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‘Atomic Blonde’ packs a punch

With incredible action and an 80s synth-pop soundtrack, David Leitch adds some style to the Cold War spy genre

Fast chase scenes, gritty fight sequences, loud shoot-outs, a labyrinth of plot twists filled with double crosses, triple crosses, and shady secrets and cover-ups — Atomic Blonde may not completely reinvent much about the spy thriller, but it certainly has all the right ingredients and has a hell of a lot of fun with them. Casually referred to as “Jane Wick” in reference to stuntman and stunt coordinator David Leitch’s first outing in the director’s chair, Atomic Blonde lives up to its nickname. It has all the stylized shoot ’em up choreography of John Wick, but set in a world of spies just before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 with the action paced to late-80s new wave bands like Depeche Mode and The Cure, it’s a far different movie.

Charlize Theron stars as MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton, recounting the events of her most recent mission during a debriefing with her superior and a CIA agent, played by Toby Jones and John Goodman, respectively. She had been sent to Berlin to assassinate the double agent responsible for killing a fellow agent and stealing a list of all active agents in the Soviet Union. She’s teamed with Agent David Percival (James McAvoy), MI6’s reckless Berlin station chief, and makes several contacts along the way, including a watchmaker (Til Schweiger), an undercover French agent (Sofia Boutella), and a Stasi defector (Eddie Marsan). Everyone’s motives are suspect, and it’s never quite clear who can be fully trusted as Lorraine tries to stay a step ahead of the KGB and recover the list.

Although the debriefing offers a narrative framework, the story gets confusing at times, and jumping back to scenes of Jones’ and Goodman’s characters interrogating Lorraine further muddies the story. But in a spy movie filled with ulterior motives, double crosses, and plot twists, “easy to follow” isn’t generally the mission statement. The focus of Atomic Blonde is more so on revamping the Cold War spy movie, which Leitch does by capturing the paranoia of the era with a neo-noir style of storytelling against the gloomy backdrop of Berlin, and subverting it with a synth-pop soundtrack of 80s music and contemporary covers. There are moments that resonate as a scene plucked from a John le Carre adaptation, but the energy quickly shifts as a George Michael or David Bowie tune is cued up and a down and dirty brawl ensues.

It’s not strictly the music selection that breathes life and energy into the action — Leitch’s depth of experience as a stuntman and coordinator bring a lot of credibility to the fight sequences. The action never feels overly-stylized; the choreography and the stunts have a gritty realism to them. One particularly awesome scene stands out, in which Theron’s character is fighting her way through a building. Not only does Leitch choose to use no music in the scene, making every punch thrown and bullet shot all the more brutal, he executes the scene as one continuous, uninterrupted take, making her exhaustion by the end of the scene completely visceral.

Although Atomic Blonde isn’t a complete reinvention of Cold War spy films, Leitch certainly plays with the formula to package an excellent action movie with a killer soundtrack. Similar to other recent movies that also boasted eclectic and retro soundtracks, such as Baby Driver and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, his use of music feels like an organic part of the overall movie that gives the action sequences a unique sense of style by subverting the violence with synth-pop and new wave music. With numerous film credits for his stunt work, and a growing resume of directing credits that include gritty and stylish action films like John Wick and Atomic Blonde, with Deadpool 2next on the horizon, David Leitch is quickly proving be an impressive talent behind the camera, and is absolutely upping the game for action movies.

Engaging and tense, ‘Dunkirk’ captures a gripping story of survival

Christopher Nolan brings his unique aesthetic to a war film, creating an intimate and visually immersive experience

Dunkirk doesn’t spend a lot of time on expository dialogue or on the historical context around 400,000 soldiers trapped on a beach in northern France. Instead, Christopher Nolan’s latest epic drops hard and fast into the action and tension of war. It’s a fully immersive and visceral experience, driven by hauntingly quiet moments disrupted by the faint and ominous sound of a distant plane approaching or a sudden and devastating torpedo strike. It can be startlingly loud, making the quiet moments all the more eerie, with dizzyingly vast aerial views and seascapes, and a somewhat disorienting narrative. With Dunkirk, Nolan isn’t telling a story about survival so much as he’s showing it — the desperation of soldiers trying to get off the beach, the urgency with which civilians answer the call to help, the steady concentration of a pilot surveying the horizon while calculating how much fuel he has left.

It’s no surprise to see Nolan bring his own complicated aesthetic to tell this war story. Although he strips this story down to its baser elements — there’s no cutting away to war room plans, or so much as an info dump on the events leading up to this — Nolan makes an interesting narrative choice by letting this story unfold across three different timelines. The first takes place across one week and focuses on Fionn Whitehead as Tommy and several soldiers attempting to get off the beach; the second takes place across one day and focuses on Mark Rylance as Mr. Dawson, a civilian responding to the call for civilian vessels to come and rescue the soldiers; and the third takes place across one hour and focuses on Tom Hardy as Royal Air Force pilot Farrier, providing air support for the troops on the ground. While these stories cover different timeframes and are paced differently, the film never feels disjointed or confusing. As is evident in films like Memento, Following, Inception, and even Interstellar, Nolan is exceptionally great at playing with timelines and chronology; he knows how to anchor scenes and establish timeframes without losing his audience.

