The main trio within Sierra Burgess Is a Loser - Shannon Purser, Kristine Froseth, and Noah Centineo - are great, but the movie loses itself when it turns away from its more unconventional and grounded elements and leans into the unnecessary '80s dry rub.

The premise is interesting, some of the scenes are nicely shot, and the acting – especially that of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Fanny Bornedal – is believable. Unfortunately, it's also weighed down by predictable twists and lackluster thrills.

Frothy, self-aware, and straining for laughs, Hot Frosty is a cup of whipped cream with no hot chocolate.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is a fascinating idea with a lackluster execution, more interesting as a concept than an actual retelling of one of Middle-earth’s famous legends.

While Bertrand Bonnello’s film is a timely, somewhat satirical send-up of dystopian futures and past traumas, The Beast doesn’t quite measure up to its heavy portents of doom.

While the movie has some good sequences, as a whole it never seems to come together - the pacing is all off.

Sick is exceptionally paced and provides slasher thrills with breakneck intensity, but loses traction during a wobbly landing that needlessly overcomplicates an otherwise cutthroat thrill ride.

All five stories in V/H/S/94 feature a cult-like element, but only one of them feels like a true work of madness.

The Woman in the Window has both flash and fizzle. Amy Adams is great in the lead role, presenting us with a shattered recluse who wages war on lucidity daily, but the rest of the cast, while noteworthy, are sort of relegated to being plot pawns. Still, if you're looking for a higher class of claustrophobic Noir, and don't care too much about the resolution, there's a playfulness on display here that might scratch an airport novel itch.

Layered with great performances and an interesting story, The Lady in Red is a good, if somewhat dull exploitative play-by-play of the events that lead to Dillinger's death.

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines tastes a bit better than a nothingburger, but lacks seasoning that you’d hope for from something tied to Stephen King’s bibliography.

Not exactly Errol Flynn, but not the embarrassment that was Disney's Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves is a fun popcorn flick take on the centuries-old legend. And hey, it does have a great cameo by a former Robin Hood as the best King Richard ever.

Stewart’s goals are muddied by his approach, leaving us with a work that has a few pieces of wisdom to offer and a few laughs scattered throughout, but ultimately feels as inconsequential as the TV talking heads it’s trying to critique.

An otherwise plain film about an unlikely friendship between a returned soldier and a mechanic, Causeway is worth watching for Jennifer Lawrence’s best performance in years.

War Machine has just enough juice to prevent it from being a Snore Machine.

For all the fun that the cast seems to be having with Dicks, it’s never as creative in execution as it needs to be. There are chuckles to be had, but the overall experience is defined by narrowness rather than naughtiness.

The Boss Baby: Family Business delivers middle-road mirth, full of action and quasi-clever jokes, and featuring the fun voice additions of James Marsden, Jeff Goldblum, and Amy Sedaris.

Captain Marvel directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's (sometimes very) fun anthology/love letter to Oakland, California doesn’t add enough of its own unique spirit to quite live up to its influences.

The Imaginary fails to capitalisze on some great ideas and wonderful animation. While it will shine as one of the best-looking films of the year with its ambitious 2D animation, that gloss can only do so much for a story that abandons its most interesting elements for a tried and tired rendition of an animated fairytale.

Enola Holmes, starring Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill, is a toothless Fleabag with Sherlock coating.

Paul Feig’s Jackpot! may not know what it wants to be – riotous comedy, sincere drama, or sprawling action film – but its breakout supporting players elevate it from pure mediocrity to moderately entertaining.

Corner Office is a just-okay office satire saved by Jon Hamm playing the anti-Jon Hamm.

Killing Ground is a well-made movie that, at times, is just too plain ugly. It may be mild compared to other “torture porn,” but it still won’t sit very well with everyone who watches it.

Infinite is a chaotic film. Plucking from well-worn cliches, it’s familiar enough to scratch the itch of action entertainment. Yet its world-building is so wonky you might do better to switch off your brain and let the flashy stunts wash over you.

M3GAN 2.0 hotswaps horror for sci-fi/action to mixed results, but M3GAN’s absolutely heinous wit and killer moves leave her, and not the new genres, the star of the show.

The movie is predictable and formulaic and all of those things, but it's great in spite of itself.

