Samantha Nelson

While there aren’t as many big laughs or surprises as the first film, Ready or Not 2 has some incredible moments.

Pixar has been alternating between playing things safe with sequels to its hits and taking bigger swings with emotional human stories. Hoppers sits awkwardly between these impulses, recycling emotional moments and plots from other films while eschewing any clear moral or big moments of character growth.

All You Need Is Kill isn’t as tight or fun a film as Edge of Tomorrow, but the visuals are stunning, and the moody tone makes it easy to get immersed in the world, even when the story doesn’t fully deliver on the premise.

Returning directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard once again blend the high-concept political messaging about embracing diversity with a blitz of visual gags, pop-culture references, and endearingly silly characters that ensure Zootopia 2 never feels too preachy. The film moves at a breakneck pace, driven by several major chase scenes and a flood of jokes that come so fast that even if one doesn’t land, there’s something else to laugh at a moment later.

While there’s plenty of CGI-packed action, there’s no real tension.

Rønning’s dazzling action sequences and the killer soundtrack might be enough to satisfy fans, but Tron: Ares feels just as likely to get lost among a sea of the type of films Tron inspired.

It’s a silly family-friendly story that stands on its own, without expecting its audience knows what came before or cares much about what comes after.

The Disney+ documentary Stan Lee is a bland work of corporate propaganda that glosses over or outright ignores Marvel’s controversies

It’s a beautifully animated film that never loses sight of its goals as it seamlessly blends goofy humor and action, an imaginative setting, and powerful emotional moments to produce a memorable and highly relevant family film.

While Sharper is visually stylish and is driven by some excellent performances from Sebastian Stan, Julianne Moore, and Brianna Middleton, this con-artist thriller overuses the same plot twists so much that they lose all their impact, and later the initially shrewd characters become too easily bamboozled.

New Gods: Yang Jiang is worth watching for its novel animated action sequences, but its muddled story lacks the punch of its predecessor, New Gods: Nezha Reborn.

Even Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell aren’t charming enough to redeem AppleTV+’s humbug musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Black Adam is overstuffed with underdeveloped concepts and characters that have been done better in other shows and films.

DC League of Super-Pets isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s a perfect way for DC Comics fans to introduce their kids to their favorite characters and their adorable and surprisingly competent sidekicks.

Mother/Android tries to bring an emotional heart to the robot uprising genre, but it’s so laden with tropes and short on personality that it’s hard to care about the characters. What little novelty exists comes far too late in the long, slow movie.

Encounter is a tense, and stylish thriller with some excellent performances, but it’s dragged down by a lack of focus and pointless tangents.

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf isn’t a bad film, but it fundamentally lacks an identity of its own.