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.

There's a confidence to respect in this film, as it tells a story which feels fresh within the established framework.

It all gets a bit too loosey-goosey by its repetitive, redundant climax — there just aren’t enough good jokes left to cover for the fact that, yes, we get it, the bear did cocaine.

Whether pressing play as a longtime fan of BTS or someone curious about the buzzy headliner at last year’s Lollapalooza, j-hope IN THE BOX is a deeply rewarding look at the creative process for one of the biggest artists around. What’s more, even for those who haven’t yet heard music from j-hope or the group, those who understand the struggle of an artist will walk away feeling seen and encouraged.

Quantumania might be key to kicking off the big arcs to come in the MCU Phase 5, but it doesn't forget to have a good time.

Sharper is an incredibly entertaining entry into the canon of Apple Originals. While it might not have the threshold of darkness or intensity that classify it exactly as a neo-noir, this film is a thoroughly enjoyable mystery. While these characters here might be lying and cheating their way to victory, Sharper comes out on top on its own merits.

Doesn’t dive deep into the mysteries of the human heart, but does deliver some sweetness along with the gyrating and thrusting.

Skinamarink clocks in at a hefty 100 minutes, and as Ball’s approach to horror lies in the hidden and the mysterious, it might have been more effective if left as a short film instead — because of Skinamarink’s ambiguous and nebulous fear factor, viewers are left more wanting than satisfied after the striking final scene.

It’s not up there with [Shyamalan's] best, but it’s a solid thriller that traps you in the middle of an impossible question and leaves you, like its characters, to figure out the answer.

You Hurt My Feelings is a quirky, incisive study of ego death, of what happens when you learn you’re not the hot shit you thought you were and have to recalibrate accordingly.

The world-building might not be 100% there, but it’s a true crowd-pleaser that’s paced within an inch of its life.

The resulting film is lacking in subtlety at times, but the world-building offered up some fascinating details, especially in a time when we’re seeing real-life human professions be reconsidered as potential tasks for artificial intelligence.

The intangibility of Jamojaya‘s storytelling is both a blessing and a curse: it keeps things streamlined, but also prevents us from really being able to dig into just what makes James and Joyo tick. But that’s what’s so intriguing about the picture, even in its flaws.

In a narrative filled with numerous opportunities for scenes you’ve seen before, Durham ducks all the cliches to stay focused on what’s most important: a father, a daughter, and the words they shared between them.

The film drags to some degree in the middle, but that’s because Domont isn’t afraid to wallow in the messiness of watching this relationship fall apart almost in real time. This is also the sort of movie that makes the viewer very, very grateful to see in the credits that an intimacy coordinator was involved, especially as things get darker towards the end.

The film is relatively sparing in how it depicts said atrocity, but the horror of it still comes through, while never distracting from the delicate bond that emerges between Jacqueline and Callie (Alia Shawkat), another ex-pat working as a tour guide through the ruins.

Shortcomings might have felt like more standard Sundance fare — an inoffensive slice-of-life portrait with an imperfect lead — were it not for its self-awareness and vibrant characters. While worth watching for Justin H. Min’s performance alone, Shortcomings will leave the viewer excited to see what Randall Park might do next as a director.

The chemistry between the two leads may not be indestructible, but luckily, their comedic chops and charismatic air give us a lot to root for.

There’s so much heart throughout Theater Camp — it also doesn’t overstay its welcome, landing at a tight 94 minutes packed to the minute with visual gags and quick comments you don’t want to miss.

It works, at least for a while — until the real short story stops and it’s time to get rid of the ambiguity.

One of Sometimes I Think About Dying‘s strongest qualities is that Fran’s emerging bond with Robert isn’t presented as a saving grace — instead, it’s just one potential opportunity to pull her out of her comfort zone.

There’s just more under the hood than your typical imitators: the antic disposition of the idle rich, the way infinite money can absolve the rich of any accountability, and the ever-predatory nature of colonial tourism. Wrap it up in a package this wild, shocking, and perverse, and it makes for a delightful bloody mess that you’ll want to go back to.

For all its unrelenting grimness, it’s impossible to look away from Majors’ incredible, titanic performance — every downcast glance, every nervous grin through blood-soaked teeth, every rabid bark of his frustrated outbursts is completely and totally gripping.

Cautionary tales about the dangers of life in the Internet age can often feel heavy-handed and trite, but M3GAN never feels like an extended Black Mirror episode. Its accessible themes don’t come off as oversaturated, thanks to the wit of the screenplay and a great performance from Williams.

