Clara Sola mixes religion, mysticism and sexuality in a way that feels simultaneously odd, disquieting and richly rewarding. It starts out beautifully restrained and ends up somewhere else entirely, but it’s all the more interesting for its split personality.

Deception, as a novel and as a film, offers a curio for obsessives, a postcard for archivists, and a not-too-interesting bump in the road for everyone else.

No Man of God may have been written by a man, but you can’t help feeling the reason this umpteenth examination of a modern devil works as well as it does is because, as a woman, Sealey knows where the exploitation traps are and avoids them by focusing on the people in her frame, their exchanges well-paced by editor Patrick Nelson Barnes.

Everlasting Storm is an anthology film that is as uneven as most anthology films, but one that offers a disquieting and essential snapshot of the time from which we hope we’re emerging. Like the lockdown itself, it can be a slog and it can be a kick.

DaCosta uses a range of thoughtfully considered media to shape their already-sharp script; the film’s violence is equally startling whether it’s depicted graphically and up-close, or through old-fashioned shadow puppets and oral traditions.

In all too many ways, it’s a predictable, tiring wade as both a domestic tale and a pandemic yarn.

Even if it was long overdue, or maybe precisely because it was, “Black Widow” still felt like the remnant of a timeline before heroes had reached total market saturation. “Shang-Chi,” by comparison, feels like the new beginning that its predecessor was meant to be, as much as anything, because it truly ventures in a new direction — building distantly on the world that has now become common moviegoer knowledge, but adding stylistic flourishes and an unhurried pace from Cretton that suggests it’s content to be its own story instead of a cog in a larger machine.

The Night House works as an exploration of grief because of Rebecca Hall’s incredible performance, plain and simple. But as a horror film, it overpromises early on and then fails to deliver on any chills that go beyond a jump scare.

Ultimately, Campbell’s film fails because it can’t decide whether to be cheeky escapism or a thoughtful character study, instead landing in between with something repetitive and too often a little dull.

It’s hard to get lost in Cameron’s images or Joy’s workmanlike direction given how often they’re overwhelmed by her flashy dialogue.

Demonic isn’t just a low-budget supernatural–sci-fi thriller; it’s also a shallow one, a boring one, a poorly conceived one — and the characters stink too.

True to formula, the neatly wrapped ending is telegraphed from continents away. But even under those rules, Harwood’s already rarefied quality and Butterell’s adept choices in his film directorial debut — his familiarity with material yields a positive transfiguration from stage to screen — color Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, a high-heeled and glossy romp that’s radical in its loving optimism.

Not Going Quietly credibly highlights the “moral stakes” of Barkan’s cause, as one of his colleague says, with a welcome mix of candor and artful consideration.

Don’t Breathe 2 may not be the first horror movie sequel to try to transform the monster into an antihero, but it’s hard to think of another one that whiffs it this hard.

Formally, Tsai’s approach is as spare as possible while still maintaining a loose sense of narrative.

Dramarama is finally worthwhile mainly because its players are so responsive to each other and to the idea of friendship that they make large sections of the movie come alive.

White as Snow doesn’t go far enough into strangeness, but neither is this an adaptation aiming for realism. Only Huppert is on that skewed mindset, while everyone else plays it straight.

Stolakis is not afraid of complication.

Paw Patrol: The Movie” is both entertaining and educational, and that’s always a major accomplishment for a family film.

Even when the movie stumbles, Hudson’s bravura performance — and those extraordinary songs — steady its soul.

The more commercial way of doing this story would have been to make Pat into a flinty and sassy guy no matter what, but Stephens chooses the more realistic path of making him into a person with flaws and a great deal of vulnerability, almost to a fault.

Even if the film is premeditatedly oblique and too precisely constructed in its cerebral machinations to engage with beyond an intellectual level, the ideas wrapped in its coldness are thought-provoking.

It’s a film about hubris, selfishness, failed bureaucracies, and a stubborn inability to learn from past mistakes.

Less inventive that it gives itself credit for, Free Guy qualifies as a summer blockbuster with something mildly compelling to say; not the most articulate or substantial in its exploration of its most interesting ideas, to be sure, but enjoyable nonetheless

The uniquely underwhelming sci-fi lawyer drama Naked Singularity is a weird mashup of ill-fitting genre tropes and quarter-cooked ideas about social justice and alternate realities.

As a kind of twisted social commentary, it doesn’t make much sense on paper, but don’t worry: It won’t make much sense on the screen, either, but Mosquito State manages to get under your skin and also to find moments of disquieting beauty.

When a movie doesn’t hold up to introspection as a whole, it’s best to examine its parts. And some of those are admirable.

The Suicide Squad is by no means perfect, but like the “Deadpool” movies, it’s a showcase for what can happen when a superhero movie is allowed to be sprightly, self-aware, and sardonic while also indulging in hard-R violence, gore, and language. Gunn’ latest creation is not without moments that drag, but when it pops, it pops brilliantly.