Siddhant Adlakha

Rife with great performances and disturbing imagery, The Carpenter’s Son transcends its trappings as a mere horror take on Christ and verges on challenging.

A sequel that hopes to court Saw fans and mainstream audiences alike, Spiral: From the Book of Saw is likely to alienate them both. It’s a hollow imitation of the series, unable to meet its most basic visual and narrative expectations. It’s also a bad film in general, which tries to tell a socially relevant story that it can’t seem to handle.

It’s a fun watch, to be sure; as a home invasion movie of sorts, it has a number of thrilling moments, and lead actors Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green each do a stellar job with what they’re given. However, the final product also exudes trepidation about its most intriguing aesthetic and narrative elements — ideas which may have only enhanced its genre sensibilities, had the filmmakers further pursued them.

A one-angle drama spanning centuries, Robert Zemeckis' comic adaptation Here is experimental in appearance, but highly conventional in approach.

Michael, or Bohemian Jacksody, is a film of listlessness and inhumanity that can’t help but suck the energy out of the room. No matter where you come down on Jackson as a person, this film is entirely the opposite of what he was, both as an iconic performer and a controversial tabloid figure. Who would have thought that such a carefully controlled, estate-permitted biopic might actually do more damage to an artist’s legacy by making him so uninteresting?

Justin Tipping’s flimsy football horror movie Him is papered over with colorful lighting but underscored by bland ideas. Despite Marlon Wayans’ bravura performance, it makes very little visceral impact while en route to one of the most confounding third acts of any horror movie this year.

With little tension or humor to speak of, there’s nothing keeping Jurassic World: Dominion afloat, beyond the naïve hope that recognizing the familiar will be enough for some viewers. Maybe it will be, but it’s proof positive that we’re in one of the dullest, most artless periods of Hollywood blockbusters yet — “Top Gun: Maverick” notwithstanding — and we could be stuck here for some time.

Both as drama and as science fiction, In the Blink of an Eye doesn’t probe these questions, but rather, drops definitive answers like anvils, leaving little room to ruminate, wrestle, or consider.

Demonic promises a fun and fascinating premise, but its scattered pieces barely coalesce.

The filmmaking works in and of itself, but that Lakewood feels so emotionally in tune with its lead actress is a feat all on its own.

Nothing in the movie seems to matter, from its internal lore to the extraneous sequel setups that appear out of nowhere to the characters’ own ethoses. Audiences have not cared much about Sony’s non-Spider-Man Spider-world movies. That’s no surprise when the filmmakers seem to be this indifferent as well.

A headache-inducing screenlife film that straps Chris Pratt to a chair and holds its audience hostage too, Mercy squanders its potential as a sci-fi thriller about the dangers of entwining justice and artificial intelligence. The result plays less like the tongue-in-cheek mystery-thriller director Timur Bekmambetov seems to be aiming for, and more like an advertisement to tech investors, making the movie chilling in unintended ways.

Ranbir Kapoor is deeply committed to his brash and ugly protagonist, but in spite of the movie’s explosive action, director Sandeep Reddy Vanga seems more preoccupied with provoking outrage than with telling a coherent story.

A movie that’ll just about keep young viewers’ attention, Smurfs is part Rihanna jukebox musical, and part flimsy attempt to give the little blue critters an identity that’ll stick.

It’s only 100 minutes long, but upward of 99 of those minutes are likely to be spent in silent boredom, if not irritated disbelief at being subjected to such guileless, artless nonsense.

The Mark Wahlberg–starrer reveals just how stuck Hollywood sci-fi is in 1999, when The Matrix cemented ideas of digital consciousness in the Western mainstream (with a bent of pan-Asian spirituality).

Directors Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil offer ideas of subversion that feel both long-outdated in concept and completely dull in execution, to the point that merely describing the film feels irresponsible, lest its premise accidentally lure curious viewers to the cinema.

Gehraiyaan seldom earns its melodramatic turns. However, the buildup to them proves to be dynamic enough, emotionally charged enough, and above all, honest enough in its approach to infidelity and flawed human relationships that the film remains worthwhile.

More Jackass is never a bad thing, so Jackass Forever follow-up Jackass 4.5 is fun despite being a scattered collection of interviews and deleted scenes. Like its predecessors, it’s bonus content for a Jackass movie delivered at feature length, which makes it catnip for long-time fans.

At 174 minutes long, with nested flashbacks overflowing with exposition, the movie has lengthy stretches that can feel like a chore. However, each extraneous segment eventually converges in some of the most exhilarating and cathartic on-screen violence Indian cinema has to offer.

The film draws its various techniques from far better and more accomplished documentaries, resulting in a multifaceted, mixed-bag approach that never clicks, thanks in large part to how the movie chooses to reveal information.

Malformed comedy and character beats keep the movie feeling like a rough first draft.

It’s a strange-looking, odd-feeling film that gestures toward mystery and larger conspiracy, but it seldom pulls on these threads. Instead, it ends up an anodyne political drama that says little of note.

Beyond all the legal and even medical specifics resides a sense of communal understanding, and — at the risk of sounding mawkish — a deep and abiding love for one’s fellow human beings, which Feder taps into with aplomb.

Elena Oxman’s Outerlands is a film of great cinematic sleight of hand.

Bollywood gangster saga Dhurandhar walks a fine line between raucous entertainment and hateful propaganda. With more blood and guts than a slaughterhouse, it’s one of the most viciously enthralling films this year, following a fictitious undercover operative influencing real historical events, like Forrest Gump with a Kalashnikov.