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.

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

Breaking In is a clever twist not the home invasion genre, with a dynamic lead performance by Gabrielle Union as a mother protecting her family. It’s a crowd-pleasing thriller, good but never quite great, because the story collapses under scrutiny. The film is trying to be clever and yet it relies on big, and obvious gaps in logic, but those flaws probably won't ruin the experience.

Writer-director Jason Lei Howden does try to sneak social commentary into proceedings, the film satirizing reality TV and attacking the poison of online comments. But ultimately this is balls-to-the-wall action, with Guns Akimbo delivering thrills, spills and genuinely spectacular kills.

Persuasion is a disappointingly limp adaptation of one of Jane Austen’s great romances. While Dakota Johnson does her best to give director Carrie Cracknell a contemporized, charming version of Austen’s heroine Anne Elliot, the screenplay’s foundational reframing of the character strips away everything that makes the book’s version interesting and quietly heroic.

Love Hard isn’t reinventing the wheel, but Nina Dobrev and Jimmy O. Yang are adorable to watch in this feel-good Christmas rom-com.

Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union are great pillars here, though the film itself isn't consistent enough with its tone, snapping back and forth between sweet sentiment and cheap gags.

Night Teeth's winning lead trio and its glossy, electronic buzz save this Collateral clone from sinking into full nonsense. The film's usually interesting, though it never truly strikes with malice or meaning the way it wants to

The Bad Moms sequel suffers from an uneven script and the addition of too many new, superfluous characters.

If you can get past the many bizarre inconsistencies, The Star is a relatively decent film for young Christian audiences. The writing, voice-acting and animation are unremarkable, but they get the job done, and the film’s heart seems to be in the right place.

Halloween Kills suffers from being the second chapter in a trilogy, but it still delivers gory fun, fantastic performances, and an electrifying score from John Carpenter. There are enough callbacks to the original film to satisfy Carpenter fans while also expanding the mythology around Michael Myers and the town of Haddonfield in meaningful ways.

In its best moments, Suburbicon is the dark, truly funny examination of 1950s suburbia it wants to be. These moments, however, are all too rare and more often than not the story is just a flat Film Noir tale purporting to expose the evil that lurks all around us.

The most frustrating thing about Ritchie's take on King Arthur is that it has all the necessary elements to be a great version of the story, but rather than giving them to the audience as such, they are put into a blender and thoroughly mixed.

Underground is cartoonishly raucous explosion porn from mayhem maestro Michael Bay that feels like a film that was made over a decade ago and was just somehow recently unearthed by Netflix. It's a testament to star Ryan Reynolds and his seemingly effortless charisma because without him the movie would have been a snow-blind mess.

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.

Fear Street: Prom Queen fails to channel both the outrageous aesthetics and the brutal violence of the films it’s imitating, making this indifferently made exercise in YA horror supremely skippable.

Memory is a well-made if uninspired action flick that forges an interesting new take on the genre… then forgets all about it.

Try as it might to capture lightning in a bottle, Black Adam never manages to find its spark.

Billy Porter's five fantastic on-screen minutes as the electric "Fab G" are over far too soon. Instead, Cinderella focuses on humor that rarely works (like James Corden’s huge head on a mouse body), an overstuffed, meandering soundtrack, and underwhelming vocals to back it. Ultimately, live-action Cinderella peaked in 1997.

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.

Venom: The Last Dance trips over its own tendrils and lets a boring, generic plot, and bad action distract from the surprisingly resilient central relationship between Eddie Brock and his symbiote bestie.

Even the most ardent defender of Paul W.S. Anderson’s work might think In the Lost Lands is the kind of mess that proves the Resident Evil director’s detractors right. It’s not just a barely comprehensible failure on its own, but an adaptation that takes a character-based drama and turns it into an ugly action flick.

Hellbound is gorier, larger, and more accessible than the first. It rehashes the original at the outset so people can grasp it whether or not they'd seen the first and as a result is an easier film to enjoy.

Even as Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse goes through some familiar paces, it’s elevated by the presence at its center of star/producer Michael B. Jordan.

Moonfall makes its big ideas feel small and unimportant.

The Curse of La Llorona offers some decently suspenseful set-pieces and has a family you care about at its center, but it's also a very familiar and formulaic Annabelle-adjacent entry in the Conjuring franchise.

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.

Miss Bala never quite delivers on its potential and lets down the woman at its center.