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.