The problem is that, after that early peak of a first act, The Accidental Getaway Driver doesn’t have much tension.

The result is an extremely multi-dimensional portrait of a First Lady, one who, you can’t help but think, was the most significant at that point since Eleanor Roosevelt in her accomplishments and her influence on policy.

It’s queer and contemporary — a decent addition to an already lengthy Christmas horror movie marathon that can edge out 1997’s “Jack Frost” but doesn’t come close to touching “Gremlins” or even “Krampus.”

With the help of a hideous haircut, Eisenberg gives a convincing performance as a repressed loser who never discovered who he is and has officially run out of time to start. But Trengrove’s script is as directionless as his protagonist.

Preciado’s Orlando, My Political Biography is a film of many visual pleasures, and they’re ones Preciado clearly shared in while devising this generous and buoyant inquiry into institution and identity.

Significantly more intimate and grounded than the previous “Hunger Games” movies (despite being longer than any of them and responsible for seeding all of their lore), “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” is the rare prequel that manages to stand on its own two feet and still feel taller than the other stories it’s ultimately meant to support.

A Still Small Voice — much like the residency program that it chronicles — is all the more valuable because it never pretends that being a palliative chaplain is an inherently selfless task.

Tellingly, the most pleasurable moments in Nia DaCosta’s “The Marvels” don’t hinge on the audience having an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Marvel. . . . They’re just solid pieces of blockbuster filmmaking: charming stars (like the full-force charisma of Iman Vellani and the appealing vulnerability of Teyonah Parris), sprightly action, and zippy humor.

While the film fumbles through a stripped down script and stumbles towards a surrealist attempt at reframing the threats of tourism, Waikiki still offers a voice from a Native Hawaiian about his homeland.

Bernstein’s debut is at once both too grounded to be so broad, and too heightened to honor the tragic reality of its circumstances.

Kaur creates a vital portrait of the intersection between the spiritual and industrial in the world’s most religious nation, grounded in the poignant interpersonal drama between friends, families and communities. In moving fashion, she captures how the effects of climate change ripple far beyond the shore, into the homes of those who depend on the sea not for their living, but for their cultural identities.

There are sparks of chemistry between Ryan and Duchovny that feel reminiscent of better rom-coms, although none quite matching the films that Ryan is most known for.

Perhaps suffering from the same kind of identity crisis as its heroine, Burger’s soggy mishmash of an adaptation struggles to thread the needle between pulpy fun and a probing character study.

The documentary is hesitant to dip even half a pinkie toe into genuinely harsh subject matter, because to do so would contradict its clear mission to coronate Perry as an industry great. All that nuance gets elided for a fluffy, forgettable hagiography that purports to tell Perry’s story, but keeps him constantly out of reach.

Hall and Tiexiera create something incredibly special with Subject. The subject matter (pun totally intended) yields a documentary that isn’t against the documentary world, but wants audiences to simply question what they’re watching

For true crime fans, Last Stop Larrimah isn’t an urgent must-see, and I am told that the “Lost in Larrimah” podcast from five years ago is an even sharper recounting of the mysterious events. But the unsettling unsolved nature of the tale remains pungent, and so do the Missing posters throughout the community.

A repetitive slog that’s only shape or narrative momentum comes from its slow unmasking as religious propaganda.

A film about a haunted Chuck E. Cheese clone doesn’t exactly need to be complex to be watchable. But Five Nights at Freddy’s somehow misses the arcade for the flashback forest, undercutting the obvious appeal of animatronic cartoon characters as menacing slasher villains by refusing to ever become a real horror movie.

Every winking iris shot and cheesy cross-dissolve adds to the timeless spirit of a film that knows beauty may be short-lived, but good schlock never dies.

As I watched this turgid muddle, a messy ball of nonsensical threads and worse performances, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Roger Ebert’s old maxim: No good film is too long, and no bad film is too short.

With high points that are sharp and low points that are nonsensical, Leave the World Behind never ceases to be entertaining.

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.