William Bibbiani

It scrolls past thoughtful ideas, too quickly to fully process them, and the experience is as cacophonous as the typical social media feed. I’ll grant you it’s thematically appropriate but it’s not cohesive filmmaking.

Mortal Kombat II isn’t the best Mortal Kombat movie, but it’s hard to deny that it comes second. At least with the number 2 and all.

Swapped won’t change the world, probably, but it’s a step above a lot of similar films and an effective fantasy story for all ages.

So what if it could be a little shorter? The length of the journey makes RZA’s destination more meaningful.

It’s easy to forgive cheap aesthetics and a rushed finale when the middle of the flick, the sharktastic bloodletting where no character is safe, is such a hoot.

We like to joke about how "this meeting could have been an email" but if all The Devil Wears Prada 2 can offer is Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt on-screen together again, then this film could have been a Zoom call.

As cozy farm animal detective stories go, it simply can’t be bleat.

The problem isn’t that the new 'Animal Farm' is unfaithful, it’s that the changes aren’t an improvement.

I Swear is the real deal, that rare biopic that doesn’t just tell a real human being’s story — or worse, give you the superficial, reassuring gist — but invites you into it.

The pieces of this survival thriller don’t work together in any meaningful way, they just occupy the same space, and that makes 'Apex' less exciting than if the filmmakers had just stuck to one of their guns. Any of them.

It’s just feature-length publicity, and it plays like damage control.

Questioning the moral fortitude of these comedies used to be something only critics did [...] Now Roommates is getting in on the act and I respect the film’s sense of introspection. I just wish it had funnier jokes.

Cronin has an uncanny knack for human mutilation, which would probably be a bad thing in any other context, but if you’re making gross-out horror movies, it’s practically a requirement.

The target demographic for Lorne is SNL fans who won’t benefit from a documentary like Lorne.

We’re watching extremely talented artists try to accomplish something grand and potentially embarrass themselves in the process, and it works because they’re committed to taking that risk.

Whether the love story completely works or not, ChaO is such a visual wonder that it hardly matters.

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.

Exit 8 isn’t just one of the best video game adaptations. It might actually be the best so far.

On one hand, Goldhaber’s film is a terrifying, stark, oppressive horror film that outscares the other modern slashers. On the other it’s an intelligent treatise on the grim obsession we have with being obsessively grim.

So lacking in substance and purpose that after a while you can’t even hear the dialogue over the incessant sound of Aristotle’s ghost punching himself.

It’s disquieting, and even though it’s also riveting, it’s difficult to shake the sense that everyone is getting away with something they shouldn’t.

All the inspirational, kitschy parts of your favorite nostalgic fare in a mature, sensitive motion picture with indie credibility. Sure, it’s cheap, but it wears its cheapness like a badge of honor. If this is the future of cinema, I say bring it on.

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.

There’s an underlying cynicism to The Fox that gives it heft.

The Gates' is constantly on the verge of getting better, sometimes on the verge of getting good, but it never quite gets there. It’s a missed opportunity for thrills, social commentary, humor and/or horror.

It’s a whole lot of pretty good and not a lot of amazing, but hey, remember how Tyriq Withers also starred in Him? No one can say they got the title wrong.

Watching Grace and Rocky talking science, doing science and exploring the parallels between their cultures evokes the very best parts of Star Trek.

If you can accept the fact that it’s big, silly and brainless, and nowhere near as good as its obvious influences, and also that it’s shameless propaganda, it’s still possible to have a good time.

The good news, for a lot of people, is that Maggie Gyllenhaal just made your new favorite movie. The bad news is… hang on, let me see if I can find any… no, I got nothing. There is no bad news.

Hoppers' isn’t just James Cameron’s Avatar if it had feelings, it’s also James Cameron’s Avatar if it was good.

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

It’s not that 'Scream 7' is a bad 'Scream' movie. There are no bad 'Scream' movies (yet). Even the worst one is kind of alright, and this is the worst one.

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.

Sadly, Psycho Killer wasn’t made with style in mind. Actually, it doesn’t seem to have anything on its mind."

That Crime 101 comes close to greatness and never quite gets there is not a crime. Even if it was, it’d be a misdemeanor.

Say what you will about the premise, but if you think that’s all there is to 'Goat,' you’re going to bleat those words.

Kinky as hell and also extremely romantic. That’s not a combo a lot of movies go for nowadays, let alone pull off this beautifully, and that makes Pillion something of a miracle.

Even though 'Whistle' offers nothing new to the supernatural death curse genre, it’s directed by Corin Hardy, and Corin Hardy likes to go hog wild.

