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.