Lovia Gyarkye

Merced’s fine performance anchors the uneasy mood in a deeply empathetic character.

That Skywalkers: A Love Story maintains its grip on your attention despite some of director Jeff Zimbalist’s florid aesthetic choices testifies to the strength of the documentary’s central narrative.

Us Kids skillfully handles a sensitive subject and prudently connects the Parkland students’ stories to those of Black students whose experiences with gun violence rarely garner similar national attention.

Bell (Kinda Pregnant, Brittany Runs a Marathon), who co-wrote the film with Jules Byrne and Liz Nico, has constructed a familiar film that checks the boxes of classic teen comedies. Summer of 69 presents a charming protagonist, her reluctant co-conspirator and a gallery of characters who support their antics and propel the drama.

While inventive, Neville’s doc can’t quite avoid the trappings of the celebrity-produced biopic, and is expectedly marked by typical hagiographic evasiveness.

Halftime includes moments of disarming sincerity, when it seems like the doc and its subject, despite their cautiousness, are genuinely reaching for the truth.

Love and Monsters lacks the self-seriousness of typical dystopian flicks but, despite its surprisingly perfunctory title and relatively thin plot, it doesn’t completely lack depth.

While the characters interact against the backdrop of varying degrees of racism and socioeconomic stressors, they are not defined by them. In other words, they are ordinary but no less noteworthy.

Kuras’ film is competent, polished and awards-ready. And while that all makes for a fine viewing experience, the movie also feels at odds with its subject — a restless woman whose passion and hurt drove her to action.

The Sweet East provides easy jabs and the occasional laugh, but never seems to figure out what it wants to say.

At its best, The Assessment smartly taps into and maintains its focus on the near universal anxiety about parenting in a world made increasingly uninhabitable by overconsumption and climate change. But the film loses its way when it widens its scope and tries to incorporate eleventh-hour world-building.

The strengths of Love, Brooklyn make the weaknesses harder to shake. For every scene bursting with energy and texture, there are oddly vague moments that destabilize its hold on us.

A Jazzman’s Blues is overindulgent, a narrative feast of twists and turns. The formidable work of the cast paces us, helping viewers digest the plot and saving Perry’s screenplay from the collateral damage of its broad scope.

The overworked screenplay doesn’t strip the film of all its merits — there’s plenty here in terms of uplift and inspiration for most audiences — but it does make one wonder about a version of this project that embodied the fluidity Ederle felt in the water.

We all know a feel-good ending is coming eventually. But more patience, and fewer clichés, might have made its emotions feel more earned.

When it comes to more rigorous analysis — a bit of pushback, a touch of tension or cultural context — the documentary leaves something to be desired.

The Actor can be fun to think about, but hard to stay connected to. Johnson’s film works on an intellectual level — batting around questions about how identity is constructed — but the director struggles to translate the stakes of those questions.

The narrative cruises to a satisfying finish. The jokes go down easy. The characters grow in predictable directions. The film rarely strays from its genre’s conventions, and that’s not a complaint. Sometimes staying in one lane yields the most gratifying results.

Lowery and Halbrook overstuff the narrative, which begins to wobble and drag under the weight of its obligations. Nevertheless, there are interesting changes and subtle ways the duo correct the original text.

Despite the sometimes tedious pacing and repetitive script, it’s a classic-feeling slasher that delights in gore — think Friday the 13th — and an affirming example of Janiak’s confidence behind the camera.

Immaculate works best when it abandons its attempts to be a kind of surrealist portrait of Catholic terror and leans into the campy horror of B movies.

The film is not good, but it is singular — and absolutely chaotic.

More absorbing than your average streamer fare, but it also makes you wish the film went farther in exploring its ambivalence about the relationship between creative expression and greed.

While largely predictable in its approach, Ejiofor’s film still evokes a genuine emotional response thanks to strong performances from its cast, especially lead Jay Will.

