Tasha Robinson

The movie may not be what fans normally tune into the franchise for, but it’s certainly daring and different, showcasing how the core characters each react to being pushed beyond their limits. The animation is spectacular, with thrilling, complicated, multi-dimensional fights and some actual scares when it seems like there’s no way out.

Biographies of great artists often try to define their subjects via grand dramas and dark, defining moments. A Magnificent Life’s perspective is right there in the title: Even in its darkest moments, it’s a hopeful, comforting success story, framed in a way that encourages viewers to look back to their own childhoods, and confront their own wistfully ambitious ghosts.

For once, fans’ “Did they do the book justice?” anxieties are misplaced: The movie version of Project Hail Mary is funny, strange, heartening, and completely satisfying.

War Machine hits all the right spots for this kind of movie. It’s lean and propulsive. The practical stunts are impressive and immersive. And Ritchson, even playing a man so throttled by his own past that he doesn’t want to feel anything, is a compelling screen presence.

This movie is its own kind of Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together from a thousand different parts and lurching into disturbing life. The Bride! seems like it was meant to be discussed, analyzed, and unpacked at length, with different fans seizing on different elements as the key to the whole shambling creature. But like so many of the Frankensteinian creatures that preceded it onto the screen, it’s a bit of an unwieldy monster.

Iron Lung is an immersive experience. It traps the audience in a close, suffocating space with Simon and the seeming inevitability of his death, and the sense of terror is palpable and thrilling. It’s a slow-burn horror movie, but it certainly isn’t lacking in scares.

Edgar Wright has built his reputation on steering his movies into unlikely, exciting places. In The Running Man, it rarely feels like anyone’s hand is on the wheel.

This movie does one thing, and does it well, via methods that escalate to nearly cartoonish proportions. And it’s clear in absolutely every grim, gory, gutting-it-out scene that Helander and Tommila know exactly who they’re making this movie for.

The sequel loses the small-scale, intense focus in favor of The Conjuring-level supernatural effects and action. At its best, it’s much scarier than the first movie. But it also comes with a level of full-on action-goofiness that Derrickson and Cargill avoided in Black Phone.

Elio is a big-swing movie, an attempt to push viewers out of their comfort zones and into a strange new setting. But while it successfully blasts off to a colorful new world of wonder, it doesn’t always land.

Ballerina may not satisfy all the John Wick stalwarts, but the movie does have its own satisfying angles, thanks to two things the filmmakers do radically differently from the rest of the franchise — and one thing they take straight from the series’ heart.

Good horror-comedy is hard to pull off, but Hsu finds his balance by steering hard into the comedy, while pouring on the fake blood.

It’s a lot to take in, but it’s joyously and creatively rendered, a fantasy epic brought to life in vivid color and with all the visual creativity a fantasy fan could want.

As a Captain America movie, Brave New World is batting strongly below average. The filmmakers try to dodge the political commentary that’s always marked the MCU’s Captain America movies, and focus on personal stakes instead, but those plotlines don’t land with any force or focus.

To the degree that Love Hurts feels like a movie at all, it’s because Quan puts so much heart into his work, and so much squeaky-voiced comedic talent, paired with the speed and flexibility that makes a fight scene thrilling.

Presence is more intellectual than visceral, more engaged with raising questions than pinning viewers to their seats.

Most musicals translate emotion into song. This one takes that a step further, translating emotion into a daring central gimmick. It’s experimental and explosive.

There’s no sign of sincerity anywhere in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and no hint of relatable feeling. The entire movie is an echo chamber crammed with incident.

Its statements about gender, violence, trauma, and entitlement are blaring and blatant, with little room for ambiguity or interpretation. And that absolutely seems to be the movie’s primary point.

The film doesn’t come across as ironic, satirical, or like a thoughtful analysis or commentary. It’s the first of the three that could actually be considered a new entry in the genre it’s referencing.

The Imaginary isn’t as visually or narratively rich as Mary and the Witch’s Flower, or as transcendent as Miyazaki projects like The Boy and the Heron. But it does feel like a move in the right direction for Ponoc, an effort at finding its own voice and its own footing.

Inside Out 2 is full of passion and empathy, letting the audience in on Riley’s inner struggle without always painting her as the hero, even in her own story.

Regardless of what mode filmmakers lean into for a shark movie, they need to bring something worthwhile to that mode. Under Paris gets about halfway there on every front — drama, thrills, terror, character conflict, humanity-versus-nature messaging — and not much further than that.

It has its share of creepy moments, rising tension, and sudden-blast-of-music jump scares, but as a suspense story, it fizzles out surprisingly early.

It might be considered admirable how firmly Titley sticks to the facts, rather than trying to draw out a moral from the entire situation. But it leaves the story feeling more like a quirky, isolated human-interest story than a watershed moment in the development of exploitative, stunt-driven reality television.

