Whereas Bertino’s original was sleek, sinister and deft, this do-over is noisy, dull and dumb as a bag of rocks.

This wannabe winsome fairy tale about confronting fears, atoning for sins, and forgiving oneself is a pile-up of preciousness.

It's content to be childishly silly rather than legitimately weird, veering between gags concerning age-old products and Jan. 6 with a mildness that keeps things pleasantly pedestrian.

If genre fans will always know what it’s up to, that’s just another way it pays faithful homage to its by-the-numbers precursors.

It’s the safe and simplistic course correction that—neutered of the very absurdist immensity that was this franchise’s calling card, if not its sole reason for existing—lands with a crashing thud.

A franchise farewell so underwhelming, nary a tear will be shed over its passing.

[Ford’s] presence—along with a winning turn from Anthony Mackie as the patriotic title character—makes this adventure a sturdy return to franchise form.

Cartoonishly gory and drearily unoriginal and predictable, it’s a collection of tired devices and shout-outs that plays like training wheels slasher cinema.

Merely a cheeky pantomime rather than an actual adventure in which one might get swept up.

The meager surprises it does contain aren’t particularly effective, considering that early clues suggest only one possible twist and the proceedings do little to mask it.

If this truly is the pair’s big-screen goodbye, at least it ends on a fittingly wacko note of pure, unadulterated sentimentality.

While the star adequately acquits himself, Neil Jordan’s throwback noir is a cover song that knows all the notes but can’t capture its predecessor’s spirit.

For sheer unadulterated geekiness, it’s got few contemporary equals.

A thriller in name only, it has all the grace and cunning of an anvil to the head.

Save for a single sterling jolt, his compendium of clichés is a case study in knowing a genre’s tricks but doing absolutely nothing of interest with them.

The proceedings resemble an impromptu game of make-believe concocted by a kid playing with his or her toys—a situation that renders it both inane and lighthearted.

[Wheatley’s] chaos and madness is of a blandly cartoonish variety, neither serious enough to scare nor outlandish enough to elicit laughs.

By choosing to reside in abstraction, it imparts only generic and empty truths.

Director Calmatic sanitizes every aspect of his source material until the entire thing looks, sounds and feels like a Disney sitcom. Thus, it’s no surprise when things get self-help maudlin.

Cheerfully dumb and dutifully formulaic, it’s “content” in the worst sense of the term.

The epitome of a knock-off B-movie—and one that’s only mildly entertaining when it shows its cards and goes full-on gonzo.

Affected and artificial to the point of aggravation, it’s an interminably draggy endeavor that gives the lie to its oft-spoken phrase, “Time flies.”

A subpar exorcism movie that’s all the more depressing for being directed by Lee Daniels, whose distinctive flair is only sporadically spied amidst its shopworn clichés.

The Exorcist: Believer trots out Burstyn for continuity credibility and then treats her with stunning disrespect—the most brazen of many indications that the film is a soulless cash-in on an established name brand.

Its phoniness epitomized by Emma Mackey’s lead turn, it’s the biggest dud of the artist’s career, and the holiday season’s most egregious misfire.

All “Thriller," no infamy, presenting an uplifting, crowd-pleasing version of events that, for all its expert impersonations, is simply the palatable half of this sordid tale.

A B-movie of unholy bombast and absurdity.

No amount of narrative wackiness and star power can make [cabbages] or this Sundance Film Festival offering funny.

The legendary star spends the majority of this misfire looking alternately bored and really bored—an emotion that viewers will find all-too-relatable.

The charismatic Pfeiffer deserves much, much better than this soggy stocking stuffer.

Instead of weaving any thoughtful critique into the film’s subtext, Atlas grounds its assessment of artificial intelligence into a powder so fine that it’s near translucent.

[Its] sketchiness is second only to its inside-baseball humorlessness.

A far cry from [Stanton’s] Pixar gems Finding Nemo and WALL-E, both of which have infinitely more to say about the human condition than this schematic and bathetic bowl of chicken soup for the soul.

Its comic touch almost as heavy-handed as its slow-motion-drenched action is dull, it seems primarily designed to answer the question, “How many movie stars can one fiasco squander?