Nolan’s narrative approach works incredibly well here. Despite a modest 106-minute runtime, Dunkirk still feels like a sprawling epic. Whereas many war movies sometimes have a pacing problem, unable to strike a balance between character moments and big action set pieces, Dunkirk uses its time effectively. Rather than break away from the action for long stretches of dialogue, Nolan builds tension in the quieter moments, making those scenes more uncomfortable than when the soldiers are actually taking fire. In doing so, he captures the chilling sense of uncertainty and fear.

By focusing the film in this way and not filling time with backstories and context as to who these people are and what’s waiting for them back home, the characters are developed and defined purely through what they do on screen. This is as much a credit to the cast as it is to Nolan — as usual, Tom Hardy does a hell of a lot with very little (I have yet to leave a movie without thinking “Tom Hardy is such a badass,” and I’ve seen This Means War). He’s in a cockpit the entire movie, his face is partially masked for most of the movie, but just as his character maintains a steady focus on using his limited fuel as effectively as he can, Hardy uses every moment of screen time to reflect the level of careful concentration that requires. Similarly, despite limited dialogue, Fionn Whitehead carries the majority of the movie, particularly some of the tenser, more nerve-racking scenes. He’s often called on to play panicked, pensive, relieved, and desperate, but he never overdoes it. His struggle to survive is never over-dramatized because it doesn’t have to be; Nolan has established an overwhelmingly haunting environment marked by an ominous and unseen enemy, and Whitehead perfectly conveys the hopelessness of his circumstances.

Nolan truly has proven himself to be one of the modern masters of filmmaking, consistently pushing the boundaries of both narrative and visual storytelling while still keeping his films grounded. There’s always an internal logic to his films, even when he’s doing sci-fi/fantasy, there’s an implicit set of rules that make them feel believable and real (this is the guy who ensured there was a functional logic to every part of Batman’s suit). After honing his narrative and visual skills for the last decade on sci-fi and fantasy, with Dunkirk, Nolan puts those same skills to use as he turns his focus to a historical subject matter.

His narrative approach to the story isn’t gimmicky, but rather makes the tension and anticipation of watching how or if the stories converge all the more compelling. More importantly, Nolan’s skill as a filmmaker is further evident in that he doesn’t lean on history or dialogue as a crutch to provide context — he makes Dunkirk an absorbing experience by telling a very visual story. Using dizzying visuals to capture vast scope and scale, he makes the soldiers seem all the more stranded and further from home. But he also takes close care to show more intimate moments, letting the camera linger just a bit longer to catch a character’s reaction, and whether it’s a moment of hope being lost or hope being found, he really lets the emotional weight of it sink in.

Christopher Nolan’s films have always challenged the norms of style in a variety of genres, and with Dunkirk he’s now challenged the norm of how war stories are told in film. He chooses to focus his narrative and visual skills on capturing the energy and emotion of being present in a specific moment in time rather than bog it down with too much historical context and too many extraneous details. In Nolan’s tradition of pushing boundaries and challenging norms, Dunkirk continues to do so, while hopefully serving as a mission statement that Nolan, too, will continue to do so.

The complexity of Caesar

‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ is the darkest part of Caesar’s rise

With Rise of the Planet of the Apes we saw the spread of a man-made virus that infected and killed humans while enhancing apes. With Dawn of the Planet of the Apes we saw the fallout of the virus, a human race struggling to survive, and a tense but civil relationship between humans and ape. Finally, with War for the Planet of the Apes, we see what’s easily the darkest chapter in the franchise. Humans are still struggling to survive, fighting to keep their place in the world above the army of apes, while Caesar is forced into a war he had no interest in fighting. Serving as an origin story for The Planet of the Apesfranchise, these films have been a surprisingly strong and compelling series, and most of that is due to the complexity of Caesar and the character-driven approach taken first by Rupert Wyatt with Rise, and followed by Matt Reeves with Dawn and now War, in telling his story.

Although these movies are essentially telling a story about the fall of man and the rise of apes as a superior species, the very personal journey of Caesar from lonely chimp confused about his place in the world to reluctant leader of the apes has always been the heart of the series. Andy Serkis plays Caesar with an astounding level of complexity and emotion, and even with such limited dialogue, manages to convey pain and confusion by the cruelty of humans and the weight of responsibility in protecting those he cares about. There’s a sadness about him as he’s never sought out violence or power, yet has often found himself thrust into taking necessary actions.

In Rise, Caesar’s compelled to free the other apes and expose them to a similar virus that led to his own superior intelligence after seeing the cruelty with which they’re kept and experimented on. In Dawn, he is willing to make peaceable arrangements with humans, but is forced to fight one of his own, Koba, when Koba leads a violent coup against the humans, upsetting the fragile truce that Caesar helped build.

When we first meet Caesar in War for the Planet of the Apes, he’s defending his secluded home in the woods from a platoon of humans. Although he’s more hardened by battle than we’ve seen him before, he’s still just doing what he must to protect his family. But after several more attacks he’s driven to take a harder stance, and forced to seek vengeance against the cruel leader of the diminishing military forces, The Colonel, played with a maniacal and calculating composure by Woody Harrelson. As he does so, Caesar struggles with his own feelings of cruelty and hate.

War is not a summer popcorn flick so much as it’s a behind enemy lines war drama (with Christopher Nolan’s “shot on IMAX 70mm” war epic Dunkirknow out, sure, these things can sometimes be one in the same). At times this movie feels heavy, and I’m not sure I really needed it to turn into a sci-fi variation on Unbroken or Empire of the Sun, which is sometimes where it goes, but it nonetheless proves to be a compelling look at these two factions, driven by fear and desperately fighting for survival. As cold as The Colonel is, he’s desperate and afraid. Similarly, the more threatened Caesar feels, the further he’s willing to go to protect the apes.

