James Berardinelli

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is harmless enough, although it exists more as an afterthought than a legitimate continuation of a story that was fully told twenty years ago after the first 105 minutes.

When compared to the recent influx of musical biopics, this one sits somewhere in the middle; there is too little depth to elevate it to the top, but the soundtrack is too strong to let it sink to the bottom.

The obligatory concluding remark for a horror movie about the undead applies here: the best approach is to leave it buried.

In terms of checking off the genre’s requisite boxes, You, Me & Tuscany does just enough to earn a passing grade for rom-com devotees who prioritize "vibes" over cinematic standards.

While I admired the lead performances, the journey of The Drama remains unfulfilling. When I see a movie like this, I want to connect with the characters and believe their circumstances. I got some of the former but practically none of the latter.

If the idea of spending 90 minutes in a movie theater seeing gorgeously rendered versions of a hugely popular gaming world and its characters going through the motions appeals to you, then The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will scratch the itch.

Ultimately, The Bride! has "cult classic" written all over it. It possesses very little mainstream appeal—it is simply too weird and outlandish for the average moviegoer—but there are enough flashes of brilliance to fascinate a niche audience in years to come.

Looking back at Psycho Killer as a whole, the missteps in the final 20–30 minutes easily overwhelm some of the earlier, better material. It's tough to recommend this even as a streaming time-waster.

If the mandate for any new interpretation is to offer something fresh, one is left wondering what this version claims as its justification for taking up over two hours of our time.

If the legend of Dracula has become tired through overuse, there is certainly nothing in this iteration to grant the old Count a new lease on life.

Made well, this sort of material has the potential for a deliciously lurid two hours. But Feig's lack of aptitude with the material results in a cheap and artificial product, never really drawing the viewer into its web and spinning an overlong yarn that fails to embrace an identity.

There’s enough suspense to keep an itchy trigger finger from changing the channel but viewers hoping for more won’t find it here.

The movie makes a variety of changes to Jeffrey’s story to make it more cinematic, but without the kind of narrative reworking needed to streamline the material, the result feels unfocused and shapeless.

It’s rich material, but despite having one of the greatest actors of his generation at his disposal, Ronan manages to fumble it—delivering a film that functions more as a sleep aid than a drama.

While the film does deliver a few solid laughs (though none that truly hit an 11), it ultimately falls flat, feeling less like a theatrical mockumentary and more like an overlong streaming special.

This movie is built to be consumed, forgotten, and replaced — a product, not an experience.

There's enough in the film to assemble an intriguing two-minute trailer. Unfortunately, the movie has an additional 92 minutes to fill and that's not something it's able to do with much success. The problems with Oh, Hi! relate not to its conception but its execution.

Unfortunately, for all its button-pushing, the movie's biggest offense is that it is often tedious and meandering and it takes at least 30 minutes too long to cross the finish line.

It’s past time to let the dinosaurs take a nice, long vacation. That way, when they come back, maybe we can once again be excited about them. “Excitement” is not something Rebirth delivers with relish or consistency.

The overall production is bland and overcooked and the reliance on nostalgia and regurgitation often renders things dull and routine.

Another Simple Favor feels lazy and overplotted, and it definitely overstays its welcome.

The movie works when focused on character interaction and buddy-movie tropes, but the action elements are perfunctory at best and boring at worst. Bill Dubuque’s script is never able to balance out the ledger.

This is yet another early 2025 movie where there’s just enough material in the film to assemble an intriguing three-minute trailer but not enough to make the other 120 minutes of more than passing interest.

Some players will enjoy the flashes of familiarity but others will find the production to be lacking. “Cringey” might be too harsh but this is unlikely to become the next video game-to-movie classic.

The seeds of a nice little white-knuckle thriller are evident but they never germinate properly. The end result is profoundly disappointing and can’t be saved by the few individual moments that do work.

A mostly failed attempt to merge sci-fi with satire, Mickey 17 suffers from a fragmented narrative and a scenery-chewing performance from Mark Ruffalo that belongs in a different movie (perhaps Poor Things).

