A Man Called Otto has its moments, both humorous and heartwarming, and it works better than it should due to the strength of its performances. Unfortunately, it's also plagued by choices that blunt its overall coherence, seeming like Forster wanted to make an entirely different kind of film than the material dictated.

Kendrick and Timberlake are…fine, as they were in the first film. What holds Trolls World Tour back is what holds back so many films from DreamWorks Animation: they thrive on pop-culture references, loud humor, and little else.

Carl W. Lucas‘s script is never quite as smart or profound as it thinks it is, but it does manage to tap into an inherent sweetness – an underlying sense of humanity and acceptance that counter-balances all the chaos and occasional bursts of violence.

Ritchie doesn’t handle the messages he wishes to impart as skillfully as he could — instead, he’s preoccupied with revisiting the beats that made his acclaimed gangster films work best: the sleek style, the staccato rhythm, the casual hyperviolence that begets more violence and an occasional laugh.

At Midnight is caught between its reverence for what came before and the relevance of figuring out where it's going next. If that feels just a little too on-the-nose for a modern rom-com, well, maybe it's a good thing this one didn't cost the price of a movie ticket, after all.

Run Sweetheart Run is a passionate Los Angeles marathon that severs heads, scolds abusive norms, and gets loud about the ways society needs to reflect upon bettering itself. Shana Feste finds action-packed elegance in rage and reflection, borrowing from fast-moving midnight flicks that aren't afraid to challenge oppressive stigmas.

The lack of true scares may be a deal-breaker for some. And indeed, the overall outlandishness at work on the screen is going to flat-out annoy certain viewers. But then there will be those who revel in the audacity of Malignant, and boy oh boy are those folks in for a treat. This isn't even close to being James Wan's best horror movie, but cripes, it sure is a lot of fun. 

As far as Netflix movies go, Day Shift is inoffensive enough for your viewing pleasure. But I wanted more.

Train to Busan may have injected some life into the genre once again with its surprisingly heartfelt narrative, but Peninsula brings it back to those B-movie trappings. It’s not particularly clever or groundbreaking. But you know what? It’s pretty damn fun.

Marry Me feels like a satirical movie that missed the joke. It doesn't have a plot as much as a collection of rom-com tropes — Fake marriage! Reverse "Notting Hill"! Evil exes! School mathalons? — and is strung together by the whisper of a narrative structure. But while "Marry Me" is silly, poorly made, and inarguably a bad movie, I had dumb fun.

Clerks III is the director at his most mature and emotionally resonant.

It's a delightful surprise that the Disney+ sequel, Disenchanted, in spite of having a thudder of a title, is a moderately charming affair bolstered, per usual, by a phenomenal lead performance from one of our best living actresses.

It is all at once a gleefully raucous rock romp and a freaky horror story of possession and gruesome murder.

By the time Wolf Man wraps things up with an ending that's just a bit too neat and tidy, viewers will be left to reflect on the opportunities missed rather than the bold roads taken. Fortunately, even a modest Whannell misfire is well worth a watch, particularly when so much care and effort has been poured into every facet of its construction. There's still plenty of enjoyment to be had here ... as long as you don't expect this monster's bite to match its bark.

Taken on its own merits, The Marvels is little more than another mediocre, easily-forgotten effort in a never-ending stream of products.

Although much of the pleasures of They Will Kill You come with the caveat that the movie doesn't quite lead anywhere memorable, one aspect that is fully fantastic and very memorable is Zazie Beetz.

The intentions of the movie are clear and admirable, but the execution of A Good Person, in the end, misses the mark.

To his credit, Edwards immediately injects "Rebirth" with a sense of stakes and tension that the entirety of the previous trilogy struggled to depict. But every time the plot kicks in again and writer David Koepp's script goes through the motions of a standard "Jurassic" movie, those dizzying peaks soon begin to flatten out into overgrown valleys.

It’s a film that feels like it was designed to rile everyone up, but it ultimately has nothing to say about anything.

