According to Martin, the reason she wanted to make Little was that she so rarely saw people like herself on the screen. By that measure, the movie is a success. Fingers crossed for many more films like it in the coming years. And hopefully those movies will have an easier time being just one thing at a time, instead of trying to do everything at once and missing the mark in the way Little ultimately does.

Director Matthew Vaughn’s latest film, Kingsman: The Secret Service, is an attempt at finding a balance somewhere between Austin Powers and James Bond that doesn’t quite succeed.

Through a distinct sense of style and riveting performances, Fennell’s debut is as bold as it is self-assured. Promising Young Woman eschews the familiar rape-revenge formula and injects a subversive female gaze, yet doesn’t cover any new ground that hasn’t been touched on already.

Neil Marshall’s Hellboy is a monster mash, loud and proud. Just bring a mop.

The action’s not flashy but competent, the set pieces are a bit easy to predict but deliver some reliable gags, and there are even a few meta moments that generate a chuckle or two.

Peterloo is traditional, dryly historical, and all sorts of other Merchant-Ivory slang for stuffy and challenging.

Despite the bait-and-switch of Chan’s limited presence in the film, The Foreigner is slightly better than it appears on paper. Chan and Brosnan offer believable, intense performances, and Campbell coaxes Chan’s style into an abrasive brutality with moments of occasional invention.

A passion project from the sing-talk god David Byrne, Contemporary Color is a concert film, but a finicky one, unstable and unfocused.

It’s a nasty piece of work, and one that at the very least stands as an active interruption of the escapist, family-friendly superhero fare currently dominating the industry.

Any sense of mystery or suspense quickly dissipates as the film returns again and again to repetitive and terse exchanges between Claire and Allison, whose revelations aren’t as surprising as they’re probably intended to be.

There’s a universe where Bullet Train works — lean harder into the gaudy, neon-pop anime aesthetic, ditch the too-clever character work, and add some honest-to-God jokes into the mix. Unfortunately, as it stands, Bullet Train feels like a lost spec script from the mid-2000s, given a fresh new coat of paint and a few script reworks by some Reddit teens.

Disappointing and confounding, Velvet Buzzsaw can ultimately be filed under What Could Have Been given the kind of talent involved.

Unfortunately, the reverence Howard and screenwriter Charles Leavitt seem to feel for the material ultimately dooms it to—if you’ll pardon the seafaring reference—float along in the doldrums, doomed to a driftless existence enlivened only by the occasional giant whale.

In holiday gift terms, it ain’t coal, and it ain’t a new car. It’s holiday socks, with a big ugly candy cane and some wavy text on it. Noelle’s cute for a minute, but you’re not going come back to this thing after January.

It’s not that funny, and feels like a ripoff of Animal House. Either way, The Wild Life is like the contractually obligated Crowe script that time forgot, his undisciplined id, playing with cheap thrills before he got a chance to express himself like a human storyteller in 1989.

This is a movie terrified to explore the interiority of its protagonist, and that approach will work just fine for the fans who just want to watch an uncomplicated ramble of a movie that plays all the hits.

The direction and editing are slick and workmanlike, letting the performers do the work without overplaying the limited setting in which most of the film takes place.

Inferno, much like its predecessors, simply can’t work its way out of the disappointing middle ground between a slick, technically competent thriller and tongue-in-cheek absurdity.

On top of trying to be a Big, Important Film, Jones is also meant to be a showcase for McConaughey’s post-Oscar relevance as a dramatic actor, and he turns in a solid but unmemorable lead performance.

It’s hard not to think of The Christmas Chronicles series as a series of wasted opportunities. Kurt Russell as Santa Claus, with Goldie Hawn his doting wife, is such an inspired casting choice that it’s a real bummer to see them do so little with it.

It’s fine if Hannah and her ragtag team just set out to make something fun. But it feels better-suited for playing on a reel-to-reel projector in someone’s basement than at the biggest film venue of SXSW.

Just don’t expect it to rewrite the genre playbook.

Tarzan is too dull to offer consistent pulp excitement, too self-serious to let itself have fun, and too reliant on same-y CG spectacle to truly thrill.

Operation Fortune is a spy “comedy” insofar as it generally shrugs in the direction of parody: its characters presume the air of cheeky sendup without actually committing to it, whether it’s Statham’s grumpy skull-cracker or Plaza’s confused deadpan.