It is Curtis’s first foray into animation and although the characters are digitally rendered, the story taps into the same authentic energies that made his earlier works so beloved.

Medusa Deluxe is saved from its own potential waywardness by a series of stellar performances. The cast animates the strange, disquieting world of beauticians who describe their craft in profound, almost holy terms.

It’s endearing — a love letter to the fans who’ve watched the musician grow up, and to her children, who might not remember all the details about their badass mother.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever never quite lands its most poignant moments because Imogen and her siblings remain stubbornly at a distance.

Choice, for many, is an illusion. This message repeats itself throughout the film, and while at times it feels clumsy, it is never tedious. Sanders especially shines among a formidable cast, and in his portrayal, excellently reflects on the herculean task his character faces.

In a year defined by surprise, the predictability of The Secret Garden — a new film adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved 1911 novel — proves more charming than tedious.

With its tight structure, adequate level of suspense and inventive plot, The Manor more than fulfills the requirements of a thrilling horror flick. But its clumsy and at times repetitive script, along with its beautiful but predictable cinematography, kept me from feeling fully immersed in Belgian writer-director Axelle Carolyn’s project.

This airy and refreshingly low-stakes comedy will have you steadily chuckling, if not necessarily rolling on the floor laughing. But it also has a surprising amount of heart.

A sense of admiration and responsibility courses through the doc, an orientation that eventually curdles the narrative.

The Gutter’s humor rarely misses. The Lester brothers deploy jokes with precision, taking aim at everything and everyone.

The chemistry between Awkwafina and Oh proves to be more layered and touching with each leg of their characters’ zany mission.

Like other live-action remakes, The Little Mermaid is a neatly packaged story ribboned with representational awareness. There’s enough in it to fill an evening, but it doesn’t inspire much more than a passing sense of déjà vu.

What Cruella lacks in script, however, it makes up for in sheer visual punch, with costume designer Jenny Beavan’s exquisitely detailed gowns especially enriching the angsty, sinister universe the film conjures.

For the most part though, O’Connor’s direction is disciplined. He wrings humor from nearly every moment by staging action scenes as blunt as Christian’s commentary and employing transitions as precise as the accountant’s aim.

What Troop Zero lacks in complexity, it makes up for in heart.

Ly and Gederlini weave in keen analysis about political manipulation, structural violence and community organizing — a perceptiveness that makes Les Indésirables resonate despite its flaws.

While Body Parts is a smart film and a useful primer on big questions about filmic representations of sex and desire, one wishes its conclusions were more nuanced.

Wicked Little Letters swerves between comedy and tragedy without ever hitting its stride. The movie is at its best when it doesn’t strain to turn every moment into a joke, instead letting the story breathe a bit.

While the highly anticipated follow-up features stunning animation, it lacks the cohesive narrative and emotional intimacy that made its predecessor special.

Riddle of Fire tries to capture the extraordinary way kids experience the world, but the results border on twee.

Derrickson offers a handful of memorable shots and genuine jump scares, but the director’s attempts to build dread in these moments come too late to have their intended impact. With so much of the film dedicated to establishing Levi and Drasa’s backstory and their romance, The Gorge is slow to get going on the action.

The Last Letter From Your Lover is a pleasant watch, and will charm romance enthusiasts.

Liman flexes his stylish direction, especially during the bloody confrontations.

Most of Arcadian’s potential lies in its performances (including compelling turns from Martell and Soverall) and the design of the monsters.

Perrier’s direction — which pays sweet homage to romantic comedies and vintage Hollywood — makes up for the underdeveloped narrative and occasionally stiff performances from the supporting cast.

Somebody I Used to Know, written by Brie and her husband Dave Franco (who also directs here), is a sharply conceived and smart romantic comedy — the kind of film that might inspire hasty accusations of trying too hard to be different. It takes the narrative skeleton of the genre and enhances it with its own subversive elements.

For those even mildly curious about the story of one of the country’s largest visual and performing arts spaces, Museum Town is worth watching.

