A number of the observations about the strictures of gangland life that The Many Saints of Newark bumps up against are compelling, but the film is a victim of its own compression, telling a season’s worth of stories in two hours.

The script has a wry sense of humor but is almost never laugh-out-loud funny, and the gory substance of the plot regularly overwhelms the delicate notes of parody.

By the end of this new Candyman, little personal investment remains for the audience, just a miasma of provocative thoughts failing to cohere into something greater. The film has enough visual panache to make it an involving watch, but it struggles to live up to the audaciousness of its deeper ideas.

Over its 151-minute running time, Doctor Sleep floats between the bleak and mournful themes of King’s writing and the chilling, inimitable dread of Kubrick’s filmmaking. But it never quite figures out how to bring the two styles together.

As an effort to breathe new life into a particularly moribund title—there have been four prior takes on these characters, all of them bad—First Steps is essentially successful. What it somehow can’t manage to do is have much of a good time in the process.

In its quieter moments, Wonderstruck occasionally approaches the transcendent, sublime quality Haynes is aiming for—but those times are frustratingly few and far between.

Although it’s often charming and relatable, it’s a letdown when you consider the heights such a project could reach.

Bring Her Back is far more confident in its portrayal of Laura’s own story, building to a devastating and intense conclusion about the extent of her loss and her inability to deal with it. Hawkins is up to the challenge, and the rest of the ensemble is strong enough to keep pace. But many of those story beats feel perfunctory; the film comes to life in the nastier, grislier set pieces.

The satire of Don’t Look Up is anguished and clear to the point of feeling bludgeoning.

Don’t call Gemini a neo-noir—call it a neon-noir, a moody little slice of pulp fiction that ends up satisfying the eyes more than the mind.

The narrative thrust of The Hidden World sputters any time humans are involved. Much of the plot exists only to stall the characters until the film winds its way to a touching conclusion.

Here We Go Again is a viewing experience best described as a long nap on the beach while staying at a chain resort. It’s extremely pleasant, if a little lacking in imagination, and every so often, a waiter comes by to refill your drink.

It reminded me that religion and pop and fascism each revels in uniforms and shared, shouted praise. But it didn’t make me feel all that much.

For all its powerful elements, though, Hamnet rings a bit hollow at its core. Perhaps the grand tragedies are just too overwhelming for some viewers to see beyond. I cried, yes, but in the end, I felt no closer to the mysterious bard—let alone to the people he loved, all those hundreds of years ago.

Dark Fate will likely feel like a blessing for Terminator diehards, a reboot that taps into what made the original films special and smooths out a timeline that’s grown more convoluted with every sequel. For newer fans, Hamilton’s and Schwarzenegger’s performances should be enough to keep things absorbing without the lure of nostalgia.

It’s fun, in a depraved way, to see him trotted out for one more ride, but Jigsaw won’t be around to play games with us forever. Enjoy it while it lasts.

For those seeking a wickedly dark little confection, Thoroughbreds should prove a diverting watch; but those looking for anything deeper will find a lot left to be desired.

The spectacle of a fantasy world can do only so much; a beautiful setting can’t compensate for a superficial story line. Raya loses sight of its heroine’s own connection to the cultures that the filmmakers had put so much care into depicting authentically.

Bullet Train is stupid fun—all neon-drenched style over substance. It’s the kind of late-summer flick that coasts on nonsense, violence, and actors trying out questionable accents. The film is a solid showcase for hand-to-hand combat up until it devolves into CGI drudgery.

It’s a remarkable story, but a cinematically limited one, constantly in danger of seeming more like a news summary than a narrative work.

Ballerina ultimately succeeds as a piece of junky fun, however, because it attempts to expand the Wick canon rather than deepen its titular protagonist.

All the Money in the World is watchable and at times quite gripping, but it’s little more than a middling entry in Scott’s long career.

While Wright remains exceptionally gifted at mashing up genres to create moments of real cinematic lightning, by and large, Last Night in Soho is all flash, no impact.

Like a frustrated player speeding up the falling blocks to end the game, the film haphazardly stacks ideas atop one another until, well, it’s a relief when it’s over.

Deep Water is still a robust, well-acted thriller that lands most of its major twists gracefully; for that, all lesser sins can be forgiven.

We’re in silly–rom-com territory, and you simply have to accept every ludicrous development with calm rationality. Marry Me is a revived artifact from a time when Hollywood regularly churned out syrupy nonsense about people kissing under the most unlikely of circumstances. The presence of Lopez, once a reigning queen of the genre, only helps underline what a throwback Marry Me is.

The cast is stacked, but the story is messy, and the pathos driving Bernadette’s disappearance (which, again, is easily solved) is underwritten.

Even the most mundane moments in The Little Things aren’t enough to stifle Washington’s star power. Almost nothing is.