A corny and turgid saga that should bring to a close Sony’s live-action “Spider-Verse,” if not the faltering genre as a whole, it’s an unspectacular affair that melds Marvel, Tarzan, and John Wick to depressing and forgettable ends.

Worst of all, Scream 7 doesn’t concoct the sort of ludicrous denouement that has always been these movies’ signature, instead delivering perhaps the most deflating conclusion in the series’ three-decade history. That alone should indicate that Ghostface has lost his luster and should withdraw to the Horror Hall of Fame where he deserves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Freddy, Jason, and the rest of the genre’s genuine icons.

Set to Tom Holkenborg’s bombastic score, Gregorian chanting, and endless pew-pew-pews, Rebel Moon—Part Two: The Scargiver roars and rampages, yet its drama can’t match its aesthetic pomposity.

Choose Love wants to be an exciting Choose Your Own Adventure special; but really, the film is too lazy to actually come up with any fun, creative storylines.

Featuring not a single convincing element or exchange, this fiasco plays like a wannabe-Knight and Day exercise in eliciting annoyed reactions.

A Yuletide misfire that lands like a lump of coal.

Designed in every way to make one bleary eyed, it’s the new year’s dreariest, and goofiest, film.

A lifeless hodgepodge of the hoariest clichés the genre has to offer.

To say that it’s a fourth-generation knock-off of myriad similar YA sagas that have come before it would be an understatement.

The main takeaway from this dreary dud, however, is that winning an Academy Award is no guarantee of continued big-screen success.

It’s not improbability that dooms this Al Pacino-headlined genre throwaway but a crushing lack of originality and a form that makes its clichés even harder to swallow.

This misbegotten attempt at creating a new out-of-this-world Snyderverse is merely a knockoff dressed up in its director’s stylistic signatures.

An odyssey that—weird characterizations notwithstanding—is tiresomely unexceptional.

The Garfield Movie fundamentally misunderstands the charm of Garfield.

Most notable for excessively straining for R-rated credibility at every turn.

Merely more of the same gung-ho corniness, delivered with a chintziness and wink-wink self-consciousness that undercuts its aggro appeal.

The Electric State" is just about as derivative as a modern blockbuster can be, and worse is that it skates along from one cacophonous and jokey set piece to another as if on rails.

A feature-length ego-stroke of monumental hubris that instantly assumes pole position in the race for year’s worst movie.

Conspiracies are everywhere in Poolman, although the greatest mystery might be how anyone involved was attracted to this tidal wave of dire kookiness.

A satire that’s neither sharp enough to make its industry skewering sting, nor sweet enough to compensate for its toothlessness.

A sequel that ups the ante in virtually every way—none of them good.

So drearily routine and slapdash that even an A.I. would deem it too plagiaristic.

On the basis of Madame Web, however, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe is now completely lifeless—and in no need of resuscitation.

[Its] sole imperative appears to be boring its audience to death.

Regardless of how you feel about Ronald Reagan the president, most will be united in finding this biopic a preachy, plodding, graceless groaner.

Some of the chintziest and most uninspired exploitation cinema this side of Sharknado.

Were it not for scattered laughter-inducing scenes—most of which, I would gather, were not intentionally humorous—I would rule it an abomination. ... Melania is a level of insipid propaganda that almost resists review; it’s so expected and utterly pointless.

What it reveals is an exclusionary environment that views beauty, wealth, privilege, and conformity as the highest of ideals—and which seems, in some cases, to exacerbate the very problems these young women believe it will solve.

The Gullspång Miracle is a cinematic Matryoshka doll, and director Fredriksson recounts her layered saga with an intimacy that can be downright awkward.

Despite its attempts to make viewers ponder our desire for sensational stories, Cold Copy is ultimately more successful at delivering spectacular performances from its three leads—most notably [Tracee Ellis Ross]—than any sort of meaningful interrogation of post-Trump, #Resistance-era journalism.

A surface-level portrait about a scientific advancement that could change the world for the better or the worse, and a man who knows how to wield it but can’t necessarily be trusted to do so.

