Matt Singer

Until today, I’m not sure I would have believed a movie with this much theoretical “excitement” could be so boring.

Wright and co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns screenplay falters a little in the third act; it relies on a couple of twists that are either too poorly established or too obvious to properly land. (They might also undermine the film’s themes, although that’s debatable.) Still, even when the story stumbles, the cinematography by Chung-hoon Chung is absolutely gorgeous.

Every scene is burdened by an uneven cast and a leaden script crammed with millennia of backstory that repeatedly kills the story’s momentum.

To my amazement, and to Villeneuve’s credit, this new Dune is totally clear in its premise, politics, and operatic sci-fi story. It’s also filled with the sort of epic grandeur of vision that Dune fans always insist makes the original text special.

Halloween Kills is a mess.

Parts recall the muscular intensity of Craig’s debut, Casino Royale. Others evoke painful memories (and specific story threads) from the bloated, digressive Spectre.

Fundamentally, its creators course corrected from the first movie a bit too drastically. Where Venom was a grim body horror movie with a very broad and sometimes extremely silly comic performance at its center, Let There Be Carnage is practically a romantic comedy between Eddie Brock and Venom.

When the world of a movie is so palpably fake, it’s hard for the people or the stakes to feel real.

After that thrilling opening act, The Suicide Squad settles down into a more conventional (if still satisfying) superhero adventure. The story flags a little, and some tricky editing in the final act designed to keep up the energy just makes the climax more confusing. Still, the opening is a blast — and the whole thing looks like a Fellini movie compared to Suicide Squad.

It takes the most popular G.I. Joe character and totally demystifies him until all that’s left is a blandly hunky dude with a sword.

Black Widow functions less as a showcase for the title character and more as a sneaky introduction for Pugh, who is drolly hilarious as the deeply cynical Yelena.

Combine some of the Italian master’s whimsy with even more of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, along with plenty of Pixar’s now-standard bittersweet lessons about growing up and you get Luca, an affectionate portrait of friendship that never quite rises to the level of the beloved animation studio’s best efforts. Maybe it’s just a little too simple, both in construction and stakes.

Even as it takes Fast and Furious to literal new heights (and marks a significant improvement from The Fate of the Furious), F9 never tops the franchise’s best entries. It’s simply too complicated and too long to surpass something like Fast Five.

I suspect some may give Cruella a pass simply because it does have a genuinely quirky vibe, along with a slightly darker than your standard Disney fare. The gonzo period fashions are fun as well. Ultimately, though, the film feels less like a satisfying character drama than a work of corporate rebranding — for Disney as well as for Cruella herself.

Here Today is too peculiar and heartfelt to be truly bad, and it does make an interesting companion piece to Mr. Saturday Night, with Crystal working through same issues from an older perspective. Together, they feel like the work of an artist baring their soul in a sometimes unpleasant way.

The movie around Jordan is just like Kelly himself: Cold, detached, and brutal.

Frankly, the original Mortal Kombat arcade game had a better sense of narrative momentum; at least there the fights progressed toward a final showdown with the big bosses. Without spoiling this Mortal Kombat, it mostly feels like a giant prologue to something else. Still, for sheer visual panache, intricate fight scenes, and the fact that it’s not an out-and-out embarrassment, Mortal Kombat rates very highly on the list of video game movies.

As an entertainment, Godzilla vs. Kong is as hollow as the Earth upon which its set. Here, the human characters’ irrational decisions do not feel like part of a cohesive statement about our species’ self-absorption, but rather the byproduct of a superficial screenplay that cares only about the excuses needed to get Godzilla and King Kong into several extended (and undeniably impressive) CGI scuffles.

For long stretches, Zack Snyder’s Justice League feels more like a rough assembly than a director’s cut. It appears to include every single shred of footage Snyder shot, no matter how superfluous to the story. It will absolutely delight the hardest of hardcore Snyder heads. I’m not sure how more casual viewers will react to a longer and bleaker version of the same movie they already saw and dislike.

Chaos Walking isn’t the sort of disaster that inspires so-bad-its-good appreciation, and it’s not quite interesting enough to become a genuine cult object. It’s more of a noble misfire. And I would love to hear its creators’ thoughts on why they made certain choices.

The many similarities between Raya and Mulan and Moana suggest that Disney’s honed in on a new formula for their fairy tales, one that emphasizes (to borrow a phrase from a television series that anticipated the appetite for these kinds of stories) warrior princesses. In this case, at least, the formula works.

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar isn’t a movie, it’s a wavelength. You either get on it or you don’t. I’m sure some viewers will complain that Barb and Star are so quirky and chipper that they’re annoying, or that the film’s comedy is too bizarre and random. Take my advice: Cut those people out of your life. You don’t need to associate yourself with anyone who is that wrong about something this important.

Some of The Little Things’ little things, like the nuances of Washington’s performance, are outstanding. This film is a reminder that the big things are important, too.

Pretty much everything in Wonder Woman 1984 that’s not an excuse for a Gadot and Pine reunion flops. That includes both of its villains.

With Tom Hagen and a different Mary, The Godfather Coda could actually rise to the level of the first two Godfather movies. Without them, it’s still a fairly good sequel, a sad story about guilt, with an endless supply of memorably dialogue from Coppola and Mario Puzo (“The higher I go, the crookeder it becomes.”) and an underrated Al Pacino performance.

At times, Soul is as heavy as it sounds, and invites all sorts of contemplation from viewers about our purpose on this planet, and whatever (and wherever) comes afterwards. At other times, it is uproariously funny, particularly after Joe and 22’s story takes a very unexpected turn in its second half. In typical Pixar fashion, it’s also visually stunning.

There were times I wished Freaky was a little bit bolder and more surprising. Still, it’s an entertaining showcase for Vaughn and Newton, and a solid entry in the body-swap canon. In other words, it’s exactly what you think it is, inside and out.

It is a beautiful film, as all Fincher films are, and it contains several compelling performances. But if all that artifice and powerhouse acting add up to something particularly profound, I did not find it during my initial viewings of the movie.