While the partnership between Wahlberg and actor-turned-director Peter Berg has produced a few duds since the success of Lone Survivor, none have been as generically mediocre. At the very least, one can appreciate it for being environmentally friendly.

Just as it reduces Garrett’s character to a few tenacious traits, the film, in presenting his inspiring story, loses perspective on the broader picture.

Just don’t mistake the lightness of step for a softness of philosophy. There’s a political dimension to all of Reichardt’s films, which almost invariably follow characters muscled to the margins of society.

Between the known metatext and Affleck’s bone-deep commitment, this moving central performance largely purges the film of its high potential for the maudlin.

In short, this is fundamentally a movie of surface pleasures, placing gorgeous actors in an equally stunning location and letting them parry with sharp words and lithe, angular bodies.

Some jokes may dissipate quickly, but its unusual warmth lingers in the air like a friendly ghost.

Saint Frances goes down easy. It’s refreshingly small and intimate, and is specific on the lives of very particular women without overreaching to look more politically salient or strike zeitgeist concerns. Bridget’s personal growth is understated, and so, for the most part, are the pleasures of Saint Frances.

Greed fails because it’s overstuffed with subplots and organized via a maddening time-hopping structure.

Overly simplistic piece of Southern poverty porn, which asks questions it’s not really prepared to answer and proceeds from a set of dubious assumptions that undermine whatever nuance it does possess.

Playing with genre cryptograms of gangster villas, opera-loving killers, and glamorously lit cigarette smoke, the film never takes itself too seriously, even if its characters never seem to smile.

The film’s true power is elemental, rooted in weather conditions that all but erase the distinction between land and sky, and in the inky darkness of a tunnel traversed by one haggard, trudging figure whose weary body intermittently blocks a sliver of light barely visible at its far end.

Moss also strengthens the notion that this is a monster movie unusually interested in looking past the toxic-male machinations of its famous character and toward the lasting horrors left in his wake. In other words, the stuff that previous movies, and real life, have sometimes tried to turn invisible.

Watching Onward, it’s hard to shake the feeling that maybe Pixar has overplayed the mundane half of its winning equation. They’ve made a movie about looking for misplaced magic in the modern world that, well, kind of misplaces the magic.

None of the mounting dread is surprising, and only some of it is more effective than the average haunted-whatever picture. But Brahms himself remains an oddball delight.

The Night Clerk will be remembered, if at all, as a movie de Armas was way too good for — an unfortunate mile marker on her road to movie stardom.

This all contributes to the impression that the director’s interest in the project came down to just about everything except the plot. Which is understandable given the source material, but doesn’t excuse the fact that The Last Thing He Wanted sputters on most of the basic terms it sets for itself. Still, there is at least some nobility to its failure.

His muse Ventura is there, too, cast as a meta character; he plays a clerygman who has lost his flock and now ministers to an abandoned church that looks suspiciously like a small movie theater. Which is about as close as Vitalina Varela comes to bluntly stating its themes: presence, absence, rekindled faith.

It deviates enough from formula — especially in its arresting ending, which takes full advantage of Bielenia’s haunted visage — to be worth seeing.

Anchoring it all is horror darling Anya Taylor-Joy, who makes for a particularly icy Emma.

It is neither disaster nor dream, landing firmly somewhere in the disappointing middle.

Thriller framework aside, Fantasy Island probably works best as a comedy. At least when it’s not trying to be one.

Across just a handful of scenes, [Rob] Morgan emerges as the soul of the film. It’s a testament to how much the right actor can do with even the briefest screentime—and a call to give Morgan a starring role worthy of him.

The filmmakers that Schanelec draws on for inspiration are all masters of one kind of economy or another. The problem is that Schanelec herself is not. Despite its austere, theory-heavy minimalism, I Was At Home, But… is lopsided and lumpy, filled with longueurs in which the brain begins to check out.

A nattering chore of a “family” comedy that feels written by committee and directed by indifferent machine.

