Michael Mohan delivers a fun if flawed twist on the old argument between faith and science — specifically, which one gets to save the world, and what exactly salvation looks like, anyway. It helps that it’s lovely to look at, and not just because of big-eyed star Sydney Sweeney. (If Elisha Christian’s camera doesn’t quite leer at her — for shame, this is a devout young religious sister we’re dealing with here — it certainly does a lot of beholding.) Christian has a whole world of wonderful visuals in the old Italian convent for old Italian nuns at which Sister Cecilia has arrived — what with the reliquary holding one of the nails that pierced Christ, the pristine countryside stretching for miles in every direction, the catacombs upon which the whole place rests — and he makes the most of his setting. But getting back to the that bit about “fun if flawed.” The fun is the flaw, or rather, the lack of it. This is a horror film in which divine rape is treated as a miracle, and in which the second coming is hastened in highly unorthodox fashion, but for much of the runtime (and for much of her mysterious pregnancy), Sweeney is content to shed silent tears over her predicament instead of making legitimate war on the patriarchy. And when the Enemy is revealed, he utterly flubs his big speech. What should be a declaration of war on heaven is instead pitched as a twisted sort of piety. It’s as if the film doesn’t see the glorious silliness in a woman taking perpetual vows on her first day at the film’s outset, or in attempting to make her escape in the midst of labor pains. By the end, you get the feeling that Mohan was so intent on making the (admittedly bonkers) final moments hit that he tried to tamp down everything that came before. (2024) — Matthew Lickona