Blake Goble

Freneticism like this isn’t for everyone. But as far as martial arts epics go, MK is a high-gloss geek show that repeatedly delivers.

Better than My Super-Ex Girlfriend, sloppier than Hancock, it’s nothing dynamic but fun all the same. And frankly, not every superhero flick or comedy needs to be the Super-person of its domain. Likability is sometimes an underrated super-power, and Thunder Force is bursting with it.

For a 33 years-late follow up to a fan favorite? This isn’t terrible, not even close. Will it split the royal underlings that vaunt Landis’s ’88 effort? Maybe. For now, Coming 2 America deserves to be enjoyed as one of Murphy’s better follow-ups.

The dispiriting thing is that Tom & Jerry is far from the worst family film in the world. It’s just a familiar, by-the-books, vertically integrated product to ensure continued IP visibility for the film and television arm of a corporate portfolio. Here’s the latest and laziest IP for you to become disenchanted by, should you feel so inclined.

MLK/FBI justifies itself as a compelling addendum to King’s legacy, not simply as a heart-rending unveiling of past tragedy and maliciously tarnished greatness.

In a word, Another Round is intoxicating. Vinterberg elevates what could have been a mope-fest with a magnificently defiant tone and a powerhouse performance from Mikkelsen.

Adam Mason’s Songbird is about boring people getting mad that they’re stuck inside, and the government is oppressing them, and they’ll soon fly free or whatever.

Hillbilly Elegy does not bring out the best in its cast, and Howard fails to bring the intensity or depth that might make something meaningful. His approach is all after-school special, all the time.

Another lump of coal in Gibson’s rapidly declining filmography. Fatman has no gifts to speak of. It’s kind of cheap. It’s fairly cynical and/or mean-spirited. It’s not fun. No good. Lumpy in execution. Deeply archaic in its thinking. Ho ho ho-hum.

Cohen still has it in fits and starts. That “pedo radar” from Who Is America really ruffled feathers. He’s a performer of chameleonic qualities; see his immersive, anarchic turn in The Trial of the Chicago 7 for a nice contrast. But applying his talents to a sporadically funny, 90-minute SNL political cold open of a film is a little bit of a bummer.

There are just enough goodies here for parents and well-prepared kiddies alike. The nifty VFX, performances, and modern updates are what make this remake an easy-enough treat.

Here’s a cocktail so potent that it may just snap even the most tired and cynical viewers out of apathy.

Crass but quick, and agreeably popcorn-y, Unhinged could have gone off in far more risible fashion. Not quite a gas, but without crashing and burning entirely, Unhinged gets where it needs to go and fast.

Skin certainly has its blemishes, but it’s occasionally excited and secure in its willingness to build an off-the-cuff alt history for an under-discussed facet of filmmaking.

Yes, Irresistible is a farce about political theater, and an often painfully funny one, but it’s also a deeply unnerving manifesto on the pundit economy, campaign financing, and the narcissism, ego, and collective amnesia it all fosters.

The slow build of Da 5 Bloods leads to as powerful a finale as any you’ll find in Lee’s arsenal. And it’s one that should hit rather hard as it arrives in the middle of a summer where race will be discussed at volumes.

Patton tells a tighter, less well-heard, and necessary tale of being gay in an era where that could still destroy a career (which to be frank, is still an issue that should be better addressed…), nestled carefully within a re-read of an oft-maligned horror sequel. He’s a deeply appealing subject.

Even if the message is clear, and the vibe can be a little movie-of-the-week, The Way Back does find an interesting set of ways to present itself.

When the leads are drawn this terribly thin, and Onward is so hopelessly focused on the dad narrative that it can’t help but ignore its creativity in favor of mawkish afternoon special, the product stinks of a bad Amblin ripoff.

This is a comic book movie that feels adapted from a bunch of Bazooka Joe strips rubber-banded together. It’s a big ball of candy, mushed together and flung at the wall, and we’re all invited to happily take a bite out of crime.

At 100 minutes, with just enough digital chutzpah to keep everyone reasonably amused and never quite annoyed, Dolittle is tolerably fine.

As a political or journalistic statement, Richard Jewell does have the unfortunate tendency to come across like a rant. But that does not greatly detract from the film’s rich biography of Jewell: Here’s a man that was perhaps doomed to be part of an inquisition.

In holiday gift terms, it ain’t coal, and it ain’t a new car. It’s holiday socks, with a big ugly candy cane and some wavy text on it. Noelle’s cute for a minute, but you’re not going come back to this thing after January.

