James Berardinelli

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.

I wanted to love Sinners more than I did but the energy level is so infectious that it’s impossible not to get swept up and pulled in. It’s a sloppy concoction that carves out a new niche for vampires not unlike what Let the Right One In achieved.

What starts out as a devilishly clever exercise in evasion and detection turns into a self-parody that climaxes with several eye-rolling whoppers. Well, at least it’s never boring.

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.

Those who want something substantial in their cinematic diet may recoil from what A Working Man offers. But for anyone whose primary concern is to see the righteous slaughter of bad guys at the hands of the noble Statham, A Working Man doesn’t disappoint.

Overall, Death of Unicorn falls short of being the Next Great Cult Classic but there’s enough here to enjoy for those who appreciate offbeat horror that doesn’t skimp on the grotesque aspects of the genre.

It’s not the worst we’ve seen from either Levinson or De Niro but there’s a sense that a pairing of these two working with a Pileggi script should have borne juicer fruits.

It’s disposable entertainment that will put some spare change in the distributor’s coffers while never coming close to replacing its venerable antecedent in viewers' hearts.

The film will likely find a receptive audience among those who enjoy blood-soaked B movies. It has enough gory elements to enhance the overpowering mood.

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.

The Electric State has an epic look but that’s increasingly common in any movie with sci-fi elements. But, aside from the special effects, it feels unfinished, with the actors groping to inhabit barely-there characters. What does it say when Mr. Peanut has more personality than either of the main characters?

Hollywood’s decision to abandon this kind of storytelling is one reason why cinema in the 2020s has fallen into the doldrums and, when something like Black Bag arrives, it’s a bittersweet reminder of the potential of the big screen experience.

As it is, this is a painless experience but lacks the qualities to make it a true pleasure.

The screenplay fails to provide any reason to care about the characters or their circumstances, so we sit in a theater seat, trying not to be hypnotized by all the flashes of light in the muddled brown-and-white environment or lulled to sleep by the inane babbling that passes for dialogue.

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).

For those who hang in there long enough, Riff Raff delivers. I just wish the buildup had been more engaging.

Although I was suitably diverted by Last Breath, I couldn’t help but feel there was a missed opportunity to tell a more riveting story that, for whatever reason, the filmmakers chose not to pursue.

The movie isn’t quite as unhinged as the trailer indicates but it’s far enough off the beaten path to provide enjoyment for those who enjoy their blood & guts served with a twist.

Attempts at wit and humor seem half-hearted at best. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy isn’t a terrible movie; it’s mediocre at worst. But it never should have been made.

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.

Overall, I found the film to be somewhat disappointing – another instance of a streaming service pouring big screen dollars into a project of only middling quality.

A mixture of documentary and thriller, this is a compelling two-hour production.

This is a painfully bad movie that thinks it’s trying to be Jackie Chan-meets-John Wick and flies so far wide of the target that it might have been shot by a blind man.

Love Me isn’t bad in the sense that it is poorly assembled or incompetently shot. On a craft and technical level, it’s above average. But the narrative is incoherent and the philosophical meanderings lack depth and intelligence.

It’s definitely not a pure thought-piece: there is a body count and quite a bit of blood (although this is by no means a gore-fest). But it seeks to do more with familiar tropes than merely create an unimaginative story around them.

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.

The obligatory jump-scares aren’t the best and the movie is at times frustratingly underlit, but those things don’t keep the suspense at bay. In the end, however, Wolf Man is a story of sacrifice and love.

Although a heist film with a high testosterone quotient might not be everyone’s favorite wintertime treat, it’s an effective antidote for all the highfalutin Oscar wannabes out there.

It features a great performance by Domingo but, in some ways the less showy contributions of the former real-life inmates represent the best Sing Sing has to offer. The movie is touching and uplifting in often unexpected ways.

Young is very good in her part, making Eva a strong, flawed character whose depth helps to counterbalance the shallowness of everyone else. On the whole, however, The Damned wasn’t able to achieve what I was hoping from it and, rather than being an overlooked gem, it’s instead simply “overlooked.”

For all its sparkling visuals, Mufasa is redundant. And that makes watching it (at least as an adult) deflating.

It doesn’t break any molds but expertly crafts familiar material into an end product that will likely appeal to a wide audience.

