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

Despite beautiful shots and strong performances in the film, what ultimately comes up lacking is the story.

Crater's stakes are low for its characters and the audience. It abuses clichés, never deviates from its formulaic script, and fails to surprise the viewer.

A Road House movie shouldn’t be boring, especially this boring. A Road House movie shouldn’t have to enhance its fight choreography in post-production, nor should it be such a tonal mishmash. I guess Liman didn’t get the memo? His Road House remake is an uninspired chore that never properly unleashes Gyllenhaal or nails even the most basic functions of bar fight nostalgia porn.

The Mardini sisters in real life went through hell, and their journey is incredibly powerful, considering what they went through. But The Swimmers only occasionally gives this story the power that it needs, instead, falling into easy tropes and an unfocused narrative.

Io Capitano fails its stirring lead performance with generic filmmaking and storytelling impulses.

All held together by a transcendent performance from Imogen Poots, The Chronology of Water isn’t the strongest directorial debut, but it does hold glimpses of what Stewart is capable of.

The American Society of Magical Negroes is a film that needs bite for its high concept to work, and unfortunately, Libii’s film doesn’t have teeth.

Under the right circumstances, the story that The Trouble with Jessica tries to tell could work if it paired its comedy with a meaningful perspective on depression and self-harm. Instead, this misguided take on a dark comedy ultimately lacks laughs, thrills, and overall reverence for severe topics.

If you were an HQtie (as Rogowsky affectionately dubbed regular players) back in the day, you might find watching this documentary to be 90 minutes well spent. But if you weren't playing the game, there's not much of a case to be made for checking out Glitch.

Guadagino’s second film as a director isn’t unwatchable by any stretch of the imagination but lacks the clarity of vision that would dominate his later work. While it certainly features impressive performances from young stars Maria Valverde and Primo Reggiani, there’s not much that distinguishes Melissa P. from other coming-of-age dramas.

If you are looking for a light and fluffy holiday movie that you can stream with the whole family while sipping on some spiked eggnog, you can do a whole lot worse than Candy Cane Lane.

The thoroughly entertaining villains should have played more of a role, as should the store, and the material should have been more comedy-focused and delivered by actors with more of a knack for it. Once this heist was over, they could have spun it out into sequels, where each year a new operation got underway. It's a shame that this one falls so flat.

Sugar Babies is an intimate look at poverty and the changing of the American dream, but it fails to look deep enough to make the impact it intends to.

Lazareth is sluggish, low-energy, and not particularly suspenseful, but most of all, it squanders a stellar Ashley Judd performance in a period where her silver screen appearances are becoming scarcer and scarcer.

Even though zi isn’t quite the powerhouse of independent cinema that films like Columbus and After Yang were, it does feel like the work that Kogonada needed to do in order to right his sails and figure out where to go next.

In the beginning, it feels like this will be a fresh and fun take on all of those masked villains, but sadly, it quickly becomes little more than a paint-by-numbers slasher that forgot what it was trying to be in the opening scene.

Sweeney takes plenty of risks in a lead role that’s rigorous and emotionally demanding, but the film ultimately feels a bit surface level considering how it approaches horror.

If you're looking for a narrative and humor that matches the heights of the first movie, you'll likely walk away disappointed in how it takes such a hard pivot towards mean-spirited and juvenile attempts at shock value, leaving the heart and relatable stakes of the original completely in the dust.

Ty Roberts’ inspirational sports drama You Gotta Believe relies on age-old playbooks to a fault. It’s a true story and a surefire tear-jerker, but Lane Garrison’s screenplay is reductively hokey at the worst times.

Tafdrup defangs his feature in the final act, choosing to forego the road less traveled, completely breaking up the tension of an otherwise uncomfortable, tension-filled story.

There’s promise, but Vengeance at times feels like a West Texas version of Under the Silver Lake, but without the focus and care. Unfortunately, Ben’s editor was right, Vengeance is more a theory than a story.

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.

If viewers manage to sync with this specific wavelength, they will definitely enjoy Sen’s methodical noir deconstruction. Still, it might be asking too much from the audience, especially where there’s so little payoff to be found in this corner of the Australian outback.

Unfortunately, Lee Cronin's The Mummy is so focused on replicating other horror movies and relying on familiar tropes that it honestly has very little in common with the bandaged monster it's supposed to be about.

Don't Tell Larry feels like it really should have been a half-hour episode of a television sitcom rather than a movie.

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 Sound of Falling may be one of the most grim films on the female experience you’ll ever see, but it never rises above this darkness to deliver anything illuminating about being a woman.