Nothing's better than spending the weekend holed up in a movie theater, devouring the latest big-screen debuts. But how do you choose what to see? Well, that's where we come in.
Obviously, there will be certain movies throughout the year that feel like must-sees just because everyone is talking about them ( Swiss Army Man got mixed reviews at Sundance; The BFG is Steven Spielberg's return to making delightfully magical kids movies). But if you want to be a more discerning cinephile, you can visit this cheat sheet. Here we'll give you the lowdown on new releases — and the critics' verdicts on them. Then you'll be able to determine which one is right for you.
This post will be continually updated, so don't forget to check back!
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
Starring: Zac Efron, Adam Devine, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza
Rated: R
Tomatometer: 45%
Synopsis: A pair of brothers find two outgoing girlfriends and enlist them as wedding dates.
What’s The Word: It’s a goofy R-rated bro comedy, but its female characters manage some subversive winks. “There’s a craftiness in the script that isn’t always present in these performance-based, R-rated comedies,” wrote The Guardian ’s Jordan Hoffman. The Wrap’s Robert Abele wasn’t a fan: “Only Parks & Recreation alum Plaza offers the occasionally pleasurable deadpan impishness, but the primary takeaway is that she’s been to this well one too many times.” At The Ringer, though, staff writer Allison P. Davis was into it. The movie may be the first rom-com to suggest that women can drink and smoke and make immature jokes and also be deserving of love without having to evolve into it. “The central premise of Mike and Dave is that the vehement avoidance of growing up is a right equally for all genders,” Davis wrote. “It’s immaturity as equality, which means that neither of our party-girl heroines have to let go of their deeply flawed, MDMA-loving personalities.” The New Yorker 's Richard Brody raised an interesting point about these boyish comedies made in Judd Apatow's image: "Many comedies seem to be made by taking pictures of funny (or funny enough) people acting funny. But comedy is a matter of direction — not just comic timing but also comic spacing."
Zero Days
Starring: N/A
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer:88%
Synopsis: The doc tells the story of Stuxnet, a 2010 computer virus used in cyber warfare.
What’s The Word: Alex Gibney (director of Going Clear, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, the Eliot Spitzer doc Client 9) has created another vehicle for information and smart suspense. “What Zero Days does is plausibly make the case that cyber-aggression of nation states is a new form of dangerous geopolitical dysfunction,” writes The Guardian ’s Peter Bradshaw. But the doc lacks focus, probably due to the high levels of secrecy surrounding the weaponized computer virus. “Though their sound bites are well chosen and edited,” The Hollywood Reporter ’s Boyd van Hoeij wrote, “a sense remains that they are really talking around the film’s core subject.” An unexpected highlight? Joanna Tucker, according to A.V. Club’s Mike D’Angelo: “[Gibney] gets a genuine star turn from Tucker, who may one day be as famous as her husband, Adam Driver. She’s the main reason to see Zero Days — which is pretty ironic, since she’s the one quasi-fictional element in a movie that’s otherwise strenuously ‘just the facts, ma’am.’”
The Secret Life of Pets
Starring: Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Lake Bell, Ellie Kemper, Hannibal Buress
Rated: PG
Tomatometer: 75%
Synopsis: Your favorite comedians play a gaggle of lost cartoon canines for some kid-friendly fun.
What’s The Word: " The Secret Life of Pets is a hilarious account of the relationship we have with our animals, and a gentle reminder to treat them with love and respect,” wrote Raakhee Mirchandani at the New York Daily News. It might be charming, but it’s definitely a rehash of old kid-movie tropes, wrote Christianity Today ’s Alissa Wilkinson: “ The Secret Life of Pets might as well be called Generic Animated Animal Movie, a puzzle constructed of pieces lifted from other sources.” As a maker of kids movies, Universal might finally be hitting its stride, writes Village Voice ’s Bilge Ebiri, who said it “feels like they’ve finally cracked the code on making a silly-animals movie that’s just deranged enough to keep you watching, yet harmless enough not to truly offend anyone. It may not be a work of art, but it’s crazed, zigzagging energy is something to behold.”
Captain Fantastic
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Frank Langella
Rated: R
Tomatometer: 75%
Synopsis: A couple raises their children in an intellectually stimulating wilderness home, a setup that’s threatened when the family has to engage with the real world after the mother’s suicide.
