Wonder Woman

Year: 2017
Genre: Drama
Directed: Patty Jenkins
Stars: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Elena Anaya, David Thewlis, Lucy Davis, Ewen Bremner, Danny Huston, Said Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock, Doutzen Kroes
Production: Warner Bros.

Part of the problem with the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) is it often feels like it's beholden to a lot of different masters. From the get go, it needed to be immediately palpable to mainstream audiences while throwing in enough fan-service for those who knew every esoteric piece of increasingly convoluted mythology. It then needed to balance that same mythology on the backs of a multitude of reoccurring characters, a plethora of converging themes, a gauntlet of story dynamics and, because the whole circus had the unmistakable tinge of a franchise geared towards Monster swilling, Call of Duty playing, insecure 13-year-olds, it also throws in pretentious amounts of Philosophy 101 under the auspice of being "mind-blowing". Add to all that Warner Bros.'s desire to copy Marvel while emphatically denying they're copying Marvel, and their pesky need to, you know, keep the lights on, it's become pretty clear they've bitten off a lot more than they can chew.

Thankfully Wonder Woman douses the still raging dumpster fire that is the DCEU with a tall glass of soothing bio-luminescent water. It takes out half the algebra, concentrates on the basics and leaves you with a singularly excellent movie. It's not perfect, and it may not give DC the course correction it truly needs but it still conjures memories of Christopher Reeves's Superman (1978) in the best possible sense. So for now I say, stand aside superherodom, Wonder Woman has finally arrived and boy is it about d**n time.

The DCEU: now in color!

Nearly the entirety of Wonder Woman takes place before the events of BvS: Electric Boogaloo (2016); which places our titular character on the island of Themyscira somewhere between Ancient Antiquity and the early twentieth century. It's established early on that Diana (Gadot) is a near-immortal, living in relative peace with her mother Queen Hippolyta (Nielsen), her aunt General Antiope (Wright) and the rest of her Amazonian peers.

That is until the day Steve Trevor (Pine), a roguish American pilot and British Intelligence spy, crash lands on the shores of the island and fills everyone in on The Great War (WWI). Hearing that millions of innocents have already been slaughtered, Diana concludes that Ares, the mythical God of War, must be behind all the carnage and vows to stop him. It's a simplistic and naive worldview that Steve doesn't truly buy, but she saved his life and can kill him in nearly a hundred ways..so off they go to stop the war.

Now there are many reasons to celebrate the arrival of Wonder Woman. It's a controlled and structured narrative (emphasis on the word: structured) that sustains itself with interesting, believable characters, organic fish-out-of-water humor and a clear black hat, white hat binary. It introduces Diana as a source of both physical and inner strength and never thinks to undermine that strength in the service of cultural appeasement. It includes both the best and most farfetched aspects of Wonder Woman's mythos, while grounding everything in reality and, and here's the greatest part, the movie makes it all look easy. This thing isn't molded with the jagged edges of plot contrivances and misplaced bluster but rather meets its overall serious tone with a simple story that's ironically about the complexities of human nature.

If we're being honest though, the whole enterprise would arguably be for not, if it wasn't in the capable hands Gal Gadot. She takes what could have been a female Superman clone and turns Diana into a fun, engaging character who's energy is bolstered by her determinism and purity of heart. She not only brings a level of command and natural chemistry to the party, she also brings a physicality to the role which was only hinted at in BvS: The Silent Killer, because it's hard to pit your Kung Fu kickboxing, capoeira, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and swordsmanship skills against a CGI ug-monster.

Which brings me to the movies third act which, by in-large sticks the landing but fits a little too comfortably in the "hero v large, fake-looking monster" box. Worse still, because the film cashes in on the audience's goodwill to relay what might come across as a sappy mission statement, many may feel Wonder Woman's character change is loose and unearned. I'd argue that by simply stressing an economy of thought (there's also a love story at play, let's not forget) in what is essentially a summer popcorn flick, the overall product should be met with appreciation if not applause.

