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.

The intellectual property has become intimidating, too profitable to warrant risk-taking—so instead, audiences are served an appetizing confection. But kids do love candy, and I’m sure that around the world, they’ll have just one command for their ticket-buying parents: “Let’s-a go!”

The action in Honor Among Thieves is well choreographed. Anyone who enjoyed Goldstein and Daley’s last cinematic directorial effort, the comedy thriller Game Night, knows that they approach spatial geography with more care than do many blockbuster filmmakers. But I was really kicking my feet with glee during the film’s flights of storytelling fancy (its 20-sided die rolls for intelligence rather than strength, if you will).

The director, Chad Stahelski, has been with the series since its inception and is clearly working with his biggest budget yet, so he compensates for any story weakness by serving up a seven-course meal of set pieces.

With the inventiveness of Creed III, an old franchise suddenly feels fresh.

This project does not skimp on its main attraction, but it does seem unsure of what to put around it, throwing a variety of hapless characters in the mix and arming them mostly with indifferent comedy in the face of some truly gnarly violence.

With its ever-evolving protagonist, Return to Seoul defies neat categorization. It’s a low-budget character drama with the twists and turns of a high-octane thriller. It’s also a consistently satisfying watch that honors the difficulty of wanting to be understood—and the relief of finally releasing that desire.

It’s only right that a film about her challenges—and maybe even disturbs—its audience in turn.

Mike and Max’s relationship—in which she whisks him off to London so he can direct an all-male revue at the theater she owns—is the stuff of romance novels, but that’s the point: Last Dance is all wish fulfillment, seductive and surreal.

Anytime Quantumania allows itself to get a little silly, it’s in much better shape.

Cronenberg has an obvious gift for making blood and viscera look inventive, even as they splatter across the screen repeatedly. But the film can’t outdo its initial hook.

Knock at the Cabin avoids this problem partly through its deft casting, with Bautista serving as the most pivotal player. So much of the movie revolves around Leonard’s surreal monologues; the actor keeps a firm grasp on Leonard’s belief in his every word.

In reality, Skinamarink is just a 100-minute symphony of the vibes being very, very off, a crescendo of creeping dread that eventually overwhelms the viewer.

The result is a film that is slickly made but buggy in execution, like a premature software update.

Yes, Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN is pulled from January’s bucket of mostly low-budget pablum, but it’s cheeky and knowing enough to stand out from the slop.

Just as a war movie can encourage its audience to appreciate heroism and sacrifice, Women Talking reminds us of the value of language—its capacity for context, for constructive debate, and, in the end, for collective healing.

Despite a committed cast and often stunning cinematography, the film’s script is too blunt and the direction too ham-fisted to make Emancipation anything more than another rote—albeit expensive—entry in the slavery-movie genre.

Baumbach does his best to infuse his film with mundane dread, but for the viewer, existential horror can be easily confused with a lack of energy.

Babylon is the kind of grandiose folly that at least gives the viewer a big old mess to chew on.

The final battles in The Way of Water are rousing, but they’re also feats of geography, astonishing in how they manage to keep the audience focused on a huge ensemble of characters who are jumping between various locations.

De Clermont-Tonnerre understands that the lovers’ behavior and Lawrence’s social commentary no longer spur much pearl-clutching, so instead, she surprises viewers by adding uncanny elements to her most explicit scenes.

The film doesn’t just re-create the journalists’ day-to-day life; it also captures the book’s solemn and matter-of-fact tone.

Like the beachside wardrobe the cast dons for its sun-kissed retreat, the movie is colorful and breezy. Glass Onion is mayhem-filled fun, best enjoyed with a crowd.

Even with the gore and the gorgeous visuals that typically accompany a Guadagnino project, Bones and All too often feels frustratingly tame.

The Menu is unique, because it casts Slowik as both hero and villain. He’s not wrong to simmer with hatred for his elitist customers, but he’s also seething at the fact that he has, in fact, become one of them, propped up by the very system they created.

Spielberg’s storytelling has plenty of humor and verve, but it has a devastating sense of self-awareness as well. In focusing on a boy who puts a camera between himself and the world, Spielberg essays both the power in that perspective, and the limitations.

It's far from the director's richest or most interesting work (that would be Sideways or About Schmidt), but the movie is a pleasure to watch: a melancholic comedy graced with the trademark Payne balance of tenderness and irony.

It's a shattering masterpiece about sexual awakening, heartbreak, and self-discovery.