Despite a few fantastic deviations (including the lack of a love interest to hinder our hero’s development), Moana is still very much a paint-by-numbers narrative.

It is a beautiful film, as all Fincher films are, and it contains several compelling performances. But if all that artifice and powerhouse acting add up to something particularly profound, I did not find it during my initial viewings of the movie.

With his mastery of composition, editing, and music, Scorsese has made some of the most engaging movies in history, experiences that express fascinating ideas through gripping stories, compelling characters, and unparalleled craft. Here, all of those elements seem sublimated to the larger points Scorsese wants to make.

The best way I can think of to describe the experience of actually watching I’m Thinking of Ending Things is to imagine you’ve been asked to assemble a complicated piece of furniture without the instruction manual. All of the pieces are there; and you see how some of those individual parts connect and work together. You can admire the obvious intelligence and care that went into crafting those pieces. But the path to a coherent whole is not entirely clear — and often deeply frustrating.

Favreau’s Jungle Book is at its best in moments of visual splendor; when his camera pulls back to admire the sweep of the CGI foliage or yet another dazzling computer creation wanders into frame. Those images have a clarity that the rest of the movie often lacks.

This couple’s connection feels authentic and lived in — but I must confess that at a certain point I began to feel like an additional dimension was missing, some sort of tangible connection between Bernstein’s outward persona and his marital stresses, or between his sexuality (and the steps he took to hide it) and his musical output.

Detroit suffers from muddled intentions and a lack of a clear why. It could have maintained a narrower focus on the lives of the black folks affected by the motel incident. Instead, Detroit tries to accomplish too much too cautiously.

If Iñárritu wanted to show how life on the frontier was miserable and monotonous he succeeded — by making a movie that is miserable and monotonous. Some of the greatest cinematography in history can’t change that fact.

Love it, hate it, or stuck somewhere in between, it’s something you simply need to see to believe.

Morris From America is a sweet movie, but it doesn’t take us anywhere new. Its sincerity is admirable, but if Hartigan had dug a little deeper he could’ve captured something distinct and special.

The many similarities between Raya and Mulan and Moana suggest that Disney’s honed in on a new formula for their fairy tales, one that emphasizes (to borrow a phrase from a television series that anticipated the appetite for these kinds of stories) warrior princesses. In this case, at least, the formula works.

Felix isn’t On the Rocks’ main character, but he is its most interesting one, the one who seems to have the most to say and the most to hide; the one that writer/director Sofia Coppola gives her strongest comedic material and saddest monologues; the one who’s played by Bill Murray in yet another performance that feels so tossed off and yet so finely tuned

Dynevor and Ehrenreich are both very easy on the eyes, and when the story allows — which is not that often — they do have chemistry together. Their final scenes crackle with a darker and more disturbing energy as well. But Fair Play’s middle section gives neither of them very much to do beyond a repetitive series of clashes.

If you think quarantine life is tough, just wait until you see what happens in a biosphere.

The crime story, involving the hunt for the men who murdered this girl, is strictly by-the-numbers (and there are a few clue that still don’t fit together in my mind) but Sheridan proves himself a surprisingly effective director of action.

Hoppers director and co-writer Daniel Chong throws a lot of ingredients in the pot here, but I’m not sure they all blend together into a coherent stew. The film has a couple fun gags, an uplifting theme, and a touching subplot about Mabel and her grandmother (Karen Huie). Still, as a story it’s a bit of a jumble, as if someone took a nature doc and hopped it into a mystery movie that was hopped into a broad comedy.

Sure, yes, technically speaking Zootopia 2 is intended for your children. This is a colorful, energetic, and extremely busy animated film about talking animals. But while these critters’ adventures keep the kids occupied, a lot of the movie’s humor, tucked into its corners and backgrounds of the frame, is aimed squarely at their parents and guardians, at least those who love a groan-inducing play on words.

While most of 2022’s holiday toys are destined to be dumped in storage bins or even the garbage in a matter of weeks, I have feeling M3GAN is going to stick around a lot longer than that.

The stuff about this couple in decline is lacerating and painful in the best and most hilarious ways possible. The stuff about the solstice is standard horror fare made unfurled, with exceptional craft, at a snail’s pace. And the longer Midsommar goes, the further it gets from the pain and the loss that fueled its emotional core, until it has lost touch with the things that made it special.

The bad news is the studio’s most innovative visuals are wedded to one of its most formulaic origin stories. In some scenes, Doctor Strange is Marvel’s most exciting movie yet. In others, it might be its most boring movie since Iron Man 2.

Ultimately a mixed bag. But to its credit, it isn’t too tied-in with other Marvel movies, and mostly stands on its own.

