Brings nothing new to the table, and spends far too long making the audience think it will.

Simultaneously contrived and genuinely felt.

This entertaining confection possesses the substance of the TV show, the pacing of a Hong Kong actioner and the production values of a James Bond thriller.

An only occasionally interesting look at a rather ordinary bunch of musicians.

A humorless, relentlessly ethnocentric docu about Jews in basketball.

The rush of watching images made in such rare locales as Andorra and Sao Tome quickly wears thin as the montage whips through considerably meaty topics (water issues, climate change, immigration, religious faith) like an impatient Web surfer.

While thesps Chyra and Kosciukiewicz... embody the physical aspect of their characters’ relationship comfortably enough, their pairing as lovers lacks both chemistry and narrative credibility.

A colorful and cheery fantasy that duplicates its series predecessors’ cutesy humor and feel-good message making.

Courageously sentimental in an age of irony, Victor Levin’s refreshingly articulate 5 to 7 delivers romance of the sort thought lost since the days of Audrey Hepburn, for those who appreciate such finery.

Notwithstanding some sentimental beats, Peng achieves a delicate balance between bleak realities and a life-affirming attitude, capped by a predictable but necessary catharsis.

Covering the emotional spectrum between dog farts on one end and tragedy on the other reps a tonal challenge that Showtime! can’t pull off, despite a gentler touch than most kiddie fare of its kind.

“Hot Pot” loses focus with sloppy sentimentality and heavy-duty violence that dilutes the story’s early charm. The end result is entertaining enough if not particularly memorable.

Darkly dainty as this ornate storytelling geometry is, however, it’s hard to remain heavily invested in the outcome through a runtime that, even at a modest 90-plus minutes, feels a tad stretched.

With more than a third of the footage devoted to spectacular chases and collisions deftly staged by stunt coordinator Al Wyatt, there’s little time left to hint at the reasons for Fonda’s increasingly unappetizing monomania.

Lancaster, as usual, is a highly convincing marshal, tough and taciturn. Ryan is also excellent as the faded, weak marshal with only memories. But it’s Cobb who quietly steals the film as the local boss who, however, unlike in many such films, is no ruthless villain.

A gonzo mashup of gothic melodrama, Wild West survival story, and voodoo-flavored supernaturalism, with a side order of slasher-movie tropes and a sprinkling of kinky sex insinuations.

Car chases, booby traps, etc round out the formula plot turns.

The film’s low-key charms, such as they are, aren’t restrained by adherence to formula so much as its myopic worldview.

It didactically calls out governmental hypocrisy while exposing corrupt elements and inefficiencies within the precious institution itself. It hedges its bets politically between nostalgic keening for a kinder, fairer Britain of old and advocating for a top-down socialist makeover. It wavers tonally between cozy comedy and head-on polemic.

The movie often brushes past what might have been its most intriguing moments in favor of an unobtrusive hagiography. It approaches dramatic rigor and visual intrigue in only the briefest of scenes, often far too late into its runtime.

There is plenty of bang-bang but very little kiss-kiss in Tomorrow Never Dies, a solid but somewhat by-the-numbers entry in the James Bond cycle.

Levine, who wrote the script, knows how to stage an energized intellectual battle, but adapting “The Blue Angel” to a 21st-century setting turns out to be a distinctly musty and unrewarding idea.

Itself owing much to such lone-man-of-action hallmarks as “Die Hard” and “Speed,” this welcome throwback to an earlier, more generously entertaining era of summer blockbusters delivers a wide array of close-quarters combat and large-scale destruction, all grounded in an immensely appealing star turn by Channing Tatum and ace support from imperiled POTUS Jamie Foxx.

There’s little in the way of drama, character depth or mise-en-scene to distract from Tiger Chen’s technically dazzling display of human combat in Keanu Reeves’ helming debut.

Impressive as Berry’s commitment to the role can be, there’s a mirthless predictability to the whole ordeal. This pro-forma sports drama, which clearly means so much to its creator, unfolds pretty much exactly as you’d expect, leaning hard on pathos, when what it really needs is personality.