What’s The Word: The movie has a “wonderful wryness,” according to R29’s own Elizabeth Kiefer. Some of it is charming, wrote The Hollywood Reporter ’s Leslie Felperin, but most of it is overdone movie magic: “This is really a movie for upper-middle class hipsters who once fancied themselves firebrands and status quo-challengers in college, but now consider only buying organic food at Whole Foods and not vaccinating their kids to be radical acts.” Viggo Mortensen is the flick’s undisputed star. “He’s totally believable as a man who’s set his own moral code and lived by it for years,” wrote Ed Frankl at Little White Lies. “As he realizes that he stands to lose his children to the outside world, Mortensen’s performance shifts up a gear, becoming more sensitive and moving.”
Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You
Starring: Norman Lear, George Clooney, Jay Leno, Rob Reiner, Amy Poehler, Jon Stewart
Rated: NR
Tomatometer: 76%
Synopsis: A look at the prolific television producer who changed the sitcom landscape and brought social issues into living rooms across America (albeit somewhat imperfectly).
What’s The Word: It’s a moving portrait of a television titan that borders on the syrupy sweet. “It finds pathos in an amiable, fluid charting of the career (and political) ambitions of the TV producer,” wrote Slant’s Clayton Dillard. The doc follows not only Lear’s professional life, but his personal as well: “Ewing and Grady’s high esteem for Lear doesn’t cause them to shy away from Lear’s personal failings,” wrote Laura Anne Harris at Seventh Row. But maybe it’s just a little too glowing, suggests Variety ’s Guy Lodge: “While a tongue-in-cheek poster captured on screen refers to Lear as a 'Great Black Leader,' there’s little sense here of how the Black community, of his generation or the next, viewed and continues to view his work. 'You raised me,' Jon Stewart tells Lear at one point in the doc; it’d be interesting to know if, say, Shonda Rhimes — a showrunner as ubiquitous in this era as Lear was in his, and comparably influential in the depiction of Black lives on screen — might say the same.”
Fathers and Daughters
Starring: Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Aaron Paul, Diane Kruger, Janet McTeer, Octavia Spencer, Jane Fonda, Quvenzhane Wallis
Rated: R
Tomatometer: 27%
Synopsis: Two timelines intersect as a famous novelist struggles with illness and raising his daughter in the past, and his daughter reckons with infidelity and trust issues in the present.
What’s The Word: How did so many great talents converge to work on something so obviously contrived and overstuffed? It’s all messy and damsel-in-distressy, according to The Telegraph ’s Tim Robey: “The level of psychological nuance in Desch’s script, not to mention feminist enlightenment, makes EL James look like Virginia Woolf.” For Empire, Ian Freer pointed out a high note: “It’s tastefully shot and Crowe commits to the horrors of Jake’s illness (his seizures are upsetting) but the writing lacks depth, the character psychology is dime-store Freud, and the performances are variable.” At the Observer, Rex Reed points out the dizzying device of time jumps: “The movie jumps around like a yo-yo with a juxtaposition of time sequences that careen out of control until the audience is thoroughly dazed and confused. One minute Katie is an 8-year-old begging her daddy to love her. Sixty seconds later, she’s a grown woman (Amanda Seyfried) destroyed by sex addiction — dry, barren, unable to relate emotionally and a promiscuous child psychologist whose boss (Octavia Spencer, wasted in a cameo) assigns her the case of a tormented orphan who does not speak.”
Cell
Starring: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson
Rated: R
Tomatometer: 0%
Synopsis: A cell phone virus turns New Englanders into murderous zombies (or something).
What’s The Word: A Stephen King adaptation that was better left as a book. “ Cell treats its subject matter with alarming seriousness, as if Williams were worried he might be making a Nicolas Cage movie, but the material cries out for the gonzo, pulp energy of a B-movie,” wrote Consequence of Sound’s Nico Lang. The movie has its bright spots — namely the reteaming of Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack — but “so much of the film lacks style or life of its own,” wrote Rob Hunter for Film School Rejects. “Let’s just be honest about this: Cell the movie looks cheap. Not Syfy channel cheap, but too cheap to be attempting some of the stuff it appears to be attempting,” wrote Slash Film’s Jacob Hall when the trailer dropped. “This doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie (there are plenty of terrific horror films that look like they were made for pennies and prayers), but it should put any and all expectations in the right place.”
The BFG
Starring: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton
Rated: PG
Tomatometer: 72%
Synopsis: A young orphan girl is whisked away by a Big Friendly Giant on the adventure of her life, based on the Roald Dahl novel of the same name.
What’s the Word: “For such a big, extravagant movie, with such an outsized central character, The BFG is surprisingly intimate, and that’s largely thanks to Rylance,” Stephanie Zacharek wrote for Time. “His BFG is a fragile, gentle soul with clumsy feet clad in hippie-sandals, a bit frightening at first, but he wins us over in a heartbeat.” At Gizmodo, Germain Lussier highlights the fantastical visuals: “The textures, the colors, the physical representations of dreams, it’s a world that’s quite pleasant to spend some time in.” For The Telegraph, Robbie Collin called the plot lean and a little slow, but “Sophie and the BFG’s partnership almost plays like a platonic romance, deepening and becoming more moving with every passing minute.”
