As much craft went into Supergirl, though, the movie doesn’t reach escape velocity. It’s weighed down by lots of odd choices that make it feel decidedly terrestrial, as though the filmmakers were worried they would - ahem - alienate the audience with too much sci-fi weirdness.

There’s a new Star Wars movie – The Mandalorian and Grogu – coming out in under a week, and you’ve no doubt seen countless ads for it by this point. Trailers, teasers, billboards on buses. But there’s one bit of promo for the movie that I’ve become weirdly obsessed with.

Mother Mary ends up ringing hollow, as scene after scene unravels with unnecessarily heightened dialogue, and the core relationship between the titular Lady Gaga-esque artist (Hathaway) and her dressmaker (Coel) never coheres. No matter how many bold colours and theatrical scene transitions are thrown at us, the basic information we need to help us sympathize with the characters is held at a remove.

I’m probably among the ideal adult audience members for a movie based on those games. I recently played through both Galaxy re-releases for Nintendo Switch, so I was primed for any of the visual references the studio would include. And visuals are definitely where The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is at its strongest. But no matter how ready I was to see games I knew so well get blown up on a big screen, the movie struggles on a story level at every turn.

I was a little shocked to be reminded that the first Ready or Not movie came out nearly 7 years ago. That’s an eternity in the horror/thriller world, which often loves to crank out at least a few sequels in that span of time when they hit on something good. The first film made almost 10 times its reported budget, putting it in the same club as plenty of other super-profitable gore-fests. Maybe the directors, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who have spent that time working within the Scream franchise and on a vampire ballerina flick, wanted to wait until they had an idea for a Ready or Not sequel that would live up to the reputation.

“Am I smart?!?” is one of the first things Ryan Gosling’s character in Project Hail Mary yells out when he wakes up from an induced coma. It’s the opening sequence of the movie, and Ryland Grace (Gosling) finds himself, unshaven and amnesiac, aboard a spaceship heading for the star system of Tau Ceti. He’s not quite sure why he’s there but he knows he’s scared, alone, and on a mission of some kind. 

Bautista in particular has spent the last few years of his career looking for opportunities to challenge himself with roles that balance dramatic heft with his undeniable tough-guy image. Momoa, meanwhile, is happy to coast with a version of his Aquaman character, knocking people around and guzzling as much Guinness as his brand ambassador deal can get him. 

After nine years, ballooning lore, and a few too many movie-length episodes, I heard from many fans anecdotally who had lost patience for Netflix’s banner sci-fi/horror show. But there’s a certain catharsis in seeing how a show of this scale chooses to end its story. So how does Stranger Things measure up against other fantastical TV that ended after long runs?

If Bugonia is more of a thriller with a particularly mordant edge, is it satisfying? There are undeniably some images here I’ll never forget, especially from the amazing ending, which I won’t spoil. Everything leading up to that ending, unfortunately, resembled a somewhat low-energy stage play, punctuated by the aforementioned bursts of action.

Del Toro’s version is finally here, in time for a Halloween release, and it’s impossible to shake the feeling when watching it that it’s exactly the way you’d expect a Del Toro Frankenstein to look and feel like. Some viewers may yawn and find that boring, but this is a rare case where I’m on board with a filmmaker working in a well-worn groove, pouring his distinctive style into a particular adaptation.