One Battle After Another (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Not being familiar with Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, and not knowing it serves as the basis for Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film, One Battle After Another, was probably a good thing for me. Pynchon lies beyond my preferred tastes in literature, so I might have cooled at the suggestion of a screening. My ass was in the seat for Leo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro, and Anderson, of course, though I was admittedly nervous after his most recent feature. Yet being brought to tears multiple times and feeling cerebrally affected by this story and its timeliness were not things I was prepared for.

Opening with a searing scene of violence and shockingly funny eroticism, Anderson pulls no punches in this film that seems to be reaching through the screen to grab audiences and shake them out of a stupor. Escapism? Not here, and to that end, I do think the marketing campaign for this title was especially effective. I had, truly, no idea what we were in for, and that Anderson chose a distinctly unsafe and wickedly fun route with a story that, as it unfolded, became insidiously upsetting should earn him laurels come awards season. Wryly skirting sentimentality, his saga of an extended family of choice with a twisted past reconnecting to save their next generation showcases human awkwardness and hopefulness in a way less like Anderson's pointing a mirror at us and more like he's giving us a pep talk after losing a game. He knows exactly who his audience is, and what they're tired from. Hint: it's in the title. 

"Fighting" and "attacks," as words, have been sapped of their strength in the age of social media, but Anderson reminds us of what it really means to dedicate yourself -- bodily -- to a cause you believe in. And not just because Warner Bros., despite their reported blanching at this film's extraordinary budget, trusted in their auteur to have creative control. Opening with a far-left militant group breaking out detained immigrants on the American southern border, including the aforementioned shockingly funny erotic scene, the story indeed shows us the physical toll one battle after another takes on the people desperately fighting for their obsessions.

The plot jumps sixteen years into the future -- though the exact temporal setting of this film is deliberately hard to pin -- after establishing its main characters, members of the revolutionist group the French 75, especially Bob (DiCaprio) and Perfidia (a riveting Teyana Taylor, in full command of her craft), who fall in love and have a daughter before they are separated and forced to live in hiding. Their nemesis? Steven J. Lockjaw, and honestly, just enjoy the names in this as you listen, they're great. Sean Penn delivers an astonishing performance as Lockjaw, the most evil presence on a screen I've seen in a long time, a military colonel and avowed white supremacist who develops a psychosexual monomania fixated on Perfidia. His reign of terror has rendered Bob debilitatingly paranoid, despite living a happy -- and very private -- life with his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), a strong-willed and highly capable teenager. They've lived under false names and without communication with their former comrades, including Perfidia, but Lockjaw finds them.

Determined to track down any possible child he may have had -- to eliminate any evidence of his interracial sexual activities (and fetish) -- he has utilized mercenary bounty hunters to locate his quarry. After Willa's rescue by the French 75, and Lockjaw's attack on their house, a fleeing Bob frantically uses what resources are available to him through his secret network. But it's been years since he's remembered certain passwords, and suffice it to say that his is a significant and almost absurd journey, which functions as the main plot. Regina Hall and Benicio Del Toro perform brilliantly in their supporting roles, holding their own even as the screenplay zigs and zags and maintaining believable gravitas in moments so strange they need grounding. 

Indeed humorous throughout, the film nevertheless keeps a firm clutch on our attention for its two-and-a-half hours. Jonny Greenwood's score sets a haunting mood, one calculated to feel at times like aural anxiety, including a long sequence of rising tension with what sounds like a single piano key played endlessly. And right that it should! Our humanist attachment to these odd and exciting, dangerous characters comes from somewhere, and -- spoiler alert -- it's probably because of the significant threat against them. This film, despite blurring its own setting, wears its politics on its sleeve and flashes it around. Not necessarily about Antifa or MAGA or any recognizable labels like that, but in that its antagonists are institutionalized hypocrites, aspiring to and/or mobilized by a secret society of white supremacist men controlling the government. Timely themes abound, to be sure, in this work, but its characterizations of desperate men couldn't be more starkly painted.

