Leave No Trace

Captain Fantastic gets winter boned in this endearingly desperate familial survival tale. Story structure that’s as off the grid as its characters generates a refreshingly breathy stray from the civilized cinematic path. Foster parent provides a rivetingly tortured performance that serves as perfectly cracked foundation for Thom’s Thom’s independent dependence.

Eighth Grade

Burnham matures magnificently, skirting hammy wordplay schtick, instead igniting the screen with this brilliantly raw and incredibly empathetic slice of life for a deeply unique every-girl. Fisher catches eyes and hearts with her perfectly uncomfortable heroin. Serves as a perfect time capsule into the future for children of previous generations.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

Though Lord Miller supplied the building blocks, in the hands of less expert craftsman, the result feels piecemeal at best. Painfully disjointed opening vignettes could’ve used a bit of cohesive glue, and a few clever self-referential gags and reversals of cinematic expectation in third act don’t compensate for schizophrenic storytelling.

They Shall Not Grow Old

Colorful three-dimensional updates to archive footage stand in stark contrast to otherwise mundane treatment of World War One. Jackson simultaneously personalizes and distances soldiers by focusing solely on them without ever emphasizing any particular one in voice or image. Feels more like a tour through a museum than a movie.

The Strangers: Prey at Night

Strangers gets stranger title and fascinating musical and editorial decisions to match. Expansion of scope results in plot holes large enough to drive a truck through, but otherwise the franchise maintains its intense and devastating tone. Nuanced character development and clever horror innovations fall prey to cliché on final drive.

Incredibles 2

Naturally super sequel puts fam-tastic five in credible danger both from the gender role reversal of Holly job-Hunter and kid’s Coach Nelson and from timely manipulative machinations of the media. Heavy reliance on infantible insanity only mildly undermines maturity, while keenly cliched villain does cast doubts on sustainability of super-genre.

Searching...

A mundane murder mystery made unique by adherence to a gimmick, and wonderful through the impressive performances of its cast. Masterful integration of writing and effects lend a bizarrely personal element to the most impersonal of premises in a movie that’s stylistically new but will leave novel narrative seekers searching.

A Simple Favor

Gone Bridesmaids pairs an odd couple of genres into a magnificently sexy if periodically problematic relationship. Blake goes deadly as she chews through scenery as a bitch perfect, bent on demonizing a delightfully mousy Kendrick. Pays diabolically clever homage to inspirations but diverges to drown in a messy third act.

Hold the Dark

Saulnier holds onto chromatic themes as he slides into an even more existential premise. Highlights include brilliant, subdued performances and unpredictable plot, but both do little to add warmth to bizarrely distant and off-putting film. Splashes of violence deliver an impressive brutality that gives tension and drive to slower segments. 

The Bad Batch

Bad Bax populates a stereotypical post-apocalypse with unpredictable action and mold-shattering roles for incredible array of actor characters. From the disarming opening to the mind-altering middle, this trek is perpetually intriguing, but struggles to supports its story as the freshness ultimately can’t carrey the weight of a weakly built world.

Unsane

Soderbergh phones it in, but the results are unsettlingly compelling. Foy’s strong performance carries an otherwise fairly institutional story, while a bizarrely low budget Hitchcock aesthetic imbues One Got Trapped in the Cuckoo’s Nest with a freaky fun feeling as it carefully balances doses of serious caution with tongue-un-cheek excess.

I Don't Feel at Home in this World Anymore

Lynskey’s beautiful rendering of a frustrated creature somehow manages to evenly chug scenery while co-star stars wood. Quirky and dark, yet filled with heart, though it feels a bit like McDonagh or Coen, Blairing oddity combined with character complexity keep it from feeling too at home in anyone else’s oeuvre. 

The Girl with All the Gifts

Bizarrely brainy Gem of a zombie flick explores fascinating evolutionary aspects typically dismissed by other undead outings. Excellent acting and clever moral conundrums make up for stuttering pace and am impressively bold conclusion marks an adept advancement of the genre, perhaps a trend that will replace its less thoughtful predecessors.

Hell Fest

Hacked slasher misses its mark as it populates a clever world concept with an absolute lack of compelling characters or plausible plot. A creepy killer, like the film, turns out to be just an amusing mask with nothing of substance underneath. Amusing final button further fails as formula’s final girl.

