For all its rage about moral decline and the psychic poison of content culture, Faces Of Death never rises above the same cheap sensationalism it pretends to condemn. Instead of confronting the sickness, it feeds on it and spits out something just as rancid as the faux snuff films it claims to abhor.

Its patchy tone, plot, characters and sympathies make for a film that’s difficult to wholeheartedly endorse.

Carnahan may be the real MVP here. “The Rip” isn’t a masterpiece, and it can be blunt and workmanlike by design, but it’s brawny, confident, and it moves.

We’re not sure there will ever be another “Devil Wears Prada” installment, but be glad this one came along. At worst, to reinforce that shining memory of the original, at best to simply delight you for two hours. Hey, it might even be an improvement on that first flick.

With “Free Fire,” Wheatley wants to push his own limits of onscreen mayhem, taking things right to the line where most directors would pull back, and pushing everything right over. And what the director winds up doing is making a big, magnificent noise, one that will certainly see more than his core fanbase sitting up and paying attention.

After five incredible seasons of “Key & Peele” skewering black masculinity in its various forms, the duo here settle for an uninspired riff on Los Angeles gang culture, stringing together fish-out-of-water vignettes by using a stray kitten as thread.

It’s an ugly, unpleasant viewing experience, one that sees geek culture as a hateful cesspool of exclusion and juvenility, miserable to experience first-hand.

In the Earth isn’t a complete washout; there are moments of bleak humor, genre fans will enjoy the striking imagery and gross-out shivers, and the director has an undeniable gift for setting and maintaining a mood (he gets a big assist on the latter from Clint Mansell’s synth score). But ultimately, it’s kind of a slog.

Ultimately, Aster just unleashes his inner freak and vomits it all on the screen, with anxious flop sweat, jittery bodily fluids, squishy terror, paranoia, and some gut-busting laughs that prove this writer is deeply troubled in the best and most complicated odd way possible.

Wachowski’s The Matrix Resurrections, a fun, albeit messy metatextual sequel that struggles to find its narrative footing, soars whenever Wachowski focuses on sci-fi’s best power couple.

While it's not close to the level of "Stories We Tell" in terms of commenting on the reliability of narrators and the cozy comfort of dishonesty to smooth over thornier life issues, the finale of "Elliot" is murky enough to leave folks guessing as to the true motivations of the entire film.

For its majority, the film is all comedic and political fire, but as its winds down, Timoner rounds it off with a tone of melancholic, tragic inevitability to Brand’s life.

Central to the success of Butterfly Vision, however, is Burkovska: she embodies Lilia with silent rage, her poise broken in fleeting moments, the steely facade dropped for mere seconds at a time.

Ultimately, Love & Monsters is a film about picking yourself up, taking your destiny into your own hands, and not being afraid of living, even though you’re likely to make some mistakes along the way. And it’s a damn fun adventure to boot.

The result is a film that’s both shattering in some moments and superficial in others, making it hard to write off and even harder to fully embrace.

There’s a line for an audience between conveying the true horror of what occurred and being excessive and Maras barely avoids the latter.

While this send-up might not pass the scrutiny for a rewatch or cult classic, it’s at least good for one fun and unexpected go-round.

Lee knows exactly how it wants to look, yet it has little that’s new or interesting to say.

Ron Howard arguably captures it in his enjoyable, escapist ‘Solo’ movie, but the burden of keeping fans happy means if you’re looking for surprises, you may have come to the wrong place.

For all the film's flaws, Black brings enough to the table that it's far from a chore, and if this level of ingenuity and surprise can be maintained, there'll be no need for Tony to hang up his Iron Man helmet any time soon.

Shot in a way reminiscent of classic ’70s cinema while commenting on the woes of the contemporary, Williams builds a timely film that still feels timeless, an expansive chronicling of a slice of America ripe for many a rewatch.

Purposefully joyless and bereft of any kind of aesthetic gratification other than the one found in Mendoza’s use of cinema verite and non-sentimental approach, Ma’ Rosa is tough-as-nails, and leaves you with a heaviness and a pulsating sympathy that’s impossible to ignore.

When the film works, it’s often because Banks confidently carries so much of it on her own shoulders.

42 is excessively retro, neglecting the urge to pepper scenes with comic relief or oppressing, flashy conflict.

On both technical and thematic levels, the filmmakers have succeeded in using the tools of cinema to carve out an authentic look at troubled youth, and the choices we have to make in order to steer away from the wrong path.

Both Stearns and Gillan commit to the detached tenor. Still, it’s often more distant and isolating than it is funny, therefore leading to a movie that feels misjudged and far too remote, even for those well-versed and conversant in this weirdly lopsided style.

Godzilla asks you to care about its characters, achieves that aspiration, earns your trust, and then not only pivots towards a far less interesting character, but abandons most of its absorbing emotional legwork for a fairly rote and straightforward rock ‘em, sock ‘em monster movie.

It's a canny horror film and a derivative one.