Pixar hops onto the often lucrative sequel train once again for Finding Dory, a long delayed follow-up to their hugely successful 2003 film Finding Nemo. Director and co-writer Andrew Stanton is back with a story that closely follows the narrative beats that worked for its predecessor but also touches on some darker and more mature themes that are a welcome departure from the frivolous tone of most animated adventures. It’s disappointing, then, that the movie jettisons most of these concepts in the final act for a more juvenile and inconsequential approach that comes off as goofy rather than grounded.

It’s one year after the events of Nemo and we are re-introduced to amnesiac blue fish Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) as she begins to have foggy flashbacks of her childhood and her long lost parents. She becomes determined to find them and her quest leads her to a coastal California aquarium, where she befriends the lovably gruff seven-legged octopus Hank (Ed O’Neill) and re-unites with her whale shark childhood friend Destiny (Kaitlin Olson). With the help of many other supporting characters, Dory traverses the obstacles of the frequently perilous Marine Life Institute in hopes of reuniting with her family.

One of the noticeable improvements on the original is the impeccable visual design that serves as a reminder for how quickly technology is advancing in the realm of animated filmmaking. If you had asked me 5 years ago what the best looking Pixar movie was, I probably would have said Finding Nemo but the level of photorealism that the studio has reached in their most recent efforts is nothing short of remarkable. Beyond just being aesthetically pleasing, the definition and the vibrancy behind these characters and settings also allows for some fun visual gags too, as when Hank uses his camouflage capabilities to seamlessly blend into his surroundings.

For all of the intelligence that went behind the look of this movie, it seems that there were other elements that were dumbed down in order to compensate. The premise essentially boils down to one primary motivation and while the contrivances that arise are sometimes clever and inventive, they eventually undermine basic principles of logic and physics that seem far-fetched for any animated film, much less one from Pixar. The overblown climax, which involves a car chase in which an octopus successfully drives a car on a highway, may be silly enough to work for smaller children but left cynical little adult me straining not to roll his eyes.

There are smaller scale setpieces that tend to fare much better, like Dory and Hank’s terrifying trip to a touch pool where children’s hands dart in from the water’s surface like jagged bolts of lightning. Even the quieter moments in Dory’s flashbacks, in which she struggles to recapture memories from her fragmented childhood, build to something even more poignant than the emotional center of Nemo. If Finding Dory had stuck to more sophisticated storytelling instead of panders to its younger audience, there’s no doubt that it would have been a more worthy and likely superior successor.

It seems New Zealand director Taika Waititi is on a roll after following up the funniest movie of last year, the vampire mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows, with this utterly charming and heart-warming adventure comedy. Unlike most animated movies released these days, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a rare family entertainment that actually feels like it was made to work for every person in the family, regardless of how young or old they may be. It has the kind of intelligent storytelling and emotional framework that will earn the respect of the parents but also has plenty of sight gags and silliness to keep kids engaged too.

The story follows a rabble-rousing orphan boy named Ricky (Julian Dennison) as he is assigned by child welfare services to live with his foster Aunt Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and Uncle Hec (Sam Neill) out in the New Zealand countryside. After an unexpected tragedy, Ricky learns that he will soon be taken back into government custody and in an act of defiance, he chooses to run away into the dense forest. Uncle Hec eventually finds Ricky in the woods but with both missing for a substantial amount of time, the public soon begins to fear that Hec has kidnapped Ricky and a national manhunt is undergone to retrieve the two.

Hec and Ricky are a classic pair of comedic opposites: the former is a quiet and reserved countryman focused solely on survival instincts while the latter is a troubled hooligan who compensates for his insecurities with a boisterous swagger and “gangster” affectations. As the straight man, Sam Neill has the perfect level of incredulity in each of his deadpan reactions and Julian Dennison’s antics are outrageous without veering into full-on obnoxious territory. The way that these two play off one another and eventually grow to understand each other resembled a more extreme version of the kind of relationship Carl and Russell had during the middle section of Pixar’s sublime Up.

This movie has a similar level of pathos and tender moments but it also packs in plenty of laughs along the way. There’s a certain strange, off-kilter quality to Waititi’s sense of humor that I personally find to be infectious and oddly inviting. Characters often use silence and “dead space” for longer than it seems like they should and those breaks give an unexpected timing to the punchlines when they do hit. When Bella sings an ebullient impromptu birthday song for Ricky, it’s Hec’s visible signs of discomfort and Ricky’s admirable show of support that keeps the ridiculous song from seeming tedious and needlessly drawn out.

With its playful tone and its rustic nature setting, I also found parallels to Wes Anderson’s coming-of-age movie Moonrise Kingdom, in which Tilda Swinton played an antagonist literally named “Social Services” who mirrors the hilariously unrelenting social worker played by Rachel House in this film. Flight of the Conchords favorite Rhys Darby even turns up briefly in the third act as a zany survivalist who isn’t quite as well prepared for sudden contingencies as he thinks he is. No matter what age you are, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is delightful entertainment through and through.

