Robert Daniels

The high-concept sci-fi horror film “Ash,” a hazy story about an amnesiac deep-space explorer who awakens to discover her entire crew was killed, is light on answers but heavy on style.

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is the kind of bold swing with difficult material that does manage to earn your respect.

Hartnett and Chandran’s laid back chemistry steady the film’s turbulent tonal shifts, adding a punch that the shakily choreographed action lacks.

Because what Havoc lacks in characters and story, it delivers in two audacious waves of indiscriminate killing that are so bruising and relentless they make the “John Wick” movies look like “Sesame Street.”

For every moment The Lost Bus impresses with it scale and craft, there are other instances where it feels like we’re watching these screaming kids be dragged through a Disney amusement park ride.

Though copious bloodshed and plenty of backstabbing does ensue, this laborious film is best when the quirkier tone shakes viewer expectations.

A game Ridley, along with a brief cameo by a soulful Gil Birmingham, provides the necessary stakes for Burger’s film not to idle in narrative mud.

Even for Garland’s adept visual storytelling, supported by daring cuts by Jake Roberts and offbeat needledrops, the core of Civil War feels hollow.

The French Dispatch is probably the worst film of the director’s career. But even his worst effort is worth biting the bullet for.

In direct conversation with cinema’s many spaghetti westerns, Van Peebles’s shaggy script relies on winking nods and plentiful shootouts in lieu of production value. Outlaw Posse may not be innovative, but its regard for family affairs is worth treasuring.

If Radioactive spent more significant time with Curie’s eccentricities . . . we might have arrived at a real character study. Instead, the biopic’s strained narrative bonds dissolve, awash in a series of disconnected events.

Peninsula combines components from I Am Legend, Mad Max, and the Fast & Furious series for a nonsensical joy ride that, while entertaining, lacks the sharpness of its predecessor.

While The Call of the Wild is silly, and never completely pulls the wool over the eyes with respect to the CGI, there’s enough meat on the bone to gnaw on before burying it in the backyard.

Kali and Molina’s I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) frustratingly struggles to find its way, but when it does, this story of houselessness, grief, and motherhood blossoms like a sunflower in a rich field of pathos. And offers a very brief balm to these heady times.

Being the Ricardos isn’t a total disaster, but it’s not a grand triumph either.

Even if this rom-com never completely coalesces, Showalter’s The Lovebirds does ultimately deliver a worthwhile conclusion

Stolevski aims for a life-affirming treatise on the poetics of human existence but strains to be more than a pretty copy of his well-known influences.

Unfortunately, Iannucci and Blackwell are so intent on making every quip funny, they lose the story.

“Spaz” works best when, within the film’s fascinating unpacking of cinematic history, Leberecht also interrogates the unfair practice of crediting and illuminates the work of Williams. He’s a man whose behind-the-scenes talent made every scene unforgettable, and it deserves a bolder documentary than this one.

Alex Wheatle combines the relevant themes that guide the prior “Small Axe” installments: music as an escape from one’s environment, police brutality, and a character adrift from his community — yet the writing struggles to connect the major plot points for big picture interpretations of Alex’s cultural self-education.

Concrete Cowboy breathes new life into the western genre and sheds a brighter light on a faction of Black culture that was largely unknown by white audiences until today.

For a movie so intuitively captivating, so visually extravagant, it very nearly papers over all its emotional weaknesses.

Nope is an idea more than a story. It’s a collection of individually captivating scenes, as opposed to an intriguing whole. It’s a handsome picture, but Peele is far too impressed with its handsomeness to work on populating it with fully felt characters.

Though Willmott has the best intentions with The 24th, and the story of this infantry is ripe for the Black Lives Matter era, the narrative drama is a missed opportunity to honor these fallen heroes.

Like the limited legislative change that has occurred due to the underappreciated efforts of these valiant activists, I wish Snyder’s Us Kids resulted in more.

This is a story written and directed by a 23-year-old. That reality defines Cha Cha Real Smooth’s truest virtue (blissful naïveté) and its grandest flaw — a blithering unawareness of reality. It’s a film defined by its myopic, narrow bandwidth.

Sy and Lafitte still carry the day. They give the story a kinetic energy and a loose rhythm, which makes the narrative’s meandering more palatable, even as it fails to break out of the familiar action-flick mold.

While the nimble Jang holds together the robust action sequences — bloody freakouts often captured in slow motion — no one else grounds any of the scenes with any emotion. Consequently, The Killer fails to land a real knockout blow.