I’m all for comedies mixing things up with deliberate intention, but “Old Dads” smacks of simple rookie mistakes that suck the air out of even Burr’s most road-tested bits; the plotting is so clumsy and erratic that it’s easier to stop following the story and just keep a running list of all the things that make Jack angry.

In some respects, it feels like the most nakedly personal film the now 83-year-old has ever made. In others, it feels like the only film he’s ever made. Or maybe all of them.

While director Sam Fell continues the stop-motion brilliance of Peter Lord and Nick Park’s original, set pieces and winking homages are given primacy over character stakes leading to a somewhat grating emotional ride.

It’s one of the most exciting midnight movies of 2023.

This is an assured debut that sketches the relationship to state power that the marginalized contend with in London and the world beyond. Too muted in emotional effect to bring home a flirted-with theme of solidarity, the world-building still brings to life in the spirit that animates even the most besieged communities.

This low-rent, no-energy, seen-it-all-before genre wank left me absolutely terrified of returning to an era when micro-blogged cries for help could last for half a year and run the length of a novella.

Giving the final days of Christ a contemporary, allegorical spin, The Book of Clarence is more concerned with entertainment value than delivering a sermon. The results are tonally erratic, but absolutely interesting, at the very least.

The first half of The Mission is triumphant, offering a multitude of thought-provoking ways to approach a tragedy. But with so many fascinating angles at their disposal, it’s unfortunate that Moss and McBaine didn’t take a bigger swing with their ending.

Despite the understandably emotional and deeply personal nature of Plan C’s work, Tragos’ film remains startlingly clear-eyed and concise, letting the stories she shares from abortion organizers, healthcare ambassadors, doctors, clinic workers, and patients speak for themselves.

United States vs. Reality Winner is less expose than repudiation of a system that lacks the humanity to address the subtleties of her case.

Your Lucky Day moves along at an engaging pace throughout, although it doesn’t reach its brutal potential as a thriller until two-thirds of the way through. Up to that point, it’s burdened by clumsy repetition of its central theme.

While the initial perimeters of The Re-Education of Molly Singer are simple and perfect for some laughs and character growth, little of that happens here.

An execrable film that’s redeemed by almost nothing besides Leslie Odom Jr.’s well-modulated lead performance and the ambient sense of unease that Green casts over the story’s first half, “Believer” is so creatively spineless and bereft of its own ideas that its entire concept of sacrilege is limited to imperiling its franchise’s legacy.

The Origin of Evil is ultimately Calamy’s show as a calculating and desperate woman seeking love and acceptance in all the wrong places.

Story Ave approaches the challenges faced by a talented artist in underprivileged circumstances with a clear head, always pivoting away from simplistic narratives and towards reality.

Perverse as it is to cast two of the world’s most talented young actors as the two sides of a curdled marriage, Mescal and Ronan both excel at sinking into themselves, with the latter’s irrepressible force of will squeezing against the walls of the musty farmhouse as if her life were a shoe five sizes too small.

You don’t need to watch the other movies in the “Saw” series to enjoy this one, but it will help. With some Avengers-style phone calls in Act One and a mid-credits kicker, this is “Saw” in the superhero age. It’s a flick for the die-hard fans that rewards those who keep asking for more. After a decade as Halloween’s most hyped-up annual release in the aughts, “Saw” is finally back this October to tell Taylor Swift she’s not the only one doing vigilante shit. Congrats, Tobin. You deserve this one.

The fact that it never reinvents the wheel might be an explanation for why this genre continues to flourish despite its familiarity: human life is fucking fascinating, and documenting slices of it on film remains a miracle worth pursuing.

There’s nowhere for the movie to go once it establishes that the safety love offers can also be the source of its undoing.

But the most fundamental reason why “The Creator,” for all of its shortcomings and clichés, ultimately sold me on its optimism is that it succeeds as a blueprint where it fails as a movie.

In Blair’s The Toxic Avenger, the side gags are the film. The rest of it is the filler.

As delightful as Levi and Rodriguez prove to be together, “Armageddon” thoroughly belongs to fresh faces Esterson and Carganilla, taking over for Daryl Sabara and Alexa PenaVega. The kids’ respective performances feel relatable, authentic, and above all, fun.

Things get harried in a hurry, and while Duffield doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to the various “Home Alone”-like battles that pit Alien vs. Dever, the “Spontaneous” director stages them with rare aplomb and an unerring respect for the fact that Brynn’s house represents her entire universe.

These days, it’s almost refreshing to see a big dumb garbage sequel that doesn’t have any other agend4.

A litany of jolt-focused dream sequences do little to escalate the tension or advance the plot, and Dutta — making his feature directorial debut — hasn’t developed a deep enough skill set for the scares to be as specific to his movie as Sam’s fears are to her immigrant experience.

From its eureka moment when Barbe-Nicole develops her iconic rose champagne to its final title cards about the company’s ongoing success, Widow Clicquot has all the same beats as the walk-and-talk business movie that you watched on your last flight. It would make perfect in-carriage entertainment for a drowsy Victorian family taking a long trip across the countryside.

The Monk and the Gun is a film that understands why we still need to consider tradition — the actual definition of the word, that is — when thinking about complex political issues.

Chopped up into chapters with dead-on titles like “Open Secret” and “Comeback,” Sorry/Not Sorry seems to suffer from biting off way more than a single, wide-spanning documentary could ever ably chew.