We like to joke about how "this meeting could have been an email" but if all The Devil Wears Prada 2 can offer is Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt on-screen together again, then this film could have been a Zoom call.

The pieces of this survival thriller don’t work together in any meaningful way, they just occupy the same space, and that makes 'Apex' less exciting than if the filmmakers had just stuck to one of their guns. Any of them.

The target demographic for Lorne is SNL fans who won’t benefit from a documentary like Lorne.

You, Me & Tuscany delivers the rom-com meat and potatoes: The beats, the scenery, and the great-looking people consumers expect. But it’s strictly fast food, when the sun-kissed Tuscan countryside, with its porcini, pecorino and Cinta Senese pork was there to savor with a nice chianti.

One of the keys to executing a high-concept premise is knowing when to show restraint, when to say no to an impulse for something aesthetically “cool” if it means crafting a more compelling narrative. That subtlety is in frustratingly short supply here.

As has been the case with many a horror project she’s been a part of in the past, Samara Weaving’s guttural screams can cover a multitude of sins, but even her fully embodied performance and powers can’t save a movie that mistakes stilted recurrence for high-octane throwback.

The Gates' is constantly on the verge of getting better, sometimes on the verge of getting good, but it never quite gets there. It’s a missed opportunity for thrills, social commentary, humor and/or horror.

Without much by way of variance, the film spins on and spins out, jumping from austere interiors in Mexico City to San Francisco and back again, putting forward a cogent political read that does little to flatter those looking for anything more.

You can only linger so long with such a parade of oddities making ever stranger choices before your eyes grow weary of gawking at a pageant of hideous beauty, and you start checking the clock.

Some films thrive on twists, while others compel based on meaty performances. Volpe’s picture is squarely the latter: an introspective analysis of the human condition.

A sensitive drama that marks a notably personal feature debut.

The pros don’t come from trustworthy sources and the cons require a lot more elaboration.

Credit where credit is due to Wicker, it’s not every day you get to see an Oscar-winning actress mount a Hollywood heartthrob made into a literal wicker man. Alas, despite the novelty of seeing icon Olivia Colman climb a towering Alexander Skarsgård like a tree, the magical fable within which this happens is not only regrettably far less fun than this description sounds, but an oddly wearisome affair.

Though there are flashes of more chaotic comedy that get the pulse racing here and there, for the most part Chasing Summer is a surprisingly safe genre riff.

Ultimately, The Gallerist gets by on its zippy pacing, committed performances, and a tinge of meanness that holds enough suspense.

Bamford seems remarkably at home in her unsettled state, to such a degree that her self-awareness feels downright aspirational.

The filmmakers’ connection to the material is always palpable and undeniably affecting.

While The Shitheads doesn’t turn completely, it never fully recovers from what ends up feeling like an out-of-place, car-into-a-brick-wall choice of a tonal crater.

Each time you think you’re seeing the daylight of something potentially better to explore on the horizon, “Buddy” keeps dragging you back into the banal darkness. Like the kids, you deserve far better than whatever this lackluster production amounts to.

The fact that the movie can still stay entertaining enough is thanks to the performances and Carnahan’s claustrophobic camera work, which turns a mundane cul-de-sac into a particularly unnerving location. But once the film hits an answer on who you can trust, it can’t help but sputter to the end.

For a movie that should provide the comfort of the romance genre, People We Meet on Vacation usually tops out at being blandly pleasant.

It’s easy to appreciate the ambition of Gaines’ new take on Dutchman, but the original tale is fighting back, and it’s got the upper hand.

The only way ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ could be more hypocritical, and taken less seriously, is if the characters also yelled “Hypocrisy sucks!” while sitting on Whoopee cushions.

However depressing 'Rosemead' is, and it’s depressing in all italics, it’s just not deep enough to make running this gauntlet worthwhile.

Shallow self-congratulation for American moxie at the expense of everyone and everything around us.

The romantic part of Johnson’s rom-com barely reaches a low simmer, but the comedy part burns a little brighter.

There hasn’t been a pre-planned 'Part Two' this disappointing since the second half of Andy Muschietti’s 'It.' At least nobody projectile vomits on Jeff Goldblum to the tune of Juice Newton’s 'Angel of the Morning.' Then again, that would have been more memorable.

The Carpenter’s Son' is a Biblical horror movie with interesting ideas. They just don’t seem interesting because the perspective is cockeyed, which nullifies the film’s ability to trouble our hearts.

The fact that it's released by Paramount plays like a punchline, and it’s unclear who’s getting punched.

It’s a magic act without the storytelling, so every moment is the prestige, and none of it feels prestigious. It’s goofy and shallow and delightful and in a couple days I’ll forget I ever saw it.

If In Your Dreams was too entertaining it would contradict its own message about the perils of escapism. But it might not be entertaining enough to make audiences want to stay until the message comes through. Call it a design flaw.

