Even the efforts of the eminently talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt aren’t enough to lift this leaden biopic, which strains hard to be about Edward Snowden The Human as opposed to Edward Snowden The Headline. In his effort to humanize the now infamous NSA whistleblower, director Oliver Stone spends far too much of Snowden‘s 140 minute runtime cataloging personal details of its subject’s life in a manner that’s shoddy and predictable from the first scene. Stone’s never been known to be a particularly eloquent dramatist to begin with and his commercially friendly approach to this potentially provocative subject matter adds very little to the international conversation on mass surveillance and privacy in the digital age.

The film, which is told largely in a series of drawn out flashbacks, centers around Snowden’s pivotal meeting in Hong Kong as he discloses the classified documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) and Ewen MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson). As Snowden begins to open up to filmmaker Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo) in their hotel room, we learn about his early training days in the army, his various positions within the intelligence community and the romantic relationship with his photographer girlfriend Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley). After the data is eventually leaked to the press, we follow Snowden as he finds temporary asylum in Russia amid staggering criminal charges brought on by the US government.

Perhaps I’m a cold hearted person but the fact is that I just don’t care about Snowden’s personal dilemmas and hangups nearly as much as I care about his role as a catalyst for the important public debate that he brought about with his actions. I’m not interested in pointless subplots like one involving Timothy Olyphant as a shady CIA operative and I’m even less interested in the 10 total minutes of screen time that Nicolas Cage has as a squirrelly NSA mentor. As an obsessive filmmaker, Stone is wont to get wrapped up in these kinds of trivial details that obscure the message he’s trying to convey.

He clearly wants Snowden’s relationship with Mills to be the heart of the story but Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley don’t have the kind of chemistry that makes their love believable or worth rooting for. Both have done terrific work in other projects but their interactions here feel so forced and rarely does it seem like they’re emotionally on the same page with one another at any given moment. In particular, their hollow conversations about politics come across as the characters acting as a mouthpiece for the respective political parties they represent rather than resembling any kind of realistic talk that couples might actually have with one another.

The only scenes that have any sort of dramatic thrust are those with Snowden, Poitras and the two journalists in the Hong Kong hotel and it’s a shame that there isn’t a movie that focuses solely on these four individuals as they race against news deadlines and a relentless press force that seeks to expose them. Except there is; it’s called Citizenfour and it won Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars last year (it’s even streaming online for free here). If you’re truly interested in this material, you’re much better off watching the vastly superior documentary and leaving Snowden out in the cold.

In January 2009, captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles were faced with an unprecedented situation. During their takeoff from LaGuardia Airport, a flock of geese spontaneously flew through both of the aircraft’s engines and rendered them powerless to continue through the flight. Forced to react quickly on behalf of his terrified passengers, Sully surmised that the best option was to land their crippled airplane on top of the nearby Hudson River, a decision that saved the lives of all 155 people on-board US Airways Flight 1549 and captured the attention of news outlets around the world.

Clint Eastwood’s dramatization of this heroic event and the impact it has on those involved is the focus of his new film Sully, which stars Tom Hanks as Captain Sully and Aaron Eckhart as First Officer Skiles. While the media adequately covered the result of the landing itself, it didn’t spend as much time focusing on the NTSB’s investigation to the crash, which alleged that Sully could have flown back to runways at one of two alternate airports in both New York in New Jersey despite his limited circumstances. Mike O’Malley and Anna Gunn, who you may recognize as Skyler from Breaking Bad, play the investigators tasked by the NTSB to suss out the situation.

It’s no surprise that the landing itself makes for the most exciting material in the story but Eastwood is smart about the way that he depicts fractions of the event from different perspectives before giving us an unbroken and definitive account towards the middle of the movie. When it did arrive, my heart was pounding as the plane taxied to the runway and began to take off. The amount of tension that’s built during the scene, from the quiet stillness of the engines right after the bird strike to the concurrent cries of “heads down, stay down!” from the flight attendants right before the crash, only subsides the moment after the plane hits the water.

With its white-knuckle crash sequence and subsequent probing from government officials looking to find flaws in the pilot’s performance, Sully has parallels to the recent Robert Zemeckis film Flight, in which Denzel Washington’s pilot character is initially hailed as a hero. While that film has different goals as a character study and redemption story, I can’t help but feel that Eastwood could have dug deeper into his protagonist the way Zemeckis did so well in his feature. Other than the fact that Sully is a hero who used a lifetime of training and preparation to divert a catastrophe, he doesn’t have much else to say about the central figure of his story.