Whereas both Rise and Dawn also emphasized Caesar’s emotional arc as a central element, I’m not sure it’s ever been more clearly at the forefront of these films than it is in War for the Planet of the Apes. The previous films led off with his human co-stars — James Franco in Rise, Jason Clarke and Keri Russell in Dawn — but this is very much Caesar’s movie from start to finish, with a very specific focus on him as a conflicted and reluctant leader. It’s certainly the darkest part of his rise, but I suppose this is always where the series eventually had to go.

Finally, a Spider-Man who can juggle power, responsibility, and oh yeah — fun

‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ brings a fresh perspective to both the character and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Things happen for a reason. Sony and Marvel Studios (finally) striking a leasing agreement to include Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe apparently couldn’t have happened at a more perfect time, because the result is director Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: Homecoming, a movie that stays close to the ground and seizes the opportunity to introduce a new perspective to the MCU. There’s no alien invasion, no mystical otherworldly threats, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is not falling — but Homecoming just makes sense within the MCU because it’s born out of these major events and the impact they’ve had beyond the Avengers. Sure, Homecoming was faced with the stigma of now being the second Spider-Man reboot in 15 years, but it overcomes this obstacle with surprising ease, stripping away the need for a detailed onscreen origin story and focusing on where Spider-Man and his story fit in to the established MCU.

: (Sony Pictures/Marvel Studios)

Tom Holland plays the same Peter Parker we’ve seen before — awkward, funny, brilliant, seemingly unreliable, and often down on his luck — but rather than portray him as guilt-ridden over the death of his Uncle Ben, Holland plays a far more aspirational and upbeat version of the character than what we’ve seen from Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield. Holland’s Spider-Man gets to just be a kid, hungry for approval and prone to screwing up. Although the burden of Uncle Ben’s death is not hovering explicitly over the character, and the words “With great power, comes great responsibility” are never spoken, they always feel present. Peter’s reckless for all the right reasons because he recognizes he has the power to do some good and just wants to help.

Homecoming has fun with Spider-Man and how he fits into this post-Avengers world. There’s not much for a kid from Queens who can climb up walls to do with guys like Iron Man and Captain America around. As such, most of his time is spent swinging around the city looking for ways to help — returning stolen bikes, giving people directions — until he eventually stumbles upon some thugs using alien weapons (from The Avengers) to rob a bank. As he starts investigating who is putting this kind of technology out on the streets, he tracks it back to the film’s primary antagonist — The Vulture, aka Adrian Toomes, played devilishly well by Michael Keaton.

: (Marvel Comics)

In the comics, The Vulture is a notoriously lame villain; here though, he’s reinvented not just to add layers to an otherwise two-dimensional character, but to develop what is actually a very logical villain to emerge out of this world that’s seen alien invasions, rogue artificial intelligence, and various science experiments gone awry. Keaton’s take on Toomes is a blue collar salvage worker forced out of his city contract to clean up New York in the wake of the first Avengers film. Similar to Captain America: Civil War’s antagonist Helmut Zemo (Daniel Bruhl), Toomes is very much a product of the events that have occurred in the MCU up to this point, somewhat indirectly affected by the actions of the Avengers. Screwed out of a lucrative job, Toomes and his crew (which includes two versions of the Shocker played by Bokeem Woodbine and Logan Marshall-Green, respectively, and Michael Chernus as the Tinkerer) turn to salvaging weapons and equipment from major Avengers-related events to become high tech arms dealers.

Keaton is excellent in the villain role and manages to convey a level of depth and character motivation in just a few scenes. He does so much with limited screen time to provide a voice for the everyman adapting to a new world order, that you kind of can’t help but see his point. Just as Peter Parker brings a new, more grounded perspective to the MCU, as Toomes, Keaton also brought to life a character living in a somewhat unexplored part of the MCU, flying (obvious pun) well under the radar of many of the near catastrophic events we’ve seen so far. As such, the scope of Homecoming never got too big and always stayed focused on Spider-Man’s small corner of the MCU.

Robert Downey Jr. is amazing as always as Tony Stark, stepping into the mentor role for Peter, but fortunately he never steals the show and never makes the scope of the film feel too big. He’s not here to take the spotlight, but rather serves as a fairly organic part of the story while also bridging Spider-Man into the greater MCU, similar to Nick Fury’s role in Iron Man 2.

With Spider-Man: Homecoming, Jon Watts has delivered a film that gets to be fun and fresh while exploring a part of the MCU a bit closer to the ground than we’ve seen before (sure, the Netflix series provide a street-level perspective, but outside of a few passing references, they still more or less exist in their own space). Homecoming is very much a product spinning out of the events of the MCU, but still stands on its own. The scope of the film is small enough for it to exist in its own corner of the MCU, where Spider-Man can, as he puts it, “look out for the little guy.”

That said, there’s plenty of room for this franchise to grow. Already, Donald Glover and Michael Mando played brief roles in this film as a couple of notable characters from the Spider-Man mythos that are ripe for follow-up, and we’ll next see Spider-Man in Avengers: Infinity War and the untitled fourth Avengers film which will no doubt impact 2019’s Homecoming sequel and where that picks up. With Spider-Man’s cinematic future at least partially back in the hands of Marvel, the future looks bright. But more than that, if Spider-Man: Homecoming is any indication, the future of the character looks fun.

