Kubo and the Two Strings

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS

** SPOILERS **

Kubo and the Two Strings is exquisite. Directed by Travis Knight and gorgeously animated in eye-popping stop motion by Laika, Kubo and the Two Strings delivers a moving message of the power of family and the importance of story. In Ancient Japan, a mother (voiced by Charlize Theron) and her infant son flees her family and takes refuge in a cave above a tiny village. Her son lost an eye, taken by her father, whom we learn is a powerful god called the Moon King (voiced by Ralph Fiennes). Eleven years later, her son, Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson), bright, heroic, and well-liked, uses magical music and origami to dazzle his fellow villagers with tales of his father, the samurai Hanzo, who battled the Moon King and once sought a magical suit of armor and an unbreakable sword. Kubo is warned by his mother, who suffers from mental illness, to never stay out past sundown. One night, Kubo does, and is found by his mother's evil Sisters (voiced by Rooney Mara). Accompanied by a magical but stern Monkey and an amnesiac comic relief former samurai transformed into a Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), Kubo is plunged into a thrilling adventure to find the missing pieces of the magic armor his father once wore so he can defeat the Moon King and restore honor to his family.

The visuals are extraordinary. Kubo's quest alongside Monkey and Beetle sees him battle a giant skeleton with multiple swords, including the Sword Unbreakable he seeks, impaled in its head. In a forbidding lake, Kubo and Beetle find the breast plate of his magic armor, along with a number of terrifying gigantic eyeballs serving what seems to be a Sarlaac monster at the bottom of the lake. There are violent battles between the Sisters and Monkey, but the screenplay by Marc Haimes and Chris Butler keeps the focus on Kubo's emotional growth, while weaving in evocative themes of the power stories contain. A revelation involving the always-bickering Monkey and Beetle, as well as the final battles between Monkey and the Sisters and Kubo and his grandfather the Moon King imbuess Kubo and the Two Strings with poignant family drama. Though Kubo employs famous non-Asian Hollywood actors to voice Asian roles (George Takei and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa voice only minor roles of villagers), Kubo and the Two Strings vividly brings to life a dreamy vision of Ancient Japan, where origami is magic and the powers of darkness can be defeated by the light of a family's love.

Don't Breathe

DON'T BREATHE

** SPOILERS **

Don't Breathe is a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to break into Daredevil's house and rob him blind. Er, blinder. Well, maybe Daredevil wouldn't go on a murderous rampage against home invaders, but his crazy old blind ninja teacher Stick would. I digress. In the tidy, effective Don't Breathe, Dylan Minnette, Jane Levy, and Daniel Zovatto dream of a sun-kissed life in California far away from crappy, rundown Detroit. Thus, they break into homes and steal shit. They're like millennial Robin Hoods -- robbing from the rich to give to themselves, since they're poor. Zovatto gets a line from his fence about an easy mark: a blind old ex-soldier (Stephen Lang) living alone in an abandoned neighborhood. His daughter was killed by a rich girl (rich people! Damn rich people!) and he was paid off a million dollars to not press charges. The old Blind Man keeps the money somewhere in his dilapidated old house, they think. With that kernel of info to go on, Minnette, Levy, and Zovatto go breaking and entering.

For cat burglars, Levy, Minnette and Zovatto are awfully loud. The old man is blind, not deaf; in fact it stands to reason his hearing would be even better than a sighted person's. And yet, the three hoods make little effort to not cause a ruckus smashing windows and stomping around the creepy house, even before Zovatto thinks he gassed the sleeping Blind Man. However, they didn't reckon the old dude to be like a blind Terminator. Lang is a relentless, remorseless killing machine who knows his ramshackle abode far better than the kids do, and he has a dog that's an equally relentless, remorseless killing machine. Trapped in the house and desperate to escape, Levy and Minnette still manage to score a cool million bucks in cash from the Blind Man's safe, yet they ignore a couple of prime opportunities to just blow past the Blind Man and make a break for it. They use their cell phones liberally early on, but then somehow forget they even have cell phones with flashlights when the Blind Man turns off the lights and chases them. 

Instead Levy and Minnette plunge themselves into the house's enormous, labyrinthine basement, sub-basement, and crawl spaces where they learn the Blind Man harbors a terrifying secret. One so twisted and heinous that Don't Breathe does a wild turnabout and literally tells the audience it's okay after all that these kids are robbing this old Blind Guy, because he's a total sicko. Minnette is the brains of the operation and Levy turns out to have the heart and resourcefulness of a true survivor, but neither is a match for the Blind Man's WWE fighting style. (It is kind of satisfying to see the Blind Man pop Minnette in the kisser over and over. Poom! Poom! Poom!) We also learn that even though he's blind, the old man can slice the nether region of a woman's pants open with a pair of scissors with lickety split ease and precision; most dudes with sight have trouble unhooking a girl's bra. Don't Breathe manages to succeed in asking the audience to root for terrible people to survive against an even more terrible person, but its greatest achievement is ruining Thanksgiving for years to come. Millions of people who watch Don't Breathe will likely be unable to see a turkey baster and not be grossed out ever again.

Hell or High Water

HELL OR HIGH WATER

** SPOILERS **

Hell or High Water is a terrific modern day tome of crime, family, and friendship set in the dusty, dilapidated towns of West Texas. Chris Pine, a desperate, determined father trying to do right by his resentful ex-wife and their teenage sons, recruits his ex-con older brother Ben Foster into a series of local bank robberies. Pine is awkward at robbery at first, and too careful; they only hit particular branches of Midland Bank, and only early in the mornings before the banks get crowded. Foster is a volatile hellion, even robbing a branch solo while Pine eats a steak dinner in a diner next door. Gradually and expertly, Hell or High Water reveals the motivations behind their crime spree: their late mother's ranch is about to be foreclosed on by Midland Bank. Pine's plan is to steal enough from Midland to pay the bank back with their own stolen money, and then leave the ranch in a trust to his sons. ("The most Texas plan ever," declares Pine's accountant.) Even though these battlin' brothers don't see eye to eye, Hell or High Water weaves a powerful undercurrent of love and loyalty within their family.

Meanwhile, US Marshals Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham are hot on Pine and Foster's trail, chasing them across the highways of West Texas. Days away from retirement, old man Bridges, crusty, determined, and prone to busting Birmingham's balls with an endless array of racist quips, manages to intuit Pine and Foster's methodology and motivations. The lawmen hunt the outlaws in classic movie Western-style, while Hell or High Water provocatively comments on the poverty and every day socio-economic hardships the people of West Texas face. For those of us weaned on the football-loving optimism of Friday Night Lights, Hell or High Water's bleaker, unblinking depiction of West Texas is harsh, indeed. This is a place where conceal and carry is a proud fact of life; indeed, when one of Foster and Pine's robberies go awry, several local townspeople who are packing open fire and give chase, illustrating the folly of the theory that "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Hell or High Water is so effective at making us emphasize with Pine and Foster that they never feel like the bad guys, even when they are, and even when Bridges does his damnedest to bring the long arm of the law down on them.