Memories of dreary Sunday school classes come flooding back courtesy of The Nativity Story.

Peter Cattaneo‘s amiable film adaptation matches the book’s feathery whimsy while reaching for a little more political import. Almost inevitably, it’s best when it’s about the bird.

The antics here are strained, graceless and tiresomely crude, the sorts of things audiences feel they're supposed to laugh at rather than well-developed situations that generate genuine amusement.

So, if you like piña coladas, or movies in which severe childhood trauma can be hugged out on an ocean cruise, then you’ll like Like Father. For everyone else, skip the imitation and seek out “Toni Erdmann” instead.

Eastwood is in good, sly form, once again delighting in a character's splendid solitude and singular skill at what he does.

A decent political thriller set in Taiwan with the requisite Western-market-friendly lead and a determinedly pro-independence message embedded in a formulaic but diverting tale of intrigue and oppression.

Boasting the same refreshing avoidance of CGI and wire work as "Warrior," slickly made production (largely by the same team) is more consciously aimed at the international market, with its Australian setting and multilingual dialogue.

While there isn’t much subtlety or surprise in Yeung’s screenplay, his direction is restrained and graceful enough to make this a pleasant if unmemorable bittersweet love story.

Despite an inspired, offbeat performance by George Hamilton, Zorro, the Gay Blade doesn't have nearly enough gags to sustain its 93 minutes. For the most part this is a Zorro with a very dull edge.

Scrupulously sincere in its approach and well-meaning to a fault in intention, the film aims for inspirational true story, but is sadly uninspired, and its relationship to real history is obscured by the schematic way it is fictionalized.

Heartfelt and formulaic in equal measure.

Its translation from stage to screen looks to have been a bit rocky, and the film never manages to transcend its actors-workshop aura and develop into something deeper.

Sex frequently disguises itself as friendship and love in Wild Side, a morbid and self-important homosexual "Jules & Jim" for the new millennium.

Reptile comes on as “smart,” but the movie, for all its sinister-ominous-music atmosphere, is opportunistic enough — or maybe just enough of a consumer product — to swallow its own premise, if not its own tail.

The Devil's Own is neither the best nor the worst $90 million-$100 million-area budgeted picture ever made, but it must be the one in which the cost is least evident on the screen.

In my judgment, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is an honestly unsettling and authentic inquiry into the question of who Ted Bundy was, how he operated, what his capture and trial and ongoing infamy has meant, and what, if anything, his existence tells us about our individual relationship to toxic evil.

The immaculately crafted Malice is a virtual scrapbook of elements borrowed from other suspense pix, but no less enjoyable for being so familiar.

Chick agreeably captures the feel and flow of on-the-move young professionals in New York.

This rambling and episodic autobiographical saga of three friends coming of age in Inglewood, Calif. (aka The Wood) in the '80s is so determined to be likable that it forgets to be interesting.

Certainly not a piffle, nor an impressive departure into a new filmmaking realm, Allen's second film in a row about crooks ranks in the middle range of his work.

Stars Zellweger and McGregor are too knowingly nudge-wink in their performances, too much contrived constructs to become real characters, let alone fuel the romantic comedy engine and make an audience care much whether they end up together.

More than in her previous tales of dysfunctional families like "Marriages," she (Comencini) lightens the weight of angst with well-designed subplots, secondary characters and moments of tender humor.

Outlaw Posse proceeds at something a bit slower than a full gallop, and incorporates more subplots than it can adequately do justice. But it never feels dull, thanks in large measure to the game performances of well-cast supporting players in an ensemble.

Though it boasts slightly more narrative structure than his other work, Jaglom's script still serves as a catalyst for wild improvisation, suggesting the inside-jokey result was more fun to make than to watch.

Jumpin' Jack Flash is not a gas, it's a bore. A weak idea and muddled plot poorly executed not surprisingly results in a tedious film with only a few brief comic interludes from Whoopi Goldberg to redeem it.

