For a movie like this, good is not good enough; it has to be well above average for a recommendation. Unfortunately, I found myself bored through most of Mortal Kombat II.

There are many flaws in Animal Farm, but its message is what I’m recommending the film for. Look, it will make great dinner conversation with your toddlers.

Unfortunately, Ballistic ultimately falls short in terms of direction.

If you’re going in hoping for something the whole family can genuinely connect with on a deeper level, you’ll be disappointed. It’s a kids’ movie, plain and simple, and there’d be no way I’d see this if I didn’t have kids.

It carries a smattering of scares and a helping of lore, rendering this underground romp an enjoyable one.

On paper, You’re Dating a Narcissist! may have looked like a breezy, relatable comedy. In execution, however, a film about narcissism turns out to be almost terminally self-absorbed.

The drawback here is that, although it doesn’t need a deep story, it feels like only two and a half acts, with an abrupt third act.

In the end, the film and its storytelling is meh.

The performances are understated and quiet, presented in dark cinematography, where most of the action happens in shadow. There are too many characters to keep track of, which dilutes the story, and it’s not always clear what is happening, but in the finale, it all comes down to one key idea about not breaking the rules.

Bonilla has directing chops, but she needs to refine them. She does show real potential and is a director to watch as her career proceeds.

Let’s be real: the only reason to see a Jason Statham movie is for all that juicy action. Fist fights, knife fights, gunplay, machine-gun mayhem, explosions… all in this game of cat-and-mouse.

It strives as hard for authenticity as its protagonist does to remain relevant; the strain shows.

Greenland 2: Migration is all mind-numbing action with nothing to say. If you’re a fan of Gerard Butler or Morena Baccarin, you will probably have fun with this one. Otherwise, it’s a skip.

Although Byrne always brings a great performance in whatever she’s cast in, I would almost say just go watch her in Platonic. There she, too, plays a mom who deals with the issues of being married and life’s trials and tribulations.

Europe’s New Faces is a worthy exercise to pull back the curtain on the experience, but it should perhaps be edited down to 90 minutes or so and include some framing context so we know who and what we are seeing and why the migrants chose to make this trip.

The film has good action set pieces, but without a story that has something to say or connects with audiences beyond the surface, it’s just another standard sci-fi action film.

There’s something missing in this concoction: self-aware humor, a courage of its convictions, a driving force that propels the plot forward . . . Perhaps it was all just too steep a hill to climb.

Waltzing with Brando never gives Zane the opportunity to go deeper, which makes for a forgettable film and a lost opportunity for what could have been the role of a lifetime.

Caught Stealing is a plodding meander that flagrantly overestimates its appeal.

This is pure cinematic meditation, requiring a surrender to its languid tempo and hallucinatory vibes.

Less discerning kids may enjoy Robin and the Hoods… when they’re not deep into their PlayStations and Switches.

The new Witchboard is ambitious and fun at times, an overcooked horror revival with a blending addiction allegory, foodie satire, and supernatural spectacle.

With this cast, the film should have been a knockout. Instead, it feels bogged down, heavy, and way too concerned with making statements instead of just being entertaining.

The biggest downfall of Relay is the ending.

Barron was the only light in my life,” a character yells at one point. “What am I now – just another dog in your army?” Barron’s Cove could have been a light in the current cinematic landscape, but instead, it’s just another dog in an army of duplicates.

Salvable fully embraces its bleakness, its title almost mocking; there’s no salvation here. If it had a bit more originality or verve, it could potentially have pulled it off.

Shabbily structured, with barely any tension, characterization, scares, or thematic depth, Consecration, due to its utter lack of inspiration, loses the audience’s concentration within minutes, and may even lead to constipation (okay, maybe not the last part, but you get my drift).

Ultimately, Hurry Up Tomorrow is an example of style over substance. Its visuals try to shock and awe while leaving its narrative a confusing mess.

It’s All Gonna Break is a labor of love that simply doesn’t know how to share the devotion with the uninitiated.

For an action film, Havoc feels aimless and lacks suspense.

Overall, the film will please horror buffs, but casual fans or game purists should look elsewhere.

It all starts to feel eerily adrift and disingenuous, rather like a sales pitch for crypto. It adds some good insight to an important figure, but it is not the film Buterin really deserved.

Hale’s central performance is magnetic, the supporting cast are game, and the script, while uneven, has a few zingers that genuinely land. It’s not a film that will change the game, but it might just liven up a quiet Friday night.