Captain America: Brave New World, the fourth title to co-opt the “Captain America” name and the first to star Anthony Mackie in the role, is another example of how badly unmoored the MCU has become in an era of unfamiliar heroes and stalled storylines.

At best, Gibson’s direction could be considered pedestrian. He fails to generate much tension prior to the climax and the characters never do enough to engage the viewer. The protagonists are bland and the villain lacks charisma.

Anderson’s performance is the selling point but one can rightly question whether it’s enough to bolster the malnourished narrative.

Instead of being truly awful, it’s simply mediocre, although one could argue that’s the last word a comic book movie wants to have applied to it.

At its best, Nightbitch offers a deeply honest, emotionally unsettling portrait of the darker side of parenting. Unfortunately, those moments are counterbalanced by a metaphorical story element that devolves into an exercise in campiness so tonally at variance with the core story as to create a dissonance many viewers won’t be able to overcome.

Outside of a clever re-invention of how the North Pole works, Red One doesn’t do a lot right, which is surprising considering that the project re-teams director Jake Kasdan and actor Dwayne Johnson, who made the thoroughly enjoyable Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

As for Venom, the potential inherent in the creature has been wasted and squandered over the course of three movies and this final installment is the worst offender of all.

A feature film adaptation of King’s best novel is deserving of something more epic than this throw-away production.

Folie a Deux functions as an overlong, pretentious coda – a slog that barely advances the narrative while regurgitating elements from the first film.

Even those approaching Megalopolis with an open mind and fully expecting to see an expensive and expansive art film may be disappointed by the result. The more I reflect on the movie, the more convinced I become that the things Coppola does well are dwarfed by missed opportunities and outright missteps.

The movie falls into the category of something a viewer is likely to stick with once sitting there but it lacks anything sufficiently unique or compelling that would make it worth seeking out.

A problem with this movie, as is too-often the case with productions set within the confines of a space craft/capsule, is that the filmmakers don’t trust the inherent dangers and claustrophobia of the situation to be sufficiently suspenseful.

Skincare feels like it wants to be a screwball caper movie but the comedy gets lost along the way.

Perhaps in the hands of a visionary genius in touch with their inner child, it might have been possible to achieve something better than an overlong throwaway distraction for a preschooler. In the hands of these filmmakers, however, it feels like a soulless cash-grab – an attempt to tap into the family-friendly frenzy that has emerged this summer.

The opening sequence/prologue is gripping but that’s the only aspect of Twisters that works on its intended level. I was not blown away.

Fly Me to the Moon isn’t a complete failure to launch (thanks primarily to the not-inconsiderable charisma and energy Johansson brings to the production) but neither does it have the thrust to make it into orbit.

Like undercooked comfort food, the series has lost its taste and appeal. Despicable Me 4 exemplifies what happens when an animated franchise overstays its welcome.

Although not without its merits, it’s far from a standout even when one considers how lackluster the current indie/art house landscape has become.

It’s cinematic fast-food but not of the delicious, addictive variety. It’s a little overcooked and has gone cold – still edible but by no means satisfying.

My reaction is that I could learn a lot more about Winehouse by listening to her music than by watching this by-the-numbers sketch of her adult life.

The narrative is all over the place. Character motivation is confusing. And, worst of all, the story simply isn’t interesting.

As scattershot and uneven as it is unnecessary, it fails to effectively build on the foundation laid in Afterlife while at the same time relegating the “old timers” into oddly-integrated super-cameo appearances.

There’s still quite a bit to like here, from the strong sense of atmosphere to the layers of a Hitchcockian plot, but this is not a complete movie. And when viewers are laughing at a movie rather than with it, something has gone awry.

For nearly two hours, the movie plods along, offering little beyond hackneyed dialogue that can’t be gleaned from a quick read-through of Marley’s Wikipedia entry.

Sadly, Madame Web fails to rise above its pedigree as a lesser superhero movie. It does nothing to convince viewers that there’s value to be found in a story not featuring a marquee comic book character.

Lisa Frankenstein obviously wants to be different and it at least succeeds in that aim. However, as a story of female empowerment with grand guignol overtones, it has the great misfortune of coming out in too-close proximity to the vastly superior Poor Things.

