While there's a randomizer sense to everything, frights abound, and there's a mercilessness that bites down hard. Execution may slip and slide, but Daniels doesn't waste his first crack at the ghoulishness of this Earth or deep below.

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.

Its dialogue is constructed in a way that would sound unnatural even in a daytime soap opera, and Kruger works her best to save it, but there’s only so much she can do. The story is so poorly developed it feels like an outline of a script, all in favor of a final plot twist that would be jaw-dropping…in the 1930s.

At the center of this mess sits a set of performances that are, beyond some writing oddities, pretty good.

It certainly is a throwback, but it not only stops far short of being a comedy touchdown, it barely feels like it brings anything new to the field.

Michael may not rewrite the musical biopic, but it does just enough to set itself apart and inject a bit of new life into the genre by leaning into the family drama at its core. The performances are top-tier across the board, with Valdi and Jackson immediately becoming stars to watch and Domingo and Long proving once again why they’re considered two of the best in the business. The level of craftsmanship — from the hair and makeup to the costumes and production design — is unmatched, helping to compensate for a weaker screenplay and inconsistent direction.

It wants you to buy into the heart and the humor without earning either.

Instead of burrowing into their differing ideas about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and how they differ based on class and background, Anna and Jamie’s romance is based entirely on them exchanging progressively earnest platitudes, quotes taken from centuries-old poetry that the script dumbs down and shoehorns into every moment between the couple.

If the 1940 Pinocchio showed that any wish your heart desires could come true, this remake shows what happens when your nightmares come to life.

One or two jokes might cause a titter, but the other ninety-eight percent of this unfunny deflation has nothing to offer but hormonal awkwardness without the gut-busting payoff.

The vibe of Him is trying to make the audience unnerved, but the story and imagery being presented are too goofy to take this attempt seriously.

Unfortunately, Bubble & Squeak far more often embraces the ridiculous more than the realistic, and ultimately struggles to combine these two into a whole that works.

Eddie Murphy's The Pickup is a dull and lifeless action-comedy that provides neither laughs nor thrills.

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.

More often than not, we can ignore the message if we’d like and just enjoy a scary movie. Prey for the Devil, however, seems to have been developed as deliberate propaganda.

While its predecessor proved to be a goofy and satisfying watch, the sequel is never able to fully recapture the charm. You're much better off rewatching the first film.

Tyler Spindel's latest directorial effort might falter when it comes to its approach to physical comedy, but it still deserves some appreciation for what it does well: make you laugh and feel.

Michelle Pfeiffer is reason alone to watch 'Oh. What. Fun.' even if the film never fully reaches its potential.

There's nothing about The Family Plan 2 that particularly stands out aside from the European Christmas setting. Despite having a slightly different premise from the original, much of the film plays out like a sitcom. Yes, it's an improvement over the first movie, that's not saying much when your predecessor was already lackluster.

The problem is The Curse of Bridge Hollow isn’t clever enough to carve out a niche of its own and is defined by the diminishing returns of derivative genre riffs from start to finish.

Dominion isn’t just the worst film in this frequently disappointing franchise, it’s also one of the worst major blockbusters in recent memory.

It’s non-stop drama, and the way the story plays out, it’s like Vance took every crazy episode from his life and played them back-to-back without pausing for a single pleasant memory or character defined beyond a single dimension.

Though it doesn’t have the audacity to close when it should with its characters at their very lowest, The Estate is still proper fun in seeing a deeply improper family tear each other apart.

With Garner at the helm of a film that fires up some endearing energy from start to finish, Family Switch is not a perfect film, but it’s glossy, humble, and good-natured enough for an easy watch this holiday season.

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

While it's always a pleasure to see Yeoh kick butt and take names among the stars, Section 31 wastes her talents as well as its own premise on a middling heist movie devoid of anything that might actually identify it as a Star Trek movie.

Outcome is clearly coming from a personal place for Hill. It doesn't come across as too bitter or full of self-pity, but the point of the movie is never made fully clear. It moves at too quick a pace to leave much of an impact, and it's a bit of a tonal nightmare.

Stanton has done truly incredible, groundbreaking things in animation, and he’s almost certainly got a great live-action film in him, but In the Blink of an Eye makes one wonder if Stanton should go a bit smaller and work his way up to such grandiose concepts like this.

The Machine has enough going in its favor to warrant a recommendation to fans of Kreischer's stand-up comedy, but other audience members may walk out feeling empty.

The story might be thin, and some new characters might not get the attention they deserve, yet The Super Mario Galaxy Movie remains a charming, often hilarious, and playful testament to the greatest video game franchise of all time.

The Out-Laws has a workable premise with a great star-studded cast led by a sincere DeVine and is funny with great potential outside its humor. But it never hits the mark and only works in pieces due to recycled ideas and formulaic tropes across clichéd writing.