The Invisible Raptor will have its fanbase, but it takes a little too long to get to the Raptor hunt.

The film’s repetitive themes and lack of emotional payoff leave it feeling more like a beautifully acted therapy session than a fully satisfying story.

When a cast of minor characters is more interesting than the protagonist, you begin to wish that you were watching a movie about any of them instead.

While Bong Joon Ho delivers his signature visual flair and Robert Pattinson fully commits to the existential dread of his endlessly disposable character, the film struggles to keep its high-concept ideas fresh past the first act.

Like Father, Like Son never truly absorbs us in its characters, leaving a lot of food for thought, but little to say on any of it.

Companion takes a stab (literally) at sci-fi horror with an interesting idea, but making a robot the emotional center of the film is a misfire.

The film is loaded with enough curious twists and turns to keep your eyes glued to the screen to see who lives, who dies, and if anybody is smart enough to close ‘the door’ on their way out.

Detective Chinatown 1900 tries to be a high-energy action comedy but gets tangled in a web of subplots, leaving little room for the buddy-cop fun it teases.

There isn’t a subtle bone in its body, and some of the acting choices are poor, but it’s pleasant enough.

It features likable characters, and though it may not offend or make you laugh, it ultimately leaves you smiling. However, you can’t help but feel a sense of loss regarding the potential the film and its story had to be truly great.

It’s all very granola and sentimental, a path well-trodden.

At 90 minutes or so, with the needless pseudo-artistic embellishments and tautology tossed out, Armand would have been an intense and cerebral little psychological nail-biter.

Too much thought has been put into this one to write it off as a mere, well, write-off. But it’s also too slap-dash to be labeled a classic, nowhere near on par with Peter Jackson’s original trilogy. A curiosity then, worth checking out, especially for the devoted.

So, just know that A Complete Unknown comes off as really boring throughout. None of this will stop Chalamet from shining out with the ultimate movie Dylan. It is a tousled hair masterwork of a performance, completely adapting the essence of Dylan to a folk music Batman.

Sometimes, the seemingly smallest fracture that separates the sublime from the maudlin is actually, well, a great divide.

While The Shade does a decent job examining grief and the complexities of a brotherly bond, it never digs too deeply, relying heavily on its central actor to reveal more depth than it contains.

The Sylvester Stallone-produced film categorically lacks any surprises and frequently devolves into mushy melodrama. Still, as a family-friendly story of survival in the wilderness, it gets the job done… just.

Their chemistry as performers together is particularly noticeable, so it’s a shame more focus wasn’t given to keeping the three of them on-screen together as much as possible.

I can only recommend this film for die-hard Eli Roth fangirls or people who want to see what a bad film looks like. If that’s you, Borderlands is for you.

The Last Breath navigates its time at sea with real skill, and it provides us with a handsome final performance from Julian Sands, but sadly, the drama doesn’t quite float.

The film does enough to get you through to the end of the film but lacks the feel-good moments as well as the impactful dialogue that could have made this film an instant classic. Despite this, the story is very inspiring and that should be enough to make you want to give the film a watch.

Consumed does have the predictable structure of a run, hide, fight horror film, but just when you think you’re getting ahead of the film and know what’s coming, new information is revealed that injects adrenaline into the story.

While the setup is intriguing, the film quickly loses steam, becoming a muddled chase interspersed with concert footage.

What I loved about Lanthimos’ earlier movies was that they moved my heart while making me squirm. With Kinds of Kindness, his Tin Man could use a lot more heart.

Overall, June Zero is a worthy film that follows delayed justice coming to a Nazi war criminal, bringing to the surface events of the post-war that aren’t well known.

A Quiet Place: Day One failed to capture what we loved about the original films and instead decided to focus too much of its time on a rollercoaster ride of an alien invasion. Fun is fun, but without proper character development, Day One is more fast food than a hardy meal.

There isn’t much story before the shooting starts, so watching the stuff that doesn’t blow up adds nothing.

The standout star here is Cailey Fleming as Bea.

Great villains and silly heroes make a move that ultimately falls flat.

As it stands, it should keep survival fans satiated, mystery fans somewhat aggravated, and those expecting dry stuff, well, utterly baffled.

Those who may not care quite as much about the economic messaging underpinning the film may still find Dinklage careening through windows and getting seduced by hot graduate students worthy of the time investment. Still, there’s no denying that this could have been so much more.

The plotting for Jericho Ridge meanders about aimlessly.