Ultimately, Snow White is better than "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid" — by a long shot — but it's not as good as Branagh's "Cinderella" or Burton's "Dumbo." And, sadly, it overall still bears the boring sheen of a corporate mandate. This is another cynical enterprise, tapping into certain nostalgic images in the hopes that we'll pay for the same high we had as children.

The problem is that Eurovision Song Contest can’t dream of capturing the real-life weirdness of Eurovision. And while there’s some chuckles that can be drawn out of McAdams and Ferrell lip syncing a surprisingly catchy song while running through a hamster wheel, there’s only so much fun that can be made of a televised singing contest where weirder things have happened.

Jungle Cruise is, on the whole, not quite as enjoyable as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and of course nowhere near as good as the Indiana Jones franchise or even The Mummy, partly because it is entirely unable to shake loose of those reference points. But it’s still a solid summer action film, or at least a solid enough entry for this specific summer

My Policeman is a pretty flat adaptation as far as adaptations go, and despite some great elements in the film overall, Grandage's theatrical flair and passion doesn't show up anywhere in this movie, giving the picture an almost cookie-cutter feel to it in a way that comes off as strangely commercial.

George Clooney and Julia Roberts remain two of the best, most charismatic movie stars to ever grace the silver screen, and we're fortunate to have cinematic proof of their heat and chemistry. Ticket to Paradise just isn't that proof. It's OK. But it should've been better.

Relative to some other Netflix Originals, as well as some other recent romantic comedies, this movie has some pretty solid laughs. But there are a number of moments in this new film where the script backs away from being more provocative or difficult. It's a shame too because the cast (Hill included) seem able and willing even if the material doesn't always want to take the same plunge.

De Armas' dazzling screen presence is inarguable. But with a disjointed directorial eye and a messy script, de Armas is simply doing the best she can within the chaotic world of Monroe's life, but also the chaotic world the film itself forces her to be a part of.

If you're looking for a feel-bad movie with some absolutely stunning cinematography and an appreciation for the tenacity of the human spirit, then Against the Ice was made for you. 

All Jacked Up and Full of Worms is a movie that clearly doesn't care if it's enjoyed by the majority of viewers. While that is commendable to a certain degree, it shouldn't come at the cost of an undercooked and wasted narrative.

Vacation Friends" probably wouldn't work that well in a movie theater, but at least there, you'd have the potential of infectious laughter. At home, Vacation Friends falls totally flat.

Sing 2 feels like a relic from another era. And oddly, a relic that really wants to sell you on U2 songs.

Worst of all, these final moments of the film make it abundantly clear that as a storyteller and a filmmaker, McKay has absolutely nothing to say about the topics he's skewering, and he shouldn't have even bothered to try. This is a hollow waste of time and talent; a comedy whose idea of humor is simply pointing a finger at something and chuckling obnoxiously. We, as a society, don't just deserve better leaders. We deserve better satire, too.

It wastes the potential silver screen magic you could have by casting Hawke and McGregor as once-close brothers who are forced together by a death that they both have difficulty grieving.

The stakes aren't very high in this film, and there are a few cardinal cinema sins at work here, but overall, Your Place Or Mine ends up being a decent time by coasting on its merits. When it's strong, it's pretty strong—and when it's not, it shows.

The Gray Man exists "in the gray" of Hollywood action movies — not jaw-droppingly incredibly, not astoundingly bad, just there. It's a movie that's made to be half-watched on Netflix while scrolling on your phone. Its greatest disappointment is that it knows what it has — Gosling, a great cast, a lot of money — and it still ends up being less than the sum of its parts.

I suppose the best thing to say about Apartment 7A is that once it's over, you'll probably immediately want watch the much better Rosemary's Baby and wash the dull memory of this movie away.

Considering the majority of modern mainstream fare, we can look at "Bullet Train" as a mild win, a presumably high-budgeted action film that boasts no superheroes, no extended universes, nothing like that. But though this film clears that low bar, Bullet Train is only ever mildly fun, while reminding you of movies that are often a whole lot better.

