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.

Those looking for bleak, slow horror and who are willing to suspend plenty of disbelief might want to check it out, but it won’t rock the worlds of the rest of us.

There’s texture here, unnerving ambience as proof of Glass’ budding talents. But less isn’t always more, and while Saint Maud doesn’t need much, it simply doesn’t have enough to make an impression lasting beyond one second of terror.

As an arrival, Undergods impresses, but what’s under the surface needs finessing.

If you’re using “fabulous” to mean fable-like, then The Fabulous Four is in fact fabulous—in that we’ve seen it in too many other stories before.

Even with exhilarating plague montages and stomach-dropping illusions of scale amid the many battles, the characteristically brilliant shots for which the famed director is known can’t compensate for the completely tone-deaf overall result—so far removed from the days in which the filmmaker brought us Alien.

The main novelty, and the film’s primary pleasure, is the commitment of its cast to its bloody, profane vapidity.

There’s a natural tendency to want to like Greta so that you don’t feel like a killjoy or a snob. But as much as I appreciated Jordan and his actors’ balance of high and low, I rarely treasured its trashiness.

There’s room in the horror space for a movie like this – a daft campfire tale best told in the damp morning after, part creature feature and part noodling about the nature of humanity. The Watchers may even find an enthusiastic sleepover audience, with its endearing PG-13 spookiness. But unlike other Shyamalan forays into the uncanny, it’s more functional than fully formed.

The Color Purple is involving on a scene-to-scene basis, but it has a processional quality. Though it’s less constrained than Spielberg’s sometimes sentimentalized version of the material, the new movie isn’t less sentimental – or less thirsty for audience approval.

The main attractions for Marvel’s Ten Ring circus are better when freed from the MCU’s captivity.

One of the more frustrating experiences in appraising art is arriving at the confusing intersection of admiring an artist’s work, while simultaneously not particularly enjoying it.... Bill Watterson’s fiercely creative yet endlessly frustrating Dave Made a Maze leaves the viewer in precisely this uncomfortable position.

The movie doesn’t drag, but it’s a major drag all the same.

Lopez indulges a different form of movie-star vanity than simply making herself over as an unstoppable woman of action. The movie pretends to conceal her mothering sensitivity, but it’s actually flaunting the same maudlin old-man sentimentality that drives so many Liam Neeson vehicles, minus the genuine anguish Neeson can usually summon on cue.

Its dedication to Long’s point-of-view is admirable, but Lee’s filmmaking hits the brakes like a student driver, sacrificing what made the framing narrative enticing in the first place.

Like its muddy multi-movie gamble, the ideas are there for Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. But like its characters, it’s happy to follow the path of least resistance.

Though Cohen has made a formidable name for himself in the visual aesthetics of rock ‘n’ roll, his feature debut is unfocused and emotionally flimsy, no doubt a product of Cohen’s first-film inhibitions.

Aside from the one chilling scene grafted straight from The Ten Steps and its gorgeous, historic filming location, The Cellar just isn’t that deep.

Ticket to Paradise has all the components for a successful rom-com: A strong cast, a playful and inventive premise, a beautiful location. But the cast isn’t given much to do, the premise gets lost along the way, and even though the film was shot mostly on location in Australia, its oversaturated and sterile cinematography makes it look like CGI.

Yet there’s some kind of invisible force here, hurrying things along in the hopes of a future team-up, making sure this feature film arrives more undead than alive.