For a movie that should provide the comfort of the romance genre, People We Meet on Vacation usually tops out at being blandly pleasant.

You’ll come away from this film remembering some of the better moments, and a few of the quieter interactions between the characters, but they’ll be mostly overpowered by the stench of everything else.

The first two courses of this three-course meal were on the bland side. The third course is exciting, but by that point our appetite has waned, our interest in the company has dissipated, and we’re pretty much ready to go home.

Frantz too often belabors the obvious and ultimately blunts its own message.

Outside of its major assets, which include “I, Tonya” scene-stealer Paul Walter Hauser’s unapologetically showy performance as Jewell and Sam Rockwell’s sardonic turn as his underdog lawyer, there’s a mystifying lack of clarity to the dramatic impact this retelling is seeking.

The first hour or so of Mothering Sunday can be very enjoyable because Husson (“Girls of the Sun”) does not take what little narrative there is too seriously and instead dedicates herself to making O’Connor into the most attractive possible love object for her camera.

The Best of Enemies tries to remind us that simple solutions might exist if we could open our minds, but it undercuts itself by shortchanging its black female lead and ending on a very maudlin note that lacks punch.

By the time the film was finished, I felt ready to move on from these characters. But I was definitely ready to learn more about Norwood.

The Mulleavys have what it takes to continue in film if they decide to pursue this path, with a firm, confident hold on light, texture, color, mood, sound, and physical space. So if Woodshock is, ultimately, unsatisfying, it’s not because they haven’t put in the time to immerse you in their obsessions.

The movie equivalent of a diverting beach read.

Blacklight is an unsurprisingly tepid action thriller which extends this odd phase of Neeson’s career, but the best thing that can probably be said about it is that it’s not materially worse than most of the others.

“Secret” contains a passel of interesting ideas and effective scenes that don’t add up to an interesting whole.

As handsomely mounted, TV-movie-quality cinema goes, “Light in Darkness” is at once the best looking, most coherent, and least histrionic of the franchise.

Perhaps if 21 Bridges just settled on being a mildly entertaining single-night cop thriller, it could have gotten by on its well-shot action scenes and A-list cast. But once it introduces concepts it’s unable to fulfill, it becomes a massive disappointment.

A hodgepodge of exuberant stylistic flourishes and pop culture references, and while it’s often briefly entertaining, it’s never consistently anything except manic.

The news is only important insofar as it helps us understand the world. Best of Enemies, though, is only interested in zooming in to gaze lingeringly at the media’s navel.

If In Your Dreams was too entertaining it would contradict its own message about the perils of escapism. But it might not be entertaining enough to make audiences want to stay until the message comes through. Call it a design flaw.

If “Wonder Woman” provided a glimmer of hope that DC Comics movies might start looking, moving and sounding differently than before, Justice League plops us right back into “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” territory, albeit with a little more wit and humanity.

Blair Witch does manage to generate occasional moments of tension, particularly when it strays from the first film’s narrative and peeks into some new dark corners.

For every interview there is with a journalist offering more of this, there is one that just meanders with a notorious influencer that should have probably been cut.

Though it’s bolstered primarily by the charisma of Bale and Damon’s performances, the soulless yet thrilling Ford v Ferrari doesn’t provide much more than huffy banter, corporate rivalry, and an adrenaline rush. The real-life characters deserve more than that.

Wittock’s film is ultimately more of a well-intended melodramatic experiment than a fully realized love story about one of the more curious corners of humanity’s sexual-psychological tapestry.

There’s no denying that the tale of Colin Warner, a man who spent decades behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, is a powerful one, but writer-director Matt Ruskin doesn’t give us anything here that a documentary couldn’t do better.

McGregor’s movie is a half-hearted transcript with no heart of its own, one that commits the ultimate sin of making you wonder whether the book it’s based on could possibly be any good in the first place.

Hiddleston, who does his own singing, doesn’t get to show off his chops very often. But when he does, the film comes alive, particularly when Williams finally makes it to the Opry.

The death- and religion-obsessed Wish I Was Here is such a manifestly personal project that it's a shame it isn't even more idiosyncratic.