They just tried to do the same schtick, but longer and worse, and let’s face it, 'longer and worse' is only the goal if you’re trying to torture somebody.

It’s just shameless promotion for a book about relationship advice, released on a streaming service that also sells happens to sell the book. It even features lines like, 'This story hit so hard I Amazoned a copy of ‘Relationship Goals’ right away.

Melania is the feature film version of that wedding video in Love Actually, the one where the best man spent the whole event obsessively filming the bride ... Ratner made a film that makes Ratner look more invested in Melania Trump than her husband, which is a really weird vibe to shoot for.

Jason Statham knows how to Jason Statham, and as usual, he Jason Stathams Jason Stathamly.

The pros don’t come from trustworthy sources and the cons require a lot more elaboration.

Nia DaCosta’s smart, freaky sequel zooms in on the ongoing battle between sense and senselessness until it finds strong, connective tissue between science and religion.

Roberts wraps his audience around his finger and then points us in the direction of gruesome, darkly humorous devilry.

These Greenland films may not always have a coherent point, but when they focus on the nuts and bolts of survival and the toll that surviving takes on these characters, they’re efficient, effectively crafted genre pictures.

It’s easy to appreciate the ambition of Gaines’ new take on Dutchman, but the original tale is fighting back, and it’s got the upper hand.

I’d say if The Plague wasn’t nominated for Best Original Score there’s something terribly wrong with the Oscars, but The Plague didn’t even make the short list, so there’s just something terribly wrong with the Oscars.

Life is too damn hard to get so damn mad about a sweet, mostly effective drama like Song Sung Blue.

This new Anaconda is so busy talking about how silly it is to make a new Anaconda that it never actually makes a good 'Anaconda.

Glorious, angry, hilarious, nail-biting fun from a director, writer and cast who all know exactly what they’re doing, and relish in the fact that they’re practically getting away with murder.

The only way ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ could be more hypocritical, and taken less seriously, is if the characters also yelled “Hypocrisy sucks!” while sitting on Whoopee cushions.

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

Skarsgård is a captivating chaos gremlin, and Montgomery is — in an easily overlooked, but absolutely vital role — an exceptional foil.

A sadistic delight, just like its predecessor.

Goodbye June is just hyperemotional tourism. We’re lookie-loos popping our heads in for the saddest moment in this family’s lives. We don’t even get to know them very well.

Scarlet' might be [Mamoru Hosoda]'s most narratively ambitious work to date, adapting and warping one of the most famous tales ever told, adding new layers of complexity, and centuries of new, invaluable context.

Ella McCay' is a film about American politics in the same way that Pixar’s 'Cars' is a movie about cars. As in yes, these are definitely films about politics and cars. But no, politics and cars don't work like that.

Despite one wonky misstep, it captures some real magic.

However depressing 'Rosemead' is, and it’s depressing in all italics, it’s just not deep enough to make running this gauntlet worthwhile.

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.

There are no small parts in a Michael Showalter movie. Every actor is a star when they’re on camera.

Shallow self-congratulation for American moxie at the expense of everyone and everything around us.

It’s not just "Netflix holiday rom-com good." It’s actually very, very good.

Road to Revenge is everything you could want from a rough-and-tumble, tough-as-nails action movie. 'Sisu' was even more of it, but only by a matter of degrees.

The romantic part of Johnson’s rom-com barely reaches a low simmer, but the comedy part burns a little brighter.

There hasn’t been a pre-planned 'Part Two' this disappointing since the second half of Andy Muschietti’s 'It.' At least nobody projectile vomits on Jeff Goldblum to the tune of Juice Newton’s 'Angel of the Morning.' Then again, that would have been more memorable.

A sweet, immersive glimpse at two of our futures, and it’s clear-eyed about which aspects of those worlds we want to avoid, and which ones we have to pursue.

A slapdash effort from an otherwise great artist.

Some movies are movies. Other movies are cocoa. A Merry Little Ex-Mas is the latter.

The Carpenter’s Son' is a Biblical horror movie with interesting ideas. They just don’t seem interesting because the perspective is cockeyed, which nullifies the film’s ability to trouble our hearts.

The fact that it's released by Paramount plays like a punchline, and it’s unclear who’s getting punched.

It’s a magic act without the storytelling, so every moment is the prestige, and none of it feels prestigious. It’s goofy and shallow and delightful and in a couple days I’ll forget I ever saw it.

