Top Gun: Maverick

 TOP GUN: MAVERICK

** SPOILERS **

"It's not the plane. It's the pilot."

Top Gun: Maverick is a master class in the lost art of Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In an age of endless CGI superhero movies and films that feel smaller and smaller to fit in digital devices and compete with streaming TV shows, director Joseph Kosinski and Tom Cruise welcome us back to The Movies. Top Gun: Maverick, which was shot with IMAX cameras and with no computer-generated effects, brings a revolutionary verisimilitude to the Navy's aerial combat. Top Gun: Maverick boasts the most breathtaking aerial photography and some of the greatest action ever captured on film. The need for speed is fulfilled and then some because Top Gun: Maverick was born to thrill us - and it does.

Of course, Cruise is back as Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, who graduated second in his class at Top Gun in 1986 ("I just want to manage expectations," Maverick reminds us with his trademark grin), and is tapped to teach a new generation of pilots who are "the best of the best." Maverick returned to Top Gun at the end of the first film to become an instructor, but we learn in the sequel that he washed out after two months. Maverick spent the next 35 years alternately garnering commendations for his excellence in the cockpit and nearly getting bounced out of the Navy multiple times for insubordination and recklessness. When Top Gun: Maverick begins, Pete is a test pilot for the Darkstar program - the 21st century Chuck Yaeger - and he violates orders (of course) to prove he can shatter the Mach 10 barrier. Shatter it he does - Maverick achieves Mach 10.3 and becomes "the fastest man alive" - before his aircraft explodes. This is the last straw says Admiral Cain (Ed Harris), the first of a series of flag officers in the film who want Maverick shitcanned from the Navy. But instead, Maverick is assigned back to Top Gun to teach a group of graduate aces how to perform, shall we say, an impossible mission. (No surprise that Cruise's Mission: Impossible director, Christopher McQuarrie, is a co-screenwriter on Top Gun: Maverick.)

Maverick meets the new hotshots who he's meant to distill all of his aerial combat knowledge into: there's Hangman (Glen Powell), the handsome, cocksure Iceman of the bunch. There's Phoenix (Monica Barbaro), the first female Top Gun pilot in the series. There's Bob (Lewis Pullman), Phoenix's version of Goose (Anthony Edwards) with the worst callsign. There's also Payback (Jay Ellis), Fanboy (Danny Ramirez), and Fritz (Manny Jacinto). Last but not least, there's Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of Goose, who has a bone to pick with Maverick over his father's death in the original Top Gun. Maverick also has another secret he's keeping from Rooster, but if you think after butting heads the entire movie that Maverick and Rooster don't bond over their extraordinary fighter jock heroics by the end of the film, you must have never seen a movie before. Of course, Maverick needs a love interest since Charlie (Kelly McGillis) no longer fits the bill. Enter Jennifer Connelly as Penny, a former flame of Maverick's who lights that torch again as soon as they lay eyes on each other. Connelly is dazzling in a nothing part that she completely carries with her beauty and charisma. Last but not least there's Vice Admiral Beau "Cyclone" Simpson (Jon Hamm), Maverick's new commander at Top Gun whose job is to despise Maverick and be wrong about him every step of the way. Hamm sneers his way through a thankless role but he still seems like he's enjoying himself.

The impossible mission Maverick trains the Top Gun class of 2022 for is the destruction of an underground uranium facility in some unnamed country that could render the land radioactive, or something. Top Gun: Maverick curiously never identifies who the enemy is or why, just that they're somehow technologically superior to the Navy's F-18s. But having a faceless enemy of no nationality allows Top Gun: Maverick to play worldwide and rake in cash without offending anyone politically. Now, to destroy the Death Star, pardon, the uranium facility, the pilots have to fly dangerously low through a valley in two minutes and 30 seconds, hit a target 3 meters wide with pinpoint accuracy, and then achieve a perilous 9.5-g climb without hitting a mountain, blacking out from the pressure, or using the Force. And once they achieve that, the hard part begins: surviving a dogfight with the enemy's 5th generation fighters. Admiral Jon Hamm says it's impossible. The trainees think it's impossible. Of course, Maverick does it in the simulation on the first try, so he gets tapped to lead the mission himself. How does Mav keep getting into these messes?

Top Gun: Maverick does explain the reason why Maverick keeps getting out of messes. He has a guardian angel: 4-star Admiral Tom "Iceman" Kazansky (Val Kilmer), the only character from the original Top Gun to return in the flesh (as opposed to unnecessary flashbacks). Iceman loathed Maverick for being dangerous in Top Gun, but after Maverick saved him and made history by becoming the first American pilot to shoot down 3 Russian MiG fighters, Iceman became Maverick's wingman for life. The way Top Gun: Maverick honors Iceman and Val Kilmer is the most heartwarming moment of the film. Kilmer survived throat cancer but at the cost of his voice and appearance. Top Gun: Maverick gives Iceman the same affliction so that he has to text Mav to communicate, but the film also gives him a beautiful and resonant scene where Iceman and Maverick reflect on being the last of the best together. When Iceman finally passes away, Maverick loses his protection and the Navy declares open season on court martialing him until Captain Mitchell proves Iceman's lifelong belief that "the Navy needs Maverick" right once again.

Much of Top Gun: Maverick is spent pretty much kicking the shit out of Maverick. The amount of disdain he endures is shocking. Maverick is literally tossed on his ass out of a bar, called "a relic" and even worse names, has his value to the Navy constantly questioned, and even Penny sticks him with a thousand-dollar bar tab for no reason other than to be mean to him. Maverick does have a couple of loyal friends on his side, both black guys: Hondo (Bashir Salahuddin), his Chief Warrant Officer, and Warlock (Charles Parnell), an Admiral who actually thinks Maverick is pretty great. Top Gun: Maverick is a savvy examination of both Maverick's enduring skills as a pilot and of Tom Cruise's enduring appeal and stature as the last real movie star in the world. In many ways, Cruise and Maverick are one and the same and Top Gun, not Mission: Impossible, is his signature role. Top Gun: Maverick plays smartly with Tom Cruise's age, and then completely ignores it when he's in the cockpit, bringing the best of both Cruise and Maverick to the fore.

Most of all, Maverick captures and emboldens the endless appeal of Top Gun. Everything iconic about Top Gun is back, including the volleyball scene, which becomes a beach football scene with Maverick grinning ear-to-ear behind his aviators, and, most importantly, the indelible "Top Gun Anthem" and music by Harold Faltermeyer (Hans Zimmer and Lady Gaga provide additional music). Every step of the way, your mind is aware of the manipulation, of being played like a fiddle, but it's so much fun, who cares? Top Gun's central idea of "the best of the best" captured the imaginations of a generation in the 1980s and the bigger, bolder Top Gun: Maverick shows that it all still works like gangbusters today. Top Gun is the pursuit of an impossible ideal, which is embodied by Maverick, and his victories are our victories, his need for speed is ours as well. Top Gun: Maverick is an emotional, visceral, stratospheric thrill ride and one of the best pure movie experiences of this generation.

Downton Abbey: A New Era

 DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA

** SPOILERS **

Downton Abbey: A New Era is a welcome reunion with the Crawley family that also shows them at their absolute best. Written by the maestro, Jullian Fellowes, and directed with a rich cinematic eye by Simon Curtis, Downton Abbey: A New Era is grander, warmer, funnier, more emotional, and more resonant than even its delightful 2019 predecessor. A New Era distills every positive aspect of the beloved Downton Abbey TV series and opens up the world on a larger scale than before. Yet A New Era doesn't rest on Downton Abbey's laurels; the sequel indeed brings the Crawley family and their loyal servants into a new phase of their lives. And, as "the modern world comes to Downton," A New Era marks the transition by saying goodbye to its most iconic character, Lady Violet, the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith).

Lady Violet confessed to her granddaughter, Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery), that she was dying at the end of the previous Downton Abbey film. But in A New Era, Violet is still enduring, though her time is soon to expire. Fittingly, Violet's "mysterious past" kicks off the story of A New Era as she reveals a former beau, a Marquis, no less, willed her a villa in the South of France decades ago. Violet intends to leave the villa to her great-granddaughter, Sybbie (Fifi Hart), the daughter of the late Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown-Findlay) and Tom Branson (Allen Leech). But Robert, the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), needs to know who this Marquis was and why he left such a lavish gift to his mother. Lord Grantham decides to lead a contingent of the family to the Riviera but it's a solemn mission for him. Robert's discovery that his mother gave birth to him nine months after her supposed fling with the Marquis becomes an existential crisis because, if true, it would mean that Robert was a fraud who was never the Earl of Grantham. Meanwhile, Robert's wife, Cora, Countess of Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern), has a secret of her own: she thinks she might have cancer, which Lady Edith, Marchioness of Hexam (Laura Carmichael), deduces and encourages her mother to tell her father. This all becomes too much for Robert to handle and he breaks down in one of the most remarkably emotional and poignant moments in Downton Abbey's history. Yet it also reaffirmed the genuine love in Robert and Cora's relationship. After really only playing minor roles in the prior Downton Abbey film, A New Era brings Robert and Cora back to center stage, and Bonneville and McGovern beautifully rise to the occasion.

