Witney Seibold

In terms of cheap, late-night, exploitation flick fun, it satisfies.

If you hand Paul Feig a good script, he becomes a better director. With "The Housemaid," he doesn't just explore his characters well, but wisely delves into themes of class. The dishonesty of the rich dangles over "The Housemaid," pointing out how wealth is a moral trap. It's alluring and dangerous. Wealth is practically a living creature. It seems to be dazzling and charming and seductive, but hides its true intentions, fangs secretly in its otherwise perfect smile.

Jared Leto also proves to be a less-than-stellar leading man.

It's not that big, it's hardly bold, and it's only beautiful on its surface. It could have been a journey.

Will Nobody 2 set hearts aflame? No. If this had been the first "Nobody," no one would have been clamoring for a sequel. But it is a glorious Saturday matinée, a brisk trifle for the waning days of summer. It's the kind of movie that you'll remember better for the friends you saw it with than the movie itself. And that can be one of cinema's most important functions.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set in a world that I wouldn't mind living in. Even if there are occasional, ineffable cosmic deities plotting to devour me, and terrifying silver aliens ripping my soul apart with their eyes. "First Steps" is a superhero movie where we're already better. And I love that.

At a bloated 156 minutes, audiences will have too ample time to ponder the film's many weaknesses. The racing will be exciting — very exciting, in fact — and Pitt is certainly a movie star, but quite frankly, I can have my own midlife crisis, thank you. I don't need to watch Pitt's.

The film lacks the wonderment and excitement of Indiana Jones, but it's not quite as dumb as "The Da Vinci Code," and certainly less obnoxious than, say, "Red Notice."

We're expected to find the Weeknd's melancholy entertaining. It isn't. Nor is Hurry Up Tomorrow. It's just awful. 

Hess and his army of screenwriters (only five are credited) have taken the wisest possible route with their adaptation: A Minecraft Movie is a broad, slapstick farce without a hint of seriousness, reverence, or coolness. The most shocking thing? It's not terrible. 

Ultimately, Snow White is better than "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid" — by a long shot — but it's not as good as Branagh's "Cinderella" or Burton's "Dumbo." And, sadly, it overall still bears the boring sheen of a corporate mandate. This is another cynical enterprise, tapping into certain nostalgic images in the hopes that we'll pay for the same high we had as children.

The Electric State is one of the most expensive films ever made, and one can see every dollar on the screen. The robots feel real, and their design, taken from Stålenhag's book, is fitfully unique. But one wonders why so much effort went into a movie that has almost nothing on its mind.

Love Hurts marks the first leading role for Ke Huy Quan, and he avails himself well enough. He doesn't ever shimmer off the screen, and he doesn't handle the romance elements perfectly, but he possesses an appealing hangdog quality that feels human and relatable. However mediocre the movie around him, one always has the instinct to cheer him on.

In execution, it feels like a neophyte director's confident first turn. Perhaps shabby, but well-meaning, and only occasionally straining against its obviously limited means. 

Mufasa will satisfy, but it also feels ultimately useless. Like Disney is once again spinning its wheels, trying to wring billions of dollars out of old ideas while they brainstorm new ones. Fans of "The Lion King" may be slightly moved. At the very least, you'll finally know how Rafiki got his stick.

Sony, still possessing the film rights to Spider-Man, decided to make an interconnected Spider-Man Villain universe, of which "Kraven the Hunter" is the final chapter. Watching Chandor's film, though, one can see that neither the studio nor the filmmakers are interested in starting anything anymore. There is no presumption that fans will be interested in long-form mythmaking, and sequel teases remain light. This allows "Kraven" to be stupid on its own. And, in a weird way, that's a relief. We're free.

Worst of all, the film is loooong. It's not just low-energy. It drags. One could listen to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" three and a half times in the same 161 minutes. And perhaps one should. It would be a more edifying musical experience.

Although it doesn't possess the hard-boiled, shifty-eyed salaciousness of a traditional whodunnit, "Conclave" is certainly in the spirit of a private investigator story.