Okay DC bro's you can stop complaining no one likes your movies

Maybe I'm just so used to the DCEU s**tting the bed on a regular basis, that finding halfway decent sheets with hospital corners feels like a godsend. In the months to come, the faults may loom larger and the positives may dissipate in a cloud of noxious bat gas. For now though, I'm going to safely announce that Wonder Woman is unarguably the best in the franchise and I'll also put a little skin in the game by saying this movie will stand the test of time.

Final Grade: B+

War Machine

Year: 2017
Genre: Comedy
Directed: David Michod
Stars: Brad Pitt, Anthony Hayes, John Magaro, Anthony Michael Hall, Emory Cohen, Topher Grace, Daniel Betts, Aymen Hamdouchi, RJ Cyler, Alan Ruck, Nicholas Jones, Ben Kingsley, Meg Tilly, Scoot McNairy
Production: Netflix

If ever there was a reason to love Netflix, War Machine, a modest, character driven satire about the War in Afghanistan would on paper be a good one. After all, theaters are just now starting to feel the diminishing returns of a studio system feeding itself solely on franchise entertainment. So its nice to have an outfit out there that is willing to make a "socially relevant" film, bolstered by a name actor, isn't selling itself as obvious Oscar-bait and isn't burning a fortune doing it. Now if only the movie was good.

This is counterinsurgency in a nutshell...

War Machine tells the modest rise and tragic fall of General Glen McMahon (Pitt); an ambitious an foolhardy Army functionary who is given the insurmountable task of ending the War in Afghanistan. To accomplish this, McMahon assumes, quite incorrectly, that the sheer willpower of the world's most powerful Army, and the flaccid abilities of his tight-knit entourage will be enough to bolster the impossible (a successful counterinsurgency). Unfortunately for the General, nothing is truly fair in love and war. He bristles uncomfortably under the confines of coalition bureaucracy and civilian middle management while slowly coming to believe he's entitled to so much more.

Join the Army: meet new people, and kill them.

War Machine wants to be two things at once and somehow manages to be neither. It wants to be a sharp-witted black comedy a la In the Loop (2009), while still being a somewhat nuanced character piece about an Army lifer whose hubris is mismatched by the times. Standing in the way in both cases is Brad Pitt's performance who stands apart from the film in its own little orbit. It's an entertaining performance that conjures memories of George C. Scott's Patton (1970) and Thierry Lhermitte's performance in The French Minister (2013). Yet there's nothing really tethering him to the rest of the film. When it plays for the laughs - Pitt goes introspective. When the film goes gonzo - Pitt turns into a caricature.

General Stanley McChrystal

Additionally the humor never feels like it's reaching the absurd heights it should; though part of that may just be the sign of the times. The film is based on "The Operators" by Michael Hastings, which itself is based on the firing of Army General Stanley McChrystal. With that in mind, its easy to see why the movie's tone is measured, assured and some may say boring, while broad comedic set-pieces are nowhere to be found.

Yet while the tone is boring and provides only toothless satire, the pacing is all over the place. One minute we're knee-deep in a weaksauce version of House of Cards (2013-Present), the next minute we're in a frantic Sgt. Bilko (1996) routine with the most torpid ensemble in recent memory. For what it's worth, Anthony Michael Hall, Topher Grace, RJ Cyler et al. seem to be going for nuance as McMahon's entourage of dog robbers yet the editing guarantees that you'll get nothing more out of the characters outside of Scoot McNairy's piddly narration. What draws more attention and arguably more ire are the actors who play real people; namely Ben Kingsley as an ineffectual President Karzai and Reggie Brown who plays President Obama like Wilson from Home Improvement (1991-1999). Their inclusion stops just short of making the entire ordeal look like a failed TV pilot.

War Machine ultimately feels like a "Beetle Bailey" comic strip without a punchline. The satire is impoverished, the pacing is all over the place and Brad Pitt's, conceited and glib performance leaves little room for anything else to take root. Deadpan - more like dead in the water.