When Mooney is in joke mode, sprinting from gag to gag without room to breathe, Y2K is a great time at the movies: a midnight movie in the truest sense of the word.

Amsterdam indeed has a number of charming scenes, a stunningly top-tier cast, and flawless cinematography. At the same time, it also fails to balance its wildly fluctuating tones, it rests its central narrative on plot contrivances, and the sum total of these shortcomings impedes the ability of its excellent performers to land the film. As a whole, Amsterdam is a movie that finds itself decidedly less than the sum of its parts.

While the material they’re working with may not be great, it is fun to see Louis-Dreyfus and Ferrell go head-to-head. Maybe they can try doing that again sometime in the future. With a better script.

It's a solid Friday night spookshow with solid bones and a divisive finisher — harmless horror entertainment that at least strives to be better than ordinary.

Spirit Untamed is inoffensive, which both makes it far more tolerable than most other DreamWorks Animation titles and also not terribly good in and of itself.

How to Make a Killing is a movie that sneaks up on you, and like Becket himself, doesn't simply stab you in the chest or punch you in the gut. Instead, it slowly poisons you, leaving you bewildered by the end as to how sick you and the country you live in has become.

Most of what Disney+ has released among its live-action fare is the kind of mid-budget movie that served as the Disney studio’s bread and butter in the 1990s. Godmothered, even with its connection to the Disney fairy-tale universe, is very much in line with those watchable, wholly unremarkable films. It helps that Jillian Bell and Isla Fisher do their best in predictable roles, but the roles being so predictable is hard to look past.

There are countless superhero movies better than this. Better written, better directed, better acted, better made. And yet, Let There Be Carnage has a weird, quirky heart, and sometimes, that's exactly what you need to see.

Greenland 2 still feels like a silly disaster pic at times. But it's a cut above the rest, mostly because it's less interested in grand spectacle and more focused on everyday people just trying to make it through another damn day. We can all relate to that.

This is very likely going to be a crowd pleasing movie, one to hoot and holler about. Beneath all that hooting and hollering, though, lies a psychologically rich tale that I believe will reward multiple viewings.

As a self-contained and satisfying yarn, this initial attempt at original franchise-building leaves a whole lot to be desired. As the most expensive feature-length trailer ever made, "Horizon" sets the stage for a much more interesting sequel where, hopefully, something of import actually happens.

The Instigators makes exceptional use of Damon, Affleck, and the rest of its impeccable roster. It's just a shame that even this cast can't make this add up to more than a movie that's, quite simply, the sum of its parts.

All in all, The Protégé is a dull assassin movie misfire that does no justice by Maggie Q and can’t be saved even by Keaton and Jackson making a meal of their scenes.

Jared Leto also proves to be a less-than-stellar leading man.

The premise of Luck — what if good and bad luck were engineered? — is too thin to make either element feel fulfilling. Instead, the film's most imaginative qualities feel flattened, while its attempts to lend a fresh, modern edge to these old-age concepts feel unsharpened and bland.

As social commentary, it's weak. As a comedy, it's unfunny. As a horror movie, it's not very scary.

Sometimes you want to see a fine-tuned work of precision pop art like "Jaws," and sometimes you just want to watch a CGI shark bite a guy on the ass. We, as movie-watchers, contain multitudes.

There are moments of dread and tension, and as the narrative wears on it goes to some commendably weird places. But by then it's too little too late, and the movie ends with us wishing that the characters really had done something — anything, really.

In the end, Gran Turismo can't escape the feeling of being actively held back at every turn — by the confines of video game conventions, by a painfully trope-laden script, or simply by the fact that everything this video game movie wants to achieve has already been done better before.

If "Cat Person" could just strip away all the nonsense and instead focus on its more realistic, genuine elements, it would be something special. Instead, it ends up being a mildly amusing mixed bag. 

Not many films have started this funny and uplifting, while ending this bleak and depressing.