It tries to stretch the bounds of the narrative form, to upend convention and encourage us to rethink our relationship to storytelling. It aims to do all this with style — Begert’s direction is slick and capable — and absorbing performances from most of the cast. But Little Death can’t fulfill the ambitions of its intellectual exercise, resulting in a bifurcated film that doesn’t find its footing until the end.

There are instances where you can see the director experimenting and attempting to disturb Disney’s imposing order, deploying close-ups, almost ground-level pans and strategically sweeping views to find warmth and tactility within a cold technique.

What’s nice about Migration is how, between the comedic bits and tangential adventures, it never loses sight of the lessons embedded in the Mallards’ story.

A perfectly agreeable, if limited, piece of work.

Recycled plot points, jaunts down memory lane and knowing winks at the broader fandom are rolled into the type of sleek CGI package that’s typical of Disney offerings these days. The result is a thin but satisfactory piece of entertainment.

It would all feel a little suffocating if it weren’t for the performances from the actresses who play both the younger and older Supremes. Their grounded portrayals make the stakes of The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat feel real, and the inevitable outcome seem earned; they anchor a film that might otherwise feel too wispy.

The film struggles to maintain the verve of this opening sequence (which nails a specific anxiety of liberal middle-class Black people), subsequently becoming a series of set pieces — some more energetic than others — in search of a thesis.

The film yearns to capture the stages of this emotional exhumation, but a clunky screenplay makes for a less affecting watch.

Bunnylovr‘s strengths are in its engaging character study of a languid young woman who came of age online. It’s not a novel portrait, but Zhu makes it wholly her own.

In reviving one of the more toxic friendships in recent movie history, Feig reunites two stars whose chemistry makes this twisty, often very ridiculous and sometimes trying movie more compelling.

It’s a credit to the cast and Rodriguez’s assured direction that we believe Miguel’s efforts stand a chance.

The film flaunts vivid animation and some pretty striking moments, captured with close-ups and unexpected angles — but similar to Skydance Animation’s debut venture Luck, Spellbound inspires a sense of déjà vu.

It aims for maximum entertainment, reveling in farce and gnarly killings to create an experience that keeps you on your toes even if the details get murky upon further reflection.

Luckiest Girl Alive struggles to balance its dual aspirations: delivering an emotionally wrought tale about survival and wrapping its gravity in the cheeky breeziness of publishing comedies like Freeform’s The Bold Type.

The handful of overly contrived moments disappoint, but don’t amount to an insurmountable betrayal, because Echo Valley delivers where it matters.

Forster’s steady direction keeps this thread of White Bird affecting even when it conforms to predictable narrative beats.

Without understanding more of Lily’s broader community or getting a stronger sense of how she navigates the relationship with Ryle, the film can feel too light and wispy to support the weight of its themes.

Bradley Rust Gray’s blood is a beautifully observed film that never arrives at its desired emotional destination.

The drama feels flimsy when it strays from the swamps, rendering the politics of the time as almost secondary to the visual spectacle of a harrowing escape.

Wilson’s direction is similarly uneven, especially toward the middle of the film, which packs in convenient plot points to distract from narrative thinness. The result is off-kilter pacing that threatens to undo the film’s more successful parts.

It’s both an effective star vehicle and a tender tearjerker.

Gates offers an incredibly compelling premise, shedding light on the scale of military propaganda in the United States, but in taking on so much, her film ends up not saying enough.

Predictable but sweet.

Nobu is a straightforward and admiring portrait of its subject.

The film is a concert movie for Shyamalan’s daughter, the musician Saleka, wrapped in a middling thriller kept afloat by a compelling performance from Josh Hartnett.

Once the principal heroes and villains have been established and the perfunctory narrative throat-clearing is out of the way, G20 finds its groove as a solid popcorn action flick.

The film lurches between comic set pieces and more dramatic beats, and while Johansson proves a competent helmer, it’s not enough to overcome some dizzying tonal imbalances.