Meanwhile, back at Downton Abbey, the British Lion film company sets up shop to shoot a motion picture in the castle. While most of the family is in the Riviera, Lady Mary is left behind to oversee the filming of The Gambler, directed by Jack Barber (Hugh Dancy), who quickly comes to fancy Lady Mary. The servants are agog at getting to wait on glamorous film stars like the beautiful Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock) and the charming Guy Dexter (Dominic West), but Daisy (Sophie McShera) and Anna (Joanne Froggatt) soon learn Miss Dalgleish is extremely rude because she fears the end of her career. Meanwhile, Dexter takes an immediate liking to Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), who realizes the film star is gay like he is. Dexter offers Barrow an opportunity to leave Downton and become his "man" in any way Thomas would like to be, and it's a surprising and hopeful chance at happiness the long-suffering butler rightly takes that pays off Barrow's story from the very start of Downton Abbey. As for Jack and Mary, nothing comes of their flirtation, in spite of the absence of her husband, Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode). Fellowes' writing is clever: Mary's story of being tempted by another man smartly echoes her grandmama's story with the Marquis and sparks Mary's transition to becoming the matriarch of the family when Violet passes away. A New Era also takes the time to remember the dearly departed Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), and Fellowes sprinkles in a sly joke about Matthew's "fairy tale good looks" that nods to how Stevens left Downton Abbey to star in Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast.

In a film with over thirty major speaking roles, some characters like John Bates (Brendan Coyle), inevitably end up with little to do, but overall, A New Era utilizes its massive cast even better than Downton Abbey 2019 did. Just about everyone gets a moment or two to shine, like Mr. Carson (Jim Carter), who is married to Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan), getting a fabulous meta-joke where a French shopkeeper mistakes him and Lady Maud Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton) to be man and wife, a wink at the fact that Carter and Staunton are married in real life. Tom and Lucy Branson (Tuppence Middleton) marry at the start of A New Era and prove they are a couple that is going to go the distance. Tom also gets to have a stunningly beautiful moment with Lady Violet that speaks to how far Branson has come as a member of the family since his days as the chauffeur who ran off with Lady Sybil. Violet and her best frenemy, Isobel Merton (Penelope Wilton), get to reflect on their years as rivals who genuinely came to respect, admire, and love each other as peers and equals. And perhaps best of all, Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle) proves himself to be Downton Abbey's secret comedy weapon once more as the beleaguered schoolteacher discovers his talent for writing "plays for the screen" and saves Barber's film by turning it into a talkie, leading to Molesley embarking on a prosperous new career as a screenwriter. Molesley's proposal to Mrs. Baxter (Raquel Cassidy) means yet another wedding among the servants is imminent after Daisy's wedding to Andy (Michael C. Fox). Not to be left behind, Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) is about to shack up with Mr. Mason (Paul Copley).

In Downton Abbey 2019, the servants were left behind as the Crawleys danced at the royal ball to end the film but A New Era flips this in a lovely way where, this time, it's the servants who get decked out in their finest to serve as extras in the climactic scene of The Gambler. This is followed by the final farewell to Lady Violet, who dies peacefully surrounded by her loving family, and Maggie Smith even gets to utter one last immortal line: "I can't hear myself die!" Downton Abbey: A New Era ends with a funeral procession that passes the torch from Lady Violet to Lady Mary as "the captain" of Downton Abbey, but the final moments are of a hopeful new beginning as the Crawleys enter the 1930s by welcoming Tom and Lucy's new baby. The final shot is of old Lady Grantham - the eternal symbol of Downton's Edwardian past - lovingly looking over her family, which has endured wars, plague, six incredibly popular seasons of television, and two feature films. Two hours of pure happiness may be as much as our cruel world allows, but Downton Abbey: A New Era is a warm, inviting, and splendid time spent with the Crawleys, who can hopefully continue to reunite with and who will hopefully never change, no matter the era.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

 DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

** SPOILERS **

"Are you happy?" Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) asks Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme (Benedict Wong). If he asked me, I'd answer with an unequivocal "yes." Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - the director's first superhero movie since his Spider-Man trilogy and his first foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe - is a giddy good time, a wild and weird magic carpet ride through the Marvel Multiverse that was established in the animated Marvel's What If...? series and unlocked in live-action by Spider-Man: No Way Home. This is Doctor Strange's fifth movie appearance since his debut film in 2016 and it's the wizard's best outing as Strange and his magical and multiversal friends dive headlong into the wacky alternate realities of the greater Marvel Universe.

Perhaps the best thing about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is that it's a direct sequel to WandaVision. Not surprisingly, Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff is the best thing in the movie. When a teenage girl named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), who has the power to travel across the Multiverse, lands in the main MCU's Sacred Timeline (the universe designated 616), Doctor Strange decides to protect her from whatever is trying to steal her power. Seeking help from an Avenger, Strange turns to the other most powerful magic-user in the world, Wanda Maximoff, who wastes no time revealing she has become the Big Bad known as the Scarlet Witch. Still coping with the trauma of losing her husband, Vision (Paul Bettany), and her twin sons, Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jett Klyne), Wanda succumbed to the evil magic book called the Darkhold and became the Scarlet Witch. Wanda has simple desires: she wants to reunite with and be a mother to her sons. If she has to kill lots of people to be with her kids again, well, that's just her being reasonable. Wanda as the main villain is an unexpected treat but it logically follows up her fall from grace as a result of WandaVision, and she is a spectacularly frightening evildoer. Yet because it's Wanda, and she's still an Avenger at her core, we root for her even as she slaughters her way across universes. Elizabeth Olsen proves herself as the MCU MVP in Multiverse of Madness and she delivers what may be the best villain performance of the entire 28 movie MCU oeuvure. 

As for Doctor Strange himself, life isn't going too well for the world's most famous magician. People seem 50/50 on Strange; some love him for his role in stopping Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, but others question his judgment that there was "no other way" and Strange helping enable Thanos to wipe out half of all life in the universe for five years, to begin with. Meanwhile, Strange is still pining for the woman he gave up to become a wizard, Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), who he loves in every universe. But Christine always sees Strange for who and what he is - the one who always has to "hold the knife" - and she wisely moved on. Even America is wary of Doctor Strange since the other versions of him she's met (and we meet) are much less likable than ours. When Wong and Strange attempt to protect America from the Scarlet Witch, their magical stronghold of Kamar-Taj easily falls to Wanda's black magic. Strange and America flee through the Multiverse, landing in the 838 universe, which is where Doctor Strange gets really strange.

Strange and America are taken hostage by the Illuminati, a superteam comprised of incredible Marvel cameos and Easter eggs: Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Captain Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), Captain Marvel (Lashana Lynch), Black Bolt of the Inhumans (Anson Mount, getting the chance to redeem his hero from the godawful Marvel's Inhumans), Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and, best of all, Reed Richards AKA Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four (John Krasinski, fulfilling the most prevalent Marvel fan-casting of recent years). The Illuminati end up getting wiped out by the Scarlet Witch but just seeing this mind-bending assemblage of heroes is so dazzling and opens up so many possibilities, that it's worth the price of admission all by itself. Ultimately, Doctor Strange has to figure out a way to stop Wanda and it all leads to a MacGuffan called the Book of Vishanti, which is, cleverly, a swerve since the book is a non-factor. In the best Marvel tradition, the real key to beating Wanda is to force her and Strange to face their own internal inadequacies. Wanda comes face-to-face with her alternate universe self and realizes that she would be stealing her own children from herself. Meanwhile, Raimi, who already frolics in every weird idea screenwriter Michael Waldron conjures up, goes gonzo by having Strange possess a zombie version of himself, complete with multiple arms and a third eye.

If Multiverse of Madness has an inherent flaw, it's that Doctor Strange, try as he might (and he does try), is still the least interesting person in his own movie. In order of How Much I Love The Characters, I'd rank them: 1. Wanda 2. Wong 3. America 4. Doctor Strange's magical flying cape 5. The Illuminati 6. Doctor Strange. Yet Strange still becomes the most compelling and sympathetic version of himself in the Multiverse of Madness, and his pain and loneliness at having all the magical power he needs to save the Multiverse yet still never getting the girl - unlike, say, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) - is palpable and touching. Thankfully, Wong is a rock who has rapidly become one of the MCU's best characters, and Xochitl Gomez is a fantastic new addition to the pantheon of Marvel heroes. The day America meets Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), and the other new MCU heroes to form the Young Avengers can't come soon enough. Most importantly, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is about men and a woman wanting to literally take a young girl's power from her. And Doctor Strange learns that the right thing to do is to empower that girl and teach her to use it to kick a witch's ass. A relevant lesson for our world today. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so much fun and so packed with Marvel goodness, that you'd practically need a third eye to take it all in, but multiple viewings will more than suffice.

