Will Ashton

An acutely defined, starkly realized and profoundly unsettling debut if ever there was one.

An inspired, spellbinding, wonderfully-realized tale and a dazzling, visually/morally beautiful treat for the eyes, ears, heart and soul that richly weaves an all-inclusive journey based in culture, heritage, friendship and self-importance.

Keeping Up with the Joneses sometimes clicks, thanks to the commitment brought by the cast, but it’s too often shackled with a tired plot to really make the most of its potential.

Pulseless, perfunctory and persistently watering down its kookier instincts, Fifty Shades Darker pales in comparison to the first. You might as well call it Fifty Shades Duller.

Never afraid to show off its bloody fangs, yet careful to cut beyond the skin before its savage, stirring final strike, It Comes At Night is a remarkable, terror-filled invasion.

Handsome is modest and mild-mannered, the type of comedy that likes to keep things content and mostly carefree.

Through its fine performances, considerate direction and character-focused writing, Only the Brave goes above your average biopic to present something that’s poignant and endearingly familiar, letting Kosinski provide that hard-wrought emotional impact lost in his previous films, while still allowing him to showcase his talents for visuals and location.

With its sensational production designs, lavish costumes and Grant providing one of his best performances in years (if not one of his best performances ever), Florence Foster Jenkins is appealing if ultimately slight.

Blockers is the kind of movie that Hollywood typically gets wrong. They make it too crude or too wild or too inconsiderate. Thankfully, Blockers is an unexpected triumph, even if it’s not quite as great as it could’ve been.

As beautiful as the picture is, the pleasures of Early Man are fleeting. Aardman’s own high bar isn’t quite reached this time around, and it might be best to temper your expectations.

Through intimate access, personalized interviews and mostly sympathetic portrayals of select people inside the White House, Barker isn’t trying to be objective.

Wonder promotes the benefits of human decency in a time when those virtues feel limited, and wins you over by being a pretty good film about being good — and that’s good enough for it to work.

Shin Godzilla ushers in a new age for Godzilla, and a welcome one at that. It’s not perfect, but it’s ready to ask big questions and also demand thoughtful answers. In that sense, it’s one of the most valuable Godzilla movies to come along in years, decades even.

Game Night is a winner, plain and simple. Brisk and engaging (and surprisingly powered by a score from Cliff Martinez that’s expectedly great), this is a comedy that’s worth rolling the dice on.

Likable, heartfelt and sweet in all the right places, Stoller and co-director Doug Sweetland have put together a charming surprise that’s as joyful and friendly as it is funny and well-meaning.

As a world-building exercise, Fantastic Beasts often succeeds. It’s charming, playful and welcoming in ways these movies haven’t been since the first two installments, and the patchiness of the plot is often forgiven because these characters are likable, rather affable, and well-cast.

The Infiltrator is ultimately a solid, if not exceptional, Scorsese takeoff, one that has just enough spunk and wit to make up for its often-apparent shortcomings.

There’s no shortage of “Goodfellas” wannabes out there, but American Made is a serviceably entertaining one with consistent action and hearty chuckles along the way.

Too mediocre to become a new classic, it’s easy to be dismissive of the film’s cheap pleasures, but through its good heart and giving spirit, The Man Who Invented Christmas does, in part, capture what makes the holiday season such a joyous time.

Gifted means well, but it’s nonetheless a formulaic movie, missing the wit and charm needed to make this kind of picture add up to something truly special.

Bridget Jones’s Baby is not a game-changer, but that’s not what it sets out to be. It’s a goodnatured, accessible, persistently endearing matinee, and sometimes it’s nice to be won over by simple sincerity and commercial likeability.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is, at once, invigorated and underdeveloped, both rousing and slightly underwhelming.

As inviting as it is immersive and convivial, Nerve is bumpy, sloppy and rather unsophisticated, but it’s also ultimately sociable, warm, endearing and, most of all, pretty fun.

Chastain is as good as ever, but it’s a shame that such a gripping, tender, and vulnerable performance is lost in a period drama as flat as this one.

Landon uses this winning sequel opportunity to not merely redo his refreshingly animated original film but challenge it— building upon its kooky, evergreen foundation and expand the story in scope, scale, genre, and tone.

The House With A Clock On Its Walls has its fair share of charms, but it doesn’t leave you spellbound.

Armed with commanding performances, striking cinematography and exceptionally well-calibrated direction, The Wall is a haunting, engrossing death march, one that’s not entirely original but also not easy to shake.

With a filmography as curiously inconsistent as Collet-Serra’s, The Commuter is a wild, mostly entertaining combination of the director’s general bag of tricks. It’s over-the-top and fun, even if in its own fleeting way, and by the time you reached your location, you don’t feel swindled.

By establishing little stakes and few moments of genuine connection between the main stars, it lacks the warm authenticity and the stranger-than-fiction reality of the real story, which will ultimately be weirder and more enticing than any narrative version of this story could ever be.

Both Brent and Gervais give this “one last push” all the love, commitment, determination and fool-hearted dedication they can muster, and it’s good that at least one can come out on top even while the other clings to the bottom.

An unsavory, underdeveloped and uninspired bore, it takes too many blows and doesn’t give nearly enough counterpunches. It doesn’t cut. It doesn’t bleed. It doesn’t even hit. Hell, it barely puts up a fight. It comes out the gate frail and disoriented, already down for the count before the picture has started.

