Kaitlyn Booth Archives

Challengers is a sports film is rarely about the sport itself alone, and this film is only "about" tennis in the barest sense. It's about three people and the extremely complicated relationship dynamics that play out over the years that they know each other.

By the time everything in Abigail is coming to a fever pitch, it's like we're watching a completely different film from the one we started with.  While that change could have been fun, instead, the transition felt clunky.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a film elevated above being entirely mediocre thanks to the style of its director and the chemistry of its ensemble cast.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire takes a standard children's animated film runtime to get going because it is too busy being proud of the references it could throw in.

When Arthur the King hits a streaming service and ends up on airplanes, people will watch it, enjoy it, and probably forget about it several hours later.

Dune: Part Two only stumbles in ways that hardly count, but with Villeneuve expertly guiding a truly talented ensemble cast, it all ultimately comes together.

Madame Web isn't the worst film to come out of the Sony-Marvel experiment; that title still lovingly goes to Morbius, but for every good idea it has, the film executes it poorly.

Lisa Frankenstein has the right pieces for a great short film but doesn't have enough to paint the full picture for a feature presentation.

To reduce Poor Things to nothing more than another debate about whether or not sex "belongs" in film is doing a great disservice to one of the best films of the year.

Migration is one of the better films that Illumination has put out in a long time, which is why it's a shame that it isn't getting the kind of hype it deserves.

Rebel Moon is what happens when someone is handed unlimited money and complete creative freedom without having anyone around them who is willing to tell them "no."

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is a mess in every single possible way, and the fact that it is the final film just makes that messiness all the more egregious and bitter.

Wonka might have some missteps along the way, but most of it doesn't really matter once you're caught up in the candy-coated whimsey of the film.

Dream Scenario feels like one massive missed opportunity for something that could have been great. Instead, it appears that everyone involved decided to play it safe instead of really taking advantage of the concept laid before them.

Napoleon is a film that was made with the intention of being seen on the biggest screen possible, which is why it's all the more ironic that it might be worth waiting for it to hit AppleTV so you can watch the battle scenes and then turn it off.

Wish feels like Disney didn't start with wanting to tell a story about wishing on a star; it feels like they started wondering how they could organically cram as many "legacy nods" to previous films.

The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes isn't a bad time at the theater, and it is interesting to see how the character we know will become the villain descends into madness.

The Marvels is a callback to when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was putting out some pretty good movies where not every aspect of them worked, but it's still a very enjoyable experience.

The film feels like it exists more to dull the spotlight that always shines on Elvis than to shine a brighter one on Priscilla and the life she has led.

Saw X might be the tenth film but proves that with the focus on the right characters and with the right crew, the knives are still plenty sharp in this franchise.

The Creator is a bold and often beautiful piece of high-concept science fiction that is very good but can't quite cross the finish line into extraordinary.

Oppenheimer is a well-acted and directed biopic that makes some interesting decisions that cause the already insanely long runtime to feel even longer and even clunkier than it already did.

Barbie is a miracle movie because there is no universe where this should have been approved, let alone given the budget it got, and the fact that it all works so well is why this movie will live on for years.

Gran Turismo would be a decent racing movie on its own, but the connection to video games, it being based on a true story, and how they integrate video game mechanics elevates the entire production.

Blue Beetle hits all of the familiar notes of the superhero genre and is a solid origin story for a new young hero. However, it doesn't bring anything particularly new to the genre either, aside from the family dynamic.

Strays is trying to be an R-rated Homeward Bound, but no amount of swear words can make animal neglect or abuse funny. It's 93 minutes about why we don't deserve dogs and why humans suck.

Haunted Mansion is just as tonally disjointed as the infamous ride it is based on, trying to walk the line between horror and comedy while hiding the best parts of the film from prospective audiences.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One would always be compared to the two previous films, and a near-impossible bar for any franchise to try and clear. However, the step back here feels much more pronounced, and the final film being mediocre instead of great or even good is a shame.

Even though Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken misses more than it hits, it still isn't bad. It's not as good as Dreamworks can be, and it's a massive step back from the last two movies (The Bad Guys, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) they have released both in terms of story and animation.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is another entry into the 2023 movie season of being way too long, which kills the pacing, screws up the structure, and thus drags the entire thing down to mediocre.