Actor-turned-filmmaker Fran Kranz’s choice of subject matter for his feature debut is certainly timely and provocative, but the emotions are too big and too messily human to fit into the tight box he has constructed to contain them.

It’s a lightly-indulgent passion project that leaves us wanting so much more.

It's a lengthy burlesque on paranoia, on conspiracies both real and imagined, so dazed in its color schemes that Anderson clearly wants you to get stoned watching it. But the sense of being blissfully out-of-it, which can have its pleasures, soon drifts into another aspect of drug use: detachment.

The film’s two-plus-hour running time is a patience-tester.

It’s got at least one excellent performance, but as a whole it contributes little to the “Frankenstein” tradition, other than a reminder that this has all been done before, mostly better, with more nuance and excitement.

As unsatisfying as Spies in Disguise is because of its disregard for original design and the insufferable nods to disposable trends, its role as counterprogramming to toxic masculinity — turning ruthless spies into sensible beings with warmth as a moral compass — makes it ephemerally laudable.

The most accurate summation of A Minecraft Movie is probably “It is what it is.” It’s what it’s supposed to be. It probably won’t dig up many new converts to the game, but should strike box-office silver, at least. (And fans, be sure to stick around for two credits scenes – especially the second one.)

A militaristic B-movie heavy on action but light on faux-patriotic bombast? It seems fair to call that its own kind of treasure.

“Love, Charlie” plays like a whirlwind story, and an often entertaining one, but there’s no breathing room to process anything beyond hitting the highs and lows. We’re left in some unresolved limbo between celebrating what makes a high-end restaurant sing and considering this culinary legend’s life a cautionary tale.

The Bad Batch feels less like a coherent film and more like a pastiche.

For documentary fans, it’s a haphazardly paced and awkwardly structured film that struggles to organically incorporate each facet of the tragic “Ren & Stimpy” story, ultimately giving too short a shrift to the greatest tragedy of all.

Chuck takes a small subject and turns it into a basic redemption story, and as such it has some merit. Not much, but just enough.

From its facile depiction of the role of incarceration in the rehab process — addiction is a health issue that we keep mistakenly treating as a criminal issue — to the under-writing of the characters, what should be a harrowing drama instead comes off as an anti-drug pamphlet.

The central relationship of “The Valet” is the weakest part of the film, and much of the comedy is a bit tiresome, though a few bits do pop.

When viewed with both eyes open, Worth is a thematically confusing motion picture, no matter how good the acting is. If the film exists to sell us on how great the fund was, it blew it, because we’re left with troubling and unanswered questions. If the film exists to raise those questions, it cops out by resorting to treacly melodrama. And it cannot effectively do both.

Some parts of Marwen just seem empty, and while the filmmakers and Carell earn praise for tackling trauma through animation, the film ultimately has no real impact.

As has been the case with many a horror project she’s been a part of in the past, Samara Weaving’s guttural screams can cover a multitude of sins, but even her fully embodied performance and powers can’t save a movie that mistakes stilted recurrence for high-octane throwback.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is for the fans, all right, but in that expression’s worst way.

They're thematically richer and more tonally cohesive than their hybrid. But because the two films are so similar to one another, they fail to deliver on the promise of their unique structure, rendering the “he said, she said” complementary design of the two films a dull, self-indulgent gimmick.

The thing that catastrophically sinks “Him” – or “Her,” if that's the film you see second – is that the two films are enough alike that sitting through the second immediately after the first is a slog.

Admittedly, it’s pretty easy to consume Wonka. After all, it’s just a piece of candy. But it’s the kind of candy that would make Willy Wonka sick to his stomach. Wonka is the sort of safe and corporate product that the hero of Wonka says we shouldn’t settle for.

The performances are dedicated, but the camaraderie feels perfunctory, outside of a few ruminative exchanges between Hawke and Washington.

Sadly, Kraven the Hunter feels like it’s constantly being held back by whatever or whoever was holding the reins of the production. Even the ribald elements afforded by its R rating, usually an indicator of a comic book movie being allowed to go nuts, feels muted.

Does great justice to an extraordinary astronaut and reluctant icon, but also repeats the error made so often by media of Ride's era, in centering other people’s perspectives over her own.