If Julieta weren’t such a crushing bore, it might have been a lusty little delight.

Besides the gags, there’s little to grasp onto, and try as it might to echo Barry Lyndon’s naturally-lit tableaus, Scott’s film lacks that film’s acid-dry wit.

The chief appeal of Gans’ Beauty and the Beast is its sumptuous, ornate production and costume design, and the flamboyant glee with which Gans’ camera captures it all.

The Front Runner is a naively misguided product of panicked, desperate modern times. But perhaps even worse, at least for the type of film it wants to be, it lands somewhere between irrelevant and a woeful misreading of the room.

Sadly, The Grudge is an underwhelming entry in the long dormant franchise. This cursed production — delayed from release last year — hardly feels worth the wait, and is certainly not worth the price of admission.

It’s impressive what Jeunet is able to pull off with a shoestring budget, but the ideas and characters underpinning his visual imagination leave a lot to be desired.

Spiral is a frustrating animal: In its first half, it styles itself as a prestige sequel/revamp of a cult horror series, lifting it from its nu-metal origins into a moodier, Se7en-styled police thriller. But despite its promising start, the latter half of Spiral succumbs to formula, like a bloodied Jigsaw victim fainting from their wounds so the blades can finish the job.

It doesn’t work on a purely aesthetic level or as a political statement, and the combination of the two goes together about as well as a mid-level Coens comedy and a morality play about racism masquerading as a thesis.

Yesterday is too trusting, too confident in its silly dream, and not fun or passionate enough.

Unfortunately, The Reckoning is the biggest whiff in Marshall’s filmography. At its best, it delivers moments of optic greatness (a lightning strike-illuminating barn scene stands out), but most of the film is bleak and droll, full of a muddled script and lackluster performances.

There’s a fundamental problem here, one of conception, not of execution.

In something as herky-jerky and convoluted as The Gentlemen, the viewer has enough to worry about keeping the whole story straight without dreading the next tone-deaf thing to come out of an esteemed character actor’s mouth.

The joy of Ready Player One does indeed come from its world-building and kaleidoscopic mashup of pop culture—what Spielberg would likely dub its “movie” elements.... At a certain point, though, Ready Player One wants to be appreciated as a film as well as a movie, no matter what Spielberg says. And that’s where it begins to falter.

It’s all too calculated to really have an impact, to grant audiences an honest chance for catharsis.

Satanic Panic has a few fleeting moments of inspiration sprinkled throughout its 83 minutes of mediocrity, but it’s not enough to salvage what is a bland effort from Stardust’s feature directorial debut.

If you’re willing to lean into the movie’s complete and utter stupidity, Jumanji might just stumble through its languorous two-hour runtime on sheer charm.

Not quite a domestic mystery, not quite a fascinating character study of a frustrated creative, Bernadette feels half-hearted in just about every respect.

The Hollars deals in weighty personal tragedies, and yet neither the treacly, offbeat humor nor the moments of more straightforward pathos tend to work for any real length of time.

Bringing the action of future Dark Tower novels forward isn’t a sin. The sin is not having nearly enough space for it. The film is breathless in all the worst ways as a result.

The direction suffers because Aronofsky is so enthralled with the grotesque potential of the body at the heart of his film that he’s often unable to focus on anything else.

How It Ends ends with something of a whimper, leaving us feeling as if a compelling story was undercut by being told through its least interesting characters.

XX is a horror anthology more admirable for its intent and concept than for its execution.

Angel Has Fallen is maybe the least objectionable of the Fallen series, but that’s not really saying much, is it?

There is an unpredictability to the film that is, at times, refreshing. This unpredictability turns into meandering, however, leading to narrative incoherence at many points.

The Next Level just feels like more of the same, and some of its bigger swings might just even border on the irresponsible. As kids’ fare goes, this series remains weird enough to not totally write it off. But for the next version, they might have to work out some of the bugs.

Although its leads find the odd moment of charm together, even Kidman in what’s somehow the worst-shaded part of all three, The Upside fumbles far too often when it attempts to enlighten or edify its audience.

The potential of this project as an insightful and thrilling look at superheroes was massive, which makes the fact that it’s just so boring and poorly put together that much worse.

To be honest, Venom’s almost worth watching for Hardy’s bizarre accent and whirling-dervish mania alone, but it’s a shame he’s not surrounded by a better, more exciting film.