Crowley may be telling a melodramatic story, but he studiously avoids sentimentality.

It is superior in acting, lighting, pacing, and clarity. It's also raw and confrontational in a satisfying way. But it's also a glorified remake more than it is a sequel. "Platform 2" is not an expansion, but a retread, nihilistically sifting through violence and cannibalism to get to a point it repeated over and over. Second verse, same as the first. 

Sanders' The Crow has nothing on its mind, and forgets why we should be sad and frustrated at the death and meaningless violence in the world.

It may not be the best Lanthimos, but it's certainly the most Lanthimos.

The film may end on a bleak note, but there's some levity mixed into the very batter.

In lesser hands, Challengers would have been a chintzy soap opera. Guadagnino, however, is able to bolster an admittedly typical soap story with an energetic style and attention to detail.

Bleak, severe, and awesome, "The First Omen" is the best horror movie of the year so far.

"Godzilla x Kong" is infectiously fun, raucous, and, in the 8-year-old sense, awesome. One will not take much away from "Godzilla x Kong," but you'll leave the theater with a big damn fool grin on your face.

Hidden somewhere in Immaculate is a stirring and topical drama about the way male-driven religious institutions claim ownership over women's bodies.

It's a lightweight, weirdly teen-friendly (but very R-rated) slumber party movie with an upbeat and liberating "be gay, do crime" vibe. It's a queer, hand grenade-shaped squeak toy. 

Madame Web does not provide a crowd-pleasing bombast. This is a pity, as this odd duck makes for a fascinating watch. This may be one of the final films of the superhero renaissance. Enjoy it before it topples over entirely. 

The Book of Clarence is aspirational, unique, moving, funny, weird, and very shaggy. But it's better to have a picture's cup runneth over than to present us with an empty chalice.

Godzilla Minus One is one of the rare Godzilla pictures about the indomitability of the human spirit.

"Believer" is not the worst "Exorcist" film by any stretch, but it's certainly the least intriguing. It's a rote, choppy thriller that forgets to scare us.

Expend4bles may be the best of the series. This is not a compliment to Waugh's film, but a mere note on how badly this series of films has fared over the last 13 years. These are useless, badly written gimmick films whose gimmicks never bore fruit. As the title implies, the flick is expendable. Or perhaps expend4ble. Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/1399641/expendables-4-review/

The canon of "The Equalizer" has never taken the world by storm, usually percolating in the background of popular culture as a piece of intense ephemera. Robert McCall is a former Marine and DIA officer, but that is entirely ignored in part 3. He's a superhero played by Denzel Washington, and the filmmakers assume that is enough. For many audience members, it will be.

Overall, the details of Blue Beetle are fun, and the characters may inspire a few warm familial smiles, but the whole is frustratingly shabby and rushed.

There is a great deal missing from Ritchie's film. "The Covenant" is almost aggressive in its complete lack of wartime litigation. While the harrowing nature of a soldier's experience is laid bare, the meaning of the actual, prolonged quagmire of the Afghanistan occupation will be lingering in the back of most audience's minds.

Despite the film's clear edict to include as many tasteless jokes as possible . . . Quasi possesses a strangely disarming, hangout quality, leaving it feeling ultimately harmless and even a little bit friendly.

The Way Back is a somber sports drama more interested in exploring the plight of its hero than in just the big games.

Rambo: Last Blood captures everything that's gone wrong with this action franchise over the years.

Ad Astra is grand but, rather frustratingly, it's not great. James Gray’s film is a most impressive technical achievement, and the first half is exciting and flirts with profundity. The second half, however, slows to a maddeningly sluggish pace, and the film ultimate leaves you worn out and disengaged.

Despite a problematic ending, Midsommar is an emotionally harrowing and slowly insidious journey, languidly forcing dread on the viewer, wrapping them in a weird nightmare summer camp of sunlight and cheer.

Brightburn doesn't take its satire to any kind of satisfying extreme – although a mid-credits stinger does include a larger joke at work – but as a superhero murder thriller, it is perfectly entertaining.

