[Kurzel's] depiction of the action scenes is as close to a filmmaking tour de force as you can get. Even for those who know the fate of The Order and its members, Kurzel and editor Nick Fenton will keep you riveted. Until, alarmingly, they don’t.

Like any good page-turner, Conclave is full of twists. Some you’ll see coming, and others will genuinely shock you. But this is smart, fiery melodrama.

A taught 91 minutes, September 5 is captivating on multiple levels and, frankly, a surprising success considering Fehlabum‘s previous work.

This back and forth between assuredness and doubt also makes “Babygirl” a refreshing look at BDSM and questions of consent and desire. Reijn is unafraid to have her characters play out all the wobbles that come with negotiating one another’s boundaries, reinforcing how pleasure comes from good communication. That the Dutch director manages to do so while crafting some of the hottest sex scenes in a major film in years and without dropping the ball in pacing this satire on the era of the politically correct feels almost impossible.

By creating — and persisting — on this on-the-nose parallel between the tragedy of opera and the one of Callas’s life, the duo sees this woman solely through the tragic value of her woes, denying her talent and her craft from the light that is true human connection, built not only through shared griefs but the deep understanding of one another that only great art can promote.

It’s unmistakably a return to joy for a legendary director, and that goes a long way in making this film stand out in a sea of ill-conceived sequels.

Dinklage remains one of the finest actors around, and Lewis is undoubtedly more than capable of something better, with evidence seen here as she disappears within Bill, but all that holds “The Thicket” together does barely enough to qualify all that unfolds as just another movie.

It also portends to be a sincere moral fable about avarice and the way it corrupts people—via the bookends of the beginning and end of the story—but it hardly convinces and leaves one a little puzzled at the jejune attempt at blurting something meaningful after 90 minutes of wacky crime tales and dishonest people.

Sorelle may not offer much hope in terms of how one can fight against these systems that preach continual change, but her film is still a striking if slightly overstuffed, debut from a filmmaker to watch.

A monstrous return to form, similar to its placement in the timeline, “Alien: Romulus” nestles in the franchise’s top three podium position. The blood, sweat, and tears shed in bringing this vision to fruition weren’t in vain.

For as many laughs as they’re trying to get, only about half of them land. All told, Jackpot is an action comedy that is light on laughs and heavy on repetitive droning fights. Jackpot even fails as a social commentary.

Honestly, you almost wish Singer had the foresight to ensure everyone involved took the proceedings completely seriously. That might have resulted in a camp classic that would be more memorable than this often aimless and thematically thin endeavor.

This is a B-movie of the week at best, which should be starring also-ran actors looking for a paycheck, not some of Hollywood’s finest.

Gray and his leads ably demonstrate how quotidian encounters and minute actions speak volumes. What’s missing is space for those little details to fully speak.

Shyamalan’s crafts a deceptively simple experience. The plot is rather ingeniously straightforward, at first, but the fraught journey of a father and killer trying not to upend and upset the carefully constructed delusional fabrication of his life—and how the two identities crash into each other on one fateful day— is exhilaratingly multifaceted.

It does not take much imagination to imagine a version of “Rob Peace” where, given the room to sit with events, Rob’s journey provides a damning X-ray of American society’s shortsightedness. But far too often, the film settles for simply conveying information through dramatization.

The overall shape of the movie can sometimes be akin to F-word abuse for comedy. It can be thrillingly funny at first, especially coming out of the mouths of heroes you don’t typically hear such foulness from (not Wilson, obviously), but by the 90th time you hear an F-bomb, it starts to lose its value and power. Still, despite all its flaws, ‘D&W’ humorously diverts in the moment, but as a durable movie or even a long-lasting MCU film, it’s no slam dunk. Nostalgia doesn’t necessarily cause deep self-harm in the picture, but it arguably doesn’t help the aim to create a memorable and enduring movie either. LFG? Sure, I guess.

Even though Exhuma may exist as a wellspring threatening to drown in ideas possibly better suited for multiple films, Jang Jae-hyun has still managed to bring to life a compelling story about something that should remain dead.

Unlike a Ryan Coogler, who always brought an emotional, thoughtful touch to his superhero films, all of the empathetic grace notes Chung was previously known for are nowhere to be found, drowned out in a wet, soggy tempest of noise, screams, yee haws! and catastrophic weather.

Nothing here could be considered a dull watch, and if it leaves the viewer thinking about how we, as a society, treat one another, it could very well be a lesson learned.

Mother, Couch is a delightful, sometimes hard-hitting family drama that will stay with you for a long time after you watch.

Longlegs is a film that will crawl under your skin and live there for 100 minutes. It will make you uncomfortable.

The concept of performance is barely distinguishable from the act of living these days, as being filmed in one capacity or another is ubiquitous. Silvia and Beba yet manage to bring an element of intimacy that makes us invest in their lives and stories.

Nash’at may have started the filmmaking process looking for something resembling humanity in the Taliban fighters, but what he found instead was a shocking level of resolve that we, and the US military, underestimated.

Eventually, the comedy coalesces enough to chalk up a small win. Mind you, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F isn’t reinventing the wheel, and low expectations might help. But it does make a remarkable transition from something that initially feels dire to something that eventually lights up, pleases, and produces some foul-mouthed ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ energy to feel familiar in the best sense.

The trio of Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, and Joey King create an interesting dynamic; the ultimately well-intentioned film has some interesting things to say about late-in-life love, the many facets of self-absorption, and the way we use the notion of protecting the ones we love under the guise of selfish self-interest.

Sarnoski is working on an auteur wavelength. He often lets the momentum stagnate just enough so the viewer can truly take in the staggering annihilation of a city now in ruins, full of death, and inherent quiet beauty. None of this would come close to fruition, however, without Nyong’o and Quinn’s stirring performances.

Despicable Me 4 is just messy and wearying, even at a scant 95 minutes.