It

Stephen King’s nearly 1200-pager from 1986 might be the author’s best work, and his most terrifying. Despite being fairly iconic for its nightmarish clown antagonist (likely due to Tim Curry’s performance in the 1990 TV movie, an adaptation which frankly holds up poorly upon revisitation), It is by no means simple monster fare. Rather, the evil of the novel is an all-enveloping, inescapable presence that takes many forms, something from which the characters can’t simply run away. Nor can the reader, for King’s prose creates a suffocating atmosphere of fear that even putting the book down for a while hardly alleviates.

The long-gestating big-screen adaptation takes the same approach. But instead of an ever-constricting air of pure terror, director Andy Muschietti opts for a more playful kind of scary. The picture is like a big funhouse (for the older kiddies, mind you), full of creative and colorful frights, with the sinister clown Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) half-comically playing host to the proceedings like the Cryptkeeper. It's the Poltergeist-like haunted house horror that takes the audience on a fun, shock-filled ride that satisfies their scare fix, but lets them go to bed at ease that very night.

The setting is King’s oft-used fictional town of Derry, Maine. Once every quarter-plus-century, this locale is besieged by a mysterious entity that snatches up kids. Little explanation is given besides the fact that it manifests as people’s worst fears, almost always accompanied by Pennywise. Taking place during the latest coming of “It” in the late 80s, the film follows a group of pubescent outcasts dubbed “The Losers’ Club” (Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, and Chosen Jacobs) who are haunted by the evil being.

The screenplay pares down half of the book (the other half, following the Losers as adults, is in production) into a two-and-a-quarter hour movie. So, many things are simplified, and whole backstories and memorable sequences are left out. Yet, it still feels complete, like all the important stuff is there. Also, in some ways, condensing the material works in the movie’s favor, necessitating a subtlety that strengthens a couple elements. In particular, the arc of Lillis’ character is improved, her personal horror now more implied and much more disturbing. And surprisingly, it’s the moments between the horrors where the writing seems strongest. The relationships between the protagonists feel real, funny and even a little sweet. These scenes are bolstered by the young cast, who is uniformly excellent, and gel remarkably well with the scarier parts of the picture.

There admittedly comes a point where the scares start to diminish, and the picture falls victim to that old adage about how the more they show the monster, the less scary it gets. One can’t help but wonder if the filmmakers have anything left to frighten with for Part 2. But for now, this first part is a great time. It doesn’t exactly stick in the viewer’s mind for days after like something truly haunting and terrifying, but damn if they won’t enjoy themselves while watching it, between their fingers, perhaps.

Wonder Woman

Up to this point, it was hard to tell if the DC Universe films were getting better, even by the smallest of increments, or if it just seemed that way because each successive entry further lowered expectations. Ironically, this troublesome state of affairs turns out to be a plus for Wonder Woman, the first unequivocally good picture in the franchise.

Story-wise and structurally, it’s not much of a mold-breaker (except for the rancid, grim, overlong, unfun mold of the DC Universe prior). And yet, it remarkably feels…fresh, which is something for a genre that’s flooded the market for over a decade. Although, this feeling is not just a result of being better by comparison. At least as much of it is due to its notable firsts: the first big-screen starring turn for the character Wonder Woman, and the first woman-fronted superhero film of the extended franchise era (and arguably the first one ever made that the studio was serious about).

It’s a heavy role to fill, and Gal Gadot is certainly up to the task. She exudes a “no-sweat” certitude throughout, playing into the fish-out-of-water comedy, and alternately earnest or passionate in the serious scenes. And when embroiled in a big battle or one-on-one fight, she looks pretty damn super.

The film tells of the first adventure of Wonder Woman, real name Princess Diana of the Amazons. A prologue details Diana’s childhood and warrior training on her island home of Themyscira, populated only by women warriors and secluded from the world of man. But when American World War I pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes on the island, it becomes clear the Amazons no longer can ignore the outside world.  Diana and Steve then make their way to Europe to stop a German general (Danny Huston) from releasing a new nerve gas that could prolong the war.