It’s a curiously specific movie, a gag aimed at fans of joyously culty, messy nonsense like Guns Akimbo or Crank — at least, until that final fight suddenly starts taking the narrative seriously. Even then, though, it’s best to watch Boy Kills World with the same snarky detachment the rest of its run time encourages.

One of the many things that makes Boys State entertaining as well as relevant is the way Moss and McBaine capture these kids’ different facets, and track how their combined ambition and naïveté play into the big picture.

The subjects of Girls State are trying to express their confidence about their power and impact in the world, while simultaneously watching their country deny them rights over their own bodies and emphasize their powerlessness. There’s a particularly uncomfortable irony in watching them working to piece together their own political beliefs and futures while their government is shutting down their options.

Arcadian does a few things remarkably well for a sci-fi/horror movie, but it needed a lot more to really spark: more commitment to its vaguely realized setting, more energy between the two very different brothers at its center, and above all, more Nicolas Cage — either version of him.

Challengers is a sharp and snappy movie, full of big emotions expressed through fast-paced dialogue in some scenes and through silent, sensual physicality in others, all shot with creative verve and aggressively in-your-face energy. Everyone in this movie is chasing sex and success, and conflating those things with each other in unashamedly provocative ways.

It isn’t what those people will think it is. It’s something better, more timely, and more thrilling — a thoroughly engaging war drama that’s more about people than about politics.

It’s a daringly weird debut, executed with real style and vision.

Miller’s Girl is a luxuriant meal for [Ortega], a chance to play a variety of facets of the same girl while finding the connections between them. For everyone else, though, it’s short rations, and more than a little underbaked.

The movie is a tepid botch on pretty much every level.

With this project, Rugna breaks plenty of horror rules and literally writes his own, turning his film into 2023’s most unnerving horror release — and a welcome revival for a subgenre that seemed like it was on its last spindly, clawed, wall-climbing legs.

The Blackening is a strange movie, and often a very silly one. But the creators can at least boast that they’ve put something on screen that horror fans don’t see often, and won’t be expecting.

The Pod Generation isn’t going to leave anyone with the dread and emotional impetus of a hard-hitting, scary sci-fi future, or the uplift and catharsis of a well-observed satisfying one. It’s more of a placid puzzler than a moving experience, though there’s certainly plenty to see on screen, and plenty to recognize in the commercialization it lampoons.

For people who just want more stories told in this world, and don’t mind leaving Bird Box’s initial characters behind, the spinoff’s small mysteries and shocks may be enough to occupy a Friday night or a lazy Sunday afternoon. But for people who want more depth out of their sad-dad-found-family horror stories, The Last of Us is already out there. Bird Box Barcelona just feels a little late to the game.

It’s no wonder that every part of Across the Spider-Verse is an attempt to outdo the first movie. The idea of growing, of surpassing and ignoring everyone else’s limits, is the heart of this series’ heroes and their individual journeys. It looks like the movies themselves are designed to follow suit.

This is a rom-com, formulaic and comforting and breezy, with some action trappings, but with no expectations that anyone needs to care about the results of that action.

The pacing is leaden, the visuals are murky, and there’s pretty much no reason to care about anyone on the screen, except to idly wonder how they’re going to die, and what their innards will look like when they do.

Weapons that send an enemy into a dream state or a phantasmagorical world give director Zhao all the opportunity he needs to radically change animation styles, or fill the screen with wild fantasy images. This is a movie worth seeing on the biggest screen available.

The movie’s strongest moments come when the action gets so ridiculous that the audience almost has to laugh, even as they’re wondering who’s going to die next.

This movie is drawing on some old, old tropes and familiar ideas. But it does it in a way that makes them feel as new, fresh, and exhilarating as young love itself.

This is a movie where the craft dominates the experience, which is thrilling for people watching for the artistry, but less convincing for viewers focused on the story.

The latest from Spanish writer-director Alberto Vázquez is transgressive and aggressive to a degree that’s hard to fathom: It weaponizes cute cartoon creatures against its audience, and introduces innocence and beauty in order to tear it apart on screen in the most horrific ways possible. The film isn’t an easy watch, but it is a bold and memorable one.

While the procedural story takes up a fair bit of screen time, the emotional story is the center of the film, and the one that’s likely to stick with audiences longest and most clearly. As a story, it lacks the verve and dynamism of his early action films. As a portrait of obsession and regret, it’s remarkably sophisticated and satisfying.

There’s some knuckle-biting tension as viewers wait to see how it’ll all play out, but Mylod and the writers also suggest that it’s worth chuckling a little at everyone involved, whether they’re serving up fancy versions of mayhem or just paying through the nose for it.

