Aurora Amidon

The Greatest Hits boasts a compelling and original high-concept plot, but, as can be the case with high concept plots, this leads to much of the film’s first act being occupied by exhausting exposition.

Good Grief is not a dramedy (even though it is marketed as one), but rather a somber film about the messiness of grief and its often unforgiving, even destructive, grip.

The issue with Night Swim isn’t that it’s ridiculous, it’s that it doesn’t understand quite how ridiculous it is.

It’s torture-forward, funny, preposterous, imaginative and puts into practice what the franchise should have learned a long, long time ago: There is no reason to reinvent the saw blade.

If you’re expecting a totally original horror flick, you’ll be disappointed. If you’re looking for a film that cohesively fits into and helps explain the Conjuring universe, you should know better by now. But if you’re looking for nothing more and nothing less than a film where a barbaric nun slaughters everyone in its sight, well, look no further. Everyone else will be nun too pleased.

It’s nearly impossible to talk about Alzheimer’s without forefronting misery, anger and despair. It is a cruel and callous disease that destroys lives piece by piece. Perhaps the greatest feat of the courageous The Eternal Memory, then, is Alberdi, Góngora and Urrutia’s ability to broach the subject with all of these emotions—but with an emphasis on life, not death.

Directed by Ben Wheatley, Meg 2: The Trench earnestly takes on the challenge of being even more brazenly goofy and ludicrous than the first film.

Margaret’s journey of self-discovery is a fascinating and satisfying watch.

Marchese and Flower are clearly aware of the potential that their set-up has, and in attempting to submerge themselves fully into both themes, ultimately commit to neither.

To Catch a Killer positions itself as a manhunt feature intent on saving the day. It has all the right pieces: A young misfit cop, a twisted serial killer, two equally killer lead actors. It’s just missing two crucial pieces: Suspense and coherence.

It’s a wholly relatable and surprisingly sharp tale of grandiose risk-taking and myth-making.

With its team assembled, Joy Ride descends into a fearless and unpredictable romp packed to the brim with absurd and unapologetically raunchy humor.

This fearless, authentic debut showcases immense command of a unique and inventive form of humor, while touching on a very real issue with heart and candor.

The beauty of National Anthem is that it effortlessly challenges all expectations and preconceived notions.

The first film to grace the beloved franchise in a decade, Evil Dead Rise is everything you could ask for from an Evil Dead flick: It’s disgusting enough to make you physically recoil, it’s funny as hell and, perhaps most importantly, it might just wield more blood than I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Tetris is repetitive, melodramatic and surprisingly uneventful.

With the help of Sennott, who co-wrote the script, Seligman squeezes every ounce of humor out of each of the film’s thoughtfully-crafted scenarios—for better or worse.

More than anything, Your Place or Mine will probably just make you wish you’d watched an old Kutcher or Witherspoon flick this Valentine’s Day, instead.

It’s not every day that you see a by-the-books rom-com squeezing in a semi-twist ending, and Franco does so in an admirably sneaky, cheeky, subtle way. Similarly, Somebody’s moments of genuine, heartfelt drama are bound to pull on your heartstrings.

This exhaustively sanitized, overly saccharine take on the hero’s journey is certainly nothing new, but it remains rather uninteresting.

As with any ensemble piece, The Drop’s success relies on its characters, and for the most part, they are largely ineffective—much of which has to do with the central friend group coming across as an ill-fitted hodgepodge of eccentrics with little to nothing in common.

It’s a sluggishly slow murder-mystery without much tension, one holding a candle to Poe’s work Nevermore.

M3GAN’s most impressive feat, at the end of the day, is that it gives us cinematic sickos exactly what we want without sacrificing greatness in the process. And yes, what we want is a breakdancing, murderous doll. Is that such a crime?

By the end of Light, Mendes has taken his message a little too literally.

Nobody expects all Christmas movies to be masterpieces. But it’s hard not to be disappointed by low-energy affairs like Tiffany’s, which is nothing more than a mindless attempt at adhering to the Christmas movie algorithm. Even the Grinch would probably ask for something more.

At face value, Lady Chatterley’s Lover works well enough as a love story: It’s sweet, moderately sexy and sticks pretty religiously to Lawrence’s compelling story. But for a film based on a book that scandalized thousands, it will undoubtedly leave its viewer wanting more.

Paired with My Policeman’s agile writing and affecting direction, the undeniable chemistry between Styles and Dawson feels like a shining cherry on top.

A jolly romp filled with songs, jokes and clever twists on a well-known genre, it is plenty of fun—but only if you can forgive how frequently it repeats the same old joke, and, as a result, becomes guilty of overplaying its own gimmick.