Suicide Squad

SUICIDE SQUAD

** SPOILERS **

Suicide Squad is like the Cold Stone Creamery of comic book movies. A dozen ingredients mushed together frozen on a slab. Maybe eating the entire thing isn't the best thing for you, but you like the fillings and it tastes really good for a while, so you keep eating until the end. Then what? I dunno. My tummy feels weird. Written and directed with balls-slapped-to-the-wall gusto by David Ayers, who is clearly indulging his youthful love of comic books, Suicide Squad is the dirty, scarred side of the DC Cinematic Universe coin. Shining a light on some of the most dangerous (and frankly, some of the most obscure) super villains in the DC Comics pantheon, Suicide Squad's primary mission is to elicit sympathy for the devils (with on the nose musical choices), which Ayers accomplishes for some of the Squad. Bawdier, rowdier, and more perverse than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad is pure, distilled comic book villain chaos on the screen. Alternately erratic, ambitious, scattershot, harebrained, baffling, and proudly in-your-face to a fault, Suicide Squad is also fitfully fun and occasionally even admirable.

"What if Superman ripped the roof off the White House and kidnapped the President? Who could have stopped him?" is the treatise behind the formation of Task Force X, the brainchild of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), a devious, ruthless patriot. (Superman is, of course, currently deceased as a result of Batman v Superman, but Waller fears the next Superman may not be as noble, though they sure didn't like him much when he was alive.) Waller's idea: recruit the myriad metahuman super villains already incarcerated in a Louisiana black site prison called Belle Reve and force these very bad people to do some good. Or die trying, via explosive nanites injected into their necks. Waller's plan has little logical merit (though some of the Belle Reve inmates are super powered metahumans, how would they realistically fare against someone as powerful as the Man of Steel?) but through blackmail, fear-mongering and intimidation, Waller gets the green light from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for her Suicide Squad.

The unwilling recruits to the Suicide Squad are the worst of the worst and the craziest of the crazy: Deadshot (Will Smith), an assassin and the world's deadliest marksman who was personally apprehended by the Batman (Ben Affleck, making several welcome appearances in and out of the Batsuit); Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), the Joker's sexpot girlfriend and a gleeful maniac who's also in Belle Reve courtesy of Batman; Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), literally a crocodile man who was captured by -- you guessed it -- Batman; Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), an Aussie nutjob who somehow is serving three consecutive life sentences for stealing some diamonds and getting caught by Batman the Flash (Ezra Miller); and Diablo (Jay Hernandez), a flame throwing gang banger who accidentally roasted his family and is trying to reform. There's also Slipknot (Adam Beach), "a guy who can climb anything." He gets dispatched almost immediately as a way for the movie to demonstrate how the nanite bombs would kill the Suicide Squaders if they rebel. Slipknot, we hardly knew ye (and didn't really want to). 

Keeping tabs on the Suicide Squad in the field is Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), "the best special forces soldier in America" who gives lousy rah rah motivational speeches. Keeping tabs on Rick Flag is Katana (Karen Fukuhara), a masked Japanese lady who wields and talks to a magical samurai sword that traps the souls of its victims and houses the soul of her late husband. Are we done? No. Because speaking of magic, there's also June Moone (Cara Delevingne), an archaeologist whose body is possessed by an ancient and powerful witch called the Enchantress. Scott Eastwood is there too, as one of Flag's soldiers, and for some reason his name is GQ. Meanwhile, occasionally inserting his madness into the movie's overall madness is the Joker (Jared Leto), an unwelcome distraction who's hellbent on rescuing Harley so she can be reunited with her 'puddin' Mistah J. Following the daunting, legendary cinematic footsteps of Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, Leto preens as a pimped out, bling-wearing, tattooed, repulsive and grotesque Joker that it's probably safe to say will go down as no one's favorite incarnation of the Clown Prince of Crime. 

In a movie chock full of bad people, the Big Bad turns out to be the Enchantress, who decides she wants to destroy the world. She and her demonic, CGI brother take control of Midway City, turning ordinary citizens into minions who look like human blackberries, and creates a machine that shoots electricity into the sky for three days. (This went on for three days yet Batman, Wonder Woman or the Flash didn't make a move to intervene? Wonder Woman would have been the best bet to go up against the Enchantress.) Finally, the Suicide Squad is dispatched to Midway City. To take out the Enchantress? No. To rescue a MacGuffin, which turns out to be Amanda Waller herself. Meanwhile, Waller is in possession of her own MacGuffin, the heart of the Enchantress, which she needs to assert her full power. The Suicide Squad do a lot of standing around, walking around, and fighting blackberry minions, in that order, but when Waller is shot down and captured by the Enchantress, the Suicide Squad decides to get drunk in a bar together, commiserating about the unfairness of their lives and bonding in the movie's best scene. Ultimately, the Suicide Squad decide to save the world and defeat the Enchantress. How do they take down an all-powerful sorceress? With guns and bombs, natch. 

The main issue plaguing Suicide Squad is tone, best exemplified by Delevingne's performance as the Enchantress. When first introduced, under the thrall of Waller, poor tortured June Moone is a sympathetic victim of demonic possession. When we first see Moone transformed into the Enchantress, she's dangerously compelling, rather unlike any character we've seen in a comic book movie before. But by the time the Suicide Squad faces the Enchantress, Delevingne loses sight of the top as she careens headlong over it, becoming a posturing and gyrating cartoon. It's as if director Ayers was demonically possessed by Joel Schumacher. Throughout Suicide Squad, the multitude of characters aching for screen time compete in a muddy tug of war with the demands of the plot. The movie must stop every so often to re-calibrate, with the characters constantly reminding each other or the movie reminding the audience what's happening, what's already happened, and why. 

However, for all of the Suicide Squad's meanderings that occasionally leads to arbitrary, awkwardly-staged violence, Ayers does pull off a neat trick: Suicide Squad is actually about a series of love stories. The Joker's deplorable romance with Harley Quinn is front and center, delving into the origin of how they met at Arkham Asylum -- she was his psychiatrist who fell in love with him -- and how he abused her until she went insane. Rick Flag is also a man in love with June Moone. Rescuing her from the Enchantress turns out to be his primary mission. Best of all is Deadshot's back story; the most infamous assassin in the world has an 11 year old daughter who is the apple of his eye. All Deadshot wants is his daughter's safety and approval. The unbridled inanity and absurdity of Suicide Squad is ultimately redeemed by terrific performances from Smith, anchoring the picture with his movie star charisma, Robbie, magnetically suggesting layers of pathos beneath Harley Quinn's brazen sexuality, Davis, able to seem more dangerous and frightening than the monsters and killers she coerces, and Hernandez, a cauldron of guilt seeking redemption. There's a beating heart within Suicide Squad, and it's not all black.

