Instead of a slightly silly, character-driven series that spins off Michelle Yeoh's Emperor of the Terran Empire character, we get a hastily thrown together buddy comedy that lacks any semblance of humor or, for that matter, buddies.

Anchored by Diaz and Foxx's combined star power and a general sense of pleasantness that never fades, it's a solid little action-comedy with a bit of family fun at its core. The bad news, if you want to look at it that way, is that there's not much else there, leaving the film a hollow, though pleasant, experience.

Wolf Man delivers some impressive moments of slow-burn body horror but falls short compared to the narrative and thematic cohesion of its predecessor.

The action in this film is honestly better than anything in the recently released "Kraven the Hunter." The sequences toward the beginning of the movie are particularly impressive.

After years of soulless retreads from Disney, this proves you can go some way to recapturing the magic of the originals by hiring a filmmaker who wants to expand upon those earlier stories, rather than lazily revisiting them.

Kraven the Hunter isn't a complete disappointment, but it isn't a great example of comic book cinema either. Instead it seems well-suited for our mid era of superheroes and everything else.

The plot, like Dylan himself, seems to be meandering, and while it's an interesting parallel, the end result is a film that feels more than a little listless whenever someone's not singing.

There was no chance of "The War of the Rohirrim" recapturing the magic of the Peter Jackson "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. But Hèra's defiance in the face of the despair her enemies want her to feel has something of the trilogy's inspirational quality.

Eggers' Nosferatu is a beautifully crafted, endlessly compelling nightmare that will envelop you in its shifting, writhing darkness and simply refuse to let go. It's one of the best horror films of the year, and represents a new level of ambition and craft from one of our best horror filmmakers.

While its nods to the '90s are all painfully accurate, it seems like Mooney was so focused on capturing the essence of Y2K that he forgot that all of this needs to be in the service of a story that's actually engaging. Sorry to all involved, but 91 minutes has never felt so long.

Whereas parents and kids alike will have been charmed by the first, Moana 2 will be overshadowed for anybody other than the youngest kids watching. It will likely make a billion dollars regardless.

With Paul Mescal taking on leading man duties, Gladiator II capitalizes on all the visual delights and heroic battles that make this genre — when done well — so enjoyable to watch.

For the most part, the musical fires on all cylinders, so we're off to a good start.

It's a mechanically functioning, intermittently humorous amusement park attraction whose greatest sin is that it never rises to its hidden potential.

Juror #2 is a meat and potatoes drama with a strong central premise, a great cast, and a runtime that doesn't overstay its welcome. It's exactly the kind of drama made for adults that has been jettisoned to television for the last 15 or so years.

It's a singular thrill to see how deftly Hardy blends weird comedy, genuine pathos, and even pseudo-homoerotic undertones into the kind of performance that would win Oscars if it weren't housed within such a deeply unserious, commercial film product.

If Smile 2 feels just as good as the first in the moment, then it's entirely thanks to Scott, who helps anchor a story that could crack under the weight of its endless twist reveals.

It is, quite simply, a well-intentioned film that gets lost in the swampy wilderness of its own convoluted plotting and twisted character work, until all that's left is murky water.

Yes, it's still rare for a horror film to be longer than two hours, but it's especially rare for a horror film of that length to feel rushed. Terrifier 3 progresses to its climactic living nightmare too fast to be properly processed; this is likely to mirror Sienna's mental state in that moment, but it is still in dire need of an extra couple of beats to build tension before all hell breaks loose.

This film is a slog to get through, and by the end you almost feel as though you yourself have been trapped in the hole for weeks.

While Jardin is clearly a clever and creative visual stylist, he's a lot less creative with his story. His story ideas need to catch up with his visuals, then he might really have something.

As a frenetic, chaotic glimpse at the making of a doomed-to-fail sketch comedy series that has somehow lasted for 50 years, Saturday Night is a blast.

Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield are both preternaturally likable, and it's their performances and chemistry together that helps We Live in Time stand out from the crowd. Even so, the film's gimmick and its two glittering stars aren't quite enough to elevate this into must-watch territory.

The only thing holding Heretic back from instant classic status is its final act, where some of the big secret reveals end up a bit disappointing after so much great build-up.

It features an excellent ensemble cast who bring tremendous heart to each of their cinematic segments, and represents Stephen King at his most sentimental and uncynical.

The power of Fiennes' and Binoche's performances, as well as the strength of the classic tale itself, allow "The Return" to build into something both entertaining and meaningful in its final act.

The more this origin story refrains from winking and nodding at the future direction of this characters, the better it is. That it can't entirely keep itself away from this impulse is why it isn't the smooth introduction for a new generation of potential fans it could have been.

Eden will attract interest for its strong ensemble and for its intriguingly dark true story. It's an entertaining enough way to pass two hours, but it's also not a film I expect people will be thinking about long after they see it.

It wrestles with similar ideas as its source material, sure, but when push comes to shove, Watkins is more than happy to deliver all the violence and hysteria that's been bubbling underneath the surface the whole time.

Adams' great performance aside, Nightbitch is just a good but not great movie — and oddly enough, its biggest obstacle to greatness might be that it's not quite weird enough.

The problem is it can't find nearly enough to say to justify its 148 minute runtime, exhausting interest and failing to build its intriguing big ideas into a compelling story.

Although the relationship between Craig and Drew Starkey, who plays his reluctant lover, is endlessly fascinating, the film doesn't do enough to explore it, instead taking an odd third act turn into an entirely different plot and dragging out every minute of its runtime with trippy, pseudo-intellectual visuals.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt have wonderful chemistry together, as always, and they make sense as two wily, slightly over-the-hill fixers, but Wolfs itself is relatively uninspired.

The Brutalist is destined to become a classic.

Despite its faults, it showcases how much sex scenes can be used to explore character beyond their mere ability to titillate (but don't worry, there's plenty of that as well).

The film as a whole may be too sedate and ploddingly paced for some — a piano being moved back and forth, over and over again, across an elegant but lonely Parisian apartment, both literally and figuratively. But it's impossible to deny the raw emotional power of Jolie in the lead role.

Despite a cast of endearing key players, a couple of solid scares, and a story rooted in certain fears a lot of us can easily relate to, it's a film that spreads itself so thin that, by the end, the only thing it can really be is a mess.

There's enough here to win over audiences who loved the original film, particularly in its depiction of the endless bureaucracy of the Afterlife.

The '94 film's characters were more vehicles upon which to project outside feelings about grief rather than individuals one could actively grieve for, so that is an area with room for improvement. Alas, almost every other decision made in this remake actively works against the principles of good drama, good entertainment, and good messaging.

The cinematography is gorgeous, and the audacity of the twists can be darkly funny. But thinking about "Cuckoo" afterwards, I feel like I'm missing the key to making sense of and really connecting with it.

It will likely prove divisive, but Blink Twice mostly succeeds due to its scathing nature, taking off the kid gloves that most recent eat-the-rich films have tackled the 1% with. It's not a flawless debut, but it's a convincing sign that Kravitz has an even more exciting career waiting for her behind the camera.

While "Romulus" is a bit overstuffed, it's also never boring, and at its best it's one of the scariest rides you can take at the movies this summer.

While Roth and his production designer, Andrew Menzies, do many of the sets justice, particularly when the ragtag group goes to the city center, the story just can't live up to this. "Borderlands" is a poor man's version of "Guardians of the Galaxy"; while it may look kind of pretty, it has none of the personality of that earlier movie. Don't waste your time on this one.

Between characters who have no depth to them, cliched dialogue, and a strange approach towards the dynamics between an abuser and their victim, it's hard to recommend "It Ends with Us" to anyone but the most diehard Colleen Hoover fans. Pour one out for Blake Lively and Jenny Slate, who both deserve so much better.