So, the film hits a lot of the familiar beats of a standard superhero outing and origin story (also, the predicted similarities to the plot of Captain America: The First Avenger are rather apparent). And while Gadot makes the movie and Pine is a solid comic opposite of a sidekick, the supporting cast doesn’t get a lot of screen time to develop beyond bare bones archetypes, although an assembly of good actors (Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright on Themyscira, Huston and David Thewlis in the outside world) perform admirably. Also, while the action scenes are (FINALLY!) well-executed, the big final battle only seems about as weighty as a mini-boss fight.

Still, Wonder Woman is fun, thanks mostly to Gadot, and to an overall technical competence and visual decipherability that has, until now, eluded the DC films. Most surprisingly, this time the attempts at greater thematic meaning have a disarming sincerity. The mythic elements actually seem wondrous instead of pretentious, the “war is hell” imagery of the trenches fairly poignant instead of strenuous like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman’s 9/11 allegory. The state of the DC film Universe as a whole is still suspect, but it’s got its first quality standalone entry. Fourth time’s a charm, I guess.

Alien: Covenant

2012’s Prometheus was presented as an arm’s-length prequel to the Alien franchise. But in execution, it was more like Ridley Scott was remaking his original Alien, or at least the first half of it. Except that the creatures found on the distant planet were nowhere near as scary and impressive as H.R. Giger’s iconic monster, it was burdened by unnecessary character arcs, it added pondering on human existence that didn’t come off as profound as the filmmakers likely hoped, and its effort at filling out the franchise mythology raised more questions than it answered.

It was…not great. But it was lightyears better than Alien: Covenant. Turns out viewers who complained about the lack of an appearance from the Xenomorph in Prometheus should have counted their blessings, for its entrance more than halfway through this glossy trash is bereft of any positive vibe, thanks to preceding plot exposition we were better off not knowing.

Once again, the film treads close to an Alien remake. There’s another starship (this time a colonization vessel which shares its name with the picture’s title), another blue collar crew awakened from suspended animation, and another mysterious message that diverts them off course to an unknown planet. Only this one is shockingly earthlike, and occupied not only by hostile lifeforms, but also the sinister android David (Michael Fassbender), who’s been keeping busy since the last time we saw him in Prometheus. 

I’ll leave it at that, for any more detail would not only risk spoiling this movie, but contaminating even the good entries of this series. Suffice to say we finally get some backstory on where the Aliens come from, and it’s profoundly disappointing. To use an intra-genre comparison, as disappointing as it was for old-school Star Wars fans to find out that the origin of Darth Vader was the whiny, emotionally fragile kid we saw in the prequel trilogy. It’s totally unworthy of the legacy and classical status of this series (well, the first two entries, anyway), and more immediately, it sucks the tension out of most of Covenant's scenes with the monster.

This is a great-looking film (successful or not, Scott does not do half-assed productions), and a great cast—among them Fassbender in two roles, Katherine Waterston solidly filling Sigourney Weaver’s shoes, Billy Crudup playing desperate and out of his depth, and Danny McBride, who it turns out is pretty good at serious acting—plays their roles as admirably as the similarly strong-but-stifled ensemble in Prometheus. There’s also some decent creature action in the spirit of James Cameron’s Aliens, against the familiar Xenomorph as well as some nasty new star beasts. But, the film thinks the story of Fassbender’s David and his search for meaning is way more interesting and insightful than it is, which is not much at all. And it’s not just a hindrance to all the good parts of this picture; it severely dilutes the mystique and terror of the Alien in all its predecessors. Also, obviously, these characters have never seen Alien because...well, they're in the prequel to it. But they make some mistakes that are boneheaded even from people who have never seen a single horror movie, to say nothing of those trained for interstellar travel.

For a brief window in the middle of it all, it looks like Covenant is going to be the best Alien movie in 31 years (which isn’t saying much). Then David shows up, and it ends up being the worst one since Alien 3. No, Alien: Resurrection and the two Alien vs. Predator films weren’t quite good, but at least underneath the gore viewers might find a few schlocky cheap thrills, rather than this picture’s pretentious tedium.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Guardians of the Galaxy is a film that grew on me, and it’s kind of a wonder it even needed to (it’s possible I just wasn’t in a great mood when I first saw it). Besides being the most visually sumptuous of the Marvel films, it was also a great showcase of characters, their radically disparate personalities forming a winning comedic blend that’s impossible not to love. 

