There are a few tense moments, good performances and a fair variety of settings to make it feel like a complete journey. But by having some science-fiction cause for why nobody sleeps, it’s not about actual insomnia in any way that’s relatable to anyone.

The End’s major downfall, aside from being overlong and ideologically tepid, is that its musical numbers are dull and discordant.

Concerning itself with death and history, Swan Song asks for an assured hand, but gets an ambitious assistant’s—one whose scrutiny and interest in the assortment of ideas within the work dithers, but whose ideas are nonetheless present if left only simmering.

While the director clearly has a few tricks up his sleeve for hitting his viewers with the heebie jeebies, what he doesn’t have, at least for The Sonata, is a sense of how to weave those tricks into a unified, cohesive narrative.

As the film moves further and further from its inciting secret, watching Inez and her son age, it fades beneath their countless tone-shifting hardships—revealing a film stronger when its close-shot realism is echoed in the script.

It’s a sullen, trauma-driven approach to horror that’s far less traditional and reliant on human monsters amidst magical mysteries—not a killshot. This prolonged approach lacks decadent suspense or encompassing dread.

The technical merits and performance strengths are beyond competent here, but that’s before the 90-minute mark washes everything in the dullest shades of unsustained tension.

In many ways, The Hurricane Heist’s lack of self-awareness regarding just how dated it feels plays to its advantage. If you’re looking for that 1997 big-budget CG showcase experience without the wink-wink self deprecating irony of The Lonely Island or Deadpool, then you should be fairly satisfied with this cinematic time capsule.

Ninjago seems emotionally interesting during, and immediately boring afterward. There are plenty of parts to this movie that work and moved me, but they’re mired in a whole that doesn’t seem to recognize what’s really working.

Credited to being “based on an original idea” from star Daisy Ridley, Magpie works in fits and starts as a portrait of an unbelievably, almost comically toxic marriage, but never aspires to really plumb the psyches of its characters or present them with anything but the most obvious and unchallenged choices.

Alien: Romulus isn’t outright awful; its dystopian intro is compelling and there are quite a few devilishly constructed scares. But in its attempts to emulate every shifting form the series has taken over the years, it ends up less a perfect organism, and more a flawed creation that doesn’t meet company standards.

Raven’s Hollow is drenched in 1800s allure as cursed mythology overtakes eastern American realism. Still, you’ve likely imagined far gnarlier nightmares based on Poe’s works than what’s delivered by these lackluster visual effects. To quoth Donato? Quite a bore.

Without the affordances of prose, which let the original text explore the thoughts, memories and feelings of its protagonist, Lonely Castle in the Mirror ends up feeling like an abridged version of the book, already translated into English in 2021 by Philip Gabriel.

It’s endearing to see Burger change his typically harsh tone to create a story awash with such positivity. And just like its French original, The Upside is fairly superficial, but warm enough for the studio dumping ground known as January. One could do a lot worse.

Maybe there is, in fact, something inherently valuable in producing a sincere effort of escapism, to transport the audience to a different, less cynical, arguably “better” time. But when the audience is collectively checking their watches, it’s probably not a good sign.

For far too much of its bloated runtime, it becomes an incomprehensible slideshow of trauma and weakly executed horror imagery, only occasionally revealing the far more effective, character-driven psychological thriller it’s clearly yearning to be.

Look Both Ways feverishly whittles itself down to ensure that it keeps a wide berth from anything unsavory or controversial. The dishonesty that comes along with that timidity is a much tougher pill to swallow than the truths that might have arisen otherwise.

If only Jennifer Jason Leigh had been available for a few more days of shooting, perhaps Night Always Comes could have put some flesh on the bones of its family drama, enlivening what is otherwise an overly familiar crime caper, but like an absent parent, the supporting elements of the film just can’t be counted on when you need them.

The movie doesn’t take itself too seriously and, thus, it makes for a fairly entertaining movie night despite its flaws—just don’t expect anything more than your typical B-horror fare.

They Live in the Grey is a modest indie with thematic layers and evergreen mortal dread that could use two or three more editing bay passes.

It’s clear both The Card Counter and First Reformed are cut from that same cloth, though the latter sticks the landing better than the former.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain can’t quite live up to its magnetic subject, but it’s still a warm celebration of a renegade artist and revolutionary forbearer of the funny cat video.

The context, however much of it there is, affects little, and the whole film begins to resemble a fetish object more than an adaptation. In a bad way.

At times, Rogue Agent feels reluctant to fully engage in the kind of deception that might make it a trickier, more “fun” piece of work; it’s almost too tasteful for its own good.

