F9 continues the franchise’s downward trend, further garbling its outsized action and sentimentality into confectionery pap. What started as a scrappy gearhead ripoff of Point Break…
Luca is an obviously gorgeous film, but its half-cooked conception and execution continues the recent trend of sub-par Pixar efforts. The currently swirling rumors which claim…
Peter Rabbit 2 wishes it were a Paddington film. It isn’t. It’s fair to say Will Gluck’s Peter Rabbit 2 wants a piece of the Paddington pie.…
Though technically a worse film than the original, Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard rides its low-brow wave to lizard brain delights. 2017’s The Hitman’s Bodyguard proved a…
In the Heights isn’t going to save the theatrical experience, but at 143 minutes, will help kill some time. In development since the musical made…
This latest Conjuring effort displays a bit more awareness of precisely where its strengths lie, resulting in a lot of dumb fun for those happy…
Cruella begins from a stupid premise and proceeds to do little more than inspire product development and contribute to the Dalmatians Easter egg canon. A…
A Quiet Place Part II succeeds in much the same way as the original — as a sturdy, thoughtful, and understated exercise in genre. Box-office success…
Those Who Wish Me Dead is eminently watchable and rife with brutal genre spectacle, but never quite manages the depth of Sheridan’s prior work. In a…
Spiral fundamentally misunderstands the appeal of the Saw franchise, deviating from the series formula to remarkably diminished results. Spiral: From the Book of Saw is but the latest…
Wrath of Man is a hybrid heist/revenge film that is pure fluff and littered with Ritchie idiosyncrasies, but also truly technically impressive. Posited: Guy Ritchie…
Here Today is a baffling, schmaltzy oddball of a film that finds Billy Crystal profoundly out of touch. There’s been something of a recent resurgence when…
Mortal Kombat is all bland sequel-setting that fails to even deliver impressive fight sequences. Paul W.S. Anderson’s 1995 Mortal Kombat is the most straightforward and…
Voyagers is a shallow, bland, and empty-headed space-set riff of Lord of the Flies that fails to choose either heady futurism or sci-fi eroticism. It’s…
Godzilla vs. Kong isn’t a perfect film, but it features franchise-best VFX and links to Toho-era entries in its commitment to visual spectacle over narrative.…
Nobody is an absolute blast of genre filmmaking and T-fueled ass-kicking glee. By now, it’s not really a stretch to assume that Bob Odenkirk isn’t just…
The “Zack Snyder cut” isn’t the holy grail of superhero cinema, but it’s at least a singular vision and a distinct improvement on the studio-bungled…
Chaos Walking welcomingly deviates from the YA template and surprises with its visual design, but it crumbles under the weight of its unexplored ideas. From its…
Coming 2 America is a lifeless detour without any of the humor or incisive critique of the original. John Landis’ 1988 Eddie Murphy vehicle Coming to…
It seems nearly impossible that there’s anyone in the world who isn’t familiar with Tom and Jerry — or, at least, doesn’t recognize them. In…