With a back to basics approach, Prey turns out to be a shot in the arm for the long-running Predator franchise.

With an interestingly loose approach to DC Universe lore, the animated DC League of Super-Pets is a quirky entry in the DC Universe filmography.

The Princess (Joey King) is chained in a high tower, waiting to be married to the evil warlord Julius (Dominic Cooper).

Otis Haywood Jr. aka OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) is a professional animal wrangler who lends out horses to Hollywood productions

It is legitimately awesome that in the fourth movie about Thor, plus four more Avengers movies, the character and world can still be entertaining.

The most distinctive thing about The Man from Toronto would probably be its unique title as it is ultimately a generic action-comedy flick.

While for other franchises that can seem stagnant, the fact that Beavis and Butt-Head remain exactly the same is part of the gag.

Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans) is a Space Ranger and his team has been stranded on a far away hostile alien planet because he screwed up his exit

Dinosaurs walk amongst the Earth again after the genetically engineered beats escaped onto the mainland.

Antonio (Eugenio Derbez) is working as a valet, hoping he can reconnect with his ex-wife, Isabel (Marisol Nichols)

The crux of the film is a bit annoying as Maverick is stuck being a flight instructor when he’s the best pilot ever.

Chip ‘n Dale juggles multiple characters from various animation worlds and does it better than Space Jam: A New Legacy

Amleth (Oscar Novak) is a prince living with his mother, Gudrun (Nicole Kidman) and is overjoyed at the return of his father, the Viking King Aurvandill

The film bounces around a bit from crazy action to some chatty lulls and lots of exposition about what reality they’re in.

Uncharted is a game series that takes generic, B-movie action and makes it a visceral, gripping gaming experience

A James Bond or Jack Bauer adventure this is not. It takes place almost entirely in bars, cars and offices.

Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) has a rare disease that prevents him from full mobility, a curse he shares with his childhood friend Milo (Matt Smith).

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is meant to be the third movie in a five-movie prequel to Harry Potter.

Dubbed Apollo 10 ½, the mission will test the moon landing while everyone else thinks that Stanley is away at summer camp.

Billed as an “erotic thriller”, Deep Water can only manage vaguely titillating and mildly disconcerting moments.

Young Adam (Walker Scobell) is 12 years old and living with his mother, Ellie (Jennifer Garner), after the passing of his father, Louis (Mark Ruffalo).

In the magical land of 2002 Toronto, Mei (Rosalie Chiang) is a 13 year old 8th Grader who excels at her studies and is subservient to her mother

More than almost any other Batman movie, Pattinson’s Batman carries the film as he’s in basically every scene.

As far as trapped in a snowy location with maniac thrillers go, No Exit is a sturdy entry. It’s a zippy ninety minutes.

The King’s Man, a 100 year earlier prequel to the Kingsman movies, is an interesting, if somewhat muddled, divergence for the franchise.

Kimi, the latest film by prolific director Steven Soderbergh (Oceans 11, Logan Lucky), is an interesting character study that morphs into a thriller

House of Gucci has a few interesting moments as greed, lust for power and prestige causes a couple to crumble from within.

The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild is the 6th installment of the Ice Age franchise, although after 20 years it is starting to show its age

Young JR (Daniel Ranieri) and his mom (Lily Rabe) move into the home of his grandpa (Christopher Lloyd) after the JR’s father (Max Martini) abandons them

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania is a high energy franchise entry with funny reactions, outsized animation and random jokes.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City is a reboot of the zombie film franchise of the zombie survival horror game franchise

Honourable mentions: Black Widow, No Sudden Move, Pig, A Quiet Place: Part II, The Green Knight, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Luca, Nobody

Spider-Man: No Way Home is a culmination of not only the Spider-Man story in the Marvel Universe but also a full-on victory lap for the franchise

There’s an interesting narrative trick recalling movies like Rashomon or The Usual Suspects where the same story is seen from different perspectives

Jake (Neil Patrick-Harris) takes his daughter back to his childhood home and dusts off the old Nintendo Entertainment System

At a reported price tag of about 200 million dollars, Red Notice is the most expensive movie Netflix has ever produced

A significant amount of the plot hinges upon the people dismissing the events of the original Ghostbusters, which involved a giant Marshmallow Man

Newly minted best picture writer/director Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) is the latest filmmaker to take on the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Eternals.

The physicality Courtney brings to the role is nicely intense as Michael moves with single minded determination towards his target.

Reminiscence is a sort of sci-fi, mostly film noir detective story, and a whole lot of meaningless plot twisting.

The 2021 adaptation of Dune is labelled Part 1 as it is only about half of the sci-fi opus, but it’s still a complete epic on its own.

While billed as one of the few non-franchise, non-sequel blockbuster releases, and also an actual plot point in the film is intellectual property theft

The James Bond series has gone through numerous differences over the decades and, shockingly, No Time to Die delivers what has never happened before

Venom: Let There Be Carnage noticeably improves upon its predecessor by leaning into how ridiculously crazy the concept is.

Vacation Friends is a fun romp that follows the clash between a straight-laced couple and a wild and crazy couple

The spectre of the Candyman hangs over everything. And by extension his original incarnation of Daniel Robitaille played Tony Todd.

It’s a bit odd that Netflix would release Kate barely a few months after its extremely similar female assassin goes rogue film, Gunpowder Milkshake

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings manages to differentiate itself from the other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Green Knight is an incredibly weird, horror influenced, visually lush and somewhat ponderous adaptation of the Arthurian legend.

An underground fight club brawler only known as Snake Eyes (Henry Golding) is pining for revenge ever since as a child he witnessed his father’s murder.

