The biggest reason The Wailing is a must-watch for It Follows fans is that the directors and writers in both cases treat sexual violence like a forest fire that devastates everything it touches.

While it captures the fantastical quirk conjured up in Greenberg’s pages, the edges are sanded down into something more digestible.

Between the confusing plot elements, the middling horror, and the dodgy acting, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is a step backward from the first movie. It’s a disappointment: While there are moments in the movie that fans may enjoy, and plenty of robots causing chaos, the story is a mess if you don't already know the ins and outs of the series.

Returning directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard once again blend the high-concept political messaging about embracing diversity with a blitz of visual gags, pop-culture references, and endearingly silly characters that ensure Zootopia 2 never feels too preachy. The film moves at a breakneck pace, driven by several major chase scenes and a flood of jokes that come so fast that even if one doesn’t land, there’s something else to laugh at a moment later.

Now You See Me: Now You Don't is a fine movie — although it does have some glaring flaws — but its biggest sin is promising a long-awaited sequel only to deliver something completely different: it’s a reboot masquerading as a sequel, aka a requel.

Edgar Wright has built his reputation on steering his movies into unlikely, exciting places. In The Running Man, it rarely feels like anyone’s hand is on the wheel.

While there’s plenty of CGI-packed action, there’s no real tension.

The whole story hinges on a twist that’s superficially clever on paper but wildly farfetched in practice. Once that hinge has swung, Stone ratchets up the supposed tension with attempted murders, scuffles, chases, and confrontations. Yet as these attempts at excitement emerge, the movie itself flattens out.

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good point of entry, likely leaving new fans satisfied, but it also has a drawback. Telling a self-contained story limits the stakes of what should feel like a sprawling anime epic. It’s an example of why following up a successful anime season with a movie isn’t the best approach if it undermines the franchise’s overall storytelling potential.

This movie does one thing, and does it well, via methods that escalate to nearly cartoonish proportions. And it’s clear in absolutely every grim, gory, gutting-it-out scene that Helander and Tommila know exactly who they’re making this movie for.

The sequel loses the small-scale, intense focus in favor of The Conjuring-level supernatural effects and action. At its best, it’s much scarier than the first movie. But it also comes with a level of full-on action-goofiness that Derrickson and Cargill avoided in Black Phone.

Rønning’s dazzling action sequences and the killer soundtrack might be enough to satisfy fans, but Tron: Ares feels just as likely to get lost among a sea of the type of films Tron inspired.

The Conjuring movies seem consciously designed for people who use horror movies as comfort-watches. There’s no need to begrudge some well-made (if frustratingly drawn-out) sequels following heroic characters through a few satisfying shivers. But it might be just as well if Last Rites does wrap up the series as advertised. By now, the gentler rhythms of retirement fit these movies almost too easily.

The only redeeming quality: Ice Cube now has a place on Mount Razziemore in a movie I can only hope earns its own Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode.

Weapons is masterfully entertaining and far more ambitious than Barbarian, and it feels more personal in the abstract. It more closely resembles a collage of nightmares than the expertly calibrated rollercoaster ride of Cregger’s previous film. But there’s something elusive about Weapons, too, meaning that — to stick with Fincher comparisons — the movie lands somewhere between Seven’s blunt-force didacticism and Zodiac’s sophisticated ghostliness.

It’s a silly family-friendly story that stands on its own, without expecting its audience knows what came before or cares much about what comes after.

Smurfs is garbage. It’s a randomized assortment of Stuff That Happens in Kids’ Animated Movies. . . It’s mostly meaningless, or occasionally mildly offensive, if you stop to think about it. It’s also blandly drawn, stiffly animated, and maddeningly inconsistent in its visual design.

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.

Though The Old Guard 2 is only the second installment in this movie series, it’s already far weaker than its predecessor. It does just about everything worse.

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.

Ballerina may not satisfy all the John Wick stalwarts, but the movie does have its own satisfying angles, thanks to two things the filmmakers do radically differently from the rest of the franchise — and one thing they take straight from the series’ heart.

Until Dawn’s movie adaptation doesn’t fail because it’s not faithful to the game. It fails because it’s boring, in a way the game never was.

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.

Operation Undead is a stellar new entry in the zombie-movie canon that takes some real big swings: It respects the genre’s roots and need for thrills while providing a strong emotional backbone.

In the end, Sloan’s film coheres into a confident psychological thriller that’s more than the sum of its influences.

By smartly leaning on the tools of horror movies rather than war movies, the co-directors have made one of the most tense and scary movies of the year so far, along with some of the most harrowing cinematic combat ever put to film.

As Sinners accelerates toward its climax, none of it feels wasted. Its action is explosive, and while Coogler’s vicious momentum can be visually disorienting at times, the adrenaline and the way he tethers each character to a distinctly spiritual question ensure that the movie’s strengths far outweigh its flaws.

Minecraft is a game for absolutely everyone, and the movie gestures at including the same audience, with a few clumsy attempts at meaningful character relationships and personal arcs. But those subtle elements are disconnected and often contradicted by later scenes.