The astonishing thing about Toy Story 3 [spoiler alert] is that the folks at Pixar actually convinced us, for a good 30 seconds, that Woody, Buzz, and the gang were actually going to be melted alive, turned to plasticky slush in a veritable pit of doom. The movie was made for the whole family, of course, and watching our beloved miniature friends meet such a gruesome demise is something that would never, ever happen under Disney/Pixar’s watch. And yet there we all were, clutching our armrests, tears welling up in our eyes, convinced that this was, in fact, the end.

This variety of audience manipulation has come to define the long-running Mission: Impossible franchise. Each new director and crew in charge of the series is faced with this (dare I say) impossible mission of convincing us that, this time, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt might actually die. Selling us on this idea gets more and more difficult with each film because Ethan has been dodging bullets, falling off motorcycles and hanging off of dangerously high things for almost twenty years now, and he shows no sign of slowing. It’s a tough, tough sell.

So the question is, with Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, are Cruise and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie good salesman? Does M:I‘s fifth installment keep you on the edge of your seat, worrying that Hunt and his team may never see the light of day again? Impossibly (there I go again), it does. It doesn’t have the same heart or infectious humor of Brad Bird’s Ghost Protocol, but it follows the same winning formula, making it one of the best thrill-rides of the summer.

Hunt and his fellow members in the Impossible Mission Force (a clunky moniker, though its abbreviation, IMF, rolls off of the tongue nicely), a government-funded espionage agency, face an evil they’ve never known in The Syndicate, an international terrorist group whose primary objective is to obliterate the IMF. Taking The Syndicate down head-on proves to be a stiff challenge for Hunt and company when a meddling CIA director (Alec Baldwin) convinces the government to dissolve IMF, forcing Hunt into hiding as he plots his next move.

Left wasting their days away behind desks at the CIA are the straight-laced William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and the klutzy, tech-savvy Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg, whose comedic timing makes him an invaluable member of the ensemble), but before long Ethan reaches out to them to help him smoke out The Syndicate. Series veteran Ving Rhames rejoins the team on their mission while series newcomer Rebecca Ferguson dips and twirls around the movie as a deadly double-agent.

Where the movie gives you your money’s worth is in its elaborately staged stunt sequences, all of which are heart-stopping. The movie opens with a shot of Cruise dangling off of the side of an airplane as it lifts off; it was all done for real, with practical effects, and with it Cruise further solidifies his status as the craziest, Evel Knievel MF’er in Hollywood, hands down. To say it’s spectacular is an understatement. But not to be outdone are the handful of other, equally impressive action scenes, which all feel equally distinct and indispensable. A showstopping set piece sees Hunt holding his breath for upwards of two minutes as he infiltrates a futuristic underwater storage unit, while a more intimate moment later in the movie sees Ferguson’s character facing off with a giant thug in a tense nocturnal knife fight. The best of the bunch is a wonderfully orchestrated assassination sequence set in an opera house, paying homage to Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much.

These mini-opuses of spy-thriller fun are so well crafted and suspenseful that we do, as I said, genuinely fear for the characters’ lives. But that fear only comes from the baseline fact that we fear for them as human beings; as characters, none of them are so endearing or lovable that we harbor a deep emotional connection. That’s Rogue Nations‘s biggest shortcoming: while the characters say witty things and obviously care for one another, we don’t get to learn much about them on a personal, hopes-and-fears level, outside their world of globe-trotting, car-chasing and evil plan-thwarting.

McQuarrie continues the theme of teamwork-over-tech launched by Bird in Ghost Protocol, though Bird frankly did it better. Again, when the imaginative gadgets and do-dads fail our heroes, they must rely on each other to save their skins. It’s this human element that made Bird’s movie so great, and while it’s still very much at the core of Rogue Nation, the message feels dampened. This is mostly due to the movie’s almost fetishistic fascination with strange-looking spy things; from a sniper rifle disguised as a brass instrument to USB drives disguised as lipstick (that one’s not even that clever), McQuarrie just can’t help but show them off. Best to leave the gadget porn to 007.

Rogue Nation isn’t the best M:I yet, but it’s easily third on the list, if not second (it’s about as good as J.J. Abrams’ M:I3). Cruise is still a nutjob, we still love watching things blow up in glorious global locales, and the cast has never been better, so why not keep the series going? As far as Hollywood cash-cow franchises go, Mission: Impossible is one I’m always happy to see pop back up at the theater. Now, the real question: What the hell are we going to dangle Tom off of next? My vote? Millennium Falcon. Crossover of the ages, right guys?! Guys?

