Derek Smith

Rarely has a film used its foreknowledge of a happy ending as a reason to remain so uncritical and incurious of its central subject.

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

As far as improvements go, Michael Myers’s revitalized brutality is arguably the only successful one that Halloween Kills makes.

Birds of Paradise lacks the nuance and finesse needed for its story to really take flight.

The film persuasively sheds light on the grievances of the Palestinian people that have long fallen on deaf ears.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye mostly plays out as a showcase for Jessica Chastain to bring as much emotional sturm und drang to the woman as she lurches between various states of turmoil.

The film is elevated by funny, cleverly staged sequences, but it too often hammers the notion that fame destroys authenticity.

The film upends the clichés that practically define the ghost story in surprising and intriguing ways.

The film’s gore is just as likely to invoke fear as to serve as a killer punchline to one of Rodo Sayagues’s set pieces.

There’s so much discernible IP baked into Shawn Levy’s film to make its calls for artistic ingenuity feel hypocritical at best.

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

Arie and Chuko Esiri’s film is understated in its attunement to the challenges of trying to escape a stagnant existence.

The fundamental ineptness of Gunpowder Milkshake appears to be a consequence of the exponentially swelling glut of streaming options.

As it strives for a grander metaphor of life in America, The Forever Purge resorts to sweeping generalizations that make the prior films in the series feel like pinnacles of subtlety.

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard improves on its 2017 predecessor only insofar as it runs 20 minutes shorter.

Eytan Fox’s film is a low-key observance of two men finding the beauty in each other’s mysteries and contradictions.

The reality of Nazi Germany and its looming atrocities feels as if it exists only beyond the edges of the film’s frame.

Ed Helms and Patti Harrison’s wonderful rapport helps to keep the film grounded in the recognizably real.

While the film certainly lays out the dangers of technology run amok, it also sees its power to connect people.

Maria Sødahl’s considers the extreme emotions provoked by a medical emergency with an impressive force of clarity.

Art, commerce, and immigration are inextricably bound in Kaouther Ben Hania’s playful and gently moving, if uneven, film.

After a while, the film’s parade of contrivances subsumes the acutely observed friendship at its core.

The film’s arguments against endless war end up seeming more than a bit disingenuous, especially given how much time it spends glorifying the actions and morality of those who help buoy ongoing American occupation of foreign nations.

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

The film weaves together the stories of five mostly nonverbal autistic teens to present a rich tapestry of the autistic experience.

Robert Rodriguez’s film, like The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, fundamentally lacks a sense of wonder.

There are enough left turns here to allow us to shake the impression that we’ve been to this rodeo before.

The documentary may be the defining portrait of the dawning of the Covid-19 pandemic.