Hess gets her romance just grounded enough to handle the comic extremes supplied by the supporting cast.

Harry and the Hendersons is a disappointment.

There’s no shortage of eye candy on display, with acrobats, dancers, fireworks and carnival rides providing a colorful backdrop to the fairly formulaic story arc. The lack of specific background on the event's origins and history is somewhat frustrating, however, since the 85-minute runtime could certainly accommodate further exploration.

A reasonably entertaining popcorn movie experience.

The characters are ciphers, the narrative is dull and even the sights and sounds become numbingly bombastic after a while.

The script succeeds by expanding the Paranormal Activity mythology with additional details and even a few surprising twists.

Very much a lesson, and a repetitive and uneven one at that, GhettoPhysics succeeds at least as a conversation starter.

It’s ultimately a mixed bag, with the final moments acquiring an emotional power that should be felt sooner.

An all-access pass to an artist embarking on a new path, this is entertaining stuff – funny, disarming, even poignant. It's also jammed with terrific music.

Striking nary an unfamiliar note, The Song sluggishly lurches towards its predictable conclusion — spoiler alert, Jed sees the error of his ways — but it does offer some pleasures along the way.

You'd think the team of Rob Reiner, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman might have had the right stuff. Alas, their labored efforts fail to lift The Bucket List out of its flatlining state.

Their inside jape is unfortunately not as much fun for the audience as it may have been for the filmmakers, though it does have its piquant moments. But it’s not consistently entertaining enough either as a spoof or as a thriller.

Predictable from first moment to last, it does at least provide a showcase for lacrosse, a sport heretofore cinematically unexploited.

The film isn't just not funny, it is off-putting.

Despite solid performances from Edebiri and Malkovich, Opus never takes off. It mostly meanders, relying on leaden expository monologues to move the plot, and rarely delivers on the promised horror of its atmosphere.

Travolta has/is a blast in an action-thriller-comedy that otherwise comes up short.

Beckinsale delivers even if Underworld doesn't quite manage to follow through on its initial promise.

The film starts out as a gentle Hollywood satire, shifts abruptly into a comedy of (bad) manners, turns into a crime story and deviates into a suicide attempt before it reverts to a Hollywood satire with a happy ending. No Hollywood satire should ever have a happy ending.

It’s rare to see an ensemble film where the cast feels like it has no weak links, but Doyle has assembled a group of fine actors with buoyant onscreen chemistry across the board, and this grounds the movie from the start.

The millions of man hours put into producing this techno shock and awe must be staggering. Everyone got his job done, but somewhere along the way, the movie got lost.

The film remains stranded in a sort of genre no man’s land.

Below Her Mouth (you can use your imagination regarding the title) is an undeniably steamy effort that delivers plenty of heat in its sex scenes while falling significantly short in dramatic terms.

The result, Chronicling a Crisis, is an admittedly harrowing exercise in solipsism that will be of little interest to anyone besides the director's diehard fans and perhaps his therapist.

Initially more a series of gags than a cohesive narrative, Merkins gets by on its considerable wit and a few genuinely hilarious moments for the first hour, then tries to play catch-up in the final 30 minutes by attempting to capitalize on marginal subplots.

Madea is starting to look a little tired.

The visuals are undeniably dreamy, but they mostly seem borrowed from other filmmakers’ dreams.

Union certainly dedicates herself to all the huffing, running, jumping and emoting, though her efforts never counter Breaking In’s aura of trashiness and disposability.

Far from being overkill, the well-conceived drama featuring A-listers Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth in key roles, will bring this infuriating tale of injustice to many mainstream moviegoers for the first time.

The film manages to generate only mild shocks and surprises.

The ingredients for an engagingly ridiculous action pic are here, but the pacing's all wrong.

The picture rarely makes that business much to look at, providing some kind of energy to offset the actor's appropriate reserve. It feels rather plodding as a result, failing to turn the boxer's conflicting loyalties into the stuff of crime-flick high drama.

The comedy lacks the stakes to engage more than passing interest. And while there are plenty of sole-related puns, the film is so frenetic in focus that most of them don’t really land.

The movie aims to make Daphne's journey raw and real, but mostly it's just insipid.

Some of that frenetic running around has been replaced by inspired effects sequences and amusing riffs by the talented cast, especially new arrivals Hank Azaria and Amy Adams.

This not-quite-a-feature is basically harmless, a wallow in nostalgia so innocuous that it’s hard to begrudge its aviation-crazed creator with connections sufficient to indulge his whim.

The gritty pic's aesthetic scratches an itch for lovers of '70s/'80s urban grime. But atmosphere and attitude overwhelm story here, and trotting out old tropes like amnesia doesn't help.

