Based on the memoir The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot stars Tina Fey as Kim Baker, an American journalist who becomes unsatisfied with her tedious desk job and spontaneously decides to take assignment as a war correspondent in the Middle East. She begins in Kabul, where she is eagerly welcomed by fellow female reporter Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie) and not-so-subtly wooed by Scottish photographer Iain MacKelpie (Martin Freeman). When the initial two-week time frame of her assignment passes, Baker finds that she’s actually grown accustomed to potentially perilous nature of her new job and stays in hopes of chasing down a career-defining story.

The primary aim of the screenplay, written by previous Fey collaborator Robert Carlock, is to intersperse bits of pair’s formidable brand of 30 Rock-style sitcom wit within the confines of a traditional war movie setting. There are countless ways that this strategy could have gone awry, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only has Carlock maintained a high level of humor with numerous laugh-out-loud moments in the script but he also tells Baker’s story with the kind of intelligence and humanity that it deserves. The sharp-tongued dialogue also has a streak of affable self-deprecation to it, as when Baker explains why she left the States for Afghanistan and another reporter replies, “That’s the most American white lady story I’ve ever heard.”

Co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who also collaborated on recent films Focus and Crazy, Stupid, Love, bite off a bit more than they can chew thematically but they do a great job of establishing a playfully irreverent tone without seeming distasteful or flippant towards the subject material. They also wisely steer away from cheap scapegoating or political posturing, instead favoring a more genuine and refined approach to their storytelling. There are also some inspired music choices that liven up some crucial scenes, the most memorable involving a covert, Marine-led hostage rescue set to Harry Nilsson’s “Without You”.

It’s no secret that Tina Fey has had mixed results when trying to translate her comedic success from television to the big screen, which is why it’s so encouraging to watch her hit this role out of the park. By both dramatic and comedic standards, this is far and away her most satisfying film performance to date. She’s such a perfect fit for this character, it’s not hard to imagine that the film wouldn’t have been made without her involvement. Perhaps her work here will be enough to convince other directors to reconsider her dramatic range as an actress and lead to more challenging roles in the future.

The rest of the actors, including FX’s Fargo favorites Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton, are just as well cast and lend an added layer of authenticity to the story in both large and small roles. A notable standout alongside Fey is Christopher Abbott as Baker’s Afghani handler, who gives a performance filled with quiet humility and an unstated empathy that I found to be magnetic in each scene that he appeared. So many smart choices were made for Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and it’s quite rewarding to see a studio film, especially a comedy, that doesn’t feel the need to dumb itself down.

When a teaser trailer was first released two months ago for a new JJ Abrams production, it was difficult to believe that such a promising movie could have been kept so thoroughly under the radar. Pitched as a “blood relative” and “spiritual successor” of the 2008 found footage monster movie Cloverfield, it was intentionally left unclear what this new film’s connection was to its “predecessor”. Now that 10 Cloverfield Lane has finally arrived, the relationship between the two still eludes me but what I can say with confidence is that I was ultimately let down by this entry in an apparently burgeoning franchise.

After surviving a severe car accident when driving through rural Louisiana, the newly engaged Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) wakes up chained to a pipe with a man named Howard (John Goodman) claiming to have saved her from the wreck. They, along with another man named Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.), are in a doomsday bunker that Howard spent years building and his efforts seem to have paid off, as he also claims that a widespread attack has decimated the entire population of the world above. Fearing Howard’s questionable motives and deteriorating mental state, Michelle and Emmett plot to escape the bunker and discover the truth for themselves.

With any kind of mysterious setup for a psychological thriller like this, the payoff not only has to match the quality of the preceding story but it should ideally exceed it. To say that 10 Cloverfield Lane doesn’t stick the landing would be a vast understatement, as it veers wildly in a direction that feels incredibly tacked on and frankly betrays the mostly well-earned tension of its narrative. Rarely is a producer’s influence so obvious on a film but it’s not difficult to spot the exact moment when Abrams forcefully grabs the reins from first-time director Dan Trachtenberg and gleefully sneers “I’ll take it from here.”

Though I can’t say that I was fully on board with the film before that point anyway, at least there was reason to believe that things were headed in the right direction. The foundation of solid acting, particularly by Winstead and Goodman, and the slow-burning character moments build nicely on the initial disorientation of the situation that the main character finds herself in. The film’s most effective scene, likely to inspire bouts of nervous laughter throughout the theater, revolves around the surprising prompts in a quietly revealing game of Taboo that rides a perfect median between frightening and funny.

As a whole, though, the movie just didn’t work for me but I do sincerely hope that it finds an audience and that it’s rewarded handsomely at the box office. With a “modest” $15 million budget and a killer ad campaign behind it, this could prove to be an overwhelming surprise hit like Deadpool was last month. It’s important for Hollywood to learn that pays to invest wisely in smaller scale features rather than to throw $200 million at tent-pole movies that seem destined to under-perform. Even if the experiment of 10 Cloverfield Lane came up short in the end, I hope its production principles go on to inspire other like-minded projects in the future.

Walt Disney Animation Studios builds on the overwhelming success of recent hits Frozen and Big Hero 6 with their latest effort Zootopia, which largely takes place in the titular city inhabited by anthropomorphic animals who have learned to peacefully co-exist with one another. When new rabbit resident Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) joins the city’s police force, she crosses paths with cunning con artist fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) and the two team up on a desperate search for a missing otter. As it turns out, the initial case runs deeper than they both realize and they slowly uncover a conspiracy to divide their seemingly tranquil society.

The most immersive animated films are those that seek to create an entirely original world for their characters to inhabit and this is no exception. The implicit challenge here lies in how these mammals of varying shapes and sizes could plausibly interact with one another despite their differing circumstances. Clever solutions, from the partitioning of different living sectors based on their corresponding climates to appropriately sized pneumatic tubes designed for transportation of smaller creatures, crop up throughout the movie and remind us that the creators put loads of thought into how to make this world work logistically.

By this token, a great deal of attention is paid not only to how the varying species physically co-exist but how they view one another from a cultural perspective as well. After all, this is a world where the traditional food chain has been narrowly circumvented but that doesn’t mean they’re still free from the kinds of nuanced divisions inherent in every civilized society. The prejudices and microaggressions (Judy rebukes Nick at one point for calling her cute, as only bunnies can call other bunnies cute) that pop up between the prey and predator factions are incisive bits of humor that cut deeper than the typical slapstick fare that pervades the animated genre.

With these topics in mind along with sprinkles of overt allusions to other high-minded entertainments like The Godfather and Breaking Bad, this is a film that is clearly aiming for an adult audience but even if taken at face value, Zootopia is plenty entertaining for all ages. The action scenes have a vibrancy and brisk pace to them, while the animation is consistently breathtaking and full of rich detail. Despite having likely recorded their vocal parts completely independent of one another, Goodwin and Bateman still manage to form a palpable chemistry among their witty banter.

The film’s story, which is a great throwback to film-noir inspired mystery, is surprisingly involving for the first hour, until it gives way to predictable contrivances that split characters up just in time for the third act. For as smart as it is for most of the running time, Zootopia does dumb itself down more than it should have and more than it really needed to towards its ending. Still, this is a consistently enjoyable movie with plenty of laughs for kids and enough social commentary to keep their parents engaged too.