Skillfully weaving in themes of race, gender, abuse, and historic injustice while making each character authentically human, the film calls on us to consider the human strength and the human cost of history.

Kevin Hart: What Now? is Kevin Hart at the top of his game.

The 2024 version of The Killer is obviously competently made–the Hong Kong director still knows how to stage an action sequence, well into his seventies—but the truth is that this version of the film does absolutely nothing better than the original. It’s a movie that’s generally watchable but almost instantly forgettable, which the best of Woo never is.

Despite its shortcomings, “Saturday Night” works as a crowd pleaser for those who watched Chevy Chase take command of the Weekend Update desk, John Belushi tear up a stage with his intensity, or Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner crack up the audience with their absurd characters.

Buried beneath this melodrama—but shining through nearly enough to justify a look — one can see the film that could have been, as anchored by great performances and emotional truth. It’s just lost in the fog.

It’s simultaneously a parody of American middle-class notions of contentment yet at the same time a disarmingly sweet and sincere endorsement of it.

Where Bad Hair is not so successful, however, is in reckoning with the hornet’s nest it kicks regarding its subject matter. At almost two hours, Simien has time to interrogate the natural vs. processed hair argument instead of only hinting at it occasionally.

A saccharine stab at a new holiday perennial that tries to fuse the classic Yuletide yarn with a “Shakespeare In Love”-style literary origin story and manages to let both of them down, not to mention a performance by Christopher Plummer as Ebenezer Scrooge that deserves a much better showcase than the one provided here.

The opening moments of the first act are rendered as the film’s best, as No One Will Save You continues to fall apart due to a frustrating lack of narrative context.

Both an overstimulated multimedia lecture and an anxiety-stoking conspiracy thriller, “The Grab” urges viewers to follow the money, look at the big picture, and so on.

Hollywood remains terrified that the hunky male product they’re selling to millions of swooning women might turn out to be gay, and “ruin the fantasy” these fans supposedly covet. One can only wonder if an openly LGBT actor can be as huge today as Tab Hunter was in his day. The verdict is still out on that.

The result is a film that often feels like Zahler’s most assured to date. Self-indulgent? Oh yeah. A provocation? You bet. But it’s difficult to ignore the craftsmanship and performances in Dragged Across Concrete simply because you don’t like some of its darker themes or feel like it’s too long.

Directors and co-writers Adam and Aaron Nee understand exactly what their audience wants—much like a good romance novelist might—and deliver an undeniably charming (and refreshingly IP-free) romantic romp.

There are large chunks of What We Become that feel like something we’ve seen before, a repeat of the AMC series perhaps, and just when it’s getting interesting, it ends, almost like it’s a pilot for a new series.

The Commune, featuring a great ensemble cast (many Vinterberg regulars), doesn't really focus all that much on what happens when you put a bunch of charismatic individuals into one house.

It's filled with big sets, big stunts, and what ought to be big moments, but few of them land.

The documentary connects his present day work ethic to his past, and contrasts yesteryear’s heartbreaks to the large, family-filled parties he still enjoys. Jones did so much more than just unleash some of pop’s most successful records of all time.

This movie doesn’t work well as an edifying documentary, but it might go over well with anyone who wants to follow its unconvincing conspiracy-theory-like logic (apparently, genetic research is bad because it's "playing God" and is partly underfunded and overseen by the Chinese government and cocky American scientists!).

A film like The Invisibles is part of bearing "precise witness." We clearly need reminders, and constant ones, of the end result of "otherizing" an entire group of people.

Thankfully, we also get a sharp picture of the inimitably cool Doda as more than just a symbol of both exploitation and cultural change, but also as an ambitious entertainer, a caustic wit, and a melancholic enigma who hid just as much of her internal self as she shared her body with the public.

Guillermo del Toro would love “Stitch Head.” This animated, family-friendly take on the classic “Frankenstein” tale has a soft spot for its monsters, most of whom are soft and squishy themselves.

The same weakness that has plagued a goodly portion of major releases this year that rely on past successes for their reason to exist rears up again: the lack of the new and fresh.

There have been complaints about MCU properties that feel like they exist merely to get people interested in the next movie or TV show, but it’s never felt so much like a snake eating its own tail as it does here. Or at least the spell has worn off for me.