F9: The Fast Saga continues the series’ tonal mash up of dopey yet enjoyable car smashing action combined with awkward sentimentality.

James Gunn delved into the Marvel universe with Guardians of the Galaxy and now he crosses the street to the DC Universe with The Suicide Squad

Lilly (Emily Blunt) is on a quest to find a mystical flower that could potentially cure any disease. Dragging along her reluctant brother, MacGregor

Sam (Gillan) has been on her own ever since her mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), left. Sam is working for the Firm, a league of secret assassins

LeBron James keeps trying to surpass Michael Jordan’s records so it is not surprising he’s straight up starring in Space Jam: A New Legacy.

On the run from the government after the Avengers Civil War, Natasha aka the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), is lying low until she is attacked

Dan Forester (Chris Pratt) is a former army man when the world is upended by the arrival of a military force from 50 years in the future.

A blistering opening prologue flashes back to the first day that killer sound sensing aliens landed on Earth.

Luca is sort of Pixar animation’s Italian version of The Little Mermaid with nice visuals and a zippy pace with rapid gags.

The whole thing is wrapped around two romantic plotlines which has been the basis for most musicals.

There’s a really good twist as to why H is suddenly so great at his job with incredible killer instinct.

It’s easily established in the first ten minutes why Cruella hates Dalmatians. Estella’s nickname by her mother

The city of Las Vegas has been overrun by a zombie plague and walled off with Sin City about to experience destruction via nuclear blast.

People’s thoughts blurting out randomly in a blue haze and semi-transparent visions is something one can endure or make the experience exceptionally irrita

Without Remorse really excels is in the action which is presented with immediacy by director Stefano Sollima (Sciario: Day of the Soldado).

There are good movies about people floating in space in dire circumstances like The Martian, Apollo 13, Ad or even The Midnight but this isn't one of them

Cole (Lewis Tan) is a down on his luck fighter trying to provide for his family, until one day he’s attacked by an ice magic ninja

Nobody is forged from the John Wick mould. Maybe a bit too closely, considering the screenwriter also penned the original Wick film.

Fern (Frances McDormand) is working various odd jobs across the country, substitute teacher, Amazon warehouse worker, janitorial staff and more,

Judas and the Black Messiah certainly has an appropriate title as the two main characters are a traitor and a messianic leader.

Zack Snyder may be credited as the director of 2017’s Justice League but for him that movie remained unfinished. Snyder suffered a personal tragedy

The world of Kaumandra was a place of magical dragons but the scourge of the Druun has wasted the land, turning people into stone.

Over 30 years since his original trip to America to find true love, Prince Akeem (Murphy) of the kingdom of Zamunda is shocked to find he has a son.

The snow may barely be off the ground, but the 5 Drive-In Oakville was back in business as of Friday.

In the future, Eastern Europe has become a civil war zone and one U.S. drone pilot, Harp (Damson Idris), disobeys orders to save a bunch of marines

Mark (Kyle Allen) is living the same day over and over again and is getting quite good at predicting every little event that happens in his town.

Locked Down is a gaggle of scenarios from the world of the COVID-19 pandemic that turns into a heist movie in the last 30 minutes or so.

Denzel is playing a beaten down grizzled cop who can’t let go of a case which is a standard cop movie cliché but he sells the emotional toil.

Promising Young Woman is a solid vigilante revenge thriller with a few distinctive twists on the genre. It incorporates serial killer movie tropes

After the United States civil war, Captain Kidd, makes a living by travelling to cities in the south and reading from selected newspapers to the masses.

Roald Dahl’s The Witches is sort of a kid friendly version of a horror movie with monsters and mutations.

In the year 1984, Diana aka the super-powered Amazonian Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is living in the world of men, secretly saving people as Wonder Woman.

Honourable Mentions: Tenet, Freaky, Kajillionaire, The Invisible Man, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, The Midnight Sky, Onward

The Croods: A New Age manages to skate by on whimsy and craziness. Like the preceding film, it is cranked up to 11 the entire time

Mank is a glorious throwback to a bygone Hollywood filmmaking era that still manages to feel current with themes about fake news

Freaky is a horror comedy twist on the Freaky Friday formula that succeeds in being very energetic and messy.

A combination of comedy sci-fi apocalypse and a glam up romantic comedy, Superintelligence ends up as a fairly tonally inconsistent mash up

Dreamland is a melodrama that leans into the tragedy and schmaltz with a lot of grim desperation and sturdy performances

Kajillionaire by writer and director Miranda July (Me, You and Everyone You Know) is a strange, sad, weird, and sometimes amusing experience.

Director Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, doesn’t exactly make the movie a didactic partisan hack job

While not deviating very much from the standard buddy movie road trip comedy formula, Unpregnant works well within that structure.

Borat (Cohen) was sent to the gulag after his first movie embarrassed the nation of Kazakhstan but now he is sent to America

In 1968, protesters descended upon the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to speak out against the Vietnam War.

The protector of all things on Halloween is Hubie Dubouis (Sandler) who is working overtime to make sure that everyone stays on the straight and narrow

The Social Dilemma begins with a cavalcade of former social media software engineers and investors telling the truth about how social media works.

The Devil All the Time is an extremely grim experience that leans into its Western gothic horror vibe with lots of creepy visuals

The 2020 Mulan live-action remake of Disney’s 1998 animated Mulan is definitely the same story in both versions, give or take an Eddie Murphy voiced dragon

It works in fits and starts as there are some good performances from some moody mutants until things finally get rolling in the finale.

A CIA agent, who is eventually nicknamed the Protagonist (John David Washington), is recruited by an agency known as Tenet.

After an almost 30 year gap in between sequels the excellent duo return in Bill and Ted Face the Music in a most triumphant manner.