‘Baby Driver’ is stylishly good fun

With a cool cast, wild car chases, and an eclectic soundtrack, Edgar Wright’s latest is a bit slicker than the average heist movie

: (Sony Pictures)

Since its premiere at SXSW in the spring, there’s been a lot of hype around Edgar Wright’s latest film, Baby Driver. The trailer alone is fun to watch, so the buzz is no surprise. Well, Baby Driver absolutely does not disappoint. It’s a fresh and fun heist movie that’s stylishly executed with frantic chase scenes and long tracking shots set to an eclectic retro soundtrack. Leaning heavily on its collection of pop music to shift smoothly from lighter moments to tenser ones (or in many cases, subverting them), Baby Driver manages to be both a thriller with stakes that’s also lighthearted and funny. While the focus of the movie is on reckless car chases and ridiculous shoot outs paced rhythmically to a carefully curated soundtrack, this cast shines. Ansel Elgort is both quirky and charming in the otherwise understated title role of Baby. Meanwhile, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Eiza Gonzalez, Jon Bernthal, and Flea all get to have fun playing a group of charismatic psychopaths employed by Kevin Spacey.

Baby Driver revolves around a young getaway driver named Baby who’s pressured into working for an Atlanta crime boss (Kevin Spacey) to pay off a debt. After being in a car accident as a child, Baby has tinnitus, and uses music to block out the ringing and stay focused. As such, he’s rarely without his earbuds in, listening to a diverse range of pop, rock, jazz, funk, and soul from various eras.

Baby’s iPod ultimately serves as the score and soundtrack; the film beats along to whatever tunes Baby cues up to set the mood and energy of any given moment. Each scene has a very specific rhythm, each song choice a purposeful decision. There’s a mix of cool jazz for the tenser moments from artists like Dave Brubeck, David McCallum, and Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers; with soulful pop from The Commodores, Brenda Holloway, and Beck for the more romantic moments between Elgort and his love interest, Debora (Lily James); and a number of big rock anthems from Queen, Focus, and Golden Earring setting the pace for the frenetic chase scenes. There’s probably a version of this movie where such an extensively curated soundtrack borders on being clunky overkill, but with Baby Driver, Wright manages to ensure the soundtrack always feels like a perfectly organic part of the movie, as well as an intrinsic extension of Baby’s character.

Much like the soundtrack, Ansel Elgort shifts effortlessly between scenes that alternatively call on him to be either funny, pensive, frantic, polite, or just plain cool. He has a casual confidence in how he moves, whether he’s driving with three cop cars in pursuit or dancing his way down the street. Music informs Baby’s mood and character — how he expresses himself as well as how he relates and communicates with others. When he meets Debora, music is how he connects with her. He shares a similar moment with Hamm’s character who seems to understand him better than the other criminals in the crew.

Hamm, Foxx, and Gonzalez all put forth excellent performances in supporting roles as a crew of bank robbers, which they all manage to be both comical and terrifying in unique ways. Hamm in particular stands out; after a string of small film and TV appearances since wrapping up his run as the stoic-but-complicated Don Draper on Mad Men, it’s fun to see him step into a role where he gets to really unhinge. Foxx, too, is fun to watch in what feels like a more earnest approach to his brief role in the Horrible Bosses movies. Lastly, Lily James has an innocent charm as Debora, a sweet Southern waitress who believably has quick chemistry with Baby.

Edgar Wright has always been a wildly creative and funny writer and director. Although his films in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End) could easily be considered parodies of genre films, they’ve always been a bit too clever for that, they’ve always been something more. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, too, was not just a comic adaptation; it was weird, and visually creative, and kind of ridiculous, but all in an ultimately stylish way that felt both retro and modern.

With Baby Driver, Edgar Wright took something not so new — a classic heist — and pumped it full of energy with a colorful cast of characters and a very carefully selected and purposefully used soundtrack. He created a lead character that probably didn’t have to be as nuanced and idiosyncratic and funny as Baby (granted, Elgort gets sooo much credit for bringing the role to life). Baby Driver is a little too clever and a little too stylish to be “just another heist movie,” and that’s what works so well. It’s an Edgar Wright movie. And if Baby Driver is any indication of where he’s going post-Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, well, there’s likely a lot of stylishly good fun to look forward to.

‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ is total nonsense, but at least strives to be creative

All the loud action and Arthurian legend doesn’t quite hide the fact that this franchise is losing steam…but they sure help

Somehow, there are now five Transformers movies, all directed by Michael Bay. And let’s face it, if Michael Bay is going to insist on making movies that hinge on explosions and ridiculous action set pieces anyway, they may as well revolve around giant alien robots that turn into trucks and sports cars. And since we’ve already bought into this premise, and we’re already four movies deep, it’s a reasonable time to somehow throw Arthurian legend into the mix, because why the hell not? (Frankly, this is not at all the worst use of King Arthur in theaters this summer) After all, these movies require us to follow the first rule of improv — “say yes” — and then just roll with the messy plot they throw at us and enjoy the ride.