Jason Bourne

JASON BOURNE

** SPOILERS **

Jason Bourne is back. He doesn't want to be, but after 9 years off the grid, Jason Bourne is dragged kicking and screaming scowling and killing into this decade, with the secrets of his past dangling in front of him like a carrot on a stick. Jason Bourne reunites Matt Damon, harder and more grizzled than ever before, with his maestro director Paul Greengrass, who helmed the terrific The Bourne Supremacy and the even more terrific The Bourne Ultimatum, the best action films of the aughts. Jason Bourne is not quite as terrific. Jason Bourne, Damon, and Greengrass all feel like they've lost a step. This newest installment feels inevitably redundant. While packed with slam-bang action, it all falls just short of the propulsive, giddy inventiveness of the previous films. Tony Gilroy, who penned the previous Bourne trilogy, then wrote and directed the odious Damon-less spinoff The Bourne Legacy, is off the grid here. The screenplay by Greengrass and Chris Rouse feels like Bourne fan fiction, answering questions about Bourne's past no one was asking, not even Bourne, while placing Jason Bourne awkwardly in our current political and cultural conundrums of WikiLeaks/Edward Snowden-like whistle blowers, Internet privacy, and data mining via a Facebook-like app called Deep Dream. 

Even though Joan Allen and everyone at the CIA whom he knew a decade ago is either dead or gone, the new faces in the agency like CIA Director Tommy Lee Jones and his protege Alicia Vikander prove equally adept at manipulating events and murder to discredit or attempt to eliminate Bourne. Jones gradually reveals himself to be the most over the top super villain in the Bourne saga. Has there ever been a CIA Director who overtly planned to have the world famous head of a global tech company -- and his own subordinate Vikander -- murdered on stage in a televised tech conference in Las Vegas? Imagine if the head of the CIA planned to have Mark Zuckerberg murdered on televison at the Consumer Electronics Show. To her credit, Vikander clearly understands how evil and insane Jones is and works with Bourne to eliminate him. The idea of Bourne and Vikander teaming up in future Bourne movies is so appealing, our hearts sink when she reveals herself to be as duplicitous as anyone else at the CIA.

Thing is, Jason Bourne just wanted to be left alone. He was perfectly happy content existing in Greece, eking out a meager living knocking people out in underground fight clubs and having constant nightmares consisting of clips from the previous Bourne movies. Meanwhile, the lone friend person he knows from the previous trilogy, ex-CIA computer whiz Julia Stiles, hacks the CIA's database and pulls all the hidden files of the CIA's various secret black ops programs, including Treadstone, which created Jason Bourne. Turns out Bourne's father Richard Webb was more than merely an analyst and had a more direct role in Treadstone. Richard was then murdered to ensure his son David would "volunteer" so he could be transformed into Jason Bourne, the CIA's greatest, most uncontrollable killer. When Bourne learns all of this, his reaction is basically: "Well fuck. That sucks." There is nothing more to be done with this revelation and information except kill the Asset who murdered his father, Vincent Cassel, in an absurdly destructive car chase, demolishing casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.

All of this navel-gazing into Bourne's past ultimately lessens Bourne himself. The magic of Jason Bourne lays in him being a tabula rasa, with the audience able to project themselves into Bourne's base simplicity and underlying sense of goodness while vicariously thrilling to him being the greatest fighter, stunt driver, and killer alive. Heaping piles of tragic backstory onto Bourne's shoulders feels unnecessary and redundant. The poor guy's life is ruined enough. Bourne, alone in the wind, never moving on after losing his only friend and lover Franka Potente, is unfortunately better off this way. Jason Bourne also doesn't shy away from the effect that time has passed for Bourne. It's jarring how many photos and video, digitally manipulated or previous Bourne movie footage, Jason Bourne utilizes showing young, babyfaced Matt Damon from over a decade ago. By the end, we and Bourne realize he's caught in a perpetual hamster wheel, that the world isn't big enough for him to hide in before being dragged back into the agency's clandestine murder and madness. Bourne's only solace is  his magical ability to just walk away undetected from any crime scene. Until the next movie. Until whatever semblance of peace Jason Bourne finds for himself falls apart, like it always does.

Cafe Society

CAFE SOCIETY

** SPOILERS **

In the delightful and frothy Cafe Society, Jesse Eisenberg moves to golden age 1930's Hollywood from New York City figuring if he can make it there, he can make it anywhere, before realizing it's the opposite, according to the song lyrics. Narrated with bemused tones by writer-director Woody Allen, who cast Eisenberg as the latest in a long line of young actors to play a surrogate of himself, Cafe Society sees Eisenberg come under the tutelage of his uncle Steve Carell, the most powerful and revered agent in Hollywood. Avoiding him at first, Carell gradually shows Eisenberg the ropes, introducing him to glamorous movie stars and Tinseltown's movers and shakers. Eisenberg finds himself most impressed with Carell's secretary Kristen Stewart. In no time at all, Eisenberg falls for Stewart, and woos her with his peculiar neurotically manic ways, which she finds charming. Alas, she has a boyfriend and a secret. Before long, the twisty plot reveals, to no real shock, her secret boyfriend is Carell himself. The real surprise is how calmly both Eisenberg and Carell take this revelation, with no animosity between them. They simply ask Stewart to choose between them. Does she marry her wealthy, powerful, infatuated older beau or the young nebbish who clearly adores her? Stewart chooses with practicality.

Dejected, Eisenberg returns to New York and to the Jewish family he left behind. He goes to work for his older brother Corey Stoll, a notorious gangster, who owns a famous nightclub, and becomes a respected member of New York's elite cafe society. Eisenberg even marries Blake Lively, a model who, in a wild coincidence, is named "Veronica," just like Stewart's character. Everything is grand until of all the gin joints in all the city, Carell and Stewart, now happily married, walk into Eisenberg's. Eisenberg and Stewart have worked together as romantic leads before; their characters in Cafe Society could be the grand parents of the characters they play in Adventureland. Despite the zany twists in the plot, Cafe Society hums along with remarkably low stakes, even when Stoll is arrested and sent to death row for racketeering and murder one. Most amusingly is how Allen seemed to forego writing an ending; Cafe Society just abruptly stops on New Year's Eve, as if Allen simply decided to put down his pencil, counted his pages, decided he'd written enough and this was as good a time to call it quits as any. Absent his young muse Scarlett Johansson, Allen fumbles along with Stewart as the female lead and seems to have little interest in Lively's token character. Still, Cafe Society provides witty characters and a delightful diversion, as well as a winning lead performance by Eisenberg -- the best Woody Allen impression crossed with Lex Luthor you'll find in Hollywood.