It’s stale, a relic from another time that’s strenuously updated and forced into 2024.

Cash Out contains flashes that give a wistful look into what this could have been. But the truth is that the title tells you everything you need to know: this action-thriller is nothing more than a paycheck for Travolta, Davis, and everyone else involved.

Tessa Thompson answering phone calls is not enough to justify a feature-length film. A short film absolutely would have knocked this out of the park, but there is just nothing holding your attention here.

It’s a photo-realistic computer-animated movie. The animation of Kong, Godzilla, and the other Kongs is mediocre at best. The backgrounds should look photo-realistic, but they don’t. I’d rather watch dudes in suits duke it out over a cardboard city than watch this cartoon mess again.

There isn’t as much art as you would expect, but it is more about what goes into the exam to be a part of the Academy of Fine Arts. The film creates a picture that is quite unique in one way or another.

This ballad falls right into the singular category of “so bad, it’s good,” a low-budget, highfalutin, bold, wildly overacted, and at times oddly lyrical gem that ought not to be overlooked.

A Gen-Z Bonnie and Clyde, Marmalade takes big, admirable swings, and while it misses some, it avoids the cardinal sin of being boring.

The immense length and repetitive format can sometimes make the film feel like an endurance test. To say that its pacing is glacial would be unfair to the melting ice caps.

Although sincere and well-crafted, the repetitive lethargy of A Still Small Voice would perform much better in a short art film, not a full-length feature.

As much as I find Eckhart and Dobrev to be a fun duo surprisingly well-suited for a movie like this, Harlin’s action opus is just begging for a rewrite and a jolt of originality.

Silent Night is held back by its time. In 2023, we’ve seen tons of Woo inspirations and imitators; even in his Hong Kong days, Woo could create action-filled cinema with some emotional resonance, but Silent Night can’t keep up. The final battle and stairway shootout save the film, but don’t expect the wall-to-wall action seen in John Wick.

Lord of Misrule might just be the most effective outing for the director yet. It possesses an earnestness and polish that affords audiences a morbidly fun and familiar film yet still manages to turn a few expectations on their ears precisely when they need it.

Saltburn just goes too far, and its startling images shocked me out of the story altogether.

In the end, The Marvel is a superhero movie clearly made and produced by people who have never read a Marvel comic book but read Archie instead. It feels like it was made for teen girls and not for actual comic book fans.

It just feels like a movie that was made because Cena and Brie agreed to star in it.

The Universal Theory works in fits and starts but is bound to leave the audience not entirely convinced by its logic.

I give Killers of the Flower Moon a mild recommendation. It’s too long and predictable. The saving grace is its performance across the board.

It’s mostly light-hearted, and sadly the tone can sometimes conflict with the deeper themes the film is trying to get across. But still, this animated movie makes up for any shortcomings with its overall style and atmosphere.

While it’s solidly produced from a technical standpoint, and the lead does her best to sell the most outrageous scenarios, the end result feels undercooked.

Ardent fans of Brazilian music will be able to shift through this. Others, like me, will have difficulty finding the point in all the haze.

There’s just no nuance here. Good is good. Evil is evil.

Barber may not be a mind-bending mystery, but Aiden Gillen’s performance and the cinematography elevate it to something worth seeing.

Borgli’s feature is just another somewhat edgy movie that has nothing to say.

Trying to do too much in the span of ninety minutes is an insurmountable impediment to the success of Shadow Island. Still, even so, there’s a period of 30 minutes in the film that really gels together.

I’d recommend Retribution if the weather is too hot and you want to spend a few hours in air conditioning. Otherwise, it’s a pass.

The fact that it purports to function as a not-so-thinly-veiled parable about the limitlessness of sexuality, gender fluidity, and the marginalized makes it that much more unbearable.

The confused tone and largely inert script render this adaptation more beast than beauty.

With more daring in the direction and more inspiration in the writing, the movie could have been entertaining, even if it was something done many times before. Instead, it is utterly derivative and routine in every aspect. It is a picture that attempts nothing and achieves nothing.

Blue Beetle is worth seeing, but it has many missed opportunities.

Casting and premise are Haunted Mansion‘s greatest strengths, though many of the best ensemble moments or narrative choices are fleeting.

Olivia Côte and Laure Calamy make the film worth watching if you are in the mood for a story about an awkward but enduring friendship.

A rather forgettable affair.

Mangold attempts to send Indy on one last adventure but never recaptures the glory days of searching for the lost ark.