Remove the musical elements and the 2024 version, directed by newcomers Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., resembles an amateurish imitation of the 2004 original. Add in the mostly-awful songs and it becomes an in-your-face assault on the senses.

For those whose only requirements for horror movies are that they avoid the excesses of blood/gore/violence prevalent in R-rated fare and incorporate a few good jump-scares, Night Swim checks the requisite boxes. For those looking for a more complete experience, however, the movie struggles even to achieve the level where it would be considered worthwhile as a streaming option.

The first Aquaman may have been low-brow fun but the second is a chore from start to finish.

Is Woo using this ultra-violent experience to make an anti-violence statement? Perhaps, but even if that’s the case, it doesn’t work. Whatever the director is trying to do with the movie, it makes it for one big lump of coal in the 2023 cinematic stocking.

This may be the worst major animated film Disney has released in the past 40 years and its lack of creative energy doesn’t augur well for the immediate future.

This mean-spirited and unpleasant production is unlikely to find favor with many either inside or outside of Elvis’ fan base.

As a motion picture (in the traditional sense of the term), Five Nights at Freddy’s is disjointed and ultimately unsatisfying but as part of a larger cog in a cross-platform franchise, it does everything (and more) that is expected from it.

This is far from the worst horror movie I have seen. In fact, it’s not even the worst Exorcist movie. No, it’s not scary. It lacks suspense and tension. But the first hour isn’t half-bad and there are isolated moments when Green seems to be onto something.

The primary sin isn’t that Blue Beetle stinks the way really bad movies do but that it is so deeply mired in mediocrity that it’s tough to find a reason to care about its existence.

It’s not a bad movie but it is too long and lifeless for what amounts to a two-hour commercial for a three-minute ride. Even the wait time to get into one of the moving chairs doesn’t take as long as watching the film.

While it’s possible to conceive a compelling story constructed out of the strands forming Joy Ride’s threadbare cloak, that narrative would require a better screenplay and a series of grounded, less ostentatious performances.

Although the movie has the capacity to engage and entertain young children, its bland storyline and cut-rate animation won’t impress many adults. This is a classic case of an animated film being targeted exclusively at younger viewers without much consideration about keeping parents from falling asleep.

Those looking for a quick horror fix may be satisfied – there are enough jump-scares to fill a quota – but, when one considers the number of inventive and interesting genre titles that have graced multiplex screens in recent years, this a disappointing exception.

Kandahar is one of those movies that exists without having a compelling reason for doing do. As a war movie, it’s not especially insightful or gut-wrenching. As an action film, it lacks energy, momentum, and consistency. As a drama, it feels artificial and manipulative.

In Fast X, there's plenty of noise and CGI (some of it on the dodgy, cheap-looking side) and things crashing and blowing up, but there's never a sense that it means anything.

Affleck is at his best playing wisecracking supporting roles (like in the recent Air, which Affleck also directed) and at his worst as an action hero. He sleepwalks his way through Hypnotic, doing little to rouse the audience from its own slumber while failing to generate any sparks with his co-star, Alice Braga.

Cage’s performance provides the glue for an uneven film.

There’s nothing in Paint to excite fans of the late painter and even less for those who don’t know anything about him.

Taken as a whole, the second Shazam! is an overlong mess with an awful ending that feels like it was assembled as a result of reading focus group responses.

Unfortunately, the lukewarm spy thriller offers a convoluted, meandering storyline that’s almost entirely devoid of tension and suspense. There’s less action than one might expect and the character development is so thin that even when a character is in danger, it’s hard to care.

Jesus Revolution takes a fascinating period of American history – the hippie movement and its associated fallout within the Christian community – and transforms it into a bland, TV movie-of-the-week experience.

Although there are occasions when individual set pieces are effective (such as a short bit involving a locked bathroom door), the film as a whole seems more like a series of missed opportunities than a “return to form” for director M. Night Shyamalan, who continues to trade on a name he made two decades ago.

Written without much concern for logic and coherence, the movie wavers between being a drama and a thriller and, as is too often the case in situations like these, doesn’t work as either.

