The movie’s not a barn-burner or future classic, but new Westerns are thin on the ground these days, and this ultimately is a better-than-decent one.

The Film Critic takes a light and knowing tone, spoofing the sacred cows of the critic world, and cramming every scene with visual film clichés that act like a "Where's Waldo?" of cinema.

Sitting through it is like watching someone else playing a video game for two solid hours, and not an especially compelling one at that.

Director Bobby Farrelly’s “Driver’s Ed” may not reinvent the wheel, but by playing squarely to its middle-of-the-road strengths with a young cast clearly aware of the type of movie they’re in (it embodies the spirit of those early 2000s “friends hang out and go on an adventure” films), it’s still a trip worth taking.

To his credit, the writer-director maintains a pretty decent balance between his disgust with this Business We Call Show and the movie’s thriller mechanics, which are not entirely well-engineered but do chug along to a not-unsatisfying climax.

A prime example of a horror omnibus film: even the weaker segments have something to recommend them.

This is a fascinating story. Counterproductive style choices get in the way of the telling, though.

There’s incredible merit in the action seen in “The Matrix Resurrections,” but those aren’t the elements that free the mind of the medium like bold storytelling, like “The Matrix” preached and then became a game-changing classic, only to become a docket for satisfying shareholders. Blue pill or red pill? It doesn’t matter anymore; they’re both placebos.

At the nasty center of the otherwise dutiful Denial is a slimy, self-aggrandizing upper-class blowhard of a bigot who believes he has every right to circulate hateful and hurtful falsehoods to his followers.

Some viewers may find all the walking and talking tedious, evidence of a film spinning its wheels. But these are the best sections of Naz & Maalik.

Surprise! One doesn’t want to damn the movie with faint praise by saying “it’s not that bad,” but that’s kind of the most objectively accurate description of it, in all honesty.

This movie shouldn't just engage and amuse and occasionally move us; it should shock and scar us. It should kill Ned Stark and Optimus Prime and Bambi's mommy, then look us in the eye after each fresh wound and say, "Sorry, love. These things happen."

It seems like everyone involved with “What Remains” wanted to see how far they could go in making a murder mystery so miserablist; it’s almost fascinating watching how dour, dismal, and depressing this thing gets.

If nothing else, McConaughey's goofball autodidact's intensity certifies that there is, in fact, a "Matthew McConaughey" type of character, and that McConaughey originated it.

Adil and Bilall clearly care about the story they’re telling, but their penchant for maximalism (they list “La Haine,” Malcolm X,” City of God,” and “JFK” as touchstone films) ultimately betrays the most emotionally affecting moments in Rebel.

There's nothing about this kind of film that is innately less "formulaic" than what you get when see a Marvel, Star Wars, or Fast & Furious movie; it's just gentler and more human-scaled.

Still, the funny lady is better at zinging quips than defining her Socialist agenda.

Make no mistake: the planes are the stars of this production, and as hard as the filmmakers try to reassure us that there are human stories going on as well, the precision flying and all the training and practice that allow it to exist are what everyone paid to see, and the movie never forgets it.

There is so much more to know about these people that Gianfranco Rosi’s film fails to communicate because of its prioritization of beautiful visuals over narrative contextualization, and while Notturno shares many moments of profound fragility and deep beauty, it also paints an incomplete portrait.

What follows is all handsomely shot and not without some general interest — but the movie’s only really going to play for you if motorcycles and those who ride them are subjects to which you’re somewhat sympathetic.

Zany and zippy as you’d expect, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water remains true to the surrealism of its animated television roots.

Compact in its runtime, “Chestnut” offers a softly lyrical glimpse of young life on the precipice of a new and uncertain future.

If Wes Anderson were to mesh “Bad News Bears” with a live-action “Monsters University,” the result would look and feel something like Troop Zero, a whimsical, if not generic kiddie adventure more suited for young ones than grown-ups.

A sort of “It” meets “Scream” energy courses through Eli Craig’s film, one that’s clever and thrilling enough in bloody spurts, even if it never quite reaches its true potential.

Had Nicholson taken advantage of Melendez and Suarez's seemingly easy-going nature, Rubble Kings might have been great. As it is, the film is a one-sided, but satisfying tribute to an alternatively terrifying and beguiling city that we can only revisit in movies.

This is neither the most cinematically entertaining nor the sexiest topic ever examined by what amounts to a Code Red warning sign of a public service announcement. But Dick and producers Amy Ziering and Amy Herdy know the value of focusing on a compelling collection of human subjects who generously relive their first-hand agony.

This "Percy Jackson" is a gentler-spirited, less flashy enterprise, though it still presents a natural world that can morph at the whim of a god. I like that.

XX feels unusually frustrating in its inconsistency, given its inspired premise.