Lights Out

LIGHTS OUT

** SPOILERS **

Teresa Palmer and her younger half-brother Gabriel Bateman have their lives ruined by their mother Maria Bello's evil imaginary friend in Lights Out. Having left home under muddled circumstances, Palmer must confront her family's past when her little brother begins having the same experiences she had growing up: seeing shadowy apparitions, hearing scratching noises in the dark, and finding the name "Diana" scrawled on the wooden floors. Oh, and also being attacked and having a crazy shadow lady try to kill him. "Diana" is the name of the wraith in question, kind of a cross between the evil girl in The Ring and Wolverine in silhouette, plus a number of other derivative monsters of the modern scary movie genre. In an effective opening sequence, Diana murders Billy Burke, young Bateman's father and current husband to Bello, who has a lifelong history of mental illness. Ultimately, all this means Palmer, Bateman, and her loyal mensch of a not-quite-boyfriend Alexander DiPersia, must spend a night in Bello's haunted house to get to the bottom of how to kill Diana. 

Lights Out plays fast and loose with Diana's vulnerability to light. We learn via info dump -- which is literally Palmer walking into a room of her mom's house and finding boxes of files conveniently detailing everything she needs to know -- that Diana and Bello were childhood friends in a mental institution. (Bello was hospitalized for "depression" and befriended Diana, who has a bizarre skin condition making her vulnerable to light. Oh, also she's an evil murderer who killed her father.) Diana died in an operation to cure her of her skin condition, but was reborn as a ghost who haunts Bello, keeps her crazy by making her not take her meds, and occasionally declares war on her family. Under these bizarre circumstances, Bello's loyalty to Diana is laughable. Diana's hauntings aren't confined to Bello's creepy home with its unusually enormous basement, however. She can go on field trips at will, attacking Burke in his factory workplace, and showing up at Palmer's apartment. And yet, any amount of light like candle light, a flashlight, black light, or even the LED of an iPhone can keep Diana at bay momentarily. What about Pop Rocks? If you crunch Pop Rocks in your mouth and they make sparks, will that keep Diana at bay?

Though Lights Out is creaky with its own rules and reveals, and the movie displays about as much understanding of mental illness as a Daredevil movie understands about trial law, it does better with being clear about how child protective services works, and what Palmer would have to do if she wanted to contest her crazy mom and claim legal guardianship of her little brother. Palmer anchors the tidy horror of Lights Out with determination and conviction. Palmer's desire to protect her younger brother is admirable and makes for one of the better sibling relationships in the modern horror genre. DiPersia, as Palmer's love interest Bret, is surprisingly loyal and upstanding. All he wanted was to be able to keep some stuff in her apartment (he negotiates down to one sock) and ease her off from being such a commitment-phobe, DiPersia is a solid dude for hanging in there and facing all this crazy and murder when other guys would have turned tail and ran. In the end, it was cool to see Palmer bet her bottom drawer on DiPersia and win. Though Palmer and her brother would probably have been safe if they sought shelter in a Motel 6; their famous slogan is "We'll Leave The Light On For You."

Star Trek Beyond

STAR TREK BEYOND

** SPOILERS **

Find Hope in the Impossible

It's been a long road, getting from there to here. After being thrown together in a breakneck, timeline-altering adventure in JJ Abrams' rebooted Star Trek, and then weathering a grim downer in the maligned Star Trek Into Darkness, the young crew of the Starship Enterprise hit their stride in the pleasing and triumphant Star Trek Beyond. Helmed by Justin Lin and co-written by Simon Pegg, who pulls double duty as miracle-working engineer Montgomery Scott, Star Trek Beyond boldly goes where Star Trek has gone many, many times before: an edge-of-your-seat, by the book space adventure, but this time with an exemplary emphasis on the characters and their relationships, gleaning abundant warmth and humor while Captain Kirk and his crew once again save the universe. 

Winking at the "episodic" nature of life aboard the Starship Enterprise, Star Trek Beyond opens three years into their five year mission. Exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and new civilizations can get banal, apparently, and a spacedock in the magnificent new Starbase, the Yorktown, finds Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) looking to move on up to a Vice Admiralship. Meanwhile, Spock (Zachary Quinto) receives tragic news: his older doppelganger from the original timeline Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has died. Spock, also facing the end of his relationship with Uhura (Zoe Saldana), decides to leave Starfleet to continue the older Spock's work. The specter of death looms over Star Trek Beyond, both intentionally, as the movie outright and perhaps heavy handedly addresses the loss of Leonard Nimoy, and unexpectedly, with the heartbreaking recent death of Anton Yelchin, who vibrantly plays Pavel Chekov. Before the Captain and First Officer of the Enterprise can part ways, they are recruited into one more rescue mission in an uncharted nebula. Of course, it's a disaster.

Attacked by an unknown alien vessel, using thousands of mechanical bees to disable the Enterprise, the crew is forced to abandon ship. Just as in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the Enterprise is destroyed in this Star Trek 3, with the saucer section crash landing on a rocky alien planet just like the Enterprise-D did in Star Trek Generations. With most of the crew captured and the bridge crew separated, Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), Scotty, Chekov, Uhura, and Mr. Sulu (John Cho) must find a way to reunite, get off the planet, and solve the mystery of their new enemy Krall (Idris Elba), a fearsome warrior with a murderous beef against the United Federation of Planets. They're alternately betrayed and aided by two very cool female additions to the cast, the duplicitous Kalara (Lydia Wilson) and the resourceful Jaylah (Sofia Boutella). Both women are caked in alien makeup, yet create fetching, appealing performances, especially Boutella, a scene-stealer as Jaylah.

What transpires are classic Trek moments: phaser shoot outs, betrayals, last second rescues, manic space battles, a motorcycle chase, and that time-honored Star Trek standby, Starfleet Officers sleeping in caves. Just like in Star Trek First Contact, our heroes use "classical music" to amusing, Kirk-smirking, eye-rolling effect, as the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" returns in a callback to the 2009 film.  Both the Enterprise crew and Krall's alien forces are after a MacGuffan, a disc that allows the holder to control the mechanical swarm of bees, but it seemed like Krall was doing just fine making the bees do his bidding without it. 

Rife with Trek references, Easter eggs, and in-jokes, it's a bit shocking how much of Star Trek Beyond's plot points are derived from and driven by the prequel series Star Trek Enterprise. The starship crashed on the alien planet that Kirk, Scotty, and crew salvage and use to escape is an NX-class ship, the same ship class as the Enterprise that Scott Bakula captained. It turns out Krall is actually a long-lived and mutated former M.A.C.O., the pre-Federation space marines that used to serve as ground troops on Bakula's Enterprise. There are references to the Xindi (season two of Star Trek Enterprise) and the Romulan War. Even the blue Away Team jackets and uniforms Kirk and Chekov wear (the costumes in Beyond are the best ever in any Star Trek movie) look like a fashionable evolution from the blue Star Trek Enterprise jumpsuits. In-depth knowledge of Star Trek Enterprise isn't necessary to enjoy Star Trek Beyond, but there are enough Easter eggs here to fill a carton.