Final Grade: F

Baywatch

Year: 2017
Genre: Comedy
Directed: Seth Gordon
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Priyanka Chopra, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jon Bass, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Hannibal Buress, Rob Huebel, David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson
Production: Paramount Pictures

It's a warm, beautiful day on the beach. The pristine waves crash gently against the sand as the sun-kissed folk of Southern Florida come out to play. Lifeguard Post 1 stands like a sentinel - its windows permanently cocked forward towards the horizon. There's a change in the wind. A wind surfer looses control of his sail and is catapulted upward towards the sky before plummeting, head first into a coral reef. He's knocked unconscious...all seems lost. Then Mitch Buchannon (Johnson) appears on the scene.

You're welcome!

What results is a valiant rescue that inexplicably involves slow-motion running, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson flexing his pectorals underwater, fireworks and dolphins for some reason. The movie could have stopped right there as by that point we got the best version of what could have been the cinematic version of a farfetched TV show. Unfortunately the first fifteen minutes aren't so much a harbinger of the hilarity to come but rather a visual metaphor for the movie's inflated sense of self.

The film energetically sets up its main characters with all-too-brief introductions on tryout day. We immediately endear ourselves veterans Stephanie (Hadera), C.J. (Rohrbach) and Mitch as they judge incoming trainees the tough and brainy Summer (Daddario), the dorky Ronnie (Bass) and disgraced former Olympic swimmer Matt Brody (Efron) whose ego Mitch sees as a liability. Much of the film's prouder moments are spent with The Rock and Efron doing what they do best; The Rock deflating Brody's ego with real-deal charisma and action hero one-liners - Efron playing the dim-witted, put-upon jock who deserves everything he has coming to him because he was in High School Musical (2006).

When will you stop torturing this guy for this?

But just when you think everything will turn out for this movie, the narrative drastically shifts to a crime story that stops the movie's momentum cold. The narrative thrust involves the new owner of the beach's fancy yacht club (Chopra) and her suspicious connection to a new designer drug called Flaka. The rest of the movie doesn't so much spend time exploring that connection or its implications (Chopra compares herself favorably to a Bond villain pretty much from the get go) but instead it lays every aspect of the conspiracy out on the table and waits for the lifeguards to connect the dots.

I'm suddenly too dumb to realize this is a double entendre...

This ploy not only doesn't work but it basically splits Baywatch into two completely unsatisfying pieces. The first piece brings a diversity of comic set-pieces which on their own, probably couldn't make a good sketch on Key and Peele (2012-2015). They lack a depth of character requiring one or two of them to be more gullible, less resourceful or otherwise dumber than what was previously established.

The other half of the movie plants its flag firmly on The Rock's ability to recap what we already know while Priyanka Chopra chews unhelpfully on the scenery until the timer runs out. All throughout the film drops hints that you should care about this or that - an insert shot of a watch brings more pause than a fiery boat rescue. Yet because nothing new is ever revealed, the film's call for attention becomes soporifically annoying.

Oogle at her breasts like a true red blooded American!

The overall tone of the film is also aggressively reductive, treating the, in retrospect quaint misogyny of the original series with an uncomfortable amount of contrarian glee. Every time one of the girls of Baywatch justifiably call out the boys for being pervs, the payoff by the end of the film amounts to nothing more than quid pro quo ribbing or worse - they end up with the dude at the end. If Baywatch had just treated the subject as window-dressing, I might have been inclined to let it go (after all trash TV is trash TV). Unfortunately the movie stops just short of waving its d**k in the air while saying "you think we're being sexist, f**k you bruh!" Thus I think its worth a brief mention.

Baywatch has all the necessary ingredients to make a pretty satisfying comedic soup. Unfortunately apart from The Rock and Efron standing out as the film's sole saving graces, everything else is squandered on a useless story, oblivious editing and a unifying tone that's unnecessarily combative. Unless you're the type of person who truly believes Kelly Rohrbach's slo-mo runs along the beach are enough to maintain your attention, I suggest skipping out on this aggressively unfunny movie.

