Amy Nicholson

Like Brooke's dream business, a café/convenience store/hair salon, Mistress America is a mishmash of ideas — fortunately, Kirke gives a fantastic performance that quietly grounds the film.

[Paquet-Brenner] squanders Dark Places' icky setup for a rote investigation to find the real killer, a revelation greeted not with a "What?!" but with a "Whatever."

Demme's film plays out like a catnapping afternoon dream. We recognize the world, yet the logic is screwy.

[Wiig's] great, but the film's in the pocket of Powley's rib-high corduroys from the second she struts onscreen — and long after she takes them off.

The older Cruise gets, the more he relies on his fists. (And his abs, and his nerves — he'll never let you forget he does his own stunts, and why should he?) His body is the wonder-gizmo, and Christopher McQuarrie, writer and director of the fifth entry, Rogue Nation, keeps the camera on him like a nature show about a hungry lion.

Here's a shocker: In Pixels, his latest, Adam Sandler plays a stunted man-child who turns out to be very, very special.