The sequel feels compromised, lumped with easy lessons about family and community, piecemeal and cobbled together from bigger ideas and the ever-nagging intuition that the sell-by date on the franchise has long expired.

Despite the documentary’s scattered approach, it’s not exactly a chore to take interest in the backstory of such an iconic moment in American cultural history.

Don’t Die offers an engrossing window into the mania of a unique individual, one with the outlandish resources to do something that no normal person would even be able to dream about attempting.

Regrettably, a gross number of missteps overshadow the Hawkes’ good intentions with this film. Even without Maya Hawke’s frumpy hag drag as O’Connor, complete with too-large dentures and an unfortunate wig, the lack of creative risk taken by the filmmakers, as well as the lack of research done by the team, sinks Wildcat before it gets started.

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.

This is a universally powerful story, with terrific songs and countless funny and fascinating supporting characters. It’s a classic of performance and sensation. This version, seemingly by design—like that was the damned plan all along—drains every bit of life from it … in order to make it more “realistic.”

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 lessons are sweet, the kid actors are cute, and the kid audience will probably enjoy it accordingly. Whether it sticks in their memory for 20 years or even a few months, though, is another question entirely.

Godard Mon Amour captures the complications and the controversy, but Hazanavicius struggles to drum up meaningful insights into what makes Godard Godard.

If you want to make a slasher-level action-mayhem movie, make the damn movie; don’t pretend your excuses for ultraviolence come from a humanist core. Mayhem! yearns to be taken seriously in all the wrong places.

The weary and plodding story putters along the redemption arc’s curve, losing faith even in itself along the way.

A deeply moving cinematic experience that entangles threads of Mexican history with one man’s surreal odyssey through life, death, success and grief.

As with Free Guy, Reynolds and Levy have made a movie aimed at the dead center of mainstream geek culture, designed to be described as having so much heart—even though it’s as smooth and featureless as a Funko Pop.

Honestly, though, Along for the Ride is perfectly cozy, in part due to its formulaic nature. It might not be the most visually stunning work—at times, certain shots feel amateurishly disorienting—but it possesses an undeniable artistic heart.

Entertaining and surprisingly gory, though not particularly ingenious, The Sacrifice Game is a fairly enjoyable and under 100-minute caper about incompetent demon-worshippers led by Disney’s own Prince Aladdin, Mena Massoud, and the power of friendship between women.

One point in favor of Bruckner’s new Hellraiser is that it takes some time before it feels truly lost.

Even some of its rawest emotional moments feel studiously cribbed from other movies, which is probably why not a single thing any character does throughout Don’t Make Me Go is genuinely surprising or even slightly unexpected. It’s a movie about the unpredictability and inherent dangers of a life well-lived, and you can set a watch to its screenwriting beats.

Don’t Move’s protagonist may be rendered inert, but the film retains just enough energy and menace to spare.

Even Bahadur’s stupid voiceover writing becomes funnier over time as we realize the clichés and groaners only serve to show what an ultimately lame writer Bahadur was—that it was his bravery, stubbornness, hope, inquisitiveness and stupidity that made him great.

Yet in spite of this promising narrative foundation, the film’s gruesome effects and the compelling performance from Blumm, Son seriously suffers from assorted perils of predictability and protractedness.

Feig and company’s extension of the material gleefully indulges in the same silly B-movie theatrics, including but not limited to: murder, extortion, opulent wardrobes, twin confusion, and incestuous relationships. On one level, its self-awareness and love for its own convoluted nature make it seductively enjoyable. On another, it feels like a familiar, less effective retread of ground already well-tread by its predecessor.

In her recent roles, like Lamb and the imminent You Will Not Be Alone, Rapace has expressed boundless terror and awe in the pursuit of existential questions about being human. In Black Crab, she reminds us with steely resolve that she’s incredibly capable at performing toughness, too.

Most of Best Sellers’ problems have to do with structure instead of performance, so there’s not much that Plaza and Caine can do. They’re stymied by the writing and constricted by the direction.

Miguel Wants to Fight is a flyweight comedy with the misfortune of coming out the same year as the similarly style-forward, action-spoofing teen reckoning Polite Society.

Ultimately, Zack Snyder’s Justice League feels like just another name for a Special Edition Blu-ray that contains all the scenes.

It will entertain children, and it will inspire another sequel. Call it DreamWorks zen.

Those who choose to embrace the uncertainty get an enjoyable exercise in suspending rationality. Tucked away in the film’s charmingly light and plucky script is a profound challenge for Fodor, and for us: To hold logic and antilogic in our minds at once.

While its larger ideas never fully find their feet, The Queen of Black Magic lights a fire beneath the soles thanks to its continuous flow of gags—eventually developing into an almost Hellraiser-esque carnival of punishment.