Perhaps some of that also falls on Hanks, who portrays Sully as the calm and collected professional that he came across as in his numerous appearances in the press but jettisons some of his natural charm in the process. Eckhart fares a bit better in his role as Skiles, sporting a brilliantly authentic pilot’s mustache and a cunning wit that provides some much needed bits of humor to some of the film’s more drab stretches. Sully is an honorable and workman-like effort from Eastwood that reminds us that pure heroism is still powerful enough to inspire in increasingly cynical times.

On the tail end of a massively disappointing summer comes this excellent modern Western that richly explores the themes of poverty and family legacy in a way that balances art and entertainment in an immensely satisfying way. Hell or High Water also features some of the best screenwriting that I’ve seen this year, with dialogue that’s clever and loaded with plenty of dry humor but also doesn’t come across as manufactured or unnatural. Throw in a few deeply memorable performances and confident, poetic storytelling from Scottish director David Mackenzie and you have one of the film year’s biggest, most unexpected surprises.

The story takes place in a desolate region of west Texas hit hard by the economic crash, where highway billboards make empty promises of “fast cash now” and freedom from debt but the feeling of hopelessness is settled deeply in the eyes of its residents. Looking to escape their circumstances are the Howard brothers Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby (Chris Pine), who begin committing small-time bank robberies in order to help avoid foreclosure on the ranch home of their recently deceased mother. Along with this, Toby also plans to use the funds to repay child support to his ex-wife and hopefully reconnect with his estranged sons.

After knocking off two banks in a morning, the Howard boys soon draw heat from the nearly-retired Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and his stoic and patient partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham). The two playfully exchange barbs about Hamilton’s curmudgeonly tendencies or Alberto’s ethnicity at a rate that’s almost hard to keep up with but it demonstrates the kind of oddly caring relationship that the lawmen have with one another. Their investigation eventually lead them to the Howards’ final robbery, in which the two brothers get in over their heads and their amateurish execution threatens to get the better of them.

Taylor Sheridan has penned an outstanding script that’s loaded both with poignant dramatic moments and witty bits of levity for comedic effect that can even pop up unexpectedly in seemingly serious interactions. Even Tanner isn’t above a “that’s what she said” crack when Toby comments on the size of a branch bank as the duo drive up to it. But when it’s time to get down to business, Sheridan knows just how to dial these characters in and remind us that these are down and out criminals who aren’t above violence and intimidation to achieve their goals.

Foster and Bridges do terrific work in roles that rely somewhat on mannerisms and reactions from performances that the actors have given in the past but it’s Pine that shines brightest here. He modulates the kind of charisma that he brings to a role like Kirk in the Star Trek films and focuses that energy inwards to play a calm and collected foil to the Foster’s loose cannon. Their unbreakable brotherly bond is just one aspect of Hell or High Water that makes it undeniably great entertainment and worthy of any Oscar consideration (especially Best Original Screenplay) it may receive next February.

This raunchy and ridiculous Pixar send-up stars Seth Rogen as Frank, a hot dog who lives in the Shopwell’s supermarket along with the myriad of other sentient food products in the store, including his package-mate hot dog Carl (Jonah Hill) and his neighboring hot dog bun girlfriend Brenda (Kristen Wiig). On a busy Fourth of July shopping day, a housewife selects both of their respective packages for purchase but a shopping cart accident separates Frank and Brenda from the rest of their friends. With the help of new acquaintances Teresa del Taco (Salma Hayek) and Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton), the two peruse the aisles of Shopwell’s in hopes of reuniting with their friends while also uncovering some unpleasant truths about their existence.

A rousing opening musical number (co-written by frequent Disney collaborator Alan Menken) asserts the food’s collective worldview that humans choose only the most worthy of the bunch to be taken to “The Great Beyond”, which exists outside of the store’s sliding glass doors. Ignorant of our predilection for food consumption, they’re not sure what awaits them when they leave the store but in their own words, “they’re sure nothing bad happens to food” in the outside world. When the seeds of doubt begin to creep into the minds of the characters, themes of faith and religion are tackled with more even-handedness than I expected.

