Chris Evangelista

It's a handsomely-made film with a game cast, and it's clear that it's a very special project for Branagh. But the filmmaker is unable to convey to us, his audience, why it's so special.

Chastain gets some huge, showstopping moments – her final scene is genuinely terrific, and another scene that recreates Tammy Faye's on-air conversation with gay minister and AIDS activist Steve Pieters is effective and tender – but it would've been nicer if the movie itself was more worthy of her considerable talents.

A foreboding tone blankets "The Power of the Dog," putting us on edge nearly from the jump. Even when mundane, harmless things are happening, the tension mounts. The harmless seems harmful. Silence speaks volumes. This is a subtle movie that manages to knock us flat. 

As a showcase for Gyllenhaal's talents, The Guilty is passable, but that's just not enough.

The lack of true scares may be a deal-breaker for some. And indeed, the overall outlandishness at work on the screen is going to flat-out annoy certain viewers. But then there will be those who revel in the audacity of Malignant, and boy oh boy are those folks in for a treat. This isn't even close to being James Wan's best horror movie, but cripes, it sure is a lot of fun. 

There are moments of dread and tension, and as the narrative wears on it goes to some commendably weird places. But by then it's too little too late, and the movie ends with us wishing that the characters really had done something — anything, really.

The element that keeps The Card Counter truly alive is Isaac, who turns in one of the best performances of his career here, using his eyes to convey things dialogue never could. To watch him work here is something special, even if the movie as a whole can't ever quite match his intensity. 

A dark, ominous undercurrent runs through "Candyman," signaling Nia DaCosta as a filmmaker with a firm, unique grasp on the genre. The original "Candyman" already had a few sequels, but none of them are as clever, as interesting, as effective as this. Go ahead. Dare to say his name five times in the mirror. "Candyman" will live on.

Reminiscence is so very, very close to succeeding. Joy has a great visual style – there’s a fight scene in a flooded room with a piano that’s genuinely stunning to watch – and the noir/sci-fi mash-up is often enjoyable. But Reminiscence never manages to feel like a memory worth revisiting.

Everything feels so sterile, filmed under cold, harsh lights. It’s one of the most horror-free horror movies in recent memory. Maybe Blomkamp should give sci-fi another shot.

Perhaps Don’t Breathe 2 would work better for people who haven’t seen the first movie at all – they wouldn’t be lost, and they wouldn’t be witnessing the total character shift from unstoppable killer to flawed savior.

For all of Old‘s flaws – and those flaws are bounteous! – it’s a film with energy; a film with life. Shyamalan doesn’t appear to have a firm grasp on this material, but again, he’s trying! He’s trying to give us something different. And these days, that’s the sort of thing we should all be longing for.

Fear Street Part 3 is an absolute blast. But there’s tragic darkness prevailing here, as there has been through the previous entries. Yes, we’re having a good time with all this horror, but we’re also affected by the senseless death and dismemberment. There is no reveling in the spilling of blood here. There’s just a unique feeling of loss; the sense of cosmic injustice at young lives being cruelly snuffed out by thoughtless, uncaring hands. It’s oddly beautiful in a devastating way.

Pig is not the movie you think it is. It’s something far more beautiful, and far more painful. It is an existential meditation on the search for something. Anything. A kind of cosmic loneliness envelopes this film. It’s extraordinary.

Fear Street Part 2 also thrives once it really gets going. There’s a certain rough patch at the start that the film thankfully shrugs off, eventually sucking us into its night-dark story of doomed youth. A potential – and potentially questionable – romance that blooms between Ziggy and Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland), the boy destined to grow up and be sheriff, is charming in its clumsiness. A side character like punk rocker counselor Alice (Ryan Simpkins) seems annoying at first, only to blossom into someone we’re actively rooting for. After two films, the real strength of Fear Street is in its characters, not its scares. No one is expendable meat here – but that doesn’t mean they won’t get ground up in the end.

It’s easy to enjoy the film’s light, airy charms, but once it’s over, you’re left feeling a little empty.

