Alistair Ryder

It’s a movie in awe of the expansive bizarro universe it’s created out of the mundane everyday, and that alone proves infectious.

Director Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo’s film isn’t challenging for its harrowing, explicit descriptions of violence from victims, but for the way her screenplay (co-written with Delphine Agut) offers no clear resolution to inter-community tensions even decades removed from crimes.

While I wasn't left completely cold by Remarkably Bright Creatures, I found its tried-and-tested clichés far more enjoyable than its wilder idiosyncrasies.

The question remains whether a "Mortal Kombat" movie could ever be expected to be better than this, considering the limitations of the source material. That this sequel translates the simple beat-em-up thrills of the video game into something narratively functional is about as triumphant as it could possibly get for this franchise.

As an existential sci-fi, Project Hail Mary doesn’t live up to the mid-2010s blockbusters it’s attempting to emulate, but it does eventually soar when it allows the hangout buddy comedy to take center stage. It’s a gorgeous feat of practical effects on a gargantuan scale, but its biggest pleasures lie in the most intimate character moments.

If we're not poking fun at the inherent silliness of this, like a good "Scream" movie should, then all we're left with is a slasher too afraid to twist the knife.

If Pixar is now just as formulaic as its Hollywood animation peers, then director Daniel Chong's film is a reminder that a stereotypical crowd-pleaser from this studio is made with enough emotional sincerity and visual inspiration to never feel like cheap product fallen off the factory line.

Yellow Letters‘ heart is ultimately in the right place, but good intentions alone can’t make for the rousing call-to-arms against creeping authoritarianism that Çatak and his co-writers hope. It feels effective in the moment, but becomes more hollow in retrospect for the lack of specificity in what it’s standing firmly against.

Director Renny Harlin does his best to maintain the same level of slow-burning dread as he pulled off in the prior film, but it ends up feeling like a mundane, fly on the wall account of the average day at the office for the two surviving killers.

Chaotic in its depiction of the unraveling of a contentious workplace relationship, Send Help is a profoundly unserious thriller that is nevertheless a crowdpleaser.