Real-life tragic romance Spoiler Alert is kneecapped by the plainness of its storytelling, and only marginally saved by its performances.

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.

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.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism is gateway horror that puts storytelling above terror. It’s steady on its 1980s teenage-girl friendship drama, but other elements around the messaging stumble.

Visually, Pixar is in absolutely top form with the creation of Element City and its inhabitants. Unfortunately, the story is way too thin and none of it makes any sense.

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

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.

Missing owes its best moments to learning from 2018’s Searching, but is a bit of a downgrade in terms of Screenlife usage.

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.

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.

The horrors of childbirth become entangled in a demonic subplot as Huesera fits neatly into the list of chilling pregnancy horror tales, but doesn’t add much new to it.

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

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

The Devil Conspiracy is a high-concept religious action flick with horror influences that sells its ambitions short but still entertains despite itself.

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.

Writer-director Elijah Bynum fills the screen with some impressive imagery, but it’s all in service of an ugliness that Magazine Dreams cops out on depicting.

The Outwaters is found-footage fearlessness that needs to be seen to be believed, but will be met by only the most divisive of reactions.

We Have a Ghost is a mostly bland movie, elevated by a few good performances and an intriguing premise that doesn’t go as far as it seems like it should.

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

Tetris tries its best to make a story about international video game rights into something infinitely more thrilling, with a smidge better than mixed results.

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.

The filmmakers definitely go for it in the gross-out gag department, with jokes about droppings and marking and red rockets. But beneath the vulgar laughs, this is a comedy nearly as formulaic and sentimental as the sappy tearjerkers it's lampooning. Its bark is worse than its bite.

The Covenant isn’t Guy Ritchie’s best, but standout performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim as bonded heroes save an otherwise bloated military thriller.

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

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.

Self Reliance's comedic riff on The Most Dangerous Game benefits from writer-director-star Jake Johnson’s extraordinary ability to commit to a bit – but it's lacking a sense of danger.

Trolls Band Together hits its chosen notes with its trademark glitter-drunk energy and some bonkers visual invention, but its mashing up of shiny pop hits (not to mention past Trolls movies) approaches exhaustion.

You can find horror movies a lot better than The Pope’s Exorcist, but in an increasingly stale exorcism subgenre, you can absolutely do worse as well – and Russel Crowe’s Italian accent is unintentionally hilarious.

While Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once and Always has a deeply emotional story at its center and plenty of fun nostalgic moments to enjoy during its one-hour runtime, it’s hard to shake the feeling that this special needed better effects and dialogue to make it truly Morphenomenal.

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.

Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain has way more laughs than the standard direct-to-streaming comedy, with some gloriously silly running gags and hilarious non sequiturs. But it lacks any real point of view behind that silliness.

Bird Box Barcelona ekes by thanks to dependable and lived-in performances, but overstays its post-apocalyptic welcome across its almost two-hour duration.

The result is a visually rich film that finds moments of entertaining inspiration but suffers from a frustrating lack of focus.

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.

Without Cagney, this movie would still be memorable, but probably only as a minor footnote to the better gangster films to come. With Cagney's smart acting, this movie is a decent watch.

A semi-confusing script and heavy-handed direction from David Ayer muddle the proceedings, but enough inspired pizazz and Statham’s earnest delivery of lines like “I protect the hive” just barely bring it all home.

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.

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.

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.

Though its predestined, blockbuster exorcism sequence just manages to provide a satisfying conclusion to the story, the underdeveloped synchronized possession element creates more problems than it solves and adds bloat to a movie which would have benefitted from a leaner, more measured approach.

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

Satanic Hispanics attempts to bring authentic Latin folklore to modern horror audiences and boasts great doses of monsters and gore. Unfortunately it’s also held back by some uneven storytelling and humor that doesn’t always land.

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 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.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire serves up a berserk dreamscape with plenty of payoff to please the MonsterVerse faithful. Shame about the human stuff, though.

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.

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.

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

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

Terrifier 3 is a bounty of practical effects riches that cannot be denied, but its storytelling is scattershot in ways that hold the sequel back.

Imaginary nearly perfects its so-bad-it’s-good shtick. This is not a good movie, in the traditional, artistic sense – but it is a total joy to watch if you’re willing to buy into its particular blend of juvenile scares and stupid self-seriousness.

Night Swim effectively exploits primal fears around water, but its comedy and horror chops aren’t strong enough to keep it from drowning in its more clichéd elements.

The movie leaps to life whenever the bullets start flying. It's the generic gangland stuff in between that's not up to snuff, even with Hardy lending his trusty gruffness to the haunted-cop boilerplate.