It's not high art, that much is certain, but the original Slumber Party Massacre is a fun, gory good ride riddled with scares, flesh and humor.

It does a great job of chronicling the amazing accomplishments of one of the best fighters in the world, but beyond that, it’s a lukewarm documentary that stays close to the surface.

The film is pure sports-movie hokum, done with just enough conviction (much of it courtesy of David Harbour, who's typically excellent in the stock role of a racing veteran-turned-mentor) to help you ignore how relentlessly Gran Turismo advertises the games themselves.

Though it features delightfully weird visuals and a stellar turn by Kathryn Hunter, The Front Room can’t find its identity, both on-screen and in its own marketing.

The film works, thanks to a surprisingly fun cast, but its best not to take things too seriously and just enjoy the film for what it is -- a brilliantly madcap slasher send-up.

Wicked: For Good brings Jon M. Chu’s movie-musical duology to a climactic conclusion that’s dark in every sense of the word. With harrowing action scenes, heart-wrenching musical numbers, and excessively dimly-lit scenery, this sequel compounds all of the problems of the first movie while introducing some wholly new ones of its own. Dual leads Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are as luminous as ever, electric whenever they’re sharing the screen together, but there’s a lot of movie to slog through to get there.

What it lacks in so-bad-it’s-good silliness it makes up for with its heart and mostly practical slaughterfests. Kevin Bacon and Peter Dinklage having an absolute blast in their roles doesn’t hurt, either.

Glitch: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia is a fascinating look at the compressed life and death of the HQ Trivia app. It’s a familiar tale of tech failure, but the details – and the massive popularity of the app – make it an interesting one to watch.

An entertaining, if a bit predictable, romantic comedy with a good cast. Expect anything more from it and you'll come away disappointed.

Coming 2 America retreads a lot of familiar material, relying on the charm of its cast and pure nostalgia to save it.

Willy's Wonderland is a no-frills splatterfest that, while straining to fill its runtime, finds mid-level chills and thrills thanks to Nic Cage bashing the hell out of weaponized pizza parlor characters. It's a shoestring slasher that gets the job done while also not fully rounding a few of the corners it teases.

Alma & the Wolf is an amusingly off-kilter combo of monster movie and psychological thriller let down by a disappointing ending – but it’s a showcase for rising star Li Jun Li.

There's some tension building that proves effective, but the film is mostly riddled with superfluous characters and pointless scenes.

Although featuring some good acting, and certainly ambitious in its critique of the characters, American Animals is too sleepy to strike a chord.

When Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is being an Aquaman story and leaning into the silliness and family aspects of it all, it’s fun. The enjoyable bits are just sandwiched between some ugly effects and a weird first act that feel cobbled together from a very different movie.

Landscape with Invisible Hand is brimming with ideas and storylines, but they never come together as a satisfying whole.

The Last Thing Mary Saw is an intriguing and atmospheric but uneven horror offering, with a disappointingly lackluster romance at its center.

There's Something Wrong With The Children is an energetic but expected kiddies-gone-killer tale that wades into some murky waters.

Bloodshot is unapologetically a popcorn movie of the switch-off-your-brain-and-kick-back variety. Diesel and company soldier through a wonky plot to deliver glowers, superhero poses, and loads of action. Director Wilson brings the heat with solid visual effects and a relentless pace. But keen-eyed viewers will notice the telltale signs of "fix it in post" fiddling.

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf isn’t a bad film, but it fundamentally lacks an identity of its own.

New Gods: Yang Jiang is worth watching for its novel animated action sequences, but its muddled story lacks the punch of its predecessor, New Gods: Nezha Reborn.

John David Washington falls short of the story’s emotional demands, but he brings a desperate physicality as a man on the run, which makes the film just about worth watching.

Lethal Weapon 3 picks up where Lethal Weapon 2 left off, with the same gags and tough-guy dialogue but things are starting to wear a bit thin.

Unlike The Fly, You probably won't remember much of this after seeing it, and when a movie boasts as being no better but equal to the original, you can be pretty sure it isn't.

History fans will probably love the film for its authenticity. Everyone else on the other hand might have a hard time sitting through it. It is extremely interesting if not wholly entertaining.

A House of Dynamite has the acting and directing goods, but its weak resolve arrives late in the game.

