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.