Much of the picture’s appeal rests with the character essayed by McCarthy. Like Rodney Dangerfield’s Thornton Melon in the 80s comedy classic Back to School, McCarthy’s Deanna is immensely likable, meaning viewers have her back as she rebounds from a deserting spouse by heading back to college

It’s the darkest, the grimmest, and the most downbeat of all Marvel movies, with countless websites anticipating its solemnity by laying odds on which characters would meet their maker.

Anderson’s first film since his grandly entertaining gem The Grand Budapest Hotel is a dazzling and heady achievement, employing quirky animation to relate its tale of a futuristic Japan.

The film references come at the audience at warp speed (mostly ‘80s, but also some ‘70s and ‘90s), and if the cultural co-opting was frequently a lazy trigger on the printed page, a way to get easily impressed folks to mistake nostalgia for gravitas (“Wow, Cline mentions both Back to the Future and Knight Rider! This is the bestest book ever!”), there admittedly is some of that taking place on screen as well.

For a character who began life as a video game avatar, she’s quite human – and certainly more so than the protagonists in past video-game adaptations.

A look at various highlights, low points, and that stuff that falls in between.

Downsizing continues in an almost lackadaisical fashion, but then something remarkable and transformative happens: Hong Chau shows up.

Coco opens by following the traditional toon template of a person following their dreams against all odds, but once Miguel reaches the Land of the Dead, the movie deepens in satisfying and even unexpected ways.

Last Flag Flying is proudly pro-soldier and anti-war, and real American patriots will grasp it at once.