Between picture-in-picture viewers, pop-up ads, reality posing as unreality, and a seconds-long attention span, Baby Invasion is a Reddit thread vision board with little to offer.

In Trigger Warning, there's nowhere for Alba to go — no notable battles to fight, nor an interesting war to win. And what we're left with is just another disposable action movie, dropped indiscriminately on a streaming service to sit among all the others.

My Spy: The Eternal City is an underwhelming action-comedy sequel that is best as a covert coming-of-age tale, but more frequently suffers as a grab-bag of tonality that abandons what helped My Spy succeed in the first place.

If you are hoping to double down on the gore this Halloween season, this delightful, yet cheesy title will fit the bill.

This Is Not a Test won't give you shivers, but its zombie invasion will leave you hopeful.

If you aren’t charmed by Tentacles’ impressive cast or fascinated by the film’s clever use of octopus skills, surely you will be won over by the film’s campiness that culminates in an underwater orca versus octopus showdown.

Tarot is a pretty forgettable horror movie. Dull characters, a basic plot, and very little to say with its themes render it a fairly unmemorable experience.

It is full of so much joy, and so much heart, celebrating family, culture, and love, while also emphasizing that even the most ancient of civilizations aren't completely trapped in the past, especially if the new generation has anything to say about it.

It's a film that largely rests on an edifice of clichés, contrivances, and ungrounded choices, needing greater development to actually land.

At its core, it's a light-hearted spy romp that riffs on a lot of the soap-opera tropes that crossover into the realm of espionage. "Dumb fun" might get thrown around a lot with Vaughn's films, and it might be true, but Argylle does try to be smart in its execution.

One True Loves ultimately tackles the idea of what it means to grow and change through both the best and the worst life can hand a person, told through performances that get to the heart of the script, and direction that supports without overwhelming.

The central problem of Morbius is a lazy and uninspiring script. No weight or depth is given to any character. There’s little humor and when it tries to make a tongue-in-cheek joke, it fails miserably.

Kraven the Hunter's bland storytelling, subpar acting, and staggering technical issues are proof that the Spider-Man IP needs to be protected before it becomes an endangered species.

Scream used to poke fun at the silliness of horror movies and laugh at the genre's clichés, but now, it’s indistinguishable from the films it once gleefully lampooned, in what is easily the worst installment so far.

Not only does neither part of Rebel Moon work, but The Scargiver is such a downgrade that it could prove difficult for the franchise to bounce back for more.

It is a somewhat decent movie hampered by so many preventable oversights and missteps.

Ghosted is far from perfect, but there's still enough enjoyment to be had, especially if you're looking for something light to watch with the family on a Friday night. Evans and de Armas are charming as ever alongside a rock-solid supporting cast. There are enough laughs and fun action scenes to warrant a recommendation, just don't expect much more from it.

Glenrothan is cloying at times, but more often, irritating in its presentation of a story we’ve seen so many times before, done poorly.

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.

There are successful elements in the script, certainly, but there are also several frustrating moments that simply needed another draft to work the knots out. All that said, it's a successful foray into sci-fi territory thanks to a willingness to stretch the subgenre's established rules, making for a fun murder mystery that keeps audiences guessing.

It features a predictable love story with two charming leads, spicy but comical all-male performances, and a fast-paced plot that will pass you by. Beware, this isn't a groundbreaking watch by any means. It is just another cozy title to keep you in high spirits while you sip hot chocolate and control the urge to unwrap presents before Christmas Day.

Imaginary is a mess of a horror film, with poor narrative choices, obvious twists, and clichéd characters.

What was once considered revolutionary or sharp commentary is now so passé and outdated that it makes the film feel like an ancient relic — a bad one.

With bad direction, terrible acting, and a world that has no weight behind it (especially since most of it was clearly made in a computer), this isn’t the way to bring Silent Hill 2 to the big screen. This powerful survival horror story has been turned into an ugly, laughable adaptation that proves that maybe we should’ve never gone back to Silent Hill.

Unfortunately, Love Hurts never does its stars justice as a lazily slapped-together action-comedy with a script that feels like it never had a second draft.

The Bubble feels like the least personal film Apatow has directed so far, a film that seems like more of an excuse to just do something during the pandemic, instead of Apatow having something to say.

Ultimately, Kermani's film is not strong enough to be called a complete success. Its lackluster ending and uneven characters weigh it down from potentially becoming a cult hit.

There are moments where it feels like it could have become a more gleefully mean-spirited horror ride by really sinking its teeth into the story and actually biting down, but it remains hamstrung by the rating as well as a lack of creativity.

Outside of a few creepy images, The Ritual is not even remotely scary.

Old Guy looks the part of a classic, character-based action-thriller, but, ultimately, the script is far too flimsy for the film to coalesce into something interesting. It's too bad, as Waltz could almost certainly crush in one of these, given the right material.