Cold Pursuit is partly a great action thriller, and Liam Neeson is still kicking plenty of butt, but the film is mostly an intriguing, relaxing, totally tuckered-out character study of old men running out of the energy required to run a criminal enterprise. As thrillers go, this one is more adult than your average.

Once Upon a Deadpool is a cute idea that doesn't live up to its potential, leaving audiences with little more than a less interesting version of a better movie they might have loved.

Peter Jackson's technical ambitions sometimes muddy his otherwise moving WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old.

Melissa McCarthy gives one of her best performances in a surprisingly relatable story about a criminal misanthrope with a heart beating deep inside her.

The Halloween monster mash iconography is incredibly strong and the cast is excellent, but Goosebumps 2 is in far too much of a hurry – and perhaps too eager to be widely accessible – to be actually scary or wholly effective.

The Old Man & the Gun is a fitting swan song to screen legend Robert Redford.

An exciting and scary final act makes up for a middling kid horror fantasy that is marked by a slow start and an inappropriately comedic tone.

The Darkest Minds is a wholly rote YA sci-fi adventure that continues a genre that is pretty much dying out. Despite this, the film is capable and enjoyable and features a great lead actress in Amandla Stenberg.

The Equalizer 2's conventional storytelling is certainly weak, and the violence is particularly brutal, but Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua have created a unique Punisher-with-heart vigilante character that is a pleasant thrill to watch and a modest delight to revisit.

Certainly weird, confrontational, wildly satirical, and certainly unique, Sorry to Bother You is one of the funniest, energetic, and best films of the year.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado is a darkly thrilling film with excellent performances, and its gritty, intense action is balanced by heady themes of moral decay, but overall, because of recent political developments, it feels behind the times.

Superfly features an appealing lead, and captures small tastes of amazing, striking cool, but is also bogged down by plot and characters that reduce an otherwise slick flick into something that is more capable than amazing.

Action Point contains some crazy stunts and some funny-ish gross-out humor, but is ultimately a pale echo of the dark destruction Johnny Knoxville became famous for.

Although featuring some good acting, and certainly ambitious in its critique of the characters, American Animals is too sleepy to strike a chord.

Mary Shelley's fascinating life story is told to contain a few brief glimpses of modern insight, but ultimately weakens under its over-use of conventional, romantic storytelling tropes.

The chases and gunfights in Manhunt are impressive and brisk, containing just as much panache as you remember from John Woo films of 20 years ago. The plot, however, is even more old-fashioned, effectively undercutting any drama with a silly cheesiness that may not always work.

As usual, Adam Sandler presents a mean-spirited comedy, but an unengaged cast and uninspired writing also make The Week Of a bore.

Although inspired by an interesting post-modern true crime story, and featuring an unexpectedly depressive performance from Jim Carrey, Dark Crimes is a dull, dark, depressing film with very little on its mind.

Not as annoying as it looks, but hardly a stirring or imaginative entertainment, Sherlock Gnomes has a comfortable home right in the middle of the road.

Skillfully made, spooky, stylish, and featuring some quite good character work, The Strangers: Prey at Night stands much taller than the 2008 original. The central killers are plenty scary, and some of the images on display would make John Carpenter proud.

While not exactly transcending the familiarity of its very predictable genre, The Ritual is a spooky, shadowy horror film with good character work, an excellent mood, some provocative themes, excellent lighting, and a scary... thing... that horror fans will love.

With a sensitive ear for the experiences of its friendly subject, and nothing but sympathy for what he says, Love and Saucers paints a fascinating portrait of a talented and unique person.

While hardly high cinema, Kickboxer: Retaliation is an enjoyable fight epic with some awesome fighting, great cameos, and hugely impressive stunts.

Although Taraji P. Henson is always a delight, a rote plot, bland action, and a serious lack of interpersonal chemistry hamstrings any potential Proud Mary might have at being fun.

You'll certainly find better alien mayhem films than Beyond Skyline, but some creative special effects, interesting fights, and fun, alien brain-sucking will keep you moderately – but solidly – entertained.