A unique cherry blossom of a period piece finds its roots intertwined with an erotically-charged crime, set to shock and entrance viewers unaware of the free-spirited madness to follow. A cultural appropriation of submission, the male gaze and gender dominance, stretched until storytelling fabrics just begin to tear.

20th Century Women relegates a set of extraordinary female characters to supporting players in a standard coming-of-age narrative. It's entertaining, but also disappointing.

With U, Belle could be a prescient reimagining of real-kei for a new age, but it never fully escapes the tired conventions of homage it so desperately wants to fit into this future.

Tried, tested, and uninspiring - this four way relationship drama goes over old ground.

Lean and mean, The Survivalist a realistically miserable apocalypse - and all the more terrifying for it.

Loving has Jeff Nichols' trademarks but it lacks the nuanced storytelling that made his previous films so successful.

It’s broody and disciplined, soaked in the pungent style of foreign auteurs who molded Scorsese’s own love of film – yet overburdened by a downward spiral lacking fire and unforgiving features.

While 'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga' is highly entertaining, it fails to capture the chrome-painted perfection of 'Mad Max: Fury Road.' Instead, we end up with a bloated epic that focuses too much on world building and not enough on its titular character.

Despite gorgeous cinematography and a strong cast, The Lost City of Z is a shallow and overly romantic film that falls into the trap of hero worship.

Its abstract foundation is incredibly fertile creative ground, but 'The People's Joker's nuclear, self-indulgent execution is the downfall to its buzzworthy rise.

While watching 1917, there’s a sense that you’re waiting for a fresh take or an interesting point that never comes. Audiences don’t need this movie to tell them that war is hell. But for those striving to get closer to experiencing that hell, Deakins and Mendes achieve something few war films before them have. They just needed a grander reason for doing so.

Evolution is undeniably beautiful, but it's a small-scale story which ignores a larger world that needs far more exploration.

Detroit is, for lack of a better term, a pornographic echo chamber of resentment. Trying to put out a fire with ten more tankers full of gasoline.

Your toleration of mother! will be determined by movie-going patience. Aronofsky is painting with some blistering broad strokes, but they’re just that – broad and undefined.

Psychonauts, the Forgotten Children is bizarre, imaginative and beautiful, but it's also crying out for a stronger narrative.

I can’t deny that Eugène Green is a talented, idiosyncratic director and his Son of Joseph has many visual and intellectual qualities to boast about. But it’s a film I appreciated much more than I actually enjoyed.

Vapid and meaningless, the consumer-friendly 'Air' tells a revolutionary story in the blandest, slickest way possible.

The buck unfortunately stops at the inspired casting, reducing 'One of Them Days' to another destiny method comedy that might find viewers, but not an audience.

A simple and simply satisfying seal, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie will, in no way, tarnish the alchemic legacy of its TV precursor, though it doesn’t do much to enhance it.

Doctor Strange is the psychedelic kung-fu spectacle that Marvel hoped director Scott Derrickson would deliver, but it’s got a strange problem – the doctor himself.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings isn't top-tier MCU, but it's a solid origin story anchored by two fantastic performances from Simu Liu and Tony Leung, as well as some of the franchise's best action.

Aaron Sorkin’s indelible wit and naturally fervent performances from Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba prevent Molly’s Game from drawing dead.

Lion may be a little too Oscar-bait-y, but it's not without loud emotional roars.

A fantasy in nearly every sense of the word, Rocketman reaches for and grabs hold of the stars so often that the dazzle occasionally becomes too much to handle.

The Little Hours is saved by Fred Armisen and Kate Miccuci, the only performers who don't suffer from the film's one-note delivery at some point.

Girls Lost fills the magical realism, gender dysphoria, Swedish indie teen drama-shaped hole in your life. It's just a damn shame it all falls apart in the final act.

The Birth Of A Nation is not without inherent power, but Parker struggles to evoke anything besides surface tellings of textbook atrocities.

A few images sear with the burning sensation of undead terror, but that only accounts for a few short minutes of an otherwise more-daunting-than-it-should-be cinematic exploration of death.

The Blackcoat's Daughter aims for lofty satanic thrills, but gets lost in visuals that oversell a barbed but tangled nightmare.

The Bleeder is a surface-value, party-first boxing dramedy that pulls its punches and goes too far into "charismatic sleazeball" territories.

Black Widow isn't going to go down in the history books as top-tier Marvel Cinematic Universe content, but it's not too bad at all.

As an experience, Avatar: The Way of Water is second to none. In terms of the storytelling, though, James Cameron has fallen into the exact same pitfalls as he did on the first visit to Pandora.

Danny Boyle's T2 Trainspotting is a diverting nostalgia exercise, to be sure, but it never really justifies its own existence.

While it doesn’t do much to elevate the genre, Halloween does tick each and every box, which should be more than enough to appease your run of the mill fanboy, but scare off anyone with half a brain.

