Whether or not it’s to anyone’s particular taste, the fact remains that this is an audacious film that asks viewers to take its hand and come along to some particularly dark, surreal, and grotesque places. Throughout that descent, it holds on with a grip that’s tight enough to keep it from spinning out into ridiculousness. If a film this bizarre can produce gasps instead of giggles, that itself is a remarkable achievement.

In a way, Monkey Man’s lack of composure is the point, and after it’s over, it’s easy to see Patel as an action star, but hard to picture him slipping into the role of a smooth agent of the colonial order. Maybe Bond’s not what he should be doing after all.

While Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice isn’t a bad movie, it’s not a very smart one. Constant plot recapping aside, this is a quick-moving comedy with plenty to enjoy.

Through the alien beauty of its visuals, Andrewin’s hidden-waters-run-deep performance, and its increasingly tense atmosphere, Tragic Jungle casts an unsettling spell.

With The Harbinger, Andy Mitton depicts a world where closeness to others is everyone’s undoing, which turns a standard haunting tale into a profound time capsule of modern dread.

Nightmare Alley is straight noir, a stylish and dark work about lies and liars. And in our current theatrical moment, its slow drama is a slightly harder sell than the latest Marvel movie, but no less of a dazzling spectacle.

It’s an extended work of parody art that’s actually funny, and an extended return to comedy from someone who is something of a master at it.

In spite of its roughly chronological timeline, The World’s A Little Blurry is formless, less a slickly crafted come-up story and more a long compilation of vignettes, many of which don’t linger long enough. It’s like scrolling through someone’s smartphone to get a sense of what their year was like: some of the discoveries are amazing, and the rest leaves questions behind.

With The Old Guard, Prince-Bythewood is taking a lead of her own, showing that this old genre still has much more life left in it, if it’ll let outsiders take charge.

This isn’t a Murakami movie; it’s the Murakami movie.

The lead actors carry the film, and the individual scenes are strong, though it never quite captures the deep longing that is threaded throughout the original.

Evil Dead Rise is a movie made by sickos for sickos. It’s a fantastic update to the iconic franchise, a movie that upholds the manic glee of Sam Raimi’s original 1980s Evil Dead films while bringing in a taste for the disgusting and upsetting from Fede Álvarez’s 2013 remake.

Reijn and DeLappe don’t seem interested in preying on real fears so much as laughingly confirming any suspicions that yes, your friends secretly talk smack about you. Bodies Bodies Bodies is a fun ride through those well-founded anxieties, but as the end credits roll, some viewers may still be waiting for more of a punch — or a better punchline.

The real joy of Togo is simple: Willem Dafoe plus dog, and sometimes Willem Dafoe plus dogs, plural. He tells them they’re good dogs. (They are.) They lick his face. (So would I.) As they race through the ice and snow, they bring a sense of warmth and life to the landscape. It’s wonderful.

Moore and Jenkins are obviously aiming higher than a self-aware noir pastiche, or at least something off to the side of one. Yet those elements of the movie are a lot more enjoyable than sort-of-dream sequences featuring yet another guy in clown makeup.

It’s appropriately goofy given the premise and the structure, but a brisk pace and a committed cast turns it into a diverting indie horror-movie spin on a familiar gimmick.

The pall of death automatically makes The Trip to Greece a more somber affair than its predecessors, but doesn’t make it devoid of fun.

As it turns out, “Don’t try to understand it, feel it” is mixed advice. Viewers won’t be able to fully understand Tenet’s dialogue, and they’re likely to have the same problem in trying to understand its convoluted plot. But there isn’t much there to feel, either, making the experience feel more like a math exam than a mesmerizing action film.

For all those nods to One Piece’s past, One Piece Film: Red is entirely accessible to newcomers. Even people who’ve never seen a single episode of the show or read any of the manga can still follow and enjoy Red. Some of the details will fly over their heads, but the lively story and engaging songs should keep them entertained.

This is a movie where the craft dominates the experience, which is thrilling for people watching for the artistry, but less convincing for viewers focused on the story.

For the most part, Weng weaves adventure and sentimentality together, but when it comes down to it, Finding ’Ohana works when it focuses on the ohana at its core.

The footage-forward approach does make the whole thing tremendously fun to watch.

This is a story written and directed by a 23-year-old. That reality defines Cha Cha Real Smooth’s truest virtue (blissful naïveté) and its grandest flaw — a blithering unawareness of reality. It’s a film defined by its myopic, narrow bandwidth.

The Lion King shed its lush animation for a more photorealistic world, which prompted many (us included) to wonder if the hyper-realistic CGi caused some of the heart to be lost from the story. The Elephant Queen, on the other hand, works with just animals and narration to create an evocative tale.