Dystopian sci-fi has rarely been as delicately and beautifully detailed as Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper’s new film.

No matter how excessively the legitimate scares pile up, they’re startling and convincing. The editing and music are impressively tuned for maximum impact whenever the slow-burning tension resolves with an abrupt, ugly surprise. All of which makes Smile an efficient ride, if an unusually unrelenting one.

This is a movie meant to introduce viewers to the real emotions people bring to their escapist fantasy worlds. But for most viewers, it’s more likely to simply be a confusing, exhilarating, context-free introduction to the fantasy world itself.

It’s appropriately goofy given the premise and the structure, but a brisk pace and a committed cast turns it into a diverting indie horror-movie spin on a familiar gimmick.

Lightyear is so clearly calibrated to be something more: a thoughtful meditation on the passage of time. And on that level, the film never hits as hard as it’s meant to.

It’s a movie that may look a lot better in the rearview mirror than it does in the moment.

Vogt makes deliberate, thoughtful choices that amp up the story’s drama and horror without ever turning it into the kind of action-centric special-effects showcase Americans have come to expect even from their low-budget superpower stories.

Men is nearly unique as a horror movie in Harper’s specific response to the threats she faces. But even as she parts ways with the usual wailing victim image, the film still holds onto its sense of the uncanny and horrific. Even seasoned body-horror fans may be shaken by where this film goes in terms of its bloody physicality.

It’s a strange and memorable film with a unique voice and a unique perspective, and that alone makes it worth seeking out. But just as Stearns’ characters seem to be constantly suppressing a shriek of dismay or despair or defiance, viewers may come out of this one suppressing the urge to go yell at Stearns and demand a satisfaction that the movie isn’t about to offer.

Everything Everywhere’s multiverse is a remarkably flexible metaphor. It’s equally suitable for expressing some common frustrations the audience may relate to, about botched choices and wasted opportunity. But it’s just as suited for setting up a series of ridiculously kickass action sequences where literally anything is possible, because the characters aren’t bound by reality or causality.

It unfolds with a fascinating specificity that goes well beyond the Batman details, and unlocks a lot of conversation-starting thoughts about the various ways and reasons people associate with different fandoms.

By the end of Fresh, the film hasn’t done anything more than restating what it made clear at the start: Dating is hell, and women deserve more than to be treated like pieces of meat.

The Cursed has its own mythology and some unnerving, bloody innovations around what’s basically a werewolf story, but Ellis gets a lot of his mileage around the standard creature-feature horror-story things he doesn’t do.

After Yang is intensely internal and personal, as grief so often is, which guarantees it won’t connect with a wide audience. But as a collection of images and moods, all gently nudging at that central question of what defines a person, it’s gravely hypnotic. It’s an old question, asked in a new way, with deepest gravity and respect.

Timid viewers who are normally averse to horror aren’t going to find much comfort or safety in this movie. But for longtime horror buffs, this feels like something fresh: a simple story, told in the rawest and most startling way, and given a face out of nightmares.

See For Me updates the home-invasion formula with a couple of clever twists and a key relationship. But writers Adam Yorke and Tommy Gushue and director Randall Okita only push the formula so far before they run out of innovation.

It’s a hell of an achievement, and the rare case where a remake feels like an act of fervent fandom.

The Summit of the Gods isn’t a joyous film, and it isn’t a dreamy one. But it does feel like a remarkably insightful meditation, both about what it would really be like to fight your way up Mount Everest, and about why people keep taking up the challenge

It’s depressing, in more ways than one, given its cynical take on what makes life worthwhile, and what we have to do to preserve it. But it’s also refreshing to see science fiction this aware of how actively we’re careening toward a terrible future, and how our response to it is likely to be specific, personal, and just as selfish as the behavior that gets us there in the first place.

All that character development goes out the window when everyone’s just focused on surviving the grueling ordeal ahead, but the creators never find a way to vary the action enough to keep it from being grueling for the audience, as well.

The ending is a bold play in a movie full of bold plays, but it seems designed more to whip up discussion than to draw the narrative together, or to give viewers either a horror-movie catharsis or a marriage-drama resolution.

Street Gang certainly doesn’t tell the whole story of Sesame Street’s early years — it can’t begin to. But it’s an absorbing, nostalgia-courting start, and for people with fond memories of the show, it’s an unbeatable chance to approach it as an adult, and understand their own childhoods a little better in the process.

For all the eye-popping battles and fast-moving action, it’s an emotional story that takes the time to explore what its protagonist really wants out of life, and why god-tier power may be as much of a burden as a benefit.

Thunder Force is only occasionally insightful, and almost never surprising. It’s arriving in a world where people generally expect more from its genre than light, enjoyable performances and a handful of overstretched gags, and that’s all it has to offer.