The biggest problem with McKay’s stuff is that he thinks he’s the next Paddy Chayefsky, bringing down untold wisdom from on high and proclaiming disdain at the blinkered, media-soaked vagaries of our world. Unfortunately, he’s bought too deeply into his hype as a vivid truth-teller of society’s ills, and that smugness has infected too much of his films’ fabric.

While it’s probably got some of the best production value since the last theatrically-released entry in the series (1997’s Home Alone 3), and is replete with a cast of genuinely funny actors, there’s something rotten at the core of Home Sweet Home Alone that makes it harder to swallow than a pool ball to the kisser.

In one corner, you have Scott, fighting to tell an existential thriller about gods, creators, and evolution, and in the other, you have this obvious insistence to pay an ungodly amount of fan service to the past.

Despite a fascinating set up, Zombie takes an extravagant U-turn straight back to The Devil’s Rejects to try his hand at telling it all over again. In the end, what could have been something more instead falls back into comfortable, familiar territory that’s bloated by meandering filler.

Because it’s Claire Foy’s turn, The Girl in the Spider’s Web cannot honestly be called a colossal waste of time. It’s merely a moderate waste.

Really, the madness of Megalopolis is the kind of thing where you actually do kind of have to see it for yourself. Especially because there are moments that feel audacious in the way that Coppola’s The Godfather shocked audiences back in the day, choices that confirm this is not a filmmaker playing it safe. That’s an instinct to be admired. Even if it results in this.

Farahani is quite liberal crosscutting between the story’s varying point of views.... This manic style offers the film all of the necessary intrigue to make its story captivating, but it’s at the expense of being incredibly manipulative to its audience.

The film’s most poignant moment comes in an interview that took place near the end of Zappa’s life. He’s asked how he wants to be remembered, and he responds, “I don’t care.” That doesn’t mean we don’t care, or that we aren’t allowed to care, but this isn’t the film to make us do it.

Happy Death Day is a lot of fun when it allows itself to have fun.

Is it better for a Stephen King franchise to burn out or fade away? Firestarter manages to do both at once.

For the majority of its runtime, They/Them seems to entirely forget its pretense of being a horror movie, with long stretches devoid of any sense of tension at all. If its drama was interesting then this wouldn’t have been as much of a problem, but as it stands, the sharp turn into slasher promised by its title feels like a last-minute remembrance in a series of plodding vignettes, something unfortunately furthered by how incredibly toothless the film’s climax comes to be.

Fury of the Gods tries to recapture what made the first Shazam! a disarming breath of fresh air, but it just can’t quite do it.

Bombshell is at its best when it’s an amusing behind-the-scenes look at Fox News and how the entire operation is setup to enrage your parents. But the film’s at its worst when it’s trying to tell a story of empowering women via problematic real-life figures.

Don’t let Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk‘s technical achievements carry the full weight of its errors. The plot and its poor execution leave the camerawork struggling to find much to dazzle with.

Where the sequel falters is where its uneven predecessor, which is both less ambitious and undeniably funnier, excels: its ostensible villains just aren’t very interesting.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is about as unmemorable a movie as you’ll find in 2016. Everything about it, from Vardalos’ screenplay to the limp retreads of the first Greek Wedding’s better moments, stinks of an extended HBO special that somehow made its way to theaters.

If Sam Raimi were in the director’s chair, rather than just producing, imagine the kind of fist-pumping schlock feast we could have enjoyed.

As a comedian, Gervais hardly lacks a sharp perspective. The Office showed him to be a merciless satirist of workplace culture. But when it comes to international politics, the comedian lacks the keen insight to say anything that hasn’t already been said by other filmmakers.

While that can be entertaining at times, Shaft mostly reads as an oddly sexless, convoluted, and downright dull continuation. It’s as if the creators are afraid to take the character seriously in an age of ironic detachment. It’s a missed opportunity, particularly at the chance to comment on how being a “complicated man” has evolved since 1971, and how the world has never simply been black and white. Oh, well.

Make no mistake, this is a film made for frivolous consumption with car chases, swooping crane shots, cheesy one-liners, and crass humor. Sure, there’s some political commentary lurking underneath, but it’s not particularly savvy.

The Bubble works in fits and spurts, especially in its first half. The cast is game, and even the respective branches of the Apatow family tree get plenty of chances to prod at the validity and privilege of Hollywood actors finally enduring a crumb of suffering. But it suffers from the same issues as most Apatow pictures; it’s too long and aimless, swimming around its critiques of Tinseltown without really nailing a concrete target for its satire.