One Battle After Another niggled my brain for some time after our screening, not least because of its curious tone. For a film of such scope and seriousness and urgency, this feels fun and even hopeful as it challenges and subverts our expectations. Like these characters, we're tired from so much fighting, but this film reminds us of the lasting power -- and empowerment -- of resistance. That freedom shouldn't come at a cost too great for us to conform to injustice. In retrospect, it seems Anderson changes the title's significance to reorient us from the past to the future: don't waste time fretting over old battles or counting your scars, you've gotta take stock and heal before the next battle. Onward and upward!

The French Dispatch (2021)

Score: 3.5 / 5

It might be the most Wes Anderson Wes Anderson movie yet, and that's just what it is. If you like his usual style, you'll probably like this, because he ramps it up about 200% from usual. If you don't like his style, you'll probably hate this because it's just too niche. I've always been on the fence with him, because for me Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Grand Budapest Hotel are wonderful films, especially that last, but I have felt indifferent or negatively toward most of his others, such as his most recent, Isle of Dogs. This most recent is more like Hotel in terms of style, substance, and grandiosity of storytelling, and for those elements I quite enjoyed it. But it's also surprisingly inaccessible, even for people who are willing to let Anderson take them on another funny, weird ride through his unique experience of life in a strange world.

A meditation on journalism -- I think -- The French Dispatch begins with Angelica Huston's voiceover narration about the establishment of the titular magazine. Though it was founded in Liberty, Kansas, where its editor Howitzer (Bill Murray) was born, it is now published in a little French town called Ennui-sur-Blasé, which means something like sophisticated boredom. In rapid succession, we are introduced to Howitzer's loyal staff in their oddly crumbling but quaint offices; the characters are not seen directly at first, and left almost unknowable until they respectively share some of their work with us. The film is divided into sections, one from each of the eccentric journalists, that form what is meant to be the final issue of the magazine. Based on the style of the on-screen font and the unusual focus of the fictional writing staff, it seems that we are meant strongly to think of the Dispatch in the same terms we think of The New Yorker. The secondary opening sequence seems pointedly to satirize (or offer homage to) the New Yorker regular piece "The Talk of the Town," funnily narrated by Owen Wilson in a beret and on a bicycle, riding through the small town and showing us the locations (past and future) when he's not colliding with commoners or falling down holes.

To recount the plot (of which there is essentially none) seems fruitless and even arrogant, as I frankly had trouble with all the characters and their doings. There are three main stories that take up the bulk of screen time, each from a different writer's perspective. One involves an incarcerated painter and his muse who is also his prison guard, and their work with an art dealer on the outside. One involves the writer inserting herself into a student protest led by a moody young revolutionary and the fallout that entails. One involves a legendary chef whose only employ is in the police department kitchen, despite the reporter's best efforts at launching him to fame. The pieces are all shot in Anderson's style, but with various kinds of changing aesthetics; for instance, during a chase scene, everything is presented suddenly as an animated cartoon.

That's shocking, but not really in context of Anderson's work. Everything is usually presented in toybox or dollhouse style in his films, and each piece of the set and props are clearly chosen and altered to cultivate a painfully specific atmosphere. His production design notoriously borders on the obsessive, and here (as in Hotel) that is most clearly sensed. Perhaps that's because it's so removed from most audience members' lived experience. There is almost nothing relatable in this film, at least physically, and yet it seems Anderson wants to transport us to a very real world for which he then wants us to experience some kind of catharsis through nostalgia, even if the nostalgia is for a fantasy. 

I don't really know what else to say about this film. It's a valuable experience, I thought, and one that I'll need to mull over. But even more than in most of his work, here I just couldn't connect to any of the (many, many) characters or even fully understand the setting or themes. I suppose part of the project is to simply appreciate the varied work of specialized journalists, but I'd rather have movies like All the President's Men or The Post than something like this. It just moved far too quickly and with too many moving parts for my taste; I could never really savor the crucial beats in even the expository bits. There's a relentlessness in its pace that denies us access to any thematic underpinnings, even as the experience of Anderson dragging us through his imagination was thrilling.