If In Your Dreams was too entertaining it would contradict its own message about the perils of escapism. But it might not be entertaining enough to make audiences want to stay until the message comes through. Call it a design flaw.

This is wickedly exciting filmmaking. The rare, flashy studio blockbuster that doesn’t read like a laundry list of creative compromises, where the money went to telling a story about fascinating characters and putting them in impossible, gorgeous, and horrifically violent situations.

Queens of the Dead may not be a timeless classic and it might not be a game changer for the genre, but more than any other recent zombie flick, it’s likely to play the midnight circuit for years. Not because of the camp. Not because of the unlimited cosplay opportunities. But because it fosters genuine good will from the audience. We love these characters, and we want them to stick around. Zomb-ay, you stay.

A sensual, ingenious update of Ibsen’s classic play, honoring the grand theatrical tradition and transforming it into new, ecstatic cinema.

Yes, the movie looks scary. So scary it could almost be confused for a scary movie. Almost. But only if you’re not paying attention, and miss how shallow, derivative and underwritten it is.

Look, do you want to see a man made out of chainsaws or not?

It’s probably better to have a mixed-bag remake with real thought put into it than a superficial thriller retread of tired yuppie phobias. 'The Hand That Rocks the Cradle' may not rock, but hey, let’s give it a hand anyway.

It’s one of the great horror sequels, for about an hour. Then it’s a cautionary tale about how not to make a horror sequel, for about an hour.

Set aside for a moment that the movie is literally hard to look at: it’s also tonally chaotic, and repeatedly trips over its own unspeakable horrors, before falling face-first into bowls of insufferable sugar.

It’s a playground for the filmmakers and audience alike, a fantastical space where anything can happen, whether it’s silly or badass or both.

It’s a great sports movie about the urge to be great at sports, and it’s one of the smartest movies the genre has produced in a long time.

Bertino and Fanning are deeply committed to going to dark places, and they take us along for their freaky little ride. Whether it makes sense or not. (Probably not.)

Tron: Ares has, in no uncertain terms, a great frickin’ soundtrack. The movie, on other hand, completely sucks.

It may be odd and insular, but it’s very much intentional. Even the heavy-handedness feels genuine.

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

The Strangers: Chapter 2' is an improvement on 'The Strangers: Chapter 1.' Then again, a moderate case of food poisoning is an improvement on a severe one.

It’s suspenseful and smart. It’s got great performances across the board. It’s exactly the kind of thriller we keep saying we want, again and again, but which never get enough credit (or enough marketing).

Colin Minihan knows how to make a gnarly horror film.

Doin’ It' isn’t a great sex comedy. I don’t think I’d even call it a good one, so I won’t. But it sure as hell isn’t lazy. Noble intentions are splattered all over the walls, and the overall message isn’t in dispute.

You learn about as much from the movie as you do from the trailer, and the trailer is free to watch and saves you a lot of time.

It’s possible, maybe even likely, that Paul Thomas Anderson has stuffed so much into one movie that a lot of people will find something to take away from it. All I see is the lack of focus.

I admire you for trying to make it work, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, but I think we should both see other films.

It’s not that The Long Walk has made walking terrifying — although certainly it’s a fraught and frightening walk. It’s that it makes every trudge through every day remind us of torture.

It’s easy to see what attracted Fraser to this material, since it’s almost mechanically designed to make him look good as an actor, and enchanting as a star.

The film may be unbridled, unfettered and bold, but sometimes those adjectives aren’t complimentary.

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.

Liu points his lens at life and life does the work, guided by a masterful screenplay and tender performances.

At last, an Aronofsky film where it doesn’t feel like he hates us. O brave new world, that has such movies in it.

A heartwarming, horrifically violent homage to the most lovable dreck ever produced outside of the studio system.

Megadoc, whether it’s showing all there is to show or not, is a fascinating exposé of a filmmaker who risked everything so nobody could shoot down his ideas, only to shoot himself in the foot in the process.

The magic of La grazia is that Paolo Sorrentino makes a convincing argument that doubt is a beautiful thing.

An ambitious comedy, not because it’s so big but because it’s so delicate. This film could crumble at any minute. It veers dangerously from misery to whimsy to horror to hope.

Any movie that reminds you, simultaneously and favorably, of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and Michael Mann’s Thief is doing something very right — even if it looms a lot lower than those towering works of genius.

Eenie Meanie plays like a decent adaptation of an unpublished Elmore Leonard novel. Even the title looks like it should be on a spinner rack next to Freaky Deaky and Rum Punch.

It’s so divorced from reality that it’s practically grounds for divorce.