In the Earth is an immersive portrait of tribalism and madness, angst and survivalism. And in spite of the somewhat predictable narrative, the film builds to an unshakably tense, unsettlingly eerie conclusion.

It comes across more like a showreel than a stand-alone film, like, a confusingly edited sizzle teaser for a much more in-depth Doors drama series.

It’s a pleasant enough hangout movie, and someday it may be held up as a slanted portrait of what mid-2020 felt like for people privileged enough to ignore politics. But it still feels like a minor movie in the face of a major catastrophe.

Nothing about where the story is going or how it’ll get there stylistically can be taken for granted. That’s one of the biggest joys of Shaw’s projects — the sense of something new and different happening, of that anti-capitalist, anti-conformist, anti-containment bent that stretches throughout the story also extending into every aspect of the film’s aesthetics.

Purists could well complain at how far Howl’s Moving Castle departs from Jones’ terrific story in order to wedge in Hayao Miyazaki’s longstanding personal obsessions, like flight, the destructive and horrific nature of war, and the way courage conquers evil and love saves lives. But at least the film has a point of view, and the benefit of its creator’s highly specific and recognizable voice. Earwig, by contrast, often feels generic.

Soul feels like the best Pixar movies used to feel — deeply humanistic, with both silly, kid-friendly humor and a sincere solemnity that feels entirely adult. Docter and Powers weaponize all of this in a story that literally and directly questions the meaning of life.

The first two movies are packed with “I can’t believe that just happened!” moments. The third one instead chains together a series of “Oh yeah, I’ve seen this before” scenes.

Scare Me plays some thoughtful games with the idea of horror-comedy, and eventually, Ruben uses the self-aware humor to sharpen the shocks.

Even as a low-key Netflix time-waster, Fearless isn’t that much fun, except for people who really, really like the idea of super-babies.

The doc never feels propulsive, or even particularly informative, and it never has to. For people who remotely enjoy the existence of dogs, Well Groomed is one of the most wholesome, joyous, purely enjoyable documentaries in the streaming world, and Stern doesn’t aspire to anything more.

It’s rare to see an anime story that solely focuses on adults navigating the issues of maturity, personal development, and a stymied future. It’s even rarer to see anime that simultaneously tackles those ideas, and wraps them in such an extravagant visual fantasia.

It’s highly competent throughout, and outright brilliant at times, but it lacks the necessary level of connection with the real world. And by the end, it’s lost track even of its own hard-earned but fragile sense of emotion.

The story of The Vast of Night is nothing particularly special. The storytelling, though, is spectacular.

This isn’t a movie about car chases and explosions, it’s about the squirmy but satisfying feeling of watching justice done, and it’s a pleasure to watch the pieces fall into place.

It’s the rare romantic comedy that doesn’t underline viewers’ needy true-love fantasies by saying “This couple was destined to get together,” so much as it says “Eh, this could happen, I guess. Whatever.”

It’s a movie designed for people who like their future-fiction thoughtful and relevant, and for people who enjoy the runaway-train feeling of having no idea where a given story could possibly go next.

It’s colorful and charming, and it’s certainly unique in its story specifics. But it also feels safe, simple, and soft-edged compared to Pixar’s wilder swings for the outfield.

This is the kind of film where viewers can let themselves flow with the film’s emotion, or entirely ignore the action and just get lost in the beauty of the imagination. Either way, it’s a luscious trip to take.

For people who specifically prize meticulous story-craft and the ability to dodge broad genre clichés, I See You is a rare gift.

The film feels clumsy, hurried, and above all, like an admission of creative defeat.

The results are disappointingly conventional for a Ghibli film—the film is good-hearted, energetic, and full of Ghibli's characteristically beautiful hand-rendered animation, but it's also lightweight and hyper, with none of Miyazaki's more resonant themes.

It’s hypnotic just how horrifying Arthur’s existence is, just as Phoenix’s performance is hypnotic as he spirals from fragile hope into increasingly outsized and confident acts of destruction.

First Love is the kind of film that’s designed for seen-it-all genre fans who know these tropes (the scheming criminal, the dewy ingenues, the cold-hearted lady assassin, and so on) and appreciate seeing them tweaked in new directions, and treated with an air of fond familiarity rather than dour airlessness.

It lacks Hitchcockian tension or Christie-level dignity, but it’s funny, surprising, and intriguing in the way it flips the usual murder-mystery script.

In the early going, though, Waititi manages to keep the tone light and the humor surreal enough to avoid too much association with the real world. But as his story devolves into melodrama, the comedy curdles.

It’s an out-and-out triumph, an adrenaline blast of pure action and emotion that lives up to its predecessors and ably forwards the MCU story in memorable and even touching ways.