Altogether, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a fun MCU entry that finally starts to feel like the new Saga is pointing somewhere interesting.

Most attempts to adapt the works of Jack London to the big screen have, more often than not, resulted in a neutered final product. Chris Sanders‘ live-action/computer-animated adaptation of The Call of the Wild falls firmly in this category.

Don't Worry Darling wants to be a transhumanist "Truman Show," but ends up playing out more like a mostly okay episode of "Black Mirror." In fact, Don't Worry Darling recycles a bunch of ideas and imagery from other films, which it attempts to imbue with a fresh, new sociopolitical angle. But it can't overcome its rather simplistic story and a disappointing reveal that ultimately doesn't match up to its build-up.

Once you overlook the commercialism of it all, this premise is fine, and has potential. But writer Billie Bates and director David Poag fail to explore it to its full potential.

The quirky ensemble, anchored by a solid starring performance from LaKeith Stanfield, is aided by Justin Simien's effective direction. Though this film is perhaps not as surefooted a theme-park adaptation as the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" was, it washes away any memory of the more family-friendly take from two decades ago. This "Haunted Mansion" has a lot more bite than you might think.

Cronin and his team work overtime to make this movie gross, filled with goo and guts and uncomfortable squelching noises. A lifetime of horror movies has made me mostly immune to such things, but the third act of this film goes to such gruesome places that a woman at my screening who had inexplicably brought her very young child to this R-rated movie quickly scooped her kid up and hurried out of the theater.

I submit that Sonic the Hedgehog is exhausting. Here is a film that refuses to stop making quips, somehow pulling off the unique feat of never making any of those quips funny.

"The Secrets of Dumbledore" has the most competent story yet, even if it's missing some crucial details to properly flesh out new elements of the wizarding world.

It's as if Diablo Cody and Zelda Williams took Sprouse's "I'm a weirdo" speech from "Riverdale" and turned it into an entire movie to prove the point. For all of its fantastical elements of undead boyfriends and tanning bed magic, there's a genuine message about how ungodly difficult it is to be a teenage girl in all of its forms, but that gallows humor is one of the strongest coping mechanisms to employ.

Halloween Ends settles the series' score, but it does so in a way that lacks a central logic and that spends an inordinate amount of time on things that fail to matter.

Though this film is well-intentioned, fleetly paced, and boasts a unique blend of animation, it's a desperate and sweaty attempt to revive the past glories of the studio.

Eventually, Salem's Lot finds some life in its climax, gleefully unleashing monster mayhem that feels ported over from a much more enjoyable B-movie.

The star of Eenie Meanie and the reason to see it — other than those car crashes and flips, that is — is Weaving, and she absolutely is the most valuable player in the film.

The movie works mainly because of the magnetism and sincerity of its cast, who are giving it their all throughout. Engels and Noel have excellent chemistry, and their world is populated with charismatic, dynamic supporting players, best represented by Saunderson’s maximalist take on Mercutio. If this is what it takes to introduce a new generation to a classic story, so be it.

Nothing takes flight here. Bird Box Barcelona might be the first of its kind, but it certainly will not be the last Netflix sequel or spinoff whose primary audience is a boardroom rather than a living room.

Irresistible is one of the dullest, most toothless comedies in recent memory.

One can't help but wonder how both "The Nun" movies might've played out as original scripts without any shackles to pre-established lore ... but, at the same time, one would have to assume that neither film would even exist without those connections in the first place.

"Godzilla x Kong" is infectiously fun, raucous, and, in the 8-year-old sense, awesome. One will not take much away from "Godzilla x Kong," but you'll leave the theater with a big damn fool grin on your face.

Palmer's performance, disjointed though it may be because of the script, is solid in each individual time period, and though the movie speeds too quickly across the finish line after taking way too long to get revved up, its metaphors and parallels to the struggles of today are effectively drawn.

There's nothing offensively bad about The Alto Knights ... but you kind of wish there was, because at least that might've made the movie more interesting.

