Superintelligence undermines its innocuous silliness and any potential rom-com aspirations with needlessly complicated stakes and a fixation on its own high concept. There’s a genuinely charming romantic comedy hiding somewhere within the edges of Superintelligence, the new Melissa McCarthy vehicle directed by her husband, Ben…
Jungleland is a deeply familiar film that injects little energy or originality into its template narrative. Max Winkler’s Jungleland follows bare-knuckle boxer Lion (Jack O’Connell) and his manager-brother (Charlie Hunnam) as they make their way across America towards a potentially life-changing fight in San Francisco.…
Synchronic does many things well but ultimately fails to must the creative energy its directors typically bring. In Synchronic, the new film from directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, two paramedics, Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan), stumble across a series of bizarre, gruesome…
The Witches isn’t immune to some familiar children’s cinema pratfalls, but its hyperactive energy and Zemeckian set pieces keeps things mostly singing. Robert Zemeckis’ 40-odd-year career can be split rather neatly into several phases, in which the look, subject matter, and technology of his films…
Books of Blood is a little exploitative, quite a bit derivative, and overwhelmingly boring. There’s nary an original image or idea in Brannon Braga’s Books of Blood, but not simply because it’s an adaptation. Like most interpretations of Clive Barker’s work, this one plays fast…
The Glorias is shallow hagiography that fails to complicate the fascinating person it seeks to showcase. In July, Harper’s Magazine published “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” a bad faith call to arms in defense of free speech ideals against the perceived illiberalism of…
Produced by genius documentarian and foremost interviewer of American war criminals, Errol Morris, Sonia Kennebeck’s Enemies of the State comes marked with a certain air of importance. As Morris is the closest thing nonfiction cinema has to a household name (Morgan Spurlock excepted), his…
Coastal Elites is a tone-deaf and formally lazy film that ignores issues of substance in favor of a facile call for civility. Anyone concerned that the limitations coronavirus imposed on the production of Coastal Elites might force director Jay Roach to step out of his…
The Whistlers makes the most of its basic parts, tying some nifty knots and glossing up proceedings, but it fails to offer anything memorable. Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Whistlers is a tight, satisfying crime yarn — even if its small quirks and arthouse sheen sometimes get in the…
A barrage of cuts set to the metronome of a ticking clock fragments the daily routine in and around a meat market in the opening moments of Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Jallikattu, suggesting that the film to follow might be an overwhelming sensory experience. But…
