Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Everything is much like you’d expect it to be on this ride. The characters. The plot. The peril. The content. Oh, yes, the content is exactly what we’d expect in a PG-13 actioner.
Ouija: Origin of Evil
As this fright flick’s occult mayhem gets predictably unleashed, it quickly falls back on all that evil-spirit-possession, scream-and-die blech that one might expect from this tired genre.
The Accountant
The Accountant is violent popcorn fare—an exuberant, illogical action-packed thriller that’s only message is, “Sit down and watch Ben Affleck shoot people for a while.”
Priceless
Priceless does an admirable job of helping us see and sense the danger of the carnal world of human trafficking while still steering visually clear of its true horrors.
The Girl on the Train
While the movie leads us through its mystery via a trailing of crumbs, its problematic content comes at us in gratuitous waves.
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a powerful, convicting tale. But it’s steeped in horrific displays of violence. And it wallows in human suffering and uses theology to, essentially, justify wholesale butchery.
Denial
Denial is anchored by strong acting and even stronger subject matter: The importance of protecting truth and history. And it does so while staying relatively clean.
Masterminds
By PG-13 standards, Masterminds doesn’t push the envelope to the edge in terms of sexual content, violence or profanity. But, man, the film’s underlying, conscience-free ethos is just sad.
Deepwater Horizon
From shrapnel-torn flesh to protruding bones, thundering eruptions to chunks of metal yanked from hideous wounds, this heroic story is not an easy film to experience.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Tim Burton’s infatuation with the macabre and the grim is very much present here.