Although at times it shows a remarkable focus and weight that its predecessor lacked, it also falls victim to the type of cliches and convolution that tend to doom franchises gearing towards the development of still more installments.

Regardless of whether or not Soderbergh once again made iPhone filmmaking look more visually elegant than most modern Hollywood blockbusters, No Sudden Move suffers from low stakes and a disconnect from the world of our characters.

Carry-On is good for a chuckle in fits and starts, primarily when dealing with the easily imagined workday horrors of dealing with irrational holiday travelers in a packed American airport, or the behind-the-scenes camaraderie of the TSA with their bingo cards for items such as confiscated drugs, weapons or embarrassing sex toys. There’s also a few well-executed action sequences.

Look into My Eyes is a unique window into the minds of those who, like Wilson, experience a lot of feelings about the state of the world, but aren’t quite sure what to say or do about them.

It’s in-joke heavy, tailoring an experience that tears iconic dialogue from classic predecessors and slathers on the meta-overload like popcorn swimming in clarified butter.

Jones suffuses slow-burn tension, disturbing visual elements and murky folk horror into a film that’s foundation rests on creeping uncertainties—making The Feast pleasantly obscure and occasionally quite upsetting.

Like its confusing title, Mother/Android never really figures out what it wants to say.

A queer ghost story with devastating emotional power and transgressive themes of domination, selfishness and abandonment, it is all too often hamstrung by plodding stylistic choices and a thin script that stretches many of its interactions until they’re so thin, threadbare and ethereal that they end up just as spectral.

What’s missing here is heart. While the message of Spirit Untamed is a good one (some things are worth fighting for; you have to let your children make their own mistakes), it’s hard not to see the movie as an easy money grab.

In a case of cinematic superposition, a franchise built to go small, to ride on more personal stakes and the casual chemistry of Ruddian charm and likable group dynamics, must now also fully introduce not only an entire universe/microverse but the next Thanos-level threat much of the MCU will be centered around in the coming decade. Frankly, it’s a lot to ask of an insect-themed hero.

Kaluuya and co-writer Joe Murtagh preach a message from the heart, but the inner workings of The Kitchen ring more hollow than the remarkable visuals suggest.

In the end, The Apprentice is a story whose central character wouldn’t really justify the telling of said story in normal circumstances, except for the fact that he eventually became a ruinous president of the United States.

Players is entirely watchable, offering up some laughs and some elements that may be considered romance in the age of Tinder. But if you’re looking for that cozy feeling of warmth after watching a genuinely good rom-com, however, Players doesn’t quite play ball.

It’s clear that Luhrmann has a genuine affection for his eponymous star—having ensured that the film’s contents were above-board with Elvis’ relatives—but even with all of his auteurist trimmings, Elvis shares a narrative flatness with this new wave of musical biopics.

There’s not much to Elevator Game, and McKendry struggles to find the film’s extra gear, which underwhelms in its familiarity instead of finding comfort in the YouTuber satirization that has become popular with the rise of social media.

A more pungent concoction of community terror and conjured trauma would be able to hold stronger, not disappointingly drift away like a lullaby into the wind.

The Dating Game plot is strong, and while it is a rather freaky piece of trivia, it is more of a footnote in Alcala’s murder spree than the entire story.

Clerks III is far from a perfect film. Absolutely drenched in masturbatory nostalgia and teeming with timely Marvel references, it milks the last drop of creative potential these nearly 30-year-old characters are capable of providing. Yet, somehow, these marked setbacks don’t completely bog the film down.

It’s a hagiography more than anything, one that does benefit from access to an intriguing library of behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and outtakes, but rarely does I Like Me know how to connect this material to any kind of deeper insight into John Candy’s psyche, with a few notable exceptions that ultimately aren’t enough.

Tina Mabry’s new film The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat plays like a Golden Corral that’s begun to tarnish with an overstuffed menu of narrative choices, none of which arrive fully cooked.

Directed by Jacqueline Castel in her feature debut, My Animal’s moody dreams are in a territorial brawl with its small-town realism, which in turn barks and snaps at its soapy plot. Its fable eventually hunts down more than a trite analogy for perceived deviance, but its blend of visual and narrative tones favors the laconic over the lycanthropic.

I’m torn on Barbarians, because while the film displays sharpened technical filmmaking chops, it’s an unbalanced invasion thriller caught between its subgenre intentions.

It’s still a bit of a romp, but sacrificing both its logical plotting and dark humor with shortcuts (and not quite having an ending, just kind of stopping once it’s out of gas), cuts the legs out from under Fresh.

For a mystery, Wake Up Dead Man is surprisingly bad at making its ensemble feel essential to the stakes.