While fans of either Freaky Friday or Friday the 13th might not get enough of what they came for in Freaky, fans of Vaughn will get more than enough to keep them satisfied. He makes Freaky absolutely worth it.

No Man of God doesn't tell us anything about Ted Bundy we didn't already know, but it's a riveting drama anchored by two phenomenal performances from Luke Kirby and Elijah Wood.

Feig, who’s been known to conjure up categorical spoofs (Spy, Bridesmaids), throws up Fincher-like curveballs, each one more disturbing than the last, only to strike out in the ninth.

It pulls too many punches while being too keen on delivering others, but Speak No Evil's mighty cast and swath of subtleties seal a fine deal indeed.

Conversational drama (ala Linklater’s Before franchise), plates piled with last-meal dinner fantasies, unparalleled improv – third time is still the charm, but Michael Winterbottom lets the stew boil a bit too long.

More a sacrifice bunt than a homerun, 'The Kitchen' is a commendable, if tame, addition to the dystopian sci-fi library that gets by on pure heart.

It’s never stuffy – J-Rock guitar solos wail over science research montages – just a bit overlong and too involved in the judicial process.

[Robespierre] and Slate make a formidable, interesting pair together and I do look forward to their next venture, but Landline is a disappointing venture.

Fantastic Beasts is both a slice of magical monster mayhem and severely underwritten storytelling, landing somewhere between “pretty passable” and “zany fun” – but certainly nothing fantastic.

A United Kingdom is well-intentioned, with impassioned performances from Oyelowo and Pike, but it's executed as drily and inoffensively as so many middling Brit period dramas.

Ostensibly a tragic tale of out-of-control youth, White Girl collapses under its lofty ambitions, boiling down to little more than a retread of other, better films.

Olivia Colman goes with this franchise like bread and marmalade, but the 'Paddington' charm of yore mostly goes out the window.

Staying Vertical feels weighed down when it should be light, and ironic when it should be earnest. For better and worse, the film terrorizes conventional cinema without providing any good alternative.

Ultimately, Stars At Noon provides an interesting look into an important time in history for Nicaragua from the perspective of a French director who has no direct involvement with the reality she is representing. Unfortunately, the conventionally attractive hetero-normative romance between the leads, and the espionage shenanigans they get up to, are wildly uninteresting compared to the gravitas of everything that is going on in the background.

Ouija: Origin Of Evil would have been better than Ouija with even a quarter of the screams evoked, which makes the tremendous jump in quality quite refreshing despite derivative storytelling.

Overall, this isn’t a bad movie, just one that feels at odds with itself. Despite its flaws though, American Made is a fun enough ride and features yet another winsome Cruise performance.

Four powerhouse performances cannot quite make Richard Linklater's occasionally moving dramedy, Last Flag Flying, into more than a minor war movie.

Beauty And The Beast lacks some of the astonishing visual prowess of previous Disney live-action remakes, but still sings and dances with enjoyable style.

Scott’s latest is a thrill-ride that blasts through celestial carnage, while building a bigger Alien world that might not be 100% necessary. Out of all the films in the franchise, Alien: Covenant has the least stand-alone potential – but dammit if it’s not a wild, warp-speed-killing-machine adventure.

Powell's screen presence is undeniable. Unfortunately, so is the lethal lack of confidence with which 'Twisters' tends to present itself.

In terms of performance, Freeman generates about all the emotion this nearly one-man show puts out. At first, Andy’s mission is protection and self-reservation, but Freeman captures the process of shifting priorities marvelously, making Andy’s transition from worried improviser to adapted martyr all the more pleasing to experience.

Gretel & Hansel is a full course meal when it comes to cinematography and production design, but the sleepy, hollow narrative pacing is just too stogy to overcome.

Captain Marvel is a recorded mixtape of familiar MCU beats that sets Carol Danvers up for success, but as a period standalone, struggles to be anything we haven't yet seen from superhero cinema.

The spirit of Stuart Gordon is alive and well in Suitable Flesh, with Joe Lynch picking up the baton and delivering both an ode to his inspiration and a riotous horror comedy in its own right.

XX is a mundane horror anthology at best, and a slow-burn experience that never reaches a boil at its worst.

A beautifully shot film that doesn't quite conquer the big screen.

Rarely is a performance so strong that it’s able to carry an entire production, but – thankfully for John Madden – Chastain wills Miss Sloane into relevance through nothing but sophistication, spunk and champion grit.

Ready Player One isn’t slick enough a commentary worth getting riled up about or distracting enough to hide glaring structural issues underneath a barrage of “HEY I KNOW THEM!” cameos like dangling keys in front of a dog.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is a biopic every bit as off-kilter and bizarre as the protagonist, but despite all of the whimsy and eccentricities, it finds itself missing a spark.