Though many of the plot points feel like Star Trek Redundant, the cosmic joy of Star Trek Beyond is spending time with these characters we love and who clearly love each other. Pegg and his co-writer Doug Jung exhibit a thorough grasp of the characters and what makes them tick. For his third outing as Kirk, Pine is more mature and disciplined, much less the irritable hothead of movies past. (It's Kirk's birthday, just like it was in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where Kirk (is he even 40 yet?) laments getting old.) McCoy spends a great deal of screen time caring for an injured Spock, the two friendly rivals commiserating on the abundant respect for each other they are at pains to admit. Scotty and Jaylah form a sweet bond, as she slowly grows to trust these strange men who are sincerely trying to stop the villains who murdered her father and her people. Uhura and Sulu, captured by Krall, nonetheless exhibit bravery and resourcefulness in trying to learn his motivations and keep their fellow captured crew mates safe. And it's gratifying to see Yelchin's Chekov be part of so much of the action alongside Kirk. The end credits fittingly dedicate the film to the late Leonard Nimoy and #ForAnton.

In the end, Star Trek Beyond can best be appreciated as a metaphor for life. Life can be good, things can be going well, safe, happy, routine -- and then disaster! What do you do? Don't be afraid. Be brave. You trust your crew. You trust your Captain. You trust your skills. You trust yourself. You stand together. There's strength in Unity. You find Hope in the Impossible. These are the important lessons that Star Trek can teach us, when Star Trek is done well. Star Trek Beyond is Star Trek done very well. Even with the vaccuum the late Yelchin leaves going forward, we hope the crew of the Starship Enterprise continues to boldly go where no one has gone before. To echo Kirk to his best friend Spock, "What would we do without you?"

Ghostbusters

GHOSTBUSTERS

** SPOILERS **

Paul Feig's Ghostbusters is something strange in the neighborhood. Casting four of today's funniest comediennes, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones, as the new all-female Ghostbusters, Feig and his co-writer Katie Dippold, hang them out to dry by crafting a goofball comedy as unwieldy and erratic as the proton streams that generate from their proton packs. The story, of course, is mainly identical to the 1984 original: strange supernatural occurrences infect Manhattan. Odd ball scientists and childhood friends-turned-rivals Wiig and McCarthy investigate, with McKinnon, a physicist and handy inventor, in tow. Soon, after copious amounts of sliming, they discover ghosts are real. Shunned by academia, they are joined by Jones, an MTA employee chased by a ghost in the sewer, and the four women go into business for themselves as the Ghostbusters.

Despite a spiritedly funny opening scene where Zach Woods gives a tour of a haunted Manhattan mansion, Ghostbusters quickly goes as limp as the lone wonton in the Chinese soup McCarthy complains about in her main running gag. The Ghostbusters gradually stumble upon a meandering plot by an utterly forgettable and uninteresting villain to open up the ley lines beneath Manhattan and bring forth supernatural evil, or something. Though the entire city of New York is threatened, Ghostbusters lacks any urgency or palpable stakes. Scenes and entire sequences feel hacked and slashed, the movie assembled in editing like a jigsaw puzzle smashed together by a child having a temper tantrum. Wiig and McCarthy are basically interchangeable characters whose initial disconnect after a falling out is quickly forgotten. Jones rises to the occasion, bringing some sense of fear and disbelief when confronted with terrifying apparitions. Meanwhile, there's McKinnon, delivering an oddball performance completely disconnected from every scene in the movie she occupies. 

Feig pays laborious homage to the original Ghostbusters, with dutiful but infernal cameos by every surviving cast member from 1984 save Rick Moranis. Ghastly appearances by an unsightly CGI Slimer and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man garner the effect of checking them off a list. The inimitable talents of Michael Kenneth Williams of The Wire and Charles Dance of Game of Thrones are utterly wasted in little more than walk ons. Until he starts dancing for no reason into and throughout the end credits, Chris Hemsworth scores the biggest laughs, outshining all of the Saturday Night Live professional comediennes, as the Ghostbusters' dim bulb secretary. For all the abuse they unfairly attracted and continue to from the dregs of society (some of it cannily referenced in the movie), the all-female Ghostbusters deserved a better written, better directed, better edited, better structured, better movie in which to bust ghosts.

The Legend of Tarzan

THE LEGEND OF TARZAN

** SPOILERS **

"This is most peculiar," a young Jane Porter (Margot Robbie) remarks when, lost exploring the wilds of the African Congo with her scientist father, she encounters an equally young Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgard). Certainly, what are the odds a beautiful blonde, blue-eyed American woman would meet the love of her life, a beautiful blonde, blue eyed British Lord raised by gorillas in the jungles of Africa? (Although Jane was specifically referring to Tarzan dropping to all fours and sniffing her crotch. Tarzan's got game with the ladies.) Years later, Tarzan and Jane are happily married, living in his ancestral castle in England as Lord and Lady Greystoke. Tarzan, you see, was born John Clayton III, Earl of Greystoke, but he was stranded in the Congo as an infant when his parents were killed. Baby John was adopted by a gorilla named Kala and raised among the apes. He gained mastery over the animals and was given the name Tarzan (not by the apes, obviously). Tarzan and Jane is quite a story, one that would be the basis of pulp tales that would enthrall the 19th century world ("Him Tarzan, you Jane" is quoted right back to their faces). 

Civilized, Lord Greystoke is quiet and thoughtful, the wildness in him subdued. But international politics and the machinations of Christoph Waltz, would lure Tarzan back to the jungle. Waltz, an envoy of King Leopold II of Belgium, schemes to save the bankrupt Belgium government by extracting the diamonds of the Congo, which are controlled by tribal leader Djimon Hounsou. Hounsou will give Waltz the diamonds if he delivers his arch enemy, Tarzan. Tarzan killed Hounsou's son, you see, because Hounsou's son killed Tarzan's mother. Not his human mother, his ape mother. Jungle life is sordid and complicated. Nonetheless, Tarzan and Jane, with Samuel L. Jackson, an American envoy investigating the rumored shady dealings of the Belgian government in the Congo, march right into a trap set by Waltz. Tarzan is easily captured and hogtied; Jackson manages to rescue him while Waltz flees with a kidnapped Jane. Thus begins a merry chase through the jungle as Tarzan tries to save Jane, trapped aboard Waltz's steam ship. Waltz would soon come to regret trying to hold Jane hostage, however. She's cunning, brave, and has wildness in her to match her husband.

Speaking of wildness, Bane in The Dark Knight Rises would remark that civilization has defeated Tarzan, and he'd have a point. As Tarzan sheds his clothing (keeping his torn khakis on rather than donning the traditional loincloth), he must Tarzan-up and re-embrace his full Tarzanity. For most of the movie, Tarzan has a rough time of it. He loses a wrestling match with a gorilla and readjusting to savage jungle life is more difficult than he anticipated. (Jackson managing to keep pace with Tarzan in the jungle without being killed requires the most suspension of disbelief, in a movie that is essentially all about suspension of disbelief.) Still, Tarzan becomes wilder and wilder the closer he gets to Jane, and soon, he fully embraces his status as being Lord of the Jungle, master of all CGI animals, able to command legions of computer generated beasts to do his bidding. Much like he did in the last four Harry Potter films he helmed, director David Yates bleeds much of the color from the jungle, and his CGI animals reek of pixels. Skarsgard makes for a physical, visceral Tarzan, and the camera simply loves Robbie. The Legend of Tarzan is replete with thrilling jungle fights, but the touching moments mostly involve Tarzan rubbing his head against people and beasts he loves, like a pride of lions he'd known since they were cubs, or Robbie herself. Amusingly, The Legend of Tarzan's take on 19th century European politics curiously reflects modern day, as England realizes the duplicity stemming from Brussels and decides to #Brexit from their joint affairs in the Congo. As coincidences go, that's pretty wild.