It’s a generous production, one that lovingly offers meaningful moments to every member of the cast, even the actors with only one scene.

A sword-and-sorcery epic that can’t swing the 'epic' part.

It’s like a National Lampoon movie where Chevy Chase is a mass murderer. That’s a great pitch, dang it, and Timo Tjahjanto throws it at 105 miles per hour.

What [Cregger]'s getting at seems a lot less frightening, and a lot more contrived, than it would have had he not invited us to ponder more powerful possibilities for over an hour before tipping his hand.

It’s still sweet, it’s still funny, it’s still freaky, and it’s still Friday. Thank God.

My Oxford Year is shiny and affable, and if that was the assignment it’d get an 'A' for effort . . . actually that’s going too far, let’s make it a respectable 'B.' But that’s not the assignment.

There’s a confidence to She Rides Shotgun that many other movies can’t match, as though the filmmakers always knew exactly where to put their camera and how long to let it roll.

The Naked Gun is back and it's as naked as ever. And also as gun.

It’s not bad, guys. But guys, it’s not good.

A few odd touches and one impressively, cathartically violent sequence don’t compensate for the film’s resistance to its own ideas.

Matt Shakman has done something Marvel Studios doesn’t do very well anymore. He’s made a superhero movie that embraces the 'super' part. And the 'hero' part. And the 'movie' part.

Logic, be damned! And begone! Everything about the new 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' strains credulity until credulity breaks open and spills fake blood and candy everywhere. And that’s for the best.

Sovereign is some of Offerman’s most complex and disturbing work. It’s a fine film, too.

You may want to leave the theater, go directly to a bookstore and buy the source material. That’s good! But you may want to leave before the movie’s over. That’s bad.

A fabulously smart and entertaining film whose flaws stem from trying too hard… which are the best flaws a film can have.

These above average, slightly forgettable movies may not live forever, but Theron’s badassery might.

Everything’s Going to Be Great understands the hopeless can-do spirit of not quite getting there but coming close enough that you’ll never, ever give up.

The filmmakers haven’t redefined the zombie genre, but they’ve refocused their own culturally significant riff into a lush, fascinating epic that has way more to say about being human than it does about (re-)killing the dead.

It’s all about radical acceptance but can only talk about the real-world application of its message in general metaphors, so people who don’t actually accept 'weird,' 'different' kids won’t have to think about how wrong they are.

Kosinski’s antiseptic visual style and Ehren Kruger’s limp screenplay (with a co-story credit by Kosinski himself) make 'F1 The Movie' an incredibly sterile film about virility. It’s so manly it can barely perform.

There’s an old expression that goes, 'If you can’t think of anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.' I propose we update that a little. 'If you can’t think of anything nice to say, you’re probably talking about Bride Hard.

They’re all trying to make a meal out of starvation rations. The cast’s efforts aren’t in vain, and the film is better for having them, but a thing can get a whole lot of 'better' before it gets 'good.

Kudos to everyone here for doing their jobs, and for doing them reasonably well, but the end result of all the effort is a film which, when people talk about How to Train Your Dragon, will eventually be referred to as 'no, not that one.

I do heartily recommend you see Materialists, and that you see it for what it is, not what it kinda looks like from the outside, as pitched to you by the very sort of romance-commodification salespersons that Celine Song’s movie criticizes.

A potpourri of general genre genericness, never making enough noise to rattle, or even produce an echo.

A glorified pitch reel, submitting for our approval a few nifty movie ideas and wrapping it all up in a tidy bow. All action, no filler.

A cluttered mess with a boring storyline but the action is often amazing, and there’s a genuine sense of humor to all its weird duels to the death. That’s something that’s been absent from the self-serious John Wick movies for far too long — an acknowledgement of their own wackiness.

Fear Street: Prom Queen is not the best Fear Street movie. But to be fair, it’s probably the third best Prom Night.

I would seriously consider cutting off one of my own fingers if it meant I didn’t have to spend two hours alone in a room with John Krasinski’s protagonist from Guy Ritchie’s Fountain of Youth.

I guess when you take something that works and make it work slightly less, it still kinda works.

Del Toro hasn’t had a role this juicy in ages, and he’s captivating at all times.

We’re here for the kills and, again, every single kill in 'Final Destination Bloodlines' is a winner. Every time a head explodes, which is a lot, you’ll want to stand up and cheer.

Bring Her Back, like many great horror movies, hardly needs to dip into the supernatural to shred our nerve-endings.

If this is the end of the 'Mission: Impossible' movies, they ended on an adequate note.