While not quite a complete experience that sticks the landing, The Sound of Silence is nevertheless an impressive debut from a fresh new filmmaker.

Expressive and appropriate costume design looks the part, but the experience doesn’t fully embrace what kill-or-be-cracked-open thrills are openly promised.

Chupa is a rascally, if not the boldest or most artfully composed, coming-of-age fable that proudly represents Mexican culture.

Power does get points for keeping No Exit’s runtime to a brisk and lean 90 minutes, but he doesn’t have as deft a handle on all the other various working parts of the story.

The Desperate Hour, while consistently entertaining and confidently boasting a tight, no-frills script, fights too hard to explain that it does not exist purely by virtue of it being a fun kind of story to tell.

What initially feels like a budget presentation about the issues of being stuck in space and several proposed solutions (explored at various lengths) ends up feeling both too structured and, eventually, too scattered for its fascinating yet still speculative subject matter.

Where The Witch unleashes disturbed cinematography or Lizzie swings a vicious ax, The Last Thing Mary Saw is a duller distillation of the fear-based corruption that faith can spread.

For a designated last great hope of original sci-fi, this is a surprisingly programmatic picture.

Caught between these conflicting expectations, it’s hard to appreciate Cruella as a whole. It’s overlong, with endless endings, and invites more conversations about it as a curious corporate product than as a cohesive movie. But it can also be perversely enjoyable with its flashy playlist-while-playing-dress-up aesthetic and brash, heightened central actresses.

Psycho Therapy’s screenplay derails it in its closing minutes with genuinely whiplash-inducing abruptness, running out of gas when it’s still seemingly far from its natural finish line.

Sure the entire plot of Trolls Band Together and the movie’s best jokes are revealed in the trailer. But the movie’s target audience is the same audience that can watch Frozen 20 times. They certainly aren’t going to mind that they already know what is going to happen.

Despite clearly aiming to craft an intentional aesthetic, writer/director duo Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp’s film is inundated with tributes to irreverent indie crime film staples without bothering to carve out a unique voice of its own.

Snyder is trying to do so much here that the whole thing practically collapses under its own weight, a victim of its own attempt at bombast and visual iconoclasm.

The look of Dragon Ball is changing, and Super Hero represents its growing pains. But it also represents a willingness to look its longevity in the face and, like all long-running serials, see what passing the torch once again really means.

You Should Have Left works when it’s a streamlined campfire ghost story, but the unnecessary bells and whistles weighs it down. Still, it’s just good enough to work as a timewaster for genre fans.

Bad Boys for Life is better than it should be—the audience at my screening clapped when it ended—but not quite up to being what it must: a reminder that, you know what, a thousand years from now, Bad Boys will still fucking be here.

Huda’s Salon uses strong thread to sew its dual narratives together, but “together” is all they are. They don’t cohere or complement each other save for providing two distinct paths into Abu-Assad’s exploration of Palestinian identity and life, contextualized in women’s experiences as members of a patriarchal society.

Hopefully if they make a second installment in The Tearsmith series, those behind it will dare to step a little further outside of their self-imposed genre restrictions.

The deeper Some Freaks wades into what becomes a series of sadistic and masochistic humiliations, the more McDonald’s film begins to feel schematic, with these characters little more than pawns in a screenwriter’s game of toying with our expectations.

The plot of Luck is far too dense and convoluted. I suspect the movie’s target audience won’t have the patience for it. Maybe they will be distracted by the sparkly crystals and funny unicorns.

There’s a lot of talent on the screen, some catchy music, and some wonderful visuals and design choices, but none of it ever quite adds up to something bigger, leaving us with a film that’s ambitious but strangely hollow.

I’m not sure White ever cracks his own film’s code, but you can tell he’s passionate about whatever Outlaw Johnny Black becomes. That conveyance elevates what could have been an even messier modern Western with throwback appeal.

On the whole, for a filmmaker at the start of her career, The Balconettes is a rather impressive display of Merlant’s talents. It balances its more serious subject matter with dark humor to navigate a modern world where it feels as though women are more at risk than ever before, and it does so with stylistic flair.

The Invitation takes way too long getting to its most interesting ideas, leaving us with the distinct feeling of “too little, too late.”

The movie stars are present, the film looks slick and shiny, and the adventure doesn’t ever let up, but something about it ultimately rings hollow, and by the second hour, you’re left wondering what the point of all of this is, at least until the characters outright explain it to you without any real emotional payoff.

It doesn’t necessarily matter—nothing matters, really—but Dark Fate is so self-serious, so expositionally overwhelming, that its tendency to tell rather than show bleeds into its every aspect.

