Split movie review: time for another round of “What the Hell Was M. Night Shyamalan Thinking?”
Lurid and squicky, Split treads water and keeps too many secrets on a dull path to the revelation of its self-satisfied cleverness.
drama
The Founder movie review: look at what the golden arches hath wrought
Rather brilliant and kind of inspiring until it turns frightening and even sinister. A dark tale of the beginning of end-stage capitalism as profit above all.
Silence movie review: not golden
This overlong, underpowered tale of Christian martyrdom, in which iconography and allusion stand in for character, is a challenge to even the Scorsese faithful.
Live by Night movie review: criminal tedium
Commits the cardinal sin of cinema: it’s boring. Feels like two hours of highlights from a 20-episode miniseries that only hint at a rich story tapestry.
A Monster Calls movie review: the monster is within us all
A fairy tale of the Grimm sort: no happy ending, no heroes or villains, just hard truths about life and human nature. Important, beautiful, heartbreaking.
Collateral Beauty movie review: there is no beauty in this
Appalling and sadistic. How can anyone who is not a sociopath look at this horrible attempt at feel-good fantasy and say, “This is fine, this is healthy”?
Passengers movie review: lost in sexist space
After a few quick nods to the profoundly unethical act at its core, it shrugs it off and uses it as the basis for its fairy-tale romance. This is not okay.
Hidden Figures movie review: triumph of the black girl geeks
The it’s-about-damn-time true story that puts paid to the notion that only white men had the Right Stuff. Often funny, ultimately feel-good, hugely exhilarating.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story movie review: the high price of hope
There’s genuine fun here, but the humor is cynical, the heroics are tinged with regret, and it’s all delivered with a cold smack of — yes — political relevance.
Frank & Lola movie review: the pain of men (it’s all women’s fault)
Ridiculous coincidence drives the plot, but a reliance on outdated notions of gender expectations is what makes this neonoir such an infuriating experience.
