Animals is indeed a curious beast, a familiar thriller that poorly cribs from the classic Kurosawa film “High and Low” and feels stuck in its larval stage.

A mixed bag. It’s far from Affleck’s best work, but there are glimmers of his muscularity and sharpness, as both filmmaker and actor.

For every piece of drone footage sweeping across LA, every shot that carves out about two feet of space between actors with no sizzle, I kept wishing for more Gillian Anderson, more Gillian Anderson, please.

...an engaging (albeit somewhat erratically-paced) thriller that generally lives up to the electrifying bent of its premise...