It's almost impressive that a movie all about the power of imagination could be so creatively bankrupt and incurious about the world, but this misguided kids' film manages to be all that and so much more (or less, depending on your perspective).

Although it falls apart slightly in the third act (a treat the director is unfortunately unable to shake here), a tense narrative and unsettling performance from Josh Hartnett makes Trap a delightful late summer thriller.

Deadpool & Wolverine isn't the height of the MCU, but it is the height of the MCU right now, and for a franchise that's struggling at the moment, it's the shot in the arm that the MCU needs.

Twisters can't quite recapture the magic of its predecessor, but setting aside the Herculean task of clearing that high bar, it is nonetheless an entertaining and heartfelt attempt, if not to proudly step out of its forebear's shadow, then to charmingly poke its head out to smile and wave politely.

For me, the only unsettling surprise was the discovery that a movie featuring a diabolically unrestrained Nicolas Cage performance could be so unengaging.

While some of the old magic might be a little lost in translation, "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F" still manages to deliver just about everything we could have hoped for from a legacy sequel in this franchise. It's funny, it's action-packed, it's got heart, and it's got Eddie Murphy proving once again that he's still got it. What more could you want?

As a fun way to kill 95 minutes with your family, "Despicable Me 4" is an unassailable success, even if anyone hoping for more than clearing that low bar may be left wanting.

It's a great time at the movies for slasher fans, '80s pop culture fans, and Mia Goth fans alike, and even with a few stumbles in mind, it manages to stand as one of the summer's must-see films.

As a whole, "Day One" is different enough from its predecessors while meeting similarly high marks of filmmaking craft, resulting in a solid piece of popcorn filmmaking.

It looks beautiful, and there are no weak links within the stacked ensemble, but it winds up feeling alarmingly empty.

Despite my questions and quibbles, I'm still happy this sequel exists, even if it falls short of masterpiece status.

Shyamalan may have inherited her father's love of the twist ending, but the one she creates in "The Watchers" is as unearned and unsatisfying as they come.

Whether or not it proves a financial success, Bad Boys: Ride or Die is shocking in how effectively it pleases a crowd. It continues the work of "Bad Boys For Life," breathing new energy into a thirty year old franchise that, on paper, should have ran out of steam by now.

It's the incomparable Strong who steals the show as Cohn, the Pygmalion who carves Trump out of spray tan and ill-fitting suits to make him into the monster he becomes.

Like many high-concept satire movies, it works best in its first act when it's still setting everything up, then it loses steam when it's not quite sure where to go with the idea. The end result is an uneven yet still entertaining satirical romp, bolstered by engaging performances from its top-notch cast.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a good movie that has either the fortune or the misfortune of existing as a prequel to a nearly perfect movie.

Emilia Pérez can certainly be messy, but it's rarely a mess, and many audiences might just fall in love with its audacious, chaotic energy.

Entertaining yet depressing, surreal yet too real, frustrating yet somehow cathartic, "I Saw the TV Glow" leaves such a strong impression that it's hard to stop thinking about it days after seeing it.

Even though the film is essentially a sonnet with car crashes dedicated to the men and women behind the movie stars, much of the film's majesty comes directly from the charisma of its leading man.

The craft is there. The new characters are solid enough. Visually it's a real treat to behold. But 145 minutes is too long to spend retreading the recent past.

It's muddled in the extreme and few of its cast members make it out of the debacle unscathed, but its willful rejection of what audiences might want to see in favor of what Francis Ford Coppola wanted to make is so bold you almost have to admire it.

If nothing else, Kinds of Kindness features three show-stopping performances from Jesse Plemons, giving Lanthimos a new muse to champion.

It's a movie about the boundless imagination of children that could only have been made by a cynical adult mind, careful to restrict itself from attempting anything bold so it can algorithmically copy everything that has worked throughout decades of Amblin classics, albeit devoid of genuine heart or charm.