There’s a lot of flash and style, and all in service of an empty story with unmemorable gunplay.

Inconsistencies and issues aside, Shazam 2 hits the comic book movie sweet spot. The performances are strong, the humor lands, and the stakes feel high with comic book panache and the kinds of visuals one only gets in a comic book (business-destroying minotaurs, anyone?).

The filmmakers have made a movie which, while not being particularly deep, manages to be fresh, engaging, creepy and fun. For a mainstream horror flick adapted from a game, that's a feat in and of itself, but what gives "Until Dawn" extra heft is its meta, existentialist twist on the monster mash, making the film not the best, but the most horror movie of the year.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie brings together the many recognizable characters of the franchise, the musical flourishes, the colorful design, and even some replication of familiar gameplay, into a brisk 90-minute package that is as critic-proof as it is largely uninspiring.

While the film gets points for bucking tradition and trying to portray its scenes of fright mostly in bright daylight (shot with sharpness by cinematographer Angus Hudson), the scares just aren’t very scary. It doesn’t help that the pacing never feels right, with long stretches of the film focusing on things that would’ve been better served by being truncated.

The film is so humourless that it becomes tiresome. That might be forgivable if the movie managed to be scary, but not even one or two jump scares are enough to get your heart rate up.

What the movie lacks in laughs it more than makes up for with a hip savviness that pervades every frame.

A somewhat ambitious but messy and ultimately unsatisfying sequel, despite packing some decent laughs and a couple of genuinely exhilarating sequences.

Reminiscence is so very, very close to succeeding. Joy has a great visual style – there’s a fight scene in a flooded room with a piano that’s genuinely stunning to watch – and the noir/sci-fi mash-up is often enjoyable. But Reminiscence never manages to feel like a memory worth revisiting.

Perhaps Don’t Breathe 2 would work better for people who haven’t seen the first movie at all – they wouldn’t be lost, and they wouldn’t be witnessing the total character shift from unstoppable killer to flawed savior.

Damsel lives and dies by the performance of Elodie and thankfully, Millie Bobby Brown establishes herself as the new Mother of the Dragons. She expertly finds the balance between a terrified woman thrown into an unthinkable circumstance, and a fighter unwilling to give up when things get tough.

Shotgun Wedding could've worked, even with the script as is, if the cast was a little sharper, a little less prone to yelling half of their dialogue, and a little more willing to get weirder and more unexpected. But only one of the ensemble got that memo.

It’s all overly theatrical, and not at all concerned with being grounded in reality. And there’s something refreshing about seeing a gangster movie filtered through this sort of lens.

Earwig and the Witch feels like a film going through the motions, but not understanding the emotion behind the big narrative beats it’s trying to pull off. It’s a film matched by its flat animation style: incomplete and uninspired.

It's easily one of the biggest surprises of this year. While it doesn't yet settle the debate about where video game movies will go from here, it proves the subgenre is evolving. Video game movies, especially "Mortal Kombat" movies, don't have to be radical reinventions, nor do they need to be relegated to fan service slop. They can be more.

It feels remarkably honest and true to itself, demonstrating again that taking such a popular character seriously is nothing to laugh at.

There's something near-magical about the strands of multicolored lights that occupy nearly every frame of the film, offering a winter wonderland contrast to all the carnage. 

On the positive side, Cailey Fleming makes for a compelling young lead with a touching performance.

If there is anything new to this film, it's the sense that the series is self-aware enough to understand that it's time to wrap up.

Those looking for the next "The Sixth Sense" will inevitably come away disappointed (though, contrary to popular belief, that wasn't M. Night's actual debut film either). But as a bold announcement that the next evolution of the Shyamalan name is upon us, Ishana leaves plenty of reason to believe that the best is still ahead of us.

There's just so much ineptitude running (or rather, leisurely walking) through They/Them — from a lack of fright, not a single interesting character, wooden performances, and no discernable plot — that one would assume this project came from a first-time writer-director.