Despite existing within the auspices of a predictable subgenre of indie film, Paddleton manages to affect and delight in surprising ways.

Between its continuous insistence on broad humor and its lack of broader context about the industry period in which Paige came up (she was among the first womens’ wrestlers in WWE to break out when the division gained traction after years of public degradation), Fighting With My Family ultimately reveals itself as a shallow take on a genuinely fascinating story.

Even if the run-up takes its time, DeBlois sticks the landing – for this film, for his trilogy – and makes something that feels a bit more knowing in its themes: Life goes on, protect the ones you love, and enjoy the world we all share. There are far greater crimes children’s films can commit than positive messaging.

Like its unstoppable heroine, Alita: Battle Angel is something strange and unique and special, built from the finest repurposed parts.

As a teller of tense, personal stories about communities in crisis, Farhadi is an absolute master; but with Everybody Knows, he falls just a bit short of the greatness people have come to expect of him.

It’s a pleasure to report that Happy Death Day‘s unexpected delights were in no way a fluke, and Happy Death Day 2U builds on its off-the-wall concept to even greater effect.

Horror Noire will also open doors for horror fans both old and new, while also reminding them that the can take these movies at much more than face value.

With High Flying Bird, Soderbergh may well have crafted the most direct distillation of his own philosophy of filmmaking to date: idiosyncratic, confident, and endlessly disruptive.

While it’s a reasonably paced thriller, The Prodigy is almost wholly devoid of real scares.

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.

An entertaining if mostly inconsequential romp, in its best moments What Men Want feels less like an update on What Women Want and more like a gender-flipped version of Jerry Maguire.

The Second Part is a film almost wholly redeemed by its climax, a culmination of unexpected plot threads and surprisingly sweet character development that ends up making the whole more valuable in hindsight.

Throughout Piercing, it’s never clear who’s getting played, at least except for the audience. Those with the stomach for what Pesce and his stars have to offer will likely give over to the rush of it, as the film plays fast and loose with expectations at every turn.

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

The little beats throughout Cold Pursuit are distinctive enough to cover for this gory caper’s periodic misfires.

Ánimas packs a lot into its 90 minutes, and occasionally suffers for it. There’s a dourness to the movie, a self-seriousness that won’t make it anyone’s favorite escapist flick. But while it wears its themes on its sleeve, they remain undoubtedly striking and thought-provoking, especially in an age where the issue of mental illness is being discussed on a global scale.

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

Every second grates and confuses in equal measure, with nary a thrill of inventive, exciting action filmmaking to break up the monotony.

The Kid Who Would Be King is a reliable family film, and Cornish polishes old tropes with fresh eyes and a sense of clever imagination.

IO is dull, it drags, and it’ll beg the question: When will this, all of this, be over?

Shyamalan comes off so smug by the end of this movie that it’s insufferable — and also kind of jarring. It’s as if he’s learned nothing from his past and still believes he’s pulling a quick one on his audience.

It’s a gripping, fascinating watch, an elegantly assembled portrait of the end result of influencer culture and late-stage capitalism – the blind leading the blind into an empty, insubstantial image of success and luxury that turns out to be nothing but smoke.

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.

It’s also not all that good, even if it’s hardly the kind of “bad” that most would get riled about. Escape Room is cut from one of Hollywood’s most familiar cloths: the “mall horror” movie.

Director John Crowley has fashioned a film that feels like a natural evolution from the Victorian novel, one in which the circumstances are deceptively modern even if everything else feels somewhat old-fashioned.

When people talk about Hollywood movies feeling more and more like product, this is what they’re driving at.

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

There’s not an ounce of wasted motion to be found throughout Cold War. Pawlikowski moves at a fleet pace, trusting in his audience to fill in the gaps that the film’s understated storytelling leaves along the way.