The Batman

 THE BATMAN

** SPOILERS **

Matt Reeves' The Batman is an immersive, fever dream that begins with the Dark Knight living out countless dark nights wondering why his tactics of punching crooks in the dark isn't having a positive effect on Gotham City. A majestic, R-rated three-hour cinematic tour de force posing as a PG-13 superhero blockbuster, The Batman is relentless, merciless, and hauntingly beautiful. It reimagines, once more, Gotham as a desperate closed world of urban decay. Decent people shouldn't live in Gotham; they'd be happier someplace else. The Batman bucks the current trend of shared superhero multiverses and returns to the Dark Knight's movie roots as a singular vision of a lone vigilante fighting a violent war he can never win to honor the memory of his dead parents. The Batman is a shattering masterpiece, an art-house equal to Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, all backed by Michael Giacchino's driving score, and it's one of the best superhero movies ever made.

Robert Pattinson is the Batman, and he's ideal. Pattinson portrays the first movie Batman whose hair is mussed up and his eye makeup stays on when he removes his cowl. The Batman is an armored tank proficient in violence but not so keen with the small talk, although he narrates the film like Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) does Watchmen, giving the audience unprecedented access into the Batman's mindset. As the Batman prowls the shadowy corners of Gotham, moving incognito through the frightened populace in motorcycle gear, a vast conspiracy with Bruce Wayne's parents at the very heart of it, unravels around him. Together with his partner in the Gotham Police Department, Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), the only good cop in Gotham City, the Batman tries to foil an elaborate plot by a fiendish and diabolical psychopath calling himself the Riddler (Paul Dano), who is murdering members of Gotham's elite to uncover their role in the city's darkest secret. As the Riddler, Dano manages to be as frightening as any Joker yet he's as intelligent as he is sad, vile, and insane. 

The Batman has more in common with films like David Fincher's Se7en and Zodiac than the recent output by Zack Snyder where Batman teams up with other superheroes and fights aliens. The Batman also owes a lot to the popular Batman: Arkham video games as well as Frank Miller's seminal Batman: Year One comics. Fittingly, The Batman is the opposite side of the coin to Joker, which isn't part of this universe but obviously shares its DNA. Both films are concerned with the sins of Thomas Wayne (Luke Roberts), who, in this universe, ran for Mayor but made a crucial mistake in turning to sleazy mob kingpin Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) when the truth about his wife Martha's (Stella Stocker) mental health issues was going to be publicly leaked. Bruce grew up believing his murdered parents were saintly victims of Gotham's criminal rot and the revelation that Thomas Wayne was flawed rocks the Batman's world. As the Riddler continues his murder spree, the Batman finds a reluctant ally in Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz), a slinky waitress who moonlights as a cat burglar. Kravitz is sensational as Selina, who has a secret parent of her own and she's intimately tied to the seedy revelations the Riddler wants to uncover. Meanwhile, an unrecognizable Colin Farrell chews the scenery as Osward Cobblepot, a middling mobster who owns the Iceberg Lounge and wants to be called Oz, not Penguin.

Batman and Catwoman have teamed up in the movies before but The Batman's versions have an undeniable chemistry that feels more incendiary than Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway or even Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer. The Bat and the Cat in The Batman are young, beautiful, wounded, and volatile, warily circling their fatal attraction but also quickly understanding that they're made for each other. Back in the Batcave, which is beneath Wayne Tower instead of Stately Wayne Manor in this universe, Bruce's butler Alfred (Andy Serkis) impatiently manages Wayne's affairs and believes (perhaps correctly) that he's gone insane. As much fun as an eternally disappointed Alfred taking the piss out of Bruce is, the Batman's repartee with Jim Gordon is one of the highlights of the film. It's the best live-action depiction of Batman and Gordon as crimefighting friends working together, eclipsing even Christian Bale's Dark Knight's team-up with Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman). We don't get the back story of why the Batman and Gordon are such bosom buddies but their us-against-the worst of Gotham dynamic is aces.

The Batman is the first Batman movie that reflects the title Detective Comics, finally delivering a sordid and cerebral detective story that challenges the Dark Knight's sleuthing skills as the World's Greatest Detective, although the Riddler, who thinks he's actually working alongside the Batman in his twisted mind, is disappointed when the Batman doesn't see the big picture. The Ridder's scheme not only involves exposing a 20-year-old plot by the city's officials and the mob to embezzle billions left behind by Thomas Wayne meant as the "renewal" of Gotham City, but he also wants to literally sink the city. The Batman weaving in the inevitable peril posed by climate change is timely and powerful. Of course, The Batman also hedges its bets at a potential sequel and drops in a cameo by Barry Keoghan as "Unnamed Arkham Prisoner," i.e. the Joker, just as Nolan's Batman Begins telegraphed the Joker for his sequel. 

But while The Batman's stunningly brutal action, including an eye-popping car chase involving the Batman's new muscle car Batmobile, really delivers, The Batman's best trick is in the end when the Batman publicly risks his life to save Gotham's new mayor and thousands of refugees from Riddler's murderous incel goons. This was already a Batman who had no qualms of marching shoulder-to-shoulder with cops, but The Batman shows the Dark Knight's unprecedented willingness to be seen by the people he's trying to save. The Batman shows touching personal growth as he realizes he's meant to be a hero, not just the city's shadowy avenger. The Batman's self-sacrifice as he saves women and children during Gotham's greatest catastrophe is perhaps the most uplifting ending of any Batman movie. In the end, the Batman realizes he has to be a better Batman for Gotham, and his bittersweet parting with Selina as they roar in separate directions on their motorcycles is as powerful a denouement as The Dark Knight's unforgettable conclusion. For Matt Reeves, Robert Pattinson, and Warner Bros., The Batman is a triumph and deserves to earn as many billions as Bruce Wayne has in the bank.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

 SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME

** SPOILERS **

With Spider-Man: No Way Home, Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios opened the toy box, turned it over, dumped everything onto the floor, and said, "Have at it!" Directed by Jon Watts, who helmed Tom Holland's previous Spider-Man movies set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which, I guess, is now the "Home Trilogy," Spider-Man: No Way Home is a massive list of fanboy Spider-Man movie dreams dutifully checked off. Watching it is like reading a dozen Marvel Comic books in a row at a breakneck pace. As a coherent movie, No Way Home teeters on disaster and then careens headlong into it, yet it also delivers the most relentlessly jaw-dropping fan service as the most pure comic book movie since Avengers: Infinity War, and that's a compliment. Give No Way Home too much thought - or any rational thought at all - and you'll be driven as mad as the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). So you know what? Don't. Just let the live-action Spider-Verse happen, man. 

Spider-Man: No Way Home has an astounding amount of --- story's not the right word -- stuff it has to get done according to Marvel and Sony's big agenda. Oh, and there is an agenda here, and it's big. First off, No Way Home has to establish the Multiverse to set up Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness by having Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) play the thankless role of "Guy who's right about everything but Peter Parker won't listen or else the movie won't happen." No Way Home also has to immediately address the cliffhanger from Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Peter's secret identity is revealed by Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) and J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons). The first act of No Way Home is quite novel, showing us the fallout of Parker becoming "the most famous person in the world" and being hunted by the authorities as well as ordinary people coming out of the woodwork who want a piece of Spider-Man. Just like that, however, Peter's legal troubles are resolved, thanks to his blind lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox)! Did I mention guest stars? There are so many, like Wong (Benedict Wong), the new Sorcerer Supreme who pops up all over the Marvel Cinematic Universe now. No Way Home reflects the success Sony saw with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse's Multiverse and saying, "We should do it in live-action too and make even more money."

The second phase of No Way Home happens after Peter bungles Doctor Strange's magical "Make the world forget Peter Parker is Spider-Man except for six people" spell and it somehow cracks open the Multiverse so that supervillains who know Peter Parker is Spider-Man jump from the Sony movie universes to the MCU. The Spider-Villain parade includes Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church), and Green Goblin from Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man movies and Electro (Jamie Foxx) and Lizard (Rhys Ifans) from Andrew Garfield's Amazing Spider-Man movies. It's awesome to see Tom Holland's Spidey face the classic non-MCU villains he's never fought before. But despite Doctor Strange's pragmatic warnings that the villains need to go back from whence they came, Peter goes rogue when he learns that the villains are fated to die fighting the Spider-Men of their universes. Admirably, Peter "does the right thing" and tries to save the villains, and he even uses his science-y smarts to cure the crazy ones like Doc Ock and Green Goblin. But it's also not the right thing to do. In fact, in many very important ways, it couldn't be the more wrong thing to do, but No Way Home's rules are unfathomable, contradictory, full of holes, and glosses over the tough questions about the Multiverse to fulfill Peter's moral imperative and keep this train hurtling along.

While rumors abounded for years that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield would share the screen with Tom Holland in No Way Home, to actually see it happen is immensely satisfying. Never mind that Maguire seemed to be constantly trying to remember what playing his version of Peter Parker was like. Meanwhile, Garfield was really just playing himself in a Spider suit but he was clearly happy to be included. The three Spider-Men hanging out and swinging into battle together is worth the price of admission as 100% giddy fan service. Just as satisfying, No Way Home worked to give closure to elements from Maguire and Garfield's movies that were left hanging. Tobey's Peter reunited with Dr. Otto Octavius as friends after Holland's Peter cured the malfunctioning A.I. chip that twisted Doc Ock's brain because of his robot arms. Andrew's Peter had some touching moments with Electro, and he caught MJ (Zendaya) from falling to her death, saving her in a way that he couldn't save Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). No Way Home hit all the fanboy notes and contrasted how the three movie Spider-Men are different but also the same - Garfield feels left out because Maguire fought an alien in Venom (Topher Grace) but Holland's been to space to fight an alien, Thanos (Josh Brolin) - and it was worth all of the Multiversal hijinks. 