Lopez, while certainly dancing all the right steps, is only ever a composite of a movie star who feels trapped in a surprisingly stiff production. She deserves better than what the film gives her, but there’s never a moment when she gets it.

Indy is a delight who can do no wrong. Though the film around him is not always as assured, he is a star who has earned all the pets and treats a dog could dream of. After all the nightmares he had to endure this film, he more than deserves it.

Doin’ It' isn’t a great sex comedy. I don’t think I’d even call it a good one, so I won’t. But it sure as hell isn’t lazy. Noble intentions are splattered all over the walls, and the overall message isn’t in dispute.

It’s possible, maybe even likely, that Paul Thomas Anderson has stuffed so much into one movie that a lot of people will find something to take away from it. All I see is the lack of focus.

Driver’s Ed is mildly amusing at best. It’s a good-natured and good-hearted film without much of the edge or hilarity the Farrelly brothers brought to Dumb and Dumber or There’s Something About Mary.

I admire you for trying to make it work, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, but I think we should both see other films.

A gently appealing and sincere romance.

It succeeds about half the time, making for a split decision where Sweeney and Christy both emerge as champions while the film itself can’t quite go the distance.

The film may be unbridled, unfettered and bold, but sometimes those adjectives aren’t complimentary.

The Wizard of the Kremlin is a loud, bold film that is held together by the quiet performance at its center.

A sword-and-sorcery epic that can’t swing the 'epic' part.

What [Cregger]'s getting at seems a lot less frightening, and a lot more contrived, than it would have had he not invited us to ponder more powerful possibilities for over an hour before tipping his hand.

My Oxford Year is shiny and affable, and if that was the assignment it’d get an 'A' for effort . . . actually that’s going too far, let’s make it a respectable 'B.' But that’s not the assignment.

It’s not bad, guys. But guys, it’s not good.

A few odd touches and one impressively, cathartically violent sequence don’t compensate for the film’s resistance to its own ideas.

For every interview there is with a journalist offering more of this, there is one that just meanders with a notorious influencer that should have probably been cut.

You may want to leave the theater, go directly to a bookstore and buy the source material. That’s good! But you may want to leave before the movie’s over. That’s bad.

“Titan” wants to start and end with Rush’s actions when it feels like that conclusion is already littered on the story’s surface.

It’s all about radical acceptance but can only talk about the real-world application of its message in general metaphors, so people who don’t actually accept 'weird,' 'different' kids won’t have to think about how wrong they are.

Kosinski’s antiseptic visual style and Ehren Kruger’s limp screenplay (with a co-story credit by Kosinski himself) make 'F1 The Movie' an incredibly sterile film about virility. It’s so manly it can barely perform.

They’re all trying to make a meal out of starvation rations. The cast’s efforts aren’t in vain, and the film is better for having them, but a thing can get a whole lot of 'better' before it gets 'good.

A potpourri of general genre genericness, never making enough noise to rattle, or even produce an echo.

Where a lesser film could fall into feeling like it is just hitting issues without exploring them, Young Mothers always grounds the bigger issues in real characters. It finds genuine emotion in capturing how this is not something abstract, but a reality with which they’ll have to contend.

There are plenty of silly recurring jokes and a collection of quirky characters, but it all exists to cover up just how empty the film itself is at its core.

It’s a feel-bad film like no other where you have to squint for even the smallest sliver of hope as we, along with the characters, get put through the wringer with little potential for salvation.

Fear Street: Prom Queen is not the best Fear Street movie. But to be fair, it’s probably the third best Prom Night.

I would seriously consider cutting off one of my own fingers if it meant I didn’t have to spend two hours alone in a room with John Krasinski’s protagonist from Guy Ritchie’s Fountain of Youth.

That there is a genuinely clever current running through it about the cinematic history of sharks and the fear they hold in our imagination is just a little added bonus that offers a bit more to chew on.

The movie seems to be trying to be quirky, but it’s never quirky enough, and it’s hard to feel much for the characters or feel that there’s much in the way of healing going on. But it’s breezy enough to be mildly diverting and gently nostalgic.

It’s a film in search of a character whose sole saving grace may be that it leads its audience to read Sapienza’s work for themselves — because the movie doesn’t do her or her legacy justice.

Sirât is bold in its depiction of a decaying world in which some people can still find release. But its insistent brutality feels less bold than exhausting, and the question asked by one of the characters – “Is this what the end of the world feels like?” – has an easy answer: Hell, yeah.

Basir’s script is ambitious and thoughtful, though flawed. The regrettable characterizations of women aside, some of the dots don’t quite connect.

Never was a film I’m more likely to forget, than this of Romeo and his Juliet.

It’s the exact type of film that you could see a new generation of kids finding and causing them to fall in love with movies.

If you can’t think of a better way to spend your time, 'Until Dawn' is a thing that exists.

It would be easy to write off 'Sneaks' as a hack job, a sole-less riff on a tired premise, but there’s more afoot here.

