The blood is good. The traps are good. The series' nastiness is intact, even as it all looks a bit bigger and a bit slicker. The important thing is that "Saw X" continues to be unafraid of its own continuity, so infatuated with its own delightful bulls***.

As the narrative unfolded in lickety-split fashion, I found myself totally charmed and a little dizzy. Anderson uses almost all of Dahl's prose here, and while that could've backfired, or even resulted in bloat, the filmmaker keeps the proceedings brisk and snappy, relying on Dahl's inherent dry humor to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

James Cameron's "Avatar" is often criticized for its derivative story, but it works because its simplicity makes it universal. The Creator forgets that second part and just goes for simple and derivative. Still, watching Edwards pull his "A New Hope" is entertaining, and proof that we can still have stunning-looking works of original sci-fi.

While I would've liked the layout of the house to be better established, No One Will Save You makes the most of its limited locations, proving you can have big thrills and chills in restricted spaces.

Expend4bles may be the best of the series. This is not a compliment to Waugh's film, but a mere note on how badly this series of films has fared over the last 13 years. These are useless, badly written gimmick films whose gimmicks never bore fruit. As the title implies, the flick is expendable. Or perhaps expend4ble. Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/1399641/expendables-4-review/

As the horrors of The Royal Hotel unfold, the film shifts from a terse thriller into a full-on horror, assisted by appropriately and effectively eerie cinematography from Michael Latham.

It does wind up playing things too safe, and too conventionally, but Rustin still remains a valuable portrait of how an everyday person can do extraordinary things in the face of staggering adversity.

Next Goal Wins feels like it's made by a director out of ideas — it's a film made up of lazy, visually vacant, and soulless filmmaking.

The razor-thin premise can't quite sustain itself. Taken as a whole, the film is a bit like a vampire draining an older victim of their blood: cold, thick, and unnourishing.

Kendrick's directorial debut shows both confidence and great promise, crafting a disturbing tale, and a chilling examination of casual misogyny and violence towards women.

In the end, watching Pain Hustlers is about as numbing an experience as being prescribed the drug Liza spent her career selling.

The mystery is a convoluted mess, clearly attempting to marry the intrigue of "Chinatown" with the escalating chaos of a Coen Brothers movie while failing to make things compelling, all while the wacky humor falls flat.

The Holdovers is proof that we need more thoughtful, studied, loving, and irresistible human stories on screen. It certainly helps, however, when Alexander Payne is at the helm.

A Haunting in Venice does try to spice things up, but all the skewed angles in the world can't hide the fact that this mystery is half as eerie as it wants to be, and roughly as entertaining.

For a story as surprising and unpredictable as the true GameStop story was, it's frustrating to see Dumb Money follow such a familiar structure. What it does do especially well is its exploration of the community aspect of the situation.

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.

The canon of "The Equalizer" has never taken the world by storm, usually percolating in the background of popular culture as a piece of intense ephemera. Robert McCall is a former Marine and DIA officer, but that is entirely ignored in part 3. He's a superhero played by Denzel Washington, and the filmmakers assume that is enough. For many audience members, it will be.

Scrapper is just the kind of scrappy triumph its title indicates. It's not the newness of the materials that matters here — it's how they are assembled with such care and consideration.

Once upon a time, a movie of this ilk could be unremarkable but fun; sturdy and dependable; solid, even. Not this time, though. 

Though Chuck Chuck Baby treads familiar plot beats and offers little surprise, it's something of a feat to turn such familiar British film territory into something prominently LGBT+. Its innate understanding of queerness and female bonds allows the lesbian relationship to never feel like window dressing.

There's plenty of slow creeping dread on display here, matched with that dark humor and two fantastic leads. It all comes together to make "Birth/Rebirth" one of 2023's more interesting horror entries.

Though I had a feeling Strays could be special, I'm still pretty floored by just how hilarious it is. Perrault's script finds an excellent balance of wince-worthy humor and genuine heart, and the voice acting is more than spirited enough to make up for the inevitable issues with trying to make animals emote like humans.

Overall, the details of Blue Beetle are fun, and the characters may inspire a few warm familial smiles, but the whole is frustratingly shabby and rushed.

This movie isn't even worth glancing at when you scroll through your Netflix profile.

I don't know if I'd call this a memorable take on Dracula, but as a simple little monster movie with plenty of atmospherre, it does the trick.

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.

I don't fault Meg 2: The Trench for being silly. I do fault it for being boring. 

The Sacrifice Game is cool, calm, and collected despite bringing so many subgenres to the party, achieving tonal unity that should please crowds and leave them craving whatever comes next for Wexler and company.