Drew McWeeny

Prisoners pulls no punches, and it wants to leave a mark on you, and it is a testament to all involved that it manages to accomplish those things so well.

The movie is as good a Blair Witch film as anyone could have faithfully delivered.

Snowden has a secret weapon, and it’s one that I wasn’t expecting: a fully-engaged and on-his-game Oliver Stone.

There are no real stakes, and I find the attempts at creating suspense to be almost offensive. Irritating, at the very least.

Southside With You is quietly romantic, but more than that, it burns with a deep sense of optimism.

Kubo works because it is so direct, so honest about the emotional story it’s telling. Knight may have epic ambitions, but he keeps the stakes very personal.

Our best fables and fairy tales are the ones that speak truth, and this version of Pete’s Dragon easily takes its place on any short list of the great films for young audiences as a result.

By making this look like the sort of film that studios think of when they think of animation, but subverting the very nature of those movies, Sausage Party is more than funny. It’s downright revolutionary.

The Mind's Eye is straight-up sincere, earnestly played and honestly intentioned. This is exploitation fare without any wink attached. These guys aren't trying to elevate the genre… they just want to make a psychic wars horror film and blow up some heads.

Suicide Squad is not the darkest mainstream superhero comic book movie ever made, nor is it even the darkest live-action film featuring Batman ever made. However, it is gleefully nihilistic, and it takes a different approach to what has become a fairly familiar story form at this point, right at the moment when it feels like superhero movies either have to evolve or die.