If you loved the 2003 “Freaky Friday,” you’ll probably enjoy “Freakier Friday,” for the simple reason that it’s more or less the same movie, but with new characters added to the existing cast, and more complicated plot mechanics. Way more complicated. This is “Freaky Friday” to the fourth power.

Features some of the worst post-synching seen in any recent movie. If Eisenstein, the consummate craftsman, would have regretted Greenaway’s penchant for pointless and overdone circular tracking shots, he surely would have groaned at how the actors’ lips here and the words they speak are so often on different timetables.

The film is, in that sense, the ultimate fan film since it monotonously aggregates previously existing scifi/fantasy tropes. Rejoice, Gen X viewers, for now you can uncritically enjoy your childhood's junk food culture just because you're looking at the past through the rose-colored lenses of the future.

All the stylishness and enthusiasm cannot disguise the fact that the mystery itself never comes close to those concocted by Dame Agatha. Then again, no one else has topped her either.

That the filmmakers are able to pursue their theme to the extent that the true story on which the film is based obliges them to somehow has to be credited to Renner. His performance is very good, despite the somewhat stereotypical bro characteristics with which the Webb character is here endowed.

There’s a significant difference in quality between the mediocre scenario (and dialogue) and thrilling production design (and direction) in White Snake.

The all-live action section of this movie is lit and shot almost exactly like an episode of “The Adventures of Pete and Pete.”

Landsman’s film is enraging for all the right reasons, and more than a few wrong ones as well. It comes off as more of a puff piece than an exposé.

This is a film noir that is, despite some jittery, Tony Scott-esque action sequences, so cool, that you will leave it begging for a sequel.

In the end, this is a sufficiently rebellious film about women’s refusal to be forced into sandboxes fashioned by oppressing norms—about fighting for air and resisting the urge to sink into that quicksand, however beautifully decorated.

This is neither a trifle nor a truly Major Motion Picture; it’s an entertainment maybe in the sense that Graham Greene used the term. But one needn’t be so hifalutin about the matter.

The goofier and more random the movie is, the better it is, and it certainly gets goofier and more random as it goes.

On paper, this sounds like a potentially fascinating combination but the film emerging from it proves to be anything but that. Instead, it proves to be such an overly ponderous exercise that, by the time it finally comes to an end, you may feel so sapped of energy that find yourself struggling to get up out of your seat.

Even at a brisk 79 minutes (including credits), “Glorious” feels like an intriguing idea that’s been stretched thin to feature length.

Then comes another scene nonsensical scene, and another, and another, each seemingly disconnected from the scene that preceded it. Plot, logic, continuity, become even more meaningless than they were already, which is saying something. It's as if the movie itself has lost its mind. And it was at that point, dear reader, that the reviewer fell in love with the movie.

Lean, sincere, impassioned filmmaking, yet it fails to leave as much of an impression as it clearly wants to.

With a script by Eric C. Charmelo, Nicole Snyder and Shepard, The Perfection has a gory grindhouse sleaze overlaid with the tony gleam of the upper-crust, a very sick combo.

Setting up a political drama in stereotypical black-hat/white-hat fashion results in enjoyably cartoonish villains like flamboyant gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (deliciously played by Helen Mirren) and the usual blacklist martyrs, but it also deprives the story of the nuance and complexity for which it cries out.

Trocker is deft at creating situations that go right up to the edge of blatant symbolism or metaphor, bit resist the urge to pitch themselves over the brink and become blatant and simplistic.

The movie’s flabbiness, its unfocused flopping from scene to scene, its disinclination to provide any individual scene with any dimension beyond its immediate impact, practically vitiates the entire theme of Dickie’s ostensible mentorship of Tony Soprano.

As a date-night viewing option for this weekend, this nearly all-sung autopsy of a failed marriage would pretty much qualify as a Valentine’s Day massacre.

For Plummer’s plum of a performance alone, you might want to make an exception for The Exception.

Rourke, who comes to the film industry from the theater, has an eye for pageantry and staging that make even dull conversations about power struggles feel lively.

Small Crimes works in part but is strangely murky in others. There's a lot of dead air. It's the pettiness, the small-ness of the characters that makes the greatest impression.