The Innocents
Starring: Lou de Laage, Agata Buzek
Rated: NR
Tomatometer: 85%
Synopsis: At the end of the Holocaust, a young doctor arrives at a convent to find several nuns pregnant and in the throes of a religious crisis.
What’s the Word: It’s a movie that treats rape and religiosity with graceful nuance. “Those women are painted as full, complex characters in a few deft strokes — women who are struggling after rape to know whether they believe in something anymore, to understand their vows of chastity, to live in the problem of theodicy every day,” wrote Christianity Today ’s Alissa Wilkinson. These serious topics are treated with an insightful degree of delicacy: “Laced with intensely emotional situations, it refuses to force the issue by pushing too hard,” wrote the Los Angeles Times ’ Kenneth Turan. “And it proves, yet again, that though moral and spiritual questions may not sound spellbinding, they often provide the most absorbing movie experiences.” At Variety, Justin Chang was struck by the give and take of each sister's piousness: “In the process, the sisters — despite wearing identical habits and seeming to radiate the same stiff severity — emerge as individuals with their own unique feelings, convictions, personal histories, and varying degrees of faith.”
Life, Animated
Starring: Gilbert Gottfried
Rated: PG
Tomatometer: 86%
Synopsis: A documentary chronicling how a family used Disney movies to communicate with their autistic son.
What’s the Word: It’s a moving coming-of-age documentary about how Disney movies gave a family a way to communicate with a shared language and love. “It tells two stories,” wrote Jason Bailey at Flavorwire. “How his parents used those cartoons, which he’d obsessively viewed and memorized, to bring him out of his shell; and where they’ve left him at his moment of transition into adulthood and independence.” The Associated Press found it devastatingly tender and well-honed: “But once we wipe away the tears from that devastating moment when doctors diagnose little Owen Suskind with 'regressive autism' — and raise the real possibility that he'll never speak again — we're in for a fascinating, sometimes excruciating, uplifting, and yes, even funny ride, thanks to director Roger Ross Williams and of course Owen's devoted and determined family.”
The Legend Of Tarzan
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer: 34%
Synopsis: A reformed, gentlemanly Tarzan leaves England and returns to the jungle to work as a trade emissary.
What’s the Word: Tarzan has always been a superhero movie about a white savior, but Skarsgård’s talent tries to find a depth in the one-dimensional hero. At its core, it might actually be a movie about the perils of white colonialism, suggested IGN’s Jim Vejvod: “You can't help but leave the film suspecting the screenwriters really wanted to just tell a straightforward story about the Belgian atrocities in the Congo, and the only way they could get that film made was by sticking Tarzan in it.” At Indiewire, David Ehrlich praised Samuel L. Jackson as the dud’s only interesting element. “Only Jackson, whose George Washington Williams is loosely based on a historical figure of the same name, manages to stir any interest,” wrote Ehrlich. “There’s real weight to the notion of a late 19th-century black man traversing the world in order to weed out slavery wherever it rears its head, but [director David] Yates reduces him to a limp sliver of comic relief.” Manohla Dargis was a bit more forgiving in her review for the New York Times: “Tarzan is still the white avatar flying through the African jungle with eerie skills, a mighty yodel and existential issues, yet the terrain he swings over is messier, closer, and less of a lie than it once was.”
Our Kind Of Traitor
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Naomie Harris, Stellan Skarsgård
Rated: R
Tomatometer: 67%
Synopsis: An ordinary teacher and his wife become middle-man informants for a Russian mafia boss looking to get out of the game.
What’s the Word: It’s a solid spy thriller without a lot of fluff. “A late scene with Perry and Hector, in which neither man can say what he actually thinks, is fascinating; it’s a subtle little master-class in acting,” wrote Moira Macdonald of the Seattle Times. As an adaptation of a John le Carre thriller, it’s a little measly, wrote NPR’s Ella Taylor: “The ambience of contaminated elegance suggests underlying depth, yet screenwriter Hossein Amini, with input from le Carre himself, is working with pretty thin material.” At The AV Club, Jesse Hassenger found it to be a fresher take on a more tired plot line. “ Our Kind Of Traitor develops, slowly but not dully, into the right kind of old-fashioned thriller,” Hassenger wrote.
The Purge: Election Year
Starring: Elizabeth Mitchell, Frank Grillo
Rated: R
Tomatometer: 59%
Synopsis: A senator’s presidential campaign vows to end the crime free-for-all that is The Purge, but she finds herself in peril when the yearly event rolls around.