Final Grade: D-

Wait, so I have to meet her standards instead of waiting for hers to lower?!

Post script:
Stop with the dorky guy gets the hot girl for doing nothing cliche. It's been done a hundred times before, you're bringing nothing new to the table and it's come to the point where if you do it at all it just feels icky. The Sam Witwickys of the the world should have to, you know, work for it now.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Year: 2017
Genre: Action
Directed: Joachim Ronning, Espen Sandberg
Stars: Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Geoffrey Rush, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario, Kevin McNally, Golshifteh Farahani, David Wenham, Stephen Graham, Angus Barnett, Martin Klebba, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley
Production: Walt Disney Pictures

Yet not once have they ever used the legend of Steve!

If you're like me, you were never much interested in the buccaneering, larger-than-life characters that populate the Pirates of the Caribbean (2003-Present) series. Subversive characterizations; forget about it, constantly shifting alliances; no need for it, organic integration of plot combined with clever setups and payoffs; pirate please! Everyone knows this series is and should always be a catalogue of increasingly farfetched pirate folklore almost entirely based on a small collection of supernatural trinkets Jack Sparrow (Depp) and Captain Barbossa (Rush) happen to have on them.

Submitted for your approval: Dead Men Tell No Tales answers the pressing questions of how Jack Sparrow got a hold of his magic compass. It's cursed (of course) - having the power to release the owner's worst fear the moment it is betrayed. Naturally, Jack betrays the compass at a bar, unleashing the ghostly Captain Salazar (Bardem) from his watery tomb. This then allows Salazar to seek revenge against the pirate who outsmarted him a generation ago. There's also some throwaway exposition involving two star-crossed lovers (Thwaites and Scodelario), and a mythical trident that gives the movie an excuse to dust off and use Orlando Bloom for all of five minutes.

Hey! Um, you're looking...good.

With a narrative foundation positively drenched in seafaring happenstance, Dead Men Tell No Tales is an uncompromising success of messy, soulless, conveyor-belt cinema. Its emotional stakes strain under the weight of Depp's, by now tired and embarrassing performance while the pacing ebbs and flows with the force of every exposition drop. The special-effects are a master's class in "quantity over substance" with a showstopping zombie shark sequence being a real standout in the patently unnecessary.

So what's the point of this then?

Speaking of the patently unnecessary - Captain Barbossa's inclusion blows any of the unnaturalness of the previous movies completely out of the water. His contrived, lazily detailed story serves as a perfect metaphor for series' parent company's indignant lack of creativity. But while some other franchises I could name, disguise familiar trappings with a false sense of reverence (cough cough Star Wars, cough cough) or at the very least retool them to seem new (cough cough Marvel), Pirates just lets its complex mythos dangle in front of Disney's nakedly plain ambitions to keep this moneymaker chugging.

Face it, you're going to watch this one...and the next...

It's almost like the movie is daring you to hate it. It brazenly has no economy of thought - letting its dry exposition scenes, its tired comedic scenes and its loud action scenes serve their simple purpose with nary an overlapping thread. It then perverts the original film's fondness for coincidence into an oppressive highlight reel of bad storytelling, bad editing and bad franchise maintenance. Then, as if to purposely piss everyone off, the movie manages to fit in a reoccurring joke about Scodelario's character being a witch because she happens to be smarter than everyone else in the f**king movie!

Gasps! So the legends are true!

This is now the fifth movie cataloging the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow and his confederacy of loose fitting frienemies. Five movies...out of a franchise that arguably only made one good one! Can we please be done with these? Please? I don't think I can stomach another lucky brush with a well armed, supernatural villain on a search for vengeance and quite possibly Jack's tricorn hat. If anything this movie is proof that some things just need to die.