While it may not quite be the modern-day “Casablanca,” it is nevertheless a grandly entertaining stab at old-fashioned storytelling...buoyed by smart and stylish filmmaking, a good performance by Brad Pitt and an even better one from Marion Cotillard.

Marshall's film does not only aim to document animal rights activism but also to propagate it, and in that it is less successful. This is a film overflowing with passion and compassion but often lacking the intellectual detachment necessary to distill conviction into a rigorous argument.

Dazzlingly impressive from a technical perspective but frustratingly dull from a narrative one, Medusa Deluxe is an ambitious but uneven experience.

Luckily, it smartly balances references to the original movies in a way that (mostly) avoids the self-aware smugness that has killed many a “re-quel,” delivering a product that feels consistent with the first four movies but distinct enough to have its own voice.

People going to C.O.G. expecting a re-creation of one of Sedaris's reliably uproarious readings of his own material will be disappointed. People who approach it as a film in its own right, with its own rhythms and goals and pleasures, will be amply rewarded.

What’s most rewarding about curator Sam Abbas’ short film collection, Erēmīta (Anthologies), is in how it magnifies the ways in which all of us, regardless of where we live, have become intrinsically connected by the challenges of this unprecedented era.

As far as spin-offs go, “Lightyear” is a lot of fun. The voice talent is topnotch, especially Palmer and Evans.

Realistically, Overlord is a simple mechanism to deliver squib packs and swear words, a function that the film's creators accomplish despite their otherwise unremarkable story's choppy pacing and general humorlessness.

It’s not a good sign when we find ourselves admiring the background art more than what is happening in front of it, but it is more imaginative than the characters and story.

While the premise eventually grows thin and the jokes turn repetitive by the third act, the chemistry between the movie’s three stars is both lively and substantial enough to keep the antics enjoyable.

While it meanders more often than it should with some pretty slack pacing, strong character work by Neeson and an excellent supporting cast hold it together.

Appealing on a scene-by-scene basis but generic like its title — it might as well have been called “About a Girl” as a thematic nod to Chris and Paul Weitz’s superb 2002 film — Steiner’s dull comedy lacks the crucial feelings that could have made the suburban aunt-niece tale at its center more memorable.

It’s a testament to .Paak’s own journey, and the seemingly healthy relationship with both this genre of music and his child, that this movie eschews so many of those struggle-bus tropes. I just wish it translated to something with a bit more oomph, rather than another blandly sincere family film.

The most surprising thing about director/writer/star Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn is how drastically it departs from its source.

The Whale is an abhorrent film, but it also features excellent performances.

The Newell Great Expectations is just a good-looking Classics Illustrated rundown, something to help high schoolers labor through a Dickens English assignment a little faster.

Crawl has a reptilian bite in its nods to the tradition of underwater monster flicks. It’s certainly not “Jaws” (what is?), or even “The Shallows,” but sloshing around the hazardous deluge of a Southwest Florida town on the brink of devastation by a Category 5 hurricane comes with its own kicks.

It isn’t a bad movie as much as a dead one, never managing to click in the way all involved presumably hoped it would.

Much of Matthias & Maxime is pedestrian to the extreme, and there is a general lack of character development across the board, but the way Dolan chooses to frame things, the visual choices he makes, the way he revels unashamed in the big-ness of the emotions, makes it an entertaining ride.

There’s plenty to explore about people who hide their true selves behind text and decoys, but Sierra Burgess is a Loser is dumber and more desperate than any episode of “Catfish,” even the one where a guy thought he was dating Katy Perry for five years.

Costner’s uncanny evocation of Gary Cooper masculinity and Gregory Peck compassion in the role of coach Jim White is the glue that holds it together, but the rest of the cast is equally inspired.

Ultimately, the cacophony of all these plot lines converging and the weight of the messaging being conveyed is almost too much to bear.

While the first hour of “New Gods: Yang Jian” is about as attractive as it is surreal, the back half only works if you care about the destinies of its undistinguished protagonists.

Its lessons about how kindness and inclusion benefit both the giver and the receiver are welcome, but its gentle reminder to view even the oldest and best-known story with fresh attention and connection may be even more meaningful.

