Matt Fowler

The Starling contains themes of grief and guilt that are worth exploration, but finds itself unable to delve deep into these elements, instead relying on bad bird effects and a needlessly quirky and eccentric tone to gloss over most of the uncomfortable elements.

Copshop is meaningfully and enjoyably derivative as a patchwork homage to '70s shoot-em-up cinema (even Spaghetti Westerns), but it never quite reaches its potential.

Cry Macho has spare moments of charm and tranquility, but mostly it's a dry and unfinished story that fails to hit even the most basic of Story 101 beats.

Krysten Ritter, along with Winslow Fegley and Lidya Jewett, provide enough pizazz to keep Nightbooks afloat, creating an engaging supernatural hostage scenario.

Addison Rae and Tanner Buchanan are magnetic leads in this reboot that pays homage to the first film, but fully stands on its own. It manages to cut through modern high school b.s. while transforming two posers into presentable, likable people.

Vacation Friends may be a touch predictable, but John Cena and Meredith Hagner will make you wish you had friends like them on your next trip.

Paw Patrol: The Movie is a precious and peppy offering for the pre-preteen set that utilizes gentle character drama and buzzy action to stand out as a big-screen adventure. It won't be any parent's first choice, from an animation standpoint, but the standards of storytelling hold firm, making for an overall calm and comforting watch.

The Last Mercenary has bounding energy and a fun take on star Jean-Claude Van Damme's past exploits as an action star, but the humor is way more miss than hit and the actual nuts-and-bolts spy plot is a trudge.

Jungle Cruise is a rollicking adventure full of humor and heart anchored by Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt's winning heroes.

Blood Red Sky could lose a few minutes, but overall, it's a ferocious and fun merging of vampires and hijackers.

Gunpowder Milkshake does its formidable cast dirty with a bland script, recycled story, and an empty comic book style that does little but shine up a stale outing.

The Boss Baby: Family Business delivers middle-road mirth, full of action and quasi-clever jokes, and featuring the fun voice additions of James Marsden, Jeff Goldblum, and Amy Sedaris.

The dystopian fantasy elements of the saga are now at their thinnest, painting a cinematic world that may hit too close to home for some. Ultimately, it's a solid entry that can either act as an ending or a new beginning.

America: The Motion Picture is like Drunk History if the history were not only drunk but also on nitrous. Channing Tatum once again proves he's a comedy force to be reckoned with, backed by a stellar cast of capable and cunning joke spitters.

Werewolves Within easily separates itself from the pack by delivering a quirky monster mystery filled with gentle laughs and massive maulings. Not every joke lands, and not every character fits, but overall it's an entertaining alternative to the season's more ghoulish and grim offerings.

The Woman in the Window has both flash and fizzle. Amy Adams is great in the lead role, presenting us with a shattered recluse who wages war on lucidity daily, but the rest of the cast, while noteworthy, are sort of relegated to being plot pawns. Still, if you're looking for a higher class of claustrophobic Noir, and don't care too much about the resolution, there's a playfulness on display here that might scratch an airport novel itch.

A pleasant surprise that both undermines and elevates typical revenge sagas, Riders of Justice is a unique blend that charms and captivates.

Wrath of Man has plenty of anger and action, and it's at its intriguing best when the entire story gets sorted out and all the players are on the board, but it stumbles at being a time-release mystery.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines is a ridiculous, riotous, and relevant adventure fill with great humor and winning sentiment.

Synchronic isn't a home run, but a decent time travel triple is always welcome.

The Courier is a tense, well-executed spy drama that wisely focuses on character and performance more than thrills, knowing that if we actually care about these men it will drastically heighten every narrowed glance, near miss, and frightful chase. It's not always the freshest adventure, but that's when the acting carries the piece and breathes life into these unlikely heroes.

While sci-fi is generally rife with allegories, a steadier hand was needed here in Voyagers. The messaging, though noble and necessary, feels obvious to the point that it takes you out of the film. The cast is talented and the premise is promising, but the story plays out in a predictable fashion, which also works, in a way, to undercut the meaning.

Cosmic Sin is an excruciating watch, top to bottom, featuring an absolute mess of camera work, scenes where actors don't interact with one another, and bottom barrel sci-fi leftovers.

This contest of wicked wills is a vibrant, penetrating Pandora's Box of predicaments and likeable yet evil central characters, played with satirical skill by Rosamund Pike and Peter Dinklage.

Tom and Jerry hit the big screen for a hybrid live-action romp that too often feels like it's not even their movie.

Cherry is big on style and features a bouncy, pricey soundtrack but its examination of the grim reality behind the veteran/addiction cycle feels rather routine. Holland breaks down many barriers here, performance-wise, and delivers the goods as a fantastic surrogate for societal ills, but the movie is plodding and, overall, an underwhelming patchwork of previous projects.

Willy's Wonderland is a no-frills splatterfest that, while straining to fill its runtime, finds mid-level chills and thrills thanks to Nic Cage bashing the hell out of weaponized pizza parlor characters. It's a shoestring slasher that gets the job done while also not fully rounding a few of the corners it teases.

Derek DelGaudio's In and Of Itself is a beautiful, powerful performance that employs art, illusion, storytelling, and its own audience to explore aspects of identity, isolation, and our own desperate drive to figure out who we are as individuals. There's nothing quite like it, which, as goes the uniqueness of humanity, is the point.