What’s the Word: Finally, a vision of an America that is worse than the 2016 election. Variety ’s Owen Gleiberman thought it worked, but lamented the lack of a true dramatic edge: “ A Clockwork Orange shocked people because of how it got us to identify with Alex, but there’s never a moment in Election Year when a character we know and like turns into a purger, killing for the nasty, pleasurable kick of it.” For BET.com, Clay Cane said this installment doesn’t live up to the political thoughtfulness of its predecessors. “Although horror is usually a vapid genre, The Purge was layered with social issues to make the audience think beyond the gore. The Purge: Election Year isn’t smart or layered enough to justify the gratuitous violence,” Cane wrote. “[Director James] DeMonaco's cleverly playing to two different audiences here,” wrote Laura Clifford for Reeling Reviews, “those who will be horrified by his political satire and those who will come for the gore and violence.”
The Shallows
Starring: Blake Lively
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer: 74%
Synopsis: A surfer adrift at sea tries to avoid becoming a shark’s dinner.
What’s The Word: Lively is in great form, but the plot drags and the suspense feels fake. “At times, it’s hard to tell whether The Shallows is trying to sell a tropical vacation, that Sony Xperia phone or a fantasy date with Lively herself, but in any case, the film looks virtually indistinguishable from a slick, high-end commercial,” wrote Variety ’s Peter Debruge. At The Guardian, Jordan Hoffman compared it to Gravity in its arresting simplicity: “What could have been mere summertime chum is actually one of the more cleverly constructed B-movies in quite some time.” Lively is good as a solo star, but the rest is of the movie is another story, wrote The Hollywood Reporter ’s Todd McCarthy: “Shallow is a mild word for it. Others would be silly, miscalculated, unconvincing, artless, pandering, hokey, ridiculous. Or just plain awful.”
Independence Day: Resurgence
Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Liam Hemsworth, Bill Pullman, Vivica A. Fox
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer: 37%
Synopsis: Earth’s nations are in cahoots to battle aliens.
What’s The Word: If you want to spend some time in an air-conditioned theater, watching big explosions with minimal character development, this is your movie. “It's technically and visually marvelous, but it's hard not to get a little fatigued before the big finish,” wrote CNET’s Luke Lancaster. “But the real problem isn't the borderline tiresome carnage. It's the cast.” At The Film Stage, Dan Schindel wrote that Will Smith’s absence is palpable: “It doesn’t help that, though the script does a remarkable job of recapturing the original’s winning sense of goofiness and the cast is game for it, it severely lacks a Will Smith.” For GQ U.K., Helen O’Hara called it a bit of fun foolery: “So while this is utter nonsense for much of its runtime, overstuffed with people you will struggle to care about, and while its finale shamelessly begs a sequel (like Steven Hiller, Emmerich apparently ain’t heard no fat lady), there’s still a (molten) core of wild entertainment beneath the hokum.”
Free State of Jones
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Keri Russell, Mahershala Ali
Rated: R
Tomatometer: 39%
Synopsis: An honorable farmer rebels against slavery during the Civil War.
What’s The Word: A contrived take on race and America that errs on the History 101 side. “It’s a tale of racial liberation and heroic bloodshed that is designed, at almost every turn, to lift us up to that special place where we can all feel moved by what good liberals we are,” wrote Owen Gleiberman for Variety. It’s not terrible, wrote Michael Phillips for the Chicago Tribune, but “often in Free State of Jones we feel like visitors to a historical re-enactment site.” At The Village Voice, Bilge Ebiri called it cluttered, but said it’s well intentioned: “The movie is gradually overwhelmed by onscreen title cards doling out historical context, along with the occasional informative and/or inspirational speech.”
Weiner-Dog
Starring: Greta Gerwig, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn
Rated: R
Tomatometer: 67%
Synopsis: A pup sprinkles some joy into the lives of an offbeat group of characters, including a bitter old woman, a veterinary nurse, and a screenwriter.
What’s The Word: It charms, but with an oddball sensibility. “You’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, you’ll wince, and you’ll sigh. Such is the genius of Wiener-Dog, and of [director Todd] Solondz, and why he remains a reliable visionary,” wrote Michael Roffman at Consequence of Sound. At The Hollywood Reporter, Todd McCarthy was less taken with Solondz’s signature misanthropy: “By embarking upon an episodic road movie, Solondz is able to create a miniature portrait of the modern American landscape, and it isn’t a pretty picture; but, then, it never would be, no matter what area nor what era he was dealing with, so corrosive is his view of human nature and how people conduct themselves.” Writing for The Playlist, Noel Murray said the movie isn’t perfect, but it’s not terrible: “Not everything Solondz comes up with works, but he’s still pulling interesting ideas out of his oddball head.”
