From the start, Pizza Movie erupts with the type of confidence you can’t help but admire even if its wavelength might not be for everyone.

The Lonely Island brand of humor might at first seem like an awkward fit for horror, but there’s an art to the timing of a well-done splatter flick that shares filmmaking DNA with comedy.

It helps a great deal to have a wickedly fun ensemble ready to play this murderous game, led once again by a physical, engaged, immediate performance from Samara Weaving.

Regrettably botched, despite its bold concept at its core, “Slanted” is too simple to make a statement.

For a while, the found-footage horror thriller “Bodycam” appears to have something to say and, therefore, a better-than-average sense of how to handle its subgenre’s tropes and tics. Then, in the last 10-15 minutes, the illusion is spoiled.

While “The Gates” itself isn’t a total smash, it’s a more than sturdy final effort from a beloved actor.

Reminders of Him is so preoccupied with tragedy that the romance becomes secondary. Now, after our third Hoover adaptation, it feels like we’re getting love with diminishing returns. There’s less to enjoy, even if the movie is almost two hours long.

Riley understands that satire can embed messaging in the whimsy. You’ll walk out of this one feeling boosted.

Despite Lang and Fisher’s exemplary teamwork, “The Optimist” never overcomes its clunky plot or its inclination to teach rather than dramatize.

The harder the film tries, the more one feels pulled along rather than effortlessly transported.

Like many genre films this decade, “Heel” feels glaringly incomplete.

Dragged down by over-explanatory dialogue and tired narrative tropes, Protector brings nothing new to the table–except maybe for a confounding 11th hour twist that I won’t spoil that defies reasoning and frankly, good taste. If anyone needs rescuing, it’s Jovovich from this movie.

Dolly sets viewers up for an experience that it can’t quite deliver, mostly due to small acts of self-sabotage.

Didn’t Die is a zombie movie with no zest. No thrill, no stakes, and no meaning.

Vesuvius might erupt again. The angel of history keeps moving forward. Time destroys, preserves, and then returns (one hopes, at least). Rosi’s film is a meditative and moving document showing that process and possibility.

In a strange way, War Machine kicks off when it proverbially jumps the shark, introducing something so ridiculous as a big killer robot to jolt the movie awake from its ho-hum military recruiting motions. It’s not a movie built to withstand big questions, but for a high-octane action thriller, it’s a lot more fun when it goes off the rails.

The Bride! is more a film to feel than to explain.

Tony Benna’s irreverent, frenetic bio-doc “André Is an Idiot” is unlike any cancer doc you’ve ever seen.

All told, “Man on the Run” feels like an extra-long podcast episode featuring a celebrity promoting the latest project, coupled with a 90+ minute montage cut together so there’s something to look at on YouTube.

This is a more-than-solid observational comedy with a melancholy undertone, reminiscent of early Albert Brooks movies like “Modern Romance.”

Hoppers is Pixar at its best, a story with warmth, humor, exciting action, endearing characters, and a reassuringly expansive notion of community.

Genuinely inept in every way, “Scream 7” is far and away the worst of the franchise, a shallow rendering of things that worked better in other films.

Sykes steps into the role enthusiastically, but Miller’s script (with cowriter Anita M. Cal) is beat-you-over-the-head melodramatic, making Sykes’ committed effort to deliver heartfelt pathos all the more difficult to buy.

Sadly, “Dreams” never figures out what it wants to say, and what it does convey is done with so little affect or pulse that it almost feels like an intentional choice to tell a “hot” story in as “cool” a way as possible.

EPiC is so vivid it makes Elvis seem not like an entertainer from the past, but a figure who lives in the perpetual Right Now.

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.

This suggests that in old age, any one of us could revert to a vindictive version of ourselves, obsessed with getting justice for whatever wound we thought healed but is still throbbing.

Ghost Elephants is a portrait of obsession that, while gentler than some of Herzog’s other works, is mesmerizing from the first moment to the last, yet another title of note in what remains one of the most incredible filmographies of our time.