Final Grade: F

Essentials: A Question of Silence

Year: 1982
Genre: Drama
Directed: Marleen Gorris
Stars: Edda Barends, Nelly Frijda, Henriette Tol, Cox Habbema, Eddie Brugman, Hans Croiset, Erik Plooyer, Hans Croiset, Kees Coolen, Diana Dobbelman
Production: Sigma Film Productions

"Why aren't there any truly great movies directed by women!" This is a phrase I hear more often than I'd like to admit. I also hesitate to admit, that once I exhaust the usual "woke" responses (historical discrimination, patriarchy, etc.) there always comes the sad realization that, yeah, there really aren't a lot of movies, directed by women, that can be considered indisputably "great". There are a couple on the roster in need of cultural evaluation; Carroll Ballard's Fly Away Home (1996) and anything directed by Lynne Ramsay definitely rank at the top of my list. Yet thus far the critical consensus has been there's no Citizen Kane (1941) for women behind the director's chair (but here's to hoping), and the popular consensus has pretty much been - "wasn't The Hurt Locker (2008) a thing once?"

How do you get a woman to win a Best Directing Oscar? Make the movie about dudes!

Yet if one were to take off the blinders of popular, American-centric cinema, and go looking for a bit, one might find the works of Marleen Gorris, specifically her austere gem of a first feature A Question of Silence. The plot: a simple setup for a simple movie. Three women are charged with murdering a male shopkeeper and a psychiatrist (Habbema) is tasked with determining whether they're sane enough to stand trial.

The struggle to understand why the murder occurred in a flash of violence provides the foundational aspects of the film. The movie cuts back and forth between the psychiatrist's prodding interrogations with the scene of the crime which, as the title suggests is largely without dialogue. We figure out early how the scene played out - we even catch a glimpse at important details before the psychiatrist realizes she's being lied to. She gets unreliable narration from sullen secretary Andrea (Tol), cackling nonsense from lonely waitress Ann (Frijda) and complete boo from catatonic housewife Christine (Barends). Yet we, we get everything.

The context of the film is forever present from the opening scene - the psychiatrist trying to get the attention of her lawyer husband (Brugman), to the films flummoxing resolution in the courtroom. Its sense of justice in the face of indifference and neglect sets itself over the story like a gossamer and sustains itself in a way that defies description. The story, it's players, it's simple musical cues are so sparse yet so fierce and brilliant it approaches being an angry visual haiku.

The film's stillness and clinical lack of ornamentation only adds to its rather nerving wit. It sets up its meticulous visual prose like the calm cadence of a damning speech then lets you fill in its devastating meaning. Every frame, every camera angle is a repudiation of patriarchy, with the movie's constant microaggressions providing context and the murder providing a bloody and pertinent focal point. It should be noted that the murder is often described yet its remains completely unseen. Thus we're forced to figuratively pick up the pieces for ourselves even as the deed is being done.

Gorris's overall message remains subversive while in plain sight; what remains obvious to some, will likely breed bewilderment for others. What remains clear is Gorris's first feature has more vitality and immediacy, than most filmmakers could ever hope to conjure out of their entire ouevre. She later fine-tuned and further explored feminist themes in Broken Mirrors (1984) and Antonia's Line (1995) though A Question of Silence remains her most concentrated dose of inspiring social radicalism. This is filmmaking not just as art but as a n incendiary device - one whose sense of empowerment leaves no prisoners.

Final Grade: A-

Everything, Everything

Year: 2017

Genre: Drama

Directed: Stella Meghie

Stars: Amandla Stenberg, Nick Robinson, Anika Noni Rose, Ana de la Reguera, Taylor Hickson, Danube Hermosillo, Dan Payne, Fiona Loewi, Sage Brocklebank, Robert Lawrenson, Francoise Yip

Production: MGM

Everything, Everything is the newest YA-novel adaptation that thoughtlessly blends the superficial aspects of teenage romance and the poorly understood, yet perennially showcased plot device of terminal illness. This time around the plot is animated by the wide-eyed gaze and natural naivety of Amandla Stenberg who plays Maddie Whittier a precocious teen with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency or SCIDs. She falls head-over-heels for the boy next door (Robinson) and as one might imagine things go pretty "town of Verona" right quick.

