Robert Daniels

It’s Bruneau who makes you realize how great “Dusk for a Hitman” could have been if only it had some extra shine, but who also allows you to be content that St-Jean’s crime movie is merely a sturdy installment in the genre.

While some material may hit with younger audiences, Luca makes for Pixar’s least enchanting, least special film yet.

It’s a fairly predictable thriller with few emotional moments apart from anxiety, and even fewer revelations.

Through its images of peaceful protests and demonstrations from the era, McDonough's narrow but inspiring film finds deeper relevance in the face of the current protests surrounding George Floyd’s murder.

While most sequels invite comfort through the familiar, this film’s best moment arrives through Judge grappling with his signature humor in a modern world.

G20 is an entertaining and gripping action vehicle with a deft sense of tension that is sometimes undone by its on-the-nose dialogue.

Despite its over orchestration, director Vanessa Roth’s slight, hagiographic documentary Mary J. Blige’s My Life, manages to provide profound truths concerning its self-admitted insecure subject.

Bugonia is an enraged picture. It’s mad at the world; it’s mad at humanity. Nevertheless, the structuring to reveal the full scope of that anger is surprisingly deliberate.

Director Neill Blomkamp’s Gran Turismo, a crowd-pleasing, genre-bending sports drama, approaches wonder with an odd tepidness; it maneuvers around any modicum of character development by taking all-too simple routes and swerves away from formal experimentation, opting instead for simple enjoyment.

Similar to other disaster flicks, this film worms through oddball characters, takes interest in the disintegration of society, and the tension that arises from disparate people pushed to survive with each other. But Leave the World Behind struggles where it matters most, fashioning real stakes to accompany the turmoil.

From an outsider's perspective, however, as poetic and otherworldly as War Pony can be, the reality of its people never feels real.

Even if Coogler doesn’t know where to end his movie, it’s tempting to be swept up in his expansive vision, if only because his intent is so firm.

While We Watched is an urgent interrogation of the state of journalism today. And yet, while important, it’s unclear what this has to say that hasn’t already been said.

Even at its most traumatic, Santosh gives viewers plenty to consider.

As a small amusement, “Chicken for Linda!” is an enjoyable enough lark. But its flightless emotional course leaves its profundity just out of range.

The Choral is a narratively jumbled film whose unrestrained sweetness and adept ensemble tie up some of the film’s looser ends.

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.