Christopher Robin

Titular character struggles to escape from his adult tedium in a film that somehow manages to render childhood nostalgia almost as bland as a dull desk job. Creepy animation only further detaches audience from story that should tug at heart strings. Overall, an adorable idea full of nothing but stuffing.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

The team reunites to do battle with predictably unpredictable superman, engaging in nuclear stunts, cleverly woven together into a cohesive and compelling story. Alarmingly plausible finale intercuts beautifully with emotional references to prior chapters, though action set piece antics cruise far above anything that this impossible franchise has done yet.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

‘Fantastic Franchise and How to Make it Tedious: The Exposition of Everything’ is about as exciting as it’s endless title, an ill concocted potion that pits a caricaturish Depp against Law, who’s admittedly brilliant, and perhaps the only shining spark in a not so magical, muggled mess of a movie.

Captain Marvel

Law and Larson search for Lawson while Jackson and Coulson add more maleness to the mix in Marv-elle’s embarrassingly late, first female-centric film. Unfortunately, in this Star-Warsy epic, Brie fails to bring it despite ample room and support from Annette, bening over backwards to add depth to a shallow premise.

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Spoiler: what this movie is for the franchise. ‘HTTYD: Don’t!’ offers beautiful Wall-E-esque sequences which weave in and out of logical plot holes to ultimately unveil the message that integration is unnatural. Strange mix of comedic quirk and serious sentiments fails to soar to previous heights in Train’s shaky caboose.

Us

Jordan peels back veneer of privilege and Gets Into the complex chaos of classist control. Symbolically packed past the rabbit hole’s full point, the allegorical concepts ultimately rise up to overthrow narrative logic. Aside from the exactly wrong amount of explanation, Us astonishes with its moral complexity and occasional comedy.

Your Name.

Beautiful visuals converge with an amusing love story into the double helix that forms the DNA of this complex yet abstract metaphysical romance. A meteor of emotional meaning crashes into an arguably illogical plot to create a bizarre new shape that compensates for structural strength with devastatingly competent artistic energy.

Dragged Across Concrete

Though the pace periodically drags and the style is rough as concrete, the film isn’t nearly as painful as its title implies. Impressively self-indulgent dialog blends beautifully with a plot structure that delights in bucking its viewers. Less meat than Bone or Brawl, but Gibson’s self-aware performance delivers 100 percent.

Tale of Tales

Interwoven fantasy yarns featuring an astonishing amalgamation of cheesy dialog and emotionally impressive performances. Big-budget visuals are given an odd tone by slow editing and a monotonous but pretty score. Passionate project allows complexity to consume its own heart and the method of telling is telling but ultimately lacks any

Game Night

Fincheresque cinematography alludes to and elevates The Game while simultaneously sending it up and ripping it off. Plemons’ arresting performance perfectly complements his neighbors’ development while supporting cast play perfect pieces in this deliberately opaque puzzle. Constant callbacks craft a clever comedic model, nearly as perfect as the establishing shots.

The Nun

Conjures up all of franchise’s religious weight but nun of its trademark subtlety and suspense. Sister acts well but Demian’s Damian-hunter feels like even more of a caricature than Frenchie the Frenchman. Branches out from base series to hang itself on a fraid yarn and bury itself in shallow shocks.

Shazam!

DC’s E.T. manages marvel-ous mixture of comedy and heart to easily hurtle past decade’s low bar. Though inconsistent with Asher’s performance Levi’s caricature hero untangles problematic plot while diverse and talented supporting players band together to out-sparkle their third act avatars. Even ends alarmingly well because that’s the exclamation point!

First Reformed

Hawkes’ wings are clipped in Taxi Driver’s tight, tense second re-formation, which manages to achieve an impressive intensity through simplistic cinematography (carpet ride, aside) and terrifying timeliness. Startlingly human realism keeps plain-spoken message from becoming too heavy-handed, while organ-ic religious elements feel appropriately barbed without binding themselves to cheap mockery.

If Beale Street Could Talk...

…it would say an awful lot in very few words. Unfortunately, images are so poetically effective that they convey content too quickly and much of movie feels redundant, sustained only by beautiful score. Though narratively too concise, cleverly illustrates conundrum of conflicting prejudices against victimized women and falsely accused men.

Green Book

Despite cliched cover, Green is hardly just black and white. With wit, compelling comedy and impressive empathy, simple story traverses tricky territory, driving past race into territories of class, sexuality & self-defeatism. Deftly spins savior setup so both broken heroes require redemption and each ultimately achieve it without heavy-handed Help.

Polar

Mikkelsen gets Mad when stylistically inferior superiors force him from clean to clichéd and the Dominos start falling predictably. Anti-hero’s chilly warmth and clever third act twist of Le Chiffre serve as sole selling points while jaunty jumps from gratuitous gore to intensive introspection make it hard to Buy Polar.