Crackles with manic energy, fed at every turn by exhilarating fight choreography and a thoroughly game cast. Hartnett carries the whole silly, bone-crunching enterprise masterfully.

The only annoying thing about Summer of 69 is that this is the exact kind of laugh out loud, emotionally satisfying, share-it-with-a-friend comedy that would probably find a sizable audience in theaters — and instead it’s a Hulu exclusive.

It’s a film with potent ideas, inner conflict, historical imagination, dramatic challenge, queer power, human fragility, humor, sex, pathos. It’s hard to pin down exactly what makes it great, and that’s what makes it great. There’s so much to its muchness that the veneer can hardly contain it, not unlike Taffeta themself.

Never was a film I’m more likely to forget, than this of Romeo and his Juliet.

It’s that rare action movie that succeeds because it’s challenging and intriguing, which is a nice way of saying that maybe it could have kicked slightly more ass.

Minahan has made a film about embracing life when you’re not legally allowed to, and he refuses to make watching it a misery, no matter how rough it gets.

Although it’s hard to shake the sense that on a practical level this studio is just scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperately hoping their minor characters can be converted into headliners, they’ve done a damn good job of it.

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

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.

It’s impossible to watch a film in which Jesus Christ says it’s wrong to profit from religion and then watch the filmmakers panhandle for profit at the end. At least, not without imagining the screen getting struck by lightning.

It’s a sweaty, intoxicating, all-nighter of a movie, and its allure cannot be denied.

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.

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.

Screamboat' is not a great movie by any stretch but if Ricky Jay was editing this footage in a scene from 'Boogie Nights,' he’d have to turn to Burt Reynolds and admit: 'It’s a real film.'

If audiences expecting a cute penguin movie are forced to engage with the fact that any government which abducts people for having different political views is evil, and that everyone must do everything in their power to stop that miscarriage of justice, then nobody can say 'The Penguin Lessons' isn’t at the very least well-timed.

The word Competent! rarely makes it into a movie’s marketing materials no matter how accurate it is.

A rock musical like 'O’Dessa' only works if it sufficiently rocks, and 'O’Dessa' somewhat rocks.

There’s nothing wrong with Disney’s live-action remake of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' that couldn’t be fixed by making it 26 minutes shorter, 88 years ago and in hand-drawn animation.

So let me be absolutely, 100% clear: “The Alto Knights” is indeed a bad movie, but not the good kind. It doesn’t make you feel alive, it makes you feel dead. It’s a tedious, directionless, bumbling chore of a gangster picture, incoherently written and edited, featuring two of the limpest performances of Robert De Niro’s career.

Opus is a Cheeto without the Cheeto dust, so of course we feel cheeted.

We watch The Parenting in blasé curiosity, as we engage in the purely intellectual exercise of sussing out what’s gone wrong.

Jack Quaid was born for a role like this. The actor’s unassuming cheerfulness provides the perfect comedic counterpoint to the film’s increasingly absurd gross-out action gags.

May very well be [Lithgow's] creepiest performance since Brian De Palma’s “Raising Cain” — and that’s saying something.

An incredibly direct motion picture, and sometimes the limitations of its budget put a strain on the ambitious multi-decade narrative, but it’s a film — and a cast — that demands thunderous applause anyway.

Human weakness is 'Black Bag’s' greatest strength. It’s an insidiously great spy movie, mature and satisfying.

It’s a grim slog through the wastelands of human civilization, which makes a big deal about the generic parts and glosses over all the thrilling weirdness.

My Dead Friend Zoe' is a noble film, seemingly honest and open. It’s not a terribly exciting one, and it struggles to justify its modest length, but plot isn’t everything.

I’ve spent over two paragraphs now talking about the various movie trivia Cleaner reminded me of, since Cleaner doesn’t provide much other food for thought.

A sick and twisted work of comic genius where the punchlines punch so hard you’ll explode.

A welcome new patch in the sprawling 'Bridget Jones' tapestry. It’s got all the humor and romance we’ve come to enjoy and all the caring and maturity we’ve come to depend on.

An unexpectedly romantic movie coming from the 'Sinister' and 'The Black Phone' director, but it’s also a gnarly monster flick with memorable beasties galore.

There’s nothing brave about this movie. There’s nothing new either. And sure, it technically takes place in the world, but one out of three is bad.

Heart Eyes seems destined to become a Valentine’s Day favorite, that rare horror movie with a great and charming love story, and that even rarer romantic comedy with a great and savage serial killer.