Transformers: The Last Knight certainly delivers on all the big, loud, ridiculous action promised by any Transformers movie, and although it falls victim to beginning to feel like a case of diminishing returns, it’s an improvement on the fourth entry, Age of Extinction. While the plot is convoluted and not worth the struggle of really trying to make sense of, tying Arthurian legend to the Transformers mythology was a fun and creative shakeup, similar to how Dark of the Moon rewrote the history of the moon landing as a huge government cover-up for a Transformer sighting. Whether or not it all makes sense, gotta give Bay points for taking a big creative swing on this one.

The Last Knight picks up sometime after Age of Extinction, with Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) living as a fugitive among the Autobots, as all Transformers are deemed enemies of the state and hunted by the Transformers Reaction Force (TRF). Meanwhile, Optimus Prime has left Earth to seek out the Creators and hold them accountable for their plot to terraform Earth (or something like that). He finds Quintessa, the Creator, on a fragmented Cybertron heading towards Earth, and is manipulated into a mission to help her destroy Earth. Now here’s the Arthurian kicker and driving force of the action — Merlin’s staff was bestowed to him by a Cybertronian Knight, and it’s the key to draining Earth to help rebuild Cybertron.

Anthony Hopkins unexpectedly steps into the franchise in a key role as Sir Edmund Burton, a historian well-versed in the Transformers’ long history on Earth. Hopkins is surprisingly game and has fun playing up Burton’s eccentricities. Burton brings Cade together with Viviane (Laura Haddock), a professor at Oxford University, to prevent the impending disaster by seeking out Merlin’s staff to save Earth. This also leads to a fun submarine chase scene with the TRF (between this and The Fate of the Furious, submarines are having a hell of a year).

There are a few familiar faces back in the fold, namely Josh Duhamel returning to the franchise as Lennox, who’s now reluctantly working alongside the TRF but also working to do right by the Autobots. John Turturro also returns as Simmons. While it’s good to see him back, his role is pretty pointless — he’s living in Cuba and makes a few phone calls but never gets involved in the action, let alone shares any screen time with anyone else in the cast. It felt a bit forced. Even Optimus Prime dropped out of the movie for so long that if he wasn’t CGI, you’d have thought he had a scheduling conflict.

Actually, one of the biggest problems with this movie is it juggles a lot more character than it needs to. Megatron returns and somehow negotiates with the government to have a crew of Decepticons released from prison (which even in a ridiculous movie, is soooo ridiculous) for no other reason than to squeeze in another loud action scene. Clocking in at two and a half hours, it’s a safe bet there was already enough action baked in, and shaving 15 minutes wouldn’t have hurt the final product.

After five movies, it’s no surprise these movies have lost some steam, and with so many big, loud, world-threatening events on the big screen each summer, there’s only so many tricks another Transformers movie can pull (granted, retro-fitting Arthurian legend into the Transformers mythos is a pretty fun trick to pull). The Last Knight at least offered a huge namedrop, hinting that there will be a clearly defined final chapter to the franchise that will tie up most of the Wahlberg-era (Okay, it’s Unicron. Unicron’s name was dropped and he’s kind of the big Transformers villain.). None of it will make much sense. In fact, it’ll be batshit crazy. But these are giant alien robots, when you buy a ticket, that’s pretty much what you sign up for. Just roll with it and enjoy the ride.

‘Wonder Woman’ is an empowering and fun origin story that shakes up the genre

Patty Jenkins brings levity to the DC film franchise, while also delivering a strong message on what makes a superhero film successful

Before its release, Wonder Woman already had way more resting on its shoulders than it should have. Not only is it the first modern female-led superhero movie, but it’s the first superhero movie to be directed by a woman. Like it or not, this was the conversation surrounding its release as if this movie would determine whether or not we’d ever see another female-led superhero movie, let alone allow a woman to direct a superhero movie. Well, as it turns out, Wonder Woman is not just a good female-led superhero movie directed by a woman…Wonder Woman is a great movie that is both an empowering standalone origin story while also serving as a harbinger of change for the DC Extended Universe, proving that DC can have fun with their characters.

Directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot in the title role (Fast & Furious fans, rejoice!), Wonder Woman is the story of Diana, part of a race of warrior women called the Amazons living on the hidden island of Themyscira, who were created by the gods of Mount Olympus to protect humankind. When Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes along the coast of Themyscira and is rescued by Diana, he explains about the Great War the world is fighting (specifically, World War I). Diana feels the pull of war, believing Ares, the God of War, to be responsible, and goes with Steve back to the outside world in hopes of destroying Ares and thereby ending the war.

Gal Gadot is perfect — she’s tough and defiant, while also capable of playing the part of the naïve outsider, whether it be for laughs or in a way that reflects the character’s genuine idealism. In World War I-era England, she’s blissfully unaware that a room full of men are shocked to have a woman enter uninvited while they discuss war strategy and negotiations. She doesn’t recognize that she’s not seen as an equal and doesn’t belong there, because why wouldn’t she?

Given the conversation surrounding Wonder Woman, I think her idealistic perspective and general naivety about where a woman stands in this world sends an even stronger, more resonant message about the film itself. Just as she’s oblivious to the fact that these men would hold her to a different standard because she’s a woman, is there any reason why this film should be held to a different standard because it’s about a superhero who’s a woman? Or because it’s directed by a woman? Not really, because telling a good story with a strong character arc shouldn’t be limited by gender.