Jane Austen’s work has been brought to the screen countless times before but this adaptation of her posthumously released novel Lady Susan brings a new level of comedic prowess that may surprise those going in expecting another period costume drama. Love & Friendship does maintain Austen’s most prevalent themes of propriety and prosperity in 18th century England but does so with a savage wit and a cheeky playfulness to match. What’s more, this story also centers around a character who seems diametrically opposed to the morally virtuous heroines that have long been a trademark of Austen’s most iconic novels.

Kate Beckinsale gives what may be her best performance ever as the newly widowed Lady Susan Vernon, who wastes no time trying to find a new suitor and wishes to accomplish the same goal for her modest daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) in the process. While visiting the estate of her in-laws, she is pursued by the young and naive Reginald (Xavier Samuel) while Frederica is ineffectually paired with the hilarious dimwitted yet inexplicably wealthy Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett). During her pursuit, Lady Susan has intermittent conversations with her American friend Alicia (Chloë Sevigny), who offers her own perspective on Susan’s affairs.

This is admittedly the first film that I’ve seen from director Whit Stillman, who previously directed both Beckinsale and Sevigny in 1998’s The Last Days of Disco, but I’m eager to discover some of his previous work. Beyond his expert handling of the characters and a consistent mood of whimsy, he also has stylistic touches that add just the right amount of personality without drawing too much attention to themselves. I was particularly fond of the unconventional way that characters were introduced towards the beginning, with a sequence of shots that feature each main player posing above captions that reveal their name and most notable characteristic.

Some of these more theatrical touches are accompanied by a looser and more modern feeling screenplay that’s both whip-smart and filled with plenty of dryly humorous moments.  There are a host of clever one-liners and pointed bits of wordplay, primarily spoken by Lady Susan, that are capable of cutting characters to their core before they even realize what’s really being said to them. Beckinsale delivers these lines with a sort of polite viciousness that not only feels appropriate for the milieu but also underlines the manipulative and casually cruel nature of her character in a way that still makes her oddly likeable.

While Stillman’s script doesn’t touch on much in the way of character development and complex storytelling, it more than makes up for it with a crackling sense of verbosity. In a just world, we’ll be talking about this movie again next February for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. If anything, the dialogue is so packed and often spoken so deftly that I don’t doubt a re-watch or two (preferably with subtitles) would help me enjoy the film’s brilliant brand of banter even more. There’s something wickedly satisfying and utterly delightful about Love & Friendship that should allow both avid Austen fans and casual movie goers to effuse its accomplishments.

Based on J.G. Ballard’s dystopian science-fiction novel of the same name, High-Rise is a baffling mess of a film that begins with glimmers of promise that slowly give way to increasingly turbulent waves of disappointment and, ultimately, dissatisfaction. It works so hard to come across as a scathing social commentary about class warfare and urban decay but director Ben Wheatley doesn’t articulate any of his points with any kind of original perspective or even with much coherence in the first place. He seems almost willful in his attempts to muddle any possible character motivation or to obscure promising narrative threads for the sake of being “unconventional” in his storytelling. If that seems like a frustrating proposition, that’s because it certainly is.

We are introduced to Dr. Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) 3 months after he checks into a luxurious high-rise tower block, where living conditions appear to have descended into total chaos. We then flash back to the chronological beginning (a cinematic convention that I’m starting to loathe) to find Laing moving into an apartment on the 25th floor of the comparatively civilized complex. Beyond the favorable living quarters, the building also sports higher level amenities such as a built-in supermarket and even a primary school, ensuring that tenants hardly ever have to leave the premises.

Shortly after moving in, he strikes up a relationship with single mother Charlotte (Sienna Miller) and a friendship with pregnant couple Richard (Luke Evans) and Helen (Elisabeth Moss). We soon learn of a hierarchy that exists within the high-rise, where members of the upper class, led by the building’s architect Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons), are rewarded with higher level accommodations while those in the middle and lower class fare in the lower dwelling apartments. This disparity, along with continuous power failures that disproportionately affect the lower class tenants, causes dissension and outbursts of violence throughout the tower.

As the anarchy picks up, Wheatley and his screenwriter Amy Jump concoct scenes that seem to have very little consequence or bearing on the tenuous narrative at hand. Unsurprisingly, repetitive shots of tenants (edited at an obnoxiously swift pace by Wheatley and Jump) engaging in drunken dances at wild parties don’t add up to an especially interesting story. Any advances to the plot, as when one character mandates that another character undergo a lobotomy, seem to come completely out of left field and don’t allow for any kind of engagement with the characters on an emotional or psychological level.

The high points of the film come down to spot-on, chic 1970s set design and Laurie Rose’s steely-eyed, often breathtaking cinematography but there’s not much to grab onto outside of aesthetics. Even the usually brilliant Clint Mansell can’t find his footing with a musical score that meanders through various genres without building any kind of memorable motifs in the process, although two instances of ABBA’s pop song “SOS” are used creatively in back-to-back scenes. There may be a method to High-Rise‘s madness but as long as the storyteller remains so unwilling to meet the viewer halfway, there’s no good reason to seek it out.

