John DeFore

Come as You Are hits most of the familiar road-movie beats, and telegraphs its surprises pretty shamelessly. It's not the most subtle disability comedy you've seen, nor is it at all concerned with exploring the ethical issues surrounding sex work. But its lightness is a virtue in the film's rare sentimental moments, which might've been too corny to bear in other contexts.

Lopsided in its balance between sentiment and scares, it's a very peculiar genre pic that will make the most sense to those familiar with the films of two of its producers — Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, whose trippy sci-fi outings like The Endless also balance the fantastic and the intimately human.

While Fowler keeps the story moving efficiently, Marsden's easy geniality prevents the simple narrative from feeling rote. Carrey gets a moment or two to cut loose.

Whatever exactly is going on (a misguided few will debate the literal meaning of closing scenes), the film is more serious than it appears; though odd and not for everyone, it's an ideal vehicle for Brie, using qualities she's displayed in excellent small-screen roles as an entry point to disturbing inner states.

If you're reading this review because you're wondering what to cue up on your Disney+ subscription, Timmy Failure is the best of the new service's original programs by a wide margin. (Take that, you one-note Baby Yoda.)

Extravagant action choreography makes the most of colorful set design, unlikely gimmicks and wrasslin'-style brutality. But Hodson's script offers far less diverting banter than it might've between the fight scenes, and has a hard time imagining the unconstrained id that makes Harley Quinn so magnetic.

Falling doesn't transform its emotional landscape into a simple question of rejection or forgiveness. It's comfortable knowing that meanness and affection can exist in the same person, and that tolerance, even when it only flows in one direction, benefits both giver and recipient.

Sadly, the script for this debut feature, written by Louis Godbout, is less persuasive: No single event is fatally implausible, perhaps, but taken together it doesn't ring true.

Boys State inevitably feels more and more like reality TV programming, which is both appropriate for our times and depressing.

Pointlessness, isolation and the guarantee that no one will ever understand your plight may not sound like the makings of a laugh-filled heartwarmer, but in the hands of Barbakow and screenwriter Andy Siara, it is.

While this hodgepodge contains the occasional lovely or eloquent moment, as one would expect after Estrada's captivating 2018 Sundance debut Blindspotting, those are overshadowed by material that grates on all but the most forgiving ear, in a semi-narrative setting that clearly just cares about getting from one aria to the next.

The emotional and logistical struggles of our heroine, played with sweaty determination by Anne Hathaway, are the film's clearest through-line; but after the intimate clarity of her debut, Pariah, and the wrenching Delta drama Mudbound, this is a pedigreed misfire.

There's an emotional logic to the action and imagery, carrying viewers along even if they're not quite sure if they're rooting for the innocent man or his troubled attacker.

A prickly little gem by a singular artist.

Though it never transforms into a grade-A spy thriller, the film boasts action that's briefly quite involving.

Clearly qualified in the physique department, Crews is an actor with enough charisma and range to carry either gritty genre adventures or more cartoony showdowns; but Forbes' tonal uncertainty and a stiff script leave him stranded here, in a world that lacks the gravity to put his conscience-driven reticence in context.

Though it follows a familiar format, devoting its middle third to the games leading to Homecoming and the final act to the game itself, All-Americans doesn't really play like a sports drama; football is mostly an excuse to pay attention to these kids. But that focus is diluted by the number of people we're spending time with.

The film's apparent desire to channel heartland morality is weirdly undercut by a glib (and unsatisfying) vigilante move at the end, but only the least critical viewers will make it far enough into the pic to add moral confusion to their list of complaints.

Though hardly groundbreaking in either its content or its aesthetics, the film is more serious than it initially lets on, and can only benefit from the VHS nostalgia that has, often irrationally, taken root in some quarters.

Davis isn't given a very satisfying backstory to work with, but when has she needed one? The actress strikes a satisfying balance between reluctance and protectiveness. Gaffigan and Janney offer just what their parts in the story need, but Davis keeps it all on the rails.

Far from the filmmaker in both life experience and proximity to the cosmic unknown, the subjects making up this constellation — elderly men and women who evince no self-consciousness around her — are diverse enough to support any number of theories about this graceful film's ultimate meaning.

Quite funny for much of its running time, the film feels like it simply runs out of steam in its third act, settling for a lazy, pandering resolution and seeming happy to have made it to the 83-minute finish line.

This is a creature feature, whose gory jump-scares and icktastic critter design are the reason you're here. An ensemble led by Kristen Stewart brings credible camaraderie to the scenario without quite matching the vivid chemistry of Alien and its best descendants; with such a tightly packed survival tale ahead of them, though, few viewers will be calling out for more character development.

Nearly devoid of scares for the casual horror consumer, it will likely elicit a respectful dismissal from genre connoisseurs: "We get what you're trying to do," they might gently say to the filmmakers. "It didn't work."

Less audience-embracing than most surf documentaries that make it to the big screen, Michael Oblowitz's Heavy Water will play best to those familiar with its cast of characters.

Though this clearly isn't meant to be a lighthearted story, a glimmer of wit here and there would've helped keep viewers engaged in the action and endeared us to a cast that is competent but hardly charismatic.

Initially a sluggish stalker flick whose undergraduate moral debates are tiresome instead of provocative, it eventually transforms into a patriarchy metaphor as obvious as, well, all those Greek-lettered paddles that decorate both the frat's and the sorority's clubhouses.

You might think that director Michael Bay is angling to make his star, Ryan Reynolds, the Tom Cruise of a dumber, car-crashier version of the Mission: Impossible films. But what his new 6 Underground actually feels like is the over-serious pilot episode of a gimmick-d