offers little beyond a few jack-in-the-box startles and a high body count, including Hewitt's bouncing about in a shirt half-unbuttoned over a bikini top.

Though Lillard's excitable tone keeps promising wild comic adventures, the sequences are uniformly flat and humour-free.

Other than a few gratuitous montage sequences, plus a patently clumsy echo of the shopping scene in "Pretty Woman," Marshall refuses to pull his share of the load, forcing his beleaguered cast to fend for themselves.

Distinctly humdrum, The Last Legion, a boy's adventure story that seems to have been dragged out of the vaults of some early-sixties TV series.

The Boondock Saints II does, from time to time, display a vulgar charm. Or maybe it just wears you out.

Stylistically, Baird seems keen to position Filth as a spiritual sequel to "Trainspotting."

Nothing - not great actors, brilliant direction, splendid costumes or beautiful people - could boost Troop Beverly Hills over the obstacle presented by its screenplay. [22 March 1989]

It's not really serious, not especially funny, and not noticeably scary. Strikeout.

At times, the film is more fun than it deserves to be, and it's probably a lot more fun if you're a 13-year-old with an addiction to "Bully: Scholarship Edition."

The film doesn't work, it ain't charming.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is not faring well as a horror-movie scream queen. Gone are the attitude, wit and verve she used to routinely display in the title role of TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

As directed by Bob Giraldi, well-known for his work in rock videos, Hiding Out manages to offer a brief catalogue of the cliches from both genres, before allowing the teen flick to take over. The film is essentially a series of comedy bits in the service of an MTV soundtrack. That soundtrack, which includes the first revelation of K.D. Lang and Roy Orbison's duet on Crying, may be the film's only creditable achievement. [10 Nov 1987]

Now, forcibly deported to Chicago and peopled with American stars, the same story is huffed and puffed and squeezed into an entirely different cultural context. Guess what? Sayonara sushi, hello turkey.

The Wraith reveals itself as little more than formula teen-audience lure. Of some merit to the whole enterprise are two things: the lovingly photographed desert scenery and the hip and lively music score that drowns out most of the turgid dialogue. As far as the acting goes, it's a pity there are no blinds on the screen. [25 Nov 1986, p.D7]

The biggest high comes from the images evoked by the title alone, or the title in tandem with the movie poster, doesn't it?

A British flick based on the first novel in a popular teenage spy-thriller series by Anthony Horowitz, looks promising but, unfortunately, doesn't measure up.

As a story, The Star Chamber is a better comedy than mystery thriller. Even Yaphet Kotto's fine performance as the coldly objective homicide detective, Harry Lowes, can't save the film from its inherent absurdity. [5 Aug 1983]