Jake Cole

On the screen, Shang-Chi is rotely defined by the same “gifted kid” impostor syndrome as so many other self-doubting MCU heroes before him.

In the film, the literal union of bodies is the only logical means of conveying the reestablishment of emotional bonds.

There’s no attempt to hide that the film is pure fan service, a greatest-hits mashup of Spider-Man’s cinematic legacy.

The film falls back on a reductive rumination on the balance between maternal obligation and career aspiration.

The film shows how much Johnnie To still experiments with his form, especially as he continues to transition to digital cinema.

If the film sometimes feels too small in comparison to its predecessors, it manages to make the most of its quietest moments.

In its own way, the film is as suitable a final work as a culminating magnum opus.

There's a blank space at the core of Molly's Game that the protagonist cannot fill, unable as she is to represent anything beyond her esoteric narrative of unorthodox self-actualization.

Shazam! sees DC combining the golden-age optimism espoused by Wonder Woman and the jubilant, self-aware silliness of Aquaman into a satisfying whole.

The bevy of documentaries, narrative films, and books about Bob Dylan’s breakout, ascent, and impact on the 1960s pop zeitgeist could fill a library, which makes this oversimplified retread of the same topic all the more tedious and superfluous.

This tonal shift transforms Manon of the Spring from a caustic morality play into something more reflective, an elegy to a way of life whose residents did not fully appreciate until they themselves had helped to end it.

Shane Black's The Nice Guys doesn't want for great exchanges, and even disposable conversations brim with acidic wit.

One of the final triumphs of the New Hollywood era, Cutter’s Way belongs on the shelf of fans of both Cassavetian hyperreal melodrama and Pakula-esque political thrillers.

Befitting its image-conscious milieu, The Devil Wears Prada 2 has the aspartame fake-sweetness and zero-calorie comfort of its predecessor: It’s charming enough in the moment but you’ll be hungry again half an hour later.

Ebulliently funny, visually inventive, and above all passionately committed to the idea that heroism isn't a burden but an uplifting realization of our best qualities.

It operates in an ambiguous register, suggesting that a woman is working in unison with nature to dole out revenge for their exploitation.

The rambling conversations and endless wandering through nature could let the film pass for a filler episode of Lost.

Tony Stone’s avoidance of emotional manipulation in dramatizing Ted Kaczynski’s terror campaign is admirable, but only up to a point.

The film lacks for the more lacerating, freely parodic energy of The Larry Sanders Show and 30 Rock.

The film is a gentle evocation of contemporary Japanese life in its pleasures and frustrations.

The film is a vivid depiction of how a confrontation with the unknown can so easily shatter the fragile bonds that hold us together.

Peter Farrelly manages to respect the severity of the characters’ social context while ensuring that Green Book never steps outside its protagonists’ relationship, a delicate balancing act that credibly makes a feel-good, effervescent comedy out of its thorny subject matter without ever sanitizing it.

Jon Watts deftly weaves the epic and the mundane aspects of Spider-Man’s existence throughout the film.

If Ken Loach has always erred on making his political views impossible to misconstrue, he also knows how to keep his dramas from spiraling too far outside of plausibility.

Fahrenheit 11/9 represents a sincerely bold attempt to capture the overwhelming civic decay that led to our current political crisis, but Michel Moore’s circus-showman duplicity is as crass and abhorrently self-promoting as that of Donald Trump.

Cassavetes and Rowlands lend a screwball energy to this thriller, ably playing conflicting moods of suspense and silliness off each other to complicate an otherwise straightforward genre film.

The film should have been a cautionary tale, but in Peter Berg's hands, it's a hollow account of the resilience of the human spirit.

Throughout her directorial debut, Suzanne Lindon paints a concise and truthful portrait of her protagonist’s feelings of estrangement.