The Neon Demon
Starring: Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves, Jena Malone
Rated: R
Tomatometer:48%
Synopsis: A charming beauty turns cold after becoming the It Girl of L.A.’s modeling scene. Expect cat fights and lots (and lots) of blood.
What’s The Word: It’s weird (and it was booed at Cannes). But maybe in a high-fashion, artsy way that just happens to turn gruesome. “[Nicholas Winding] Refn’s built a career on the exploits of violent men — of underworld hustlers, vicious convicts, and Viking warriors,” wrote AV Club’s A.A. Dowd. “He pivots here to a feminine perspective but only abstractly: This is a film about objectification that mainly sees its characters as objects, to be dressed and undressed, plastered in glitter and gore, and arranged like furniture against vast expanses of negative space.” Modeling really is the kill-or-be-killed industry we all thought it was, wrote The New Yorker ’s Anthony Lane, and Refn is keen to prove it: “By the end of the movie, Refn has toyed with cannibalism, lesbian necrophilia, the egestion of an eyeball, and other minor sports, all of them filmed in lavish taste.” At Rolling Stone, Peter Travers panned the glitzy modeling drama: “I'd talk about the acting, but I never saw the cast doing any; it's all posing. Even the sex and violence have lost their allure, and every take is drawn out with such excruciating precision that you want to scream.”
Swiss Army Man
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Paul Dano
Rated: R
Tomatometer:63%
Synopsis: Stranded on an island, a lonely guy befriends a farting corpse.
What’s The Word: A black comedy with bro-losophy pranks. The premise is weird and the plot drags, wrote Time ’s Stephanie Zacharek, but it makes an interesting point: “The world [the two leads] build in their dual isolation becomes a ramshackle paradise, a place to explore complex male feelings.” At Brooklyn Magazine, Benjamin Mercer found that it’s still very funny, even if its dramatic moments don’t hit home: “It’s hard not to appreciate the juvenile exuberance of many of these high jinks, and the hand-cranked effects with which many of them are rendered.” The Guardian ’s Jordan Hoffman warned audiences to expect lots of flatulence: “I could never prep you enough for the degree to which farting plays a pivotal role in Swiss Army Man.”
The Phenom
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Paul Giamatti, Johnny Simmons
Rated: NR
Tomatometer: 84%
Synopsis: A struggling baseball wunderkind is mentored by his physical therapist.
What’s The Word: It’s a baseball movie without a lot of baseball that explores the nature of insecurity. “ The Phenom unfolds as a series of quiet, incisive conversations that showcase subtle, insightful performances,” wrote Serena Donadoni at The Village Voice. At The New York Times, Neil Genzlinger was less forgiving: “It’s a variation of all those children’s movies and TV shows in which a Little Leaguer or pee-wee football player is browbeaten by a parent trying to relive his or her own childhood.” At Slant, Kenji Fushima countered that even though the movie isn’t excellent, it’s not really about baseball at all. “The film touches on the effects of a culture that puts too much emphasis on winning and money at the expense of simple healthy competition.”
Finding Dory
Starring: Ellen DeGeneres, Diane Keaton, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill, Ty Burrell
Rated: PG
Tomatometer: 95%
Synopsis: Everyone’s favorite forgetful fish searches for her family with the help of Marlin, Nemo’s dad.
What’s The Word: A lovely, worthy Finding Nemo follow-up. “In a way that is both emphatic and subtle,” wrote A.O. Scott of The New York Times, “ Finding Dory is a celebration of cognitive and physical differences. It argues, with lovely ingenuity and understatement, that what appear to be impairments might better be understood as strengths.” Still, writes Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post, “ Finding Dory could never completely measure up to Nemo, whose dazzling visuals and mythic contours made it an instant, enduring classic.” The sequel features a gaggle of stars and master voice actors, but DeGeneres remains the star, as RogerEbert.com’s Susan Wloszczyna noted: “DeGeneres and her sometimes goofy, sometimes giddy persona continues to be a perfect fit for the role that provided the uplifting salt-water soul of Finding Nemo.”
Central Intelligence
Starring: Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnson, Amy Ryan, Aaron Paul
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer: 62%
Synopsis: A high school outcast turned CIA agent pairs up with a former popular kid to complete a mission during their high school reunion.
