Gudegast's film feels almost artificially programmed in its adherence to criminal caper tropes, unable to steal our hearts with the bromantic charms of cops and robbers with boundary issues.

If you haven’t feasted on Indonesia’s bounty of recent horror releases, don’t start here. Dancing Village: The Curse Begins is like elevator music in comparison.

All in all, See How They Run is a derivative amalgamation of too much tribute and too little originality. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun and the perfect film to bring your Nana to, but it's ultimately pretty forgettable.

The budget might have ballooned to ten times what Terrifier had, and the kills have gotten far more gruesome, yet Terrifier 3 is still the same mixed bag that this franchise has always been.

Ultimately, Dìdi's problem is that it is charming but aimless. Izaac Wang is perfectly cast as Chris, and he has amazing chemistry with this cast, but there just isn't enough to go off of. It feels like we're looking into a vignette of someone's life rather than taking in a fully realized story.

It’s moderately entertaining thanks to its VFX but falls short on its performances and story as the overall idea exceeds the final product.

Chaos ensues, dozens of better movies are ripped off, and despite a few fun kills, it leaves you feeling not very much of anything.

Pablo Larraín's Maria is a one-note exploration of another public figure that just makes the same points over and over again.

Englert has talent, and there's ambition and chunks here that work in bits and pieces, but unfortunately, Bad Behaviour is too scattered and too unfocused to add up to much at all.

With more time and focus, Aum could have been the next hit series bought by a streamer, but as it is now, it doesn't dig deep enough and leaves an incomplete narrative about this deadly cult.

Slingshot is more of a murky mystery where the big revelations don't hold up under scrutiny.

The Last Breath is competent to a point, without ever exceeding — or even achieving — baseline aquatic horror standards.

Fixed has the stylish hand-drawn animation that Genndy Tartakovsky is so well-known for, but the juvenile humor feels beneath a filmmaker of his stature.

With a great voice cast, curious characters, and glimpses of an engaging art style, all the movie had to do to be great was rely more on the original things it brings to the DC universe. Instead, DC League of Super-Pets is satisfied being just another commonplace superhero tale.

It’s a generic blend of human drama and otherworldly horrors. Consumed never makes the most of its Wendigo punctuations, whether hampered by budgetary limits or to-the-point scripting that overstays its welcome at nearly 90 minutes.

When it's sexy, violent, or bonkers, it's a wildly enjoyable romp, and lead Sydney Sweeney kills it any time she's allowed to dial emotions up to 10 (as fans of Euphoria or Immaculate can attest to). Was it great? For the majority of its runtime, no. Would I watch the sequel it teases? Yes. Inside you are two wolves, and if they're watching The Housemaid in different parts, the one watching the ending is the happier wolf by far.

Satire is one of the trickiest things to translate from page to screen and White Noise never really cuts as deep as it should because the communication of the jokes is so rushed — via DeLillo’s style that’s quicker to process on the page than it is to export to the screen.

Though Suncoast features wonderful performances, its clichés dim its impact.

The ultimate ambiguity might be enough for some to praise Lin's work, but there's simply not enough to chew on by the end of the story for it to be a resounding success.

What starts as a more violent Mr. and Mrs. Smith takes an unexpectedly brutal turn, becoming borderline unamusing. Taccone pushes himself to try and break from his usual comic mold, but with Over You Dead Body, he ends up pushing too far.

Borderlands is a fun ride, but a bloated cast and breakneck pacing don’t allow it to reach its full potential.

The sluggish pacing and lack of specific characterization make it feel longer than its hour-and-a-half runtime, though the strong performances and beautiful cinematography are just enough to keep it from ever becoming a total slog.

It becomes apparent that the story is trying to do too much, with far too little time to do any of it well.

Godzilla x Kong is a vacuous de-evolution into monster-on-monster action but also arguably the best possible version of that transition. There’s no doubt that this is fairly moronic, but it still manages to be an improvement over what we’ve seen from the last two installments in this cinematic universe.

For as much care and passion that the Hawkes put into Wildcat, the film never knows what it wants to be or even what audience it wants to be speaking to.

