Clint Worthington

Keanu gets a lot of things right, and almost just as many things wrong. Still, there’s absolutely enough here to make it worthwhile, especially if you’re a Key and Peele fan.

You may not come away feeling like you know much about Wheatle himself, but you get to spend an hour in his shoes.

Stone, Thompson, and the gang are all having a ball wearing incredible costumes and living up a squeaky-clean version of ’70s punk fabulousness, and it’s hard not to let that infectious glee take over for a while.

Whether you like Wendy will depend almost entirely on your continued tolerance for the baby-Malick stirrings of Zeitlin’s style: roving, evocative camerawork; the unpolished roughness of unknown child performers; treacly sentiment pouring from each horn blast of Romer’s score; or France’s storybook narration. At nearly two hours, that’s a lot of syrup to pour down your throat, and the unapologetic mawkishness of it all can rankle after a while, even if you’re attuned to the film’s wavelength.

For a first-time feature, Hall’s approach to the material is surprisingly nuanced and sensitive. There’s a matter-of-factness to his presentation of these characters’ respective dramas that feels honest and true, if a little unencumbered by formal ambition.

Think of Timmy Failure like a food truck: the best ones do one or two things really well, and commit to just doing those things. With McCarthy et al., Timmy Failure‘s virtues are an expertly-delivered dry wit that works for kids and adults alike, and a series of adorable performances, from Fegley and the rest of the kids to the all-too-game adults.

Aquaman is a pure piece of bright, ridiculous spectacle, hammering its Saturday morning cartoon sensibilities down its audience’s throat with a huge, cheesy grin on its face.

Amid Hammel’s acid-tongued approach and jaundiced eye, there’s a lot of intriguing potential; after all, cinema that imperfectly confronts is oftentimes more interesting than comfortable competence.

Maybe the formulas we’re so used to will be exactly the vehicle to introduce general audiences to the lived experiences of a community criminally underserved in media.

The intangibility of Jamojaya‘s storytelling is both a blessing and a curse: it keeps things streamlined, but also prevents us from really being able to dig into just what makes James and Joyo tick. But that’s what’s so intriguing about the picture, even in its flaws.

The Thanksgiving table is a perfect battleground for these heavily entrenched political lines, with Barinholtz’s smart, nuanced script pulling no punches. While the satire definitely loses some of its bite in its wild, unpredictable closer, the film still takes Barinholtz and Haddish to fascinating places as performers – neither of them have been as intense or vulnerable onscreen to date.

If you want to see a nuts-and-bolts look into the banality of evil, with a curiously strong Daniel Radcliffe performance at the center, Imperium fits the bill.

As these things go, two out of three ain’t bad, and it’s nice to see Lanthimos back in the saddle as one of our foremost mainstream explorers of abuse and malaise.

Vikander is a beautifully effective avatar for the American Ninja Warrior version of Lara Croft. Stripping down the bombast of the original games (and films) allows Uthaug’s reboot to feel comparatively grounded and immediate, without dragging itself down with unnecessary pathos.

It’s the kind of new-macho action picture that wears its cornball heart on its sleeve — one where the misfit leads learning to work together is literally, mechanically, the way to defeat the bad guy. It may not have Dom and the gang, but Hobbs & Shaw is as self-indulgently silly and giddily earnest as its fellow Fast brethren.

It’s brassy, breezy and gut-bustingly fun; unfortunately, it’s at the expense of the film’s drama and pathos.

For as choppy as Sirens can be in its too-short 78-minute runtime, it’s easy to chalk that up to the difficulties of filming during COVID. But what we do get is certainly crowd-pleasing, a riotous doc that combines likable personalities with thrumming guitar licks and its subjects’ relatable yearning to find their voice and their power.

It all gets a bit too loosey-goosey by its repetitive, redundant climax — there just aren’t enough good jokes left to cover for the fact that, yes, we get it, the bear did cocaine.

Whether the result of the film’s brisk 90-minute runtime, or a lack of desire to investigate some of its subject’s greater desires and fears, Love, Gilda feels breezy to a fault.

While there’s something to Ingrid Goes West and its indictment of insufferable L.A. millennial culture and social media’s dangers, Spicer’s targets are too bluntly specific to make the sort of nuanced argument that the film aims to attempt.

Despite Sorkin’s significant shortcomings as a director, The Trial of the Chicago 7 hums along mightily on the strength of its god-tier ensemble and whip-smart script. There’s hardly a false note in the cast, all of them capably handling Sorkin’s overlapping, erudite dialogue with aplomb, and many of the big moments land with a splash.

For all the unexpected charms of Emmett and Regan’s Last of Us-esque trek to salvation through an apocalyptic wasteland, Part II feels a bit more scattered and perfunctory than the first.

Liman is no stranger to tense, effective thrillers – his last outing was the criminally undervalued Edge of Tomorrow – and on that level, The Wall surprisingly works.

Project Power is a hard-R action flick with a neat premise, inventively handled, and a winsome cast to coast us through the creakier bits of the screenplay. More crucially, it’s also got a sense of humor about itself.

The unbridled mess that is Aline is just off-kilter enough to warrant a look, no matter how well you know Céline Dion.

While the focus occasionally gets lost in the filmmaker’s personal inquisition, it remains a thought-provoking, challenging cap to Greenfield’s life-long body of work.

Fukunaga’s direction is crisp and assured, if occasionally languid, and the script creaks under the weight of its myriad responsibilities to both its star and franchise. But it hits where it counts, and sets up a new chapter for the saga, a blank slate upon which the creatives that come next can paint a new vision for 007.

While these are major hurdles to the film holding together as a consistent exploration of its subjects, On Body and Soul is still an intriguing, cerebral comeback for Enyedi.