Awkwardness ends up being the name of the game here, with Eisenberg constructing an intentional cringefest; the type of movie that has you squirming uncomfortably as you're forced to watch oblivious characters make total asses of themselves.

The result is a chaotic, surprisingly funny, and intense night gone wrong that masterfully balances comedy, drama, and suspense. 

It's a nifty, quick-witted slasher pic, and at this point in this particular franchise, that's more than enough.

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.

Without the pandemic, everything here would seem a tad fantastical. Now, we can't help but draw sometimes painful connections. Perhaps it'll hit too close to home. After all, the film makes it clear that there's only so long a person can remain trapped before they start getting desperate.

In Asghar Farhadi's fascinating, complex A Hero, nothing is simple. And no good deed goes unpunished — if it was even a "good deed" to begin with.

The 355 is the cinematic equivalent of Hydrox. It's a bland and generic retread of something that's well-liked, if not beloved, something that feels vaguely like the real thing.

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

It would've been incredibly simple to give us a traditional "Matrix 4."  Instead, The Matrix Resurrections takes its big-budget and runs wild with it. And while there are more than a few stumbles here, any modern-day blockbuster that's this unafraid to subvert expectations is worth celebrating.

In the end, Affleck is the film's only real draw. His funny, uncouth, working-class schlub performance breathes much-needed oxygen into the film's lungs, but at the end of the day, this isn't his story, and it really should've been.

As charismatic as its stars are, and as refreshing as its period setting is, the wildly inconsistent tone and overstuffed runtime loses whatever was left of the shine of the first "Kingsman."

If you poke too many holes in the narrative, Spider-Man: No Way Home starts to become undone. But if you take it at face value, it's a sweet, moving swing of a "Spider-Man" film that (mostly) manages to land.

I Was a Simple Man is a slow-burning walk toward the light, a paean for life, and the land and people that shaped it. It's the kind of love letter that only a lifelong resident of Hawaii like Yogi could make, to a resilient land whose scars will take long to heal.

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.

A better director would have improved its flaws, or maybe pushed Sorkin to go through some of the elements and refashion them. "Being the Ricardos" needed a different voice; the one here profoundly, obstinately refuses to grasp the inner workings of the comic mind.

A wickedly enjoyable tale of freak shows, dark and stormy nights, innocent dames, morally bankrupt schemers, and a femme fatale to die for.

Spielberg's West Side Story is a knock-out. A dynamite blend of old-school musical showmanship and modern sensibilities. It's one of the best movies of the year, and one of the best movies of the acclaimed filmmaker's career. Yes, really.

Whatever the flaws of the previous "Resident Evil" series, those films were never as dull as "Raccoon City." Roberts doesn't seem to know how to milk anything resembling genuine horror out of the material here.

It's Lifestyles of the Rich and Clueless in Ridley Scott's House of Gucci, an odd duck of a film that wants to serve you both a scrumptious gourmet meal and greasy fast food in the same bite.

There's something about a Mike Mills film that feels like it's gently caressing the hair out of your face and kissing you on the forehead: a softness, a wistfulness that acknowledges how hard reality can be while tucking you into bed. While "C'mon C'mon" can't protect you from the world, it can at the very least hold your hand as it tries to figure out the path forward too.

Nostalgia is fine in limited doses, but the sequel ends up feeling like J.J. Abrams directed "Now That's What I Call Ghostbusters," undoing any of the goodwill established by the film's first two acts. The movie is trapped in the past so much that it might taint any potential future there might be to keep the franchise alive with these new characters.

Petite Maman is richer in its simplicity; a lovely slice-of-life tale that knows that loss is so enormous and monumental that we can only linger with it for brief moments.

King Richard isn't looking to break the sports biopic genre or break the Williams' sister's legacy; it's purely a crowd-pleasing performance vehicle for Smith. But you know what? It does its job.

I don't want to get too hyperbolic here, but watching "Licorice Pizza" reminded me why I love movies so much; particularly the way they can drop us into another place and another time, and embed us completely into the lives of total strangers. If Licorice Pizza had stretched on for another hour, I would've been perfectly content to go along.

For films like Encanto to truly stand out, instead of being content with being good enough, they need to push storytelling limits as much as they push cultural ones.

Painfully earnest and positively exuberant, Tick, Tick... BOOM! isn't counting down to some kind of tragic fate. It's an explosion of life, energy, the ecstasy of being alive and making something. It's an ode to the creatives who fear they'll never reach the greatness they've been grasping at. It's a promise that they might.

Home Sweet Home Alone runs counter to whatever standard expectations any audience member would have about what to expect from a film in this franchise. To those of us who disdain the original, that actually works in its favor for the first hour. To others, this film may be alienating and perplexing. But it's a pleasant holiday surprise if you're willing to go with it.

The way the filmmakers use their underwater setting is brilliant, and while there's not a whole lot of story here, they make every moment count.