Writer-director David Ayer tries hard to make this dirty not-quite-dozen into an engaging band of misfits, but the results feel undercooked and overstuffed, with 10 pounds of supervillain backstory being crammed into a five-pound bag.

Studio 54 is a case of a documentary attempting to tell a story that obviously cannot be fully or satisfyingly told at this juncture. As such, it has value only insofar as it suggests how much that era cannot quite be re-captured.

This ultimately feels like four very promising movies mashed together, with spectacular highlights bumping into each other in a way that’s ultimately lacking, even as they all demonstrate the prowess and bravado of the filmmaker.

None of its core characters, including the female protagonist (played by Florence Pugh, “Fighting With My Family”), make any rational decisions (while being too distant to care about anyway).

The ending of The Quiet Girl is modestly dramatic compared to what has preceded it, but the emotional charge we are presumably supposed to feel has been cut off by all the contemplative long shots that have kept us for so long at arm’s length.

There’s nothing particularly terrible about Moana 2, but the fact that it’s necessary to write 'there’s nothing particularly terrible about Moana 2' means something still went wrong.

Please Baby Please may pay homage to queer aesthetics, but it fails to make any coherent points about gender or sexuality.

Hyams’ film doesn’t make the most of its concept but, although it’s not a particularly interesting slasher, it is an efficient one. Fans of the genre will no doubt have a little fun with it. The fun just isn’t infectious.

Blended director Frank Coraci, a Happy Madison vet, is too much of a company man to elevate this passion-phobic rom-com beyond something more than an above-average Sandler production.

The visuals remain homely and brutally efficient, the plot convoluted but the pacing brisk, and the humor often inventive and resourceful — and just as often tired or offensive (to women, people of color, gays and lesbians, old people, take your pick).

The Judge is tailor-made for Downey's gift for delivering a quippy, arrogant put-down like he's doing his target a favor. Hank's anti-heroism is a refreshing splash of lemon juice with an occasional spritz of sour vinegar. But much of director David Dobkin‘s cynically cloying legal and family drama goes down like a lump of aspartame.

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.