The Forever Purge is at its best when it’s attempting to subvert the standard formula.

Fear Street is like a big soup pot full of everything – there are shades of Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Stephen King’s It, Halloween, Friday the 13th, and more. Watching Fear Street brings back memories of wandering around musty video stores and browsing the HORROR section for the most lurid VHS box art you can find. There was something sacred about that experience, like going to church.

There’s nothing wrong with silly, even mindless action movies. There exists a whole slew of ’em that are an absolute blast to watch. But they get by on their entertainment value. There’s nothing entertaining about Infinite. It just sits there, lifeless, hoping to become a full-blown franchise with sequels galore.

I can’t remember the last time a film shook me like this.

After this solid set-up, The Devil Made Me Do It occasionally grows a bit murky.

The Woman in the Window is so silly and broad that it begins to border on camp, and I have a feeling this could become the type of cheesy dreck that people get a hoot out of if they follow Anna’s lead and down one or two or ten bottles of wine. By the time the film climaxes with multiple predictable but utterly preposterous twists, you’ll probably be reaching for a bottle yourself.

Spiral blunders through its central mystery without grace or style, or even much thought. Even the death traps are weirdly uninspired.

Were it just slightly more entertaining we might have something special on our hands. As it is, we have a sturdy, mercifully swift action pic that fizzles out instead of burning bright. It’s nice to have a movie as simple as this for a change, but it would be nicer if it were better.

There’s a certain fun to be had in Army of the Dead, but it’s the mindless, ugly fun that you wake up the next day regretting. Come to think of it, it’s kind of like a trip to Las Vegas.

And to cap it all off, Mortal Kombat commits the sin that so many recent Hollywood adaptations of existing properties make these days – it’s all set up. Everything that happens here can be written off as exposition laying the groundwork for a sequel, where the real kombat can begin. It’s a ruse; a come-on; a side-show with a very loud barker out front. “We can’t show you that stuff just yet, but come back next time and we might!” The thing is, we’re all suckers enough to probably fall for it.

Whenever The Unholy wants to scare you, it simply enters internet screamer territory, complete with ghoul faces rushing directly into the camera as loud noises boom from somewhere. Outside of these admittedly startling moments, The Unholy unfolds sedately, and sometimes incoherently.

Godzilla vs. Kong is a film without pretensions. It knows exactly what it wants to do, and what it wants to do is have monsters smash buildings while they’re throwing punches at each other. It’s finally what this franchise has been building towards: a movie about monsters, not humans.

Nobody seems to think that if it follows a paint-by-numbers Wick formula, that’ll be enough. It’s not, and that’s a damn shame, because Bob Odenkirk: Action Hero deserves better.

In fact, “very dumb and very enchanting” could sum up Zack Snyder’s Justice League as a whole. There was never a single moment where I bought the story Snyder was selling, but I did enjoy his attempt to create a superhero movie that rises above the din.

This is a major misfire that will have you scratching your head and wondering how it all came to be.

There’s a lot to love here; searing heretic cinematography included, as long as you’re a fan of horror flicks that *love* taking their damn time. It’s emotionally invasive, disturbing, and brutally unforgiving once Sator’s presence takes hold.

The comedy on display here is so forced and without charm that it made me wish Beckwith and company had abandoned any attempt at humor and instead tried to make Together Together more of a straightforward drama with occasionally funny moments. That’s the better version of this film, and you can see it trying to claw its way out from beneath all the quirks.

Wild Indian is a singular achievement; a film so raw and centered that it dares you to look away from scenes that simmer and burn. It’s too early in 2021 to jump the gun and start calling out “best of the year” material, but Wild Indian certainly deserves to enter the conversation. It’s a film you won’t soon forget.

There’s are undeniably great moments in Judas and the Black Messiah, but one can’t help but think the movie needed to push itself just a little bit further. But perhaps the raw power radiating off the screen via the performances is enough.

The dreamy images and the simmering passions of the film lingered with me.

