Dana Schwartz

The Hole in the Ground never seeks to differentiate itself from the established horror movie aesthetic: we get creepy jangling lullaby music, a decrepitly old hooded women mumbling to herself ominously, bare feet on creaking wooden floors, broken mirrors.

Isn’t It Romantic pulls off a sweet sleight-of-hand trick as a rom-com-within-a-rom-com, mocking all of the classic rom-com tropes while still letting us indulge in them. The movie is having its gourmet cupcake and eating it too.

A brilliant supporting cast, which includes Hugh Laurie, Steve Coogan, Ralph Fiennes, Lauren Lapkus, Rebecca Hall, and Kelly MacDonald, is utterly wasted on this lame and forgettable outing. The only real mystery is why they wanted to be apart of this project at all.

There is a beautiful, surprising, and entirely engrossing film within this movie; it’s just almost impossible to find among the establishing shots of ponds and endless subplots of real-life characters introduced for seemingly no other reason than to help make this movie perfect for sophomore year high school classes.

What kind of Grinch would I be to berate a new cheesy holiday movie about two siblings going on a Christmas-related adventure in which, I repeat, Kurt Russell plays a hot Santa? Make some cocoa for the family, and spike yours if you have to, but remember what the holiday is about: watching mediocre, predictable movies with the people you love.

Unlike so many recent horror movies, The Clovehitch Killer is patient with its thrills, almost excruciatingly so.

Ambitious, beautifully animated, and clever to a fault, Ralph Breaks the Internet breaks free of the pitfalls of most sequels by never forgoing heart for the sake of bigger franchise pyrotechnics.

But for most of the film, Parker’s Vivienne is bland and forgettable. A scene where she sleeps with the drummer in her backup band is supposed to be titillating but instead feels perfunctory.

Every gag in this movie has already been done before, and better, presumably by one or both of the earlier Johnny English films. I promise that I will never force myself to find out.

The real magic of the movie comes in its echoes of the first — namely, Black’s performance as the Goosebumps mastermind.