Chris Pine deserves similar praise. Not only did he and Gadot have fun chemistry together, but they’re equally charming, and ultimately proved to be good foils for each other. As Steve Trevor introduced Diana to the world of men and war, he could have been patronizing and her naivety could have been played as complete ignorance. Instead, they work together. As much as he introduces her to the unfortunate truth that war is complex and not the fault of just one person (or evil god), she’s able to show him that it’s not necessarily naïve to hold the world to a more idealistic standard. In different ways, they teach each other compassion.

It’s further worth noting that Pine’s role as Steve Trevor and his general dynamic with Diana may have raised the standard of what we can and should expect from love interests in the superhero genre moving forward. At the very least, we can hope that the Wonder Woman-Steve Trevor relationship helps underscore why and how to shift away from the “damsel in distress” trope. In fairness, I would argue that Marvel has mostly gotten away from this, with Captain America: The Winter Soldier certainly being one such example (Black Widow is just as important to that movie as Captain America), but I think it’s important to keep in mind nonetheless.

Although the big finale got a bit messy, and a bit too bogged down in CGI, the action throughout was well done, and at times, purposeful in driving the story forward. An early scene in which Diana and the Amazons do battle with German soldiers has consequences that ultimately motivates her to go with Steve to the war. Later on, in what was probably one of the most powerful moments, when Diana comes across a group of civilians who were victimized by the German soldiers, she takes it upon herself to storm across No Man’s Land (the greater meaning of which is not lost).

Overall, Wonder Woman sends a strong message that a female-led superhero film can succeed, but more importantly, that gender shouldn’t have a bearing on a superhero film’s success. Gal Gadot will return in Warner Brothers’ team-up film, Justice League, later this fall, and it sounds like a Wonder Womansequel is nearly a lock at this point, hopefully with Patty Jenkins returning to the director’s chair. Meanwhile, Marvel is finally developing their own female-led superhero film, Captain Marvel, with Brie Larson in the title role, due out in 2019. Given that Marvel is now 15 films deep, this is long overdue; but to be fair, Captain Marvel has a pretty complicated origin involving aliens, which may have been difficult to shoehorn in before the success of the first Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s been a long time coming, but hopefully Wonder Woman has put an end to any doubts about whether a female-led superhero film can work, and better yet, has set an important precedent in terms of how there’s no reason they should be held to a different standard.

‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ is sometimes fun, but mostly messy

Guy Ritchie can’t get out of his own way, making for a choppy, rushed, and confusing take on the Arthurian legend

Somewhere buried inside Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is a really great epic. The action and effects are mostly excellent and Charlie Hunnam is perfectly cast as the title character, the roguish king-to-be thrust into a quest to reclaim his throne. In the hands of anyone else, the idea of launching a new take on the legend of King Arthur would have felt tired and done and unnecessary, but the idea of Guy Ritchie bringing his particular brand to telling the story had a certain appeal. Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones have owned the market on epic medieval fantasy franchises for the last 15 years, and while there have certainly been some attempts (see 2004’s King Arthur), really no other medieval fantasy-type franchises have been able to successfully launch. Guy Ritchie’s take on King Arthur, though? That sounds like something that could bring some fresh energy to the genre, and maybe do something new.

Unfortunately, while I was looking forward to Guy Ritchie bringing his sense of style to King Arthur, it actually felt like he was getting in his own way of telling the story. King Arthur is fun, fast, and exciting while also managing to build a dark and fantastic world. We’re quickly brought up to speed on Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana), being betrayed by his brother Vortigern (Jude Law), while a young Arthur escapes by boat and is raised outside the kingdom by prostitutes. We’re then treated to a quickly-paced montage of Arthur growing up — learning to fight, making money, and becoming a man of the streets. When Vortigern begins rounding up men of a certain age to attempt to pull a magical sword from a stone, Arthur is captured and taken to the sword in the stone, and so the legend goes. But somehow, this all gets very confusing.

While the pacing quickly gets us into the story, what becomes problematic is that it never slows down. King Arthur has lots of style and lots of substance, but the former muddies the latter. The movie clocks in at about two hours, but three hours-worth of story is condensed into it. There’s world building and character development aplenty, but Ritchie breezes through the story at a mile a minute, rapidly cutting scenes together and jumping around in the timeline, so at best, the audience is just trying to keep up. The substance of the story and the world is there, but we’re never given a chance to actually absorb it.

Hunnam is likable and charming, so it’s fun to watch him play the hero, hatching schemes and laying out plans; but when a scene of him explaining a particular plan is cutting back and forth to the actual execution of the plan, which also hinges on further exposition by way of dialogue…well, it’s unclear what the actual plan was meant to achieve. Imagine if George Clooney laid out a heist plan in Ocean’s Eleven, but didn’t give the audience a moment to stop and appreciate the movie’s cleverness? It felt like that. You knew something clever might be happening, but pausing to process it would just force you to miss something else.