Despite their best efforts, Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville can’t rescue Ordinary Love, a bland drama about a late-middle-aged couple grappling with a cancer diagnosis.

This is a more professional-looking production, with a much stronger cast, but it has the same half-assed feel.

This documentary might’ve been better with another few years’ worth of reporting and perspective.

A pleasant distraction without a lot of payoff. It doesn’t tarnish the original, but it never quite rises to its heights either.

The film flounders a bit in its second half, as it struggles to maintain the tension of its inciting incident. But Harduin’s performance as Gloria goes off her meds and descends into her own private world would be impressive for an actress of any age, let alone a 13-year-old.

While the film is kinetic, colorful, and frantically paced, it’s also not quite as outrageous as Miike’s gonzo ‘90s yakuza movies.

The film is propelled by a confident lead performance from Alexandra Daddario.

Its clever comedic writing couldn’t quite overcome its sometimes subpar camerawork.

On a moment-by-moment level, the action in Birds Of Prey is compelling, drawing more from the Hong Kong style of unbroken takes designed to show off the choreography than the chaotic quick cuts of most American blockbusters.

Horse Girl’s big weakness is that it can’t decide how much ambiguity to provide its central character, or how seriously it wants to present Sarah’s breakdown (or, if you read the film another way, her awakening).

The dancing is mostly depicted in practice and rehearsal in a featureless room, captured in raggedly cut handheld sequences that betray the movie’s modest means. If Akin knows how to direct better than this, he rarely shows it. But if he never displays a knack for visualizing the physicality of dance (more impressive rehearsal footage can be found in about five seconds on YouTube), he does a decent job of conveying the frustration and passion it inspires in Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani, a professional dancer).

If one of the boundaries being tested in this film is viewers’ patience, the reward for—to use a refrain repeated throughout the film—“trusting the darkness” is well worth the commitment.

Even thought it’s a bleak and uncompromising film, it’d be unfair to call Beanpole “misery porn.” The questions it’s asking are much more complicated, and more cutting, than that.

Unfortunately, the script by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski is clunky—in the convoluted nature of its reveals and also in the sometimes-baffling behavior on display.

It turns out to be something kind of special in its own right: a modern rom-com that’s funny and inventive and sweet and totally mainstream and a little deranged all at once.

Whether this book is really open, and whether it reveals the “real” Taylor Swift or not, Miss Americana is convincing, positive, and entrancing nonetheless.

An always welcome presence, Law is the only cast member in The Rhythm Section to give the impression that he had any fun making the movie, playing B as a survivalist sourpuss with impossible reflexes. Nonetheless, he is consistently dressed and lit as though he were posing for a watch ad.

If there’s a real draw to this bastardized variation, it’s Louis-Dreyfus.

By its nature, the film is uneven—Estrada shares screenwriting duty with a whopping 25 poets, and as with any poetry slam, some performances are better than others, both in terms of the words themselves and in the highly variable acting abilities of these mostly first-time stars.

Black Bear is the movie that proves, beyond any lingering doubt, that Aubrey Plaza has much more to offer than the best eye-roll in the business. Maybe that was clear already.

The screenplay — written by Bellocchio in collaboration with several others — has no particular point of view regarding Buscetta, seeming content merely to take us step by step through his two decades as an informant.

It suggests that Zeitlin, throwing more handfuls of fairy dust over an impoverished American South, is something of a lost boy himself. Like Pan and his posse, he stubbornly refuses to grow.

Fennell complicates matters throughout, toying with our identification by pushing Cassie’s tactics into some uncomfortably nasty places, even as she slowly reveals her motives.

The performances are a hoot . . . . But the film has perspective problems that extend beyond the slightly queasy, half-comic depiction of sex work.

The Assistant is more of a spartan procedural, its narrative a methodical accounting of one day—typical in incident, atypical in dawning realization—for an entry-level employee at the New York production house of a Weinstein-like figure.

