Alex Harrison

The dialogue is clunky and almost universally awkwardly performed, much more so than in the first movie. The tonal mix of horror and silliness feels more jarring than complementary, and the filmmaking, which could accomplish so much just by sticking to genre fundamentals, is often egregiously sedate.

Wicked: For Good does stumble at various points. The much-touted new songs by returning songwriter Stephen Schwartz are superfluous, and there's a laughably regrettable decision near the end involving Jeff Goldblum that only avoids disaster by being very brief. But all the same magic that powered the first film is still at work in this one.

Edgar Wright and Glen Powell are consummate entertainers, and they made this dystopian Stephen King movie as fun and guilt-free as they could.

Fixed is fun while it lasts, more so than you might expect going in. Its most lasting effect on me might be a longing for more traditional, hand-drawn, 2D animation from our major studios, and anyone who might feel similarly shouldn't let this movie pass them by.

The actors inhabit these characters well, but they don't have the benefit of juxtaposition with normality to really put their work in context.

Ritchie is a prolific action director, and he leans action here, which is fine. When it's not being distractingly stylized, the action is good. But treasure hunt movies have a nerdy side that sometimes feels undervalued by this film.

Rosario stretches the material of a really good short film into an underwhelming feature.

One of Dreams' strengths is that its dramatic devices pair well with its interests.

That exquisite balance of art and entertainment is exactly what makes each Bong Joon-ho film a gift to be savored – here's hoping his next one doesn't take quite so long to reach us.

The script may be the film's rotten foundation, but no one element can take all the blame for its emptiness.

Cleaner is a pretty good reminder of how fun it can be to watch someone with movie star charisma do a Die Hard.

While The Gorge is (ironically) fairly shallow, it offers some strikingly designed genre thrills and is powered by two charismatic stars.

Companion wants to surprise you, but has no real interest in trying to outsmart you.

Garner's performance is the heart of this, and if the movie were told entirely through her eyes, I think you'd have the compelling layer of doubt that the film sometimes seems to want.

It's artful, atmospheric, and observant; a slice-of-life film told in a hushed tone. It's dedicated to recreating a specific time and place and dropping us into it. There's a gentle steadiness to the way it moves.

Egerton's got something in this vein. Cruise-esque exceptionalism, but cut with relatability like he came from the everyday world but clearly wasn't meant to stay there.

It's a strong, engaging story that showcases some striking animation, and if I am to return to the wider world of Peter Jackson's Middle-earth, this seems to me an ideal way to go about it.

Flow makes us think and feel in equal measure.

What I connected to wins out over what I didn't – I have enjoyed sitting with its ideas, and there are a couple flourishes that will stick with me.

The film is unable to sustain any tension and is seemingly afraid of its own potential for violence, despite gesturing toward the creative weapon choice that is practically a bar for entry into the slasher genre.

As a story of parental reckoning, Goodrich lacks the interrogative instinct of something like Sofia Coppola's On the Rocks, and it rushes Grace's catharsis as a result. But as a story of a man's late-stage awakening, it strikes a more resonant chord.

As a vampire movie, Salem's Lot is refreshingly old-school.

Being halfway between film and TV gives it the weaknesses of both and strengths of neither; trying to straddle the real with the mythic gives us characters that mostly feel too representative to connect with as individuals, and too individual to make compelling representatives.

Joker: Folie à Deux is not always fully thought through. This is why the original was often misread in the first place. This film is full of quality craftwork, performances, and images. There's much here to appreciate, especially visually, and I enjoyed my time with it. But I'd recommend not asking much more of it than that.

It's as rewarding as it is challenging.

The Spanish director's fingerprint is there, undoubtedly. But the movie feels strangely incomplete, as if made with one hand tied behind his back.

The Brutalist is a colossal achievement, balancing intimacy and scale at every level of craft. At 3 hours, 35 minutes, it asks a lot from its viewers. Every second is well spent.

Wolfs isn't just funny, it's funny in all the different ways it needs to be.