It’s got twists without being tawdry. Attitude, with sincerity. And Banks offers a reasonable rebuke to past ickiness, playing up the best elements of an old TV show’s original idea. Charlie’s Angels 2019 flies in the face of its tricky franchise past, and makes for a solid evening’s entertainment.

Even its ornamental excesses become beside the point, because the core conceit actually works. Boy, those George Michael songs bind the scenes together like Gorilla Glue. Nothing says quaint like Tom Ford storefronts, too. But these things fade into something warmer, grander, and even a bit telling.

A tonal miss and technical meh, Gemini Man arrives looking and feeling self-defeated.

Mister America aims for the acerbic pitch of a ‘70s alternative political farce like The Candidate, but the parting feeling is that it’s just an overdeveloped ramble. It’s not ha-ha funny, which is fine in the world of a muted humor like this. But like Heidecker’s campaign, it’s not entirely convincing as a satire either.

Galifianakis delivers a reminder of just what makes his brand of comedy so unique, special, and even a little daring.

Like the Hollywood it tries to lampoon, in its way, The Fanatic comes across as shallow. It is, as they say in the biz, a flop.

At its most basic, this is a conventional talkie, rooted in Warner Bros crime history, happy to play with cliché. At its most audacious, The Kitchen is a welcome flip on the generally male-dominated script. And at its most pleasing, this is a popcorn flick, with big moments, great pops, and three stars giving it their all, having one out in the street, making big moves for the people.

The Nightingale has a torn – and riveting – conscience.

Nominal laughs plus three reliable actresses equals the very mediocre Otherhood.

It’s Hollyweird love letter material, but it’s glittered with Tarantino’s signature wise-ass attitude. Here he’s part historian, and part aging, experimental auteur.

As a narrative, Point Blank’s like a screenplay slammed to the ground, shot repeatedly, and re-assembled with scotch tape and vending machine stickers (likely White Snake band logo iron-ons). It’s flashy. As far as action flicks go, Point Blank’s cool with its low IQ because it’s having fun throwing ‘bows to loud music. It knows what it is.

It’s a sequel full of more that still feels like less.

Murder Mystery is a dud, stained with slack humor and a total unwillingness to play within its own chosen genre.

You know the formula and frankly, it’s one of the best-working ones Hollywood still has: a fun-for-the-whole-family film. In a current market crowded with franchises and pricey theatrics, Toy Story 4 feels like a warm and welcome aside, spinning an epic yarn from an intimate vantage with all the amenities of Pixar’s supremely talented creators and animators.

What Skin lacks in history, context, or behavioral psychology, it compensates for with pure angst, dread, and guilt. It’s the human element, the bare skin as it were, that makes this film stand out. It’s a melodrama with characters that inspire interest, if not fondness.

Even if Rocketman is one of those films where you walk in knowing almost exactly what to expect, it still manages to wham, glam, and occasionally elate.

Yesterday is too trusting, too confident in its silly dream, and not fun or passionate enough.

While the movie’s a letdown in the remake and modernization departments, it’s at least a modest success in terms of ebullient talent and frothy farce.

Peterloo is traditional, dryly historical, and all sorts of other Merchant-Ivory slang for stuffy and challenging.

Neil Marshall’s Hellboy is a monster mash, loud and proud. Just bring a mop.

Running the gamut from grotesque to goofy to genuinely scary, Alison Klayman has assembled a compelling and tight look into the inner workings of modern politics in the Trumpian key.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley offers tidy, compelling, and continued proof of Gibney’s skills in the art of delineation.

To commend The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is reasonably easy. Here’s a film that’s pro-science, and sheds new light on a world that Western audiences don’t normally see. But it’s all so dramatically meager and obvious as well.

Transit is a walkabout potobiler that ruminates more often than it feels compelled to run. It’s brutal, stark, dry, compelling, rich, and all the other drastic hyperbole that one can only bestow upon a genre-bending experiment like this one.

Even if the run-up takes its time, DeBlois sticks the landing – for this film, for his trilogy – and makes something that feels a bit more knowing in its themes: Life goes on, protect the ones you love, and enjoy the world we all share. There are far greater crimes children’s films can commit than positive messaging.

The Kid Who Would Be King is a reliable family film, and Cornish polishes old tropes with fresh eyes and a sense of clever imagination.

IO is dull, it drags, and it’ll beg the question: When will this, all of this, be over?