No Sudden Move (2021)

Score: 3 / 5

There's a lot of joy to witnessing Steven Soderbergh returning, as he does every few years, to an ensemble-driven crime drama. He's the master at it for a reason, and since his premature "retirement" is now bunk, we can all be groveling with gratitude that he's back at it again. Sadly, this time his feature film is only streaming on HBO Max, meaning most people will see his beautiful work on a tablet, phone, or otherwise pathetically small screen. But Soderbergh's uncanny attention to detail and passion for men in sticky social and economic situations shines here, mostly overcoming this narrative's confusing plot and energizing what could otherwise be fairly boring material. It helps that the film gorgeously transports us to Detroit in the mid-'50s.

As with most grizzled detectives or gangsters in films noir, recently un-incarcerated criminal Curt (Don Cheadle) just needs one good job in order to get out of town for good. Partnered with Ronald (Benicio del Toro), they are hired by a mysterious recruiter named Doug Jones (a delicious Brendan Fraser) to threaten the family of a GM accountant named Matt (David Harbour). The gangsters are both desperate; we learn eventually that Curt is being hunted by a haunting figure called Watkins (Bill Duke), while Ronald is having an affair with the wife (Julia Fox) of mob boss Frank Capelli (of course, Ray Liotta). This tangled web of angry men is enough to spur the two gangsters to succeed in this new endeavor, so they can escape with their lives.

Possibly due to their precarious position, Jones teams them up with a mysterious third man -- much as Macbeth does to Banquo's assassins -- played with creepy efficacy by Kieran Culkin. Shortly after they take the accountant's family (including Amy Seimetz and Noah Jupe) hostage, they convince Matt to retrieve a secret item from his boss's safe; it helps that Matt's affair with the boss's secretary will grant him access. It doesn't help that all these people are suddenly thrust into a panicked frenzy and surreal circumstances, and it follows naturally that things don't go according to plan for anyone.

It's all an extraordinarily taut exercise in screenwriting from Ed Solomon (Now You See Me), and frankly a fair bit of the middle act was lost on me. Names dropped faster than I could catch them, and something about older men squabbling over wealth and behaving badly in pursuit of it is generally unappealing to me anyway. The focus shifts several times between characters, and I realized about halfway through that the main character at the beginning was no longer the main character. In fact, I'm still not sure now if there was a main character. And that's fine, but it requires another viewing to appreciate the plot's relay effect, and I don't think I have it in me yet. I found more pleasure in Soderbergh's delivery, as each scene drips with atmosphere and detail, working to place the audience keenly within the awareness of its characters. To this end, almost the entire film is shot (by Soderbergh as "Peter Andrews" again) with a fisheye lens, exaggerating the middle of the screen and warping the frame, forcing us into a magnified and myopic view of the scene. 

I most enjoyed the film when I stopped trying to make sense of each character's name, occupation, and dramatic role, and instead let Soderbergh's style wash over me. It's melancholy and bitter and awkwardly funny, and unlike anyone else's crime thrillers out there. Moreover, even without full command of the story being told, its complex and unexpected climax and denouement hit me over the head with its central thematic concerns before I was able to really articulate what they were. No Sudden Move has a cynical axe to grind -- played out in the treacherous auto race, no less -- and its unsophisticated, greedy characters are determined to avoid that axe at any cost.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)

Score: 2 / 5

Oh boy.

The first thing you need to know about Sicario: Day of the Soldado is that it's a mess of messages. As a sequel, it sucks. As a standalone film, it's endlessly problematic. As a cultural product in 2018, it's shameful. And as entertainment, it's kind of fun to watch. Shall we unpack? Do let's.