What’s The Word: Goofy, but also too bloated to capitalize on its stars. “Johnson and Hart are performers of trustworthy charisma, but their personal appeal hits its limits when they are recruited to perform in a film that is hard to sit through,” wrote Colin Covert of the Chicago Tribune. At The Wrap, Sam Adams said their charisma can only do so much to make up for the obvious lack of laughs. “‘Jason Bourne in jorts’ sounds like a phrase right out of a pitch meeting, and Central Intelligence often feels like it never got past that initial outline,” Adams wrote. The Hollywood Reporter ’s Jon Frosh said that it’s still just some good ol’ summer fun: “[The anti-bullying message] and the mindless laughs that Central Intelligence serves up along with it are things we could use now more than ever.”
The Conjuring 2
Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Frances O’Connor
Rated: R
Tomatometer: 74%
Synopsis: Paranormal investigators travel to north London to help a single mother living with a house plagued by evil spirits.
What’s the Word: The sequel is scary! And worth it, if you’re into horror movies and paranormal frights. Vera Farmiga is reliably excellent, according to USA Today ’s Brian Truitt. “While [Patrick] Wilson is solid as the good-hearted Ed, Farmiga is [director] Wan’s true standout — her Lorraine really gets put through the wringer as she deals with the constant presence of a terrifying supernatural force, and Farmiga sells every gasp,” Truitt wrote.
At Consequence of Sound, however, Michael Roffman was less invested in the “exaggerated carnival fare" that is "slick and stylish to the point of distraction.” HitFix’s Drew McWeeney says it’s a cut above others in the horror genre: “A rare horror sequel that stands toe-to-toe with the original, possibly even improving on it.”
Now You See Me 2
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer: 35%
Synopsis: The illusionists are now in China working for a tech wizard and trying to clear their names.
What’s the Word: The addition of director Jon M. Chu ( Step Up, G.I. Joe: Retaliation) almost makes the sequel work, but it’s a sausage-fest with magic tricks that don’t impress. Lizzy Caplan is the movie’s bright spot, adding some much-needed humor, according to EW ’s Leah Greenblatt. “[Isla Fischer] has been replaced by Lizzy Caplan, and it’s one of the sequel’s biggest improvements. Caplan, too, has to wear a whole lot of not much, but she’s also a worthy, mouthy foil for her male counterparts,” Greenblatt wrote.
Michael Phillips at the Chicago Tribune commented on the lacking visual effects: “[It’s] insufferably old-fashioned. With so much digital-effects work guiding so many of the action scenes, the simple pleasures of sleight of hand are all but lost.” Really, the movie’s twists and turns aren’t as magical as they are just confusing, wrote A.V. Club’s Ignatiy Vishnevetsky. "True to form, the movie more or less refuses to explain the actual twist ending,” he wrote. “Up until then, it runs on a regular five-minute schedule of reversals, where nothing is ever as it seems."
Warcraft
Starring: Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer:24%
Synopsis: An orc shaman rebels and starts a conflict between two worlds in this video game adaptation.
What’s the Word: The revamp can’t exactly decide what it’s trying to do, which makes its plot difficult to sift through if you’re not already a die-hard fan of the World of Warcraft franchise. The movie’s biggest battle is actually behind the scenes and happening between art and commerce, wrote The Verge’s Tasha Robinson: “It's a knock-down, drag-out fight between storytelling, franchise-making, and fan service, and some casualties were inevitable.”
Collider’s Matt Goldberg praised the visuals, writing that “the only thing that feels fully crafted in Warcraft is the world. I went to see the movie with a fan of the game and she said that this is a film that definitely errs on the side of the fans.” For viewers that aren’t familiar with the complicated web of worlds and wars, Miami Herald ’s Rene Rodriguez recommends tuning out the plot entirely. “The moment you stop trying to figure out what’s what and who’s who, the movie becomes easy to follow,” Rodriguez wrote. “Because all the fancy names and references are just window dressing on a plot so simple it could pass for a children’s book.”
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Starring: Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, Sarah Silverman
Rated: R
Tomatometer:80%
Synopsis: The Lonely Island guys are back with a pop prince satire.
What’s The Word: Popstar is the Spinal Tap that our generation of memes and @mentions deserves. It’s smart but also goofy: “ Popstar is not a highbrow comedy. There are dick jokes, there’s a barfing turtle, and bird shit is practically used as a metaphor,” wrote Lizzie Plaugic from The Verge. Screencrush’s Matt Singer praised The Lonely Island team’s take on pop fame and fortune in 2016. “Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone are astute observers of celebrity and pop culture, which provides them with plenty of raw material to work with and make fun of,” he wrote. But reality is still so much stranger than fiction, and Lonely Island's pop culture historians have a hard time getting ahead of the bizarro age we’re living in. “Even on peak form, the Lonely Island could never top the aphasia-like poetry of Kanye West’s declaration to run for president,” reasoned The Guardian ’s Jordan Hoffman.
