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.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is a classic heist chase picture driven by a somewhat dated premise and paper-thin characters. But the film makes up for its faults with dazzling stunt work and great action.

If you haven't read the manga or watched the anime then Tokyo Ghoul S might be an exercise in frustration, though if you love horror, action, ambitious effects work and might enjoy a glam knock-off Hannibal Lecter then it's definitely worth trying out.

Black Friday proves to be a winning combination of gloppy scares, well-crafted characters, and wise commentary.

Bruised is a good outing for Halle Berry as a director, though a better reminder of her as a star. Aside from that, however, the story progression is light on impact.

I'm not sure who first had the idea to fit a father/daughter drama into a rom-com casing but the result is very weird and very unfulfilling. Tonal whiplash is the least of Like Father's problems though as it basically furthers the messaging that Netflix likes to have talented people make unexceptional films.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich almost works. The dialogue and performances are unusually good for this kind of material, and the gore effects are shocking. But the changes the filmmakers made to this franchise have unpleasant consequences, which dramatically reduce the film's entertainment value, and arguably rob these iconic puppets of the very characteristics that made them special.

Benicio del Toro's understated performance as a soft-spoken detective is about the only interesting thing about this new Netflix thriller, which drowns a thin murder mystery in lots of ominous atmosphere.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile has some interesting ideas about how little we know the people we love, and about the power of a celebrity cult status. But no matter how good Zac Efron’s performance as Ted Bundy is, this is the tamest way to explore such a complex and interesting story.

As much as its focus is technological, it’s an emotional exploration too – a wry and thoughtful magnification of what life feels like when you lose and re-discover your purpose, or you learn to see yourself through someone else’s eyes.

Idris Elba’s directorial debut is an atmospheric and catchy DJ Noir about criminals who’d rather spin vinyl than sell cocaine, and it’s an impressive first film, only held back by the conventions in the plot. But it’s the details of Yardie’s world that make it worth visiting.

Solid fundamentals make It’s a Wonderful Knife an enjoyable Christmas slasher, although not as inspired as the writer Michael Kennedy’s previous work.

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

Josh Hartnett anchors Trap with a great performance as a serial killer penned in at a pop concert, but M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film falls apart in its third act.

It takes Death on the Nile far longer than it should to reach its most impactful moments, but actor-director Kenneth Branagh cares deeply enough about Detective Poirot to make it work.

Eternals is beautifully shot and terrifically acted, but it bites off more than it can chew in its third act.

There are a few occasionally effective scares along the way, but the cliched characters and downright idiotic motivations make 47 Meters Below sink before it even has the chance to swim.

It’s a classy, riveting remake, and it will make you want to see even more adventures featuring this particular Poirot.

An entertaining plot, impressive script, fantastic cast, and awesomely shot action make Charlie's Angels one of the most unexpectedly fun films of the year.

It mixes the throwback feel of an old-school spy story with an engaging scenario about a tech-savvy CIA analyst thrust into the field for decidedly dark reasons. The direction and a strong cast help sell this vibe and make for an entertaining time, even if it comes to a less-than-satisfying conclusion.

Superfly features an appealing lead, and captures small tastes of amazing, striking cool, but is also bogged down by plot and characters that reduce an otherwise slick flick into something that is more capable than amazing.

Windfall is a tight, smartly constructed thriller that succeeds on the strength of its performances.

While Anyone But You isn’t a bold new take on traditional romcom formulas, it becomes an infectiously sincere and easily watchable movie featuring a charming ensemble cast and great situational comedy.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is measured and mature, which makes it less of a crowd-pleaser than the first two movies, but it allows Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek to bask in their incredible romantic chemistry.

A tale of miserable spouses plotting each other’s demise, it doesn’t always work, but its action comedy stylings are enough to keep it entertaining even when it swerves into ugly excess or extraneous subplots.

