Jude Dry

While there are moments of committed physical comedy and a few good line deliveries, the circumstances are neither believable nor outrageous enough to add up.

The action delivers, but the film’s third act suffers from an excess of set-ups, cameos, and minor deaths played up as major losses. After all, they have two more to go.

Though the well-crafted film makes use of a unique regional setting for some moving moments, its straightforward approach to well-worn territory offers few surprises

As the action progresses, the film seems more concerned with the hitting beats of the story than sending its characters on an emotional journey.

With Vermont jokes that read like the musings of someone who’s only ever been for ski season, and the embarrassingly half-baked attempt to critique sexism by writing a kind-hearted womanizer, every stroke of Paint misses the mark. Bob Ross deserved better.

Though Pugh valiantly muscles through the melancholy beats of Braff’s melodrama, there are too many other characters and plot threads to allow her to do much besides heave the story forward.

Though Latimore and Cole have enough charisma to skate by, the movie lacks the originality and scrappiness of its inspiration. Trading on celebrity cameos and impressive set pieces, House Party feels like an uneven amalgam of so many studio comedies that came before it.

While “Otto” may reach fresh audiences who’d otherwise balk at subtitles, this sluggish rendition is unlikely to inspire anyone to seek out the original.

Unfortunately, Framing Agnes gets too wrapped up in the questions surrounding storytelling to do any actual storytelling.

With its bisexual lighting and hyper-designed oddball aesthetic, Please Baby Please looks a lot more polished than its messier camp influences. Aesthetically, the film cobbles together its many cinematic influences with admirable swagger. But film isn’t solely a visual medium — it’s a storytelling one as well.

Jones clearly has valuable insights about being a Black woman in entertainment and has the chops to tell a captivating story. What any of that has to do with the sex industry is a total mystery.

See How They Run packs a lot of characters into a thin story that leaves little room for the considerable talent to stand out. It may be inspired by the greatest mystery writer of all time, but it’s an uninspired copy at best.

The pace picks up when the slashing finally begins in the third act, but it’s too little, too late to get the blood going.

Aside from not being very scary, the movie is littered with missed opportunities.

Unfortunately, in its valiant effort to avoid cliches, the story falls flat. By focusing on what not to do, there’s just not a lot there.

The fast-paced dialogue and mature-but-wholesome humor creates a general aura of clever high school rapport, aided by a lively supporting performance from comedian Ayo Edebiri (“Big Mouth”). But in trying to be everything in between, the movie ends up being not much of anything.

As Angie feels caught between many worlds, so does her story. A little bit teen sex romp, a little bit female friendship plug, a little bit Asian American immigrant story, Inbetween Girl has no shortage of things to say. It just needed to trim out the noise so we could hear them.

It delivers plenty of blood spattered, gut-spilling gore to satisfy genre lover’s bloodlust, even if we’ve pretty much seen everything a chainsaw can do by now.

Though the title may be the cleverest thing about this cookie cutter affair, it’s refreshing to see a gay family film that doesn’t use its characters’ sexuality for dramatic conflict.

It’s a wrenching look at the perils of prohibition, and who wins when all is said and done.

Fans will praise this film as yet another brave sacrifice at the altar of artistic vulnerability — because that’s what “A Man Named Scott” wants you to believe. But the authorized film lacks the artistic vision of Cudi’s musical talents, despite its best efforts.

The only bright spot about the odd timing of South of Heaven is that it’s so obviously a relic of pre-pandemic Hollywood, one that hopefully will stop making lifeless thrillers full of hackneyed dialogue and formulaic action.

With its “Glee”-colored dance numbers and drag-lite drag scenes, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie just isn’t serving.

A humorless melodrama about a woman haunted by her past, Malignant sits somewhere between a slasher, a ghost story, and a possession flick, never fully embracing either. The result is a confusing melange of genre archetypes that lacks a clear point of view, even a surface-level stylistic one.

Harrison is the brightest point in Together Together, which plods through a gimmicky premise without finding much levity along the way.

Entering boldly into this bunch is Happiest Season, a shiny holiday comedy which is by all accounts indistinguishable from the rest save for one little detail: It’s gay! Unfortunately, this tiny tweak isn’t enough to make a lasting impression on the genre, especially with a lackluster script that offers little in the way of surprise or delight.

It’s an ambitious piece, but in the dance between experimental ideas and grounded storytelling, Aviva should have listened to her body.

It’s a shame that You Don’t Nomi, a new documentary about the failure and reevaluation of Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 pulp film “Showgirls,” doesn’t live up to its truly inspired title.