Independence Day: Resurgence

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE

** SPOILERS **

How can the same thing happen to the same planet twice? Independence Day: Resurgence sees our bright blue orb invaded once again by aliens twenty years later -- to the day! A lot has changed on Earth in the two decades since those aliens blasted all of our landmarks, humanity fought back and we celebrated our Independence Day. The salvaged alien technology from the many ships crashed on Earth has been rejiggered into impressive new weapons and vehicles. Our cities and landmarks have been rebuilt. We have a lunar base. A generation has grown up admiring the heroes of 1996, like Jeff Goldblum, former President Bill Pullman, and the late Will Smith, gone but not forgotten. Their children, Jessie T. Usher as Will Smith's son and Maika Monroe as Pullman's daughter, now grown, are the new top gun fighter pilots ready to defend the Earth, along with Liam Hemsworth, Rain Lao, and Nicholas Wright. Mankind has become a united species, the kind of Utopia Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry would have loved to see. Humanity has banded together, ready to meet the threat of a second alien invasion. And the aliens are definitely coming; apparently they (like we) have spent the last two decades hearing and memorizing Pullman's rousing speech from the first Independence Day.

So the aliens are back, and they're not wasting any time. In the original Independence Day, dozens of alien ships ominously took position over Earth's cities and systematically annihilated each one over the course of a three day holiday weekend (2 1/2 hours in movie time). Now, the aliens only send one ship, a titanic craft 3000 miles in diameter that squats over the Atlantic Ocean, wiping out the UK and the East Coast of the United States (amusingly only nudging the rebuilt White House). As far as mass destruction of our cities go, only London really gets demolished; the aliens gave the Brits no time to #Brexit before their annihilation. Compared to the original movie, the destruction porn in Resurgence is quick and subdued. The aliens are way more interested in settling a score with specific humans, launching a direct attack on the new President Sela Ward, and then coming after Goldblum and Pullman in their base in Area 51. The aliens must have been bummed (like we are) Will Smith isn't around; they probably wanted to settle his hash the most.

"We knew they'd come back," Goldblum warns when things start to get weird again. The aliens captured and imprisoned in Area 51 for the last 20 years start to go batty and then break out. (Incidentally, why did the humans imprison the aliens without removing them from their tentacled battle suits?) Pullman, bearded, hobbled, and haunted by visions of the aliens (and possibly visions of the movie Aliens) rants about the aliens having a Queen. He's right, they do. And she's pissed. Scientist-weirdo Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner, unapologetically in zany comic relief mode), thought dead in the first Independence Day, was actually in a coma all this time, and suddenly reawakens. In Africa, the lone alien ship from the first invasion that is largely intact comes back online. Goldblum realizes it's drilling into the Earth's core to destroy the planet from within. When a worm hole opens up above the moon, our swaggering leaders order the emerging alien craft shot down, but Goldblum quickly surmises this new white spherical space ship is a different alien species and leads the attempt to rescue it. Turns out Goldblum is right, as ever. The white alien sphere represents other species the evil aliens, now called Harvesters (Mankind never named the aliens themselves in the last 20 years), have hunted. All the other aliens also heard about the first Independence Day and want the human race to lead their alliance to fight the aliens -- in space!

But first, there's the matter of repelling this new invasion. Once again, it involves a battle in the air and on land in the salt flats outside Area 51, and once again, Bill Pullman pilots a fighter plane and leads the charge against his now-arch rival the alien Queen. This time, however, the Queen, clad in a 50 foot tall battle suit, fights back like a Kaiju monster; Independence Day: Resurgence riffing hard on Pacific Rim. Luckily, a sword-wielding African warlord Goldblum befriended, one of the many new weirdo characters Resurgence introduces, teaches humanity how to beat the aliens in their battle suits -- by stabbing them in the back. Fitting. Hemsworth, Usher (who's really more like his mother Vivica A. Fox than his dad in the charisma department), and Monroe, fight the aliens heroically, but this new generation is of a blander sort than their parents. Speaking of parents, Goldblum's father Judd Hirsch drives a school bus full of orphans right into the Area 51 battle, because of course he does. While promising a starry-eyed continuation of this franchise, Independence Day: Resurgence echoes the greatest hits of the original, but it's a rushed, tepid remix reminding us that though we always knew the aliens would be back someday, we also rather they just stayed away.

The Shallows

THE SHALLOWS

** SPOILERS **

The Shallows, director Jaume Collet-Serra's sun-kissed, bloody good Blue Crush-meets-Jaws mashup thriller, is Blake Lively's The Revenant. In The Shallows, Lively plays a medical student mourning the death of her mother by escaping to surf the unnamed Mexican beach her mother once surfed. Though her journey to this spectacular paradise (the name of the beach is assiduously guarded by the locals), mildly echos a different Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Beach, soon Lively is pitted body and soul against the ocean's most ferocious killing machine. There's a Great White shark in them there waters, and it's hell bent on taking Blake's livelihood in a manner even the bear DiCaprio fought in The Revenant wasn't. This damn shark wants Blake Lively to be his chum, and not in a friendly way.

Like DiCaprio in The Revenant, Lively endures a physical and emotional hell in her efforts to survive. When the shark attacks Lively and soon makes shark meat out of the two other surfers she befriended, Lively's only recourse is to take refuge on a jagged, shallow reef 200 yards from shore. Time is against her. High tide will once again submerge her meager shelter. She's exposed to the elements. And she's grievously injured; beyond multiple cuts and abrasions, the shark chomped on her leg. Gangrene threatens to set in. Pleasingly, Lively is no damsel in distress. Through up against impossible odds, Lively gathers her wits and thinks her way out of her dilemma. She uses her medical training and her earrings to rather gruesomely suture her wounds. She uses her Body Glove to create a tourniquet. She even sets the broken wing of her lone companion, a scene-stealing seagull she names Steven Seagull. (Lively uses Steven Seagull as a decoy kind of like how Batman uses Robin.) As Lively's options narrow, the shark remains relentlessly on patrol, drawn to the steady streams of Lively's blood in the water.