Unfortunately, the most frustrating part of No Way Home is Tom Holland's Peter. The MCU's version of Spider-Man is the youngest version of the live-action movies but No Way Home especially equates Peter's youth for being dumb. Peter even admits he's dumb multiple times in the movie. But the movie needs Peter to do a million dumb things to enable its plot to happen and to get to the cool guest stars and cameos. Tom Holland does his best to keep the audience on Peter's side even while he's literally wrecking reality by not thinking things through, and he pays for his mistakes tragically when the Green Goblin murders Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). To his credit, Tom Holland embodies the whirlwind of emotions as Peter and he suffers a Multiverse's worth of tragedy (mostly self-inflicted) in No Way Home. After the roller coaster of Spider-Man: No Way Home, you're too exhausted to ask questions like, "How could MJ and Ned forget Peter entirely? Didn't they still go to school with him?" It's better to remember the thrills of seeing Holland, Maguire, and Garfield facing all of their super villains and hum the Spider-Man theme until we see the web-slinger again.

Tom Holland's Spider-Man has always been far luckier than his predecessors: He has a devoted girlfriend in MJ, whose surname was retconned to Watson, he's got his Man in the Chair, Ned (Jacob Batalon), he had his Aunt May, two surrogates Uncle Bens in Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), and he's an Avenger. When Spider-Man: No Way Home winds down, Sony's ultimate agenda becomes clear as they systematically strip all of the good things in Peter's life away to bring him to the mold of the lonely Spider-Man Maguire and Garfield are, complete with a classic Spidey suit he sewed himself, so no more Stark Tech for him. It's a sad ending for the plucky young Spider-Man of the MCU to lose everything and everyone he held dear as Sony resets him for the next wave of Spider-Man movies, but Parker grins and bears it as the penance he must pay for almost breaking the Multiverse. After all, nothing is more Spider-Man than suffering alone. Like Maguire and Garfield said, "It's what we do."

No Time To Die

 NO TIME TO DIE

** SPOILERS **

You Have All The Time In The World

The final act is often the hardest to get right but director Cary Joji Fukunaga's urgent and stunning No Time To Die gets it so right. No Time To Die is the fifth and final movie starring Daniel Craig as James Bond and while I have an overwhelming love for and devotion to Skyfall, No Time To Die outdoes it by delivering something 007 has never truly had: a definitive ending. But en route to that end - Bond's end - is one more globe-hopping adventure - Matera, Italy, Jamaica, Santiago, Cuba, London, Norway, and a mysterious island between Japan and Russia - where Bond saves the world from the 21st-century threat of deadly nanobots. More importantly, James Bond faces the scope of his dangerous life as a Double-0 agent and finally confronts both his own mortality and the chance to leave something (and someone) behind.

Daniel Craig has never been better as James Bond. Well-aware that his and the audience's hearts weren't in Spectre, Craig does not waste this opportunity to go out with a kiss-kiss bang-bang. In No Time To Die, Bond is the happiest he's ever been on holiday with Dr. Madeleine Swann (a fantastic Lea Seydoux) when he's ambushed by Spectre agents sent by his old enemy (and ex-brother, adoptive), Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). Bond believes Madeleine betrayed him and he's heartbroken. (Although as Blofeld later taunts James, "You were always so sensitive!") Using his indomitable Aston Martin DB5, Bond annihilates the Spectre agents, puts Madeleine on a train, and tells her she'll never see him again. And he meant it. For at least the third time in Daniel Craig's quintology, Bond quits MI6 and he means it.

Retired in Jamaica five years later, Bond is now a man with unlimited time to kill but at least no one is trying to kill him, for once. Until James' old spy buddy Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) comes calling. Felix temps Bond back into action but James meeting M's (Ralph Feinnes) efficient new 007, Nomi (Lashana Lynch) also had something to do with it. From there, No Time To Die puts its foot on the accelerator and takes us on a two-hour thrill ride. Bond walks into a trap in Cuba alongside Paloma (Ana de Armas), the most cheerfully gorgeous Bond Girl of Craig's 007 era. Ana de Armas is so good at drinking, quipping, and fighting alongside James, we wish she stayed for the whole movie. But the mystery of who's working against both James Bond and Spectre, which led to a trap for Bond turning into the massacre of every Spectre agent, leads right back to Ernst Stavro Blofeld. But the real key to this mystery is Madeleine Swann.

In the film's brilliant opening flashback, young Madeleine was attacked by No Time To Die's new twisted villain, Safin (Rami Malek). Safin's family was wiped out by Madeleine's father, Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), on Blofeld's orders and Safin came to White's Norway home looking for revenge. After killing Madeleine's mother, Safin becomes infatuated by the young girl and he saves her from drowning in ice (an echo of Bond nearly drowning in ice during Skyfall's climax). Decades later, Safin is back to finish the job he started and use Madeleine to kill Blofeld with his bioweapon that only works on a specific target's DNA. But Madeleine has another secret Bond discovers: they have a four-year-old daughter named Mathilde (Lisa-Dorah Sonnet). At first, Madeleine lies that James isn't the father of the blue-eyed girl, but he is and he knows it. Mathilde, James Bond's first offspring in any movie, is a bombshell that sets No Time To Die apart from every Bond movie and enables the movie's incredible ending.

No Time To Die's finale, like everything that builds up to it, is absolutely spectacular. Bond and Nomi team up to assault Safin's secret island base, where the madman plans to wipe out entire demographics of people with nanobots, and to save the kidnapped Madeleine and Mathilde. The action is visceral and first-rate as 007 fights his way through scores of soldiers in order to open the blast doors so that missiles can wipe out the island. But Bond is injured by Safin and, worse, he's infected with nanobots targeted to Mathilde and Madeleine's DNA. Even if he got off the island, touching either the woman he loves or his daughter would kill them both. And thus, James Bond makes the ultimate sacrifice, one that feels unthinkable from any of his predecessors from Sean Connery to Pierce Brosnan - Bond willingly dies so that Madeleine and Mathilde can live. Daniel Craig's storied and incredibly successful run as James Bond explosively ends as 007 gives up his life to ensure his daughter can have hers.

A courageous and majestic James Bond story like no other, No Time To Die not only wraps up the serialized story about Daniel Craig's 007 that began with Casino Royale, it also gracefully genuflects to the greater franchise, with special reverence paid to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Bond repeats the ominous promise, "We have all the time in the world" to Madeleine as Hans Zimmer's score evokes John Barry's booming On Her Majesty's Secret Service theme and weaves in Louis Armstrong's "We Have All The Time In The World." As missiles are about to rain down upon him, James Bond promises Madeleine that "You have all the time in the world." This is Bond's most important promise of all and one he means to keep. With this incredible final chapter where everything feels earned and definitive, Cary Joji Fukunaga and Daniel Craig give 007 a legacy he never had before and close out the Craig Era of James Bond with an unforgettably poignant and emotional ending.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

 VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE

** SPOILERS **

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is what everyone dreaded the first Venom movie would be. Director Ruben Fleischer's Venom was an oddball entertainment with the bizarre relationship between Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom (Tom Hardy) at its center. In contrast, Andy Serkis directs Venom: Let There Be Carnage and strips away the connective tissue that made the original Venom a movie, leaving only the guts (but no blood, because Let There Be Carnage is PG-13). Venom: Let There Be Carnage is the equivalent of three Saturday morning cartoons smashed together with a threadbare plot (credited to Tom Hardy and Kelly Marcell) that was probably scribbled on a cocktail napkin during an all-night bender. And yet, despite my loathing this cacophonous misery, Carnage literally says, "Let there be Carnage!" in the movie, and saying the title of the movie in spoken dialogue nets the film an automatic four stars from me.

As set up by Venom's ending, Let There Be Carnage is about a serial killer named Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson, who has nothing to play and plays that nothing right off a cliff). Cletus is holed up on death row in San Quentin but he bites reporter Eddie Brock and swallows some of the Venom symbiote. The result is Cletus is transformed into his own, even grosser, more prehensile tail-y, space monster named Carnage. Cletus/Carnage murder their way out of the clink and head straight for San Francisco to reunite with Cletus' childhood love, Frances Barrison (Naomie Harris). Barrison is also a superpowered freak who can emit sonic screams and she's been locked up her whole life. However, Carnage, Venom, and all of these goopy symbiotes only have two fatal vulnerabilities: fire and really loud noises. So naturally, Carnage isn't too happy that Cletus' missus can kill him if she opens her yap. Three's definitely a crowd there. But the bottom line is Carnage sucks; he's a hideous, terrible, eyesore who's somehow both barely in the movie yet in too much of the movie.