[Rob Jabbaz] can’t find the proper measure of finesse and shamelessness to marry his grotesque gore and violence to, given the moral lessons he seems to think he’s obligated to offer.

It’s a movie that may look a lot better in the rearview mirror than it does in the moment.

No matter how excessively the legitimate scares pile up, they’re startling and convincing. The editing and music are impressively tuned for maximum impact whenever the slow-burning tension resolves with an abrupt, ugly surprise. All of which makes Smile an efficient ride, if an unusually unrelenting one.

It sounds ridiculous to say, but the Borat sequel is about as optimistic as a film about the current political moment can be right now.

This might be the funniest cast Disney has ever assembled in the MCU. Every character plays off the others wonderfully, giving the whole movie the kind of chemistry that the franchise hasn’t had since the original Avengers.

For horror fans, it’s a rare treat and a fantastic exercise in taking a genre in the opposite direction that everyone else has tried.

f not for the uptempo rhythm, The Water Man’s thin plotting would make it a slog. If not for Oyelowo’s handsomely mounted camera capturing the forest in supernatural blues and reds, the audience’s attention might wander to their phones. Thankfully, the well-executed components support the fairy tale when the tale itself runs short.

The film weaves a study of what it means to discover you’ve built your life over an abyss into the fabric of a multiplex-friendly horror movie, but it wouldn’t work without Hall’s deft, complex performance.

In its creation of a hushed, lonely idyll at the end of the world, disturbed by techno-biblical visions of disaster, what it recalls more than anything else is Lost. And like Lost, it’s most assured when it isn’t explaining itself or looking for climax or resolution, neither of which it really finds.

Between the sincerity shared by Sandler and Hernangomez and the high-level craft, Hustle provides enough diversions to hoist our hearts high, even if we wind up craving more specificity from these characters and their travails.

The animation decisions in The Willoughbys heighten the message of redefining family, connecting the medium directly to the storyline.

It’s a movie made up of quiet moments: pauses in conversation, lingering glances, and outstretched hands. Lambert emphasizes the importance of these small interactions, and the ways they build up to connections. It’s a quiet story that aches in the best sort of way.

The match of material and star works so well that the story’s relative simplicity and undercooked quality aren’t too much of a stumbling block. It’s a perfect next step for Brown, and hopefully a sign of greater things to come.

Come True has some bone-chilling passages, like an epic sleepwalking sequence that feels eerily untethered from reality. Yet some chunks of it feel informed by the sleep-study scenes that unfold by the sickly glow of monitors: too clinical for pure-horror scares while lacking in convincing science fiction specifics. True to form, this is an impressively dreamlike movie: half vivid, half inexplicable.

It’s likely the best Manhattan mayhem film since Cloverfield, and it’s also a downright excellent Hollywood blockbuster, if an entirely unexpected one.

It would be easier to be less cynical if No Time to Die convincingly delivered on its commitments to Bond’s humanity, rather than nudging it into a handful of scattered scenes, around a lumbering, half-baked drama spiked with explosions and car chases.

It’s a lot to take in, but it’s joyously and creatively rendered, a fantasy epic brought to life in vivid color and with all the visual creativity a fantasy fan could want.

Fear Street: 1666 is a campy, grisly offering, and it’s also a satisfying conclusion to Deena and Sam’s arc, even though it alludes to the possibility of future explorations of Shadyside and Sunnyvale.

James Gunn’s real superpower is his ability to wear this comic-book nonsense lightly — to take it seriously within the world of the movie without feeling like he’s assigning homework.

Each half of the movie represents a different aspect of Spy x Family’s appeal, and each half is quite good for what it’s supposed to be. They just don’t gel together at feature length.

The movie gets livelier every time Stewart appears, as if on a contact high from her intoxication. Crimes of the Future needs those extra jolts of weirded-out star power. In spite of its arresting imagery, it’s sometimes more engaging to think about than to actually watch.

The film works like gangbusters, and it’s a terrific vehicle for Cage, but not for the reasons people might expect.

While Black Widow’s director and writers try valiantly to make the film a fitting swan song for Natasha and an impressive action vehicle for Johansson, tying up the Avenger’s disparate character beats across seven other movies in an action movie that out-fights her male peers, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that it’s circling around a cul-de-sac.

The film deftly balances a crowded narrative that includes a father-son reconciliation and a depiction of the dangers of running the streets.

Cameron leans all the way into manic mayhem, smash-cutting from one outrageous image to the next. The final act of this movie shows off a freeing attitude he’s never fully embraced before.

