The Dive movie review: don’t hold your breath
Intermittent moments of fleeting suspense punctuate literal and figurative murkiness (I gave up trying to figure out what was going on) as it flails around trying to pad itself out to feature length.
suspense/thriller
Sympathy for the Devil movie review: schtick the landing
Rote cat-and-mouse thriller spins its wheels getting somewhere obvious, just so wild-eyed Nic Cage can cartoonishly Rage again. Look, the actor has found his schtick, and he’s sticking with it, okay?
How to Blow Up a Pipeline movie review: it means the earth to them
A heist drama, incendiary and intense, with planetary stakes. These young people are desperate, with nothing to lose, and everyone older than them made them this way. Nihilism is their only optimism.
Full Time (À plein temps) movie review: mother of invention
This relentless, heart-in-your-throat, ticking-clock thriller about precarious single-motherhood could not be more timely or more intimate. As real, and as recognizably stressful, as the genre gets.
Knock at the Cabin movie review: there appears to be an apocalypse happening
There is only one thing worse than an M. Night Shyamalan movie with a twist ending. And that is one without a twist ending. Feels like a faith-based movie trying to sneak in under a disingenuous wire.
Plane movie review: ‘Sully,’ but make it badass
Entertainingly ridiculous? Or ridiculously entertaining? The slick of wild nonsense slapped over an uninspired undercoat is enjoyable enough while you’re onboard, and then it’s instantly forgettable.
Blackbird movie review: Michael “Riverdance” Flatley flatfoots his way into filmmaking
Long rumored — long threatened? — writer-director-producer-star Flatley’s self-financed pabulum opus is baffling and hilariously awful. It exists only because an incredibly rich man has money to burn.
Black Mail movie review: no reason to give in to it
Limp thriller is both overly earnest and naively preposterous. A mess of retro ideas about marriage and men, with a protagonist who lacks agency. There’s no suspense but plenty of misplaced moralizing.
Nope movie review: are we not entertained?
There are delicious popcorn-movie vibes and horrors galore, both funny-suspenseful and stone-cold bone-chilling. But most intriguing is the twistiness of how the movie grapples with its own existence.
Orphan: First Kill movie review: not-so-little girl lost
The rare sequel better than the original, but that’s not saying much. Takes too long to get to its surprises, its adult star is unconvincing as a child, and its minimal cleverness feels like a cheat.