Although the cast does what they can with a script that never cuts deeper than the surface, their performances aren't enough to give Regretting You the emotional resonance expected from a story like this.

Despite one electric scene that makes the rest of the film feel more risible, Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness is a plodding, pretentious mess that is easily one of the worst productions of the year.

I think this would be best enjoyed by someone who had never seen the original 1984 film; that way, you won’t be constantly comparing the two in your head.

For a film that originally was thought of as a subversion of the Star Wars franchise, Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire feels pretty similar to an installment of it.

Smurfs is better than its maligned predecessors, but it's still an absolute mess.

The Garfield Movie is silly to a fault, feels seventeen hours long, and lacks any pulse of life.

All the emotional beats from start to finish are just completely unearned — it's as if every foundational aspect of a good horror story has been washed away, too.

Juliet & Romeo isn’t necessarily a good film, but it is a very fun film, and there are far too few films that seem content in simply entertaining for the sake of entertainment.

Struggling through an identity crisis, The Crow is doing too much and, as a result, doesn't do enough to serve its core narrative.

The occasional moment of machine gun motorcycle jousting aside, it is a largely dull and dreary experience that never feels like it is ever anything more than a hollow mimicry of far better action works of the past.

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.

It's clearly intended to be a companion to and showcase of the simultaneously released album instead of a fleshed-out, standalone film. Regrettably, it never lets the audience forget that fact, feeling far more like a long music video than a feature film.

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

Without the foundation of solid writing for Pine to direct from, everything ends up being lackluster and takes away from that aspect, no matter how strong the cast is and how cartoonish the situations are.

It's a Frankenstein'ed monstrosity made of different horror approaches, except instead of bringing something to life, unrevivable ideas remain limp and useless.

The Strangers: Chapter 2 is a true disaster, one of the worst horror films of the year, and it’s a damn shame this is what this franchise has come to.

If Day has shown anything with Fool’s Paradise and the long road to get it made, it’s that he has passion and a vision, and a dedication to making a project that works for him. Fool’s Paradise might not work as well as it should, but fingers crossed that Day keeps at it.

Blood and Honey 2 still isn’t exactly “good,” and it might be a bit premature to start working on a sprawling Poohniverse, but considering the dregs this series began at, this is a flawed improvement that’s still a bear of little brain.

Overall, the biggest takeaway that I had while watching Mary is that it was a missed opportunity. A missed opportunity to give the mother of Jesus more development than we've seen in prior depictions of the Nativity story, and a missed opportunity to truly show the cruelty of Herod's actions as a ruler.

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

Ultimately, History of Evil lacks the teeth and the scares to be a truly effective horror movie, acting more as a mildly infuriating thriller.

Madame Web wastes a talented cast on a superhero movie shockingly devoid of tangible humanity.

Freelance, like Cena’s Mason, wants to be something more, but maybe it should’ve settled for something a little more simplistic and straightforward and found the joy in that.

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.

Where the first movie left fans satisfied with the bare minimum, and non-fans bewildered with boredom, the second installment will likely leave fans even happier and non-fans satisfied with a solidly entertaining robot slasher.

There are fractured elements that, with a little polish, could’ve been something much more, but this is just a generic, unremarkable horror film.

Me Time just goes through the motions of a wacky comedy without any of the actually funny components.

Krazy House is "krazy" for all the wrong reasons.

Despite Rebel Wilson's signature comedy and her reunion with Pitch Perfect co-star Anna Camp, there is little that can justify an audience member giving this film a chance.

Alarum is a genuine disappointment, putting a set of strong performers (who do quite well in action-heavy projects) in a situation that could produce memorable, excellent action scenes. It needs extra shine in the script and a stronger directorial vision to do so, which essentially damns the film to action thriller purgatory.

Duchess is a flat and forgettable riff on Guy Ritchie classics that doesn't have an ounce of the wit, charm, or glorious mayhem.

As well-intentioned as the new Children of the Corn might be, it misses the mark by mixing a confusing ecological message with bland scares, forgetting what makes King’s story so enticing in the first place.

Gunslingers can't quite escape feeling like forgettable VOD junk. It does at least try to rise above its standing, and, at times, it comes close to pulling it off.

You won't forget Alan Ritchson. If he can make crap entertaining, imagine him in a comedic role with a much better script

This Strangers trilogy was an ambitious concept that quickly became a disastrous failure that completely misunderstood this series to begin with. Even after all this build-up, this final chapter fizzles out to an underwhelming conclusion of a journey that wasn’t worth taking to begin with.

What could've been a halfway decent dumb idea becomes a full-on nightmare of bad choices and terrible filmmaking.

At the end of it all, it’s unclear if Lumina is anti-aliens, anti-government, or just anti-cinema. If you go into this one expecting genuine thrills and a compelling alien abduction story, you will likely leave the theater confused, disappointed, and wishing you’d spent the past two hours doing … quite literally anything else.