Houston’s magic as a performer was in her unpredictability; her voluminous range, the trailing vocal journey her famous runs took us on from note to note, measure to measure. When she (and Ackie) come alive on stage, Lemmons’ biopic soars with vibrating energy. It’s all the moments in between that grow ever more frustrating — the thin characterization, the flattening of her story into Behind the Music story beats, rushing from milestone to milestone without taking a breath.

Babylon slowly builds up its wackadoo cartoon version of Hollywood to tear it down at its foundation.

If the Avatar universe is going to be James Cameron’s preferred delivery method for visual spectacle on this scale going forward, then, let’s face it — by then, we’re all going to be itching for our next trip to Pandora.

It’s easily one of the best animated films of the year, and one of the most assured, endearing works of del Toro’s filmography.

Even if this story doesn’t hold its weight, it contains several worthwhile themes and ideas. Emancipation is an average film searching for something better, but can’t figure out how to get there.

While the best thing about this movie is its clarity of intent, the worst thing about it is that it uses blunt force to call out its reference points, name-checking both Die Hard and Home Alone repeatedly.

The Wonder is… fine. Just fine. The movie’s exploration of big issues like religion, and how stories are more important to us than the reality we live in, will cause many to think and reflect, and that’s not a bad thing. Without getting into spoilers, the ending’s expected turn twists a tale that could be a dirge into one that inspires hope.

Wakanda Forever, first and foremost is a film about grief — which is extremely fitting for a movie that, in another and perhaps better timeline, would have starred the man who led the original film to both box office and awards glory.

While one of the few downsides of Causeway is the lingering desire to spend more time with these characters, the film holds an excellent return to form for Jennifer Lawrence and makes a stellar case for many more leading man roles for Brian Tyree Henry.

For what it’s worth, Chastain and Redmayne make for an interesting on-screen duo, with both award-winning actors inhabiting roles that service their talents nicely. But by keeping us emotionally at arm’s length, The Good Nurse doesn’t actualize its dramatic potential to the fullest degree, relying mainly on the power of its stars to carry the story instead of building a much more intricate, immersive story around them.

Nagy puts an identifiable human face on the women who need abortions, and all the different reasons they can arrive at that decision. And Banks capably leads a stellar ensemble that elevates the sometimes clumsy screenplay.

Berger’s take on All Quiet on the Western Front is a searing indictment of the futility of war, one that knows the way conflict erodes the human soul and the machinery that keeps that erosion moving. Its battle scenes are as impressively staged as they are visceral to watch, despite a few hinky ropes of CGI here and there.

The experience of watching Ticket to Paradise is pleasant enough; it goes down easy, like a smooth sugary mai tai. And for a while, it’s nice to just luxuriate in the confident hands of Clooney and Roberts, two movie stars who can coast through any old crap and make it fun. But after the sugar high of the honest-to-goodness blooper reel in the opening credits wears off, the rest of it is liable to give you a hangover.

On its own merits, Black Adam might feel a little thin in terms of story, but it does deliver plenty of enjoyable moments and a solid ensemble to back up Johnson. But perhaps the most exciting aspect of it is how it might shake up the rest of the franchise going forward.

As an allegory to civil war, it’s well-worked and deeply thoughtful. But overall, the film leaves a slightly bitter taste, and — perhaps purposely — lacks some of the final third conviction that McDonagh has achieved so often in his stage and film work.

Gray’s many fans will probably love Armageddon Time, and it may even win over some more neutral viewers who respond to his decidedly non-nostalgic look at a pivotal (and not especially promising) moment in U.S. history. But anyone who has found his movies less articulate than the ideas behind them will only get occasional respite here.

The latest Hellraiser is a massive step forward for the franchise after over 20 years of low-budget, half-hearted misfires. Old fans of the franchise and newcomers alike will no doubt rejoice in Bruckner’s respectful, albeit updated approach to the series, and of course its entertainingly extreme violence.

Towards the end of the film, Bale’s character embarks on a monologue about the “power of kindness” and the “tapestry of life” that is so wildly heavy-handed it almost veers into parody. Perhaps it wouldn’t feel so hollow, so blatantly fraudulent and insincere, if it were written by someone else, but we’ll never know.

Much as he might adore the man’s work, DeLillo’s mannered, precise writing occasionally clashes with the cheeky punch of Baumbach’s typical approach. When he leans into the artifice (see: the scenes around the Gladney dinner table, overlapping dialogue as the family circles around each other in a ritualistic dance), the film fizzes even through the chaos.

Edgerton isn’t as electric as Hawke or Isaac, and the passion-play dramaturgy strains. But as he allows himself to drift from self-torture, Schrader finds some new, compellingly strange ways to tend this well-worn soil.