Black and Blue is chock-full of heart-pounding car chases and suspenseful moments that are certain to entertain mainstream audiences, but the film falters when it attempts, beyond its tittle to reflect a necessary and under-discussed conversation about societal issues.

You, Me & Tuscany delivers the rom-com meat and potatoes: The beats, the scenery, and the great-looking people consumers expect. But it’s strictly fast food, when the sun-kissed Tuscan countryside, with its porcini, pecorino and Cinta Senese pork was there to savor with a nice chianti.

Lucy is a confounding experience, but at a brisk 85 or so minutes, it manages not to outstay its welcome. Those not enamored of Besson's particular brand of Euro-schlock grindhouse existentialism, however, may find their brains more stimulated elsewhere.

Wallace smartly leaves room for skeptics of Burpo's account to maintain their doubt; what matters most is that audiences understand the film character's reasons for choosing to believe his son's vision/dream/delirium.

Ultimately, “Anarchy” is too cartoonish in its politics to gain the allegorical resonance it clearly strives for — and worse yet, it's just no fun.

Almost everything that’s enjoyable about Escape From Pretoria is a variation on stuff you’ve probably seen in superior prison movies, though Radcliffe’s haunted performance is exceptionally compelling.

The Giver is an anti-totalitarian allegory so farcically hyperbolic it feels like only a teenager could have come up with it.

This isn’t the first sequel to desperately transplant its characters into a tropical or jungle locale, and it isn’t the best. Then again, the competition includes Weekend at Bernie’s II, Speed 2: Cruise Control and Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, so it isn’t the worst either.

As well intentioned as its flurry of feelings and sentimental performances are, “Berlin, I Love You” isn’t given the space or the format to truly sail. It fails to build on political landscape or culture and instead tries to pull on the heartstrings of its audience with half-baked concepts.

The filmmaker’s diminishing capacity for recognizing naturalistic human behavior once again presents a problem when the time comes for audiences to relate to, much less care about, characters put through the paces of another elevator pitch that he never develops into a compelling story.

While it doesn’t come together seamlessly, there are wonderful moments between Dinklage and Bennett, even Harrison Jr. and Mendelsohn have their moments to shine. Perhaps it’s why this version of Cyrano felt so bittersweet, leaving the audience with a sense of what might have been.

Rather than play like a significant departure from the “Toy Story” films that spawned it, Lightyear instead emerges as a disappointing runner-up, capturing but a fraction of the comedy, thrills and poignancy of its predecessors.

Sasquatch Sunset is sometimes hilarious, often unique, and otherwise forgettable.

Building on 2019’s solidly entertaining animated entry, The Addams Family 2 remains kooky and fun, yet it lacks the warmth from the previous film and feels more juvenile, too.

This is a film of highs and lows; there is no middle ground, no moment of silence, reflection or introspection. “Joshua” stays frustratingly on message.

There are really two contending films inside Swallow that, if given the opportunity and the space to do so, could have been fascinating as separate entities.

Well-acted, understanding, and literate ... But when the emotional honesty still doesn’t make for compelling drama, you’re left wondering why, even with all the lights on, there’s a conspicuous lack of galvanizing human detail in the contours of this story.

The Legend of Tarzan isn’t as singularly joyless as many of this summer’s other current offerings, but it also feels distinctly like a missed opportunity. Even when Skarsgård offers up the character’s famous jungle cry, it sounds more mournful than enthusiastic, and that sentiment seeps into the entire enterprise.

Francisco’s committed and surprisingly nuanced performance makes it easier to invest in the movie’s otherwise unexplained style of magical realism.

In the Ferrell canon, “Eurovision Song Contest” is a workmanlike, “Blades of Glory”-level effort, never as funny as you want it to be no matter how hard it tries or how silly its actors look.

It’s the most unproductive type of sociopolitical film, especially in today’s climate, in that it aims to incite but not to motivate.

What’s at play here is how sex and the sexual impulse can unleash destructive forces, and Roth enjoys conveying that destruction visually as he lets the ladies loose all over this bourgeois house.

Plane would be less mind-numbing if it took itself either a little less or a lot more seriously.

Visual stakes are heightened here, to an absurd, laugh-inspiring degree, the deaths sliding into the realm of “Saw”-style ridiculousness.