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Solo

Set longer than long time ago, this space spectacle successfully stands alone. An appropriate amount of camp and coolness lend further fuel to a film that doles up the right ratio of references to revelations and, ‘trust’y tropes aside, manages to maintain tension despite obvious direction and less obvious directors.

Glass

Lacks both shine and clarity of origin’s origins. Fractured characters are grafted together but rather than lending each other narrative strength, they take turns bashing holes in panefully fragile premise. Shyamalan’s characters fuse while he cracks open his neglected tank of tired twists and dramatically drowns his franchise in frivolity.

BlackKklansman

Malcolm Y’s performance provides an interestingly stiff backboard against which to bounce this insane true story while Driver rides shotgun, Ren-dering an uncharacteristically complex character. Meanwhile I, Topher revisits 70s with almost amusingly amorality. Lee spikes the story with his typical stylization and political commentary, but both hit their marksSspectacularly.

A Star is Born

Cooper starts by showing off simultaneous directing, acting, guitar-playing, and singing then miraculously maintains the momentum, with incredible support from a Lady who disappears beautifully into her role. Bizarre non-comedic roles for Dice and Dave don’t detract either and Elliot’s emotional energy establishes the environment for film’s final sorrowful supernova.

Creed II

Sequel sympathizes with star as it struggles to sustain previous success. Impressively in-depth antagonist characterization creates conundrum, as baby-Dolph becomes more empathetic than self-centric Creed. Stallone stalls Two, and attempted emotional interludes feel tone deaf at best. Spoiler: finale spoils the premise as a predictable victory further vindicates ‘hero’s vanity.

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Arcade world explodes outward, but moral message narrows for a cautionary tale about over-controlling friendships, in sharp contrast to the out of control online universe. Brilliant allusions to reality, a perfect peppering of product placements and an exemplary exploitation of Disney’s dynasty effectively fix up a wreck of a plot.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Rami rises royally to render Rhapsodic Mercy, raising the temperature of otherwise lukewarm Bohemian band-flick. Self-absorbed cinematic stylistic decisions clash with Freddie’s eccentric ease, as the film queerly contorts the timeline to find formulaic narrative while straightening out star’s personal life to satisfy censors he’d have scorned. Then Live Aid.

The Favourite

A Clockwork Lyndon applies Lanthimos’ self-aware style to an otherwise conventional albeit hilarious premise to shockingly entrancing effect despite a seemingly stroke-slowed final act. All About Emma features animalistic actresses wigging out wonderfully amidst sea of wigged men while wielding wickedly smart dialog that feels equal parts Shakespeare and Sorkin.

Bird Box

Bullock grasps Gravity of sightless situation as she struggles to accept children in The Even Blinder Side. Exceptionally eclectic cast gather in not so Quiet Place, instead filling it with clunky backstories while working out what’s Happening. Though the premise is outside the box, the payoff is for the birds.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

An innovative advance in cinematic form that cleverly curls back on itself simultaneously granting unprecedented audience involvement while mocking how little this actually matters. Or an ill-conceived attempt to pander to the video-game crowd, leaning on the illusion of infinite options to compensate for a pseudo-intellectual subpar plot. You choose.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spine-tinglingly sensational cinematic experience weaves a wonderful alternate world where ground-breaking arachnimation, comic comedy, and philosophical depth can co-exist simultaneously, and even as the brilliantly genre-bending cast of characters struggle to thwart trans-dimensional fusion they introduce our less-advanced reality to futuristic concepts like… genuine diversity, moral ambiguity, and increased spider-sensitivity.

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Vice

Bale’s Dick and Rockwell’s Bush don’t rock well enough to bail out Mckay’s Big concept which falls Short as present day politics Anchor down one Man’s character study. Stylistically opposed of its titular character, Vice’s vice is its reliance on heavy-handed set-pieces to set up its inherently obvious unitary message.

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Mary Poppins Returns

Poppins attempts to recreate not innovate, generating a super-fragile remake, riding original not to highest heights, but down the drain despite Hamilton’s de-light-ful dedication. After a kite-flying, hover-nanny throwback, two-way Streep sends the story backwards, then banker-ex-machina cameos in for a patched-together pace-stopper of a conclusion that… ends… up… boring!!!!!

Aquaman

DC Drowns Collosally as Conan the Aquarian succumbs to pier-pressure in this fishy farce, blunting each plot point to maximum dullness lest they acci-trident-ally poke more holes in a story that already barely holds water. Drogo and Crimson Heard have so little chemistry that even adding H2O isn’t a solution.