Wrong Turn delivers a handful of timely twists and coats the franchise with a new, and vastly more interesting, sheen. It stumbles at times to balance all the themes it's trying to handle with regards to societal ills, individual value, and self-determinism but the end result is still a warped ride that could set up more thrills to come.

Riz Ahmed makes for a vigorous lead in Aneil Karia’s contemporary British-Indian Hamlet, which loses its emotional clarity beneath an intriguing exterior. Its use of silence and intimacy grants it a fascinating texture, but the film never challenges or re-invigorates Shakespeare’s greatest work, ensuring that it ends up somewhere in the middle of a lengthy pile of adaptations.

Roofman’s excellent performances are hampered by a middling script that’s executed with minimal visual flair or excitement.

The Curse of Bridge Hollow is a mundane introduction to horror, with a bit of charm sprinkled in for good measure.

Two years after triumphing with the Audrey Hepburn masterpiece Breakfast at Tiffany's, Blake Edwards directs this crossed-wires ensemble caper, which stars David Niven as Sir Charles Lytton, a lothario and master criminal pursued by the bumbling Inspector Clouseau (played by Sellers).

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank curiously exists as a Mel Brooks movie remake, though that's also its most redeeming feature.

With any other actor as the menacing lead, Unhinged would have been a TV movie or straight-to-streaming release, but Crowe and a few well-executed scenes of action still manage to hold the viewer’s interest throughout what’s essentially 90 minutes of genre filler material.

A strong sense of action and movement, but lacking on that whole talking thing.

Thanks to the charming nature of the characters and their genuine good heartedness, Despicable Me 3 manages to be an entertaining enough film to feel like a decent continuation of the previous two chapters.

While it’s hard not to be moved by footage of Robert Downey’s final days, the film is more informative than emotional. It contains hints of an intimate story, but mostly flattens a strange and exotic career into a series of light observations.

Rough Night is a movie that, perhaps, is a lot like one of these parties – it manages to be remembered not as the best time ever, but fondly.

The limitations of the animation keep the characters from ever fully emoting, but it’s the script that lets down the rest of the film. In live-action, with a tighter script, this could have been something special. Instead, it’s largely forgettable.

The setup of the mystery is more satisfying than its payoff, and the film breaks down into an uninspired grab bag of contemporary horror influences.

When it works, it's engaging and there’s just enough to keep you entertained but you can’t help feel the heroes deserve something meatier.

With shades of Get Out, Culture Shock, and The Forever Purge, American Carnage is yet another frightening-enough, albeit bogged-down, tale about how the American Dream is no longer for everyone.

There's something kitschy about Howard the Duck that makes it fun to watch. It tried hard and provided you're not a huge stick in the mud, there's something in this movie for everyone.

There's an endearing, homestyle warmth to the kooky sci-fi dramedy. Think Joe Swanberg's "Mumblecore" roots by way of Charles Band's late-night horror schlockiness – and I mean that with love.

Cobweb feels like an incomplete collection of horror ideas that aren't explored to their full potential, but it ultimately succeeds thanks to deranged performances by Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr.

While Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba give it their all, neither can save the film from collapsing in the third act. An unconvincing conclusion undermines a far better first half which sees Swinton and Elba waxing philosophical in a hotel room.

Bad acting, awful script, glaring continuuity errors-- it's night! It's day! It's night again!-- nightmarish special effects, and the worst sets you've ever seen. It's a chucklefest all the way through.

The King’s Man’s triumphant action and epic performances are dragged down by a confused story and overlong runtime.

Zeros and Ones uses the spy genre as a thin mask for a fever dream that evokes nightmarish uncertainty.

The Seven Deadly Sins: Grudge of Edinburgh Part 1 is an entertaining return for fans that feels incomplete, even more so for newcomers.

House of Gucci starts with such promise as Adam Driver, Lady Gaga, and Al Pacino give performances that bring out the emotional complexity of the historically dysfunctional Gucci family. But then Ridley Scott becomes infatuated with tracking the fall of the corporation and its familial machinations instead of zeroing in on the more compelling personal implosion of Patrizia and Maurizio. Too much of the narrative is given over to side characters and scenes that are overindulgent, which lessens the potency of the tragic story and our investment in where they all end up.

