Novocaine is packed full of inventive action set pieces that are alternately gruesome, goofy, and sometimes even both at once. It may not be for everyone, but it kind of feels like the gold standard for this very specific brand of action comedy.

The Electric State is a soulless exercise in the same vein as a "Borderlands" or an "Argylle," a joyless affair that feels cobbled together by studio executives who are trying so desperately hard to manufacture a crowd-pleasing success by replicating formulaic genre beats and characterizations, that they never once stop to ask why anybody would care about the story they're trying to tell.

The co-writer-slash-director's proximity to its real-life subjects means he can't put too much of an over-the-top Hollywood twist on the tale, but any intent to do justice to the reality of the story just left me wondering why he would want to tell it again if he weren't going to lean into the gloriously preposterous traits one would expect from the classic disaster movie.

Violent, laugh-out-loud funny, and often cartoonishly macabre, The Monkey is everything "Longlegs" is not, and yet it fits perfectly in Perkins' larger body of work. And like "Longlegs," it's a horror experience that should not be missed.

It's the weakest of his three English language efforts due to it feeling like he's watering down his satirical approach, spoon-feeding exposition to his audience alongside each joke under the worry that the parody might go over their heads.

Although it has some bright spots, even flickers of chemistry between its stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, it's let down by repetitive action sequences, an uninspiring reveal, and dialogue that feels as though it was written by ChatGPT.

If nothing else, it's a true feat that a movie with this many writers and this tangled an editing process ultimately wound up as solid as it did. Yeah, a lot of the action set pieces are inconsistent and choppy. Much of the CG work is reliably cheap-looking and rushed. But in the end, they pulled together what could have been an embarrassing disaster into something entertaining and, at times anyway, inspired. 

Nobody comes to a "Bridget Jones" movie for realism, but Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy understands what its predecessors struggled to, recognizing that even the most far-fetched of genre tropes becomes more palatable when pitched as cathartic to its protagonist, and the audience more generally.

If at times a little belabored. With an all-in performance from Benedict Cumberbatch and a unique visual style, "The Thing With Feathers" is an inescapably compelling drama — even if its concept is perhaps a bit more interesting than its execution.

You're Cordially Invited is good at what it does, even if you won't be thinking about it long after the credits roll. And if you do think of it, all you'll do is laugh.

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.