It doesn’t happen immediately, but when it matters most, Raimi unleashes all of the crazy, comedically vaudevillian, blood-soaked, visually audacious tricks fans expect from him, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes alive like no other MCU entry in recent memory.

A sensory triumph more than it is an emotional one, The Northman is nonetheless an enthralling endeavor, everything building to a crushing finale of senseless masculine bravado that’s as gut-wrenchingly beautiful as it is tragically heartbreaking.

Themes revolving around personal self-discovery are universal in their eerie effectiveness, and there were multiple moments where I saw myself in the main character, a quiet shiver cascading down my spine every time.

Dune is a technical marvel, and Warner’s 4K presentation of Denis Villeneuve’s ambitious adaptation of roughly the first half of Frank Herbert’s novel is undeniably impressive.

The last third of Spider-Man: No Way Home is excellent. There is some wonderful closure for a few characters who never got any in their previous appearances, while this version of Peter Parker gets some agency largely disconnected from the rest of Earth’s mightiest heroes.

Encanto earns its tears, this aria to familial togetherness a loving concerto of community I’d happily hum along with whenever the opportunity to do so might arise.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife makes more good calls than bad, and for some viewers, when there’s something strange going on in the neighborhood, giving this legacy sequel a look might be the way to go.

Jungle Cruise does work better at home. It’s kind of the perfect watch-while-folding-laundry movie. I guess that’s a recommendation.

Eternals shoots for the stars, and if the finished feature isn’t quite out of this world, it’s still close enough to getting there that my interest in seeing where these characters go next is exceedingly high.