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.

The Secret Life of Pets, the new comedy from Illumination Entertainment, is about as fluffy and light and inconsequential as animated filmmaking gets. The stakes are uniformly low, the conflict is kept to a minimum and with the runtime coming in right at the 90 minute mark, the pace is fittingly breezy too. For some, this movie may seem too shallow and well, childish, but in a year where Disney has chosen to explore more mature themes in features like Zootopia and Finding Dory, a bit of old-fashioned, mindless fun turns out to be a nice change of pace.

The story centers around a loyal terrier named Max (Louis C.K.), whose pampered life is turned upside down when his owner adopts a boisterous and gigantic Newfoundland named Duke (Eric Stonestreet). After a day at the dog park goes wrong, the two are picked up by Animal Control but are aided in their escape by a deceptively cute rabbit named Snowball (Kevin Hart) and his team of rogue, abandoned pets. Meanwhile, a band of pets from Max’s building pool their efforts to scour the streets of New York City in an attempt to find the two lost dogs and bring them home safely.

Much like Illumination’s previous film Minions, Pets opens with a clever and engrossing montage that was covered a bit too thoroughly in the advertising previous to its release and feels a bit spoiled as a result. Still, it serves as a reliable framework and fitting introduction to the myriad of pet characters that exist in the giant apartment complex. Each pet really only has enough screen time to embody one or two personality traits (a Pomeranian named Gidget, for example, is a hopeless romantic who harbors feelings for Max) but much like the movie’s story and tone, the characterizations are appropriately nonchalant.

Though the characters aren’t as fleshed out as they could be, a stellar voice cast that also includes Dana Carvey and Albert Brooks bring a tremendous amount of heart and energy to their collective performances. Speaking of heart, this is already Kevin Hart’s third movie released this year (Chris Rock even had a joke in the Oscars back in February about how many movies he does) but he proves again why he’s such a sought-after comedic talent. He brings the same manic charisma to his voiceover work here as he does for his live-action roles and the film is all the better for it.

This also marks a significant bump up in animation quality for Illumination as well, whose previous work was certainly serviceable in that area but not usually considered a focal point of their brand. Here, the setting of New York City in autumn leads to an animation design that’s crisp and vibrant, filled with all sorts of rich detail that’s always pleasing to the eye. Much like the simple comfort of cuddling with a loving dog after a long day at work, The Secret Life of Pets is a welcome distraction from the increasingly troubled world in which we live.

By now, the outrageous sexting scandal that turned former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner from promising mayoral contender to political pariah has been covered so ad nauseam from the mainstream media, it’s hard to believe that there’s much more left to discover. His name has served as a punching bag for comedians and pundits everywhere but it seemed only inevitable that the details of the story would get buried under torrents of pun-laden headlines. The fascinating fly-on-the-wall documentary Weiner by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg provides unprecedented access into just how tumultuous the ordeal was not only for Weiner’s personal and political life but for those closest to him as well.

After a lascivious Twitter photo forced Weiner to resign from Congress in 2011, his camp’s reaction was to lay low with the hopes of making a strong showing in the upcoming 2013 election for New York Mayor. The film charts his improbable rise to the top of the polls, bolstered by New York citizens eager to give the disgraced statesman a second chance despite underlying issues of trust and credibility. Just when it seems that a true comeback story is underway, the second wave of unsavory personal texts and photos emerge and send his campaign into a death spiral from which it would never recover.

Much like the coverage of the scandal that came to define its subject, this film has the sort of compulsively watchable, train-wreck quality to it that will no doubt have audiences wincing, gawking and nervously chuckling all at once. But because the scope is so focused on Weiner and his hopelessly outmatched campaign staff, it rarely comes across as sensationalized as the media scrutiny that is itself reflected in the story as well. All of the small moments of triumph and tragedy still feel personalized enough to retain the human scale of this unmitigated political disaster.

Much of this is encapsulated by the tense and often terse interactions between Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin, herself a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton with plenty at stake in her political career. The layers of pain and humiliation that she attempts to conceal not only from the news cameras but also from those filming her for the documentary is nothing short of heartbreaking. It’s fair to speculate why Abedin, having been put through such public indignation, would not only stay with Weiner but also take such an active role in trying to get him elected.

Late in the film, one of the documentarians literally asks its subject “why are you letting me film this?” It’s clear that Weiner doesn’t have a compelling answer. Is it because he’s a rampant narcissist, desperate for any means of attention, no matter how humiliating? Is it yet another political play, with the hopes that a “warts and all” approach will persuade future voters? Weiner doesn’t have overt answers to any of those questions, which may frustrate viewers who expect a condemnation or exoneration of its subject but should delight anyone seeking a compelling character study of a potentially unknowable public figure.

Provocative Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos makes his English language feature debut with The Lobster, a profoundly bizarre and strikingly original satire that’s equal parts pitch-black dark comedy and touching romantic drama. It’s a work steeped firmly in the absurdist and surrealist traditions that grows into something more gentle and empathetic (even whimsical at times) as the story progresses. If Luis Buñuel and Wes Anderson had the chance to collaborate with one another on a film, I’d like to think there’s a good chance it would have turned out something like this.

In a dystopian future where singledom is effectively outlawed, individuals who have not found a lifelong partner are required to stay at a “hotel” where they have 45 days to find a match or else they are transformed into an animal of their choosing. After his wife of 12 years leaves him, David (Colin Farrell, at his schlubbiest) reluctantly checks in with his brother, who unsuccessfully navigated the constraints of the system and was subsequently turned into a dog. During their stay, David meets two other guests (John C. Reilly and Ben Whishaw) who seem just as hopelessly outmatched in their conquest for partnership.

When a trial romantic relationship takes an unexpected turn for the worst, David flees to a wooded area where a group of “loners” reside and meets a woman (Rachel Weisz) who seems to be the perfect fit for him. Despite the rebellious nature of these outcasts, it turns out that their code of anti-romanticism is strictly enforced by the group’s leader (Léa Seydoux) and any public signs of affections are expressly forbidden and ruthlessly punished. Thrust in between two systems of conflicting ideologies, David must reconcile his burgeoning new romance among an increasingly hostile environment.

The film’s brilliant premise, a devilishly clever take-down of western culture’s idolization of monogamy, is beautifully rendered throughout but has the most impact in the often hilarious first half of the story. It takes the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) societal pressures of getting married and takes them to comically outlandish measures, creating an oppressive system where single people are ostracized and literally hunted for sport just because they haven’t settled down yet. The indoctrination scenes in the hotel, where the staff puts on skits that further solidify the notion that being alone presents a danger to society and to one’s health, have a rich deadpan humor to them that most comedies are too lazy to even attempt.

These satirical elements have just the right amount of bite and fearless energy but the tender romance that blooms between Farrell and Weisz’s characters in the film’s second half has just as much power to it. While they can’t express themselves openly among the “loners” for fear of persecution, they have brief moments of respite when they travel into the city and are allowed to explore the longing that they have for one another, even if that just means holding hands while walking down the street. It’s these times that The Lobster finds just the right amount of heart to balance the cynical nature of its conceit and proves itself to be one of the most weirdly inspiring love stories since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.