David Sims

Although the sequel’s running time is more sprawling and its narrative goals more diffuse than its predecessor’s, it shares the same strengths. Wakanda Forever is fueled by intricate world-building, stunningly designed sets and costumes, and an interest in the geopolitical implications of superheroism that’s far more nuanced than most Marvel movies allow.

Barbarian serves up all the requisite thrills with panache, but it also provokes deeper, longer-lasting reflections. That balance is why the film has continued spreading so organically months after its release, and why it’ll keep tempting viewers down to the basement for years to come.

Johnson once excelled at playing anti-heroes you could root for and boo cheerfully all in one breath, but now he’s just another silent grump who’s never allowed to lose a fight.

Every visual composition is meticulously arranged, and every surreal twist of imagery feels nuanced and earned. But most important, the world around Tár seems real and tangible, so when it slips into chaos, the viewer becomes as overwhelmed as the protagonist.

So many rom-coms rely on tiresome plot twists to keep their characters apart before getting them together, but all of the ups and downs in Bros’ romance feel emotionally necessary.

Wilde’s film aims to be a feminist parable about how this idealized vision of the past is actually a curdled vision of coupledom. Abstractly, that’s a robust concept; in execution, the movie’s absurdity overpowers its message.

The Woman King is a barn burner if you’re just looking for an invigorating night at the movies. But Prince-Bythewood’s real triumph is in grounding that sterling entertainment in a challenging dramatic text.

Zemeckis certainly remains good at running a production that uses expensive-looking CGI. The actual narrative behind those visuals, however, seems to have vanished.

The Gray Man is a completely anonymous viewing experience, a series of set pieces and pithy jokes that’s devoid of personality.

Persuasion at times seems embarrassed by its source material, or at least overeager to spruce it up for audiences that might not be able to handle a gentler pace. The result is harried and forgettable—the complete opposite of Austen’s quietest, noblest heroine.

Peele is not just making an inventive sci-fi thriller. Nope is tinged with the acidic satire that suffused his last two movies, as Peele examines why the easiest way to process horror these days is to turn it into breathtaking entertainment.

Love and Thunder offers the usual lightning-streaked action and tossed-off gags, but this time, there’s not enough heft behind the flashiness.

Luhrmann’s approach works for one reason: Elvis should be a mess. Presley’s adult life was chaotic, and it unfolded almost entirely in public, from his spectacular successes to his ignominious decline. Watching it play out on film ought to feel a little disorienting.

What makes the first half of Spiderhead so compelling is that it’s injected with the unexpected; a shame, then, that the inventiveness drips out as the film’s running time winds down.

While all of the film’s visual excitement is handled with Pixar’s usual polish, the intrigue is only surface-level.

Making dinosaurs finally feel dull was a rather revealing storytelling choice for Trevorrow—viewers aren’t bored of seeing them on-screen, but he sure seems to be.

The thrill of RRR is not the density of its storytelling, though—it’s the exuberance of it.

By framing her characters’ inventiveness with boldly bizarre imagery, Schoenbrun is getting at what makes internet horror such a unique mode of cinema. The viewer is unsettled not just by the content, but by their ambiguous relationship to who’s sharing it.

Men would likely drown in its own weirdness were it not for its dynamic leads.

Other films have skewered an industry that’s intent on bludgeoning audiences with their own fading memories, but only Chip ’n Dale actually gives those memories a new life.

I think Thyberg could have found even more to mine in a fully nonfiction movie; the biggest drawback of Pleasure is that it follows a fabricated protagonist who’s remote and one-dimensional. Bella is so defined by her stock story that it’s hard to grasp what’s motivating her beyond a desire for success, and the film gets bogged down in this staid narrative.

What surprised me about Multiverse of Madness was how much fun Raimi was allowed to have in the middle of it, turning every action sequence into something quite inventive and even delivering some cheeky scares throughout. This many years into the Marvel experiment, I’m heartened to see space for a real genre auteur amid all the multiversal machinations.

The final act of The Northman is as violent and intense as a story that inspired Hamlet should be, but all the gore and swordplay would leave no lasting impression were it not for the sincerity of Eggers’s vision.

If you’re buying a ticket hoping for a honed piece of cinema, you may be disappointed. Ambulance is instead a strong entry in Bay’s maximalist canon, his best assault on the senses since his underrated 2013 comic thriller, Pain & Gain.

The inclusion of other CGI characters actually helps balance out Sonic’s manic energy a little bit; watching them bounce off of one another is somehow easier than watching human actors try their best to interact with imaginary creatures that couldn’t show up to set.

Morbius is little more than an irritant, a grumpy, one-note CGI beastie who spends most of his movie pondering whether he should go full supervillain.

Weerasethakul is unpacking a sensation everyone has probably experienced at one point in their life: the feeling that something is cosmically out of whack.

This film is not a grandiose tale of love transcending all, but it does find all kinds of sweet, specific ways to portray a lasting partnership.