Why Him? is the kind of movie that makes trendy sophistication and homespun values look equally unattractive; the only remaining alternative is anarchy, an ingredient that’s sadly lacking in this bland, formulaic comedy.

Although this wasteful effort from the “Bad Moms” team is uninspired in almost every regard, it does advance cinema in a single way: writers-directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have figured out how to modernize one of the most traditional and apparently still essential Hollywood tropes: the Crazy Bitch.

Given that this is the auteur’s 20th theatrical feature film, there’s no longer any excuse for the pacing issues, the scenes that don’t end and the general flaccidness of his direction.

While The Barber may be a first-time directorial effort, it’s tense and taut enough to make an impression thanks in no small part to the steadying, strong presence of Glenn.

The awkward transitions and clichéd merrymaking that define Lisa’s story will likewise be either more feature than bug for genre fans or just one more thing that makes Azuelos and Fierro’s narrative seem lazy and confused.

You may want to leave the theater, go directly to a bookstore and buy the source material. That’s good! But you may want to leave before the movie’s over. That’s bad.

Maybe it was the massive reshoots — directorial credit is shared by Lasse Hallstrom, who shot the first go-round, and Joe Johnston — or perhaps the script by first-timer Ashleigh Powell was always muddled and convoluted, but the results are singularly dispiriting.

Family Business offers an array of half-baked conflicts, all crying out to be noticed, while the creators are apparently unsure of which requires the most urgent attention.

A few odd touches and one impressively, cathartically violent sequence don’t compensate for the film’s resistance to its own ideas.

The early scenes are at times surprisingly awkward – and while things get better when Chickie gets to Vietnam and Russell Crowe shows up to (briefly) ground the movie with his quiet gravity, “Beer Run” still lurches from silliness to preachiness in a way that’s rarely satisfying.

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.

Ultimately, Daniels has made a touching and forceful film about three generations attempting to overcome familial and societal trauma. It’s only the Devil who underdelivers.

There is a scene in 'The Exorcist' where the soul of Regan MacNeil writes 'Help me' in her own flesh, begging someone to save her from an exploitative entity. I suspect if you look closely enough at Green’s film you can see the soul of 'The Exorcist' crying out the same way.

The Darkest Minds is smart. It has a lot to convey to its young audience, and the strong cast does everything in their power to illustrate those themes and to bring their characters to earnest, believable life. But it’s not quite thrilling enough to sneak its mission statements under anyone’s noses, so it plays a bit more like a manifesto than a sci-fi thriller.

Doubling as both a colorful recycling bin for tropes and ideas from a variety of preexisting children animated features and a casting session for “The Voice”‘s next batch of hosts, Kelly Asbury’s plush-inspired film UglyDolls is underscored by a well-intentioned message of self-acceptance, even if the delivery vehicle is unremarkable.

It's clear from the start that Dowdle isn't taking any of this seriously. The same cannot be said for the game and luckless cast of young actors, who are so whiny and hysterical right from the start of their plunge into the tombs that they win hearty unintentional laughs throughout.

Maybe if you hate movies, LaBute’s attempt to bore us to death with classic noir material is a nifty prank. For anyone else, you’re better off revisiting Garfield and Turner, or Stanwyck and MacMurray, or Hurt and Turner — or even “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.”

It’s one thing to bring a gravelly gravitas to characters like this, but Penn suffers and glowers so much that it weighs down the material. If he plans to strap on the Kevlar in future, he might consider lightening up a little and saving the intensity for more serious movies.

The cast can’t cure all the movie’s problems, from its abrupt ending to a random acid-test scene, but it’s not without its curious appeal as a star-studded failed “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” experiment.

A smiling Cameron Diaz and a weeping Leslie Mann bring a lot to any movie, but they aren't enough to overcome the mix-and-match mania of these proceedings. Girls just wanna have fun, but they'd also like a coherent night at the movies.

What’s particularly disappointing about this effort is the amount of talent wasted.

[McCarthy] and her husband Falcone (who also directed) have created a character comedy that's missing both comedy and character.

Ella McCay' is a film about American politics in the same way that Pixar’s 'Cars' is a movie about cars. As in yes, these are definitely films about politics and cars. But no, politics and cars don't work like that.

The fifth entry, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, is the most divertingly enjoyable since the first. A professionally crafted brew of action, slapstick and supernatural mumbo-jumbo, it’s less likely to spur timepiece glances than did the last few bloated installments.

It’s messy at times and melodramatic at others, and its treatment of mental health issues is not the most nuanced, but those feel like quibbles given the joy you can find in its best moments.

Who knows what Pelé: Birth of a Legend could have been had it tapped more into that mysterious life force and the true messiness in harnessing it and making it glorious. Instead we get what the man himself was canny enough to ignore: a familiar game plan tediously followed.

It’s just feature-length publicity, and it plays like damage control.

The Intruder rings incredibly hollow.