Tearful confessions and big dramatic beats fail when contrasted with the emotions that swell up from the unblemished beauty of the landscape. It ultimately left me cold and feeling as if Land‘s central drama was unable to compete with nature.

The final 20 or so minutes of In the Earth are downright impenetrable, and while that’s no doubt the point, it doesn’t make the experience any less frustrating. In a sense, Wheatley has successfully recreated the experience of stumbling around, lost in the woods, unable to see the forest for the trees.

It works as a loving homage to the era of slap-dash, go-for-broke ’80s horror, but it ultimately adds nothing to the conversation.

As entertaining as it may be to revel in the 1990s setting of it all, not updating the script makes The Little Things feel stale. The bad guys are one-note creeps; the men are stoic and violent; the women only exist to be either background noise or helpless victims. Even some 30 years ago all of this would’ve felt dated. Today, The Little Things has even less to offer.

Much like the characters themselves, Pieces of a Woman is constantly chasing after what came before, only to never get it back.

The drifting from town to town gives the whole thing an episodic feel, and as great as Hanks is, even his talents aren’t enough to distract us from the sheer predictability of what’s going on here.

The Midnight Sky is ambitious in its attempts at pathos. There’s the germ of something beautiful buried in here; a story trying to tell us that every last life is worth saving even if all seems lost. That’s something worth hearing, but The Midnight Sky fails to even get the conversation going.

When Let Them All Talk finally reaches its destination, it feels like another Soderbergh experiment. He literally took his cast on a cruise for the flick – shooting for two weeks with his cast improvising whenever they could. The journey is enjoyable – but oddly forgettable. It’s like a quick vacation that immediately starts to fade from memory the moment you return.

If you’ve seen The Godfather Part III, you’ve essentially seen The Godfather, Coda. Those expecting something drastic, like Coppola’s Apocalypse Now: Redux, are going to be disappointed. Instead, the filmmaker has made little cuts here and there. Cuts that indeed make the lengthy film and its sprawling narratives a bit more concise – it’s eleven minutes shorter than the theatrical cut. And while that may make for a (slightly) brisker experience, it can’t fix all the problems that are irreconcilably baked into the film’s DNA.

A sensory overload, Sound of Metal is one of the most fascinating films you’ll see all year. Even when Darius Marder‘s lengthy character drama isn’t quite working – a problem that persists in the final act – it’s always engaging.

As haphazard and messy as The Mortuary Collection is, its bloody, ripped-out heart is in the right place.

Like Scream, Freaky understands and loves the horror movies that came before it. It takes these raw materials and molds them into its own unique identity, resulting in one of the most refreshing entries in the horror genre in a long time.

At first blush, Mank isn’t your typical David Fincher flick. Yes, it’s gorgeously mounted and meticulously crafted. But it doesn’t feel like Fincher’s other movies. And yet, when you look closer…it does. Because like all great Fincher films, Mank is about obsession. The obsession with getting something right. The obsession with creating good art. The obsessions with being remembered long after the whole world has faded to black.

By the time Nocturne drew to its admittedly effective conclusion I was left with the same impression that’s plagued every other Welcome to the Blumhouse entry so far: this would’ve been better as an hour-long episode of a horror anthology TV series. Sometimes, less is more.

Evil Eye deserves acknowledgment for taking a supernatural approach that involves cultures beyond Western trappings (there are countless horror movies that use American-centric Catholicism as their guide, for instance), but that’s about the only positive thing I can say here.

While Osei-Kuffour Jr. is able to conjure up more than a few disturbing moments – everything involving the mysterious twitchy man is great, aided by effective sound design full of rattling bones – Black Box loses steam rather quickly.

The Lie probably could’ve worked in a shorter form – a half-hour episode of a TV show, perhaps.

From a movie-making perspective, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is sturdy but not particularly revelatory. But as a delivery system for great performers rattling off great dialogue, it’s almost unbeatable.