The feeling is one of depletion, as V/H/S/99 begins robbing past hits in a grim effort to keep itself mobile and vital.

Writer/director Kipp expands his short into a feature that at times struggles to elongate an otherwise poignant message, leaving other worldbuilding details behind in a way that undercuts structural integrity. I’m all for awareness, but wonky narrative stumbles aren’t ignorable.

An irreverent mix of genres taken completely seriously but with no small amount of fun, Devil’s Gate wears its script’s stupidity on its sleeve and allows its creature effects and committed cast to carry it throughout.

Its technical motions are janky and unpolished, but that doesn’t discredit Mackay’s stronger voice as a storyteller and scene composer. So Vam is a tale of intent versus execution, masking low-budget gumption with passionate narrations.

It’s a kid’s movie with some adult moments and lots of nerdy references, along with new interpretations of familiar characters, just as you would expect.

Even though it suffers from tonal and narrative inconsistencies, Dora and the Lost City of Gold deserves just enough praise for working as a gateway action/adventure exotic exploration movie for kids to eventually get into Indiana Jones, while sporting a central performance that’s effortlessly charming and instantly lovable enough to almost carry the entire project.

An under 90-minute runtime does the film a massive favor, but Stanleyville is still an overextended last-person-standing confrontation of life’s ultimate acceptance that fulfillment may not ever be achievable.

For some, Piercing may be a sign of an exceptionally talented filmmaker still finding his stride, this expertly handled erotic thriller an imaginative, stylized headache. For others, Piercing may be all those things, but ultimately not worth the punishment.

Director Cate Shortland tries to leaven this particular loaf o’ unacknowledged concussions, fractures and tissue damage with family drama and trauma.

There is power in the inescapable, in the dreaded endpoint of becoming news after a lifetime spent fearing it—mourning it. But despite its length and artistic competence, Brother’s lack of affecting specificity displays rather than embodys grief.

Silently dumped onto Netflix and non-existent as an entry on Letterboxd, Blasted is a perfectly fine sci-fi comedy destined to fade into obscurity.

The Woman in the Window succeeds when it comes to constructing an adequate cinematic language to tell the story of its original source material, but tends to overcompensate for its narrative shortcomings.

One could argue that the fairly straightforward biographical approach is meant to act as a primer for those have never once tuned into Turner Classic Movies; on the other hand, rapid-fire references to Godard’s contemporaries, including petty feuds and clashing reputations, are calibrated so that cinephilic savants can pat themselves on the back for getting the reference.

Springsteen’s earnestness makes him seem like a nicer, more open-hearted sort than Dylan in A Complete Unknown. It also makes for a less prickly character in a less entertaining movie.

The Glass Castle is a two-hour fight between a messy, sad, angry real-life family story and a Hollywood movie that keeps trying to soften all the edges and turn the tale into something “inspirational.”

Lawrence (and his star, Jennifer Lawrence) want to leave no doubt that this is the lurid, infuriating stuff of the adult-minded, drenched in sophistication and pain—much like Lawrence’s dystopic vision for The Hunger Games, only anchored in the hyperreal world of the New Cold War we may be starting to realize isn’t “new” at all.

It’s unclear whether Frank actually wants to make sense of his subject’s complexities, but regardless, Remembering Gene Wilder doesn’t succeed. Its center remains unknowable, conceivable only in brief flashes.

At times, the movie’s pleasingly jumpy visual scheme and nostalgic 2003-era cheese threaten to form an alliance and make Madame Web work in spite of itself. After all, the movie, even or especially in its worst moments, never gets dull (or weirdly smug, like its sibling Venom movies). It also never fully sheds a huckster-y addiction to pivoting, until it’s pretty far afield from what works about either a superhero movie or a loopy woo-woo thriller.

A small cadre of performers and a play-like production—split into three contained acts that leap decades and single-location settings—keep the indie charmingly subdued, but the movie is so literal when drawing attention to its own underdeveloped themes that it boldly challenges you to be ignorant of the genre’s most basic philosophical bullet points.

The Roads Not Taken works when Bardem and Fanning are on screen together, where Potter’s experiences caring for her sibling rise to the writing’s surface and give the narrative a punch of honesty.

Labaki’s filmmaking suggests uncertainty at best and lack of confidence at worst. She layers on the suffering too thick.

On the strength of the leads’ performances—as well the semi-original setting in which the zombie apocalypse is relatively (and somewhat refreshingly) contained—Maggie nearly warrants a recommendation.

The film only gets as far as the beach, and James’ breathy line readings, and Scott Thomas’ icy supporting performance. It never bothers undressing.

Garai’s array of filmmaking techniques are impressive and haunting, breathing an unsettling melancholy into her script.