Hagiography doesn’t magically becomes less tedious simply because its subject made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, however, and this stolid, mournful drama does little more than solicit the viewer’s respect and admiration for Pitsenbarger, whose entire life gets reduced to a single act of uncomplicated nobility.

In a movie as utterly lost as The Turning, everything from the performances to the production design to the music cues amount to one big pile of dirty mirrors and doll parts.

Even in shortened form, I Wish I Knew can at times feel overly discursive. But its implications, particularly regarding the Cultural Revolution, are difficult to miss.

Too often, The Gentlemen creaks through the motions of Ritchie’s patented vision, absent the spark necessary to bring his fast-paced action and profane zingers to life. It’s like watching a reunited band struggle to recapture the energy of its glory days.

The trappings of the boarding school, with its grand staircases, centuries-old cloisters, and self-serious teenage secrecy, are gothic. But Bonello nods just as much to American teen-anxiety horror. There is even an homage to Brian De Palma’s "Carrie."

It’s a five-day toss-off that’s simultaneously an impressive feat and business as usual.

Unfortunately, this handheld coming-of-age story is frequently interrupted by variably convincing stretches of channel surfing, as though someone recorded over much of the former with the latter. And even with pros like Charlyne Yi and Kerri Kenney lending their deadpan chops, real weird TV is funnier. Weirder, too.

Dolittle is full of anachronistic pop culture references and poop and fart humor, jokes delivered in suspiciously low-impact style by the film’s animated animals.

Bantering back and forth, Lawrence and Smith manage to recreate some of their screen chemistry — though not enough to make anyone want to go on another bumpy ride.

Viewed as any sort of follow-up to "Beasts," Troop Zero looks like a sellout. By the standards of mainstream live-action children’s fare, however, it’s more mature and thoughtful than average. Just don’t expect any Oscar nominations, even for recent winners like Davis and Janney.

This is what ultimately makes the movie’s climate-change backdrop more poignant than perplexing. By the end of Weathering With You, this has become a story about two people with their whole lives ahead of them, navigating their way through a future where they pine for things we all take for granted. Like, say, the simple pleasure of a sunny day.

The Murder Of Nicole Brown Simpson is directed like a Lifetime thriller, relying heavily on stark lighting and ominous music to create suspense. (Neither is effective.)

Unlike the best programmers, it never transcends its derivative origins and basic thrills. It’s another movie about thin characters and bland monsters—albeit one that’s better than the norm.

If you’re looking for something truly groundbreaking—or hilarious—Like A Boss isn’t it.

It’s not subtle, and it’s not pleasant. It’s angry, and it’s honest. Hugo would approve.

An insipid, boring mess, Three Christs doesn’t even have the decency to be amusing, apart from Stephen Root’s forced delivery of the film’s title followed by a what-a-world head shake.

Overall, though, the director and co-writer’s merciless style is muffled by The Grudge’s over-reliance on clichéd jump scares; more damningly, only some of these are effective, even in terms of cheap thrills. This becomes especially true in the film’s second half, when the ghosts become at once more human and less creepy.

Stanley does a remarkable job keeping the film grounded in emotional reality all things considered, but it’s admittedly an idiosyncratic movie about unconventional people made by an offbeat director.

Soaked in neon and coated with a thick layer of 16mm film grain, it’s a visceral throwback to the gritty action fare that lined video store shelves in the early ’80s as grindhouses gave way to the VHS boom—coincidentally, also the era that made VFW’s core cast famous.

Puts a forward-thinking feminist bent on the Riverdale school of neon Twin Peaks fetishism

It’s impressive to see such sophisticated camera work from a newcomer. But to combine that with experimental narrative and sound techniques, and place it in a detailed mid-century modern environment, and to have all these ambitious gambits (mostly) work, all on an independent film budget...well, it’s quite the feat.

Bliss approaches its aesthetic with a straight-faced intensity, pummeling the viewer with woozy handheld closeups and violent bursts of montage until you feel like maybe you might have been dosed somehow on your way into the theater. The only irony here is that Begos says it’s his most personal movie to date.