When the shark enters a realm of sheer malevolence that goes beyond what one would believe even a hungry Great White would actually do, The Shallows, which had remained mostly compellingly straightforward, teeters on the brink of jumping the shark in the third act. As high tide takes her reef under, Lively's last desperate gambit is to swim to a nearby buoy. The shark's dogged pursuit has it literally tearing through the metal of the buoy in order to sink its teeth in Lively. And yet, Lively's last ditch maneuver to kill the shark, while sheer lunacy, is surprisingly rousing. On screen for nearly every second of the entire movie, Lively gives a heroic - nay, superheroic - performance. As physically perfect as she is when The Shallows begins, Lively, broken, bleeding, exhausted, and nearly drowned, achieves an awesome level of total bad assery in her climactic showdown with the shark. Even if one in jest were to command,"Physician, CPR thyself," to the shark's chagrin, Blake Lively does. The shark bet on Blake losing the dead pool, but it was sorely mistaken.

X-Men: Apocalypse

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE

** SPOILERS **

X-Men: Apocalypse's mutant power is an overwhelming sense of deja vu. When En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), the first, handsomest (until he turns blue), and most powerful mutant known as Apocalypse, awakens from a 3600 year slumber, he plunges the X-Men into an adventure where they end up doing a lot of things they've done in prior X-Men movies. Stop me if you've heard this before: Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is kidnapped and held hostage for his mutant psychic abilities. The X-Men are captured and brought to a base in Alkali Lake, where Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) was created. Wolverine goes into a beserker rage, carving up the troops of his arch nemesis William Stryker (Josh Helman) with his adamantium claws. (All greatest hits from X2: X-Men United.) Xavier and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) take turns quoting their closing dialogue from the first X-Men movie 16 years ago (which is, confusingly, 17 years in the future from this episode, set in 1983). And there's all the usual stuff to X off the list in an X-Men movie: new students joining Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, visits to Cerebro underneath the X-Mansion, and plenty of callbacks to stuff that happened in X-Men: First Class, which happened 20 years prior to the events in Apocalypse, though nary an X-Man nor anyone else in that movie has aged a day. (Xavier makes mention of non-mutant Moira MacTaggert's, played by Rose Byrne, uncanny ability to look exactly as young 20 years later, and the movie moves on.) On the other hand, an X-Men comics tradition finally occurs in a movie when the X-Mansion is destroyed. Luckily, Magneto and young Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) have the mutant power to be contractors.

Working from a screenplay from Simon Kinberg that crams a ton of mutants into an under cooked tale, director Bryan Singer busily checks in with the exploits of his ever-growing, under-serviced cast of mutants. X-Men: Apocalypse tells us that Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence, not feeling the blues and spending most of the movie looking like her movie star self) has become a mutant folk hero since the climactic moments of X-Men: Days of Future Past, when she saved President Richard Nixon from Magneto in 1973. Lots of young mutants have her poster on their wall, including a young Storm (Alexandra Shipp), who lives as a sneak thief in Cairo, Egypt. Other than recruit a young Nightcrawler (Kodi Smith-McPhee) and bring him to Xavier's School, Mystique has precious little to do in the movie, except fail to sweet talk Magneto from destroying Cairo, get choked by Apocalypse, and then become the X-Men's drill sergeant. Mystique does find time to make jokes to Beast (Nicholas Hoult) about getting a "War Plane," a canny reference to Hoult starring as a War Boy in Mad Max: Fury Road. We meet young Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), the newest student at the Xavier School, who's just learning to control his mutant optic blasts. Cyclops in turn meets Jean Grey, the future love of his life, and host of the all-powerful Phoenix Force, which Apocalypse shoehorns in as another major plot point, setting up a second swipe at telling the "Dark Phoenix Saga" in a future X-Men movie.

When Apocalypse awakens, like Ivan Ooze did in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, he finds he missed the Black Plague, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Brady Bunch Reunion. Like Ivan Ooze, he finds the modern world wanting, and decides to destroy it, so he can rule it, or something. Apocalypse's logic is hazy and he's not much more than a collection of villainous platitudes. Unlike Ivan Ooze, Apocalypse isn't funny and he isn't much for idle chatter when he recruits his helpers, the Four Horsemen, who are Magneto, Storm, the metal-winged Angel (Ben Hardy), and the ridiculously hot Psylocke (Olivia Munn), who makes purple telekinetic swords and whips. To work for Apocalypse means a lot of standing around and not saying anything, hence the Horsemen turn out to be as dull and uninspiring as their leader. Apocalypse steals the world's nuclear missiles, thousands of them, and strands them all in space; an idea Superman (Christopher Reeve) wouldn't have until 1987 in Superman IV. But mainly, Apocalypse just wants to kill everyone. He's cool with the strongest mutants surviving. If any of this sounds like a good idea or not to Storm, Psylocke, Magneto, or Angel, they don't vocalize it. Turns out Apocalypse, with his ill-defined mutant powers of teleportation and making walls consume people like they're frozen in carbonite, is the shits as a world conqueror. What Apocalypse is great at, however, is designing super villain costumes. He personally gifts his Horsemen with new duds, and they all look smashing (especially Psylocke). Apocalypse could have been the mutant Tom Ford, but alas, he thinks too small.

Like the Johnny Appleseed of mutants, Magneto has been spreading his seed around, not just fathering Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who, like in Days of Future Past, steals the show with his speed but in a sequence that is somehow both more elaborate and perfunctory, but also having a new family in Poland, where he works in a steel mill. Having gone completely apeshit in 1963 and 1973, Magneto is right on schedule with his homicidal tantrums when he is discovered by local authorities who murder his family. Once more, an X-Men movie becomes about saving Erik's soul, and saving the world from scary Erik, until Charles is able to remind Erik of their bromance and he finally calms down. So Erik's good for another decade, all pals with Charles and Mystique again at the conclusion of Apocalypse until his next inevitable meltdown in 1993. As for Charles, perhaps the strangest choice in Apocalypse turns out to be the secret origin of how Xavier loses his hair: Apocalypse trying to transfer his consciousness into the world's most powerful psychic somehow snatched Xavier's edges bald. Did Apocalypse realize if he'd succeeded, he'd have been in the body of a paraplegic? No matter, he's probably got a mutant power for that.

Captain America: Civil War

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

** SPOILERS **

Sokovia. The most important fictional country in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The fallout from the devastation of Sokovia in last year's Avengers: Age of Ultron rips the Avengers asunder in the sensational Captain America: Civil War. Ostensibly a third Avengers movie bearing Captain America (Chris Evans)'s name and featuring him as its centerpiece and star-spangled moral compass, directors Joe and Anthony Russo's Civil War is an assured and magnificent escalation of Marvel's superhero movies. It is certainly the best Avengers movie thus far, deepening Marvel's superhero characters by exploring their personal beliefs and testing their loyalties to each other. Deftly juggling over a dozen superheroes - plus introducing two immensely important new additions to Marvel's movie pantheon in the Amazing Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) -- in a dense, globetrotting (Lagos, Vienna, London, Berlin, New York, Bucharest, Siberia, Wakanda), action-packed extravaganza laced with clever character beats and endearing humor, Civil War makes us love the Avengers even more than we already did, even as they lay the smack down on each other. 