She writes book reviews...what a waste!

Thirty minutes into this film it became abundantly clear that this story, its interchangeable parts and its bland dialogue are beneath the talents of the effervescent Amandla Stenberg and director Stella Meghie. Stenberg especially gives this movie a far more commanding performance than it deserves, with an easygoing charisma that flirts with melodrama without the character actually being and sounding melodramatic. It of course helps that the film is told strictly from her perspective which casts just enough light for you to think Maddie is a fully formed person - you know, with feelings and stuff.

Totally the look of a guy who flirts with other girls while on vacation...

Only adding to the movies hermetically-sealed chastity, Meghie blocks so much of the film with a purposeful book-wise gaze. When Maddie and Olly, yes his name is Olly, finally meet in person, their delicate dance around the room and each other occasionally makes up for the dialogue and total lack of chemistry. Her spacious abode, a glass castle just ten minutes away from the California coast, is agog with striking visual symbolism that only becomes more oppressive as she longs for her stringy-haired honey.

What sells it though are the film's flights of fancy, which not only fill the screen with a sort of tame absurdity but also manages to solve the dreaded cellphone problem. See, part of the issue with setting a film in modern times is everyone has a cellphone. Thus old romantic cliches that were once the bread and butter of these kinds of movies (frantic runs to the airport, momentary misunderstandings, general meddling) can be easily resolved with a simple text. Granted the movie all but bungles any opportunity to explore new dramatic ground, it's fantasy infused dialogues into the wee-hours nonetheless provides the germ of a good workaround.

If the movie had just stayed on autopilot until the end I might have given you a genuine if tacit recommendation. Yet Everything, Everything wants to bet big on a late third-act plot twist that panders to the point of insult and forces gasps to the point of unintentional hilarity. If you're not already swooning by the time this dull romance reaches its pop-song montage, then whatever goodwill you have tethering to this movie is liable to snap.

Thus we get to the point in this review where spoilers abound...

So turns out Maddie doesn't even have SCIDs. Her mother (Rose), fearing the loss of her precious daughter, raises her, in what is essentially a glass prison and makes up the illness because (huff, huff) parenting is hard! I...I just can't. This movie loses all shred of dignity the moment it unleashes this out-of-left-field plot twist which, within context is like aliens showing up at the end of Thelma and Louise (1991) and shouting "you're in the Matrix". I mean, what the literal f**k movie! At least The Fault in Our Stars (2014) had the good sense to pull the trigger and gave us a satisfying if heartbreaking resolution! This piece of crap wants to sell you on its flaccid bulls**tery and then lets you know you wasted your time. This movie doesn't just want the cake, it doesn't just want to eat it too, it wants to go carnivorous earwig on your a**, and eat what's left of your brain! This movie's unexpected and unearned plot twist not only insults the intelligence of its audience; in congress with Olly's own familial hangups, it plops a big 'ol steamer on the prospect of finding love that isn't an unhealthy form of infatuation or infantilization. F**k you movie! Seriously, f**k you!

(Huff) As I said, you're liable to snap. Now is this movie really anti-parent as I so claim? Probably not, at least not purposely. The more likely explanation for its rather stupid choices, my just be a case of excessive pandering on the part of the movie and the book in which it's based on. It panders to the fantasy that all teenage girls are princesses in need of rescuing; that all mothers are secretly witches and that every complicated problem can be solved by a cute boyfriend and a strong wifi connection.

Final Grade: F

Alien: Covenant

Year: 2017
Genre: Sci-Fi
Directed: Ridley Scott
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Amy Seimetz, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby, James Franco
Production: 20th Century Fox

I shall call you squishy!