Despite its undoubted ambition and an excellent central performance from Rami Malek, Buster’s Mal Heart slips into the traps that so often face thrillers of its type.

Only M. Night Shyamalan could make an apocalypse film that has audiences rooting for the end of the world, if only to bring the running time of 'Knock at the Cabin' to a merciful end.

Never does Soderbergh’s projection strike me as B-movieness or popcorn entertainment. His mix of arthouse iPhone Hollywood and downplayed character accentuation (by way of misrepresented screen shrinkage) makes for a thriller that fails to spike excitement via a villain who’s always right where he has to be.

Split is never as clever or poignant as it thinks it is, but James McAvoy won't let it be forgotten, either.

Hercule Poirot comes out to play again in this horror-leaning murder mystery which, despite looking great, is held back by and underwhelming plot.

It’s a film of maddening contradictions, missed opportunities and half-taken risks, but it’s destined to be one of the year’s most polarizing and talked-about releases regardless.

You can’t help but admire the ambition on display, even if it ultimately falls just a little short.

How does a movie about the galaxy's most dashingly roguish outlaw end up being the safest Star Wars to date?

The ambition often outweighs the execution, but Totally Killer is still a fun and bloody riff on several different genres at once.

While the film never really finds its voice outside of the source material, lacking development and a finer tuning to its new medium, 'Red, White & Royal Blue' might still be the most deliciously fun and excitingly sexy romcom of the year.

The Void is a portal back to the 80s, hinged on immersive practical effects work that picks up the slack of a slighter story.

Flashes of narrative inspiration and solid performances are not enough to rescue Allswell from mediocrity, as momentum remains in short supply.

Annabelle: Creation is no lifeless dummy. Plotting may run a bit thin and coincidental, but David F. Sandberg whips up bone-chilling scares and hefty doses of peek-through-your-fingers imagery.

The magic here is in underground experiences and questionable decision making, all twisted like junky copper wiring that’s unraveled into something more useful.

The Monkey quite competently makes a monkey out of the human ego, though the comedy choreography is a few bananas short of a bunch.

Copshop isn't quite the movie the trailers paint it to be; It's definitely a worthy first meeting between Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo in the action genre, but Alexis Louder is the one who really steals the show.

Anchored by a top-notch performance from its lead, The Hero surpasses its cliches and becomes an ideal vehicle for its star. In Sam Elliot we trust.

The Rehearsal is much like any coming-of-age melodrama, and while its meat is a little overdone, its intro and finale bookends do make up for a lack of flavor in between.

Saturday Night plays with the sharp erraticism of an improv comedian's neurons, but it quite simply doesn't believe in itself the way Lorne did about the film's subject.

Its unique narrative approach stumbles as often as it shines, but an endearing mission statement makes 'That Christmas' a worthwhile family watch.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt fail to bring the big guns out on 'Wolfs,' but are just the right amount of endearing for streaming success.

Allied is a prestige drama without the prestige, wooden in appearance and lacking any true drama.

Good Boys successfully exploits a newfound ground between crudeness and innocence, but nearly runs it dry.

Edward Norton mines political relevance in some areas of noir-drenched New York and completely ignores it in others. As a result, Motherless Brooklyn becomes Chinatown’s outshined, ugly stepbrother.

The Whale is a frustrating watch as Aronofsky doesn’t seem to trust the actors or the audience, squashing the potential to tell an intriguing story.

Get The Gringo is a passable addition to the action genre but it might have been better had the need to keep Gibson’s fan base happy not been so pressing.

The fuzzy residents of the 100-Acre Wood cutely convert to the real world in Christopher Robin, a mildly entertaining film that'll remind kids and grown-ups alike of the fun that can be had in doing absolutely nothing important.

Dark Night is rigorously framed and edited, but it offers the illusion of complexity rather than the real McCoy.

Warren Beatty's Howard Hughes retrospective, Rules Don't Apply, is equally tone-deaf in humor and drama, cobbled together in ways that never seem to fit.

While not a home run, this comedy/drama might still be worth a look for fans of any of its charismatic stars (especially Slate and Kazan) and for those looking for a comedy that at least attempts to infuse darker elements in with its awkward laughs.

Gifted may be bogged down by some generic dramatic beats, but young Mckenna Grace is the beam of sunshine that keeps us from losing faith.

Bravo’s abundance of inexplicable details makes for an interesting conundrum at first, but mystery soon fades.

Doctor Sleep is a conflicted and unwieldy sequel attempting to unite worlds (King and Kubrick) while telling an original story from yet another filmmaker's viewpoint (Flanagan) that never blends together.

Sing runs on some serious super-piggy performance power, even if the emotional notes are expected.

Cars 3 isn’t remarkable or groundbreaking or even all that memorable, but it’s a rock-solid movie that leaves a far better taste in the mouth than its critically panned predecessors.