Plenty watchable and inspired from a visual standpoint, The Nowhere Inn is a less refined and less provocative relative of Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, Brady Corbet's Vox Lux, or Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine.

The characters in A Perfect Day don’t get to indulge in much eccentricity because they’re too busy banging their wills against bureaucratic idiocy.

Because Disney wants your money, of course. I don’t begrudge their need for greed; I just wish they hadn’t given us yet another movie built on the pseudo-psychological cliché that adults need to reconnect with their childhoods in order to be better adults.

One of those quick-witted films in which if one character or plot thread doesn’t work for you, all you have to do is wait a minute for another.

Gadot remains a winning and winsome figure in “Wonder Woman 1984,” and she retains her authentic connection with the audience, but the machinery around her has grown larger and unwieldy. Maybe that was inevitable, the urge in crafting a sequel to make everything wilder and brasher, more sprawling and complicated. In the process, though, the quality that made the original film such a delight has been squashed almost entirely.

In this version, she is not the helpless girl driven to madness and likely suicide by a lover’s rejection. Played by “Star Wars” heroine Daisy Ridley, she has courage, intelligence, integrity, and agency. In this story, neither she nor the Danish prince she loves waste time worrying about whether to be or not to be. She is fully alive in every moment and ready to act to protect herself or those she loves.

There are gentle surprises in the trip’s unexpected turns and setbacks, and thankfully, Simon-Kennedy knows where she’s going.

The Heat is violent, with some pretty gruesome moments and some questionable police work. That's part of the fun. Cagney and Lacey these two ain't. When they finally join forces, they go rogue with a gusto that is refreshing.

It’s an unfortunately apt demonstration of what can befall a clever filmmaker who gets too clever.

While the lessons of “The Choral” feel applicable to our present moment, Hytner is careful to ground its story in a richly realized setting of a different era.

If you treat Tomorrowland mainly as an immense cinematic theme park that unveils a new "ride" every few minutes—just as Bird's last feature, "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" was mainly a series of action scenes—its weaker aspects won't be deal-breakers.

Draper wrote, directed, and co-stars as their mother and the lovely score was composed by their musician father, Michael Wolff.

Imagine a cross between "Annie" and "Jesus Christ Superstar," only with more speed metal. Now imagine a lot of long takes of sometimes merely adequate, sometimes sneakily brilliant performers doing simple dance steps or sing-talking reams of theatrical dialogue (adapted from Charles Peguy's religious mystery play).

You may think you know what you are about to see when you watch that opening, but you would be wrong. It's great to be wrong.

The living legend certainly deserves little blame for this misfire but she can't handle the heavy lifting required by a script and director that feel as unfocused as the film's protagonist for at least an hour.

Ultimately, my problem with so many religious horror films like “The Offering” is that they’re insulated in a way that makes them more often boring than terrifying, willing to let a languid pace try to set the mood instead of actual plotting.

[Miller's] mastery makes the movie eye-popping; his freedom and audacity make it surprising and unsettling.

I've seen this film twice and I'm just not convinced it's all that interested in the subjects it claims to be interested in. And that's a deal-breaker of a problem.

Daddy Issues is not the laugh-out-loud rom-com it had likely aspired to be, yet it’s just charming enough to make you wish it were better.

Though curiously charming, Jumbo behaves like love at first sight that doesn’t think about the consequences of the ardent now or the larger, long-term picture.

This is a film that so blatantly cribs from other popular works that it never develops a personality of its own.

At Middleton is the just the sort of trite if inoffensive diversion that barely tiptoes into theaters before landing in the cable and video-on-demand listings.

A remarkably full-bodied and frank character study that illuminates the old saw about the political being personal in a genuinely unusual way.

You wonder how high “Sea Fever” could have risen, if only Hardiman had truly embraced the bare bones of the genre, indulging in some well-wrought group dynamics and even a pair of sneaky jump-scares to boot.

Saw X returns John Kramer to the root of his mission, showing people the error of their ways and asking them what it truly means to be alive. A few severed limbs along the way are just a bonus.

A somber and derivative relationship drama.

Director Rob Letterman, aided by writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski and Darren Lemke and an energetic cast, rise to the occasion, delivering a movie that’s a lot of good creepy fun in spite of some dubious construction.