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.