It’s a perfectly enjoyable, perfectly forgettable nostalgi-comedy that will be taken to task for not being anything more.

What Alice Through the Looking Glass constantly underscores, however, is that even the greatest cinema trickery serves little purpose without stories and characters to support. The pictures are pretty (or scary or awe-inspiring) but they ultimately don’t mean anything.

X-Men: Apocalypse provides a hint at what might one day take down the ubiquitous superhero genre: utter dullness. For all its bangs, the movie is ultimately a whimper.

It’s inarguable that some fans, somewhere, will relish every detail.

The Angry Birds Movie basically hits all the squares on the Lazily Conceived Family Cartoon bingo card.

Though Dheepan is another triumph for Audiard, it could have just as easily not worked had its leads not been so affecting

This crime comedy doesn’t consistently deliver, but the highs make the lows worth enduring.

Neighbors 2 never lags, and the laughs keep coming, even though they’re coming from a fairly familiar place. If that’s all you want, that’s what you get. But, hey at least you get it, which is more than you can say for most sequels.

Visually, Ratchet & Clank has its appeal.... But the story is ultimately too predictable and forgettable to make Ratchet & Clank anything but a kid-targeted holdover between slavishly awaited tentpole behemoths from the comic book world.

There’s a sadistic streak in High-Rise that’s simultaneously hypnotizing and unnerving. If there’s a morality to Wheatley’s world, it’s nebulous at best.

The film constantly reveals itself as having no idea how human beings speak or behave.

[Gervais] abandons all sharp edges and serves up a bland, toothless picture that isn’t particularly scathing and doesn’t have anything much to say, even though the basic premise might have allowed for some satirical jabs at journalism and politics.

Everyone’s so damn happy and grateful to have been meddled with that it undercuts both the comedy and the drama in this film from writer-director Lorene Scafaria.

A Hologram for the King succeeds at putting us in Alan’s meandering headspace, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find his journey as meaningful as he does.

Nina, an infuriatingly amateurish picture about the great singer and pianist Nina Simone, is a new low for the musical biopic genre.

Inoffensive as it is inconsequential, this first foray into big-budget filmmaking from director Liza Johnson (“Hateship Loveship”) is a painful disappointment from start to finish, a frustratingly safe and unimaginative effort that squanders the potential of its story.

Movies don’t get much juicier, funnier, creepier, sadder, or smarter than writer-director Justin Kelly‘s King Cobra.

Despite the descent into madness that appears on screen, the movie is controlled and measured.

The bulk of these stories just aren’t very engaging — or even good.

If you’re put off by the filmmaker’s previous work, then the autobiographical Sing Street isn’t going to be the movie that wins you over. But fans of Carney’s lush romanticism and hook-laden lyricism will be thrilled to add this one to their playlist.

“Civil War” strikes that admirable balance: serious-minded action that never forgets to indulge in serious fun.

With its combination of workplace sitcom and social activism, Barbershop: The Next Cut feels more like a binge-viewing of multiple episodes of a TV series than a movie, but even on that level, it’s a show worth watching.

This is a fine, funny and moving film tribute to the efforts and passions of its titular heroine, a woman who lived out her dreams, at any price.

Despite the title, this is a quiet, intimate story of a family reeling from tragedy, but it’s no less loaded with revelations and breakthroughs, all set at a recognizably human volume.

Demolition strikes a tricky balance; it’s a comedy of manners that never judges its hero’s bizarre behavior. Had it stuck to its emotional guns, it would stand much taller, but even its ultimate flaws can’t erode its sturdy foundation.

The movie equivalent of a diverting beach read.

Presented with a moral universe where annihilation is all, it’s difficult to invest in the film as anything more significant than a breathless series of punishing vignettes.

It isn’t comedy, and it isn’t drama, much less comedy-drama.