Anaconda had the premise and bones to be something really special when it comes to meta remakes. It had a great cast and a surprising amount of heart, but that's simply not enough to save the movie's rough pacing and pointless subplots from the jaws of a giant snake who barely appears on the call sheet.

It’s constantly trying to build its own strange mythology to set up sequels that might never come, cracking jokes that rarely hit, and struggling to decide whether it wants to take itself seriously or be more self-aware about its general absurdity.

If you haven't seen many demon possession movies, or on the opposite spectrum, if you can't get enough of them, Rosario is a decent 90-minute watch. It's not awful, it's not going to insult you, but it's a retread of better movies with every predictable plot point you can imagine.

Some elements and moments are effective, but they're layered with subplot details, character performances, and related choices that don't work as well as intended, firmly grounding an otherwise promising concept.

There is a good film in here that could be made more present if the story itself was punched up as much as the enemies are. This is unfortunate as every dynamic moment of deadly destruction is undercut by ones that are ultimately uneventful.

The Teacher is not what it sets out to be. It is too melodramatic, too bloated, and too messy to work.

Unfortunately, We Kill Them All doesn't know how to escalate its story beyond its initial premise, fumbling to make this concept work once it has been laid out. While the movie seems to that that less is more, the weaknesses of the film prove that isn't the case with this film.

Although Off the Record is well-intentioned, it misses more beats than not.

A Widow's Game sets out to be an intriguing portrayal of a high-profile case but doesn't really hit the mark.

Sting is a horror movie about a killer spider from outer space that somehow falls short of the fun potential of such a premise.

Chumbawamba was clearly a band that wanted to do great things and fell short of that goal, and similarly, I Get Knocked Down is a curious concept to explore, but gets bogged down in its apparent attempts to be weird for the sake of being weird.

The movie doesn’t stand out for its action scenes, has nothing new to say about the old good-versus-evil conflict at the center of any superhero story, and is incapable of giving its villains real purpose. Stallone is a strong man, but even he cannot carry the weight of an entire movie alone.

Neither wacky enough to be a winning comedy nor clever enough to be a horror sendup, We Have a Ghost is a film that leaves little to grasp onto as it all just ends up slipping through your fingers.

For all the promise of its main cast and sturdy thriller premise, The Menu is a work that seems destined to slip from your mind.

While Luhrmann can do his best to recreate the glitzy, nonstop nature of Presley’s life, in those final moments, it’s easy to see that Elvis lacked the weight that this real footage captures. It’s that little bit of substance that reminds how hollow the previous hours of style have been.

It’s clear that Boston Strangler so desperately wanted to copy the recipe for Zodiac and bought all the same ingredients.

Smith is still a competent director, and Consecration can boast some moments of brilliance sprinkled all over it. However, the messy script drags Consecration down, and fans still expecting a new Triangle will have to wait a little longer.

It's trying to be a slasher movie so we ultimately have to judge it by those standards. And as a slasher, with its thin plot and flat killer, Haunt Season doesn't cut it.

The Devil And The Daylong Brothers is brimming with potential. It's not afraid to take some risks, which is more than you can say for over half of the movies that get released every year. Its only setback is that it puts its style ahead of character development.

It is still a well-made film, with fantastic acting and a beautiful, modern house set out in the middle of nowhere, but it is not the shocker that it was when it was new. Knowing the twist, and the minor changes that were made for an American audience really soften the movie. If you enjoyed the original, the American remake would be perfect fodder for your parents.

More often than not, Ejiofor bullet points the unfolding events rather than coalescing them into a dramatic arc.

Though possibly well-intentioned, the execution of The Covenant ensures its narrative and thematic potential is drowned out in the roar of gunfire it becomes far too enamored by.

Trust does a great job of showing what Turner is capable of. The problem is everything around her. Pardon the pun, but it takes an interesting premise and doesn't trust itself to craft a compelling story with interesting characters around it.

There's some fun to be had here, but overall, Jurassic World Rebirth feels indicative that this franchise is not dissimilar from what the original film is trying to say about the ethics of cloning dinosaurs.

The Old Guard 2 feels like nothing more than setup, with scene after scene of dialogue and exposition and little actual fighting.

