Conor O'Donnell

With Egerton’s performance as its fuel, Rocketman’s efforts in delivering something that a least attempts an outside the box music biopic are worth commendation. It may not deliver on the truly cosmic fantasia it swings for, but the swing itself is something, to be sure.

Spider-Man: Far From Home, riding the highs of its charismatic players, and intermittently teasing compelling notions, is–like its hero–somewhat out of its depth.

Gunn maintains the unenviable job of giving each piece of his ensemble their due screen time to avoid making it the Peter Quill show, but the proceedings often feel manic, disjointed, and overstuffed.

Lacking thematic subtlety or dimensionality outside of Rain and Andy, Alien: Romulus compensates with a killer instinct deployed with squirming glee.

It’s a Marvel entry surprisingly free of any ties to broader property outside of the first two volumes, but mired in the same bag of tricks with a bit more slime on it.

For all his competent and confident staging, perhaps a steadier hand than Sollima’s could have steered the script to a place where some emotional payoff feels rightly earned, or coalesced Sheridan’s takes on the immigration crisis into a more cohesive, singular point.

It’s the inconsistency under the surface of Solo that stunts its growth into a piece of this universe worth actively revisiting. Ron Howard manages to wrangle familiarity and charm into enough whimsical adventure to make for decent escapism, but the question of leaving a memorable mark may be another matter entirely.

The macro result of Free Guy is an innocuous, not-totally-unpleasant time-killer. It doesn’t warrant strong castigation, frankly because of the energy that would require.

This whole concoction plays like a battle of wills between its makers, a closet full of monsters being Trojan-horsed into brand synergy. The morbid joy Sam Raimi manages to induce here is undeniable. The madness, perhaps, is that he must manifest his violent delights through a content delivery system for babies.

In spite of its slightly excessive runtime and a handful of millennial-pandering beats, Bridget Jones’s Baby is brought to term by the buckets of undeniable charm and charisma present in its performances.

The film admirably attempts a level of emotional resonance Bay has proven largely incapable of. Even if it can’t quite wrangle those beats into one cohesive mood, it gives its leads the most they’ve had to work across this trilogy.

While The Fate of the Furious is an unquestionably enjoyable outing, it’s beginning to feel a lot like fatigue on a long-enduring franchise.

All told, Fast X is an improvement on its recent predecessors and perfectly welcome as distracting summer fare, but whether or not it will stall before the end of the road remains to be seen.

While often a lazy rehash of the first two installments, Terminator: Dark Fate nevertheless capitalizes on familiar territory as best it can, in order to casually examine the inner clockwork of its human and inhuman stars.

Any eye-rolling quips or comic-book acidity is generally outweighed by this fundamental understanding: the best special effect your action film can deploy is Jason Statham kicking people.

Though not an entirely colossal failure, Eternals has a Sisyphean problem with authenticity: the greater its attempts at specific, deeply felt connection, the more it feels like a broad, insecure, corporate pander. It becomes increasingly tough to appreciate the handiwork of Zhao or her cast when you can imagine Kevin Feige singing “It’s the real thing!” under every ersatz Terrence Malick tableau.

There’s nothing monumental at play in The Whole Truth, but it’s not entirely without merit, satisfying on the same level one would digest a grocery store paperback.