Blink Twice confirms that director Zoë Kravitz has an artful eye and ear: Her debut feature is full of creative compositions, heightened sound design, and clever editing. However, where she excels in creating atmosphere and mood, she falls very short as a screenwriter.

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.

It’s nice to see June Squibb land a starring role for once, but her quest for revenge in this Sundance crowdpleaser is more cutesy than charming.

If you can look past Road House’s horrendous cinematography, CGI fights, and poor lighting, there's a fun movie to be found.

It’s beautifully shot, and very loud. But much of the film is simply too mild and reliant on jump scares, and Syndey Sweeney’s performance doesn’t achieve the hysterical heights a movie like this needs until it’s too late.

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.

This sequel doesn’t merit a sing-along and does little to expand on what we already knew about Moana and her friends.

Brad Peyton oversees a futuristic action thriller that frequently plays like a clone of other cautionary tales about AI – but those movies, shows, games, and books don’t have Peyton’s secret weapon: Jennifer Lopez. She’s able to command the screen, bicker with software programs, and sell a convincing heroine’s arc from behind a mech-suit’s windshield.

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

Arcadian is an effective creature-feature B-movie that gets the job done in under 90 minutes.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie ditches an engaging story in favor of a pipe-bursting amount of Easter eggs, but that’s not an all-together bad thing.

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.

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.

The American remake of Speak No Evil mostly recaptures the squirmy dread of its shocking Danish inspiration… until it doesn’t.

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.

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.

This buddy comedy lives or dies on your affection for its stars, offering complementary shades of good-natured Bostonian ineptitude.

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.

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is neither better nor worse than the sleeper-hit crime caper that preceded it. Like the original, it’s too long and threatens to become overwhelmed by its own web of underworld intricacies. Nonetheless, with appealing chemistry between stars Gerard Butler and O'Shea Jackson Jr., and a suitably tense third-act heist sequence, it rewards the goodwill the original has built up since its 2018 release.

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.

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.

The combination of gore and complex characterization can be uneven from scene to scene, but the filmmakers’ unique qualities and perspectives give it more personality than your average low-budget creature feature.

After a strong first act, The Conjuring’s intended finale disappoints, keeping its central duo of Ed and Lorraine away from the action for too long.

A modest French sci-fi fable whose messages about letting go aren’t half as moving as the images surrounding them.

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.

Despite its ultra-low-budget trappings, Hellboy: The Crooked Man is a fun, competent adaptation that offers up a healthy dose of Evil Dead-style supernatural action.

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.

Better jokes, better imagery, and two (!) inspired comic performances by Jim Carrey give this Sonic sequel an edge on its predecessors.

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

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.

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.

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

From the sincerity of the lead performances to the cartoonish gore offered by Werewolves Within director Josh Rubenn. There are much worse ways to spend Valentine’s Day than a genre cocktail for saps and gorehounds alike.

It can’t decide whether it wants to tell the real-life story of respected mob boss Frank Costello and his comrade-turned-scheming-enemy Vito Genovese, or if it wants to skewer the entire genre of films they helped inspire. However, with Robert De Niro in both leading roles, there’s always something interesting to watch, even if it’s buried by mountains of repetitive dialogue.

Opus isn't a tremendously effective horror film, often feeling like a number of A24 horror movies rolled into one. Those looking for scares will be disappointed. The first film from writer director Mark Anthony Green is, however, interesting enough when it has things to say about pop stars and the people who write about them – not that it makes the movie any more chilling.

A movie that’ll just about keep young viewers’ attention, Smurfs is part Rihanna jukebox musical, and part flimsy attempt to give the little blue critters an identity that’ll stick.

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.

Though it starts out as a promising slasher throwback, Clown in a Cornfield struggles with a jokey tone and a political message that lacks teeth.

Fountain of Youth is a robust showcase of Guy Ritchie’s eye for action, but it falls well short of capturing the magic of the quintessential treasure-hunting movies it’s so clearly trying to replicate.

Abraham’s Boys has some interesting ideas when it comes to a Van Helsing-based Dracula spinoff. Unfortunately, its weak visuals and lack of atmosphere stop it from fully delivering.

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

There’s a fun slasher buried beneath the too-faithful reboot plot of the new I Know What You Did Last Summer. Unfortunately, it’s overshadowed by too many callbacks to the first movie in the series and too little originality. The mix of new stars and returning favorites provides some urgency, but does little to give it an identity all its own.

Amazon’s Heads of State is a near-humorless buddy comedy film, saved by its compelling leads and elaborate action sequences.

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.