Drew McWeeny

What makes Captain America: Civil War such a terrific accomplishment is the way it takes what could have been the most crass and overcrowded story to adapt as a film and instead transforms it into an examination of just who these heroes are and what impact they’ve had on the world around them, and vice versa.

If you enjoy thrillers, Flanagan expertly turns the screws here, and Kate Siegel makes a very appealing and capable hero.

It’s mind-boggling that this entire thing was shot on soundstages using greenscreens. Favreau’s jungle feels like a real place, but it’s heightened and stylized and it feels like a perfect fit for the talking animals who make up the majority of the cast.

Everybody Wants Some!! offers a mature and crystal-clear voice, a filmmaker of enormous muscle who makes it all look ridiculously easy.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a film of modest pleasures, but what I liked about it, I liked a lot. I hope more filmmakers figure out how to write to Fey's strengths, because she's really engaging here.

I’m not sure how a filmmaker whose work normally speaks to me as clearly as Snyder’s does could deliver something that feels this confused, this impersonal, and this corporate. It is a confounding mess of a movie, and while there are individual sequences that I enjoyed as isolated moments, it is almost breathtakingly incoherent storytelling.

While it’s doubtful any film could match the weird giddy energy that made Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure a classic, this movie honors and expands his legacy, and should prove to be a pleasure for anyone who has ever loved this character.

This is a very raw, sad, and beautiful film about faith and fatherhood, and it feels just as grounded and big-hearted as the other films Nichals has made.

Economically told from the start, the film moves beautifully.

An entirely laughless affair and easily the low point of Cohen's career so far.

As crazy as the design of the world is, Zootopia ends up feeling like a genuine place. There's a vibrancy to it that runs through everything from the pace of the storytelling to the background details of the world in which the story takes place.

Brutally unfunny, visually off-putting, and filled with cameos so embarrassing I am bruised from holding a cringe for a full half-hour, Zoolander 2 is every horrible decision you can make with a comedy sequel wrapped up into one nigh unbearable film.

It is almost preposterous how little "plot" there is in the film...What it has in spades is attitude, and right up until the moment the film began, I was afraid It was going to be so juvenile and filthy that I would end up annoyed by it. Instead, from the very beginning of the opening credits, it is clear that director Tim Miller and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have crafted something deeply silly that isn't remotely interested in playing by the conventional rules of what we've come to think of as "the superhero genre."

Even when they're silly, Joel and Ethan Coen are as smart as any filmmakers working, and Hail, Caesar! is a clever cartoon filter through which they examine some very sincere spiritual ideas.

What is most impressive about the final film, adapted for the screen and directed by Burr Steers, is that it gets the Pride and Prejudice side of things right, and that's what matters most.

The Dirties feels authentic all the way through, and it carries a bitter punch. It is a slight movie in terms of actual events that happen, but it grapples with some giant ideas and emotions in a very effective way.

It's impressive to see how Johnson manages tone in the film, as things go from sort of giddy and fun at the start to increasingly paranoid and then eventually taking a turn into a sort of brutal sadness.

Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester By The Sea is an extraordinarily wise and well-observed film about what can happen to someone when life gives them more than they can handle, and Casey Affleck's lead performance is, simply put, the model of what great film acting should look like.

This film puts Nat Turner and his moral journey dead center, and it asks you to take an unflinching look at how an inhuman system broke the human beings trapped in it.

While there is an untruth at the heart of the film, it's in service of illuminating any number of smaller truths, and I find that approach fascinating.

Beautifully photographed to take full advantage of the corners of a 2:76:1 aspect ratio, often hiding key character details in the background of shots in a way that demands a second viewing, this is a gorgeous piece of filmcraft all the way around.

It must have seemed like a nearly-impossible task when JJ Abrams and his collaborators set out to bring "Star Wars" back to life, but they've more than done it. They've made something honest and beautiful and, above all, fun, and I find myself energized by the movie and by the promise it represents.

Overall, it is false, both narratively and visually, in a way that just doesn't sit right with me, and it feels like a lesser effort from Howard, an itch he scratched but that hold little interest for anyone else.

It is as impressive as any movie released this year, but the storytelling falters in some fundamental ways that keep me from completely adoring it. Innaritu dreams big, and he has the muscle to back it up. The Revenant may not be his best film yet, but it's hard to imagine many filmmakers who are working at a higher level than he is these days.

While [Lawrence] does robust, heartfelt work in the lead in his new film Joy, this is the most miscast she's been in a while, and it's such a strangely imagined film in the first place that it never really gets its bearings.

There are a number of moments where Doughtery introduces something truly interesting and then never returns to it. Yes, the movie is perhaps overstuffed with interesting ideas, but that can be just as frustrating as a film with no good ideas at all.

The Good Dinosaur is fine. I found myself moved by it on a very direct level. Technically speaking, it's a gorgeous film in many ways, but I'm still not a fan of the super-cartoony style of the characters over the photo-realistic world, which is genuinely jaw-dropping.

This may be one of the most subversive blockbusters I can name, and I respect just how raw Francis Lawrence and his team play things. Even the "action" in the film is grim and painful and rarely thrilling.