Bryan Bishop

The 2018 Halloween isn’t an entirely successful film, and it won’t provide an easy template for a new generation of revitalized slasher flicks. But it does serve as a fitting coda to a story that began 40 years ago.

Thankfully, Vol. 2 does come together in the end with a powerful emotional payoff, but that’s only after it becomes a computer-generated action-fest with the fate of the universe hanging in the balance again.

It isn’t a flawless movie, and it nearly descends into self-parody at times, but after a decade of Bay’s rock-’em sock-’em battles, Bumblebee nevertheless comes across like a mini-revelation: Transformers movies don’t need to be terrible.

The result isn't as novel as the original, or as effortlessly kinetic, but it is nevertheless a joke-packed action film that continues to deliver on the character's potential, while opening up the door to an even bigger series of sarcastic superhero adventures.

The film soars when it abandons all pretense of being a space opera, and fully embraces the bombastic modern action movie that’s at its core, giving it a unique identity that does indeed stand apart from other entries in the series.

The scares are some of the best the entire series has to offer, and on that criteria alone it can probably be considered a success. But there’s no escaping the fact that as a standalone film, Covenant is wanting, neither truly making its own thematic points nor carving out its own unique place in the legacy of the franchise.

It’s at turns terrifying, hilarious, and uneven, but succeeds in doing its most important job: showing off a range of distinct directorial voices.

This is a movie more about friendship and acceptance than anything else, and Pee-wee seeing so much of himself in someone like Manganiello is a ridiculously silly motor that gets the story moving quickly.

The results aren’t flawless, but Split is nevertheless a tense, exciting thriller anchored by a stunning performance by James McAvoy. And it may just restore Shyamalan fans’ belief in the power of the twist ending.

Solo is a swashbuckling success, a space adventure that pays homage to the DNA of the original films while carving out its own unique space in the canon. It’s a sheer delight, but it also has the courage to explore the darker aspects of a character who could have all too easily been polished to an inoffensive, family-friendly Disney sheen.

It’s a strong film, directed with confidence and a trust that the audience will be able to keep up, no matter how convoluted the narrative becomes.

It’s big, nerve-wracking, and utterly ridiculous at times — but it is a hell of a lot of fun along the way.

Christopher Robin doesn’t just use nostalgia as a salve; it uses it as a way to mourn things that we’ve lost in our lives and as a way to unpack how our actions can hurt those around us. It’s a feel-good movie that really doesn’t think there’s a whole lot to feel good about much of the time.

The movie is engrossing, with Sevigny delivering a fierce performance that inspires empathy in spite of — or perhaps because of — the awful things the audience knows Lizzie will eventually do.

While it may not be entirely successful, it’s a film filled with clever insights, driven by the kind of sharp filmmaking voice that can push the genre forward.

The issues that Snowden raises are without question some of the biggest issues of our times — but a movie this safe won’t leave anybody thinking about them.

Where Stranger Things goes for subtle, Summer goes for on-the-nose. Where the Netflix show offers nuanced, empathetic characters, this film gives us cardboard cutouts with performances to match.

Gray’s prosaic style robs Fate of the Furious of any real sense of self-awareness or humor, which could never be said about Lin or Wan’s installments.

Concussion may start off as a stirring conspiracy thriller with the best performance from Will Smith in years, but it's hard to care when it's wrapped in a two-hour after school special.

Fuqua's film is ultimately a reminder of why the genre was once so wildly popular in the first place.

Filled with flashes of visual beauty and a fistful of interesting ideas, Knight of Cups is — like much of Malick’s most recent work — something that asks to be experienced rather than understood, but by pushing his experimental inclinations further than ever before, he’s ended up with something that’s strangely bereft of poetry or emotional resonance, resulting in a movie that may be off-putting to all but the most ardent Malick die-hards.

Normally, the creatures lend this series a built-in sense of awe and wonder. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom strips that majesty away and turns the focus on the human characters, who are markedly unengaging.

The Predator comes across like it’s too timid to fully commit in any one direction, perhaps for fear of alienating some potential segment of the fanbase, and ends up feeling like the least inspiring combination of all possible elements instead.

A Cure for Wellness is a beautifully shot film full of interesting ideas, but it dumbs itself down at every possible turn.

Wingard and Barrett add a creepy body horror element to the mix early on, and thanks to the forceful sound design there’s a greater sense of some massive, physical thing in the forest than the first film ever had — but Blair Witch is at its best when it’s honoring what has come before.

It’s a scattered film, making too many vital points at once. By neglecting to bring them together into one single story, Clooney undercuts them all.

It’s a train wreck of a movie, mixing and matching wildly dissonant tones, bizarre plot contrivances, and a truly unique lead performance.

Bright is a series of disconnected action vignettes that work as standalone sequences, but don’t hang together in any kind of meaningful way. It’s impossible to not think of Suicide Squad’s similar failings as Bright barrels from one dark, noisy scene to the next.