So Sausage Party has a bit more on its mind than you may expect for a movie about talking food but its primary function as an R-rated animated comedy is to be as crude and offensive as it can be. I can say that it certainly achieves this goal but in doing so, it does sacrifice some comedic opportunities in the process. Some of my favorite moments didn’t involve certain four-letter words or obvious sexual innuendos but rather the film’s more clever visual touches, like a spot-on Saving Private Ryan homage that reappropriates the iconic Omaha Beach sequence to hilarious effect.

Working from a budget about a tenth the size of the Pixar films that it’s lampooning, the animation of Sausage Party obviously isn’t as sophisticated as recent efforts like Finding Dory but co-directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan find a visual language that spoofs the “sunny” disposition of classic Disney movies while also remaining crisp and vibrant on its own terms. Each new section of the store that our protagonists discover offers a new palette on which to introduce a fresh set of grocery characters and the culture that they’ve built up around them. In some cases, this results in some potentially ugly stereotyping that I hope is meant to satirize the food industry’s proclivity towards culturally homogenized packaging rather than serve as cheap punchlines on their own.

The voice casts also boasts the talents of Rogen regulars Michael Cera and James Franco while making room for newcomers like Nick Kroll, who steals the show as a roided-out version of a feminine hygiene product that lives up to his pejorative name. My absolute favorite, thought, was the Stephen Hawking-esque Gum, who delivers lines with the cadence of the physicist’s trademark speech synthesizer and introduces himself by his complex chemical makeup as opposed to just saying “gum”. Sausage Party has enough laughs, some more juvenile than others, to make it a worthwhile meal.

Following the relentlessly grim chore of a movie that was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it’s good to see that DC has developed a new sense of fun and mischief to their movies. Suicide Squad may not be as triumphant as Marvel counterparts The Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy but it has a rambunctious and irreverent quality to it that appealed to me more than I expected that it would. Director David Ayer has the daunting task of juggling a plethora of comic book characters, most of whom will be new faces to general audiences, and he succeeds in doing so while also drawing some memorable performances out of his sprawling cast.

The film introduces ruthless government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) as she seeks to build a covert mercenary task force in order to combat pending otherworldly attacks after the events of Dawn of Justice. She recruits a band of dangerous criminals, including Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Deadshot (Will Smith) and Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), as disposable assets in case any of the missions are compromised and the public seeks a scapegoat on whom to cast the blame. When one of the Squad members defects and seeks to wipe out mankind’s technological resources, the remaining ragtag band of misfits pool their unique talents and abilities to bring down the emerging threat.

Jared Leto also turns up in a subplot as a new iteration of the Joker and Ben Affleck briefly reprises his role as Batman but despite the standings of these characters in pop culture, their presence doesn’t overwhelm the film but instead situates the Squad members as the main focus of the narrative within this larger DC universe. While there may not be an even time split between the backstories of these new characters, we do get the lowdown on each of them from a flashy dossier montage early on that gives us enough context to how each of them may fit into this troubled team. There’s also a refreshing level of ambiguity to their roles on the moral spectrum of the comic book genre; they’re not quite heroes, villains or even anti-heroes.

The primary winning element of this film is the commitment level to the performances, specifically from Smith and Robbie. The two previously starred in last year’s con caper Focus and even in this wildly different setting of crazy costumes and wall-to-wall action, they maintain an electric chemistry and quick-paced repartee that scores plenty of laughs (Smith, in particular, has some outstanding one-liners). On the dramatic side of things, Viola Davis brings a quiet intensity and fierce intelligence to her character that keeps her one step ahead of her crew and often makes her the most captivating character in the movie.

No matter how things pan out box office-wise for Suicide Squad this weekend, it’s been made clear that this is meant to be a one-and-done feature and that going forward, DC will presumably put all of their eggs in the Justice League basket. As someone who enjoyed this movie, I can also appreciate the fact that we won’t have four unnecessary Suicide Squad sequels to bare if Warner Brothers hits its mark financially with this effort. As a scrappy and slight piece of offbeat superhero fare, this had just the right kind of crazy to keep me on board with the Squad.

The summer of disappointing blockbusters plods along with this utterly unnecessary sequel that does very little to improve on the groundbreaking work of its predecessors. Jason Bourne is 9 years removed from The Bourne Ultimatum, the third film in what would have best remained a trilogy, and the time gap couldn’t be more evident in the final product here. When director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon chose to reunite for another Bourne film this late in the game, one could have only hoped that it was because they had something worthwhile still to say with this character but any seeds of a promising idea are obscured by clumsy execution.

