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Kyle Smith
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Cuckoo (2024) |
Cuckoo brings up a lot of ideas but doesn’t organize them into anything like a satisfying resolution. As frenzy follows frenzy, it aspires merely to create a feeling of senseless chaos. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Aug 08, 2024
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The Instigators (2024) |
The movie is the latest in a line of splashy Apple TV+ offerings that seem like pet projects for big-name filmmakers working from obviously flawed scripts. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Aug 01, 2024
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Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024) |
The film’s effects-first, story-last strategy is a dismal failure. The charming, gentle simplicity of the book, with its childlike art, has been displaced by a mania for digital images and frantic attempts to be funny. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Aug 01, 2024
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Starve Acre (2023) |
At times, it’s scary how derivative it is. Still, as crepuscular weirdness seeps across the story and leads to a delirious ending, it’s largely effective. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 25, 2024
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Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) |
Messy as it is, Deadpool & Wolverine is the first MCU movie in several years that’s mostly enjoyable. It’s also, at times, overdone. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 25, 2024
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Oddity (2024) |
Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud to put his name on this lean and unsettling thriller, and it’s a triumph for its relatively new writer-director, Ireland’s Damian McCarthy. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 18, 2024
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Twisters (2024) |
Thanks to a polished script by Mark L. Smith, exciting yet human-focused direction by Lee Isaac Chung, and two likable stars, the quiet scenes work too. This is one of the few Hollywood movies this year to achieve everything it sets out to do. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 18, 2024
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Longlegs (2024) |
Writer-director Osgood Perkins has come up with something fresh, pungent and visceral. It’s easily the most effective work of horror I’ve seen this year. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 12, 2024
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Touch (2024) |
"Touch” is a worthy consideration of the things that matter most when the clock is running out, but it could have been more focused. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 11, 2024
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Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (2024) |
Martin Scorsese is the ideal moviegoing companion: His fandom is so exuberant, so well-informed, and so contagious, that he makes you want to see every work he mentions (or see it again) to luxuriate in the images as he does. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 11, 2024
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Fly Me to the Moon (2024) |
One of humankind’s most awe-inspiring achievements gets reduced to something as inspired as a glass of Tang. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 11, 2024
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Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot (2024) |
Sound of Hope, like its predecessor, is a big-hearted film made with a homespun sincerity that comes as a refreshing surprise at the multiplex these days, though it has the gauzy, simplistic feel of a cable-TV movie. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 03, 2024
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Despicable Me 4 (2024) |
The heart of the Gru-niverse is slapstick and capers, but the balance is all off here. A disappointing script by Mike White and Ken Daurio, who co-wrote the first three entries, goes all-in on lame physical comedy. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jul 03, 2024
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A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) |
A Quiet Place: Day One appropriately kept me in a frozen state, afraid to so much as crinkle a page in my notebook. It’s not a popcorn flick, though: Popcorn is too noisy. It’s more of a Raisinets movie. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jun 28, 2024
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Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 (2024) |
The film may be pretty to look at, but this passion project isn’t likely to generate much of it. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jun 28, 2024
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Fancy Dance (2023) |
It’s a sluggish effort that combines elements of a social-problem story, a mystery, a child-custody drama, and a coming-of-age tale but doesn’t bring any particular depth or feeling to any of this. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jun 20, 2024
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Kinds of Kindness (2024) |
It’s a film that demands to be watched several times to figure it out, but although I occasionally enjoyed its mordant humor, it’s so unpleasant that it’s hard to sit through once. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jun 20, 2024
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Inside Out 2 (2024) |
A pointedly funny and observant parable of teen angst that has a lot to say about the state of youth today. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jun 14, 2024
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Fresh Kills (2023) |
Fresh Kills could have been a psychologically penetrating character study but settles for merely reiterating that it’s unpleasant to be a gangster’s daughter. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jun 14, 2024
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Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) |
How can so much chaos be so dull? - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jun 06, 2024
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The Watchers (2024) |
Both Shyamalans habitually make everything dependent on the grand finale, but neither of them seems to be able to tell the difference between a satisfying conclusion and one that makes two hours in a theater feel like a total waste of time. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Jun 06, 2024
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Young Woman and the Sea (2024) |
Mr. Rønning (a Disney stalwart who did the maladroit “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” and the unspeakable “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales”), pollutes even the best scenes with oil slicks of overbearing music. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 31, 2024
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What You Wish For (2023) |
Without straining to make an obvious point, Mr. Tomnay uses black comedy and shocking splatters of gore to tweak the class of jaded plutocrats who are as asset-rich as they are morals-poor. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 31, 2024
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) |
At its best, Furiosa is like a more fun, less ponderous and mysticism-free Dune, with every pedal properly to the metal. But it’s closer to numbing than enthralling, like a long ride with no shock absorbers. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 23, 2024
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Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara (2023) |
[Edgardo Mortara's] tortuous journey gets the respect it deserves in this sensitive and beautifully realized drama. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 23, 2024