What arguably made the Alien franchise (1979-Present) such an extraordinary success back in its day had less to do with the alien itself and more to do with the franchises overwhelming sense of dread. It permeated through, at the very least the three good movies (shut up, Alien 3 (1992) is too a good movie) in everything from their dark existential themes to their imposing and surreal external features. There was no escape from the darkness, whether that darkness came in the form of the alien itself, a sinister and omnipresent company or the emptiness of space which rumor has it, no one can hear you scream.

The meaning of life has always been "more beer."

Prometheus (2012), for better or worse, changed all that by elevating the existential dread from being a feature to a recurring theme. It's a subtle shift and one that's impossible to notice when the newest batch of expendables are running for dear life. Yet while most remember Prometheus as "the one where a professional biologist gets cozy with a hissing vagina snake," they forget that the movie often stopped cold, to wax poetically about the nature of God, the search for meaning, and man's tenuous relationship with nature.

Alien: Covenant follows the same thematic arc started by Prometheus five years ago, only I'm glad to say this time it largely sticks. The story begins when a ship of colonists intercept a signal from an Earth-like planet and decide to change course in order to investigate it. Once they arrive on the surface of the planet with thoughts of long-term colonization, the landing crew quickly discover the ruins of an ancient civilization (and a little something more).

Say what you will about Scott, He's always been a visual director

Out of all the subsequent films in the Alien franchise, Alien: Covenant arguably comes closest to recreating the bold visuals and overall feel of the original 1979 film. This film is admirably beautiful in its framing and composition. Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski imbues nearly every frame on the planet with an off-putting balance of natural splendor and glowering foreboding. When the Captain (Crudup) says "this could be home," you'd be inclined to believe him, that's if you didn't already know this was an Alien movie.

Particularly the last Triptych

Much credit must be given to director Ridley Scott for trying to give the world of his franchise a sense of scope. One can draw a straight line from Prometheus's bronze age aesthetic to Covenant's imposing classicism to the eventual discovery of a/the Gothic derelict ship. Not satisfied with ornamentation, Scott supplements some of the film's most dire and profound moments with visual parallels to the Drowning of Ophelia by Millais, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch and The Last Days of Pompeii by Bryullov.

We get it, you're one smart cookie!

Yet if there's a weak link to this film - and trust me it's a doozy - it's the film's rather wanting script written partially by playwright John Logan. The introduction of Walter, played by an uncharacteristically straight-laced Michael Fassbender conjures memories of Fassbender's take on the maltheist synthetic David in Prometheus. And as such, his inclusion begs the script to reach for the same level sophistication as Scott's unforgettable visuals in both that film and this one. If only references to Percy Shelley and Wagner made it so. Unfortunately for Covenant, anything meant to be muse-worthy and bleak just comes across as silly or worse, the pretentious preening of a screenwriter who wants everyone in earshot to know he went to Northwestern.

Alien: Resurrection sucked but admit it, you remember this guy

The film then uneasily balances its lofty ideas on the shoulders of some of the blandest characters in this franchise to date. If asked for a list of character names, fans of the franchise could arguably name a good five or six (not including Ripley) spread out between all the Alien films. Here however our hero Daniels (Waterston) and her erudite crew lack a lot of the hallmarks of being a memorable and sympathetic lot; even when the film spends more time than usual getting to know them, their habits and their motivations. Yet because there motivations are so tenuous, their decisions so baffling and their psychology so dependent on the need to fill time, we as the audience just can't invest all that much in them.

Yet for every delta we add to the list of what's wrong with this movie, the visuals, not to mention the arrival of the dreaded Xenomorph are enough to overtake them. The gore, the shock, the visceral moments of absolute dread, beckon to the original in just the right ways. Covenant may not be as exciting and expertly paced but it does have enough of an oomph to live on its mythological laurels

Final Grade: B-

King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword

Year: 2017
Genre: Action
Directed: Guy Ritchie
Stars: Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Eric Bana, Aiden Gillen, Freddie Fox, Craig McGinlay, Tom Wu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Neil Maskell, Annabelle Wallis, Geoff Bell, Rob Knighton
Production: Warner Bros.

