Nick Allen

However chronologically jumbled, Victim/Suspect prevails with its many episodes of de Leon’s incisive reporting and dedication, and the insight we get from legal and policing experts about how this cycle continues.

It is a horror/fantasy that puts every bit of its imagination on the screen and constantly impresses with its DIY spectacle.

Perhaps worst of all, the movie is light on the laughs meant to come from trash-talking; the comedy just doesn’t have the crispiness it needs.

It’s all too passive, and lacking in incisiveness cleverness for its own good, barely served by Day’s nostalgia for better films and voluminous silent stars.

Everyone knows what a Disney+ movie like this can and can’t do with its young characters, but Alvarez and team push the limits just enough, giving “Crater” a sense of gravity that might just surprise viewers of all ages.

It’s playful but serious at the right moments and wistful, without being on the nose, about how growing up is the greatest adventure. Just like a bedtime story, Peter Pan & Wendy is poignant and fanciful, and it soars through its 103 minutes as if it can make time stand still.

While it has a personal touch of a love letter, this documentary is nonetheless the work of compassionate filmmakers who know any adventure when they see one.

Beau Is Afraid, an enveloping fantasy laced with mommy issues, is about being doomed from birth. It's Aster’s funniest movie yet.

Ross always preached that there were no mistakes, just happy accidents. A mess like Paint—all broad strokes and no point—proves that he wasn’t always right.

Chupa willfully becomes one of those family films that takes plenty from the toy box of cliches left before and hardly gives anything back.

The documentary is pushed mostly by a maudlin reverence from director Gianfranco Rosi, whose collaging approach does not produce the meditative experience it desires.

Money Shot: The Pornhub Story is a porn-positive documentary, and its ambition to discuss all ugly shades of the issues boldly makes it fascinating and anti-provocative.

Ruskin succeeds in paying tribute to Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole's hard work, but it's less successful in filling in the larger story.

As a horror and a comedy, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey has no rhythm with either, and it's too dim to be worthy of a curious look.

80 for Brady displays how Marvin’s sensibilities about friendship are primed for a mass audience. He knows the audience and, more importantly, that no one will mistake what he’s aiming for here.

Attachment very much wants to set its horror within Jewish mythology and Ultra-Orthodox life, and yet this specific choice always creates an exposition overload, which has a more distancing than inclusive effect.

By trying to make a grand statement to a post-lockdown theatergoing audience about what they are willing to believe—but also about how far they are willing to go for others—Shyamalan trips over himself and neglects to give them much of a movie.

Plane rushes through its emotional and explosive beats so that it can get to the next crisis without having to fill out the previous one, and it wildly skims on the good stuff in the process.

A parody only by legal definition, The Mean One has no teeth as a naughty comedy or gory horror.

The editorial assembly and talking-head presentation of “Love, Charlie” is a bit too dry for my taste, struggling to build an intriguing pacing with and-then-this-happened storytelling. But the emotional power of the film benefits from its extensive archive, and how it displays it.

Lawrence’s latest is fine for its don’t-over-think-it standards, and while it’s glossier than it is deep, it’s at least charted through with a roller coaster’s engineering. There’s something comforting about a movie that has the true ease of a fantastical dream, and for “Slumberland” that fleeting excitement may be enough.

As a formal experimentation by an actor whose filmmaking talents are only the latest chapter in his Hollywood story, the documentary offers a touching reflection on Jonah Hill, The Star. Without specifically mentioning movie projects or other's names, he shares his sense of self during success, and how self-esteem remained elusive.

Spirited is one of those movies with numerous creative choices that feel inspired, not just by the holiday spirit in the lyrics but the desire to pull off a good show. When Spirited has so many of its ornate pieces in sync, it can be a joyous cinematic treat like very few others of past or present.

A pop music phantasmagoria that’s equally egoless and entertaining.

Slash/Back gains its greater power with its entertaining narrative of these Inuit heroes warding off invaders, trying to save their home while earning a deeper pride in that very place and its people. It’s sincerely sweet and entertaining, and its impact is felt even more as the black alien blood starts to fly.

When it should be jostling us in one way or another, "Piggy" feels like it's just killing time.

It doesn’t happen too often, especially from modern studio fare, but Parker Finn’s Smile is the kind of horror movie that earns the unique qualification of “genuinely scary.”

The romantic fantasies and the time travel plotting of “Meet Cute” are a total mismatch.