Gracey’s bracing style, which invites some interesting observations (such as whether sex scenes featuring Williams-as-a-chimp should be considered bestiality), gives the movie an edge that it never loses even after we have gotten used to the substitution.

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

A Complete Unknown isn’t shallow but the screenplay makes no attempt to psychoanalyze its subject. If there’s something to be learned, it’s how uncomfortable it could be to enter this man’s orbit. His music is iconic and speaks to many but, from the first scene to the last, he remains A Complete Unknown.

With its striking images, pervasive atmosphere, and incessant sense of dread, Nosferatu leaves an impression that proves hard to shake.

It rewards patience not only in the way it crafts its central character but develops the era in which it transpires.

Babygirl is perhaps not as gloriously, guiltily entertaining as some of the films Reijn used as models but it offers its own pleasures.

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.

Nickel Boys has a lot to recommend it, but there’s a sense that the experience could have been more devastating had the filmmakers simply let it play out rather than using it as an opportunity for directorial flourishes and experimentation.

Although visually more impressive than even Bakshi’s blend of traditional animation and rotoscoping, The War of the Rohirrim suffers from some stylistic hiccups and the straightforward storyline limits the “epic-ness” of the production. Still, as a stand-alone adventure story, this is an engaging episode and a solid addition to a still-limited cinematic universe.

With September 5, Fehlbaum has crafted one of 2024’s most unlikely thrillers. It’s also one of the best movies to reach screens in a year when genuine tension has been too often absent from films in which it should have been a key ingredient.

Although there are a few amusing instances when the film goes over-the-top with gore, those don’t save what’s ultimately a bad zombie apocalypse film with the undead replaced by robots.

The end result, however, whether pruned during the scripting stage or in the editing room, is a taut and compelling piece of cinema whose release in the wake of the 2024 election may have some viewers pondering Winston Churchill’s 1948 warning: “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat 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.

Rather than taking any sort of bold step forward, Moana 2 is more of the same. Although that can be seen as a positive, it feels a little disappointing that this is the best Disney was able to craft after an eight-year wait.

Although Gladiator II is an engaging diversion, it never feels like the epic one expects nor does it truly escape the shadow cast by the earlier chapter.

The movie drags at times, evidence that the too-generous 160-minute running time adversely affects pacing without resulting in a better-defined, deeper storyline.

It’s the kind of movie one can watch and appreciate on both an emotional and intellectual level but without having to do much heavy lifting. It isn’t the director’s best work but nevertheless represents a worthy entry to his increasingly diverse filmography.

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.

A Real Pain will resonate most strongly with movie-goers who don’t mind films in which conflict is internalized and where human interaction – simple, vivid, and unforced – takes center stage.

Here’s hoping the movie finds its audience because it’s one of the freshest and most audacious films available in this year’s sparse cinematic landscape.

It gets under the skin and into the mind and does what good psychological horror does best: leaves the viewer unsettled and perhaps a little shaken even after the end credits roll and the lights turn back on.

Although I found the change of pace to be refreshing for a Neeson outing, the movie is too flawed for a full recommendation.

In the end, I was more letdown by the movie’s inability to draw me in than impressed by its offbeat premise.

The movie is at its best when it feels like a Vatican riff on 12 Angry Men, a concept that is enough to keep things flowing smoothly until the frustratingly “Hollywood” events of the final 20 minutes.

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.

It’s a promising debut for Kenrick behind the camera and Zovatto is excellent in front of it but it’s hard to shake the incomplete feeling that accompanies a viewing.

Those yearning to make use of a small package of tissues may be willing to overlook the movie’s deficiencies but I can’t help but wonder whether a conventional telling of the same story might have been more effective in the long run.

The relentless pace, which flags only occasionally, and entrancing storytelling make this follow-up an even more satisfying experience than the one provided by the 2022 production.

What we have here is enjoyable, if somewhat scattershot, and at least as entertaining as what’s airing most Saturday nights at 11:30 pm.

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

The Outrun avoids pretentiousness and the emotional stakes are so high that it doesn’t threaten to become boring.

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

Despite a terrific performance by Kate Winslet and some powerful moments during the film’s final third, Lee falls into the bio-pic trap of trying to encapsulate too much of a famous person’s life into a two-hour chunk.