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Back to Black (2024) |
The film is detailed, vivid, enthralling -- and necessarily full of pain. The performances are top-notch, led by Ms. Abela, who does her own singing in an amazing re-creation of Winehouse’s muscular soul vocals. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 16, 2024
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IF (2024) |
Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar, sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar, and “IF” is considerably sweeter than either. Chemically if not cinematically, it’s noteworthy. A drop of it would sweeten a swimming pool of coffee. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 16, 2024
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) |
The element of gravitas in “Kingdom” amounts to a cerebral dramatic core that sets it apart from other effects-driven fantasy films. It’s also a rarity among blockbusters in that stringing together one spectacle after another isn’t the point. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 09, 2024
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Time of the Heathen (1961) |
Time of the Heathen was evidently made on a very low budget, and the sometimes histrionic acting is among its unpolished qualities, but at its core it is an impassioned and haunting psychological journey. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 09, 2024
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Jeanne du Barry (2023) |
Overlapping with Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” but minus the mischievously anachronistic touches, it’s a finely wrought story of palace intrigue enriched by lush sets and decors. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 02, 2024
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Evil Does Not Exist (2023) |
Luxuriating in long, patient scenes of chopping wood or filling containers with water from a brook, it glows with appreciation for living off the grid in an otherwise hectic time. There should be more to a film than a mood, however. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 02, 2024
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The Fall Guy (2024) |
The Fall Guy may be the bargain of the season at the multiplex; for the price of one ticket, you get many bad movies. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted May 02, 2024
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Challengers (2024) |
[Luca Guadagnino] does his best to give substance to a thin, soapy story, but he relies so heavily on gimmicks (several montages feature electronic dance music) that he starts to seem desperate. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Apr 26, 2024
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Boy Kills World (2023) |
Boy Kills World should have stuck to gonzo comedy and been 15 minutes shorter. But Mr. Mohr exhibits the kind of flair for comic action that makes him an obvious choice to direct a big-budget Hollywood superhero epic - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Apr 25, 2024
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We Grown Now (2023) |
The heartfelt performances, especially by Blake, Ms. Smollett and Ms. Merkerson, give the film a sad, lovely glow. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Apr 18, 2024
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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) |
Mr. Ritchie’s hyped-up re-creation might be forgivable if it weren’t so lazily written. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Apr 18, 2024
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Civil War (2024) |
That is mindless fantasy, not mordant commentary. Civil War is superficially silly, but it’s also deeply silly. It’s a statement movie that contains no insights at all. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Apr 11, 2024
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Sasquatch Sunset (2024) |
The gags seem fun and refreshing at first, but they get stale quickly. Moreover, since there is no plot and no dialogue, the quirky central idea never takes on any narrative momentum. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Apr 11, 2024
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Coup de Chance (2023) |
Woody Allen’s best work in many years. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Apr 04, 2024
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The First Omen (2024) |
The First Omen may have a noble predecessor in one of the scariest films of the 1970s, but it has little to distinguish it from the last 665 mediocre horror features I’ve seen. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Apr 04, 2024
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Wicked Little Letters (2023) |
The audience is left to feel sorry for characters we’re meant to find amusingly contemptible and to groan at the way the writing keeps taking potshots at the most obvious targets. When the film thinks it’s being wicked, it’s closer to being trite. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Mar 28, 2024
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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) |
Spectacular? I guess, if you're wowed by soulless CGI chaos. Thrilling? Not really. At the end, I was left feeling the way Kong does at the beginning: tired and bored. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Mar 28, 2024
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Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) |
A blunt Gen X nostalgia play -- a tribute act grinding out the oldies on a cruise ship to nowhere. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Mar 21, 2024
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William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill (2023) |
Who doesn’t love Bill Shatner? The theatrical documentary “William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill” reminds us why, - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Mar 21, 2024
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Arthur the King (2024) |
Film by film, Mr. Wahlberg is using his pull to create a tribute to the world’s tough, decent, humble working guys. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Mar 19, 2024
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The Animal Kingdom (2023) |
There’s an opportunity for a turn to the satirical... Instead of being expansive in its imagination, however, The Animal Kingdom retreats into the fangless realm of cliché. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Mar 14, 2024
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Cabrini (2024) |
Its visual splendor is matched by the strong moral convictions and absence of cynicism that characterized many movies of the 1940s, when Catholic heroes were all over the screen. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Mar 07, 2024
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Dune: Part Two (2024) |
Instead of a theme park, it's more of a cathedral -- solemn, sober, beautiful and forbidding. Greig Fraser's photography and Hans Zimmer's score are full of majesty. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Mar 01, 2024
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Asleep in My Palm (2023) |
Asleep in My Palm is a virtuoso debut feature from writer-director Henry Nelson, Mr. Nelson’s son. The younger Mr. Nelson has fashioned a powerful fable, something like a contemporary take on John Steinbeck. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Mar 01, 2024
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Drive-Away Dolls (2024) |
[Ethan Coen] makes these points indirectly, via genial goofiness. I certainly prefer that approach to stern didacticism, but Drive-Away Dolls is so lightweight it’s hard to recommend it. - Wall Street Journal
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| Posted Feb 23, 2024
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