The real-life heroes who bravely risked their lives deserve something better than the forgettable mediocrity that is 12 Strong, and truth be told, audiences deserve more too.

It’s an unexpectedly winning film, and even when you’re ready to write it off, it offers surprises that keeps you engaged. “Quirky,” “cute,” and “weird” may be overused adjectives, but sometimes those words fit, and sometimes those tropes do work well.

Despite its strong performances, notably from Reid, Pine, and Witherspoon, its wide collection of marvels and it’s joyful sense of self, A Wrinkle in Time crumbles under expectations. But it’s not so much a failure as it’s a flawed do-gooder that could make our world better. It doesn’t dazzle like the stars and it doesn’t transport us away, but it still offers hope.

If nothing else, Once Upon a Deadpool is an experiment that’s interesting in theory, but it doesn’t prove fruitful in terms of execution.

It’s an inspiring story, but Eastwood can’t find the spark to bring it life.

Everything, Everything is appealing in its own way. It’s good-hearted, if poorly conceived, but perhaps most crucially, Everything, Everything leaves you with very little worth remembering.

Peter Rabbit isn’t without its odd delights, and while it won’t serve as the definitive version of Potter’s adoring, timeless creation, Gluck’s film may find a way to burrow into your heart.

For fans of the franchise, The Death Cure is a fairly serviceable finale.

Gudegast does provide a good amount of grimy atmosphere to his L.A. setting, and the action sequences keep you involved even as the running time starts to get gruelling. But, at 140 minutes, Den of Thieves gets too caught up in its own indulgences, and that’s a crime it can’t escape.

Despicable Me 3 is sadly a discouraging, hollow sequel that’s hard to love.

This whole endeavor never becomes as bewitching as it should be. It’s never more than adequate, and while P.T. Barnum will go down as one of the most interesting men in history, this film won’t pull off the same feat.

It’s not an easy movie to love and it’s not an easy movie to hate either. It’s annoyingly, persistently just okay.

It’s an admirably well-crafted misfire, created by two of the finest filmmaking duos working together today. But perhaps that demonstrates just how singular the original remains, even to this day.

It’s straightforward when it should be subversive and only owns up to its silliness when it’s too late.

In the right moments, Brad Peyton can stage a ceremoniously ludicrous set piece with grace and ease. It’s easy to follow the nonsense found in the last act thanks to his assured hand, and you can tell that he is having an absolute ball with its silliness. If only we could share in that enthusiasm for its tedious first two acts.

Never quite fun enough for kids or teens, but also unlikely to appeal to loyal fans, Power Rangers feels like a film that’s not quite finished morphing into its true form.

A Dog’s Purpose is an awkward, graceless, meandering and unnecessarily cruel dog movie, and therefore a fairly meaningless one.

Sure, there are some generally reliable players (T.J. Miller, Jason Bateman, Kate McKinnon), which keeps things from getting deathly dull, but the newest film from directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck (“Blades of Glory”) is mostly uninspired and bland.

Whatever inspired the compulsively addictive (I assume) fast-selling book series isn’t found in yet another dull, tiresome race-against-the-clock European mystery thriller with a historical twist.

One should applaud Diesel and Caruso for breathing unexpected energy into what could’ve been another lame, uninspired continuation. It’s wild, loud and totally out of control, and that’s periodically a pretty good thing.

Cardboard Boxer isn’t meant to be subtle or subversive. That’s fine. It doesn’t need to be. But it does need to feel sincere or at least genuine, and that’s only occasionally the case with Lee’s underwhelming debut.

In his first narrative feature in 10 years, Blitz doesn’t find the comfortable balance between self-conscious weirdness and overpowering emotional resonance seen throughout his other, better works. It’s not an outright disaster, but it’s not the shining success it should’ve been.

Despite its stunning backdrops and inspired new designs, Smurfs: The Lost Village is a smurfing waste of time.

This newest Sandler vehicle is inspired and warm-hearted where his other recent movies are lazy and soulless. Does that make it a winning success? Hell no, but it’s good to see Sandler put his heart into his work again.

Lacking real zest or fun, it’s a middling effort, if one with ample heart and good intentions, that happens to star two actors who can rise to the occasion when necessary. Working together, it’s a shame that they serve both as this frustratingly mediocre comedy’s most reliable pleasure and most consistent disappointment.

It’s sillier and more free-wheeling than you’d initially expect, but it never quite finds a sense of drive to give it purpose.

Predictable and overdone, it’s yet another unremarkable studio comedy that wobbles on its before getting knocked out.

Despite a commendably committed performance from Tom Hardy (whether it's a good or bad one will still need further evaluation), Venom's a big, stinking gooey mess of a film.

It’s not merely that The Only Living Boy in New York is reductive, corny and uninvolving; it’s that it tries to be something more profound and enlightened than it actually is.

The Shack isn’t quite as bad as expectations might lead you to believe, but it’s not divine, either.

A vacuous and generally indifferent effort that lacks even the watered down spark and inspiration of its ho-hum 2015 original...this seasonal comedy sequel is a fruitless, frustrating nothingburger of tired dysfunctional family tropes and conservative-minded family values.

Maybe someday, Jennifer Garner will be given a project that proves her talents once again. For now, though, we’re left with Peppermint: a wretched action misfire that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Manipulative and over-engineered, starring high-profile actors doing all they can elicit deep compassion, Collateral Beauty fails to make an impression, and contains not nearly enough authentic beauty to make it worthwhile.