A lavishly overstuffed gift basket of a movie.

Happy Gilmore 2 is a happy orgy of raucously well-executed Adam Sandler fan service. It’s a pointed exercise in nostalgia, but with a present-tense edge. It’s not some fake update of the clever/dumb brand of slob comedy that made Sandler a superstar in the ’90s. It’s the genuine article, a true revival of Sandler’s Jerry Lewis-meets-rock ‘n’ roll rage. A sequel to his fabled 1996 golf comedy, it extends that movie’s anarchy-on-the-putting-green spirit as blithely as if the original had been made yesterday.

Fonda’s relentless interrogating, mannered chain-smoking and enforced two dimensionality cause her to become tiresome very early on. She remains a brittle cliche of a modern professional woman. Bancroft gives a generally highly engaging performance as a religious woman too knowledgeable to be one-upped by even the craftiest layman.

Underwhelming finish explains zilch, but good performances, atmospherics and use of backwoods locations make Yellowbrickroad an intriguing cipher.

Parthenope is a film that rumbles with the hum of nostalgia, recapturing the feeling of youthful, summer freedom while refusing to shy away from the uncertainties of young adulthood. But it’s no mere coming-of-age story; rather, it’s a film about coming-to-oneself.

Mix Brigitte Bardot in "And God Created Woman" with Carroll Baker in "Baby Doll," sex it up times 10 and you have a notion of the effect of Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan.

Daly deftly creates a disturbing, Chabrol-like tension that plays on immediate identification with the handsome medico's lonely, shy vulnerability and slow-building horror at the depths to which his self-delusion can sink.

Sporadically charming and quite amusing, but torpidly paced.

Tim Wolff's documentary is a diverting mix of colorful interviewees and footage from one such krewe's 40th anniversary ball, but it doesn't probe very deep.

A generally entertaining piece of fluff that's kept afloat by a weathered cast including Fabrice Luchini and Roschdy Zem.

Predictable fare that only occasionally fulfils its intention of being simultaneously heartbreaking and heartening.

Bubbles along with a jaunty but unoriginal blend of the sweet, tart, cute and weepy.

This peculiar high-danger romance — which plays like watered-down Elmore Leonard or imitation Tarantino — is a risky retro back-step for an up-and-coming young screenwriter with such hip credits as “Chronicle” and “American Ultra” to his name.

Marked by some spectacular car-racing footage, Le Mans is a successful attempt to escape the pot-boiler of prior films on same subject. The solution was to establish a documentary mood.

The film’s tone and outlook is changeable throughout — down to a striking, only semi-successful framing device of docu-style testimonies that hover deliberately between worlds.

The Zucheros’ creation is audacious and original, but also suffers from some of the same ADHD issues that afflicted “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (both are movies made for multitaskers with brains wired for constantly switching between screens).

The film is a snarl of contradictions, starting with the discrepancy between Mann’s obsessive demand for realism and the consistently implausible screenplay.

Lapses in the screenplay are mitigated only slightly by the natural chemistry between Long and Rossum.

Not enough identity is given Clint Eastwood in a New Mexico land struggle in which no reason is apparent for his involvement, but John Sturges' direction is sufficiently compelling to keep guns popping and bodies falling.

Rain strives for a "Magnolia"-type tapestry of quiet desperation. But after 90 unremitting minutes of badly acted, atrociously written histrionic misery, pic leaves one praying for frogs.

To the extent that audiences are willing to go along with an overwrought documentary that strives to imitate what far more professionally executed podcasts have innovated in recent years ..., Berman’s stunt could turn into one of the year’s buzzier nonfiction releases.

Sharp performances and writing lend it a fresh appeal well above this genre's average.

Languid, multi-accented adaptation of the contempo novel by Peter Cameron suffers from an unfocused screenplay and direction.

Crafted in utilitarian fashion by Egoyan, Remember does little to earn the poignancy of Plummer’s stricken performance.