With a stunningly honest performance from the director’s son — Jojo Rabbit star Roman Griffin Davis — Silent Night balances the eccentricities of a Christmas get-together with nihilistic acceptance of certain doom, making for a film that’s both bleak and dryly funny.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter should delight horror fans raised on Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and offers an R-rated bite of vampiric brutality for genre fans with a stronger bloodlust. Øvredal does well to transport his cast to a time when scary stories were told around lanterns in the dead of night, and even if the moodiness evaporates due to a protracted runtime and the foregone conclusion of Dracula’s landfall, the director accentuates the basics of violent feeding sessions in hair-raising fashion.

The Contractor may have an underwhelming conclusion, but the journey to get there is an emotional one, with a strong performance by Chris Pine.

Another strong entry in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World saga. Rowling has improved upon the first Fantastic Beasts film by fleshing out her characters in a way that’s engaging, though not everybody receives as much attention. Both Johnny Depp and Eddie Redmayne are - forgive the pun - fantastic in their perspective roles.

80 for Brady is a surprisingly sweet and sentimental comedy led by four stellar performances — especially by Lily Tomlin, who’s never been more radiant.

Ayer and Stallone's script is messily realized and cornily directed – even its violent fight sequences fail to measure up to the impressive feats of action we're so used to seeing Statham serve up.

Less of a movie and more of a series of non sequiturs, Despicable Me 4 is a Minions showcase interrupted by Gru and his family.

Weaving’s expressive face and boundless energy make her a compelling heroine, and her will to survive is unstoppable.

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.

The Drop has a great premise about an accident that forces a couple to revisit their relationship and needs, but it never really lives up to its promise.

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

A harmless and fun dark comedy that you'll enjoy casually watching from time to time.

The story's lifted a bit by some of the solid comedic actors, and the WWE Superstars who make a run-in, but when the story isn't sloppy, it's paint-by-numbers.

The end result here is comically entertaining, but entertaining nevertheless - although if you are conditioned to enjoy only those very complicated scenes from newer movies this might be laughable in a less enjoyable way.

Based on the scrappy Japanese zombie comedy One Cut of the Dead, Michel Hazanavicius’ Final Cut is a more polished version — for better and for worse — but it’s just as fun and self-reflexive, while also leaning into its remake status for a few added laughs.

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody is yet another music biopic that feels like a checklist of events rather than riveting drama.

Woman Walks Ahead has some narrative issues but is ultimately a well-acted biographical drama.

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.

It’s a brave choice to literally blow up everything that’s come before but one that definitely pays off in Fallen Kingdom. While Jurassic World gave us a lovely self-contained story, Fallen Kingdom leaves us wondering just where the series will go for its third act - as long as Stiggy plays an extensive pivotal role, I’ll be absolutely fine with it.

Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon can’t quite salvage You're Cordially Invited, a comedy that's as overcrowded as the dueling nuptials it depicts.

This extremely generic plotline feels very underwritten, almost as if it was one of many episodes of a Witch Mountain TV series rather than a three-years in the making sequel to a successful children's sci-fi adventure film.

My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission boasts the franchises' best animation yet, as well as a dark and menacing villain straight out of an X-Men comic. It all results in a compelling and thrilling adventure that, sadly, suffers from being an isolated non-canon story.

David Slade's long-delayed creature feature is ludicrous nonsense enlivened only by the occasional splash of gore.

Death of a Unicorn features fun fantasy ideas, but suffers from repetitive execution.

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.

Kids vs. Aliens brings gloopy, grotesque practical effects to a childlike sci-fi thriller that fails to shine outside kill sequences and costumes.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets showcases plenty of cool creatures and ideas for sci-fi fans to savor, but if only the movie's central characters and their relationship were as exciting and interesting as all that impressive eye candy.

It's Sandra Bullock and the ensemble that heap some heft into this standard scorched Earth story.

Netflix's Earthquake Bird is a not particularly engaging thriller featuring an inert performance from Alicia Vikander.

It’s not simply cashing in on the popularity of the TMNT cartoon, but is actually a thoughtful, emotional, and challenging movie about the loss and reconstruction of family. It’s got lots of hilarious one-liners and ninja action too, making it one of the most well-rounded comic book movies that’s not afraid to hold reverence to the source material while also having some fun with it.

The pacing drags through action set-pieces left obscured by messy compositions and limp, over-stylized visual choices. New Orleans, as the film’s setting, is wasted while the film’s gritty concept fails to deliver the desired intensity.