Sicario was my #2 favorite film of 2015. Its glorious score, rapturous cinematography, slickly sly screenplay, and beastly performances haunted me ever since I saw it on the big screen. Sadly, the story of Emily Blunt's character ended with that picture, along with the involvement of director Denis Villeneuve, cinematographer Roger Deakins, and composer Johan Johansson (who died this February). We are left with Taylor Sheridan's new screenplay and a mostly new cast and crew for a sequel that no one expected and absolutely no one wanted.

Strife between Mexico and the U.S. has reached a crisis point, as ISIS terrorists are using La Frontera as the stage for suicide bombings. Matt (Josh Brolin) is given special permission to fight dirty with the drug cartels suspected of harboring these international terrorists. Of course he calls in Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) for help with his latest secret mission: to set the cartels against each other and sit back to watch the fireworks. All does not go as planned.

Where to begin? First off, the movie has a terrible title. It should have just been called Soldado. Then again, it shouldn't have been called anything because nobody wanted a sequel! Did I already say that? I'll reiterate: nobody wanted a sequel. Moving on....

Whereas the first film featured a story of increasing violence and the slow revelation of U.S. complicity (read: absolute guilt) in border violence and the "war on drugs" -- framed with the effect of this violence on average families, especially of one Mexican family -- this film is a bloodbath with little (if any) dramatic purpose. Its themes are needlessly bleak, its tone irreverent, its target audience Trump supporters.

Too harsh? Think again. This film is almost total propaganda, and its placement in the 2018 calendar is shameful at best. At a time when families are being ripped apart and children are locked in cages, we have a movie whose logic indicates that this is not only normal but totally justifiable. The film suggests that Mexican drug cartels and ISIS are working together to create chaos for the U.S. and that the best way to fight them is by kidnapping children.

To make matters worse, the film has almost none of the aesthetic or technical brilliance of the first. In fact, it blatantly rips off from other -- more effective and original -- movies, including its own predecessor. Its story meanders, piling up improbabilities as often as offenses and trying to brush over it all with waves of violence. When we aren't subjected to crazy shootouts and car chases and torture, we're forced to hear racist people assaulting each other with words and ideas. Even the one instance of the film retreating to a rational position -- a throwaway line late in the film about how the ISIS bombers weren't from Mexico, but from New Jersey -- is at once completely inconsequential and utterly horrific in that, by this point in the film, neither the characters nor the audience can even register the violence that statement does to the story.

The closest I can get to appreciating the film revolves solely around Benicio Del Toro as Alejandro (also and by the way, why is Lady Gaga's song of the same name never featured in conjunction with this character? That is a missed golden opportunity!). His performance is no less committed here than it was before, and although his character is given shit by the screenplay, Del Toro manages to make the film both watchable and entertaining.

And while I'm not going to say the film -- taken for its all -- is culturally "bad" (after all, my single viewing and interpretation cannot comprehend all its complexities), it is dangerous and deserves careful consideration before, during, and after viewing. It's a fascinating look into a social watershed moment during this divisive summer of 2018, and while it's endlessly problematic, what isn't these days? Come for Del Toro, stay for the pulp, and leave determined to be a better person. If, that is, you can stomach the carnage you witness.

P.S.: I've heard the term "MAGA-sploitation" used in conjunction with this film, and I think that's a really fascinating concept. I've thought a lot, before, about Clint Eastwood's deeply problematic films and their tendency toward libertarian propaganda. But what's at work in Soldado seems to be something else, and MAGA-sploitation may be a useful tool to bring into film theory these days.

IMDb: Sicario: Day of the Soldado

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I will spoil the movie for you. You've been warned.

The first thing you need to know about The Last Jedi is that it is infinitely superior to The Force Awakens. That film was a rehashed "Best Of Star Wars" scrapbook of fan fodder, expertly executed but lacking in any substance. Well, beyond its cast of fabulously diverse newbies. It was also a mess of plot holes and unfinished storylines, and by the end of the film we still didn't know much about any of the new characters or the new mythos of a galaxy far, far away.

