Why did it get made? And how much did its gifted cast of big names have to be paid to enable them to suspend disbelief and commit themselves to such a concentrated dose of drivel?

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jan 20, 2017

Collateral Beauty sets a record: it is probably the worst movie each of these fine actors will ever do.

| Original Score: 0.5/5 | Jan 11, 2017

Despite its quality cast and slick visuals, the result is sombre and saccharine rather than uplifting.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 9, 2017

As it proceeds the plot becomes increasingly predictable and the "surprise" elements will surprise only the most credulous.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 6, 2017

The only thing more remarkable than the crudeness of the central idea is the extensive cast of A-listers who decided this synthetic weepy with its fortune-cookie wisdom was a good thing to do.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 1, 2017

If it were any more pretentiously fey it would evaporate; any more arch and it could stand at the top of the Champs-lyses overseeing traffic.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 29, 2016

Among the many unenviable achievements of this film is its ability to consistently live down to that unspeakable title.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 23, 2016

However glorious the cast, almost nothing can rescue a Christmas cancer movie, or certainly not one this tonally deaf.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 22, 2016

This is a horribly stodgy and misconceived attempt to make a modern-day New York-set equivalent to It's A Wonderful Life.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 21, 2016

Beyond the psychotic awfulness of the scenario, there is something inherently off about the film's attempt to reconcile the existential topic of grief with the more materialistic world of business affairs.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 21, 2016

It's transparently cynical, with no apparent endgame in mind other than simple profit. That it's able to waste such a fleet of capable actors and such elegant cinematography in the process is its main achievement.

| Dec 19, 2016

The failure of "Collateral Beauty" is all the more grievous for the waste of its superb actors.

| Dec 18, 2016

The cast feels checked out: Winslet and Norton, two attractive and charismatic performers, have never looked more painted and tired.

| Dec 17, 2016

I still kinda dig this weird, embarrassing movie. It's got good actors in it -- everyone is great, really -- it looks real nice, and I'm brave enough to admit that, yes, reader, I got a little teary in parts.

| Dec 16, 2016

Lots of good actors sit in front of a locked-down camera and deliver some of the blandest work of their career.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Dec 16, 2016

Somewhere in a forest, a maple tree wants all its sap back.

| Dec 16, 2016

A holiday movie with Hallmark Channel DNA that should star Jaleel White and Judith Light but somehow snagged a top-line cast that includes Will Smith, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Keira Knightley and Edward Norton.

| Original Score: C- | Dec 16, 2016

Loeb, the man behind more than one Kevin James vehicle, attempts Christmastime magic la Miracle on 34th Street, but ends up conjuring Maudlin on Madison Avenue instead.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 16, 2016

Most of "Collateral Beauty" is spent rooting for it to be better. Even the concept behind the title comes up short.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 15, 2016

The five stages of grief sometimes seem applicable to movie reviewing, except that I usually skip denial, rarely get around to acceptance and generally just settle into anger, which is where I am with "Collateral Beauty."

| Dec 15, 2016