Me Before You
Starring: Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, Charles Dance, Jenna Coleman
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer: 53%
Synopsis: A quirky caregiver and her cynical, paralyzed patient fall in love.
What’s The Word: It isn’t the best love story with medical complications, but it’s also not the worst. Sheri Linden at The Hollywood Reporter said that the actors — Game of Thrones ’ Clarke and Hunger Games ’ Claflin — make a formulaic plot easier to stomach. “With their charm and good looks, Clarke and Claflin give the duo’s sublimated sensuality an undeniable charge, enhanced by the honeyed light of Remi Adefarasin’s camerawork,” Linden wrote. The Wrap’s Alonso Duralde was more harsh on the film's lack of cohesiveness: “Forget art, or even craft,” he wrote. “This is the kind of movie that can’t even get its shameless audience-pandering in order.” At A.V. Club, Jesse Hassenger wrote that though the movie might bring tears, he expects they'll quickly dry: " Me Before You is a first-level tearjerker, the kind that expects people to cry when the characters are sad, not because of any unspoken meaning underneath."
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
Starring: Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, Will Arnett, William Fichtner
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer: 32%
Synopsis: Your favorite (and hopefully only?) talking turtles meet a mad scientist and his evil mutants.
What’s The Word: “Can a franchise have a renaissance if it was never that good to begin with?” asked CinemaBlend’s Doug Norrie. Perhaps it’s possible, but TMNT is not that franchise. The series’ second installment is barely an improvement on the first. Empire’s Emma Thrower said most of the film is tolerable until it collapses under the weight of its own tropes in the third act: “The slick first third may seem like a different franchise to the turtles’ 2014 outing, but Out of the Shadows soon unravels as the Retro-Mutagen cements its status as yet another uninspired MacGuffin in yet another bland final act containing yet more people looking up at the sky,” Thrower wrote.
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Anne Hathaway, Johnny Depp, Sacha Baron Cohen
Rated: PG
Tomatometer: 29%
Synopsis: Alice time travels through the fantastical Underland to rescue the Mad Hatter and his family.
What’s The Word: The visuals in this follow-up to Tim Burton’s 2010 fantasy are less stellar than the original, and the plot holes persist. “The saving grace of Burton’s film was his wise tendency to bask in the wonders of his gothic Underland. [Director James] Bobin — not as equipped in the visual department — merely rushes from one point to the next,” Nigel M. Smith wrote for The Guardian. Hitfix’s Drew McWeeny praised the visuals, but found every other element hollow: “The bigger disappointment here is that Tim Burton is willing to put his brand name all over something so crushingly pedestrian.” Writing for RogerEbert.com, Matt Zoller Seitz said the film’s false feminism put a damper on Mia Wasikowska’s charm, writing, “She's in every scene of the movie, yet it's still a nothing part.”
X-Men: Apocalypse
Starring: Oscar Isaac, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Olivia Munn, Sophie Turner
Rated: PG-13
Tomatometer: 46%
Synopsis: The X-Men battle an ancient cyber-mutant named Apocalypse and his villainous Four Horsemen.
What’s The Word: This lukewarm X-Men installment doesn’t approach the heights of the franchise’s best. Empire’s Helen O’Hara said that Apocalypse relies too heavily on its predecessors, writing, “The more the film harks back to other X-installments, the more you’ll wish you were watching those instead.” Michael Roffman at Consequence of Sound wrote that Professor X and his gang are fun, but now have “a same ol’, same ol’ wash” that wasn’t as obvious before. Geoff Berkshire at Variety acknowledged the monotony, but was more dismayed at the movie’s squeeze on Oscar Isaac: “Apocalypse remains a one-note villain throughout, despite Isaac’s best efforts to imbue the godlike foe with authoritative menace underneath mountains of prosthetic makeup.”
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
Starring: Zac Efron, Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne
Rated: R
Tomatometer:64%
Synopsis: Sorority sisters mess with hapless adults.
What's The Word: This comedy sequel has a surprising and welcome feminist bent. "The Bechdel test is overly simple, yes, but a usefully blunt tool to compare Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising to its modern comedy brethren, virtually none of which have bothered to imbue female characters with the agency, humor, or actual personality that the women of Neighbors 2 deliver in spades," Katey Rich wrote for Vanity Fair. Erin Whitney at ScreenCrush noted: "Not only is it one of the best and funniest comedy sequels, it’s also the most feminist, gay-inclusive, and self-aware mainstream comedy of the year, if not ever." But Amy Nicholson at MTV News was slightly more wary: " Neighbors 2 ’s Social Justice Warrior critique would feel less sour if it weren’t written by five white guys. I guess this is still their party after all."
