James Gunn did a little movie about dysfunctional superheroes called Super and landed a big budget feature about same called Guardians of the Galaxy. Josh Trank did a little movie about angsty adolescent superheroes called Chronicle and landed a big budget feature about same called The Fantastic Four. Now Gavin O’Connor, who did a little movie about brawling brothers and a bad dad called Warrior, gets his shot. And for a film that centers on a high-functioning autistic (Ben Affleck, deadpanning for chuckles) who has difficulty expressing (and also experiencing?) emotions, it’s remarkably gooey: a manipulative mess that devolves into a mawkish morass of a PSA by the end. Anyway, it’s a good thing dad subjected his autistic young son to the very things that caused him agony; otherwise, we might not have found ourselves rooting for a quasi-sociopath who solves economic problems for the world’s worst people, and also has the military skills to keep from getting shot when his business relationships sour. (Adorable/adoring numbers nerd/frustrated artist Anna Kendrick surely helps in this department, reminding both Ben and us that everyone wants to connect.) It’s like Iron Man, if Tony Stark had never stopped selling arms to the bad guys. The worst of it is how little O’Connor seems to care, as evidenced by the spectacularly lazy expository subplot involving treasury agent JK Simmons and an analyst who really knows how to handle a mouse. (2016) — Matthew Lickona