James Berardinelli

Despite being drenched in atmosphere, Last Rites can’t conjure enough genuine scares to fend off the creeping sense of boredom.

Caught Stealing gives [Aronofsky] the right canvas, and he delivers with enough style to lift the film above the B-movie neo-noir roots of its screenplay.

Roach and screenwriter Tony McNamara sought a different perspective for the material. The result is more dramatic, less over-the-top, and proves to be tonally uneven. The humor is muted and less overtly vicious, but the more serious approach doesn’t quite succeed.

Howard stages several powerful sequences, including a harrowing childbirth scene, but the film falters in its final act, losing focus and stumbling toward an anticlimactic conclusion.

Because it thumbs its nose at the puritanical morality of contemporary mainstream cinema, Honey Don't! feels destined for cult appreciation rather than broad appeal. It’s a diverting curiosity—something to tide us over while we wait for Joel and Ethan Coen to reunite.

It’s an okay movie if all you want is an everyman dad doing superhero-ish things while getting beaten up along the way, but it’s neither as wildly entertaining nor as exhilarating as its predecessor.

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

Weapons is a step up for writer/director Zach Cregger from his promising horror debut, Barbarian – funnier, more unsettling, and ultimately more satisfying when taken as a whole.

As documentary biographies go, it's workmanlike but conventional – a solid effort and worthwhile investment of time though by no means a transformative or perspective-shifting film.

Though there are some narrative hiccups, its emotional core elevates it beyond mere cringeworthy gore.

This is a fun, funny trifle that deserves to be enjoyed on its own terms – a throwback that only feels old when that serves its purposes.

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.

As a means to finally bring the Fantastic Four into the MCU, First Steps is as successful in its own way as Spider-Man: Homecoming was. In addition to representing an apology for the previous big-screen botching of Galactus, the film puts all the foundational pieces into place.

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.

Robinson's movie flip-flops back and forth between being inept and goofy.

In 2025, Superman feels a lot like many of the other superhero movies out there - fun, frisky, and forgettable.

With impeccable period details, top-notch performances, and the text of one of the 20th century’s most lauded plays, The Piano Lesson represents one of Netflix’s stronger unsung late-2024 drops.

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.

We’re here for the nasty kills, the clever eviscerations, and the M3GAN vs. AMELIA rumble. And we get very little of any of those things.

The effectiveness of the film’s overall aesthetic cannot be understated: what F1 lacks in narrative development it more than compensates for with its thrill-ride aspects. Watching the film, you may not believe you’re in a racing car but you will feel like you’re doing more than passively sitting in a theater seat.

It’s a reasonable way to get out of the heat for a few hours and give your kid a treat but don’t expect to get as much out of it as you would if you were part of the under-10 crowd.

It’s a step up from 28 Weeks Later but it remains to be seen whether Nia DaCosta is able to bring this chapter across the finish line.

I found Materialists to be overlong but not unpleasant but there’s a lack of balance in the way the secondary characters and side-plots are more engaging than the bland central romantic triangle.

Watching The Life of Chuck, I was inspired to remember how wonderful it can be to find a movie that offers the thrill of discovery and the comfort of real emotions. That’s such a rare combination these days and when a film unlocks the secret, it deserves to be seen and lauded for the accomplishment.

How to Train Your Dragon represents solid family entertainment even if it feels like it’s tracing over an existing pattern rather than developing something new.

For those who enjoy Anderson’s patented quirkiness, The Phoenician Scheme doesn’t disappoint. Assembled with the abettance of longtime friend and collaborator Roman Coppola, Anderson has almost completely dispensed with a conventional storyline in service of a movie that delights in parodying seemingly anything and everything.

The concept of expanding the John Wick “world” by adding a worthy female counterpoint isn’t an inherently bad idea. The flaw is in the execution.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is too low-key for its own good and could have benefitted from a stronger connection to the titular author than the finished product delivers.