Despite being impressively acted and thematically compelling, it avoids wholehearted recommendation due to its uneven repetition of sequences and ideas that make this feel more lugubrious than cohesive.

Every once in a while it’s useful to take note of a film that’s technically competent but utterly uninvolving.

Much like the central sculptures that become the focal point of its best scenes, Kôji Fukada’s “Nagi Notes” is a film defined by a sense that the filmmaker is trying to chip away at something.

"Hit Me Hard and Soft" offers a fiercely personal — and uncommonly charming — look at the relationship that develops between a fan base and an artist whose music doesn’t just express their thoughts or share their sentiments, but makes them feel truly seen.

What happens to these spaces when we feel comfortable in our bodies again? Does resurrection always have to require a type of death first? Is there ever a point in our lives where it’s too late to transform? That the film manages to make room for these ideas while lacing it all with enough tacky genre thrills to make it all palatable and thought-provoking is a miraculous feat in its own right.

Curry Barker’s supernatural nightmare Obsession is a better version of Wonder Woman 1984.

So emotionally, dramatically, philosophically complex that it’s tempting to put on professorial airs and focus entirely on its depth. But it is also, just as importantly, electrifying to watch.

It scrolls past thoughtful ideas, too quickly to fully process them, and the experience is as cacophonous as the typical social media feed. I’ll grant you it’s thematically appropriate but it’s not cohesive filmmaking.

It all makes for a nice movie, and I can be a sucker for nice movies when they’re handled as well as this one.

Mortal Kombat II isn’t the best Mortal Kombat movie, but it’s hard to deny that it comes second. At least with the number 2 and all.

Swapped won’t change the world, probably, but it’s a step above a lot of similar films and an effective fantasy story for all ages.

So what if it could be a little shorter? The length of the journey makes RZA’s destination more meaningful.

It’s easy to forgive cheap aesthetics and a rushed finale when the middle of the flick, the sharktastic bloodletting where no character is safe, is such a hoot.

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.

For a while, you think this is a test to see how long the film can extend the trick. But by the half hour mark, you realize that it’s not a trick, it’s the whole damn movie, which relies on the fact that action heroes like John should mostly shut up and that viewers know the beats of these films well enough to do without non-visual exposition.

As cozy farm animal detective stories go, it simply can’t be bleat.

The problem isn’t that the new 'Animal Farm' is unfaithful, it’s that the changes aren’t an improvement.

I Swear is the real deal, that rare biopic that doesn’t just tell a real human being’s story — or worse, give you the superficial, reassuring gist — but invites you into it.

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.

It’s just feature-length publicity, and it plays like damage control.

Questioning the moral fortitude of these comedies used to be something only critics did [...] Now Roommates is getting in on the act and I respect the film’s sense of introspection. I just wish it had funnier jokes.

Cronin has an uncanny knack for human mutilation, which would probably be a bad thing in any other context, but if you’re making gross-out horror movies, it’s practically a requirement.

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

We’re watching extremely talented artists try to accomplish something grand and potentially embarrass themselves in the process, and it works because they’re committed to taking that risk.

Whether the love story completely works or not, ChaO is such a visual wonder that it hardly matters.

If logic had anything to do with it, that would mean 'Thrash' was a bad movie. But logic has no place in these soggy halls. 'Thrash' may be arbitrary but it’s too energetic to be bad.

Exit 8 isn’t just one of the best video game adaptations. It might actually be the best so far.

A subject as slippery as “cancellation” needs a firm grip, and Hill, who came in for his own public criticism a few years ago, seems to have little worth saying on the matter other than celebrities are as imperfect as anyone else. The lack of specificity makes Outcome painfully broad both thematically and comically where it seems more like a collection of half-sketched ideas of Hollywood life rather than anything substantive about the unique social relationships formed by fame.