Marwen is too much, not enough, and yet still deeply watchable. It’s admirable for the wildly different approaches it takes. Only a stylist like Zemeckis could try something like this. Take a real man’s witty, real-life therapy-based photography and attempt to spin it into a mo-cap circus with every genre tool he can think of.

The Mule is a functional take on capitalism, work-life balance, and the creeping, overlong process that is aging. The tense moments click.

Mowgli is not entirely recommendable, but it’s not a total bust either.

Green Book means so well, and admittedly, it just gets by on its leads and its good humor.

Outlaw King is like watching prog versus metal. When it’s prog rock – folksy and wooden ­– it’s at its worst. Muted, draggy, earnest, with wee traces of carefully placed humor or commentary on a bygone era? It’s Moody Blues, and even a little Jethro Tull? Hardly worth putting on, unless you like your history slim and bone-dry. But at its best, it’s heavy metal, with swinging axes and church slayings and all sorts of grim goodies.

One critic’s ‘too much’ may be another’s ‘so much to unpack’. But that’s the thing. The style, the lament, the punchy rhythm and breathless momentum of The Other Side may be hefty, but it certainly makes a dent.

When Neville chronicles the failed work of Orson Welles, They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead comes alive with newsreel tabloid verve.

Bohemian Rhapsody is another lame music biopic, and its failures ultimately lie in the poor creative choices, the gutless approaches to potentially explosive events in the life of this band. We’re not buying this new album. There’s no new material to be found in Bohemian Rhapsody.

While it deals in the traditional melodramatics, straight from the ‘ol Hollywood emotion factory, Tillman Jr.’s aim seems true. The Hate U Give feels so Right Damn Now that you could leave the theater and see its stories on the nightly news.

The movie’s merely the latest A-list comedy of this sort, is happy to live in the middle, and yet it frustratingly outwears its welcome because of a lack of creativity and sloppy structure.

BlacKkKlansman is a well-formed and compelling work of pulp escapism.

The pleasure of good company is Robin’s occasionally winning quality.

This film is all easy beats, predictive familiarities, and absolutely zero heart, soul, or silliness anywhere to be found.

The heart is ultimately stirred, and the eyes often pleased, by this new White Fang.

Wardle allows the details to roll out with impact, and even some insight. Curiosity for the grand genetic schemes is a great sell, but the human element, the lament for lost time, truth, and family? That sticks at the end.

It’s fine. It’s nice, pleasing, and capable of mustering amazement from time to time at what Rogers did. This callback to one of television’s greatest pioneers shows why he meant so much to so many, and what we could still learn from him today.

Life of the Party exists in one of those unfortunate places where it’s easy to criticize, but McCarthy still makes you smile, and even laugh.

While the film’s final thesis is a Facebook post with typos at best (delete your accounts, and so on), Niccol is still terrific when he’s breaking down rules, questioning protocol, and testing new ideas.

The Week Of is the wedding you forgot you were invited to, weren’t all that stoked to attend, then wound up loving anyway because you had such a surprisingly good time.

It’s clichéd, distant, afraid to truly immerse itself in anything but long looks, but at least it looks good. And that’s that.

The script feels like a great writers-room comedy, where only the leanest and meanest bits stay, and the most startling and intriguing ideas persist. It functions comedically and historically — the jokes have something to say about power.

It’s a harrowing moral fable, a political fable, and above all, a deft lament.

The 15:17 to Paris is too unfocused, too hard to take seriously, and too short to really get invested in it. It’s an Eastwood misfire.

It’s beyond playful. Wonderful and whimsical, for that matter. Fun to look at and completely immersive. It’s hilarious, heartfelt, and humane, as well. It’s even a tad sagely in its universally appealing lessons of manners, sympathy, and open-mindedness.

It’s the kind of film that ultimately makes you count your blessings, root for the good guys, and maybe even shed a tear or two at the sight of the press kicking ass.

It’s fascinating when Smith chronicles Carrey’s stunt in tandem with gags he tested on late night shows.

Handsomely staged, exceptionally well-cast, and reasonably faithful, Branagh has revived Murder on the Orient Express in a highly pleasing fashion. Sure, some of its modern amenities may leave something to be desired, but this train is quite sturdy and Branagh respects the ride.

Navigating the nexus of hype, commerce, ego, and bullshit that drives the modern art scene, The Square is almost too perfect in its cunning simplicity. The art world’s always been easy to drag, what with its interiority, weirdos, and frustrating games of pin-the-tail-on-the-thesis. But rarely are these ideas lampooned so beautifully.

The end result is a finished product which smacks of Universal optioning a hot Scandi novel, losing enthusiasm for it during development and production, and leaving audiences with the remaining carrots and coal.