Robert Rodriguez delivers a family-friendly film that feels like his most personal project yet. We Can Be Heroes is a cheerful and colorful take on the superhero genre with a powerful message about empowering younger generations to take the reins and do better than their parents.

The slapstick comedy works wonders, and stands in stark contrast to the endless pop culture-based animated comedies of the past 20 years. But it's the heart at the center of the movie – the dynamic between the dogs played by the likes of Adam DeVine, Idris Elba, Kathryn Hahn – that sells the story and makes this more than a one-joke movie.

Living up to the legacy of Die Hard is a tall order, and Skyscraper never reaches those heights. But it's a gigantic and silly blockbuster matinee of a movie, with likable performances, absurd action sequences, and a heck of a lot of duct tape.

It's a fun film that presents an interesting scenario and raises a unique possibility. What it lacks in depth and acting skills it more than makes up for as a thoroughly enjoyable popcorn film.

Directorially, last minute replacement director Jeannot Szwarc has done a nice job and there's some really nice photography here.

Umma isn’t scary, but the themes behind it are terrifying as it deals with generational trauma and guilt. Though the cultural references run deep, it’s overstuffed with symbolic imagery that is never fully explained. Though Oh and Stewart give solid performances, the tone and tension of the story ends up being choppy and underwhelming.

Dr. Seuss' The Grinch is a fun and fast holiday movie, updating the classic story for the audience that made the Minions a billion-dollar industry. However, the straightforward moral of the 30-page children’s book and one of Dr. Seuss’ most memorable characters get a little handcuffed by this update.

The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot lays all its cards on the table up front, but then still manages to never quite be what you expect it to be. It juggles a lot of ostensibly ridiculous ideas, but they all land just right because the film's deliciously dour tone, that sort of snuggles everything within the warm embrace of Sam Elliott's ruggedness and regret.

The only question Paul Schrader's murder mystery will leave you with is how long before you fall asleep?

Sadly, this routine remake doesn't manage to recapture the surreal strangeness of the original Disney classic or elevate the dated premise into something better.

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.

Director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro) offers some reliably, well, clean hand-to-hand combat without showing us anything we haven’t seen before. Only a mid-film twist and the oddly sympathetic motives of the bad guys distinguish Cleaner from a thousand other movies with basically the same sturdy premise.

The relentlessly slapstick Peter Rabbit may please the kids, but the film never quite realizes its full potential.

Overall the biggest problem with What Just Happened is that its character studies and conflicts are so far inside the eye of Hollywood's celebrity-clad storm that its melancholy calm completely fails to interest anyone.

A Man Called Otto is a benign comedy-drama that peppers a heart-wrenching story with plenty of eye-rolling jokes to distract you from its perfectly pedestrian plot.

More unsettling than outright terrifying, The Woman in the Yard is smaller-scale horror that works as a return to fundamentals for a talented filmmaker, and is further proof of Danielle Deadwyler’s immense skill as a lead performer who knows how to pull off the psychological ramp-up required for a movie like this.

Coming off the triumph of its extension into TV with Cobra Kai, The Karate Kid franchise returns to theaters with Legends, a movie which is far less impactful than that show, yet still reminds us why the underlying story and themes of this series can still connect.

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.

Jim Brown: All American is visually impressive, but about halfway through the documentary it gets so defensive and excusive that it stalls. It's as if Lee is forming a defense case rather than exhibiting the man's life.

It's for kids and it's cute. It's also an absolute eyesore, crassly overstuffed with retina-scorching color combinations and explosions of glitter. Frankly, it's disappointing that an animated movie with so much talent attached didn’t strive to be more than just "cute for kids." But hey, at least you can dance to it.

Despite game performances by a slew of returning cast members, it doesn’t justify its existence as anything other than a mercenary attempt by Paramount+ to cash in on audience nostalgia for familiar faces.

The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two, directed and co-written by Chris Columbus, once again takes full advantage of Kurt Russell's exuberance as Santa -- and the full addition of Goldie Hawn's Mrs. Claus -- for a rewarding romp about young Kate Pierce's need to rediscover the holiday spirit.