It’s hard to say whether Branagh is concerned about getting things wrong, or of being disrespectful. But he never finds the freedom he’s unlocked so often in Shakespeare’s own works. His ambition is honorable, but without substance, it becomes merely the shadow of a dream.

Empire of Light feels more like a sweet experiment on nostalgia and memory than an articulate film with something to say.

A B-movie effort from an A-list production team, Joe Wright’s The Woman in the Window buckles beneath its aspirations almost immediately.

Rabbit Trap finds some occasionally effective moments of atmospheric dread and sadness, only to leave those moments stranded.

It’s just that while you can’t see any of the strings being used on the effects, you can see the story being manipulated. You may fall in love with Ochi all the same, but you can only wish you’d gone on a richer journey together.

The camera loves Channing Tatum, and that makes up for a lot in Dog, a corny road movie that mostly panders to fans of Tatum and/or dogs, as well as any moviegoer who still thinks that making a big show of supporting the troops (any troops) makes them more human than, uh, most everyone else.

Love is Strange boasts an abundance of patience and kindness — but not much of a pulse.

Director Josh Trank, whose debut feature “Chronicle” put a smart new spin on superhero tropes, has assembled a quartet of engaging, charismatic performers and stranded them in a miasma of exposition and set-up that sinks the movie.

The Prodigy may offer some shocks to those susceptible to this genre, or who have never seen it before, but to horror fans it will probably seem unremarkable and even bland.

It’s just a disappointingly average superhero flick, with a familiar story, disinterested actors, some cool action sequences, and a whole lot of missed opportunities.

It scrolls past thoughtful ideas, too quickly to fully process them, and the experience is as cacophonous as the typical social media feed. I’ll grant you it’s thematically appropriate but it’s not cohesive filmmaking.

It isn’t to say that The Curse of La Llorona is bad; it definitely had the crowd I watched it with screaming in horrified delight and laughing at just the right moments. But it lacks any cultural understanding of its subject and is a missed opportunity to connect to the plethora of ghost stories the Latino culture contains in its soul. Que pena!

All that effort and innovation and ambition amounts, in Zemeckis’ film, to little more than a mawkish intergenerational drama. Here genuinely seems to believe that the history of the world peaked with the possibility of mom and dad getting a divorce.

Berg’s life is a natural for the movies, but it’s difficult to imagine how the film we got out of it turned out so dramatically inert.

We like to joke about how "this meeting could have been an email" but if all The Devil Wears Prada 2 can offer is Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt on-screen together again, then this film could have been a Zoom call.

At its best, Out of Blue captures a slightly intoxicated “eureka” sensation, as the whole detective genre transforms elegantly into a philosophical awakening, and as the greatest threat comes not from a murderer but from our protagonist’s sense of self (or lack thereof). At its worst, which is most of the time, it’s a conventional detective story that resorts to lengthy scientific-namedropping when it probably should be getting on with it instead.

It’s hard to imagine a film with less strength of conviction than The Flash, a time travel movie about why it’s bad to retcon the past, but which exists entirely to convince the audience that retconning the past, present and (potentially) the future of the DC superhero franchise is a super cool thing to do.

The first half is a drowsy day at the office, full of complex paperwork minutiae that, too much of the time, doesn’t even pan out by the end of the movie. The second half is more horrifying to think about but less scrupulously presented and, as such, harder to believe.

The minimal character development will frustrate filmgoers seeking substance, as will Coppola’s stilted dialogue.

The ingredients steadfastly refuse to whip up into the froth this film so clearly wants to be.

They’re all trying to make a meal out of starvation rations. The cast’s efforts aren’t in vain, and the film is better for having them, but a thing can get a whole lot of 'better' before it gets 'good.

It’s a mostly harmless time-waster of a motion picture; functionally a movie but without too much of that pesky depth or entertainment getting in the way.

The intent of the film, and its timeliness, are beyond reproach, but that doesn't make Kill the Messenger as stirring or inspiring of indignation as it clearly wants to be.

Unfortunately, López can’t sustain the momentum. Every time a new turn emerges within Red, White & Royal Blue it feels like a new film has sprouted out of the story with embellishments that land as superfluous scenes begging to be deleted, instead of grace notes that elevate the movie.