It’s insulting. Unfunny. Blunt. It’ll leave a hell of a bitter taste in the mouths of general audiences and horror nuts alike.

Out of an act of war, Jolie has created a film of real compassion.

The steam runs out fast with one generic chase after the next, forgettable gunplay, and gory violence. Its ham-fisted double crosses and half-baked moral dilemmas amount to little.

Sure, it may be a little rote, and even thrifty, but it offers more than enough yuks to earn its way into your Netflix queue.

By minimalizing his loftier techniques and tendencies of the past with brusque pacing and grand photography, Nolan has assembled the leanest and most impassioned film of his career.

Inside Out is a superlative work of inspired imagination, one that may very well stay in your mind for a very long time.

This is a mild return to franchise form, which is like saying that one of the descending plane’s jets started working again. Despicable? No. Deal-able? Sure.

This is a kitchen-sink hymn for the indomitable spirit of the common man.

The humor and the indictment of the warrior mentality win out. Michôd’s better instincts take over, many of the crude jokes land with force, and Pitt is hilarious in this mode.

There’s no voice, no style, and no real intrigue on hand. It’s all a slow sail to the next outsized setpiece.

Another Evil may be a cheap thrill, but it has a unique take on the haunted house genre. Here’s a curious horror comedy that gets richer with every unexpected minute.

Of course, there are still product placements, and lowbrow jokes, but there’s an empathetic streak in Sandy Wexler. And that’s something we haven’t seen from Sandler in a long time.

Life is like a box of mediocrity. You more-or-less know exactly what you’re gonna get. But for what it’s worth, Daniel Espinosa’s space shocker, while totally born from the same stars as many other films, still lands about half the time.

The movie is like a second verse, sung a little louder and just a little bit worse.

A passion project from the sing-talk god David Byrne, Contemporary Color is a concert film, but a finicky one, unstable and unfocused.

A Cure for Wellness feels like a return to form for the director. It’s not hard to imagine how Verbinski might have come up with a baffling horror film about the pressures of work/health balance. His latest film is rich with invention, intrigue, and a mind-melting liveliness that’s impossible to ignore.

I Am Not Your Negro is the kind of documentary that could open ears, eyes, and hearts with its moving agony and historical empathy.

Gold is weakly written, predictable, and too placid to achieve any loftier ambitions. It’s just a soft-sold tale of a schemer’s paradise.

Patriots Day sits right on the line between exploitation and tribute. The star power is dicey, and the action relentless, but Berg means well and likes the people in his recount.

Profound and illusory, Silence shows Martin Scorsese at the confessional, in sensationally cinematic style, delivering perhaps his most intimate work to date.

The presentation and little tweaks along the way make Sing far less grating than you’d expect. There are dozens of great moments, beats, and tunes.

Misdirection, tight spots, intimacy as danger. Allied is a paperback thriller’s greatest hits compilation. But the film’s plotting is lively and sincere, gussying up the staid tropes of intrigue into immediate pleasures and perils.

It’s damnable with faint praise. It’s too cheap to be thrilling, and too earnest to be all that offensive. Mired in clichés. Mostly flat. A weak Spy. Only Kevin James diehards need apply.

Hughes has seen his fair share of dramatizations on film (The Aviator, Melvin & Howard, The Hoax, even The Rocketeer), but Beatty delivers a fresh, idiosyncratic take, about the figure and the people in his orbit of oddity.

Army of One recounts Faulkner, through Quixotan whimsy and geo-political smart aleck humor, which amounts to a quick screwball comedy about a loveable fuckup.

This is another bad Perry film, but a curiously verbose one with jokes piled atop more jokes.

The film’s a fundamental fiasco of tone and timing.

Queen of Katwe shows that a film doesn’t have to give up on the tenets of genre, but has the potential to win big if it can enliven them in new ways.

Fuqua isn’t interested in pushing the genre forward so much as respecting and updating the model accordingly. The director focuses on establishing his gang of gunslingers sturdily enough that the action becomes easy to engage with, and even get excited about.

This Ben-Hur is closer to an ‘80s actioner about two men who once loved each other parting ways, only to reunite and settle their differences through vicious means.

The way Lowery observes Pete and Elliot’s relationship with nominal dialogue is beautiful. While it’s easy to deride the remake as commercially conceived, the film still feels as rare as the dragon it depicts, wholesome and heartfelt.

Here’s a documentary with plenty of courage in its convictions, and a teachable exercise about modern health problems.