There’s still a lot to like in King Arthur; Charlie Hunnam and Jude Law are both excellent, and the supporting cast includes Djimon Hounsou and Aidan Gillen (best known as Littlefinger on Game of Thrones, but here he gets to play a very different role) among others. The action is fun, and the music by Daniel Pemberton is pretty incredible, with a sort of tribal-war-drums-meets-bluegrass-twang sound that brings a sense of rhythm to the action scenes.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was originally planned as the first of a six-film series, which sounded exhaustively ambitious before seeing how this first film was received. Now even more so. It’s unfortunate that choppy exposition and pacing got in the way, because there’s a lot in Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur that could and sometimes does go right in terms of establishing an interesting world to build a franchise on — the movie just never slows down long enough for us to understand or appreciate it.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ doubles down on the original’s formula, with a lot more feelings

James Gunn’s sequel has cosmic adventure, comedy, another retro pop soundtrack, and impressively emotional layers

When the first Guardians of the Galaxy film dropped in August 2014, nearly three years ago, it was a welcome breath of fresh air. Not only was it something wholly different from Marvel Studios’ standard superhero output, but it managed to introduce audiences to a new part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe while taking a break from the Avengers characters. Guardians of the Galaxy boasted a lively retro soundtrack, a wildly fresh group of misfit characters, and was generally unafraid of poking fun at itself as following the style of a B-movie Star Wars-knock-off from the ‘80’s. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 doubles down on all of this, taking us with these misfit characters on another fun adventure scored to a carefully curated retro soundtrack. Once again, there’s a lot of comedy, but also a lot of heart.

Vol. 2 picks up a few months after the first film with the Guardians (Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot) basically serving as intergalactic heroes for hire, working a job for the Sovereign race, led by Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), in exchange for a captive Nebula (Karen Gillan). Things quickly get messy, and the Guardians find themselves on the run from Sovereign, only to be saved by a mysterious figure who quickly identifies himself as Ego (Kurt Russell), Peter’s (Chris Pratt) father. Meanwhile, Yondu (Michael Rooker) is reintroduced to the fold when Ayesha hires him and his crew of Ravagers to capture the Guardians.

Vol. 2 is a good example of a sequel that goes bigger by getting smaller. Yes, there’s ample CGI and of course a third act with lots of lasers and explosions, because at the end of the day, this is a space adventure. But Vol. 2 pulls this dysfunctional team apart and examines their issues. While the center of the story is Peter reuniting with a father he never knew, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula have their own complicated issues to face. Even despite what turns out to feel like way too many one-liners based on how literal he can be, Drax (Dave Bautista) has several poignant moments as he reminisces about his own family. In a film so focused on feelings, Mantis (Pom Klementieff), an alien with empathic abilities who can sense or change the emotions of others, slides effortlessly into the cast.

Although the Guardians franchise definitely puts the spotlight on Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, the secret stars of Vol. 2 may actually be Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Yondu…Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) obviously gets honorable mention here. I’d be itching for a Rocket/Yondu spin-off if I didn’t feel like we kind of got it here. These two being thrust together was easily the highlight of the movie. Although heartstrings were being tugged elsewhere in the film, some of the more touching moments were actually seeing them bond over why they both put off such a tough exterior, and filling in the gaps of their past. Baby Groot certainly amped up the cute factor, but he also helped serve Rocket’s arc, bringing a more caring, sensitive side to an otherwise aggressive and prickly character. Also worth noting, Rocket, Yondu, and Groot have one of the most fun action sequences in the movie, which is perfectly set to “Come A Little Bit Closer” by Jay & the Americans.

The soundtrack of Vol. 2 holds up to the high standards set by the original, putting songs like “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac, “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens, “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison, and the aforementioned “Come a Little Bit Closer” by Jay & the Americans to good use. Great use in certain cases (that Cat Stevens tune really escalates a scene to the next level and punches you right in the feels). That said, at times the characters drew too much attention to the soundtrack, and the fact that the upcoming action sequence would be set to a retro pop hit. Although we were aware in the original that the soundtrack happened to be whatever Star-Lord had cued up on his Walkman in that particular scene, it still felt organic. Here, when they drew attention to turning music on, it just felt forced.

While Vol. 2 sometimes felt overly preoccupied with the soundtrack, or teeing up its next punchline, the movie’s key strength is in how it kept the cast and story relatively tight. As the only cosmic-based Marvel film, it would have been easy to go much bigger, introducing us to any number of Marvel’s cosmic characters. Director James Gunn has even stated he wound up cutting one character as it turned out to be “one character too many,” although that character did at least make it into an end credits tease, more or less guaranteeing a role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. There’s actually a few teases in the film, but Vol. 2 never feels bloated. It’s no secret anymore that action god Sylvester Stallone has a surprise role among several other cameos that mostly serve as a nod to the comics, while leaving the door open for a future appearance. If nothing else, it was fun to see Stallone and Rooker yelling at each other again…at least for us Cliffhanger fans.

When it wasn’t trying too hard to recapture the specific elements that made the original so perfect — the soundtrack and the comedic beats — Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was a great follow-up. Whereas the first film threw this dysfunctional group of misfits together, Vol. 2 peeled back the characters’ layers, confronting them with their individual issues. There’s a lot of “family isn’t always blood” stuff, and at times it can be pretty sappy, but when the emotional arc of a CGI raccoon holding a big gun actually resonates…well, it’s fair to say the movie certainly hits its marks. We are Groot.

The mind-bending and creative perfection of ‘Legion’

Legion might have been the most perfect thing on TV this year. Much like season 1 of Mr. Robot, Legion’s first season was a complex yet tightly-scripted journey, and with only eight episodes, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome or find itself off on tangents with filler episodes. It feels complete, but leaves you wanting so much more. While every episode is a chapter serving the whole story, each episode also offers something truly unique — whether it be specific narrative style, fun-yet-complicated story twists, or a trippy dance number. Each week, Legion managed to be equal parts mind-bending, poignant, creepy, and funny, easily establishing itself as a show that can do anything and go anywhere. Spoilers ahead.