Three years ago, Joss Whedon was given an awesome set of toys to play with: a bounding, hulking man-beast; a crimson-haired femme fatale; a hammer-wielding Norse god; a deadly archer super-spy; a ballistic man made of iron; a patriotic super soldier; Samuel L. Jackson with an eyepatch. He had a big sandbox to play in, too; 2012’s The Avengers ran a whopping 2 hours and 20 minutes, giving him plenty of room to smash his new toys together, give them quippy things to say and conjure up some villains (alien invaders and a smirking, meddling trickster) for them to save the world from. It was big, it was loud, it was a hell of a lot of fun, and all us kids standing around the sandbox showered him with applause once the dust settled and the show was over. Then, he called it a day, putting his action figures away until his next grand production of geek theater.

That brings us to The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Whedon‘s hotly anticipated encore performance. The super-sequel has got everything you’d expect: insane action scenes, clever one-liners, high-stakes drama and geeky easter eggs galore. It’s exciting to have Whedon return to the MCU playground, but there’s a problem: he’s got about twice as many toys as he did last time. Suddenly, the sandbox seems a bit crowded. With four major storylines going on simultaneously and a staggering number of superheroes and villains to keep track of, Marvel Studios’ latest summer blockbuster feels stretched too thin.

On the other hand, it never feels jumbled or messy; Whedon is a seasoned storyteller, and he somehow manages to make this tightly packed mega movie feel pretty well-organized, streamlined and easy to follow. He never loses command of his band of heroes, but what he’s lacking is prioritization. Each of the nine (!) primary characters is given a rich backstory and emotional arc to explore, which sounds cool until you realize that, due to time constraints, they have a mere handful of scenes to get the job done. As a result, the storylines feel abbreviated across the board.

It’s unfortunate, because there’s some really interesting stuff going on here that could have used more time. Robert Downey Jr.‘s Tony Stark sets up the main conflict early on, strutting unknowingly into a world of tech trouble when he and The Hulk himself, Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), inadvertently birth Ultron (the villain of the film’s subtitle, voiced by James Spader), a sentient A.I. designed to protect the world, but who instead decides to purge it of the “poison” that is humankind. What hath Stark wrought? A.I. panic is fascinating, relevant subject matter that Whedon unfortunately has precious little time to explore (look to Alex Garland’s recent Ex Machina for deeper insight).

Where Whedon excels is at building his characters in quick strokes with tasty details that stick to the back of your brain like bits of candy. It’s amusing, for example, when you realize that Ultron has somehow inherited Stark’s glib, quick-fire sense of humor: When a group of scientists run away from him screaming after he brutally murders several of their colleagues, he sarcastically pleads, “Wait! Guys?!” as if he’d made an innocuous party foul. The tyrannical robot is clearly his father’s son, and yet throws a fit at the slightest notion that he’s anything like his genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist daddy. Whedon’s always been great at giving his villains a human dimension (Buffy fans holler), and Ultron is no exception.

Iron Man’s robo-baby issues aside, the relationships between he and the rest of the Avengers are deepened and expanded. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Dr. Banner explore further the flirtation teased in the first film, providing an unexpected taste of romance. Captain America (Chris Evans) takes issue with Stark’s reckless exploitation of technology (setting the foundation for the impending Civil War), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) does some extraneous soul-searching that’s mostly there to set up his next solo movie. Franchise newcomers Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson join the fray as Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, a pair of “enhanced” twins who carry a deep-seated vendetta against Tony Stark.

Surprisingly, the film’s most poignant presence is that of Jeremy Renner‘s Hawkeye, who’s been significantly upgraded from his second-tier role in the first movie. We get to see a bit of his refreshingly ordinary home life; his wife is played by Linda Cardellini, who gives a terrific, grounded performance that comes completely out of left field. Through Hawkeye, who’s essentially a man amongst gods, Whedon defines both the story’s stakes and what being an Avenger truly means.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the thing most ticket-buyers will be paying to see: the action. The sweet, sweet, fist-pumping, “I can’t believe I’m seeing this” action. The movie opens with a snowy raid on a Hydra fortress in the fictitious Eastern European country of Sokovia. There’s a slo-mo shot (featured prominently in the trailers) of all six heroes charging through hoards of Hydra henchman phalanx-style, each Avenger locked in the most badass action pose you’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculously cool. On the other end of the film, we see Iron Man, Thor, and their new buddy, a monk-like floating android called Vision (Paul Bettany), attacking Ultron with laser beams and lightning bolts in unison. Again, ridiculously cool!