Infusing its generic horror tropes with vaguely satirical aspects, the film doesn't really work on either level. Unintentionally campy (or purposely, it's hard to tell) and marred by ridiculous plotting and dialogue, #Horror is mostly just a horror.

The movie is awfully close to a video game with its own specific rules, but its characters are appealing and funny, "Aliens" doesn't have a mechanical feel that drags down most video-game movies.

Good People follows a familiar thriller template without managing to be particularly compelling.

Genre enthusiasts will lap up the mixture of action and fantasy, while history buffs who don't mind a bit of rewriting will dig into an alternative spin on the Civil War period.

Furhman plays pure evil with such supreme calmness that only her eyes shine with madness. Indeed, all of the child actors are superb, especially the expressive Engineer.

This B-movie, reminiscent of '70s era grindhouse fare, is a reasonably proficient and professional debut that fulfills its modest aspirations.

Sacrifices suspense and narrative coherence for moody atmospherics and hallucinatory visuals. Uninvolving to the extreme, She's Missing misses the mark entirely.

Masciale and screenwriter Luke Barnett, both Funny or Die regulars, have crafted a playfully humorous sendup that’s more about poking fun at their characters than tearing down faith-based filmmaking.

In lieu of a throughline, Beauty offers beautiful, indulgent vignettes — aesthetically pleasing and immersive episodes lacking in ideas but full of vibes.

Adheres sufficiently closely to the original template so as not to offend purists and manages to pack an intensely visceral punch of its own, most effectively in the extended setup.

Persuasion is sufficiently bold and consistent with its flagrant liberties to get away with them. It also helps that the novel’s long-suffering protagonist, Anne Elliot, has been given irrepressible spirit and an irreverent sense of irony in Dakota Johnson’s incandescent performance.

Despite an outlandish premise, Next suffers from being too conventional.

That outrageous third-act reveal proves to be a major deal-breaker.

Clearly, all this is designed to provoke adverse reactions. But what if instead of outrage and indignation, the response was a numb shrug? Don't get me wrong — The House That Jack Built is definitely something to see. But what's most surprising is that it's just as often inane as unsettling.

Michael Dowse's aggressively unfunny film which seeks the lowest common denominator in nearly every scene.

A flavorless literary adaptation sunk by a lead actor, screenwriter and co-directors that are all out of their depth.

Stacey Menear's screenplay doesn't manage to sustain its clever premise, with the final act featuring a banal and formulaic revelation that unfortunately takes what had been a spooky haunted house tale into familiar slasher movie territory.

Never really gets up to speed on any engrossing level, save for Michael Hardwick's notable cinematography.

Painstakingly formulaic and uninspired (it could have been called The Mighty Guts), the lumbering comedy will unlikely make much of a dent at the boxoffice. [17 Feb 1995]

A bland romantic comedy in the Richard Curtis style, The Decoy Bride is mainly notable for its proof, if any was needed after "Boardwalk Empire," that Kelly Macdonald is a major talent.

Leads Javier Bardem and Elle Fanning are commanding actors who give it all they’ve got to make their characters realistic, but while the film can be intriguing, it is never truly moving.

Reduced to a teen girl empowerment vehicle that trots out every show business cliche about sacrificing your values for stardom, the film is a non-starter.

With brilliant comedians like Hahn and new addition Christine Baranski on board, there are line readings that pop and jokes that land.... But A Bad Moms Christmas is louder, busier and more pandering than the original — an exhausting spectacle of skilled performers gamely mugging their way through a cash grab.

The problem is that all the various strands — the parallel tales — dilute our access to the characters, limiting their dimensions.

The movie delivers a modicum of magic without getting pious or gushy. It never soars, though, or burns especially bright.

Loaded with dark humor, Bates’ script faces considerable challenges developing sympathetic characters.

Green has made exactly the kind of witless, worthless sequel that bled the franchise dry in the 1980s and ’90s.

While youngsters might enjoy the movie, more discerning tweens, teens and adults will not be as easily amused.

While Back Roads doesn't live up to its considerable dramatic and thematic ambitions, it provides a strong opportunity for its filmmaker/star to stretch his dramatic muscles in the lead role.

[A] sweet, semi-romantic road trip.

A lame and disappointing affair.

The People We Hate at the Wedding doesn’t stray too far from the formula of our streaming-dominated visual landscape, but a witty screenplay from the Molyneux sisters and strong performances from Janney, Platt and Bell make it reliably diverting.

Like a beltway surrounding its hero’s bloviating ego trips and massive libido, the film keeps turning in circles around a subject that’s only truly interesting if you’re Philip himself.

