As a mood piece and character portrait, 6 Balloons is a strong debut for Ryan. But though it doesn’t overstay its welcome, by the time the credits roll, 6 Balloons feels like it still has more to say.

That the film never fully gets to the heart of its savage commentaries is probably its greatest disappointment.

Unfortunately, Game Over, Man! sacrifices all the brusque cleverness of their hit show for a warmed-over Die Hard parody that’s too self-indulgent to entertain anyone but the four goofballs who made it.

Uprising plods around like the giant robots that occupy so much of its space, moving too quickly to let almost anything resonate emotionally, but not quickly enough to lend much of an adrenaline rush.

Dickey pivots between storyteller, philosopher, hopeless romantic, philanderer, asshole, loyal friend, and belligerent drunk all the way up until the very end.

Despite the occasional tonal hiccup, so much of Unsane feels fresh and new, using bold formal techniques to spice up a complex throwback to B-movies of the past.

The characters in Isle of Dogs may fight. They may get vicious. They may get hurt. They may get sick. But they also get nostalgic. They also get bashful. Their eyes also well up with tears when they reconnect with their loved ones, or when they first realize that love even exists at all. Just like humans.

It succeeds as a minor work from Jody Hill, which if nothing else is still good for more than a few laughs.

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.

In making a light, easygoing, heartfelt teen rom-com with a gay kid at its center, Berlanti and company have made a top-tier example of a familiar form with one essential and very important difference.

Much of Family‘s humor comes from the juxtaposition of Kate and Maddie’s bonding with moments of pitch-black selfishness.

Hawke is too committed for Toller’s humanity to not shine through. It’s a layered, transformative performance, his gritting, introverted Toller bearing no traces of the rambling, loose-limbed Hawke of Richard Linklater’s canon.

Vikander is a beautifully effective avatar for the American Ninja Warrior version of Lara Croft. Stripping down the bombast of the original games (and films) allows Uthaug’s reboot to feel comparatively grounded and immediate, without dragging itself down with unnecessary pathos.

It’s a mess, but a glorious one, the kind of ambitious, unapologetic project that’s most notable for its perspective.

Hereditary‘s horror functions on multiple levels. What we see is undoubtedly terrifying, but it’s how we see it that truly distinguishes the film.

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 clichéd, distant, afraid to truly immerse itself in anything but long looks, but at least it looks good. And that’s that.

Director Kay Cannon‘s perspective is the film’s biggest asset, as it freshens up the traditional formula’s inevitable focus on love, consent, and orientation in ways that maintain the sub-genre’s trademark raunch.

It is impressive, though, the way the movie works to incorporate new online phenomenons, from Bitcoin to swatting. The latter bit, especially, resonates as one of the film’s most unsettling elements, if only because it feels so depressingly possible. Truly, it’s surprising just how soul-crushing Dark Web becomes after luring us in with so many intriguing mysteries, but, hey, this is the internet we’re talking about.

Having empathy for your characters often means giving them opportunities for growth, and Burnham thankfully never loses sight of the belief that things truly can get better if you want them to.

The careful, strategic navigation of silence and noise is the film’s greatest asset, and when it explores this tension, and the way in which it impacts both the characters and monsters, the result is vibrant, urgent, and innovative.

While Finley’s film may be slim on any truly insightful commentary about what makes Amanda and Lily tick, that’s almost beside the point. Instead, this is a film about the fine lines separating civility from chaos, and how it only takes a tiny push to send you across when you’re close enough to it.

The script feels like a great writers-room comedy, where only the leanest and meanest bits stay, and the most startling and intriguing ideas persist. It functions comedically and historically — the jokes have something to say about power.

Gringo’s obvious debt to the works of Tarantino and the Coen brothers give it a tone that’s too arch and haphazard to keep the audience rooted in its characters. The movie’s sense of humor is about twenty years too old, manifesting in glib jabs at other characters’ expense for being fat, or mentally challenged, or poorly-endowed.

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

This is Meg Murry’s movie, and while DuVernay’s visually stunning film may occasionally stumble, Reid does nothing less than soar.

There’s something distinctly odious about a storyteller exploiting both a city’s tragic reality and a country’s debate about firearms to make a film that thrives on violence.

It’s a harrowing moral fable, a political fable, and above all, a deft lament.