William Bibbiani

If logic had anything to do with it, that would mean 'Thrash' was a bad movie. But logic has no place in these soggy halls. 'Thrash' may be arbitrary but it’s too energetic to be bad.

It’s impressive to see Orley mask the shiny simplicity of Big Time Adolescence in finely-calibrated performances and observant, mostly realistic dialogue, but the disguise falls apart after a while.

Christina Milian and Devale Ellis are adorable. That’s the whole movie in a nutshell. Nothing else has to work in order to get what we need out of it. Pentatonix can’t even play themselves convincingly, at all, and it still doesn’t hurt this thing.

Whether you find it exciting or troubling might vary from person to person, but either way Jennifer Garner delivers a standout performance that demands recognition, and will hopefully lead to better action movie roles for the actor in the future.

The Dreadful is worth watching for Harden’s perfidious performance alone. And whenever she’s not on-screen it’s worth the wait.

On one hand this reads like a Chaucer story, albeit a modern one that tackles topics even Chaucer would have struggled with. On the other, arch is still arch, so it may be hard for some audiences to appreciate Jackman’s wavelength.

As a scary movie, 'The Conjuring: Last Rites' is a generic film, neither good nor bad. It’s practically begging audiences to judge it on a 'pass/fail' basis. As the conclusion of the 'Conjuring' series, it’s a little more successful, but not much.

Medieval struggles as a work of historical fiction, but when the action mounts, it’s immersive and exciting.

he Secret Life of Pets 2 is a fast-paced string of mostly mediocre jokes that younger audiences will enjoy, but aside from a few centerpieces, there's not much here to capture the attention if you're older than the intended audience.

The original Aladdin was an innovative motion picture, heralding a new era of CG-assisted animation and celebrity stunt-casting. It was bold and exciting. The remake rehashes the original in a pleasing but perfunctory way.

Widows is so severe and reserved a picture that it never quite works as a thriller, but it’s so mired in conventional thriller storytelling that it never completely works as a serious drama either. But there’s no denying the power of that cast and the particular vision of McQueen, who turns Widows into something truly distinctive… if not necessarily effective.

Whether you laugh with I Love My Dad or never shake the queasy feeling in your stomach, Morosini’s film is remarkably sensitive and eerily confessional.

The Bluff isn’t a bad pirate movie. If anything, it has so little competition these days that it’s probably 'the best pirate movie in years' by default. But that’s damning the film with faint praise, or possibly praising it with faint damnation.

Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is an interesting intellectual exercise, too ambitious to be ignored yet too overbearing to be enjoyed. Despite moments of genuine terror the film is less interesting in being scary than it is in humanizing what scares us, but once we know more about the witches in Suspiria, the less intriguing they are.

Not Without Hope never completely comes together but when it works, it’s absorbing disaster filmmaking."

It never quite kicks into high gear, and plays a lot more like a TV movie from the 1990s — a very good decade for historical TV movies — than a major feature in the 2020s.

It’s hard to imagine Mark Wahlberg as Parker, even after you just watched him play Parker for two hours.

When Shazam! Fury of the Gods tries to look like a big blockbuster action movie it comes across as perfunctory and soulless. The fury signifies nothing. The heart is where this movie’s home is.

Insidious: The Last Key may be somewhat engaging but it’s also sloppy and doesn’t amount to much.

A decently made but unsurprising thriller.

It’s impossible not to root for President Viola Davis as she takes down incompetent, mediocre white guys who want to crash the world economy. She stares down this generic production and walks away with another victory under her belt.

It’s only the plot that runs into trouble, since it leads Slanted to carefully tackle some serious issues, but overlook or airball some others. When viewed from different angles the film is either a fascinating success or a gigantic misfire.

It’s a difficult world out there, so once in a while it sure is nice to just sit down with the family to watch a wholesome movie about a wholesome man, his wholesome dog, and their tireless, never-ending hunt for human corpses.

It’s a speedy adventure with diverse action set pieces and a mystery that boasts at least one halfway decent twist.

Red One might not save Christmas but at least it saves face.

It would be easy to write off 'Sneaks' as a hack job, a sole-less riff on a tired premise, but there’s more afoot here.

Its baseline competence is perfectly watchable. It’s just hard to imagine anyone signing onto this project with the explicitly stated goal of only making it watchable.

If you can’t think of a better way to spend your time, 'Until Dawn' is a thing that exists.