Combine some of the Italian master’s whimsy with even more of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, along with plenty of Pixar’s now-standard bittersweet lessons about growing up and you get Luca, an affectionate portrait of friendship that never quite rises to the level of the beloved animation studio’s best efforts. Maybe it’s just a little too simple, both in construction and stakes.

With little drama or humor, it mostly amounts to watching a guy complain about his fairly decent life for 100 minutes.

Essentially, Memory is too superficial a treatment of the chestburster sequence to validate making half of a movie about it, and it’s also too lengthy an exploration of it to give the other elements of the movie their proper due.

This is the sort of film that is more frustrating than bad. Vigalondo had something really special here. He just didn’t quite pull it off.

Patel’s desire to make something more than a straightforward action film is admirable, especially since he had to juggle responsibilities in front of and behind the camera simultaneously to do so. Monkey Man suggests he’s got potential as a filmmaker in the future. In the present, his directorial debut is the sort of genre exercise that makes you realize creating a “straightforward” action movie is not so straightforward.

It’s about as unassuming as a movie about a man who can grow 65 feet tall could be, and in its relatively subdued scale, it is fairly refreshing and fun.

Weird won’t make anyone forget Walk Hard, but it might make some folks go and break out their old Weird Al records for the first time in a while. I recommend Dare to Be Stupid.

On paper, The Little Hours sounds like a combative anti-religious tract, but Baena’s less interested in mocking the church than in basking in the gulf between humanity’s lofty aspirations and its baser instincts.

A famous (though almost certainly false) quote attributed to President Woodrow Wilson compared Griffith’s work to “writing history with lightning” and the best sections in Parker’s Birth of a Nation are charged with a similar kind of cinematic electricity. Many of his directing choices are obvious but bluntly effective.

I appreciate the sheer logistical achievement of Infinity War (and the chutzpah of its ending). I laughed a bunch of times, and some of the scenes are definitely exciting. But I would be lying if I pretended this movie ever grabbed me the way the best MCU movies did.

Parts recall the muscular intensity of Craig’s debut, Casino Royale. Others evoke painful memories (and specific story threads) from the bloated, digressive Spectre.

Black Widow functions less as a showcase for the title character and more as a sneaky introduction for Pugh, who is drolly hilarious as the deeply cynical Yelena.

Kelly’s generic characters, stale humor, and dated storyline about the macho father rejecting his gay son have all been done before, and no longer feel relevant.

Nocturnal Animals doesn’t have much substance, but its dazzling style is hard to completely resist.

This derivative sequel might please devoted fans looking for a quick fix of nostalgia, but with nothing new to say, it seems not even Boyle and his cast are sure why T2 Trainspotting exists.

It may not be as poignant a story as its characters give way to, nor reach the cathartic resolutions it builds towards, but The Family Fang is still a refreshingly creative approach to the family drama.

The final act pickles Jay Kelly’s tragicomic vibe into something more overtly and excessively sentimental.

The old masters of early movie stunts who Cruise and McQuarrie so obviously admire knew that sometimes simpler was better.

This movie has a lot on its mind — and perhaps too many characters.

It’s raunchy, rowdy and almost completely insane. Unfortunately, it’s just not very funny.

This movie offers very few insights, and has no apparent point beyond mythologizing the early days of a company that doesn’t exactly need assistance in the self-mythologizing department.

The whole production just works. Steinfeld, Lendeborg, and Cena are extremely likable leads, and there’s a soul and an innocence to Bumblebee that was never present in any of the previous Transformers.

The BFG’s sluggish pacing will test even older viewers’ attention spans. The visuals are potent, but the story is never urgent. The crux of the movie, inspiring people to dream, is a noble, beautiful thing. But not when you put them to sleep in the process.

It’s not boring and there are a few decent laughs. But it also does feel like exactly the movie you would expect a big Hollywood studio to make from this material.

Unfortunately, Mid90s isn’t anything you haven’t already seen numerous times before.

There are some scenes here as lively and as thoughtful as any in this great series’ history. But then that final sequence reminds viewers that this is a franchise still thinking about the way things were, and not with the way things are — or could be in the future.

Fantastic Beasts is a good movie, and offers a fun and inventive return to Rowling’s wizarding world, but it could have been a better movie if didn’t waste so much time setting up a new franchise.

The fight sequences aren’t as good as director David Leitch’s previous work like Atomic Blonde and the John Wick movies, but it’s better than the standard superhero fare, with enough clever touches to keep things interesting.

The Infiltrator isn’t necessarily bad, it just has nothing unique, compelling, or memorable to offer in its over two-hour runtime.

Edwards is very good at crafting images that straddle the uncomfortable line between beauty and horror, and at dwarfing people with giant monsters and machines with powers beyond mortal comprehension. It’s his comprehension of mortals that sometimes feels lacking.

The real treasure of A United Kingdom is the tender chemistry between Oyelowo and Pike, whose scenes together offer the film’s best moments.

