The Lamb of God

The movie goes nowhere, and Ms. Cody's screenplay is relentlessly talky while standing still.

Hough sleepwalks through Cody's worst effort to date as a writer and only supporting turns by the always-game Russell Brand and never-bad Octavia Spencer save the film from being a strong candidate for the worst of the year. It still comes close.

Cody's satiric knocks on Christians couldn't be more blundering and obvious. Yet her dialogue is often funny, and the unusual three-way friendship is refreshing.

Paradise claims to be the story of young woman's crisis of faith and subsequent rebirth, but in execution, it feels more like a story about someone who was in a bad mood for a while but eventually got over it.