Just as you wrap your arms around what “Never Let Go” is saying or thematically symbolizes, it slips through your fingers. A hodgepodge of mental illness, trauma, overprotection, the existence of evil, and what feels like COVID allegories, “Never Let Go” fails by virtue of its competing ideas. It leaves too little to hold on to.

De Niro, bless his heart, is the engine that keeps this refurbished jalopy puttering along for 90 minutes.

Pimpinero grazes the chance of becoming a great film but repeatedly lets it slip from its grasp, settling for being just slightly above average.

For the incredibly low bar of the video game adaptation genre — which this technically is as it shares elements with a 2016 Nintendo DS game — this one comes out better than average, but it is unlikely to work unless you’re a loyal fan of everything that is Pokémon. (Related: My 4th grader loved it.)

Netflix's The Prom is billed as a musical comedy because people sing in it while making funny faces, but beyond that, the relative levels of comedy and musicality ought to be subjects of debate.

The result is a dreary and derivative thriller that is nowhere near as smart or controversial as it clearly believes itself to be.

Perhaps fittingly for a film that would have more accurately been titled “When Fire Met Water…,” Elemental is combustible enough from minute to minute, but it evaporates from memory the second you leave the theater.

If Nancy Meyers ever decided to dabble in gothic romance, it probably would turn out to be something like The Face of Love.

Like most movies of its bent, Fed Up can’t admit the thing that Al Pacino gets so tetchy about at the climax of "And Justice For All...," which is that "the whole system is out of order."

The final act of Coldwater is horrendously misguided, the kind of insincere melodrama that erases the memory of what came before. It’s a particular shame because there’s an hour of decent filmmaking here.

The Pact starts off on an intriguing note and has some moments when it does work (especially the ones involving Grete), but while it's theoretically filled with dark psychological underpinnings, it seems oddly reticent to deal with them in any significant way.

Thérèse never goes beyond that level of psychological complexity because after a point, Miller and Carter aren't interested in exploring the murky depths of Thérèse 's feelings.

It's not the most original of concepts, and writer-director Liz W. Garcia struggles with the tone throughout, but The Lifeguard is often saved by Kristen Bell's sensitive and complex performance.

The Cellar doesn't even need to be a smarter or even more faithful homage. All it needs to be is a little more of something—energetic, gross, thoughtful ... something!—to make it compelling enough to withstand comparisons to its many generic precedents.

When You Finish Saving the World floats uncertainly on the edge of satire. This is a big problem. Satire can't be uncertain. Satire needs a sharp bite. When You Finish Saving the World is toothless by comparison.

It’s as if Bertino the director knows that Bertino the writer hasn’t done quite enough to engender audience interest in Polly’s plight so he seeks to pummel the audience into terror instead of drawing them in.

Truth & Treason is a staid drama whose observations about Helmuth could easily be summed up in a quick encyclopedic blurb.

Because of the movie’s uneven story and characters, it’s a bumpy ride no matter which route you take.

Cold Brook's obvious good intentions lend it a sweetness that cannot make up for insurmountable problems. The script, co-written by director and star William Fichtner, is under-imagined, with the characters overlooking the most obvious options and an overall framework we might charitably describe as outdated.

Thankfully, the entertaining chemistry between the two young leads in Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (Andrew Jacobs and Jorge Diaz), almost saves it.

This is a movie that is too frenetic and basic to make a substantial impression. I appreciated a kernel of observation here and there, but not enough for me to give it a whole-hearted embrace.

So of course, Hardy applies that same intensity to the comic-book anti-hero origin story, Venom. And his fully committed performance is pretty much the only reason to see it.

An exhausting, and mostly frustrating display of emotional scab-picking.

The Tiger’s Apprentice is not an awful movie per se—some of the animation is striking and there are a couple of funny moments—but it is one of those frustrating exercises that seems to have assembled all the elements for a genuinely innovative film and then fails to make much of them.

Suffused with plenty of gross-out, phantasmagoric body horror but short on actual spine-tingling scares, the handsomely-produced Amulet asserts Garai more as a gifted genre stylist than a savvy storyteller.

While casting Glover as a reluctant everyman takes admirable chutzpah, there’s not much to “Mr. K” beyond its second-hand surrealism and strained counter-mythmaking.

Leading man Johnny Depp is up to the challenge, and he gives a finely tuned performance here that kind of feels like his first "old man" turn, and he’s matched by a charming piece of work from Minami, but Minamata is weighed down by self-important direction that loses the human beings in this story by prioritizing the headlines.

Suffragette feels like a documentary in its visuals, but at the same time drowns in subjectivity (Maud's face in repeated closeup).