If this is just one bullet point in your Valentine’s Day to-do list, an excuse to hold hands or neck in a darkened theater, or maybe as a litmus test for your date’s artistic tastes, it’s a harmless, mostly generic action rom-com.

For thousands of years it’s been believed that laughter is the best medicine. Unfortunately, it appears that the laughs in the new Netflix comedy 'Kinda Pregnant' have been recalled.

Although Omaha is powerful and ultimately depressing as all hell, there is a faint, faint, faint glimmer of hope. If not for the world around us, at least for the people in it.

Anyway, it’s also weird to find a mediocre straight-to-DVD action movie inside of a major movie theater, instead of in the bargain bin at a Big Lots in 2010.

The whole thing is freaky and funny as hell.

If there is one disappointing element of this moving, amusing, sad and memorable film it’s that it isn’t five hours long.

It’s not so much a movie as it is multimillion dollar background noise while you stare at your phone.

So it’s not an instant classic like The Invisible Man. I think we can all live with that. It’s still a scary and interesting movie about a wolf man, anchored by a haunting performance from Abbott, who understood the assignment and went for extra credit.

Gracey may film Better Man through a thick veneer of showbiz glitz but — thanks in large part to the fact that, again, the star is a CGI chimpanzee — the film’s heaviest scenes sneak up on you and pack a wallop.

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 not to feel a bit scammed, like you just bought a brand-new AAA game and found out most of its content is still locked behind an additional paywall.

It’s in little danger of becoming a classic but it’s gratifying to know that Barry Jenkins made this film his own, telling a fine story with genuine emotion and visual aplomb.

It’s not consistently hilarious but it is consistently imaginative, sometimes even breathtaking.

There are about two minutes in 'Carry-On' that are as exciting as any other action movie this year, and about 100 minutes that are pretty fun too.

A superficial illustration of the artist’s allure, interspersed with endless, increasingly comical shots of people watching him perform and smiling beatifically.

The fourth best animated Lord of the Rings feature, which sounds pretty good until you remember there are only four of them.

This Count Orlock is a gruesome monstrosity, gnawed on and gnarled, as repulsive as movie monsters get. But he is now also that sexual creature, a hypermasculine 1970s porn star, as virile as he is virulent.

There’s nothing particularly terrible about Moana 2, but the fact that it’s necessary to write 'there’s nothing particularly terrible about Moana 2' means something still went wrong.

Even the quietest moments of 'Flow' are tainted by existential threat. It’s suspenseful and pensive and painful in a way few films strive for, and fewer still achieve.

The story’s playful, subversive reinterpretation of 'The Wizard of Oz' as a work of propaganda, designed to obfuscate the true story of how political dissidents and minority groups are demonized by fascist con artists who trade in theatricality instead of competence, is fully developed and still (to our collective dismay) incredibly salient.

It’s cheap and it’s silly and it has a laughable premise that some people will mistake for terribleness. But it’s also winking and whimsical. It knows what it’s doing and it’s doing it on purpose. Somehow it actually kind of works.

There are exactly enough thrills to fill a 90-minute movie, including the closing credits. No more and no less. So thank god 'Elevation' is short or it probably would have stunk.

It’s a little happy, a little sad, a little off-putting, a lot like going home again. And it’s always interesting.

One emerges from the theater thinking we may have just had a good time, but the more it sits with you, the more you realize that no matter how epic the battles were — and they certainly were epic — they didn’t have anywhere near the same impact as the original.

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.

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

This isn’t the first sequel to desperately transplant its characters into a tropical or jungle locale, and it isn’t the best. Then again, the competition includes Weekend at Bernie’s II, Speed 2: Cruise Control and Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, so it isn’t the worst either.

Neeson]’s trapped once again in tired tough guy material, bringing gravity to a film that’s already dragging him — and the audience — down.

A bright, entertaining, intelligent film about how easy it is to get distracted by superficiality, and how important it is to look at Christmas — and by extension, Christianity — from a fresh and even critical perspective.

The time travel stuff is mined for funny jokes for a few minutes and then the film shows zero interest in all the worms it’s uncanned. It’s a whole lot of “what ifs” and not a lot of “then whats.”

It’s got great heroes, a memorable villain, and more whimsy than is probably recommended by medical science. Which is to say, just the right amount of whimsy.

All that effort and innovation and ambition amounts, in Zemeckis’ film, to little more than a mawkish intergenerational drama. Here genuinely seems to believe that the history of the world peaked with the possibility of mom and dad getting a divorce.

Brian Netto and Adam Schindler’s gimmicky nail-biter is intense and creative enough to quicken your heartbeat and make you wonder if you’d be clever enough to survive in the same situation.