Did we really need another King Arthur movie? The legend, its various symbols, its thematic arcs, its outmoded characters etc. have all existed in some permutation seemingly since the beginning of film history. The last good adaptation, if we're being honest, was the half-forgotten Disney film of the 1960's. That is unless of course you include Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) as the quintessential movie about wielding executive power based on watery tarts throwing swords.

I do!

Yet here we are in the time of extended universes and increasingly self-serious fandom adaptations, getting director Guy Ritchie of all people to cash in on everyone's fascination with The Game of Thrones (2011-Present) series. Though for what it's worth Ritchie seems to know that he's an unexpected choice to helm this project and admirably leans into some of the flourishes that made him a household name a decade ago. Let it be known that for all its faults, you can pile on "idiosyncratic" onto the list of adjectives used to describe this movie.

You can also add on words like, busy, rushed, light on suspense and predictable even for a King Arthur movie. Which is surprising since the setup for the film strips away many of the modes of the original legend and replaces them with worldly complications and post-modern, Dark Souls-like ornamentation. It all starts with a blood feud between Uther (Bana) the rightful King of England and his brother Vortigern (Law) who's ability to conjure dark magic gives him the leverage to take on the throne. Arthur (Hunnam) as a small child is sent down a river Moses-style, finding refuge in a London-town brothel. From there he becomes a small town hooligan with a heart of gold, graduates to being a professional magic sword puller and the rest you largely know. This time instead of getting much needed guidance from Merlin (a figure spoken of, but never seen), Arthur gets his X-Men meets Lord of the Rings tutelage from a flinty mage (Berges-Frisbey) whose involvement is probably to distract that so many named women in this movie are tossed aside and/or killed.

Please do more crime-comedies!

The film works best when it focuses on the grimy and the gritty. This Arthur is less a product of posh, natural charisma and more an intelligent rascal whose intimate knowledge of the criminal underworld pumps the gas on an already fomenting revolution. The context of the small and unnamed is a small but interesting feature that should have been explored a lot more. If for no other reason than it would have given Guy Ritchie a better opportunity to indulge in his speed-up-speed-down, MTV era ingenuity and hypothetical-hyper-planned monologuing.

If only the film didn't yank us through an ugly hodge-podge of boring exposition, suspiciously convenient, magic-themed psycho-babble and erratic franchise maintenance that does little in the service of the film's characters. In this version, the sword Excalibur is not just mythical, it's downright diabolical with its ability to grant the wielder super-human strength, speed and dexterity. Arthur for what its worth already possess many of those traits but he can't hold the sword double-handed because, according to the Bedivere (Hounsou), "he's not ready for it." Convenient, now the movie can milk its nebulously constructed cudgel for the purposes of dragging out the run time.

Does someone actually remember this movie?

That's ultimately what all but kills this movie - it's a drag. And not the kind of drag that made Antoine Fuqua's 2004 version such a grounded but trifling diversion. No this thing, with its liberal amounts of magic, monsters and kung fu (I kid you not, this King of England knows kung fu), wants you to take everything as seriously as a stroke. Thus we get long moments of people blathering about this or that prophecy and staring at each other with suspicion and malice. A task that someone like Jude Law is naturally suited to but Charlie Hunnam? The less he talks the better.

The film's remaining questions, combined with a naively buoyant epilogue hints that more is to come. It is rumored that The Legend of the Sword is one of a planned six movies - Six! Why would they do that? They hardly captured anyone's imagination, let alone attention with this mess. Even with the promise of Merlin and Lancelot joining the fray, this franchise feels like its only going to get worse. I kindly ask Warner Bros. not to continue on this quest for Camelot. Let's not go there - it is a silly place.

Final Grade: D+