Moments like these are so slathered in comic-book awesomesauce my inner geek spontaneously combusted with excitement. Yes, the action can be a bit hollow and flashy, like watching the Harlem Globetrotters light up the court. But you know what? I love the freaking Harlem Globetrotters! (Especially when they were on Gilligan’s Island!) If I’m being honest, I could watch Iron Man pile-drive The Hulk through a skyscraper over and over without a word of complaint.

Avengers: Age of Ultron has no obligation to be the be-all-end-all epic most people want it to be. In reality, it’s nothing more than the action-packed culmination of three years-worth of superhero solo movies, and that’s fine by me. I did have problems with how evenly the narrative focus was spread across the main characters (I’d have much preferred Thor’s lame side story be cut in favor of more “Hawkeye at home” time), and I do feel like the existential quandary embodied by Ultron could have been fleshed out more.

But then I think about a fantastic party scene early in the movie in which the gang make a fun wager to see who can lift Thor’s precious Asgardian hammer, Mjolnir. Cap gives it a wiggle; a look of panic flashes across Thor’s face. The friends exchange Whedon-esque banter, sip some bubbly, talk a little trash and share some laughs as they use their incredible powers for cheap entertainment. It’s lighthearted, juvenile fun. Can’t be mad at that.

For American Hustle, David O. Russell assembles a cast largely comprised from his previous two crowd pleasing films, Christian Bale and Amy Adams from 2010’s The Fighter, and Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence from 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook. His cast selection proves to be a winning formula as the most pleasing aspect of the film is the superb acting. Because the film features con artists at work it is easy to anticipate the lies on top of lies procedure, therefore, the love triangle that forms between the three leads becomes the real emphasis of the story. Regardless of being able to predict what will happen before it does, American Hustle is still a ride despite its many shortcomings.

The film begins circa 1978 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City as an overweight man named Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) is seen gluing hair on his head in an attempt disguise himself as the con-artist he truly is. Irving recalls being surrounded by shady schemes all of his life—first one involved breaking store windows as a youngster because his dad owned a glass business. Since then he has dabbled into a wide range of schemes from stealing art pieces to running a dry-cleaning store that does more than just launder clothes. His partner in crime as well as love is the dashing Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), who exudes just as much confidence and wit as Irving, only without the comically bad hairdo.

Just as the duo begins to hit their stride in scams the undercover FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) busts them red-handed. In exchange for prison time Richie offers them a deal if they can setup a sting to catch four high profile targets. Their biggest target is the beloved yet corrupt mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), who sometimes does shady things for good reasons. Everything goes to plan until Irving’s wife Rosalyn Rosenfeld (Jennifer Lawrence) threatens to ruin the plot by running her loud mouth.

American Hustle’s breezy pacing makes the runtime feel half as long, but also makes the out of focus structure even more noticeable. The hard part is telling whether or not it was Russell’s intention to make such an inconsistent film. For seemingly no reason the camera will zoom in on a body part or apply a tracking shot when movement is not necessary. Often the music works brilliantly as a companion to what is happening on the screen, but then there is the out of place “Live and Let Die” sing-along that falls completely flat. The film asks whether it is the original painter or the counterfeiter who is the true master, and it is that fine line that the film itself walks on.

Although most people are likely to remember Lawrence’s flashy and loud performance, it is Adams more understated role that is most impressive. Adams convinces the audience to continuously change their minds on what side she is really on—sometimes faithful to Bale’s character and other times overly flirtatious with Cooper. The one thing all characters share in common is neither one of them have many redeeming qualities.

The individual parts that make up American Hustle work well on their own right, but do not fit seamlessly when assembled together. There are times where the comedy works, the characters are engaging, the cinematography is purposeful, and the soundtrack fits; though it is rare that any of them occur at the same time. The final reveal is remarkably simple considering the layering of lies involved within the film. But despite the overall messiness of the arrangement, American Hustle remains watchable thanks to the wonderful acting performances.

American Hustle trailer