Daddio is a repetitive and reductive experiment in dialogue-driven storytelling.

A fun concept does not automatically mean a quality film, as the overly intense direction, hollow scares, and imbalance of tone make it a thrown-together mess.

Is Venom: The Last Dance the best film in the trilogy? I would say so, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have quite a bit of fun while watching it.

Moonfall, unfortunately, becomes a mixture of Emmerich’s usual clichés that are starting to show their age, a script that only occasionally embraces the insanity of this idea (even though the third act goes all-in on getting mind-numbingly stupid), and a scope that doesn’t do this story justice.

We Bury The Dead is a sprawling but sparse zombie remix that's too far removed from the genre it's exploiting.

With disregard to elements it itself establishes and featuring more characters than it knows what to do with, the film forgets to flesh out its comedic potential and sticks to the repetition of a handful of jokes, even when some of them fall flat.

It’s more than just a failure of a remake — it’s disappointing on its own standalone merits, too.

Carmoon establishes a plot that could have been great, but becomes too caught up in the visuals of it all, and the script pays the price.

If The Killer teaches us anything, it’s that any director, no matter how legendary they are, can fall victim to a bad script. While Fincher’s iconic style permeates the two-hour runtime, the hollow plot and uninspired writing are impossible to ignore.

Overall, The Electric State doesn’t hold a candle to any of its esteemed cast’s other films, but impressive visual effects and great music help it from being a totally pointless foray into the wasteland.

Dunham's latest has a particularly game cast, and a solid concept, but Dunham makes this feel like a collection of mismatched ideas and inconsistent characters.

The ensemble is the main reason why the film has its delightful instances, especially when it comes to the scenes in which He, Ka-Yan Lam, and Chau are featured. But, ultimately, the script lacks the originality or the character development necessary to give its multiple couples their ideal sendoffs.

It's a nice slice-of-life character-driven film, which is always great to see, but there is very little drama or conflict to keep the viewer invested past the colorful animation.

Hulu's Whitney Wolfe biopic never tries to break free from the predictable confines of the genre.

If anyone could’ve updated this story for 2023, it’s Barris—as he's shown with black-ish. But instead, You People is a missed opportunity, a half-assed reinterpretation that is only sporadically funny, and without the heart or the substance that this story would need for it to truly work.

For all the ways it takes flight towards the end, Plane is an action flick that is mostly plain, the greatest sin for any film that should and could have gotten wilder.

What hurts Waking Karma more than anything else is the lack of polishing both the screenplay and direction got. And with a little more production time, the movie could have become something more memorable.

While fans of Cox and Beckinsale‘s work might still enjoy some moments of Prisoner’s Daughter, the overall lack of polish in the script makes for a dull experience that’s filled with inconsistencies.

My Father’s Dragon abandons a truly heartfelt storyline with complex layers in favor of a generic adventure with vague threats, vague solutions, and predictable outcomes.

It is a film that sets out to sink its teeth into something a bit deeper and more inventive only to merely serve up an experience with little to actually chew on.

If written well and with the same care as its direction, this could have conveyed a sense of more genuine tragedy. Regrettably, for all the ways the performances try to eschew convention for a bit more substance, it is a losing battle from start to finish.

Yates makes Pain Hustlers part-rowdy dramedy, part-half-assed takedown, and entirely an underwhelming film that attempts to make apparent and bland points.

Poker Face constantly tries to raise the bet and bring new elements to the table, but you quickly realize it’s all a bluff. It doesn’t know how to build tension and anticipation and does no effort to work on its characters. It also doesn’t know how to convey a thrilling poker game, and after stumbling through completely disposable plot points, it tries to wrap its story up with life lessons that are as generic as the movie itself.

There is a cacophony of sound and color which provides some spark to it all. It just is burdened by unshakably tiresome plotting that is made all the more meaningless when it decides to walk back much of what already felt far too small in its creative and emotional scope.

Beyond these two endearing actors being able to gleefully chew the scenery, The Gray Man is mostly a collection of tired spy tropes, directed in a muddled and baffling way, that seemingly exists to set up what seems like will be a fairly unimaginative franchise.

With The Son, Zeller is trying to bring the same sincerity he brought to The Father into his second film, and instead, The Son unfortunately feels false throughout.