Rian Johnson, however, has crafted one of the better Star Wars movies with Episode VIII. It's a deeply emotional movie with real stakes, troubling moral ambiguity, and complex relationships. For a two-and-a-half hour movie, it's also incredibly tense, even when the pacing tends to lag. People get hurt. People die. A lot of people die. Hope is ever-fading. It's a strangely apocalyptic vision of science fiction not unlike Revenge of the Sith; whereas that film ended with a comparatively safe sense of nostalgia and hope, The Last Jedi is far more bleak. That's partly due to our utter ignorance as to where this franchise is going. Disney holds all the cards now. Let's just hope the Force is with them.

Speaking of the Force, let's dig right in. We pick up the saga not long after the end of The Force Awakens. The Resistance fleet is on the run, pursued through space by the First Order, which was apparently not seriously set back by the destruction of Starkiller Base. General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) have developed the ability to track their prey through hyperspace, and most of this film concerns what is essentially a car chase with spaceships. The Resistance fleet (...of three ships?) is low on fuel and doomed unless Finn (John Boyega), BB-8, and newcomer Rose (an excellent Kelly Marie Tran) can hire a computer pirate (Benicio del Toro) to save them. It's a bizarre little side adventure through a casino populated by war profiteers, slavers, weapons manufacturers, and people who brutally race alien horses. All is for naught, however, when the pirate sells out to the highest bidder, and the Resistance is forced to hide at an old outpost. Almost all of them die, including (probably) their second-in-command Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern, who really deserved more screen time), but General Leia Organa survives. Unfortunately, and ironically, that is one of the most heartbreaking things about this movie.

Thankfully, this movie provides her with much more screen time than the previous episode. I'm a bit concerned about what will happen to Leia now. She could have died at least three times in this movie alone, and I find it troubling that the filmmakers didn't account for Carrie Fisher's death. We'll have to wait and see how they fashion the next installment. Han is gone, and as of the end of this movie, so is Luke. Mark Hamill gives a riveting performance as a haunted rogue Jedi, and we get a fair amount of backstory on him and his failed Jedi revitalization project. He trains Rey (Daisy Ridley), sort of kind of, and is forced to face his own shortcomings. There's a great scene when the ghost of Yoda appears to him, still instructing him, saying that failure is the greatest teacher. But in his final moments, after expending his life force to save what's left of the Resistance, Luke disappears and his empty cloak floats off into the wind.

Which brings us to another point. I'm not sure about this sequel series playing fast and loose with the mythology. Kylo can stop a blaster's laser in midair? Leia gets blasted out into space and can survive by pulling herself back into an air lock? Yoda's ghost can cause a lightning strike? Luke can astral project?! I had some misgivings about the directions this franchise would take when Disney took over, but things are getting a bit wild. Similarly, while this film answers plenty of questions from the first and fills in some extra plot holes -- the most fabulous being that Rey's parents are nobodies; she is a strong independent woman and she don't need no fancy bloodline -- it keeps us in the dark about just as much. Who is Supreme Leader Snoke? He has a glamorous golden bathrobe, but we still don't know who or what or why he is, and now we may not. Kylo kills him in an otherwise really cool scene (he and Rey fight together against the guards and a burning backdrop). Who was Max von Sydow's character in The Force Awakens? Still don't know, probably doesn't matter. What's Phasma's story? No idea, and she (also probably) dies too. There is a new canon book about her, so hopefully that helps.

Despite my meandering thoughts, I cannot deny the sheer beauty and power of this film. It's a visionary masterpiece, pushing the Star Wars limits in ways I never expected to see. It's a tapestry of color and light, gorgeous special effects and dazzling storytelling. Its menagerie of alien species gets a little weird at times, but it all works together to create a nearly perfect escapist experience. Even moments that could be a dangerously close throwback to The Empire Strikes Back are quickly altered to be novel: The climactic battle on salt-crusted Crait isn't just snow and AT-ATs like it was on Hoth; arresting red dust billows from the ground and none of the enemy's weapons are destroyed. The infiltrating team of Finn, Rose, and DJ the pirate don't shut down the tracking device like Old Ben did on the Death Star; they get caught and almost killed.