The movie offers limited entertainment for those who enjoy this sort of fare but it’s impossible to recommend as anything more than a throw-away at-home selection when all the better streaming titles have been watched.

A by-the-numbers, slightly fictionalized chronicle of the rise and fall of pop singer Whitney Houston (Naomie Ackie), the film struggles to find a reason to exist beyond providing fans with an opportunity to listen to some of her most popular songs.

The cynic in me believes this movie may have been constructed primarily for end-of-the-year plaudits because there doesn’t seem to be another compelling reason for it to exist.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is an overlong blockbuster in search of an editor. It’s a series of impressive action sequences without a compelling narrative to connect them. It’s a frustrating example of how financial success, not creative impetus, drives the existence of sequels, and it illustrates how unwieldy, contradictory, and overstuffed the MCU has become.

In a streaming series spread out over four or six hours, this might have offered compelling content (and certainly would have seemed less rushed) but, in its current format, it’s more frustrating than satisfying and the facile ending doesn’t hit the right spot.

Black Adam embraces many of the worst elements and tropes of the superhero genre, resulting in a loud, discordant experience replete with fist-fights, pyrotechnics, and an overdose of CGI.

The director may be able to make a compelling case for why he made Blonde the way he did but I can make an equally compelling case for why only a masochist would want to sit through the whole thing.

Smith has infused this final chapter of the accidental trilogy with an odd tone. It’s a comedy that wants to be serious but has trouble finding the right pitch.

Samaritan isn’t terrible but neither is it especially good. It’s a B-grade comic book movie that looks, sounds, and plays like a B-grade comic book movie.

Older viewers may lose patience with the thinness of the narrative. Nostalgia might keep them watching but there’s only so far that can go and 90 minutes is too much to ask without the correspondingly intriguing story that Summering lacks.

Transforming Persuasion into something generic and pitching it to viewers seduced by the likes of Bridgerton and Mr. Malcolm’s List illustrates not only a lack of imagination but a betrayal of the source material.

Genre fans may perceive it as good enough to scratch an itch but no matter how well it eventually incorporates the various Pride & Prejudice tropes, it’s hard to see this as more than obligatory and unnecessary.

The Man from Toronto is derivative and forgettable; nothing about the venue in which it is seen will change that.

Dominion argues that not even the return of three beloved characters can rescue a franchise that has fallen and can’t get up.

In a way, it’s almost worth recommending Men for the first 70 minutes. At that point, a quick exit would preserve the illusion that this is some sort of modern horror classic. For those who stick around, however, the final assessment isn’t likely to be nearly as favorable.

Putting aside any long-term implications, The Multiverse of Madness is a frustrating mix of eclectic elements that at times feel more like Raimi referencing his Evil Dead movies than his previous superhero work. It’s undeniably fascinating and at times exhilarating but my overall feeling is one of vague disappointment.

There’s nothing in this third Fantastic Beasts installment that will grow the audience. In fact, the plodding pacing offers little to excite anyone outside the dwindling core fandom.

Morbius is the kind of bland, by-the-numbers origin story that shows comic book movies at their least innovative.

Allen almost seems to be going through the motions – his jokes are flat, his stories are poorly focused, and the sense of zany energy that characterized his best films is absent.

As a streaming offering available as part of a subscription package, it might be considered an adequate way to pass 90 minutes but as a reason to venture out to a theater, it’s hard to imagine anyone willing to go to those lengths for something this forgettable.

If Scream is intended to re-start the franchise, things are off to a rocky start. This is what happens when Hollywood refuses to give up on a series that has run its course.

With a generic cast, Don’t Look Up would have been a disappointment. With this star-studded cast, the classification of a “missed opportunity” doesn’t do it justice; it feels closer to a tragedy.

Cyrano is a disappointment. The set design and camera work are first rate, as are the performances of Dinklage and Bennett. It causes one to wonder whether, had the songs been excised in favor a straightforward telling, Cyrano might have played better. As it is, however, it’s merely a handsome looking period piece with too many mediocre songs and a major downer of an ending. Not exactly a great way to ring in a new year.