Meanwhile, Eddie, who was a loser in the first movie, is having a career renaissance where he's now the most important and respected reporter in San Francisco, despite still being a swarthy, twitchy weirdo who is clearly hiding a psychotic pile of murderous ooze beneath his skin. Venom is bored of being with Eddie and how controlling his human host is. Eddie won't let Venom eat human brains and he keeps shooting down Venom wanting to call their dynamic duo the "Lethal Protectors." It's not easy being in a symbiotic/romantic relationship with a symbiote and, just like in any rom com, Eddie and Venom break up and go their separate ways for a while. Unfortunately, Eddie has no heterosexual outlet with a human female to turn to because his ex-fiancee, Ann Weying (Michelle Williams), is now engaged to Doctor Dan Lewis (Reid Scott), who, strangely, turns out to be the most heroic person in the movie. For his part, Venom has a scene where he hits a rave and has a fantabulous emancipation of Venom - or he tries to, anyway, but Venom soon realizes he literally can't live without Eddie.

What passes for a plot in Venom: Let There Be Carnage is summed up thusly: Cletus wants to kill Eddie/Venom, marry Frances (who also got a codename, Shriek), and then kill Ann, Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham), the cop who shot Frances years ago but didn't know she survived, Dan, and the priest who was going to marry him and Frances, not necessarily in that order. The movie culminates in a church, not unlike Spider-Man 3, where the ringing of a giant bell helps kill Carnage, just like how Venom (Topher Grace) was defeated in Sam Raimi's unloved threequel. To get to the church on time (record time, almost, since the movie is only 90 minutes long), Venom: Let There Be Carnage packs a lot of nonsense into its short runtime, and it rockets through scenes that barely even qualify as scenes. But that's okay, I guess, since this thing barely qualifies as a movie. Every scene with Michelle Williams, who is barely in the movie, mind you, is made more baffling when one remembers she's been Academy Award-nominated four times.

So why sit through and endure Venom: Let There Be Carnage at all? Well, the Sony Spider-Man Universe is in a symbiotic relationship of its own with Marvel Studios and they finally pulled the trigger on bringing the universes together. In Venom: Let There Be Carnage's headscratcher of a mid-credits scene, Eddie and Venom are in bed together on a beach vacation when Venom randomly starts waxing philosophical of all of the crazy things he's seen traveling through 80,000 lightyears of space. Venom decides to show Eddie some of what he's seen but somehow, they end up transported into a hotel room in the Marvel Cinematic Universe right at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home. Specifically, the moment when the MCU's J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) publicly reveals Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is Spider-Man. How did that happen? How does any of this work? Who cares. At least the mid-credits scene clocks in as the only memorable thing in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, though it's not as standout a moment as when Tom Hardy crawls into a lobster tank and starts eating crustaceans in the first Venom.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

 SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS

** SPOILERS **

Instantly upon meeting Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina), it's clear that they are the best platonic friends in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a title previously held by Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). Steve and Nat are both gone now but nature abhors a vacuum and so Shang-Chi and Katy seamlessly slide into their spot. They even top Rogers and Romanoff because Shang-Chi and Katy know how to have fun, whether it's jacking luxury rides in their day jobs as hotel valets or refusing to go to bed at a sensible hour and staying up all night getting drunk and singing karaoke. With these two as the focus of director Destin Daniel Cretton's entertaining adventure yarn, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, we're in good hands even when things get really weird, really fast.

Before Shang-Chi goes viral by fighting off assassins from the Ten Rings, including the hulking Razor Fist (Florian Munteanu), on a speeding San Francisco bus, Katy only knew him as "Shaun." (Katy rightfully gives Shang-Chi shit for his unimaginative choice of alias). Shaun has been in America for ten years and, like Katy, he's content to go nowhere while enjoying his life as it comes. But Shaun has a secret: He's really a master of kung fu and a super-assassin trained by his father, Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung), the leader of the Ten Rings, China's most powerful criminal organization. The Ten Rings was the Middle Eastern terrorist outfit Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) fought in Iron Man and Iron Man 3, but faster than you can say "retcon," Shang-Chi reveals their true origins as the network led by Wenwu, who is a thousand years old and the master of the mysterious Ten Rings, which are ten powerful bracelets of alien origin. Wenwu always knew Shang-Chi was in San Fran but he decided it's time to summon his son home.

Shang-Chi and Katy, who is also caught up in this mess, travel to Macau to find Shang-Chi's sister, Xu Xialing (Meng'er Zhang), who runs an underground fight club like she's the Chinese Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum). Only instead of the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), one of Xialing's prizefighters is the Abomination (Tim Roth), who makes his return to the MCU after his lone appearance in The Incredible Hulk 13 years ago. Shang-Chi and Katy also meet Wong (Benedict Wong), one of the Masters of the Mystic Arts, who has basically become the new Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) since Wong seems to know everybody in the Avengers now. These are Shang-Chi and Katy's first steps into the larger, crazy world of the MCU, but it turns out Shang-Chi's China is pretty goddamn crazy itself. 

The forward movement of Shang-Chi's plot is interrupted by numerous flashbacks showing how Wenwu met his beloved late wife Ying Li (Fala Chen), their happy early years of marriage, and Shang-Chi's childhood before and after Ying Li is murdered. Lots of family secrets are spilled, including Shang-Chi's shame that he let his father turn him into a killer. Meanwhile, Xialing harbors her own resentments at being her father's forgotten and ignored child, but she turned herself into a self-made crime lord all her own, so she's a chip off the old Ten Rings. Shang-Chi also makes a big deal of both of Wenwu's kids having jade pendants given to them by their mother. Wenwu goes to a lot of trouble to take the jade pendants from his children but there's no real payoff for it. But at its core, Shang-Chi is about family, the one you're born into and the ones you make your family, and living up to your potential while staying true to yourself.

There's also a lot of exposition in Shang-Chi's bonkers third act, which takes place in the magical Chinese village of Ta Lo, an enchanted land that has all manner of exotic mythological beasts, including a dragon called the Great Protector. In Ta Lo, Shang-Chi learns how to use his mother's powers to enhance his martial arts abilities thanks to his aunt, Ying Nan (Michelle Yeoh). Katy also turns out to be an incredibly quick study with a bow and arrow and basically becomes another Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) in a day. Weirdest of all, Shang-Chi learns that thousands of years ago, a great evil soul-sucking dragon attacked Ta Lo from another universe and all that's keeping it back is a door in a mountain that the lovesick Wenwu wants to bust down because he thinks his dead wife is on the other side. It's a lot of bizarre data to absorb and there's no time because there's kung fu fighting and CGI flying monsters the movie has to get to. Shang-Chi's third act is a scaled-down version of the Battle of Wakanda in Avengers: Infinity War mixed with Mulan with as much dragon-riding as the final season of Game of Thrones.

In the comics, Shang-Chi is known as "The Master of Kung Fu," but the MCU's Shang-Chi isn't necessarily the greatest hand-to-hand combatant in the world (although he probably will be the best eventually), and it's a little disappointing when he uses the Ten Rings to explode the soul-sucking evil dragon but he doesn't deliver a cool kung fu blow to the beast as a coup-de-grace. Then again, in the comics, the Ten Rings are actually rings worn by a Chinese supervillain called the Mandarin, but Iron Man 3 changed the Mandarin into a blundering actor named Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) who posed as a terrorist and almost dismantled the U.S. government. Trevor returns in Shang-Chi, which has to do MCU continuity clean-up for Iron Man 3, but Kingsley's guest spot is just wacky comedy from an otherwise unnecessary character. Overall, Shang-Chi's terrific martial arts action scenes compensate for its paint-by-numbers origin story and plot, and the movie becomes a bewildering CGI spectacle in its third act. However, the charming camaraderie of Liu and Awkwafina as Shang-Chi and Katy holds the whole thing together, while Leung's Wenwu is an emotionally-driven villain who's more interesting than a lot of Marvel bad guys.

The title Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings seems like a bit of a misnomer since we learn very little about the Ten Rings themselves. The bracelets are weapons of immense power, we're told, but mostly, Wenwu just uses them to leap long distances, throw super punches, and make energy whips. Despite a thousand years of wielding the Ten Rings, they jump from Wenwu to Shang-Chi pretty easily, and the latter figures out how to use them maybe too quickly. The Ten Rings don't actually get interesting until Shang-Chi's first end-credits scene, which is one of the best MCU stingers: Wong summons Shang-Chi and Katy to analyze the bracelets' alien design and the best friends meet Bruce Banner and Carol Danvers (Brie Larson). It's an obvious set-up for Shang-Chi to join the Avengers and it's pretty awesome. Hopefully, Shang-Chi and Katy bring karaoke nights to the Avengers' get-togethers. We know Wong is down for it.

Reminiscence

 REMINISCENCE 

** SPOILERS **

You're going on a journey...

Remember Chinatown? Remember Casablanca? Remember Wolverine? Remember Westworld? Well, that last one was co-created by Lisa Joy, the writer and director of Reminiscence, so she definitely remembers it. In the stunningly photographed Reminiscence, Joy paints a visually sumptuous post-apocalyptic Miami in the not-too-distant future and plunges Hugh Jackman into a boilerplate detective plot with a couple of intriguing time-tossed twists that don't quite land with a SNIKT. Reminiscence is about memory, and love, and lust, and Hugh Jackman's search for the truth about his lost romance with Rebecca Ferguson, but Reminiscence's wrapping paper ends up being more interesting to look at and think about than the actual gift inside.

