Derek Smith

Behind the violence and gore, Nobody 2 only offers the skeleton of a narrative.

Like Vice before it, the film too often uses satire as a tool of castigation rather than as a means of truly attacking the status quo.

Ultimately, Kidnap is an efficient vehicle for the delivery of some lean action that's frequently weakened by a scarcely whip-smart script.

Once the film shifts into a broader comedic register, it no longer capitalizes on Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae’s gift for gab.

The film muddies its sense of moral righteousness by suggesting that violence and vengeance can only be defeated by more of the same.

Wendy veers awkwardly and aimlessly between tragedy and jubilance, never accruing any lasting emotional impact.

The charitable representation of Bryan Cranston’s character greatly diminishes the emotional resonance of the film’s dramatic turns in the final act.

The only past that Dial of Destiny is interested in plundering is the glory of its predecessors.

The film takes aim at myriad targets and bluntly satirizing them in disparate styles that never mesh into a cohesive whole.

More times than not, the film’s bursts of humor clash awkwardly with the far more frequent attempts at gravitas that the filmmakers strive for when our protagonist is in battle or engaged in political discussions.

As effective as director Josie Rourke is at exposing the emotional and physical toll of reigning as queen when exploring Mary and Elizabeth's relationship, her portrait of an endless string of betrayals ends up as simply faceless and impersonal.

In the end, the film is all too ready to transform into just another shiny pop object indistinguishable from so many others before it.

The film Despite its weird flourishes, the film succumbs to the tropes and emotional contrivances of the family melodrama at its core.

This unfocused, awkwardly paced film never quite gets off the ground and, as a result, will do little to change perceptions of the Korean War as the “forgotten war.”

The film is admirably frank in its depiction of lingering trauma but too often struggles to capture its more ineffable qualities.

With Ocean's 8, Gary Ross serves up a mildly engaging riff on the heist film, but he rarely strays from the established formula of Steven Soderbergh's original Ocean's trilogy.

Greenland 2 plays out as a much more generic thriller than its predecessor.

For all of its slavish devotion to Mary Poppins, the sequel doesn't even seem to recognize its greatest attribute: its star.

Not Okay doesn’t make any points that, now over a decade into the ubiquity of social media, aren’t painfully obvious.

Stillwater gives itself over to drastic plot twists that derail what was already a film over-stuffed with narrative incident and ideas.

The film is subsumed by the unshakable sense that Jared Leto is intended to make Martin Zandvliet's take on the yakuza underworld more palatable for American audiences.

The film celebrates individuality even as it suggests that everyone needs their own A.I. tech to validate everything they like and think.

Despite Ari Gold’s knack for visual flourishes that capture a sense of place seemingly outside of time, The Song of Sway Lake plays like several disparate melodies overlapping one another.

Pearl is ultimately an empty exercise in style masquerading as a character study, and for as fantastic as Mia Goth is, her performance mostly succeeds at making Ti West’s homages just a little bit easier to stomach.

Through this endless string of undercooked subplots, Avi Nesher’s film continually trips over itself.

The film’s manic blend of gore and relentlessly cheeky comedy eventually leads to diminished returns.

The film is almost sadistically driven to turn a woman’s trip down memory lane into fodder for cringe humor.

All of the time spent on Thomas Munro’s various campaigns for reconciliation and harmony between two Māori tribes hampers the film, which would have been better served had it expounded on the grander conflicts that it only superficially acknowledges.