Captain America: Civil War, the latest offering from the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, is technically the third film in the Captain America series but given its inclusion of so many of the studio’s other superhero characters, it plays more like a semi-sequel to Avengers: Age of Ultron (The Avengers 2.5, let’s say). As such, it’s the most narratively dense and potentially overwhelming Marvel movie to date but it’s also the most morally ambiguous and dramatically ambitious entry thus far. The important part is that despite the heaviness of the story and its themes, there are also counterpoints of levity and dazzling action setpieces that strike up a sound balance of enlightenment and entertainment.

The story picks up after the disastrous events in Sokovia from Ultron and following a more recent incident in Lagos that left unexpected civilian causalities, the actions of the Avengers are being scrutinized more thoroughly than ever before. The United Nations puts forth an act that calls for more oversight and regulation for those with “advanced abilities”, which Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) views as a sensible guideline of personal responsibility but Captain America (Chris Evans) sees as an oppressive measure of over-regulation. This ideological rift, among other factors, leads to a showdown between Team Captain and Team Iron Man (involving too many superheros to name here) that threatens to permanently tear the Avengers team apart.

Those uninitiated with the MCU and the events of the preceding films will likely be completely lost within the first 10 minutes of Civil War and even if you are a more-than-casual fan like myself, you may still find yourself misplacing certain characters or trying to recall previous plot points during its lengthy runtime. What’s important here is that directors Anthony and Joe Russo tell their story with respect to the intelligence of their audience regardless of how familiar they are with each facet of the Marvel world. Of course rigorous superfans will likely get the most out of the experience but even first-time viewers should find plenty to enjoy among the well-choreographed fight sequences and the reliable acting talents of the impressive ensemble cast.

One of the most refreshing elements of this film is the emphasis of accountability that has been breached in several other superhero movies before but not to the degree to which it’s examined here. On the basis of entertainment, we continually watch these characters lay waste to one major city after another but Civil War tactfully explores the residual effects that these catastrophes have on the ordinary people who occupy those affected areas. When the mother of a son who died in the Sokovia incident confronts Tony Stark after he gives an impassioned speech, it reaches a level of poignancy and groundedness that is uncommon among other films of this genre.

Without delving much more into the elaborate storyline, I should mention just how happy I was with the ultimate villain of this film. Between Age of Ultron‘s Ultron to Ant-Man‘s Yellowjacket (not to mention whoever the villain of Guardians of the Galaxy was), Marvel has been seriously lacking in the compelling bad guy department but Civil War brings about the most satisfying antagonist since Loki in The Avengers. In the words of Roger Ebert, “each film is only as good as its villain” and I’m happy to report that both are first-rate.

Television comedy stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele make their film debut with an unbearably adorable co-star in the new action comedy Keanu, which isn’t without its intermittent charms but ultimately feels like a series of five-minute comedy sketches separated by noticeable gaps of filler. Key and Peele play cousins Clarence and Rell, the latter of whom finds solace post-breakup in a newly discovered kitten who he names Keanu (a possible allusion to the similarly-plotted Keanu Reeves movie John Wick). After Rell’s apartment is burglarized and Keanu is nowhere in sight, the two team up to infiltrate the feared 17th Street Blips gang when they learn that the group’s leader Cheddar (Method Man) may have kidnapped their tiny feline companion.

Right from the beginning, the film’s most obvious positive attribute is the flawless comedic chemistry on display between the two lead actors. After 5 consistently funny seasons of their acclaimed TV show, it’s comforting to find that none of the duo’s wit or timing has been lost in translation when making the leap to feature films. While the two aren’t aided much on the comedy side of things —Will Forte is horribly mis-cast as a clueless drug dealer and a second act cameo similarly falls flat— I was surprised how grounded and, dare I say, compelling the acting was from most of the gang member characters.

As is to be expected, most of the film’s laughs come from the fish-out-of-water premise that arises when these two laid-back guys hastily adapt their own “gangster” personas in order to earn the trust and respect of the 17th Street Blips. Key and Peele, along with director and TV series collaborator Peter Atencio, attack this central joke from just about every conceivable angle and approach subjects of race and class with the same level of intelligence displayed in the best sketches from their show. All of these elements are wrapped up perfectly in the movie’s most successful scene: an impromptu George Michael listening session initiated by Clarence, who gives a hilarious retelling of the rise and fall of the pop group Wham! to a car full of pensive young gang members.

Even though this film clearly isn’t aiming for a plausible or remotely realistic storyline, I do wish there was much more creativity with the storytelling and the style behind it. While the setup is simple, the steps that the story takes after it begin to get ludicrous in a hurry but not in a way that’s especially entertaining. Satirizing big action scenes isn’t necessarily a flawed concept (Hot Fuzz did this to tremendous effect) but when you do so without any sort of attitude or new perspective towards the source material that you’re spoofing, it just comes off as lazy and anonymous filmmaking. There’s no doubt that Key and Peele have a great comedy movie still in their future and my best hope for Keanu is that it does well enough at the box office to make that future possible.