Accountability is the big issue facing the Avengers. After a mission in Lagos to apprehend the super villain Crossbones (Frank Grillo) goes sideways, resulting in the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen)'s attempt to save Captain America's life from a bomb accidentally killing dozens of innocents from the African nation of Wakanda, the Avengers' methodology is called into question by the new Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt). "The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt," admits Ross, before declaring the Avengers, who operate with unlimited power and no government supervision, vigilantes. The United Nations wants the Avengers accountable to them. The UN plans to ratify the Sokovia Accords, international law that places the Avengers under UN jurisdiction, giving the UN the power to tell the Avengers where and when to fight or not fight evil.

The Avengers are required to sign the Accords or quit being superheroes. Captain America, played as stalwart and admirable as ever by Evans, sees this as an affront. He feels with the kind of power the Avengers possess, "The safest hands are our own." Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), who essentially kicked off this age of Marvels when he became Iron Man eight years ago, is riddled with guilt over his personal and professional failures. Stark supports signing the Accords. The Avengers debate the issue, intelligently and entertainingly. Most agree to sign, including, surprisingly, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). She and Stark agree: capitulating now staves off something worse down the road. We agree with them; it's the smart, safer move to sign. Captain America cannot yield his beliefs and will not sign. And we agree with Cap, because we trust Cap. Everyone is right. But who's more right? Civil War tests everyone, Avengers and the audience, probing for answers, as we thrill at the conflict that results.

Meanwhile, the Avengers implosion is the endgame of a devious plot by Helmut Zemo (Daniel Bruhl), a Sokovian spy who lost his family in Age of Ultron, and wages a silent war on the Avengers. Zemo bombs the UN signing of the Sokovia Accords in Vienna, murdering King T'Chaka of Wakanda. Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), is framed for the act of terror. Cap sets off to find Bucky before the Avengers and T'Chaka's son T'Challa, the Black Panther, do, triggering the hostilities of the Civil War as The Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), rally to Cap's side. Meanwhile, Stark recruits some hitters to back him up, including a reluctant Black Widow, and his loyalists the Vision (Paul Bettany), War Machine (Don Cheadle), and best of all, Spider-Man. 

As a villain, Bruhl underwhelms, but he's really besides the point, just a means to the glorious ends of seeing Marvel's superheroes have at it in an incredibly entertaining superhero spectacle. Some of the best bits are old buddies Black Widow and Hawkeye fighting it out but still asking each other if they're still friends, Black Panther and Winter Soldier hacking away at each other with robot arms and vibranium claws, the Falcon letting loose his terrific drone Redwing, and everything Spider-Man says and does. Civil War finally delivers the young, brash, wise-cracking-in-battle Spidey we've always wanted to see, to the chagrin of pretty much all of the other Avengers. But the show stopper turns out to be Rudd's Ant-Man, so grateful to be included in this melee, and when he suddenly grows into the 60 foot-tall Giant-Man. Stark's stunned reaction -- "Does anyone on OUR side have their own SHOCKING and FANTASTIC ability they want to share now?!" -- is hilarious and pitch perfect.

"He's my friend," Captain America says to Iron Man about Bucky in the most famous exchange in the movie. "So was I," Stark retorts. There's a very pleasing undercurrent of friendship for a movie called and about Civil War. Virtually all of the heroes' actions are because they're trying to do what's best for their friends. Cap tries to save Bucky because they go back nearly a century and no one else believes his innocence. (Bucky also rightly wonders aloud if he's even worth all this trouble.) The Falcon, who is presented to be utterly fantastic, the ultimate wingman (pun intended), sides with Cap out of friendship, and so does former SHIELD agent Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp), though strictly friendship with Cap isn't her primary motivation. (Falcon and Bucky grinning at Cap for kissing Sharon makes us want a Falcon/Winter Soldier buddy movie right now.) Meanwhile, Vision, following Stark's orders, tries to keep Scarlet Witch (a Sokovian ex-pat living in America as an Avenger the media solidly blames for the Lagos tragedy) safe in the Avengers compound until Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), the first Avenger who believed in her, comes to bust her out and make her #TeamCap. Poor Natasha Romanoff is the one most caught in the middle of this schism between Stark and Cap: her head sides with Stark, but her heart and loyalties side with Cap. Ever the double agent, Black Widow tries to do right by both sides, and pays the price. Speaking of paying the price for loyalty, no one suffers more than Stark's best friend James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle), the main casualty of the Civil War. The amazing feat Civil War accomplishes is keeping all of the Avengers likeable and honorable despite their differences.

Amidst all this chaos, the additions of the Black Panther and Spider-Man to the Avengers universe were seamlessly done. As the Black Panther, Boseman brings the necessary honor and regality to the now-King T'Challa of Wakanda, even when he's consumed with a quest for vengeance through much of the movie. Yet, Civil War still makes room for clever quips, like the Falcon assuming T'Challa must really like cats if he's dressed like a cat. (Falcon also scoffs at his winged gear being classified as a "bird costume.") Meanwhile, Stark pays a visit to a house in Queens, New York and introduces us to young Holland's Spider-Man while also not letting the fact that the new Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) is also young and attractive escape his attention. Marvel trumpets the youth of their new Spider-Man by making a point that to him The Empire Strikes Back is "a really old movie." (If Peter Parker is 15 or 16, then he was born right around the time George W. Bush first became President. Now we all feel old.) When Captain America battles Spider-Man, we grin as Cap does when he learns Spider-Man is a kid from Queens and commiserates that he himself is a kid from Brooklyn. If there still isn't enough Spidey in Civil War for you, the final tag at the end credits spotlights the web-slinger and the final words of the credits are the promise that "Spider-Man Will Return."

"Congratulations, Cap. You're a criminal," frowns Rhodey midway through Civil War. Indeed. Yet, while Captain America defies international law to lead his Avengers gone rogue and keep Bucky out of Stark's hands, he somehow remains in the right. One can forgive Tony Stark for his bitterness. Six years ago, Stark stood in front of Congress and grandstanded about keeping the Iron Man tech out of government hands, but that hard-partying, irreverent Stark disappeared when he flew a nuclear missile through the wormhole over New York City and saw the Chitauri fleet in the first Avengers movie. Stark is a changed man, and not for the better. He's now the guy he never wanted to be, the one who bears the burden of answering to bureaucracy, responsible for the Avengers and their failings to people who can never understand what it costs to do what they do. The secret of how and why Tony's parents Howard and Maria Stark were murdered becomes a pivotal plot point in Civil War as well, fueling the division between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. It becomes a sad state of affairs that when we finally see The Raft, Marvel's maximum security super prison, its only prisoners are the former Avengers who sided with Captain America. "The Avengers are yours now," Cap writes to Stark at the conclusion of Civil War, but a head count makes one ask "What Avengers are left?" In the end, I remain #TeamIronMan. I think Tony Stark was right. But Captain America was also right. The beauty of Civil War is the audience can be left debating whose side they are on until the glorious day the Avengers finally assemble once again. That day can't come soon enough.