When it keys into Mamie’s horrifying experience, and the way she refuses to retreat from it, Chukwu and Deadwyler pack a wallop.

Whatever this film’s intentions may have been, and perhaps they were wholly noble, one thing is abundantly clear: Smokey and the Bandit is still, and without much competition, cinema’s greatest beer run. And that movie managed to deliver a whole truckload of beer without doing any disservice to the Vietnam War.

Park comes through with his typically vibrant, inventive command of tone and camera. Virtually every composition and camera movement from DP Kim Ji-yong is gasp-inducing, aided by some truly exciting blocking from Park.

There’s something, well, deliciously appetizing about Bones and All’s oddball romance, from Guadagnino’s sensitive approach to the material to its staggering work from both leads.

As an extended aesthetic exercise with purposefully cheesy jokes, it might be nice if The Munsters had anything to say, anything at all.

When it focuses on Eichner and Macfarlane, and the ever-complicated mores of queer masculinity, it stays charming and light on its feet. If it were a little less self-conscious about that homonormativity, it’d have a more cohesive identity, and be more of a slam dunk in the process.

Weird is an unapologetically ridiculous and over-the-top romp that’s sold by people who are completely, sincerely, and unfailingly committed to the bit on every level. It’s not particularly groundbreaking or subversive, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s smart (or so silly it’s smart), expertly executed, and genuinely funny.

Behind Meet Cute‘s smart performances and effortless humor lies a bittersweet tale about the agony of choosing to live another day, of making decisions not knowing whether they’re the right ones.

Blonde is a maddening watch, a frustrating fumbling of the delicate tonal balance required to say what Dominik’s angling to say about his subject. It both condemns the conditions Marilyn suffered under while elevating it to the status of beautiful sacrifice. It’s demonstrably not a biopic, and yet its usage of a real-life figure, and the miseries she experienced, feels too cavalier to completely separate the two.

While Don’t Worry Darling isn’t perfect, the only baggage it deserves to be saddled with is the baggage of attempting to tell a story with an obvious twist in our twist-numbed culture. For in the end, the real twist is this: even in 2022, true equality between men and women still feels like a fairy tale.

Chevalier‘s reliance on biopic tropes does it no favors, and the lighting and set design are pretty drab in comparison to the excellent costumes. However, it is also bolstered by the incredible performances of Harrison and Adékoluẹjo, the smart screenplay by Robinson, and Williams’ direction, especially in the opening and ending sequence.

See How They Run feels like it was designed in a lab to please fans of this genre, with Mark Chappell’s script keenly identifying the most beloved tropes of classic murder mysteries while playing with them just enough for freshness.

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.

There is mystery after mystery, puzzle after puzzle, reveal after reveal. You won’t see every twist coming, but even when you are a step ahead of Blanc, the film’s full-speed-ahead approach is still so entertaining and fun that the two-hour-and-19-minute runtime rushes by.

It might not become anyone’s favorite Spielberg flick, but it will certainly stick with you long after you watch it.

Come for the bloodshed, stay for the sisterhood. Like Black Panther before it, The Woman King immerses us in African culture; only this time, it shifts the focus to real-life women and proves, without the corny factor, that we have always been warriors.

With its lived-in charm, snappy dialogue, and Hamm’s star appeal, Confess, Fletch has all the ingredients to be a sneaky success.

What’s more universal are the lingering feelings of loss and wasted time, and that wondering of what could have been. It’s a heartbreaking theme to reflect on both in terms of real-world consequences and for the characters at hand, and it’s one that may leave you just a little teary-eyed by the film’s closing moments.

For as choppy as Sirens can be in its too-short 78-minute runtime, it’s easy to chalk that up to the difficulties of filming during COVID. But what we do get is certainly crowd-pleasing, a riotous doc that combines likable personalities with thrumming guitar licks and its subjects’ relatable yearning to find their voice and their power.

Undoubtedly, Barbarian will raise comparisons to last year’s Malignant, a similarly wild-as-hell horror flick that zigs and zags down all manner of crazy roads. And to be sure, there’s a similarly perverse glee to be found here, as Cregger toys with your expectations before jumping you to another element of his insane narrative.

Moonage Daydream reveals a man who took a tremendous bite out of the apple of life — and millions of star-people won’t soon forget.

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.

It makes for a deeply unconventional sort of fairy tale, but this is George Miller we’re talking about. What else did we expect?

As the film reaches its conclusion, it seems that the finale needed a more complex foundation underneath the surface for its impact to fully resonate.

Orphan: First Kill is an almost impossible film to put your finger on, walking that incredible tightrope between chintzy direct-to-video schlock and purposeful, delightful camp. It looks like a BBC production shot for $5, but that leans even harder into its Lifetime-movie-on-crack presentation (and lets you grade its moments of visual grace on a massive curve).