The Blackening is a strange movie, and often a very silly one. But the creators can at least boast that they’ve put something on screen that horror fans don’t see often, and won’t be expecting.

It’s unclear yet whether this attempt at the MCU-nification of young-adult horror will come together in a satisfying way, but at the very least, Fear Street: 1994 lays a solid foundation. It’s a spooky, pulse-pounding horror romp with likable characters and terrific scares.

By the end of Fresh, the film hasn’t done anything more than restating what it made clear at the start: Dating is hell, and women deserve more than to be treated like pieces of meat.

Whatever its intentions, Annette is remarkable. It’s an exhilarating collision of cinema, live concerts, stage shows, and celebrity culture, shaken up and let loose with abandon. Its message might be lost, but the emotions still hit hard, particularly in a finale that strips away the flash and artifice to concentrate on something pure, painful, and unforgettable.

As in his stand-up comedy and his appearances on “Weekend Update,” Davidson’s take on himself is self-deprecating without sacrificing emotional honesty. With Apatow and Sirus’ help, he’s created a self-portrait that feels genuine, and perfectly captures both his appeal and his potential as a movie star.

If you already have an investment in the franchise’s volleyball teams and characters, this movie hits. And boy does it capture the epic highs of the show. It’s likely to fully reignite the fandom once again.

The film’s experimental nature makes it tougher to swallow than a conventional biopic, but also more interesting and rewarding to engage with. Great performances help keep the whole enterprise anchored — Hawke and MacLachlan are wonderful as men caught in conflict with each other — and the anachronisms provide food for thought long after the film has ended.

Freaky boasts such energetic performances from the thoroughly game Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn that the horror-comedy breezes by in a pleasant, amusing way, no matter how reductive its central conceit gets.

It’s highly competent throughout, and outright brilliant at times, but it lacks the necessary level of connection with the real world. And by the end, it’s lost track even of its own hard-earned but fragile sense of emotion.

There are moments in Wakanda Forever where it feels as though the film itself might buckle under the weight of not only the expectations heaped onto it, but of the loss that animates its core premise. When it manages not only to meet the verve and creativity of 2018’s Black Panther, but ultimately to tell its own successful story, it feels no less astonishing than a man with wings on his ankles soaring through the air.

In spite of a few nail-biting sequences, Run is more of a slog than a sprint.

Smile 2 is bigger, scarier, funnier, smarter, darker, and undeniably better than its predecessor.

The goal isn’t to find a killer, so much as it is to emphasize the ways women’s stories are often dismissed, and how people who aren’t well-off aren’t offered the same institutional consideration and care as the rich. It’s a compelling point to make, but one almost lost in the movie’s murky execution.

The film moves so fast that you don’t have to dwell on its missteps for long. For every moment that feels a bit too weird, there’s a scene that’s absolutely hilarious or heartbreakingly sincere. This fairy tale is particularly twisted, but that just makes its happily-ever-after ending feel all the more earned.

It might be considered admirable how firmly Titley sticks to the facts, rather than trying to draw out a moral from the entire situation. But it leaves the story feeling more like a quirky, isolated human-interest story than a watershed moment in the development of exploitative, stunt-driven reality television.

Its statements about gender, violence, trauma, and entitlement are blaring and blatant, with little room for ambiguity or interpretation. And that absolutely seems to be the movie’s primary point.

Richardson’s task is to play off everyone else’s broadness, and his ease in doing so smooths over the rougher patches of Werewolves Within.

The warmth and tenderness with which the film explores the relationship between Brian and his creation are real.

The Imaginary isn’t as visually or narratively rich as Mary and the Witch’s Flower, or as transcendent as Miyazaki projects like The Boy and the Heron. But it does feel like a move in the right direction for Ponoc, an effort at finding its own voice and its own footing.

This film isn’t a particularly astute portrayal of war, but it does ably depict sacrifice — something ultimately missing from the movie-star restoration of Top Gun: Maverick. Comparing the two movies isn’t especially fair, but it’s still worth noting that this smaller production is doing more with less.

Mulan handily clears the bar set by live-action duds like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, but it still fails to recapture the magic of the movie it’s adapting. It forgoes the strongest ideas in the animated film (the songs and the humble origins of heroism) in order to try to tell a more conventional story.

No bodily function goes untapped in Sasquatch Sunset, which happens to be a meditative communion with North America’s glorious woodland.

Not only do Wright and Dinklage fashion an unrequited anguish worth crying over, again and again. Cyrano is the best movie musical of the last decade.

Better Nate Than Ever — based on Federle’s debut novel — shines from beginning to end, with a stellar central character and just the right amount of whimsy and reality.