Some may get a kick out of how over-the-top and pulpy Shadow in the Cloud is, but what’s on display here is so abrasive and so bombastic that it begins to sap the life out of you, ultimately leaving a bad taste in your mouth when all is said and done.

There’s a serious lack of movies about Black cowboys or Black equestrians in general, and by telling their story in the unlikeliest of settings, Concrete Cowboy feels vibrant and alive, even when it’s suffering from its own plotting problems.

MLK/FBI is an essential film. And it’s a film relevant to where we are at this moment.

One Night in Miami never once feels preachy, or overly speechy. The conversations seem natural, as does the chemistry between these performers.

Sprawling and brutal, The Devil All the Time is not for the impatient or the squeamish.

It is an overall joyous experience – infectious, you could say. Even if you don’t love all of the songs – there were a few that did nothing for me, I’ll admit – you’ll get swept up in the energy radiating from Byrne and his group, all of them throwing themselves into this strange, surreal, beautiful show.

The stage is set for all sorts of misadventures, and sure enough, Grant’s film leans into them, heavily, resulting in a film populated by repulsively stupid characters who keep making dumb decisions. The film’s premise has tons of potential, but you won’t find any of that here.

Antebellum feels curiously unfinished. Rushed, even. You catch a glimpse of what the filmmakers are going for here, but never entirely buy it.

It’s a beautiful, strange terrarium of a film, inviting us to gaze through the glass and wonder what’s going on underneath. Just as funny and creepy as it needs to be, the film is Kaufman at the top of his game, firing on all cylinders. A master of his own unique, unclassifiable craft.

There’s an undeniable and lovely sweetness at play in this film; a type of warmth and acceptance that helps elevate the entire package.

A painfully slow slog, this horror film from Romola Garai has plenty of good ideas and a few neat creature effects, but that’s not enough to salvage things.

As far as directorial debuts go, The Rental is a strong start for Franco, who proves here he can take not just one but two different tried-and-true genre formulas and rework them into something neat.

Saying We Are Little Zombies is “a bit hectic” is a bit of an understatement, and yet, as Nagahisa’s passion project exploded across the screen, I found myself giving my heart to it.

Unfortunately, whenever the action stops, The Old Guard sags, with emotional moments that never really land, and big dramatic scenes that lack any genuine drama.

While the film gets points for bucking tradition and trying to portray its scenes of fright mostly in bright daylight (shot with sharpness by cinematographer Angus Hudson), the scares just aren’t very scary. It doesn’t help that the pacing never feels right, with long stretches of the film focusing on things that would’ve been better served by being truncated.

As he’s done so many times before, with BlacKkKlansman being the most recent example, Lee is able to wrap his messaging up in an entertaining package, crafting what could be considered a war pic and a heist story that has so much more on its mind.

The King of Staten Island wants to balance sweetness with humor, but it never quite figures out the formula. Many of Davidson’s quips are pretty funny, but there’s nothing here that’s going to stick with you – the next great quotable comedy this is not. The pathos fairs a bit better, but here the problems of Davidson’s range become apparent.

Unfortunately, The Love Birds just isn’t that funny. Don’t get me wrong – Nanjiani and Rae are funny, and they try really hard to make this material pop. But the jokes fall flat more often than not, and the direction from Michael Showalter (who also directed Nanjiani in The Big Sick) is oddly lax, with scene after scene embracing the unstylish “point and shoot” approach.

It’s all overly theatrical, and not at all concerned with being grounded in reality. And there’s something refreshing about seeing a gangster movie filtered through this sort of lens.

As far as disposable action flicks go, Extraction makes good on its promise of seeing Chris Hemsworth kill a lot of people. Maybe that’s good enough for a direct-to-Netflix release, but wouldn’t it be nice if all of this mayhem actually added up to something in the end?

It’s a film that feels like it was designed to rile everyone up, but it ultimately has nothing to say about anything.

No one will ever accuse Vin Diesel of having range, but he seems particularly lost here. There’s nothing remotely interesting about Ray, before and after he gets his robo-blood.