Day Shift is one of Netflix’s better action flicks, even if that’s faint praise given the streamer’s weak track record. Perry’s action scenes are fast-paced, with inventive flourishes like the moments where combatants pass a mirror and the vampires’ reflections can’t be seen...But the comic relief is hit-and-miss.

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.

Splicing DNA from Heathers, Lord of the Flies, The Invitation, and a host of other influences, Reijn has crafted a shrewd horror comedy that gives the virtual circular firing squads of our modern online lives a real body count.

While she can slide, slash, and shoot with the best of them, Midthunder also imbues Naru with just enough character to keep us invested in her journey. For her, the fight against the Predator means more than just survival: It means validation for her own place in the tribe, the chance to prove her worth by defending her people.

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.

The ideas tend to be pretty interesting, even when Novak can’t resist the temptation to indulge in certain tropes.

The film is a welcome return to form for Howard, containing all the makings of a competently crafted crowd-pleasing drama.

Jordan Peele's made a thrilling, exciting blockbuster that also touches on the nature of spectacle, and the ways artists get chewed up and spat out (in some cases, literally) by their work.

Without Evans, this review’s grade would be significantly lower. But even with Evans, The Gray Man simply falls short of expectations. This is exactly the kind of diversion that’s such a treat when done well, and to see it done shabbily is just a massive disappointment. With better editing and a story less strewn with cliches, this could have been such good summer fun. Instead, at best it feels destined to slip from our minds, like so many other Netflix original films.

The bluntness of its messaging proves to be a bit of a detraction, but the fact remains that Where the Crawdads Sing is a heartfelt, and gorgeous picture, the kind which major studios used to make all the time, and now feel like a bit of an endangered species.

The surface-level delights are pretty damn delightful, as is Waititi's ability to just let things be strange for no clear reason other than, well, it's fun or cool or hilarious.

What makes The Princess so surprisingly fun is its commitment to a hooky premise.

The performances are strong, and the film excels in isolated setpieces. It’s just a shame to see a neat idea largely go to waste.

Paramount+ should have thrown this movie a theatrical run; it may more or less amount to an 86-minute pilot episode for the new series that’s coming soon, but it’s also one of the funniest movies of the year.

Luhrmann and Butler have made a compelling and at times wildly entertaining portrait of Elvis Presley — no thanks to Hanks.

If Lightyear is a spaceship heading to infinity and beyond, it's a little bit stuck in its own solar system for now — but that doesn't mean it's not worth the ride.

While some aspects of that history should have been examined more introspectively, the documentary should be considered the definitive recounting of one of the most influential activist groups in American history.

It’s probably a bad sign that of all the players in this film, the dinosaurs are probably the ones one roots for the most. They didn’t ask to be revived for a confusing new era filled with cars and pollution and ridiculous celebrity lawsuits! They’re dinosaurs! They’re innocent in all this!"

If Clueless is the definitive modern-day adaptation of Emma, then Fire Island deserves the same crown for Pride and Prejudice.

If anything, it’s nice to see Sandler doing something he loves in an environment he’s comfortable in and do it with such sincerity. But hopefully in his next dramatic venture, he’ll go for a three-pointer instead of a lay-up.

If you’re a diehard fan of Cronenberg, you’ll still enjoy his latest, even if it doesn’t exactly break the mold of eXistenZ or his other fleshy experiments.

We waited literal years for a Bob’s Burgers movie to hit screens, and it’s here, and it’s a whole lot of fun.

While not bursting with ambition or any interest in deviating from proven formula, A New Era does exactly what you hope it would do, and give series fans a little more time with beloved characters, even daring to alter the status quo in one or two major ways.

Right from the start, Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers knows what it wants to be. It’s clever! It’s playful! It’s meta! Turning the story into a tale of Hollywood has-beens is surely intriguing, and the appeal of the chipmunks investigating a neo-noir mystery largely worked in its favor. However, all the hard-boiled, real world capers may leave fans of the original longing for an altogether different type of revival, more in line with Disney+’s successful, if tragically canceled, reinvestment in DuckTales.

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

In a lot of ways, Top Gun: Maverick is the platonic ideal of a film sequel, constantly in dialogue with the original project, and committed to growing and expanding upon that source material.

Strip away the pitch-perfect atmosphere and the genuinely unsettling climax, and his ideas feel shallower than they’ve ever been.

Multiverse of Madness isn’t wildly unconventional in its story choices, but the fun it has exploring the possibilities of this narrative makes it a treat.