Parents will nap, some kids will be amused, and the nerdiest viewers will have good reason to point out flaws in the movie’s not-so-intelligent designs.

Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters is sturdy summer entertainment, at once a freaky comedy and an unexpectedly effective action film.

Jones slaves to make something of the material, and to his credit, or rather his profoundly large cast and crew’s credit, the craft is certainly visible in Warcraft. It feels rude not to compliment the hard work of the makeup, costume, production design, and visual effects teams.

At times amusing, at others analytical, De Palma is both an homage and a lecture.

A lot of fandom went into this, but Popstar is relentless to the point where it eventually becomes plodding.

Little Men is a summer breeze, with rich melodrama and an easygoing mood, built up around two great kids and their troubled families that says more than any after-school special. It’s an episode of actual experience, presented in lovingly natural, minimalist strokes.

It should come as no surprise that The Angry Birds Movie is a loud and dumb children’s film, but for what it’s worth, there are plenty of cinematic commercial ventures that are louder and dumber and so on than the well-meaning and slickly sold Birds.

Guided more by emotion and imagery than by any conventional plot, A Bigger Splash is a wicked, mysterious, ceaselessly sexy, and experiential carnal summer whirl.

Rio, I Love You is worth a passing look for its pot of talent.

The film possesses a quiet, considered tension that draws the viewer in.

After their muddled but well-meaning Tammy, McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone’s follow up is a superior mix of jokes, to the point that even when the film misses its mark, McCarthy and her crew wheel and deal to the bitter end.

Arnaud Desplechin delivers a thrilling reminiscence that romanticizes and believes in youth’s ungraceful but intense splendors.

Grimsby’s provocative, but not stupid. It knows what kind of humor it wants to achieve, and often scores big.

Fey delivers the performance like the super-capable talent she is, with range and authenticity. She’s a character with a fully expressed arc, foibles and all. She’s the dramedy’s best weapon.

The way Right Now, Wrong Then yields different results, moods, and beats as the result of minor shake-ups in the opening scenes is beyond fascinating, often charming, and at times amusingly uncomfortable.

Eddie the Eagle trips plenty, but Eddie, insufferable as he may be, represents the people that in spite of failure being visible at the bottom of a 90-meter ski drop, still take that leap.

Race is a film best enjoyed for its mild ambitions and accomplishments, which easily beat out its missteps.

Perhaps the film’s most striking quality is its restraint. Thematically and stylistically, it’s a film of quiet medium shots, long takes, and clear but evasive words. Every choice is tiny, but humane and usually deliberate.

Zoolander No. 2 invokes that old Simpsons headline: “old man yells at modern culture.”

A comedy of manners and femininity gets bisected by gnarly effects, and the two-tone approach works in its way.

"Jane" eventually comes alive, even if Jane never truly does.

Marlon Wayans is clearly getting off on the gags, but the lazy, hard humor, and elastic joke-making eventually has a numbing effect.

The Finest Hours is exactly that. Fine, while embracing its studio aesthetic and morally true heroism.

If for one second you forget the diverging script, the weak direction, and Efron’s limitations, there’s something to be amused by with De Niro’s flagrantly foul-mouthed, horned-up grandfather figure.

Shots are short, oddly made, and shoddily smashed together. There’s no spatial continuity, let alone consistency in time of day, or even a care for any kind of visual coherence. 13 Hours is just chaos. It’s unwatchable, unlikable, and unworthy of respect.

Phoenix is a death-defying melodrama of rare emotional obsession.

There’s a laziness to The Road Chip, what with its mostly stale or needy jokes and cutesy plotting.

Sisters is made of pure, frenzied comic momentum.

It’s a fierce, visceral vision with a superb cast, that one suspects was more focused on pumping up Macbeth than reminding people why it’s such a lasting cautionary tale.

Here’s a film with all the right ingredients and a few too many wrong moves, yet one that’s admirable for trying as hard as it does.

It’s not that funny, and feels like a ripoff of Animal House. Either way, The Wild Life is like the contractually obligated Crowe script that time forgot, his undisciplined id, playing with cheap thrills before he got a chance to express himself like a human storyteller in 1989.

Yellow Submarine is a journey to the very brightest spots of our imagination, and it’s a vibrant reminder of how joyful, inventive, and freeing animation can be.

Like Prince’s music, perhaps this film is best taken in for its sensation and not its literal output. That, and the dialogue is just ridiculous. But Prince looks cool, owns his story’s loose ideology of churlish change, and stages some marvelously ornate shots.