The movie’s practical and special effects are a rogues’ gallery of gougings, stabbings, shavings, and scalpings; those who like to have their stomachs turned will find much to cheer about. But is it actually scary – suspenseful, tense, trafficking in more than the cheap shock of a jump scare or vivid effect? Not really, no.

Throughout its trials and tribulations, Wild Life softly asks the question: what kind of life do you want to live? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? And these kinds of inspired actions certainly move the heart and soul and prove that the best of humanity has their heart in the right place at the very least.

Pure power, John Wick: Chapter 4 is as exhilarating as it is exhausting. With this wildly satisfying world tour de force, Reeves’ Wick transcends icon status delivering the perfect bone-crunching crescendo to one of the great action franchises in cinema history. It’s pure gold.

Once you get on this one’s wavelength, it’s wildly funny and delightfully subversive.

What Longoria has created is less a history lesson and more a fairy tale that reframes an American success story within California’s Hispanic community. You may doubt its accuracy, but the message will resonate, and that is a far more interesting conversation than how closely Flamin’ Hot matches the Montañez Wikipedia.

No matter how silly or severe the movie may get, Daley and Goldstein always approach the material on its merits. This is a fantasy adventure from people who seem to enjoy fantasy adventures without equivocation.

Gods Of Mexico is a film less interested in breaking down its conceptual framework — or even pushing forward a fully realized thesis — than it is about creating a structured cinematic experience.

While the first two-thirds of the film gets the job done, it’s the third act where 65 goes all out, and it sticks the landing perfectly.

It both ticks genre boxes and throws up some touches that elevate it, such as a car karaoke scene. While not groundbreaking, the audience will root for everyone here, both in front of and behind the camera.

Scream VI builds to a powerful third act of grisly mayhem that is one of the best in the series.

Sadly, good intentions aren’t enough, and as good as the organization’s work is, the film feels like a letdown to the very women whose stories kickstarted the whole thing in the first place.

If a filmmaker can’t be bothered to try, then audiences shouldn’t be asked to care.

Garrel here delivers a witty and elegantly constructed film that joyfully draws parallels between acting and lying, being and pretending, while remaining breezy, fun, eminently accessible and even welcoming.

There’s a way to find the humor in life with mental illness. The Year Between, with exceptions, isn’t it.

The cast does its best with what they’ve got but only so much can be done. The mission might be complete, but it’s hard to call it a success, and there were undoubtedly casualties.

There is just enough on the film’s surface to keep the journey entertaining.

The plot is mostly irrelevant, aside from how it allows for Reeder’s ideas and imagery to flow. Oozing, gooey blood and messed-up school uniforms, secrets whispered in high school bathrooms, glitter dresses, and uncanny face masks all meld together to create a film rich in atmosphere and artifice.

Had it kept prodding at the political parallels of 1990 Berlin and Maria and Henner’s romance, “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” would have sat beautifully at the intersection between the coming-of-age of a young woman and that of an old country. Instead, Atef opts to stretch out the story, stubbornly tugging at the corners of the narrative, expanding a tale rich in its metaphors until it becomes see-through.

A luminous and soul-nourishing microcosm built on profound love in the face of impending grief, the film reveals itself in the charged interactions between its multiple characters.

Penn’s admiration for Zelensky, the people of Ukraine, and their unified commitment to democracy is sincere, but Superpower is so stupid a film it’s galling to watch.

Afire is the uncompromising work of a master not only on conceptual and stylistic levels but also in terms of his emotional politics.

We Have a Ghost tries to add too many elements to the mix–the horror, the comedy, the drama, and the message about how we need to leave our dead behind. Without committing to a tone, it all feels a bit mangled. It’s a movie that wants to be a mix of everything but, in the end, winds up being nothing.

Bruiser is an anxious film filled with unmistakable beauty and obsessed with conceptions of family, love, growth, the past, and the future.

Although Smoking Causes Coughing isn’t as substantial or funny as some of his other films, it remains a breath of fresh air and contains enough moments of invention and flawless comedy to amuse and charm, particularly at a festival that has sorely lacked laughs so far.

"In Viaggio” is far from a puff piece disguised as an unbiased account. The power dynamics at play are ever-present, the same interactions that bring the Pope closer to his subjects denouncing the hypocrisy of sanctifying a man who preaches for equality.

This prodigal son’s reappearance ignites a rivalry a little Biblical and a little Shakespearean, though their macho melodrama hews most closely to the flavor of screenwriterly contrivance.

As it goes on, Cocaine Bear becomes far too sober an affair for its subject matter, where no amount of carnage can fully compensate for its lack of comedy.

Subtlety proves a scarce commodity as the debuting duo chops at this cautionary tale until its fragile narrative bones are fully exposed, dialogue stripped of any valuable nuance.