Hugh Jackman plays Wolverine Nick Bannister, a mutant "detective of the mind." His business with his partner Maeve Watts (Thandiwe Newton) allows his clients to pay by the hour to use his Reminiscence machine to relive their favorite memories. This involves stripping down and sliding into a sensory deprivation tank as if you're Logan submitting to the Weapon X program replacing your bones with Adamantium. When you're deep in Reminiscence, your memories are projected into 3D holograms Nick and Watts can watch. Considering how intimate many people's memories are, they sure put a lot of trust into Nick and Watts' discretion. Like Wolverine, Hugh Jackman once again falls for the wrong redhead, Jean Grey Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), a slinky nightclub singer who's obviously hiding quite a lot, but the detective doesn't care about that (at first). Nick is hot for Mae and they begin a torrid romance they mostly conduct on rooftops looking over the flooded streets of Miami. Then one day, Mae vanishes and Reminiscence drops its first time-loopy twist that the whole first act of the film was Nick's memories of Mae after spending months in the Reminiscence machine.

For Wolverine Nick Bannister, love means never having to let go of your girlfriend you didn't know anything about. Driven by his desire to find out "Who is she when she's not with me?", Nick plunges into the watery underworld of both Miami and New Orleans, meeting skeevy criminals like Saint Joe (Daniel Wu), a dirty ex-cop named Cyrus Booth (Cliff Curtis), and Walter Sylvan (Brett Cullen), the most powerful land baron in Miami. Nick gets into fistfights, nearly drowns, and throws away his partnership with Watts in order to find out who Mae is and how she came to be. The revelations about Mae aren't exactly Earth-shattering (she's an ex-junkie running from bad guys she stole drugs from) and, beautiful as Ferguson is, Mae doesn't seem like the type of dame a private dick should toss his whole life (such as it is) away for, but the heart wants what the heart wants. More interesting than Mae is the sordid conspiracy she was caught up in as a pawn, involving Sylan's mistress Elsa (Angela Sarafyan), their bastard son, and Sylvan's firstborn son who doesn't want anyone to mess with his inheritance of owning all of the dry land that's left in Miami. Reminiscence's final twist that the entire film is merely the memories of Nick Bannister, who is now an old man cared for by Grandma Watts after spending decades in the Reminiscence machine reliving his romance with Mae and investigation into her disappearance, is intended as a Christopher Nolan-esque bombshell but, unfortunately, it goes off with a sputter.

Every character who meets another character in Reminiscence starts reminiscing about things that happened in the past that sound way more interesting than what's going on in the present. Reminiscence's backstory and post-apocalyptic setting are simply far more intriguing than Nick's Adamantium-like hard-on for Mae. Joy sprinkles in tasty dollops about Reminiscence's future universe, where climate change not only sank Miami but sparked a bloody war with climate change deniers. Nick was a Navy seaman who was 'drafted' to border patrol, which involved Bannister using the Reminiscence machine to interrogate enemy soldiers and poor people fleeing the tides. When the war ended, Nick somehow finagled the Reminiscence machine to start his sinking business. The way society and culture evolved because of the war and climate change, like Miami becoming a nocturnal city of boats and canals, aren't just a grim forecasting of our probable future in the real world, but it's a backdrop that begs Joy to delve further into. Compared to the impressive future world Joy envisioned, unfortunately, the problems of Nick Bannister and Mae don't amount to a hill of beans in Reminiscence's evocative, sci-fi noir world. 

The Suicide Squad

 THE SUICIDE SQUAD

** SPOILERS **

Writer-director James Gunn's The Suicide Squad understands the old adage that if you introduce a javelin in Act 1, you must have Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) plunge that javelin into the eye of a giant, telepathic alien starfish in Act 3. That's Chekhov's javelin. Look, I grew up reading 1980s DC Comics and poring over Who's Who character encyclopedias and DC Heroes role-playing game sourcebooks, and apparently, so did James Gunn. The Suicide Squad was made for me. Well, not me, exactly, but 14-year-old me, who probably appreciated the obscure DC references even more than adult me dug the overall film. The Suicide Squad is a far better and more enjoyable movie than the 2016 Suicide Squad. It's unapologetically bloody and ruthless as a movie about a cruel bureaucrat, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), sending superpowered convicts to their deaths ought to be. The bottom line is Gunn understands that it sucks to be in the Suicide Squad but, unlike with the prior film, he also made sure it doesn't suck watching The Suicide Squad.

The Suicide Squad has a massive cast that the marketing correctly urges you not to get too attached to. Waller assembles a group to go to a South American country named Corto Maltese, which is the same country Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) took war photos of that got on the cover of Time in Batman 1989, for some sort of black op. Back leading the group is Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) while Harley Quinn and Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), old pals who survived the first Suicide Squad, are also volunteered for the mission. But this version of the Squad has weirdos like Blackguard (Pete Davidson), Savant (Michael Rooker), Javelin (Flula Borg), and a guy named T.D.K. (Nathan Fillion), whose superpower is he can detach his arms. Great. There's also some kind of weasel-like man-thing named Weasel (Sean Gunn). This Squad is useless and they're supposed to be; Blackguard sold them out to the Corto Maltese army (and maybe Waller arranged it so he would, it's not clear), and they get massacred on the beach. But that was the point because there was a second Suicide Squad sent by Waller who is really supposed to accomplish the mission.

The other Suicide Squad is led by Bloodsport (Idris Elba), a mercenary and expert marksman with any weapon. Bloodsport also has a teenage daughter and he's a reluctant leader who doesn't believe he's a good person. If that sounds exactly like Deadshot (Will Smith) in the first movie it's because it's the same character, only Bloodsport's kid is also a criminal. There's also Peacemaker (John Cena), an extremist soldier who loves peace so much he'll murder anyone to keep it, and he wears a toilet bowl-looking helmet on his head. The other oddballs are Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), a sweet narcoleptic who controls rats and has her own Ratatoullie and, naturally, is the daughter of Ratcatcher 1 (Taika Waititi), Nanaue aka King Shark (Sylvester Stallone), an innocent shark monster man, and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), who was infested with an alien virus and sees his abusive mother in everyone he kills. Waller sends this Squad into Corto Maltese to stop a supervillain named The Thinker (Peter Capaldi), who has spent 30 years experimenting on the aforementioned alien starfish, Starro the Conqueror, who can control people's minds with little starfish face huggers like in Alien. Most of the movie is spent following these numbnuts traipsing through the jungle and bumbling throughout their mission.

And then there's Harley Quinn, who survived the massacre at the beach and finds herself courted by Corto Maltese's new President, Sylvio Luna (Julio Diego Botto). In her third outing as Harley, Robbie has perfected the endearingly hot psychopath, who's basically a female Bugs Bunny with a murderous streak. In a movie filled with unexpected twists, Harley has the best one when she turns the tables on Luna, who she did consider marrying, and she has the best fight sequence in the film that tops the ones she had in Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. Perhaps not so strangely, Harley also introduces The Suicide Squad's moral center: she may be a homicidal girl clown but Harley draws the line at killing kids. Apparently, so does Bloodsport, which we learn when Harley joins up with his Squad. It's interesting to see where supervillains draw the line but letting Amanda Waller get away with allowing an alien starfish to take over Corto Maltese was a bridge too far, and the Suicide Squad turn into heroes by necessity,

As a movie about supervillains abused by the system, The Suicide Squad squarely points the finger at the real bad guys: Waller and by extension, the United States that she 'defends'. The Suicide Squad is an indictment of U.S. foreign policy, the way immigrants like Ratcatcher 2 are persecuted, and it was the United States that brought Starro to Corto Maltese, cutting a secret deal to experiment on the alien far from American soil and without the knowledge of the American people. Even Waller's own staff turn on her, which is pretty ballsy considering Waller shot and killed her prior staff point-blank in the first Suicide Squad. Gunn peppers in a lot of character development for the Suicide Squad members he cares about and he makes the audience care for them too. 

However, The Suicide Squad sacrifices forward momentum and a clear throughline for blood-splattered set pieces, narrative time-twisting, and a bunch of strange asides, though getting to know Ratcatcher 2, Peacemaker, Bloodsport, and Nanaue is worth the time spent. Gunn also sets up Peacemaker's solo series on HBO Max even though the guy is a gigantic jerk, but Cena still makes Peacemaker a jerk we want to see more of. The Suicide Squad is infused with pop music like the prior film and Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy but weirdly, the tunes aren't quite as memorable this time around. Overall, The Suicide Squad is a joyously indulgent auteur superhero movie where James Gunn lets us into his very specific comic book mindset as if Gunn himself slapped a Starro on our faces and whispered "have a good time". And you know what? We do.

Black Widow

 BLACK WIDOW

** SPOILERS **

It took 24 films for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to deliver a Bond movie and director Cate Shortland's Black Widow is both a great Bond movie and a top-tier Marvel movie. At last, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) takes center stage in a film that delves into her origins and her complicated feelings about the family she had before she became an Avenger. Black Widow also details what makes Natasha special and unique, even among the scores of other young girls who were taken into Russia's mysterious Red Room and trained to be relentless female assassins codenamed Black Widow. We know Natasha died saving the universe in Avengers: Endgame, but in Black Widow, she is, appropriately, never more present, more capable, more alive, more human, and more glorious.