A cheeseburger on Amazon Prime’s value menu, but they left out the cheese. And the meat.

A road trip fugitive movie which barely works as a road trip, or as a fugitive movie, or as a movie.

Whenever the filmmaker’s emphasis is on the sinful humanity of these men of God, reducing them to Machiavellian backstabbers, it’s a satisfying and absorbing yarn. When it tries to say something profound — while refusing to acknowledge the many elephants who populate the Vatican’s many rooms — it makes cardinal errors.

An ordinary feature that could have been extraordinary as a series of three shorts. Instead, this is what we’ve got: a vaguely watchable animated Christmas movie that only works in fits and starts.

Allswell is one of those rare movies that feels less like a cinematic presentation and more like a personal invitation into someone’s home.

Brothers takes a tediously familiar comedy story structure and hangs some genuinely interesting characters and performances on it. It’s like a Frankenstein monster made out of Raising Arizona and Dumb and Dumber To.

Smile 2 is more of the same. A lot more. But it’s just as scary, and this time it’s feistier and funnier, proving that the premise has legs and also some malleability.

The story isn’t so hot. At least the leads are. That’s not enough to make Lonely Planet a good film, but it might be enough to get through all 94 minutes without clicking on something else instead. Maybe

It’s intelligently crafted and falls together quite well, despite a narrative that turns complicated quite quickly. You are safe in writer/directors Logan George and Celine Held’s hands. They’ve thought it all through.

Taylor envisions a 'Hellboy' where the horror matters more than the humor or poetry or romance or even the good vibes, and he’s made a film that proves his take is valid.

I’ve been to whole film festivals with less cinema than Steve McQueen packs into just two hours.

Morgan Neville may have made the latest in a long line of giant LEGO commercials, but he’s made one with real human decency and soul.

It’s What’s Inside understands the concept of sympathy, but with people like this, the movie advises against it.

I cried, dear reader. I cried so much. Not just because the story and characters were wonderful, but out of the joy of discovery.

A popcorn-spilling, shriek-inducing, tricky little treat.

It may freak you out a little bit, and that may be enough for some people, but it only briefly grabs hold of something significant. Then it lets go.

A film about adult problems that preys on adult fears, made for audiences with an attention span and high standards.

A textbook example of what happens when movies are treated like content, something to fill a quota, not to be thought about or enjoyed, so that Netflix can tell their subscribers technically they have a new exclusive movie this week, quality be damned. And in this case quality was indeed damned. It was damned straight to hell.

Sadly, I’d rather watch any of Smith’s fake movies than The 4:30 Movie, because at least they seem enjoyably weird.

Its performances are strong — Kauchani Bratt in particular, but across the board — and its tale is moving.

An awful story, in a great way.

A mesmerizing study anchored by three incredible leads, each working at the height of their craft. The material is rife for exploration, rich with nuance and discoveries. And the ending packs a wallop.

The Eggers Brothers have a canny way of balancing those wildly different tones. We’re frightened for each character, even when we point and giggle at them. It’s a twisted film.

What’s most impressive about Joker: Folie à Deux is the way Phillips willingly undercuts his own billion-dollar blockbuster. He’s looking inward. Arthur is looking inward. Hopefully the audience will too, and question why they care so much about Arthur Fleck in the first place.

A film like Rebel Ridge reminds us that you can lose yourself in exciting, engaging, stimulating entertainment while still keeping your brain completely on.

It’s a movie about cool people looking and acting cool, for the enjoyment of the (probably uncool) people in the audience. They call it ‘star power’ because it dazzles.

If an algorithm recommends The Emoji Movie, Weitz’s film argues, there’s something very, very wrong with that algorithm — and there’s no denying that logic.

Sean McNamara’s fawning and superficial biopic about the 40th president of the United States treats the political figure as a godlike messiah who was placed on this Earth to vanquish America’s enemies, foreign and domestic, and fall perfectly in love with the perfect woman while riding horses dramatically across the California hills.

A deft combination of excitement and thoughtfulness, an excellent and unexpected film.

It’s good to know that John Woo still thinks the only reason motorcycles were invented was to be shot and exploded in mid-air, but most of this action is merely satisfactory, and even after years of experimentation, CGI bullet hits still look faker than an old-fashioned squib

When you stifle the emotional simplicity of a story like The Crow to emphasize the plot, the plot had better make sense. And it doesn’t. It’s got perplexing rules and a vague chronology and nothing seems like it matters anymore.