The Wild Robot proves to be one of the best animated features to emerge from the American studios post-pandemic and even approaches Miyazki’s (alleged) swansong, The Boy and the Heron, in blending artistry with entertainment value.

Wolfs is a pleasant enough experience. At 108 minutes, it’s not too long and, putting aside the aggravating manner in which Watts ends the story, it goes down easily.

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.

Despite some minor issues in presenting and pursuing the time travel episodes, My Old Ass rarely missteps and that will likely earn it a place on my end-of-the-year Top 10.

This is off-the-beaten-path movie-making that calls attention to itself by how different it is from the cookie-cutter stuff playing next door while never losing the capacity to entertain those who enter this bizarre world.

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.

Overall, although this version of Speak No Evil doesn’t leave as deep or lasting an impact as its predecessor, it represents another in the seemingly-endless Blumhouse stable of low-budget films to warrant a recommendation for those who appreciate the genre.

Although the movie disappoints late in the proceedings by pandering to cliches, few will be so bored as to leave before the curtain comes down.

After a few missteps and/or odd choices for the director (including Dumbo and Dark Shadows), Beetlejuice Beetlejuice puts Burton back in familiar territory and, surrounded by past collaborators and a sense of nostalgia, he thrives.

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.

Ultimately, Strange Darling left me with a little “Emperor’s New Clothing” feeling, with all the excitement coming not from the actual story but from the manner in which it is presented.

Sanders, however, has taken a deep dive into the world of pretentious horror, where every killing has to be as stylized as it is gory. His characters have no humanity, his romance has no sizzle, and the whole thing turns into a slog where style overwhelms substance to such a degree that there’s too little left of the latter to matter.

Blink Twice is a deliciously nasty “refrigerator film” – a psychological thriller that holds viewers spellbound while in the theater (even if certain plot elements fall apart upon later reflection – say, for example, when getting a snack from the refrigerator later that night).

It mostly works although the tension never quite escalates to the levels reached by Ridley Scott’s original and James Cameron’s even-better direct follow-up.

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

About the only reason to see Fire of Love is to be treated to more material from the Kraffts’ archives, since Dosa and Herzog mostly selected different footage.

Regardless of the reason, Borderlands arrives as a legitimate contender not only for worst film of 2024 but one of the worst videogame movies ever released.

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.

Trap is a house of cards built on a bed of sand in the middle of a hurricane. It flies apart and collapses almost immediately and the various plot threads are so thoroughly ripped to shreds that there’s nothing left at the end but the wreckage of a movie and the recognition that 105 precious minutes have been stolen.

Demand for the movie is high and, although it’s not the be-all/end-all of superhero movies, its anarchic and rambunctious approach to the genre results in an entertaining hybrid of comic book action and straightforward satire.

Although Mc Carthy’s style is critical to the movie’s effectiveness, he doesn’t abandon the story in its service. Instead, he crafts a plot that is intriguing and engaging and caps everything off with a satisfying ending.

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.

The fourth movie is in many ways better than it has a right to be and it’s certainly a worthy way to dispose of a couple of hours lying on the couch at home, but this is hardly a triumphant return for Axel or Murphy.

Everything about this movie feels both tired and tiring. Yes, it does a great job setting up a sense of deep unease but that quickly evaporates when it becomes apparent the movie isn’t going anywhere worthwhile or interesting, and the ending is downright silly.

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.

Maxxxine is the weakest of the three members of the X Trilogy. It’s as if West and Goth were too enamored with the character to let her fade away, so they contrived a scattershot and ultimately unsatisfying way to return her to the screen.

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.

I applaud what Costner has given us with Horizon. This contains many of the things on my movie wish-list with its focus on an original story, diverse characters, and a classic cinematic approach. Problems aside, Costner has me hooked and I’ll be among the first in line to see Chapter 2 when it opens in August.

This works effectively as a stand-alone film and part of a larger story, and finds a way to extend the Quiet Place concept without feeling redundant.

Yankovic understands and takes to heart the maxim of never letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

Kinds of Kindness may not offer the kind of full experience provided by Poor Things but it is a reminder of the responses a movie can engender when the director doesn’t play by the rules.