Not that Natasha doesn't have competition from her own sister. Florence Pugh makes a spectacular debut in the MCU as Yelena Belova, who is 5 years younger and was part of a spy family planted in Ohio for three years in the 1990s. Natasha and Yelena's origin is a page out of The Americans; their 'parents' were Russian agents Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) and Melina Vostokov (Rachel Weisz). Alexei is Russia's first and only Super Soldier codenamed Red Guardian and his career is made up of war stories against Captain America (Chris Evans) that he never fought because Steve Rogers was still frozen in ice when Alexei was Red Guardian. Melina was a loving mother figure to young Natasha (Ever Anderson) and young Yelena (Violet McGraw) but when their mission is compromised in 1995, they had to violently flee from S.H.I.E.L.D. before they were betrayed in Cuba by their handler, Dreykov (Ray Winstone). Their fake family is separated and the two girls are handed over to Drekov's Red Room to be turned into Black Widows. This not only includes weapons and spy training to make them deadly assassins but they were also subjected to hysterectomies, although the adult Yelena and Natasha joke about it now.

Natasha's story is obviously world-famous: she defected and joined S.H.I.E.L.D. before becoming a superhero and an Avenger. When they're reunited, Yelena taunts her sister that little girls look at Natasha on magazine covers and made an assassin their hero. But when Black Widow picks up Nat's story, it's 2016 in the MCU's timeline, and Captain America: Civil War has just happened, meaning Romanoff is a fugitive being hunted by Secretary Ross (William Hurt) for violating the newly-minted Sokovia Accords and the Avengers have just fallen apart. Black Widow is set before Natasha reunited with her fellow ex-Avenger on the lam, Steve Rogers, and the film happens two years before Avengers: Infinity War. Of course, as a superspy, Natasha has resources of her own, including Rick Mason (O-T Fagbenle), a fixer who set her up with a hideout in Norway and acquires her supplies and gear, including her Black Widow costumes and even an Avengers Quinjet. It's amusing that Natasha hid in Norway years before the Asgardians arrived to set up New Asgard after Thor: Ragnarok.

Yelena and Natasha reunite when the younger Black Widow is freed from her mind control thanks to a special red gas. Natasha is stunned to learn that not only is the Red Room still active but Dreykov is still alive when assassinating the Russian master spy was her ticket to joining S.H.I.E.L.D. That was the Budapest mission that Natasha and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) joked about in The Avengers, but it was a tragic job Natasha had to do which led to Dreykov's daughter Antonia (Olga Kurylenko) ending up in the line of fire. But unbeknownst to Natasha, both of the Dreykovs lived. The father reestablished the Red Room and perfected his mind control of the Black Widows, planting a legion of brainwashed lady assassins all over the world. Meanwhile, Dreykov's greatest mind-controlled creation is his own daughter, who he turned into a silent assassin called Taskmaster, who can instantly learn anyone's fighting style and use it against them. Amusingly, Super Soldiers who can topple governments was the basis of the failed Winter Soldier program in Captain America: Civil War, but Dreykov achieved the same plot with Black Widows. He even turned the Red Room into his version of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier, which was foreshadowed early in the film when Natasha watches the Roger Moore Bond movie, Moonraker.

Natasha and Yelena are electric together; both are equally skilled and dangerous but they fall into a sisterly dynamic where Yelena goofs on Natasha for her superhero landing pose and for hanging around with Avengers like the 'god from space' who she considers her family. But to get to Dreykov, the Black Widows bust Alexei out of a Siberian gulag and they reunite with Melina, who has been working for Dreykov as his architect all along. What transpires are years of pain spilling out at the dinner table from a family that was thrown together and cruelly torn apart by their own government. Still, as Natasha learned with the Avengers, the only people you can trust are your family, and Black Widow delivers thrilling spy double-crosses as Natasha masterminds a face-to-face confrontation with Dreykov in the Red Room. The Bond-style spy games give way to Marvel-style mega-action (which also the modern Bond style led by Rachel Weisz's real-life husband, Daniel Craig, in his 007 movies) where Natasha takes on dozens of Black Widows solo and repeatedly hurls herself from the plummeting space station to perform impossible rescues. Daredevil is called the Man Without Fear but Natasha Romanoff can see but does what she does anyway, so she one-ups Matt Murdock there.

As a swan song for Natasha Romanoff, the original and best Black Widow, her long-awaited solo movie delivers in spades. Johansson, who is also executive producer, knows Natasha inside out, and she's a calm, wise, uber confident, effortlessly cool, but appropriately emotional and suitably awesome center who is every inch a superhero. Black Widow is also a rollicking passing of the baton to Yelena and Pugh has a bright future in the MCU, as evidenced by the post-credits scene setting up her next appearance in Disney+'s Hawkeye. With the MCU already introducing the Multiverse and Loki setting up the concepts of Variants, Johannson could return someday but the Natasha Romanoff who fans have watched for a decade since she debuted in Iron Man 2 is sadly gone. But Black Widow was worth the wait and it's gritty and globetrotting Marvel superheroics at its finest. Even the opening credits sequence (rare for a Marvel film) is spectacular: a disturbing montage of Natasha and Helena's indoctrination into the Red Room set to a moody cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that plays like the brainwashing scene in A Clockwork Orange. Black Widow is Johansson and Natasha's equivalent to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and there's no higher compliment.

Godzilla Vs. Kong

 GODZILLA VS. KONG

** SPOILERS **

Godzilla Vs. Kong is booked perfectly according to pro wrestling rules. First, you have Godzilla, the heel, who has apparently turned on the human race that he was purportedly protecting. To beat the literal monster heel, Monarch and Apex Cybernetics bring in the babyface, Kong, who's admittedly an underdog against the radioactive lizard. They clash in a two-out-of-three falls Iron Monster Match that does end with a decisive victor - until there's a run-in by Mechagodzilla, who's the real monster heel of MonsterMania. It turns into a two-on-one handicap match where the best monster prevails. I won't say who he is, but, in the worlds of the late, great Pat Patterson, "The crowd go banana."

With the satisfyingly straightforward Godzilla Vs. Kong, director Adam Wingard delivers the goods. The bloat, i.e. the overabundance of jabbering human characters no one cared about in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, is largely excised. (Kyle Chandler, the star of the previous film, is in this movie and he might have a half dozen scenes and a dozen lines tops.) Even Godzilla himself, who has top billing, is shuffled into the background for much of the film. Godzilla Vs. Kong is smart enough to bet all of its money on Kong, who is the most empathetic and loveable movie monster of all, and make him the main character. It's Kong's heroic journey we follow, from Skull Island to the Hollow Earth at the center of the planet (think the Savage Land of Marvel Comics), and into Hong Kong (of course) for the final showdown with two types of Godzilla. Incidentally, Hong Kong's power grid is miraculous to behold, because, despite three giant monsters rampaging on the island, the buildings continue to be lit up in neon colors to provide groovy mood lighting for the creature brawl.

Godzilla Vs. Kong begins with Godzilla turning heel and attacking the Pensacola, Florida facility of Apex Cybernetics - a company whose name kind of gives away what they're really doing in their secret subterranean labs. In response, Apex comes up with a crazy scheme to use Kong to venture into the Hollow Earth to find the secret power source that fuels all of the Titans. Meanwhile, poor Kong is living on Skull Island in a version of The Truman Show. Monarch set up a biodome over the whole island to constantly watch Kong and keep him safe from Godzilla, lest the giant lizard comes to the island to defend the title of King of the Monsters. A couple of scientists played by Alexander Skarsgard and Rebecca Hall lead the Apex mission to bring Kong to Antarctica, which is the gateway to the Hollow Earth. Of course, they transport Kong by boat and in chains, and Kong pouts the whole way as he gets rained on and we wonder what happens when he needs to go to the bathroom after he eats the piles of fish Apex feeds him.

