It’s one of those projects that initially seems hokey beyond repair but quickly evolves into something genuinely unique. Serenity may not make it onto many critics’ top-10 lists come the end of 2019. But it’s certain to be one of the more unforgettable viewing experiences of the year.

Red Notice is a glossy but empty product that indicates the extent of the genre’s current crisis.

Not only is it not very good as a standalone story, but it’s also been bizarrely shoehorned in to J.J. Abrams’s nebulous Cloverfield franchise (which now consists of three films made in the last 10 years) with next to no narrative justification.

So what if this movie essentially forgets to have a coherent plot or any real stakes; look at all of the exciting crossovers!

With a shapeless plot that tediously unfolds, the film is uncomfortable to watch. Even Vardalos, who directs for the first time, seems to struggle with mustering actual interest in her own material.

Mute is a slog, and a depressing one; as Netflix sci-fi goes, it’s not as abjectly inept as The Cloverfield Paradox, but it’s perhaps even more disappointing given the talented filmmaker involved.

Venom is, at its heart, a will-they-won’t-they story—a grisly meet-cute between a down-on-his-luck reporter and a grumpy, gloppy little extra-terrestrial with a really big appetite. That’s good, because the movie is barely competent as an action flick.

It’s all perfectly agreeable nonsense.

The Kitchen is an unsalvageable mess.

Morbius is little more than an irritant, a grumpy, one-note CGI beastie who spends most of his movie pondering whether he should go full supervillain.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is full of elaborate, digitally created saw wounds far more shocking and anatomically bizarre than anything that could be achieved through makeup. These impressive-looking kills, however, have no heft; the CGI blood spurts are too artificial.

Whether you think the imagery is beautiful or nightmarish, this is a film that demands to be looked at. If nothing else, I can confirm it’s the most Jellicle experience I’ve had all year.

The good news—and, yes, we are grading on a curve so steep that it’s essentially a vertical drop—is that Fifty Shades Freed is marginally less retrograde and offensive than Fifty Shades Darker. The bad news is that it is even more idiotic, which is in its way a remarkable achievement.

In trying to set itself apart, this film ends up perfectly laying out the case against its own existence.

A generic and plodding revenge thriller that’s nowhere near bold enough to justify the franchise’s resurrection.

The Electric State is so transparently eager to satisfy as many demographics of viewers as possible that it proves its own message: that a world dependent on business interests and technological optimization dulls artistic potential and human ingenuity. All that’s left is a wasteland of half-baked ideas searching for a home.

It all culminates, of course, in a cacophonous and interminable final battle involving far too many participants to possibly keep straight.

It’s transfixing at times, if only because it’s such a disaster.

I almost admire the sheer lack of effort on display in the acting, storytelling, and set pieces. To say that Johnson in particular phoned this performance in would be an insult to Alexander Graham Bell.

Ultimately, The Snowman is that most frustrating of film types: You can picture the good movie that it might have been; it’s just not the movie that’s up on the screen. For a while, it sinks into your bones. And then it just sinks.

In Life Itself, everyone’s fate is in the hands of Fogelman, and he wields that power with terrible cruelty.