Matt Schimkowitz

Aiming for authenticity, Kokotajlo finds supernatural power and dramatic weight in the genre’s rustic simplicity.

Yes, the varying quality of performances from the supporting cast and the film’s slightly bloated 127-minute runtime might leave cheeks straining. But the film finds dark humor in taking these desperate feelings of unease and feeding them to a kaleidoscopic creature of pain and viscera.

When Godzilla tears through Tokyo in the film’s most relentlessly terrifying, most showstopping sequence, the two plots fuse into a unified whole, grafting Shikishima’s political woes to Yamazaki’s feelings of government abandonment during the pandemic.

La Chimera is a formal delight that holds no shortage of surprises. It calls for further viewings, asking us to unearth the mysteries buried long ago.

By keeping their movie grounded in street-level pursuits and raucous shootouts, the McManus brothers situate the multiverse concept in a believable reality that doesn’t require a subreddit to detangle. Redux Redux jumps swiftly and elegantly, finding timelines worth visiting again and again.

With Robot Dreams, Pablo Berger has crafted an aesthetically gentle but emotionally hardened New York City. Operating under the belief that there is little one can control in a city of that size, Berger allows his film to take flights of fancy that loop around back to companionship.

Everything works best when it’s coming through the performance, not the edit. Often, the directors’ touch isn’t light enough, and their forced attempts at humor upset the film’s natural balance.

There are moments when the sequel nearly overdoes it, when Helander’s thirst for blood threatens to overpower the film. Yet, in its simplicity, it finds a steady rhythm that quickens gradually, peaks, and resets. It isn’t profound or enlightening, but for 89 minutes, it rides the fury road confidently, flipping tanks and unleashing hell along the way.

Like a punk band turning four chords into pure angst, Bring Her Back turns familiar trauma-based horror into a traumatic experience. To sit through Bring Her Back is to endure it.

For better or worse, the director tucks Black Bag away so cleanly that it’s easy to forget what a good time it is.

The tension between Cheech & Chong is a tale as old as time. But their overwhelming respect and love for each other make Last Movie an amiable tour through an unlikely and historic career, arriving at an even more unlikely send-off.

There’s no doubt that should Torres continue, Problemista will eventually look like a scrappy first album filled with promising primordial quirks. The film’s issues do not impede it from being a fleet-footed comedy filled with laugh-out-loud jokes.

While the guys are enormous, Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera is lighter than the first movie. Cranking his personality to make Big Nick more morally palatable, Gudegast emphasizes the likability of his motley crew throughout, not the moral gray areas of law enforcement.

Anaconda may be getting the benefit of the doubt here because of how few studio comedies make it to theaters. In another era, it might easily have gotten lost in a wave of post-modern updates that included The Brady Bunch and Starsky & Hutch. Its plot offers few surprises, but its simple foundations and character motivations give Rudd and Black so much room to play that it’s an amiable time.

It is too conventional to be an outlaw, but Nichols and the cast have a blast pretending.

Despite the high concept, Novocaine feels as risk-averse as its protagonist, afraid to go full-on action-comedy or veer hard into torture porn.

More of an awkward step down than a pratfall from grace, Paddington In Peru is messier than its forebears.

The plug-and-play plot is predictable, but as in the original, Twisters is a functional thrill ride driven by charismatic, believable performances.

The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim is a slight Middle-earth adventure that’s fleet-footed but inconsequential.

Relying too much on bombast and shaky effects that diminish the tension, the movie isn’t confident enough to see its premise all the way through. At its best, though, Drop updates the small-scale, high-concept suspense that Hollywood has had on airplane mode for too long.

This Pop-Tart material has legs. Unfrosted is by no means a failure. But it’s also about as satisfying as a soggy bowl of cereal. Loaded with his famous friends, Unfrosted is fitfully funny, depending on who’s on screen.

Even with the script’s problems, the film is kinetic, and as in Dinner In America, Rehmeier gets terrific performances from his cast.

Cleaner is a perfectly serviceable time waster for plane rides and afternoon naps. It might even make a good addition to Daisy Ridley’s acting reel, should anyone think of her for a better action movie. But Campbell’s timid direction of a tired script can’t rise to the occasion.

By the climax, The Exorcism is buried in plot points that obscure whatever the power of Christ is compelling us to do.