The Nice Guys
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice
Rated: R
Tomatometer:90%
Synopsis: A daffy detective teams up with a deadpan hit man to investigate porn-centric crime in 1970s L.A.
What's The Word: Shane Black's flick is an amusing, violent throwback, with a very good Gosling. Variety 's Owen Gleiberman called the movie "an ultra-violent burlesque, the sort of cheerfully hostile buddy bash that’s been a staple since the ’80s, only this one is singularly clever about its own triviality, and it offers the scruffy pleasure of seeing two great actors dial down their gravitas with style." Joe Morgenstern at The Wall Street Journal said it is "consistently entertaining, frequently violent and generally slapdash." Meanwhile, A.O. Scott of The New York Times acknowledged Black's "knack for slapstick anarchy," but also explained, "This is a dumb movie pretending to be smart, even as it wants you to believe the opposite."
The Angry Birds Movie
Starring: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Bill Hader
Rated: PG
Tomatometer: 43%
Synopsis: Birds battle pigs. You've played this game.
What's The Word: According to some, it's not that bad. " Angry Birds could be a whole lot worse," Leah Greenblatt conceded at Entertainment Weekly. The AP's Lindsey Bahr said "it's definitely not terrible and even surprisingly fun and heartfelt at times." Jesse Hassenger of The A.V. Club wasn't so forgiving. "The movie’s dialogue is so generic that Red (Sudeikis), the outcast bird with the furrowed, furry eyebrows, barely registers as angry," he wrote.
Money Monster
Starring: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O'Connell
Rated: R
Tomatometer:59%
Synopsis: George Clooney plays the wacky host of a financial TV show who finds himself at the center of a hostage crisis.
What's The Word: Though not without flaws, the movie is serviceable entertainment. It "might not be a great movie, but it is a comforting movie-movie that's still fun to watch even if it whiffed on being something more," Lindsey Bahr wrote at the AP. Variety 's Andrew Barker said it's "taut yet sporadically odd," but "hangs together surprisingly well." It does have a true fan in Stephanie Zacharek from Time, who raved: "It’s the movie of the moment, an expertly made, state-of-the-nation entertainment that also underscores just how little most of us know about the behind-the-scenes shell game the banking and finance industries are orchestrating, using our money as the disappearing nugget."
The Lobster
Starring: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Léa Seydoux
Rated: R
Tomatometer:92%
Synopsis: An exploration of love and life in a society where people have to find romantic partners in 45 days or they are turned into animals of their choosing.
What's The Word: It's an acquired taste, but it's truly brilliant. "This movie is an unusual beast, and if you can’t invest in its wild premise and starchy manners, stay home," Amy Nicholson at MTV News explained. "See it, however, and you’ll not only see one of the best movies of the year — you’ll see one of the most brutally honest takes on the knots people twist themselves into so they don’t have to be alone." The New York Times ' A.O. Scott wrote that the movie is "often startlingly funny in the way it proposes its surreal conceits, and then upsettingly grim in the way it follows through on them." Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weeklydeemed it " the most original and beautifully strange love story since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
Love & Friendship
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel
Rated: PG
Tomatometer: 100%
Synopsis: A Jane Austen adaptation about a scheming widow.
What's The Word: If you're a Janeite in need of a laugh — or just someone who likes great movies — go. The movie "more than delivers on the comedy of manners front, but it’s also a very funny, unapologetic portrait of a diabolically clever woman," Glenn Whipp wrote at The Los Angeles Times. Peter Travers at Rolling Stone said he "can't think of a more wickedly modern romantic comedy." A.O. Scott's New York Times review declared: "It's the Whit Stillman movie that some of us have been waiting a long time for, and also a Jane Austen movie that goes some way toward correcting the record of dull and dutiful cinematic Janeism."
Keanu
Starring: Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Method Man
Rated: R
Tomatometer:74%
Synopsis: Key and Peele get drawn into a world of crime as they attempt to retrieve a really, really cute cat.
What's The Word: It's worth seeing for Key and Peele. " Keanu doesn't have nearly enough story to go the distance, sputtering through an '80s-style action-comedy that follows a feline MacGuffin through an L.A. gangland misadventure," Scott Tobias wrote at NPR. "And yet Key and Peele have such a sensationally giddy chemistry together that the film's raggedness plays, in their hands, like a kind of spontaneity." The New York Times ' Manohla Dargis also thought the comedians "comfortably hold the big screen," but described the movie as "a slack, erratically amusing excuse to watch" them. According to the A.V. Club 's A.A. Dowd, "[The] pair are so consistently funny, bullshitting their way through every situation, that it’s sometimes possible to ignore how thin the movie around them really is."
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