It isn’t the charged biopic that a story as fascinating as Seal’s deserves, but it has enough rambunctious delights to get by.

While Deadpool’s core audience will appreciate the way it flatters their knowledge of genre conventions with winking, cynical humor, too much of this stuff just plays like smug self-satisfaction. The movie is so impressed with itself that the viewer’s satisfaction seems completely irrelevant.

The best vocal performance in Transformers One by far comes from Brian Tyree Henry, who puts so much feeling into D-16 rapid transformation into the menacing Megatron that you almost buy that he goes from Orion’s loyal bestie to his sworn mortal enemy in the span of about 10 minutes.

Everything Safdie, Johnson, and Blunt do to conjure up this time and place is a technical achievement, but it never goes past that to a truly involving sports story. The Smashing Machine is sadly not a knockout. Call it a split decision instead.

Is it a fun movie overall? Yes, although not quite as much fun as I had hoped. On paper, Shakman cast the four lead roles perfectly. In execution, I’m not sure any of his stars really found their groove as these characters yet. Or maybe the script flattened the Fantastic Four to the point where it left them no groove to find. Let’s put it this way: It’s a decent first step. There’s still room for improvement.

What’s here isn’t necessarily boring or bad, but it represents a back-to-basics approach for Alien that feels like a betrayal of something central to the Xenomorph’s toxic DNA, which is forever mutating into another deadly creature.

Even with Frozen II’s problems, the ending affected me. Because some things do change. Even if they always remain Frozen.

West does so much winking at the audience that he doesn’t leave much time to gaze into the darkness the way a truly scary horror movie does; MaXXXine’s moments of shock are surprisingly few and far between. As a result MaXXXine is rarely as disturbing or as effective as the earlier films in this series.

Captain Marvel itself has none of that rebellious spirit. It takes very few risks in the way that something like Thor: Ragnarok did, beyond the fact that it is the studio’s first blockbuster with a female hero in the lead. Personally, I like my movies about rule breakers to actually break some rules.

At times, Napoleon is a costume drama. For long stretches, it is a bloody war film. And occasionally — in its best moments — it becomes a sordid and twisted love story about the unbreakable bond between two people: Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Joaquin Phoenix, and his wife Joséphine, played by Vanessa Kirby.

Downsizing is all half-empty, big ideas that accomplish very little.

Before that, though, Knock at the Cabin is about as well-acted and intense as a movie of this kind gets. For a long time, Shyalaman had a reputation as a guy obsessed with twists. While he does still occasionally veer into that sort of territory, his movies these days are less about structural gimmicks than insistent messages. In Knock at the Cabin’s case, it is a poignant tale about faith and sacrifice — and, above all, avoiding family vacations at all costs.

The results are mostly pleasing and occasionally very funny (particularly whenever Manganiello pops up and Pee-wee tries to pronounce his name). But they also feel very familiar, something that flies in the face of the movie’s key theme about reinvention.

Borg/McEnroe isn’t a complete misfire, just more of a missed opportunity. Metz’s artful direction, the taut final match and LaBeouf’s rage-fueled antics are worth the ticket price alone. But it leaves you wondering how fantastic a full-on LaBeouf-McEnroe biopic could’ve been.

There’s a decent amount of craft on display, along with a filmmaker of genuine chutzpah. Throw just a little restraint into the mix, and you might really have something.

If the goal here was to really understand how a brash kid from a backwater planet became an amoral smuggler, Solo failed. Han’s evolution in this movie is entirely superficial. He doesn’t become the character we recognize. When you get right down to it, the biggest thing about him that changes is he goes from wearing a vest to a jacket.

It takes way too long — nearly an hour of a 105-minute movie — for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s actual story to emerge and for Keaton to take center stage again. Once he shows up, though, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice springs to life. Er, make that afterlife.

This is a creature feature, plain and simple — and, at least on a visceral level, a satisfying one.

Apostle is a solid mystery-thriller, but save for predictably engaging performances from Stevens and Sheen, it’s largely unremarkable. Though it’s interesting to see Evans tackle something a little more conventional, this feels almost too conventional for the man who gave us The Raid and its sequel.

Look past the surface of this remake and you’ll find ... basically the exact same movie you’ve seen before, and could watch at home anytime you want. There are no surprises, except maybe the total lack of surprises.

It might not be remembered in years to come, but it’s good family entertainment, and sometimes that’s enough.

Chazelle seems so enamored with his simulacrum of this forgotten world that he loses sight of the people in it.

Black Phone 2 conjures an artful milieu out of those disparate elements, and it’s saturated with the chilly ambiance of a classic campfire ghost story. But the actual story it tells never quite measures up to its superior influences, or even the previous entry in this series.