Since Godzilla wants to kill Kong, under the logic that after the ending of the last movie, Godzilla wants all the Titans to bow down to him but Kong bows to no one, the lizard finds the ape at sea and attacks. As one would figure, Godzilla has the advantage in the ocean and he nearly drowns Kong. Only then does Skarsgard think, "Hey, maybe we should have flown Kong to Antarctica?" Better late than never, one supposes. Skarsgard and Hall are joined by Eiza Gonzalez, the fetching daughter of the billionaire CEO of Apex, Demian Bichir. They have a couple of Star Trek shuttlecrafts that can allow humans to survive the gravitational inversion at the gateway to the Hollow Earth. There's also Kaylee Hottle, a little deaf girl who Kong befriended and who taught the great ape sign language. Altogether, they follow Kong to the Hollow Earth where he finds what is, apparently, the Kong family's ceremonial battle-ax and throne. Who built the Kong throne room? Who knows? But wouldn't you know it, as soon as they harvest the Hollow Earth power source, Gonzalez betrays Skarsgard, Hall, and Kong. Hilariously, they die, of course, and just as hilariously, Gonzalez's father never even finds out what happened to her before he bites it himself in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Millie Bobby Brown, who was in the last movie and was kidnapped by her crazy mother Vera Farmiga, leads a goofy side mission with her best friend Julian Dennison and a Titan conspiracy podcaster, Bryan Tyree Henry. They uncover what Apex is really doing: building Mechagodzilla! To power it, they need that power source from the Hollow Earth, but to control the robot lizard, they're using the head of Ghidorah, which was recovered at the end of the last movie. (No mention of whatever happened to Charles Dance, who bought the head in the black market.) Shun Oguri, who plays the son of Ken Watanabe from the previous two Godzilla movies, controls Mechagodzilla but, of course, there's a technical screw up and Ghidorah's psychic evil takes over Mechagodzilla. Here's the thing though: before he died, Bichir's logic for building Mechagodzilla was he was sick of Titans rampaging whenever they wanted and he didn't trust Godzilla to be our benevolent protector. (And really, why would you?) Mechagodzilla was designed to be a Titan killer to free humanity at last from the threat of all monsters. Well, he's kind of right! Sure, he turned out to be kinda evil, and Mechagodzilla was flawed, but his logic is basically correct. Every Japanese robot cartoon is about humans having a robot to fight and kill monsters. Apex was sort of doing the right thing.

Anyway, when Godzilla somehow finds out that Kong made it to the Hollow Earth, he atomic fire breaths a hole all the way to the Earth's core so Kong can climb up for the rematch. With his atomic fire breath-absorbing ax in hand, Kong whoops Godzilla and wins the second fall. His victory is short-lived, however, as Godzilla makes a comeback and wins the third fall, stomping on Kong's heart for good measure. Still, Kong earned Godzilla's respect and, after the good humans used the Hollow Earth energy as a defibrillator to jump-start Kong's heart, the great ape joins the fight between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla. This is Kong's finest moment since he totally lays the smackdown on Mechagodzilla after Godzilla totally couldn't get the job done. Kong saves the world and is confirmed as the true hero of Godzilla Vs. Kong. Godzilla, a little embarrassed, slinks back into the sea while Kong goes back to ruling the Hollow Earth. 

If Godzilla Vs. Kong is the last MonsterVerse movie, it's the best way it could go out for Kong lovers like yours truly. There are also a couple of hilarious nods to other movies: When Kong's shoulder is dislocated, he slams it back into place just like Mel Gibson does in Lethal Weapon 2. And after he kills Mechagodzilla, Kong tears its robot head and spine out just like Captain Jean-Luc Picard does to the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact. It's nice that Kong watches the same movies I do.

Wonder Woman 1984

 WONDER WOMAN 1984

** SPOILERS **

So Many Things.

Wonder Woman 1984 has a golden, beating heart unlike any seen in a superhero movie before. Director Patty Jenkins' long-awaited follow-up to her 2017 smash hit, Wonder Woman, is a bigger and far more ambitious film about Diana Prince (a radiant Gal Gadot who is more assured than ever as Wonder Woman) saving the world during the Me Decade and what her sacrifice costs the most selfless and altruistic woman who ever lived. Wonder Woman 1984 is breathtakingly beautiful, has moments of raw emotional power, is, at times, unbelievably messy and convoluted, but triumphs unequivocally because of its genuine sincerity, re-enforcing Wonder Woman's nobility, her goodness, and the undeniable truth that the world is better with her in it.

67 years have passed since Wonder Woman helped end World War I but lost the only man she's ever loved (and maybe will ever love), Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) in the process of saving the world. In the decades since, Diana has traveled the world and helped people in need in clandestine fashion - although whenever someone actually sees her in her gleaming red, blue, and gold armor swinging her shiny golden Lasso of Truth, she asks them to keep it a secret and they all apparently do! - but her extended (and possibly infinite) time in Man's World has been marked by stark loneliness now that her old friends from 1917 are all dead. In 1984, Diana Prince lives at the Watergate in Washington, DC, works at the Smithsonian, and no one catches on that one of the most startlingly beautiful women in the city is also the mysterious vigilante saving people and beating up crooks in the mall in broad daylight. Diana is happy to give of herself and save lives but, if she is going to be completely truthful, she misses Steve, and seeing him again is the only thing she wants. After he died, Diana visited Steve's home and learned who he was, which made him even more precious to her.

Wonder Woman 1984 is a contrast of two professional women who are both exceedingly lonely. The other woman is Dr. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), a mousey geologist no one ever "sees", and she's the lastest of the superhero movie trope's nerd in glasses who becomes a supervillain, following Jim Carrey's Riddler and Jamie Foxx's Electro. Barbara and Diana become friends, and Minerva certainly envies her beauty and poise. Barbara's wish to be more like Diana comes true thanks to an ancient artifact that comes into the Smithsonian's possession called the Dreamstone, and the machinations of the film's uber-villain, Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal). Lord is a self-styled Tony Robbins-like TV personality and he's a budding oil baron, but he's secretly a fraud at both. But he knows about the Dreamstone and he wants to use it to become the most powerful man in the world. Once Max steals it from Barbara and the museum, he literally becomes the dreamstone, and he starts granting wishes, growing more and more powerful (but also sicker, with his comic book counterpart's trademark nosebleeds) as his payment for each wish granted is to take something precious from the grantee.

Barbara's wish is granted and she becomes stronger, more agile, and she emits pheromones that instantly make her more desirable - and, of course, she loves it and won't go back to being a nerd. Diana's wish is far more interesting; her heart's desire to have Steve back is granted and he re-emerges in a new body (belonging to Kristoffer Polaha, who is credited as Handsome Man in the film), but Diana can still see Chris Pine's face. Steve coming back to the miraculous future of 1984, with its jumbo jetliners, Pop-Tarts, and parachute pants, is the biggest delight of Wonder Woman 1984 and Pine is fantastic as New Steve. This time, Diana is the worldly one while Steve is the fish-out-of-water, and their scenes crackle with palpable comedic and romantic chemistry. Diana is a bit out there when Steve returns as she has no problems with this situation and no intention of giving him up, while Steve, as much as he's enjoying himself being back with Diana, is also aware that he stole some guy's body and this probably shouldn't be a permanent thing.

Speaking of stealing, Max Lord keeps granting wishes, becoming the most powerful oil magnate on Earth, and he also starts granting wishes of foreign powers, and even President Ronald Reagan, which allows him to literally rewrite the planet into a New World Order. Truthfully, Max's scheme and the rapid domino effects of it, are when everything really gets away from Wonder Woman 1984, because unlike Max's new philosophy of "Why not more?", more isn't really better for the movie. To Diana's shock, she realizes what her own wish has taken from her: her gods-given Amazon superpowers. Diana gets shot an alarming number of times as she's becoming too slow to block bullets with her bracelets. Meanwhile, Barbara gets stronger and meaner as she becomes the apex predator of her deepest desires: the Cheetah. As the crisis escalates, Steve may not understand how an escalator works or what exactly is going on but he grasps the reality of the situation and he urges Diana to give him up to save the world. Finally, Diana acknowledges the truth and in the movie's most heartwrenching scene, she promises "I'll never love again!" as she renounces her wish and gets more and more powerful until she can take to the skies as the apex Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman 1984 cleverly updates a couple of the comic book character's own tropes: the invisible jet is reimagined as a fighter plane she and Steve steal to get to Cairo, but she is able to make it invisible using the same magic Zeus used to make the island of Themyscira hidden from Man's World. Meanwhile, the question of whether or not Wonder Woman can (or should) fly and how is ingeniously resolved; Diana has always envied that being a pilot and knowing how to fly was Steve's gift, and Diana takes his Zen-like philosophy of "riding the air" to heart as she learns to use her lasso to catch thin air itself to propel her into the skies. It's a brilliant way to give Diana the power of flight while differentiating her from Superman (Henry Cavill), her future Justice League super friend. The scenes of Diana soaring through the skies are stunning and emotionally uplifting. It's also laudable that, unlike the sword-and-shield-swinging warrior in her previous movie appearances, Jenkins and Gadot purposefully make Wonder Woman a non-lethal combatant in Wonder Woman 1984, and she swings the Lasso of Truth as an eye-popping weapon for attack and defense. Diana even scolds Steve not to use a sword when fighting at the White House. Even when she's decked out in her new winged golden armor, Diana left the sword and shield behind.

The hows and whys of Max Lord's ultimate defeat and the people of the world choosing to relinquish their wishes to restore the world to how it was are bewildering. But it's to Wonder Woman 1984's credit that, after a too-brief throwdown with Cheetah, Diana doesn't beat Max with muscle or her fists but with her heart and her own goodness that she shares with the world. Even Max finally changes for the better and remembers his son is the most important person in the world to him. It's all emotionally powerful in a genuine way that makes up for how hard all of it is to explain, although it's nowhere near as impenetrable as Tenet, for example. The important thing is Diana's sacrifice and her indomitable capacity to love setting an example to the world, even if they still have no idea who Wonder Woman is. But we know who Wonder Woman is and we truly are so much better of a world for having Diana Prince in it  - if only she were real. Finally, the fantastic post-credits scene cameo by Lynda Carter reminds us that every generation will have a Wonder Woman to look up to and we're so lucky to have her.