The Circle aims for slow-building dread, but Ponsoldt’s direction and the script are both so uncharacteristically stiff that the film’s tone never solidifies.

French Exit is sure to divide — it’s got great performances and a confidence in its atmosphere that the gods could envy. The struggle, then, is whether you’re prepared for the sheer amount of deliberate aimlessness Jacobs and deWitt are willing to throw at you.

Vox Lux wants to be everything and winds up being nothing. By the end, when the whole thing devolves into a dubious concert film, and we’re watching fake fans go crazy over fake songs, there’s this uncanny valley of universal bliss that’s just achingly hollow.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice isn’t a film. It’s a two-and-a-half-hour movie trailer. Better yet, it’s one of those videos that pop up on screens before a ride at Universal Studios, where all the actors speak to you and keep hinting at bigger things to come — you know, like a ride? Basically, it’s everything the SEO-friendly title promises — and more.

Lords of Chaos can’t seem to find its center for the entirety of its indulgent two-hour runtime. From moment to moment, the mood shifts from comic to dramatic to horrific to exploitative.

If you’re looking for a heartwarming, affirming doc about how yes, you’re right to love Alanis Morissette, it’ll probably work for you. But don’t expect to learn anything new, or be wowed by its presentation.

It’s a frustrating experience; a lot of the individual gags work quite well, but they never build to anything cohesive.

It’s a shame to see a movie this ambitious and well-cast turn out so wobbly, but The Devil All the Time inevitably sinks under the weight of its self-importance.

Parents will nap, some kids will be amused, and the nerdiest viewers will have good reason to point out flaws in the movie’s not-so-intelligent designs.

Life of the Party exists in one of those unfortunate places where it’s easy to criticize, but McCarthy still makes you smile, and even laugh.

Serenity is often stylish. It is never, ever dull. It is also deeply stupid.

Goon: Last of the Enforcers often feels far more like a stock sports film than its predecessor, and that’s what ultimately turns it into a highly underwhelming follow-up.

The movie’s merely the latest A-list comedy of this sort, is happy to live in the middle, and yet it frustratingly outwears its welcome because of a lack of creativity and sloppy structure.

In its unwillingness to settle on a singular approach, Live By Night undercuts the things that occasionally do work, and leaves it a film in search of a grander purpose.

There’s a laziness to The Road Chip, what with its mostly stale or needy jokes and cutesy plotting.

Fire Saga manages glimmers of fun through its laborious two-hour runtime when it sits the hell down and plays some fun Eurovision-y songs, but there are too many false notes in between to justify trucking through the tedium to find them. Just hit up the soundtrack when it comes out and bop along to some goofy songs.

Put simply, Song to Song lacks the soul of Malick’s best work.

The film may deliver the spectacle of dinosaurs body-slamming other dinosaurs with their mouths, but that’s about all that connects Fallen Kingdom to the wonder and fright of the original film. As a horror movie, it’s diverting enough when it’s not continuously shooting itself in the foot with ideas it can’t explain and doesn’t care to.

It’s a classic case of sequel bloat, a film that seems to exist less because of any extended story it wants or needs to tell than because it must repackage something that was once popular.

It’s true that few movies are this aw-shucks nice these days, and for a short while The Fundamentals of Caring finds ways of retaining that kindness without lapsing into platitudes.

Unfortunately, the 99-minute run time on Norwegian zombie drama Handling the Undead feels infinitely longer, and lands more as a meditation on grief than an intriguing entry into zombie cinema.

Simply put, Prey at Night sacrifices its own identity to drench horror audiences in throwback familiarity.

The steam runs out fast with one generic chase after the next, forgettable gunplay, and gory violence. Its ham-fisted double crosses and half-baked moral dilemmas amount to little.

Good actors can’t make up for narrative inconsistency. Beasts can’t erase the frustration of seeing characters you love behave in ways that make no sense. One can forgive retconning backstory where it doesn’t belong if it feels true to the fictional world you love. That doesn’t happen here.

Daddy’s Home 2 wants points for exploring the ever-expanding family tree in a Christmas comedy, but it only barely succeeds. Lithgow’s delightful grandpa offers a welcome diversion from the madness, but those moments are as fleeting as the plate of cookies left out for Santa on Christmas Eve.