A strange international odyssey that becomes more complicated and loony by the moment. Some viewers will undoubtedly tune out early, others will follow as far as they can -- and a privileged few might make it all the way.

Director Mark Pellington hardly lets a moment pass without suggesting some bad vibes creeping onto the edges of the screen, but he's let down by Richard Hatem's script, based on John A. Keel's book, which delivers an ounce when it promised a gallon.

Dramatically powerful, surprising in its strong narrative differences from previous cinematic tellings of "the greatest story" and bold in the extent to which it presents Jesus as a confrontational and threatening figure in the Judean context of the time.

Sublimely pointed in its idealistic simplicity yet willfully scruffy in presentation -- much like the enduring Young's best music.

Would have worked better with a few more ersatz coming-attraction trailers and considerably less filler. More than likely, it would have worked best of all as an hourlong special on Comedy Central.

A mildly diverting, largely inoffensive teen laffer that's long on cartoonish high school hijinks but short on dramatic concentration and crucial story details.

May be too grisly to extend its appeal beyond its fan base.

While the whole may be less than the sum of its parts, those parts are individually commendable. Shalhoub has an eye for composition and a strong sense of pacing.

What at first looks like a standard missing-person suspense tale turns out to have a more complicated agenda — but it is so haphazardly advanced and clumsily articulated, the film itself seems to be fumbling around for a cohering structure or mood.

A shockingly dull look at a fascinating disorder affecting humans who believe they were born into the wrong species.

Even as some of the supporting players and subplots veer toward caricature, the family dynamics at the film’s center remain entirely relatable.

The genre slant promised by the title seems to be less of a tonal responsibility than an excuse to abruptly break out into the occasional suspense set piece.

Scripter Allan Burns has craftily kept the point of view of the youngsters, Diane Lane and Thelonious Bernard, while the adults, with certain exceptions, are seen as suitably grotesque and ridiculous, giving Romance a crest of humor on which to ride.

A film containing another film; a filmmaker referring to the trials of a filmmaker: it’s a movie of many layers, all of them garish and goofy, none of them great.

For the most part, Coming 2 America falls back on familiar punchlines, serving up nearly word-for-word repeats of amusing bits from the original, but they don’t necessarily play the same in this context.

Resting almost entirely on the shoulders of its young leads, both they and the pic lack the sparkle to sustain what seeks to be a whimsical premise but, except for a few moments, proves ponderous instead.

It omits a crucial detail of the “Play” success story (that the album took off through the licensing of songs for commercials — not that there’s anything wrong with that). But it captures the astonishing ride to icon status it put Moby on. He didn’t stop drinking and drugging; that would take years. But he found a groove he could stay on, even after the mega-sales cooled.

Striking and self-indulgent in equal measure, Cam Archer's first feature, Wild Tigers I Have Known, is an impressive declaration of talent that nonetheless gets a little drunk and disorderly at the trough of High Art. Arresting visual and sonic textures frequently overwhelm sketchy narrative, leaving surface provocation too seldom ballasted by deeper psychological truths or emotional impact.

Whereas Wan (who retains a producer credit here, and makes a cameo appearance) is the sort of director who can effortlessly turn a billowing curtain or creaking floorboard into an unbearable portent of dread, Whannell rarely makes the neck hairs quiver, let alone stand at attention.

Ultimately an entertaining story about a deeply lonely man.

An unfunny, manipulative romance about two unlikable people and their prop of a son, the pic mangles the premise of its source material ("Baster," a 1996 short story by Pulitzer-winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides) in ways that ought to baffle viewers of all sociopolitical stripes.

Some material in the docu feels repetitive or unnecessary. But the main problem is that “Citizen Koch” simply juggles too many themes and narratives to cohere. The result is largely compelling in the moment, but unsatisfying as a whole.

Doesn't have the crossover appeal of recent music-themed docus like "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster," but could find worshippers as a micro-niche release.

Overall, it’s just enough to send the date-movie crowd home with a smile on their face and a tingle of joy in their heart.