Told through the lens of Verbinski’s slapstick sensibilities, Good Luck becomes both wildly original and wildly entertaining, even as it begins to break from reality in a messy final act.

It’s merely pleasant, a nice diversion that mostly suffers from the strong association with a much better film.

More importantly, the jokes are sharp, and a lot of them lean on adult sensibilities — though in the way the union bit in Shrek 2 does, instead of being crude or cruel.

Ultraman: Rising offers much more than the average animated kids’ film: It rises to stand as not only one of the best Ultraman stories in recent memory, but arguably one of this year’s best animated movies.

Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money is neither dumb enough to capture the bonkers nature of the story nor smart enough to turn it into an entertaining or even informative tale.

As Jasmine, Zoe Renee gives Master its naked emotional center. But its anchor is the terrific Regina Hall, as quietly magnetic here as she was in the underseen Support the Girls.

Scare Me plays some thoughtful games with the idea of horror-comedy, and eventually, Ruben uses the self-aware humor to sharpen the shocks.

Kingdom merely seems like an act of franchise maintenance, a reversal for a series of unusually thoughtful blockbusters. Every frame is a technical marvel. And every minute of it is probably better spent watching something else.

Elio is a big-swing movie, an attempt to push viewers out of their comfort zones and into a strange new setting. But while it successfully blasts off to a colorful new world of wonder, it doesn’t always land.

Hawke and Mendes do a fantastic job of never giving the audience a clear person to root for. At first, their friendship seems inspired, as they unite against those who wronged them. But then it turns one-sided and toxic. And then it mutates into something else entirely.

When the movie leans into the music and the love story at its core, it shines, evoking poignant emotions. But when the filmmakers try to smoosh in wildlife hijinks, it falls into the all-too-familiar trappings of the most cliché animated kids movies.

By channeling the gravitas of Western sci-fi movies, Kalki 2898 AD loses some of the range that makes Indian movies special. Its ambition is to be applauded. Its self-seriousness, not so much.

This is certainly Edgar Wright at his Edgar Wright-iest, but even as he’s arguing against celebrating the past in Last Night in Soho, he’s celebrating it himself, in ways that are hard to escape, and at times, harder still to enjoy.

Ma’s performance remains a rich source of color and emotion; the thinness of Angela’s character, on the other hand, becomes a pall hanging over the movie.

At a time when horror can feel like a studio executive’s dumping ground for cheap work and attempts at genre-bending may make less business sense, it’s a thrill to see a director like Kostanski go for broke on an absurd pitch and take the execution as seriously as Ridley Scott would on a historical epic.

Like its predecessors, Bill & Ted Face the Music is ultimately just friendly fluff, but Winter and Reeves are charming together, and the need for Bill and Ted to grow up a little helps give the film a backbone.

It’s familiar, without being cliche or tied to any existing media. At the same time, it’s innovative, in a way that celebrates its familiar genre tropes, instead of snarking at them.

The movie isn’t easy to dismiss. Its awkward comedy is often funny, and its shadowy mystery is compelling, because Abilene’s death does become more of an enigma to Ben as he learns more about her. Performers as eclectic as Holbrook, J. Smith-Cameron, Isabella Amara, and Ashton Kutcher all do their best to bring these potentially elusive characters to life.

Ron’s Gone Wrong could be a movie about the perils of social media, but it works better as a movie about recognizing that friendship requires work, no matter whether the connection blossoms through a high-tech device, or the old-fashioned way, in person.

Appropriately for a movie with two uses of “super” in its title, everything in this DB film looks and feels supersized. It’s a ton of fun to watch on the big screen.

While the movie contains some genuine heartfelt moments, the thread connecting them all is flimsy, and the core conflict is overdone. By focusing on a clichéd dilemma and doing nothing to make it particularly unique, Always and Forever concludes the trilogy on a flat note.

While this movie may feel like a Simpsons-esque case of a series failing to recapture lost grandeur, the result is still mile-a-minute fun if you can keep past expectations out of sight and out of mind. Or… you could just watch the first film again.

It’s mostly a plain thriller, but in its focus on espionage as relationship-driven work, it’s still entertaining.

Men is nearly unique as a horror movie in Harper’s specific response to the threats she faces. But even as she parts ways with the usual wailing victim image, the film still holds onto its sense of the uncanny and horrific. Even seasoned body-horror fans may be shaken by where this film goes in terms of its bloody physicality.

When the emotional heart of the movie focuses on this group of ragtag explorers desperately trying to save the world they know, it’s a grand and exciting adventure, with beautiful scenery and fantastical creatures at every turn.