The shocking images of Superpower can move us, but the movie ends up being nothing more than a piece of propaganda. Even worse, the documentary is a wasted opportunity to give a proper voice to the people who still live and fight in Ukraine. Instead, Superpower seems more concerned about contributing to the mystification of Zelensky and the image of Penn as a lonesome and brave hero.

Aside from The Mean One himself, there was too much not to like in this film.

By the time it all eventually wraps up with some lackluster lessons conveyed via a painfully sappy final scene, you’ll wish the film had taken the chance to go on a journey with Keaton and Paige instead of whatever this all was.

While Snook does all she can to give the experience some heft, Run Rabbit Run is a horror film in search of something greater others have already achieved that it is never able to find.

For a film about a supposedly historic and harrowing journey to the moon, it never manages to charter any new territory of its own.

There are moments of terror near the beginning, but it gets far too tangled up in a generic narrative that drowns out any sense of vision. Even with some striking visual moments and excellent sound design, it is all in service of regrettably very little.

Ultimately, The Munsters is not a good movie. But it is great fodder to put on in the background of a Halloween party. It is best when used as a visual asset; something you may only want to catch a couple of minutes of dialogue from, but otherwise, it’s best left as background imagery.

Disney has been at the forefront of animation in film for much of its 100 years and their legacy is unparalleled. That’s a lot to put on the shoulders of any animated film, but Wish, with its mundane celebration of this history, is a disappointing commemoration of these accomplishments.

Your Place or Mine has a decent premise with a great cast and is fun at times with moments that are sweet and showcase great potential for an enjoyable rom-com, but it never hits the mark and only works in pieces.

For all the promising threads it pulls on surrounding a variety of faith traditions, The Exorcist: Believer doesn't earn your belief or your fear. Where Friedkin's classic will endure forever, this superficial sequel remains stuck in the past. It may try to speak all the same verses, but it doesn't add new life to any of them.

When it then shifts into being about the case itself with the characters trying to get to the bottom of it all, the humor feels like it is mostly coasting off of the chemistry of Sandler and Aniston. This can hold things together for a while as both bounce off each other effectively, but the film soon is revealed to just be a recycling of jokes the first film already did better.

There is never a sense that Collette is phoning it in, but the entire narrative around her is just too flimsy to hold together for a full feature. In isolation, there are some solid gags and throwaway jokes that connect. The trouble is that they are just increasingly few and far between. It all makes for a film that oddly feels like it is playing it safe, relying on the charisma of its lead and offering little else beyond that.

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie is a nice effort in extending the legacy of a far better TV series, but it fails to comprehend that in order to tell a “serious” and “epic” story, it lets go of all the elements that made us fall in love with the series in the first place.

The movie is sensible enough to feature Native American characters and actors and give them some space, but they’re never made a protagonist in their own story.

With the options of taking the audience on a fully-fledged bang-bang Western adventure or commenting on the genre’s issues in past decades, Dead For a Dollar chooses to do neither and wastes its stellar cast with drowsy performances which never make you root or fear for any character.

While there are many promising pieces being assembled, with arresting visuals bolstered by the performances of Mescal and Barrera, any awe to be had in Carmen becomes dashed by its own emptiness.

While the group of actors who play the students offer strong performances, particularly Luke Barker, Ksenia Devriendt, and Florence Baker, Hausner's meandering feature eventually concludes without a real ending.

There is potential within the Shazam! films that have never quite been met. Especially with this latest installment, this often feels like DC’s attempt at having a Spider-Man-esque character in their roster, and if you squint, you can almost see that possibility.

Possibly the biggest surprise to Luck is just how generic and uninspired it feels, despite how many ideas are crammed into this story. There’s no wonder, no excitement, no jokes that land.

Disenchanted posits that happily ever after isn’t always the ending of the story, but Disenchanted also proves that sometimes, maybe it should be.

There’s no way to hide the lack of substance in We Bought a Zoo, making it hard to justify returning to this decade-old film.

Finestkind has all the right pieces to make an interesting drama, but Helgeland can’t get them together in a way that isn’t over-the-top and downright silly.