The first half of the season played with our heads a lot, forcing us to question if everything we were seeing was real, or if David Haller’s recollection of his past was at all reliable. His mind was a maze of memories plagued by contradictions and inconsistencies, and lurking quietly within was an eerie presence — “The Devil with the Yellow Eyes.” The Devil was random at first, but jumping ahead to the second half of the season, as the Summerland crew continued to explore David’s mind and investigate his past, we begin to understand how central The Devil is to the story as it’s not random at all. It’s a parasite that’s latched onto David’s mind and has manipulated his memories throughout his life, presenting itself to David in many forms throughout his life — including the form of David’s dead friend Lenny, whose played with surprising versatility by Aubrey Plaza.

One thing that’s important to recognize is how good Aubrey Plaza is on this show. Like, really good. First introduced as David’s androgynous best friend at Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital, it was a bit of a shock to see her wind-up dead in the first episode. When she later appeared to David, it seemed like she’d taken on a sort of Tyler Durden role, which she essentially had as we slowly learned that she was just one form the primary antagonist took. Yup, she and The Devil with the Yellow Eyes were ultimately one in the same — the Shadow King, a being of psychic energy that possesses the bodies of others. Her role becomes elusive as she abruptly shifts between presenting herself as an enabling friend and fellow junkie to David, a manipulative psychiatrist, and an entity of pure evil.

Aubrey Plaza’s role was pivotal in developing many of the show’s reveals, which reflects a major strength of the season as a whole — that being howshowrunner Noah Hawley and company told this story. While Legion is an X-Men property, it’s not beholden to fitting perfectly into the already convoluted X-Men movie canon, nor does it need to follow any sort of standard superhero script (granted, a staple of the superhero genre has become telling a superhero story through the lens of some other genre). Instead, Hawley uses a more auteur style, seeming to channel influences like Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson, and David Lynch, rather than follow classic comic book movie formula (besides Plaza, no one embodies these influences in the series more perfectly than Jemaine Clement as the quirky beat poet and astral plane resident Oliver Bird).

Specifically, style and creativity are turned up to 11 in both episodes 6 and 7. Just as David and the Summerland crew are about to be shot by an agent of Division 3, the shady government agency hunting David, they find themselves frozen in time and trapped unwittingly in a dream reality version of Clockworks…with Lenny/The Shadow King as their psychiatrist. Initially, Syd is the only one who seems to question the reality they’ve found themselves, but soon enough, in a segment reminiscent of Inception, all the characters are split up across levels of the dream reality and astral plane as they attempt to break out of the illusion.

One of these segments is shot in black & white and set to haunting orchestral music, with Syd and Kerry racing through the manic halls of the hospital; when they’re eventually confronted by Lenny/The Shadow King threatening to kill them, no dialogue is heard but is instead presented using title cards like a classic silent film (This also felt eerily like it could be a Nine Inch Nails music video). As a result, Aubrey Plaza, and the scene as a whole, is all the more maniacally terrifying.

Episode 7, the penultimate episode of the season, also shouldered a lot of responsibility in terms of at least beginning to reconcile a complicated story while filling in a lot of remaining holes. Not only does the episode manage to do this, it has fun with it. In a scene that feels like a comical mash-up of Fight Club and Good Will Hunting, David works with his rational (and British) subconscious self to piece together the history of the Shadow King and his biological father (they all but said it’s Professor Xavier). Similarly, Syd quickly summarizes their convoluted predicament to Cary before he has a chance to explain what he’s figured out (“I know, I’ve been paying attention,” Syd tells Cary), almost like a nod to viewers that says, “To put it simply, this is what’s happening and here’s everything you need to know.”

Despite the fact that this show operates in the unreal, one of Legion’s greatest strengths is its ability to be real. There’s a believable sadness to the characters, a sense of loss or loneliness. At one point, Syd asks David, “Who teaches us to be normal when we’re one of a kind?” Even when they’ve found each other — other mutants — the series captures how isolated they each are, and how difficult it can still be for each of them to truly understand how one another is emotionally impacted by their powers.

Empathy is not limited to the mutant characters. The Division 3 Interrogator (Hamish Linklater) from the pilot episode, and more or less presumed dead, is reintroduced at the end of episode 7, burned and crippled and hellbent on bringing David in. Sure, he’s a shady villain, but episode 8 then opens with the Interrogator in the hospital recovering from injuries sustained during David’s escape with the Summerland crew at the end of the pilot. His name is Clark and he has a husband and a son who love him. Despite his injuries, when he goes back to work, he refuses to accept a desk job and insists on going back into the field. After four to five minutes of backstory, he’s suddenly not just a shady villain; he’s a person, and a fully formed character.

With complex and fully realized characters, a layered narrative, and an inspired use of music and varied visual styles, Legion is one of the most fun and interesting shows on TV, so it was no surprise when season 2 received the green light. While season 1 wrapped up nicely, Hawley definitely left the door open for where season 2 will go, although he’s by no means limited to that. Maybe he will look to the comics for inspiration, as Simon Spurrier’s run on the Legion-focused title X-Men: Legacy (2012–2014) certainly took a similar approach in exploring the character while also grappling with themes like fate and destiny.

Then again, season 1 did just fine leveraging the basics of Legion’s comic book history, while drawing inspiration from other places in literature and film. Where ever Hawley decides to go with it, I’m in.