In this way, the movie is a (successful) meditation on failure, its price and its cost as well as the lessons it teaches. It's a thematic work of genius, and I can't wait to watch it again. Sure, there are some awkward comedic moments, some earned and some not, but nothing caught me off guard so much as little moments of insight and affection between characters in intimate proximity. I wept openly through lengthy sequences, and choked up so much I could barely breathe. After saving Finn at the potential cost of her life, Rose tells him that's how we win: "Not by fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love." Take my tears and my life, why dontcha? Other than Rogue One, it is the most dense Star Wars yet, and if that's any indication of the franchise's future, I am HERE FOR IT.

PS: For those of you who are as in love with Oscar Isaac and Poe Dameron as I am -- just kidding, no one rivals my affection -- you will be pleased to know that he has some great moments in this film. He connects with all the major players in heartfelt ways, he leads a mutiny, his hair is on point. And he gets a new leather jacket.

IMDb: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Sicario (2015)

Score: 5 / 5

I get really excited every time some of my favorite artists team up to do a film, and Sicario is no exception! Visionary director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy), legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins (Prisoners, Doubt, Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption), and recent composer Johann Johannsson (Prisoners, The Theory of Everything, Foxcatcher) rock this daring and haunting crime thriller in ways I only dreamed they might. It was a total moviegasm experience for me, and my hands are still shaking from it.

Imagine what would happen if Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and Traffic (2000) had a baby, and you can grasp the direction this film takes. It's a brutal peek into the drug trade and cartel culture, and it relentlessly forces us to face the horrors we so easily permit. It's about the little compromises we make every day that push us farther and farther away from civilized life and into the deserts of chaos and cruelty. It's a web of policy and procedure, a critique of corrupt or misguided law enforcement, and a tragedy of one soldier's fall from innocence.

That soldier, played with great vulnerability and compassion by Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria, Into the Woods), is an FBI agent determined to win the war on drugs by the book. But, as she soon learns, her idealism is far from practical and far from successful. After a traumatic incident in one raid, which starts the film, she joins with Department of Defense agents to hunt down the head of a cartel and bring him to justice. She sees her team lie, torture, and murder their way to the top of the cartel, and becomes privy to secrets that destroy her faith.

Of course, director Villeneuve is keenly aware of his female protagonist as the heart and soul of the film, and so he keeps us trained on her. For every horror she faces, we see it only as it relates to her. In fact, most of the violence and dead bodies we see only briefly, before turning to see her reactions to them. It's a gamble, and one that pays off brilliantly. And that's not to say we don't see plenty of the other actors as well. Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men, W.) is his typical gruff self, though here I found him more compelling and inscrutable than usual. And Benecio Del Toro (Traffic, Che) blew me away yet again as the dangerous loose cannon of the team, guarded behind his facade but vicious and terrifying when necessary.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins -- I can't even say how much I love his work -- fashions the drama with an eye for gravity and weight, shown most obviously in his repeated longshots of the desert landscape and views down from aircraft. He takes his time with every scene, painting a portrait with varied lights and colors that build to a climax that parallels the plot. By the time we actually reach the climactic raid -- underground and at night -- he throws convention to the wolves and douses us in thermal vision and night vision lenses. The interplay is provocative to say the least, aand by the time it was done I felt as though I had tried some of the drugs the characters were hunting.