The subplot involving the production of a simulated, backup lunar expedition never quite takes off, comedically speaking, but there’s plenty of appeal in pairing an uncommonly bubbly Scarlett Johansson with an agreeably earnest Channing Tatum.

If you think ballerinas using their dance skills to fight and kill bad guys sounds fun, Pretty Lethal does deliver on its premise. However, it takes too long to get going, and is ultimately a somewhat amusing trifle instead of the more fun spectacle it could have been.

Two Evil Eyes is a flawed project. Romero's segment doesn't pull its own weight. While it is creepy in spots, the majority of the story is overlong and ho-hum in the execution. On the other hand, Argento's entry is strong work that clearly demonstrates a love for Poe's writing. It's not your typical Argento, but many of the standard elements that make the director's work so beautiful and compelling are present here.

Krysten Ritter, along with Winslow Fegley and Lidya Jewett, provide enough pizazz to keep Nightbooks afloat, creating an engaging supernatural hostage scenario.

While it picks up threads from the original, like the mysterious curse of their dying drummers or stage props misbehaving, nothing gets anywhere close to the original.

Swallowed is an LGBTQ+ thriller that trades complexity for intimacy over a drug run gone horribly wrong. It's intense and thrilling at the right moments, capitalizing on authentic body horrors.

The more The Watchers comes together, the less interesting it becomes. It’s a puzzle best left unsolved.

Abominable is a simple, sweet, slight story that’s been told before, and told better.

Unhuman is a good-enough breed of afterschool special horror that succeeds in championing positive messages between sloppier fights with the risen dead.

While Lord of Misrule has its moments, blending folk horror, possession, and murder mystery isn’t enough to make this saggy film pop.

Caged Heat is a nudity-filled sleaze-fest, that much is certain, but it's also a haunting little trip with plenty of memorable thrills.

Leave the World Behind has a worthwhile cast, but its paranoid thrills quickly fizzle out en route to a baffling final scene.

While sci-fi is generally rife with allegories, a steadier hand was needed here in Voyagers. The messaging, though noble and necessary, feels obvious to the point that it takes you out of the film. The cast is talented and the premise is promising, but the story plays out in a predictable fashion, which also works, in a way, to undercut the meaning.

Though The Devil Made Me Do It is a smart recalibration for The Conjuring series, its successes have little to do with its strengths as a standalone horror movie. Ed and Lorraine Warren's investigation may be an engaging mystery, and their opponent is a franchise-best, but the scares are just not as potent in part because half of them center on a possession victim who’s really not easy to root for.

The chase scenes are top notch. Unfortunately, the movie has a lot of slow parts as well. Another bizarre aspect of Mad Max is that the voices were re-dubbed. Director George Miller, decided that the American public wouldn't be able to understand the Australian accents. It's not as bad as it sounds, but it's definitely a noticeable annoyance.

Hearts are ripped out, heads are smashed, and there's plenty of flesh to be seen. If that's what you crave for a night of retro viewing, this is your flick.

No one will mistake this for Quality Cinema, and it's marred by a confusing, murky ending. But there are some good thrills along the way.

Paw Patrol: The Movie is a precious and peppy offering for the pre-preteen set that utilizes gentle character drama and buzzy action to stand out as a big-screen adventure. It won't be any parent's first choice, from an animation standpoint, but the standards of storytelling hold firm, making for an overall calm and comforting watch.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 takes the Terrifier 2 approach for a sequel with an absurd dedication to glorious slasher violence. It's inarguably better than the original, but that’s not saying all that much.

The film’s themes may be fundamental in their commentaries on parental gender disparity or qualities about motherhood so many refuse to publicly acknowledge, but they still land like a haymaker. You’ve gotta hand it to Ramsay; she’s a fearless visionary when rocking on all cylinders—which, frustratingly, Die My Love only dishes out in smaller servings.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle offers plenty of action and some emotional flashbacks, but it suffers from an overuse of flashbacks that undermine the story's pacing.

No One Will Save You is at its best when it marries the tension of a home invasion thriller with the thrills of an alien abduction film, and Kaitlyn Dever proves she has the chops to carry a whole movie on strength of her facial expressions alone. However, the film ultimately fumbles when it becomes both a convoluted action film and an on-the-nose parable about overcoming grief and guilt.