Without greater context, though, Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case comes across as slight, and that notion is reinforced by a finale that draws no meaningful lessons from its tragic saga.

Maybe if the film were willing to tackle the anxieties of modern womanhood in a more specific, less superficial way, it would at least give viewers the opportunity to be surprised.

Prepare to bang your head and raise your horns to what is surely the most epically metal release of 2023—and a satisfying conclusion to a gonzo parody par excellence.

As an authorized project primarily designed to celebrate rather than investigate, that hatred goes largely unexamined in this non-fiction affair.

The Devil on Trial still allows David and others to argue that demonic possession did take place, but given the evidence on display, many will likely find that up for considerable debate.

Jacobson’s documentary resounds as merely a small victory in an ongoing war.

A gut-wrenching saga about illuminating the darkest corners of private lives, and about the difficulty—and perhaps unjustness—of genuine Christian forgiveness.

Too much of Realm of Satan comes off as unreasonably poe-faced, which not only neuters the proceedings’ sense of giddy transgression but feels at odds with these characters’ comical bizarreness.

For all its commotion, however, the film doesn’t drum up the madcap mania it seeks.

Love Machina’s scattershot structure does its subjects no favors, with the film taking a variety of meandering detours until its overarching purpose grows hazy.

They Called Him Mostly Harmless proves most interesting as a story about the various ways in which people both come together and go it alone in order to fill (or at least cope with) the holes in their lives.

Even in a crowded true-crime field, it’s something of a doozy.

[An] overly dramatic and revelation-lite feature-length documentary, whose main purpose seems to be rehashing that which has already been exhaustively covered by the media and, also, underscoring the sociopathic dishonesty of Joran van der Sloot.

The Greatest Love Story Never Told is a study of celebrity, and the drive that it takes to maintain it. It has no intention of humanizing its shining star, only reminding us of exactly why she has retained her wattage.

Threads the needle between appealing to those viewers well-versed in all things internet and those who know 4chan best as the birthplace of QAnon.

It’s consistently engaging, but also not much more revealing than a quick perusal of Jennifer’s Wikipedia page, and the fact that its real-life saga may not be over only amplifies the impression that it’s less than the full story.

What’s conspicuously missing from this non-fiction inquiry—much to its detriment—is an attendant discussion of what came next, and how McVeigh’s actions directly and indirectly led us to our precarious present moment.

An affectionate portrait of Chelly as a one-of-a-kind trailblazer who lived life to the fullest, and always on her own iconoclastic terms, all while also providing a vivid snapshot of New York City during its daring and dangerous pre-sanitized era.

Gaga Chromatica Ball feels as all-consuming as being at the show yourself. It’s a mobilizing watch experience, one that will make you dance, sing, and sweat. It’s rare to have such proximity to a performer where she’s most in her element: on the stage.

Full of the very thrills one might expect from a summer blockbuster.

Cares less about saying something significant than about imparting quirky vibes.

Destined—depending on one’s perspective on this matter—to inspire either heartfelt sympathy or blood-boiling outrage.

A morass of the worst of humanity and, also, a tech industry that seems perfectly comfortable profiting from it.

A 21st-century cautionary tale about the desire for fame and the platforms which make that dream seem so easily attainable.

A documentary that not only formally resembles a conspiracy-minded YouTube post, but is about as reliable and convincing as one.

Omits as much as it reveals, fixating so doggedly on its subject that it fails to dig into the various pertinent questions and dilemmas raised by his tale.

A thorough non-fiction recap of the rise and fall of the pint-sized phenom, whose mega-watt charm and expert comedic timing made him a sensation, and whose later years were marred by lawsuits, scandals, misery, and premature death at age 42.

Flails in trying to cast itself as a heartening story about seizing happiness, but as a snapshot of the foolhardy acts that amour can drive sane individuals to commit, it plays as an eye-opening cautionary tale.

It’s quite a shortcoming when a documentary avoids so many elements of its own story that it proves less comprehensive and compelling than a Ryan Murphy drama.

A non-fiction affirmation of Carville’s belief that you can’t affect change without power, and you can’t attain power without winning.

A harrowing documentary recap of Brown’s unseemly track record with women.