Suburbicon is just too obvious in its satirical depiction of the dubious morality and social inequality behind the squeaky-clean façade of postwar American life, though it's watchable enough, and a distinct improvement for Clooney on his last directorial outing.

Courageous reveals the duo's growing expertise as filmmakers with its skillful blending of moving drama, subtle comedy and several impressive action sequences, including a well-staged foot chase and a harrowing shootout between the cops and bad guys.

Reliant on suspense rather than gore, this is functional middle-brow psychological horror and screenwriter Joe Croker finds plenty of tired haunted house tropes he’s happy to recycle in adapting material from Susan Hill’s original novel.

From one moment to the next, it's possible to on some level enjoy the shaking up of tired conventions in a swordplay fantasy such as this and then to be dismayed by the lowbrow vulgarity of what's ended up onscreen. The film gives with one hand and takes away with the other, which can be frustrating in what's meant to be an entertainment.

You might think that director Michael Bay is angling to make his star, Ryan Reynolds, the Tom Cruise of a dumber, car-crashier version of the Mission: Impossible films. But what his new 6 Underground actually feels like is the over-serious pilot episode of a gimmick-d

It’s all tremendously silly but somehow it works, thanks to combat choreography that would make Jackie Chan proud and the introduction of America’s premiere new comedy team, Awkwafina and John Cena.

An essentially two-character drama that would have been far more effective onstage, Brett C. Leonard's Jailbait is ultimately as claustrophobic as its setting.

A Wink and a Smile tries to tame burlesque, make it something to laugh at -- or worse, something that requires no skill.

A stirring romantic drama centering on the last royal heir to the native line of traditional monarchs.

There are teasing glimpses of artistic genius in A Dog Called Money, but eccentric choices and muddled intentions, too. A talent as strong and singular as Harvey deserves a more probing, less indulgent film than this.

A Die Hard ripoff that forgets most of the lessons that action classic has to teach, Ryuhei Kitamura's The Doorman forgets first of all what a little bit — even a shred — of wit can do for a movie that otherwise relies on bullets and brawn.

Director Alex Proyas resolutely thinks in B-movie terms. Even with an A-list budget, he oversells every plot point and gooses the thrills with hokey lighting, bombastic music and serious overacting.

As the band of adventurers skips from one supersized Survivor-like challenge to the next, one can't help feeling the creative potential of Verne's vision is wasted.

The picture might not be as fresh and clever as it could have been, but its spirited voice cast delivers the whole enchilada.

Every scene is on the prowl for laughs at the expense of the inherent drama in the lives of its colorful characters.

Matching the screenplay’s lack of nuance, Campbell (Casino Royale, The Protégé) orchestrates the proceedings with a flat efficacy, stringing together familiar action beats and churning up little that rings true.

Lame and unconvincing teen comedy.

Improbable and generally unfunny comedy.

A visually lavish epic fantasy that happily marries the latest advances in CGI and action techniques with ancient Chinese fable and a Buddhist atmosphere.

Amid the would-be and actual laughs, the screenplay tries to drum up drama, but every disagreement and tension is treated superficially and summarily resolved.

As directed by Bill Condon (Sister, Sister) it could be redubbed "Farewell to the Fresh," having been watered down into a standard, run-of-the-mill slasher film, the only remaining hook being the one that its one-handed heavy uses to impale his victims. [17 Mar 1995]

There is surprisingly little emotional resonance with the well-drawn and acted characters, making it a tiring two and a half hour trek for filmgoers who don't have a stake in the history it recounts.

Johnson creates a magnetic antihero, volatile and antisocial. He doesn’t fly so much as stalk the sky; he swats opponents like the bundles of weightless CG pixels they are. And this passion project serves the character well, setting him up for adventures one hopes will be less predictable than this one.

But it's Scott who fully carries the film, helping us overlook the story's contrivances with his moving and intense performance as a character who is as far removed from Professor Moriarty as you can get.

Despite its obvious lack of objectivity, Clarence Thomas: In His Own Words proves an undeniably important historical document, if only for the rare opportunity it provides to hear from its subject directly. Unfortunately, the unintentional portrait it paints is hardly a flattering one, although obviously many will disagree.

Reveals itself to be far too stagebound to function effectively onscreen.

Pound of Flesh should reasonably satisfy his core fans, even if they're more likely to watch it on VOD than in theaters.

Severely wasting the talents of Rosemary DeWitt, who really, really deserves better material, Arizona is as arid and barren as the state that provides its title.

So fetishistic about high-powered weapons that it qualifies as an NRA wet dream, G.I. Joe: Retaliation pretty accurately reflects the franchise's comic book and cartoon origins, which is both a good and a bad thing: good if you're a 12- to 15-year-old boy, bad if you're just about anyone else.