Conor O'Donnell

Kogonada delightfully exploits the simple joy of beautiful people falling in love on screen. He deploys his trademark empathy as a means of encouragement: Go with it, be open, and maybe this will make you feel something lovely if you let it.

The Final Reckoning‘s sum is not necessarily equal to its parts, but where the film stumbles technically, it soars viscerally, bolstered by the simple comfort that it’s just nice to hang with our friends in the IMF (even if they are stressed beyond measure).

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

It takes a very specific kind of brain trust to craft something as uniquely baffling as Argylle.

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.

If not the pure adrenaline rush that much of Fallout was, this latest Mission continuously finds new ways to surprise, subvert, entertain.

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.

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.

If it threatens too much of a good thing, Chapter 4 benefits from a seemingly infinite well of creative ferocity that’s impeccably paced. And while one could belabor the ludicrous pratfalls and convoluted inner workings of the universe at large, the film acquits itself just fine with an Ian McShane proclamation: “Just have fun out there.”

Handily crafted and only occasionally stilted, Creed III is a remarkably limber piece of entertainment.

Aside from the sparse bit of wincing fan service (such as odd prominence for what would usually be a mere easter egg), Prey is a nimble bit of carnage via perfect late-summer blockbuster. That such a worthy successor gets relegated not to the cinema but the streaming wars is a brutal slaughter in its own right.

Nope’s disparate eccentricities are enough of a foundation, however stitched-together, for Peele to exercise the cosmic cinematic ambitions at which he clearly excels.

Jurassic World: Dominion is at best distracted, at worst boring. Playing on the nostalgic return of key heroes and frantically attempting Spielbergian wonder, it wants you to believe it’s got a back-to-basics understanding of Jurassic Park. Instead it’s convoluted notions of big entertainment ignore what Spielberg understood: dinosaurs have always had a natural hold on our collective imagination. Making them fun doesn’t have to be this hard.

The go-for-broke attitude with which Top Gun: Maverick asserts itself is key to its success. Evident in the visceral whiplash of the aerial extravaganza, and the tender earnestness of its more honest moments, Top Gun: Maverick is the kind of rare, all-encompassing, and finely-tuned blockbuster that––if you let it––will take your breath away.

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.

Like a good snoop, All the Old Knives works its assets to maximum effect. It knows what it’s doing with Chris Pine in a turtleneck or Thandiwe Newton smirking through a glass of rosé. What’s left is a sturdy version of something maybe too familiar but welcome all the same.

The easy-breeziness of it all anchors this whole film’s appeal. There’s no brand to gravitate to or dopamine reward for recognizing things you grew up with––just charisma, comedy, and star power in spades. In that respect, the most wondrous thing about The Lost City is that it even exists.

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.

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.

The Marksman could be compelling if it at all dared to be. It flirts with a few trains of thought that perhaps could have rescued it from its own indifference, but it commits to more mundane aspirations.

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 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.

An original property, with a veteran marquee idol, in the hands of an accomplished auteur whose name isn’t Nolan, utilizing technological breakthroughs, Gemini Man isn’t just a novelty, it’s a miracle. It’s a Big Bang–a confluence of the right elements and conditions perfectly situated to create something that can flourish, but may never happen again.

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.

Midsommar basks you in sunlight and dread to present something far more fun to unpack than its predecessor.

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.

Sometimes dead is better, but it turns out a twisted bit of reanimation is just what Pet Sematary needed.

There is nary a moment of death that isn’t drawn out for laughs, or a moment of comedy drawn out for sorrow. Among the ice and the wind, Cold Pursuit paints an unsuspecting, desolate place, where death doesn’t care about you, so you might as well laugh.

McQuarrie has proven himself such a keen purveyor of large-scale cinema that not only solidifies Fallout as a benchmark for the franchise, but a bona fide manifesto for breathtaking, high-stakes action–a mission that the genre as a whole would do well to accept.

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.

While Ryan Coogler’s deep dive into the titular character’s Wakandan homeworld keeps the assembly line working, it heralds not only an improvement on the MCU, but a striking and grandiose fantasy in its own right.

Rian Johnson’s main feat is being savvy enough to know that sometimes the best thing to do is cherishing the past before burning it to the ground.

In this landscape, it’s rare to get the kind of unabashed silliness Taika Waititi delivers with Thor: Ragnarok.

Taken on it’s own merits — or lack thereof – Kingsman: The Golden Circle feels like being trapped in a dorm room, while a bunch of frat bros watch the first Kingsman and tell you it’s the greatest movie ever made.

The cracked joints and blunt force trauma are where Atomic Blonde excels.

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.

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.

The Hollywood-infused epic fantasy plays like Warcraft meets The Last Samurai by way of Zack Snyder — but shockingly better than all that sounds.

Entertainment of the highest order, Allied, like a large portion of Robert Zemeckis’ work, feels like a grand ode to filmmaking of an era past.

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.