The whole movie is a trip and a half, a spiritual descent into hell, and one that left me bewildered but satisfied. And the score by Johann Johannsson isn't intrusive at all; the only memorable part is an increasingly hypnotic drone that thrums on through the film, a mysterious and unsettling sound that feels tied to an idea of impending doom. If this all sounds a bit heady, it's because it is. And designed to be so. Handled by others, this film might have become mired in complex dialogue absorbed with the details of the crimes and organizations involved, in muddled editing and ambiguous plotlines juxtaposed with vague or unnecessary characters, or in sentiment and politics. Instead, we get a clear, if artistic, picture of a very specific world in which very real people grapple with huge abstract concepts. And it's all done beautifully, which is obviously the most important part.

IMDb: Sicario

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Score: 4 / 5

I usually react badly when people try to argue that films are "simply" escapist ventures. Firstly, there's nothing really wrong with escapism, though I think a tendency for it leads to bad art. Secondly, there's nothing simple about filmmaking. Or film viewing, for that matter. And a desire to escape from reality into a world that becomes real to many viewers is a very complicated process. But as I watched smiling audience members walk out after Marvel's newest blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy, the first word that crossed my mind was "escapism". And I was smiling too.

Due, no doubt, to any number of circumstances, superhero movies seem to have been getting darker and heavier over the last few years. Blame Christopher Nolan, postmodern nihilism, or the degradation of American youth, but it's no coincidence that superhero films seem to be growing more tragic in nature. Besides the subject matter that always includes the extinction of humans or the dissolution of Earth, just look at the color palette for Thor and compare it to its sequel. Or Captain America. And consider the titles of these sequels: The Dark World, The Winter Soldier. They grow bleak, because for some reason each installment must be a bigger, "better" challenge to overcome, and one that invariably makes a lot of rubble.

So Guardians proved quite the surprise for me. I usually prefer the darker-toned films of the last few years to comedies, but frankly I've been getting tired of them. The sheer optimism and glee in this film had me smiling through the whole damn thing. And lots of that comes from the director, James Gunn, who handles the (no less threatening than in other Marvel films) presence of multiple scheming, destructive villains with grace and style. While he eventually gives in to weak battle sequences typical of superhero finales, he also has an eye for lovely visuals. And I'm not talking about colossal buildings falling down, nauseating battles in aircraft, or legions of alien armies hammering it out; these elements are in the film but are hardly the photographic focus. The camera views the proceedings with a particularly human eye (with a few spectacle-oriented moments of exception, of course), carefully focusing attention on the cast of characters. Granted, there are so many characters that it is a bit tricky to keep them all straight, but eventually I got the hang of it.

For an ensemble superhero film with almost too many special effects, the real joy here is the acting. While I have never read these comics and so didn't know any of these characters previously, the screenwriters and actors obviously worked together to create strong, sympathetic characters that are both touching and funny. Chris Pratt proves quite capable of heavyweight protagonist flair, and with a sizzling heroic body to boot (which he has sported before, people, in Zero Dark Thirty. Stop acting like this is a new thing). Zoe Saldana peers through her greenface with her usual zest, and even Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel shine in their moments, though their faces never show at all. My favorite moments, however, belong to Benicio Del Toro, who briefly shows his fabulous side in a turn as the Collector. While I worship Glenn Close, who plays Nova Prime, I don't entirely know why she was in the film; her role is so brief and unnecessary to the plot that she feels a little wasted, and for that matter, so does John C. Reilly. But I'll stop complaining because Close needs to be on screen more, period.

Amidst the sparkling energy and great comedic timing, we have a lot of empty visuals and tons of action without much accompanying drama. That seems to be the direction a lot of recent action films are headed, and that's why I usually prefer the darker stuff: the action has accompanying emotional weight and purpose, if sometimes a bit too much. But Guardians provides a truly giddy release from that, and it is Welcome, not least because its characters are assembled in a refreshingly queer narrative of appreciating and valuing individual difference. There isn't really the level of proud indulgence or selfish sacrifice that we find in too many other action-film heroes. Hopefully future Marvel installments can retain this sincere optimism while also providing just a little more emotional connection.


IMDb: Guardians of the Galaxy