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.