It’s a prime example of taking a known property and lazily gender-flipping the cast without putting in the work to pair them with a worthy script or direction. Ocean’s 8 tries to pull its biggest con on us – burying a disappointing movie behind the flashy allure of an A-list cast.

The lead performers bring a lot of energy to the material, and for a while Tetris hums along as part The Social Network and part Ocean’s 11, at least until a final act that collapses under the weight of an action sequence so ludicrous it feels like it belongs in a parody of bad Hollywood biopics.

A great cast and a fairly clever turn into the realm of horror can’t redeem what otherwise feels like a very familiar, very safe piece of satire.

Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett do know how to stage a good scare sequence, and Scream VI has enough decent ones to prevent the film from tipping over into disaster.

A superficial sequel that lacks the first movie’s unique quirks and soul.

If Suicide Squad felt like Warner Bros.’ deliberate attempt to replicate the quirky fun of Guardians of the Galaxy, Birds of Prey is its stab — and there is a lot of stabbing in it — at making DC’s Deadpool.

Reitman clearly made this film from a place of love and admiration for the institution of SNL and the people, then and now, who produce it. He might get the facts wrong at times; what he gets right is the feeling that every fan who grows up watching SNL imagines the show is like behind the scenes — giddy and chaotic and brimming with passionate creativity.

Warts and all, the new Ghostbusters is still one of the best tentpoles of the summer (admittedly, that’s not saying much). It doesn’t tarnish the legacy of the original movie, and its own legacy might have been even stronger if it hadn’t worried about paying homage to the old Ghostbusters quite so intensely.

As a piece of moral commentary cloaked in a sci-fi gimmick, Overlord is uninspired. As an action thriller, it’s just aggressively boring. Maybe because it exhaustively recycles imagery from any number of genre films that came before it...or because the action sequences are bizarrely monotonous, save for the occasional bit of gory VFX.

There may be plenty of charming, classic Pooh-isms sprinkled throughout Christopher Robin, but the film just can’t manage to bring the same level of poignance and wisdom to its own story.

Pretty much everything in Wonder Woman 1984 that’s not an excuse for a Gadot and Pine reunion flops. That includes both of its villains.

Lots of mystery hangs in the air of the El Royale, but when all is said and done there aren’t a ton of surprises in Bad Times at the El Royale’s story, or the way that story is told. Even with a bunch of twists, things progress largely how you expect, only slower.

Rules Don’t Apply could have been an insightful look at a tragic, troubled figure. Instead Beatty made a conventional romance with lead characters we hardly care about.

Films like this about slow-burn conspiracies that take ages to unravel their cheeky premises rarely live up to all the work that goes into watching them get there, and Under the Silver Lake is no different. Its final resolution flops to the ground like an airless balloon after all the toil it took to find it.

Hobbs & Shaw is the movie version of a replacement-level player. It is adequate, but not exceptional. It’s the baseline version of what one of these movies should be, now that they’re not about undercover cops chasing thieves anymore.

The new sequel/prequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again – which has perhaps the best sequel subtitle of all time – is only half as fun as the first movie, replacing familiar faces with lesser known ones in a story we already know. But thanks to the returning cast and a showstopping Cher performance, there’s enough zany delights to forgive the snoozier bits.

As an entertainment, Godzilla vs. Kong is as hollow as the Earth upon which its set. Here, the human characters’ irrational decisions do not feel like part of a cohesive statement about our species’ self-absorption, but rather the byproduct of a superficial screenplay that cares only about the excuses needed to get Godzilla and King Kong into several extended (and undeniably impressive) CGI scuffles.

At a certain point, Deliver Me From Nowhere sort of loses the thread of its stripped-down, unadorned approach.

I suspect some may give Cruella a pass simply because it does have a genuinely quirky vibe, along with a slightly darker than your standard Disney fare. The gonzo period fashions are fun as well. Ultimately, though, the film feels less like a satisfying character drama than a work of corporate rebranding — for Disney as well as for Cruella herself.

Novocaine belongs to the same cinemasochistic tradition as movies like Evil Dead II and Crank, where the audience is invited to derive twisted pleasure from watching a heroic leading man get the crap beaten out of him in inventive ways. It’s not as good as those movies. But on its own terms, it’s painless enough. Pleasurable even.

The parade of subplots and explanations keep sinking a story that previously floated along so effectively. I saw It Chapter Two a few nights ago and I think it just ended.

Even as it takes Fast and Furious to literal new heights (and marks a significant improvement from The Fate of the Furious), F9 never tops the franchise’s best entries. It’s simply too complicated and too long to surpass something like Fast Five.

While a reunion between Greengrass and Damon should feel like a refreshing extension of the franchise, Jason Bourne is just another replica, and an unnecessary one. The familiar pieces are in place, but it adds nothing that Greengrass hadn’t already accomplished. Maybe its best we let Jason Bourne retire for good.