There’s nothing really to recommend The Union except the fact that it exists and you can watch it. It’s a harmless waste of time because it’s a serious waste of a good idea.

Austin Peters’ Skincare knows exactly what it’s doing, balancing a sense of total desperation with just enough camp to convey its nightmarish situations without ruining your day.

Despite the fundamental problems with any 'Watchmen' adaptation, and the serviceable but not entirely effective visual aesthetic, 'Chapter 1' does a respectable job of retelling this story.

All the edges have been sanded down so it can be safe and mainstream, but they went too far and there’s almost nothing left. It’s technically a movie based on 'Borderlands.' Not much else.

Doesn’t have the depth of Shyamalan’s most important films or the theatricality of his most memorably weird experiments. But it’s one of his best thrillers.

Part throwback, part update and a little bit creaky, it’s all-in-all an excellent showcase of Izzard’s wonderful talents.

It’s a mostly harmless time-waster of a motion picture; functionally a movie but without too much of that pesky depth or entertainment getting in the way.

This film marks the emergence of a potentially great dramatic filmmaker, and that makes sense. After all, this is a great film.

The problem is that not enough of the fun rubs off on us, the audience, to make this experience truly worthwhile.

Isn’t so much a movie as it is a corporate merger with stabbings and wiener jokes. A shameless piece of self-congratulation, fueled by self-cannibalism.

What’s clear is that as a stylist, Perkins is at the top of his game. Maybe even the top of anyone’s game. As a storyteller, he’s either a bold innovator or just slapping dream logic onto old-fashioned pulp.

For a sequel to a nearly 30-year-old movie, Twisters miraculously stands out against the modern blockbuster landscape. Just like Twister did back in 1996. It’s the rare legacy sequel done right.

Even though the conspiracy theory that NASA faked the moon landing is deeply and depressingly cynical, there isn’t an ounce of cynicism in Greg Berlanti’s sweet, comical and joyous film. “Fly Me to the Moon” uses great screenwriting and good old-fashioned star power to bring a far-fetched concept back down to Earth.

If all you want is another Beverly Hills Cop, here it is. If you want a great new Beverly Hills Cop, keep waiting.

It’s almost worth watching for Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman’s magnetism alone. If by 'almost' you mean 'not really.

The best that can be said for 'Day One' is that if this is your first A Quiet Place, you’ll probably get swept up in it, and want to watch the other two.

Another star-making performance by Mia Goth — surely she’s a star now, right? How many star-making performances does it take? — and a trip back to the seedier side of a decade that’s been sanitized within an inch of its life by condescending corporate exploitation.

Summer Camp is not a particularly good movie but it’s the kind of movie that makes a film critic wonder what 'good' really is, anyway."

Reminds those of us in similar situations that these painful paths are well traveled, and that the outward success we think might fill the holes in our souls usually turns out to be an excuse to push ourselves even harder. That’s why we cry sometimes when we’re lying in beds, just to get it all out, what’s in our heads.

This disturbing riff on 'The Country Girl' (the country ghoul?) never seems anything less than earnest and sometimes — all puns intended — a little confessional.

What’s worth taking away from the film is its peacefulness. There are moments of friendship and family and workplace camaraderie that are real and charming.

Kelsey Mann was able to expand on what seemed like a complete story in the original film and tell a new and potent one, and that’s impressive and commendable even though — like many Pixar films — it falls apart in the details.

An impressive and nearly-comprehensive overview that will probably have something to teach almost everyone in the audience, regardless of how familiar they already are with the topic.

It’s Diane von Fürstenberg’s life and I’m not even sure the rest of us get to live in it. We’re just allowed to peek through the window and be dazzled.

The Watchers' isn’t very scary and it’s only interesting for as long as it’s an intellectual curiosity, and it’s not intellectual curiosity for the full 102-minute running time.

It’s a film that’s full of love, but it’s an unhealthy love that’s detached from reality and the movie seems detached as well. It’s too maudlin to convey its own moral complexity and too foreboding to be sentimental.

There’s no escapism here, just like there’s no escape from our final repose. But there is a sense that how we face mortality matters, and that maybe — after watching this strange and wonderful film — we’ll be better equipped for that moment.

The sort of feel good family film the House of Mouse used to know how to make before the middling box office for Mira Nair’s exquisite 'Queen of Katwe' made them panic and delete all their files on how to inspire young audiences.

Hidden somewhere beneath all the generic dialogue, embarrassing plot, mediocre action and oddly ineffective performances, there’s a good idea in Brad Peyton’s Atlas. It’s a shame the filmmakers never found it.