The movie doesn’t end up going anywhere and serves as little more than an excuse to get the movie’s stars into dapper suits and flat caps.

The "live action" footage simply looks "blah" when interacting with the animated characters. It breaks apart the look of the movie, and really hurts it.

It’s intellectually intriguing and well-acted, but the inconsistent visual effects undermine the necessary suspension of disbelief when it comes to mixing live-action humans with talking CG animals in such a serious and somber adaptation of the Kipling classic. Still, it’s a thoughtful and dramatic interpretation, which sets it apart from most incarnations of The Jungle Book.

Though visually engaging, Malignant can’t overcome the genre identity crisis at its core.

Peninsula feels fairly derivative when compared to the tighter and more terrifying Train to Busan, but on its own, as an expansion of this universe, it's a rollicking ride through a hollowed-out hellscape. It's almost a complete genre shift, but not an unrewarding one.

While the destination is too easy to determine, this ride-along is solidly thrilling.

Chinatown had sex, greed and water, Body Heat had sex, greed and high humidity, while Mulholland Falls has alluded-to sex, hats and cigarettes bundled with radiation sickness and anachronistic pop psychology references. (Palminteri spouts endless Sensitive Guy pabulum that's supposed to be ironic. It's not.) It's a mess and a shame, considering all the talent involved.

Clerks III delivers all the inappropriate cuss-cluttered humor and pot smoke that is Kevin Smith's trademark but evolves his sentimentality beyond bong-rip wisdom. The third Clerks installment is a moving ode to working-class nobodies that amplifies Smith's touchstone sincerity above Randal's not-so-passive aggression or Jay's lit-for-days attitude.

The movie’s only real sin is some dull lyrics for rough songs. Amy Adams’ return as Giselle is a charming one, and families will have plenty of fun sitting down to watch this sequel together.

Studio 666 features fun performances by the Foo Fighters, but its “kitchen sink” approach leaves it open to unfavorable comparisons to the movies to which it pays homage.

Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man is impeccably made, with a unique take on werewolf lore. But the emphasis is on craft over storytelling.

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.

It’s a shame that The Maze Runner movies are going out on their flattest note, but The Death Cure isn't completely off-key. Wes Ball has directed every entry in the franchise and he’s evolved into a very skilled action filmmaker. Complex set-pieces with an incredible number of moving parts are depicted clearly, excitingly, and with visual panache.

Emilia Clarke charms in this clichéd, kooky Christmas rom-com.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t serves as a reminder of how they manage to coast by just enough, providing a good time thanks to the notable talent and charm of their expanding cast and the inclusion of the magic trick element to provide a unique flair. It’s the epitome of “We’re just having fun here” entertainment, and while little of it resonates, it mostly gets the job done.

The Marvels is a triumph. Its depth can be seen not just through its characters, but through its story as it explores war's complicated fallout; the difficulty of being a human when you are perceived as a monolith; and the hilarious and complicated virtues of family. Both funny and heartfelt, Nia DaCosta’s MCU debut will have you asking when she and her leading ladies are coming back immediately after the credits roll. It’s a pity that the villain isn’t given much to do, though.

They Will Kill You is a modern action gem with a knockout leading performance by Zazie Beetz, who more than cements her status as a star of the genre we ought to see more of.

There’s a disappointing amount of “same old thing” to Jurassic World Rebirth. Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and the rest of the cast are intriguing and sympathetic throughout, but Gareth Edwards doesn’t quite recapture his signature flair for grand-scale visuals nor does David Koepp find the magic of his original Jurassic Park screenplay, opting to follow that movie’s structure as more of a remix than a rebirth.

Director Zobel and writers Lindelof and Cuse, peering through the lens of social media hijinks and polarized politics, paint a ridiculous picture of how we’re all eating ourselves alive. That they do so in such a fun and absurdly bloody way makes The Hunt worth a retweet at the very least.

The Equalizer 2's conventional storytelling is certainly weak, and the violence is particularly brutal, but Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua have created a unique Punisher-with-heart vigilante character that is a pleasant thrill to watch and a modest delight to revisit.