The perfunctory plot brings back superspy Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) as he once again tries to discover who he “really is”, this time by uncovering classified CIA documents with the help of computer hacker Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles). Their breach draws the attention of cyber ops director Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) and CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones), who surveil and attempt to extract Bourne as he travels from Athens to Berlin to London. The pursuit comes to a head at a tech convention in Las Vegas, where social media mogul Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed) plans to unveil the new app Deep Dream that has been co-developed with the CIA for covert mass surveillance.

It should be the goal of any sequel to build upon the story that’s already been laid out in one way or another but this film feels like a regression in nearly every sense. It opens with the title character declaring “I remember everything” in voiceover and then we cut to grimy flashbacks from previous entries in the series, just in case the audience has a hard time remembering too. What’s problematic with this approach, beyond being painfully conventional, is that this introductory assertion is obviously false; if he really did remember “everything”, he wouldn’t have anything left to learn about his past and we wouldn’t have a new movie on our hands.

Even if you’re not interested in sophisticated storytelling and you just want to see some reliably rousing action sequences that rival those from the first three films, you’re still out of luck. Greengrass falls back on his trademark “shaky cam” cinematography and frantic editing to create scenes that feel more incoherent and less involving than they could have been with a better establishment of physical space. In the case of chase scenes and hand-to-hand combat in particular, how can we care about what characters want and where they’re going if we never get a good sense of where they are in the first place?

There’s not much care taken on the acting side of the equation either, although rising stars Vikander and Ahmed bring what they can to their limited roles. Tommy Lee Jones doesn’t even attempt to conceal his apathy for the material and Matt Damon turns in a borderline bad performance in his fourth outing as Bourne, giving further credence to the concept that this character has already been rung dry by this point. Jason Bourne is an action sequel so uninspired and forgettable that not even its title character would try hard to remember it.

There’s been so much said and written about this Sony-backed remake prior to its release that’s it’s hard to know exactly where to begin. I should start by saying that Ghostbusters is not nearly as lame and unfunny as its first trailer (statistically the most “disliked” in YouTube’s history) would suggest. There are some worthwhile laughs here and there and the chemistry between the four female leads is often very strong but in a world congested with a seemingly endless barrage of soulless reboots and sequels, this movie ultimately doesn’t do enough on an action or comedy level to justify its own existence.

The film covers many of the same beats as the original but does divert a bit in its origin story, which finds physics professor Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) in search of tenure at Columbia University when an embarrassing book she co-write years ago about paranormal studies begins to resurface on Amazon. It turns out that her co-author and estranged friend Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) is the one responsible for its presence online and she, along with lab geek Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), have continued to study paranormal activity all these years. When malicious apparitions begin to pop up around the city, the three women team up with pseudo-historian Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) to put the ghosts back in their place.

Director Paul Feig has a specialty for female-led comedies, most recently with last year’s Spy and most successfully with 2011’s Bridesmaids, but he too frequently gets into a bad habit of letting the improvisational talents of actresses like Wiig and McCarthy run too far without being able to reel things in. Many of the exchanges here feel off-the-cuff and while there’s no doubt you can make a funny movie with plenty of improv in it, it’s nevertheless a very hit-or-miss proposition. This time around, the absence of prepared lines of dialogue is often replaced with tepid riffs that feel re-hashed from past characters in each actresses’ career.

It doesn’t help that Wiig and McCarthy get stuck with “straight man” roles that constrict their comedic prowess while Saturday Night Live players McKinnon and Jones steal the show with their more sharply written characters. McKinnon is my personal favorite among the four here, bringing a relentless goofiness and affability to the “mad professor” stereotype that usually made her presence the most magnetic in the frame. Even though Jones does have a couple moments that involve her screaming hysterically to obnoxious effect (one is covered in the aforementioned trailer), she’s oddly the most grounded and believable character in the ghost-hunting action scenes.

Chris Hemsworth also scores a few laughs as the team’s clueless assistant (a line of questioning about his dog names Michael Hat was hysterical) but his character is such a dimwit that he never becomes much more than the butt of jokes about his staggering lack of intelligence. For a movie that’s purported to be progressive in regards to gender politics, it has a disconcerting lack of development in its male characters that often places them on a broad spectrum of foolishness. It’s more likely that this disparity is the result of lazy writing rather than an “agenda” that was consciously conceived but either way, Ghostbusters remains a frivolous and largely lifeless enterprise.