A slick and thrilling take on the intersection of mental illness and creative inspiration that also doubles as a commentary on toxic masculinity.

The thing that haunted me the most about the film afterwards—aside from Riley Keough’s choking screams in one particularly intense, symbolically loaded sequence—was the ludicrousness of its plot.

Sure, the cast is full of exciting names, but all of Jarmusch’s absurdist thematic flourishes—the Romero tributes, the meta commentary, the political humor—are half-baked and inconsistently applied.

Much of this is relentlessly bleak and hopeless—true to reality, perhaps, but also repetitious and dramatically inert.

There’s no mystery here, no narrator wrestling with the limits of his own generosity and tolerance. Just a lot of stunning scenery and exemplary rectitude.

Alfre Woodard captures with exquisite nuance the emotional and physical toll it might take on someone, spending years overseeing executions; she grounds the film, which otherwise strikes a balance between broad empathy and a pointed call for criminal justice reform.

Of course, Cats has always been ridiculous, just as it has always been ridiculed. (“Cats is a dog,” declared a notorious review of the musical’s Broadway debut.) But Hooper can’t even get camp right.

What he discovers is powerfully moving, but every step of his journey — and of the copious flashbacks that fill in various blanks — tests the viewer’s patience. It’s like eating an entire box of stale cereal to get to the prize.

So it feels quite ironic that Ip Man 4: The Finale wraps up the parent series with a movie that’s comparatively weak in the kung fu department but atypically solid at killing time between set pieces. The highs are lower than usual, the lows higher. It all goes down smooth.

This is a space opera animated not by joy but insecurity—the anxiety, evident in almost every moment, that if it’s not very careful, someone might feel letdown.

The filmmakers and actors imbue the characters with remarkable depth of feeling.

Spies In Disguise isn’t clever enough to reconcile the disingenuousness of setting off a litany of pointless explosions and battles before clarifying that this stuff is bad, actually.

The latest Black Christmas reboot understands the frustrations and lived horrors of modern sexual politics, but stumbles over its scares and the finer points of its feminist messaging.

Between the movie’s subtext and its new-digital-world distributor, Bay seems to be communicating the frustration of constraint, but why? What has he been barred from doing?

Horror remakes don’t have to be inferior rehashes, as films like Jim Mickle’s "We Are What We Are" (2013) and Luca Guadagnino’s "Suspiria" (2018) have demonstrated. But this Rabid nibbles where it should clamp down hard.

Too often, The Next Level passes off callbacks to gags from its predecessor as jokes, all while presuming that viewers have an unhealthy familiarity with the Jumanji canon.

In any case, what remains of John F. Donovan is a barely coherent mess, and so eager for your approval that it’s hard to feel anything but sorry for it.

The film is a snappy, glib tour of recent history in the Adam McKay mold, hydroplaning through the stormy real-life events that led to Ailes’ departure from Fox News with windshield wipers on high and blinders strapped to each side of its head.

Playmobil: The Movie isn’t as funny as some of the direct-to-video Lego-related movies, either, and that’s very much the field it competes in, theatrical release or not. As children’s entertainment goes, this is a harmless distractor, but it’s also poorly conceived at every story turn, unable to even stick to a particular generic message to make up for its extremely basic humor.

A gloomy psychological thriller interested in the distinct paranoia of a woman living in self-exile in the South Bronx.

Like so many of the works of Eastwood’s long late period, Jewell offers a story without much of an endpoint, with an uplifting coda that feels almost as jarring as the ending of "American Sniper." But somewhere within its surprisingly pacey two-plus hours is a compelling group portrait of ordinary oddballs in cruel circumstances; it relays Eastwood’s appreciation for individuals over masses better than any speech ever could.

The results are disappointingly conventional for a Ghibli film—the film is good-hearted, energetic, and full of Ghibli's characteristically beautiful hand-rendered animation, but it's also lightweight and hyper, with none of Miyazaki's more resonant themes.