It’s just that while you can’t see any of the strings being used on the effects, you can see the story being manipulated. You may fall in love with Ochi all the same, but you can only wish you’d gone on a richer journey together.

If anything, “Don’t Die” may work better as a cautionary tale of what happens when you give your entire identity, thinking, and online persona to playing an avatar of fitness. It’s a shame that Smith seems to see such radical actions as mostly harmless.

Its baseline competence is perfectly watchable. It’s just hard to imagine anyone signing onto this project with the explicitly stated goal of only making it watchable.

For all it throws at you, it’s neither consistently funny nor scary enough to leave a mark.

The most accurate summation of A Minecraft Movie is probably “It is what it is.” It’s what it’s supposed to be. It probably won’t dig up many new converts to the game, but should strike box-office silver, at least. (And fans, be sure to stick around for two credits scenes – especially the second one.)

The word Competent! rarely makes it into a movie’s marketing materials no matter how accurate it is.

Opus is a Cheeto without the Cheeto dust, so of course we feel cheeted.

Trying to do right by Hutchins is what stops “Last Take” from playing like just another salacious true crime doc. Its focus may be scattershot, and it may not change a single mind when it comes to placing blame, but like with grief, working through the pain is never clean and tidy.

We watch The Parenting in blasé curiosity, as we engage in the purely intellectual exercise of sussing out what’s gone wrong.

While Landon has made fun genre outings before with “Happy Death Day,” “Happy Death Day 2U,” and “Freaky,” Drop is, at its best, never more than just down the middle. At its worst, it’s an oddly clunky experience that strands its performers with little to work with.

It is her performance that ensures every tonal shift lands as it goes from playfully comedic to delightfully dark and back again. Despite how overstuffed and unwieldy it gets, seeing Kidman work her magic at every turn will never not be a joy to see.

It’s a grim slog through the wastelands of human civilization, which makes a big deal about the generic parts and glosses over all the thrilling weirdness.

I’ve spent over two paragraphs now talking about the various movie trivia Cleaner reminded me of, since Cleaner doesn’t provide much other food for thought.

If this is just one bullet point in your Valentine’s Day to-do list, an excuse to hold hands or neck in a darkened theater, or maybe as a litmus test for your date’s artistic tastes, it’s a harmless, mostly generic action rom-com.

Rabbit Trap finds some occasionally effective moments of atmospheric dread and sadness, only to leave those moments stranded.

More a forced, one-note farce than the sharp satire it’s trying to be, Atropia is almost impressive in how it manages to allude to so many complicated subjects surrounding U.S. militarism without authentically skewering or even poking at any of them.

The actors are so committed, and the script so heartfelt, you’d have to be a villain to resist this group’s superpowered sincerity.

Does great justice to an extraordinary astronaut and reluctant icon, but also repeats the error made so often by media of Ride's era, in centering other people’s perspectives over her own.

Even with a more gleeful performance by Kate Hudson, Shell is merely a fine film that’s far too tame to completely pay off.

It’s not so much a movie as it is multimillion dollar background noise while you stare at your phone.

It’s hard not to feel a bit scammed, like you just bought a brand-new AAA game and found out most of its content is still locked behind an additional paywall.

Sadly, Kraven the Hunter feels like it’s constantly being held back by whatever or whoever was holding the reins of the production. Even the ribald elements afforded by its R rating, usually an indicator of a comic book movie being allowed to go nuts, feels muted.

The fourth best animated Lord of the Rings feature, which sounds pretty good until you remember there are only four of them.

There’s nothing particularly terrible about Moana 2, but the fact that it’s necessary to write 'there’s nothing particularly terrible about Moana 2' means something still went wrong.

One emerges from the theater thinking we may have just had a good time, but the more it sits with you, the more you realize that no matter how epic the battles were — and they certainly were epic — they didn’t have anywhere near the same impact as the original.

Red One might not save Christmas but at least it saves face.

This isn’t the first sequel to desperately transplant its characters into a tropical or jungle locale, and it isn’t the best. Then again, the competition includes Weekend at Bernie’s II, Speed 2: Cruise Control and Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, so it isn’t the worst either.

The time travel stuff is mined for funny jokes for a few minutes and then the film shows zero interest in all the worms it’s uncanned. It’s a whole lot of “what ifs” and not a lot of “then whats.”

All that effort and innovation and ambition amounts, in Zemeckis’ film, to little more than a mawkish intergenerational drama. Here genuinely seems to believe that the history of the world peaked with the possibility of mom and dad getting a divorce.

An ordinary feature that could have been extraordinary as a series of three shorts. Instead, this is what we’ve got: a vaguely watchable animated Christmas movie that only works in fits and starts.

The story isn’t so hot. At least the leads are. That’s not enough to make Lonely Planet a good film, but it might be enough to get through all 94 minutes without clicking on something else instead. Maybe