Vol. 2 knows that’s what the people want, and gives it to them wholesale. The film is one terrific action or effects sequence after another, about half of them brilliant pieces of comedy. Connecting them is the rapid-fire cocky wordplay that made us love these characters, including a few truly hilarious exchanges that keep building, and keep getting funnier, long after the joke would normally seem spent. And in addition to a whole new slew of oldies on the soundtrack, the picture goes a step further with a handful of creative retro pop culture touches, including some surprising cameos (and the Stan Lee cameo game one-ups itself yet again, with arguably the creator’s best one yet).

Admittedly, all this fun comes a bit at the expense of a storyline. What’s there has Star-Lord Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) meeting his long-lost father (Kurt Russell), a being with near-godlike power, and traveling to his paradise-like home planet. Here, half the team spends most of the movie just chilling until the final act, but at least it’s got Dave Batista’s Drax the Destroyer providing comic relief, finding a comedic partner in the doe-eyed newbie Mantis (Pom Klementieff). As much of the movie, however, follows the now-baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), Rocket Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and the Ravager leader Yondu (Michael Rooker) trapped in a predicament that, in a more complete plot, might have only been a short aside before an escape sequence. That’s not a bad thing, though, as their half turns out to have the most enjoyable stuff in the picture.

So, there’s not nearly as much going on as the first Guardians, and little apparent universe-building for Infinity War or other future films, aside from the mid- and post-credits scenes. But it’s not to much detriment because it’s too much fun spending time with these characters to really notice. And at the very least, it allows enough time for a few subtle moments for the characters to exhibit their humanity, particularly Zoe Saldana’s Gamora.

Marvel Studios, for all their expertise at building a combined film continuity with excellent crossovers, has been a bit hit-or-miss with the second installments in individual series. Iron Man 2 and Age of Ultron were ultimately underwhelming in the long run; the second Captain America, on the other hand, is still the very best single picture the studio has yet made. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 falls somewhere firmly in between, not as fully plotted and soundly structured as the first, but nearly as much fun.

Logan

Fans can argue about when was the exact moment the superhero film truly “grew up.” But Logan indicates that the genre has firmly reached adult territory, and not just because of its R-rated elements (last year’s Deadpool was also bloody and profane, but had a sensibility arguably geared toward teenagers). This is a grown-up tale, slower, more thoughtful, and drained of the fantasy flash of its predecessors or contemporaries. And it’s better for that, both an oh-so-bitter bittersweet elegy for an era of X-Men movies and an excellent piece of work by itself.

Comparisons will be drawn to Mark Millar’s Old Man Logan, but it’s almost more fitting to call this the first Max movie (Max being Marvel’s mature imprint). Besides, obviously, the explicit content, several elements characteristic of Max are there: smaller-scale storytelling focused more on character, downbeat outlook, and aesthetic that’s stripped-down, (relatively) realistic, and decidedly un-super. Its subtle futuristic touches feel realer and more affecting; rather than a dystopia brought on by some fantastical comic book apocalypse, the film presents a near-future of societal decays one can plausibly see on the horizon.

In this setting, almost all mutants on Earth have mysteriously died out. The ex-X-Man Logan (Hugh Jackman), now aging and hindered by his depleting healing powers, spends his autumn years working as a driver-for-hire along the U.S.-Mexico border. Along with the mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant), he acts as caretaker for the exiled Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), now stricken with dementia and unable to control his telepathy. This depressing existence is upended when Logan comes across a young mutant (Dafne Keen) who also has adamantium claws and healing power, and who’s being hunted by a band of mercenaries called the Reavers.

More is revealed slowly as Logan, the Professor, and their young charge make their journey to a rumored safe haven in Canada, and frankly, every new reveal is grim. Whenever a moment arises where the day would be saved in many a superhero movie, the film rips the rug out and does the polar opposite. But it’s not relentlessly bleak and dark just for the sake of being edgier than the next picture. On the contrary, it serves to strengthen the film’s pathos. There are many scenes that are genuinely touching and sad. There’s even quite a bit of humor, a pained, desperate levity that lands because it feels earned.

Jackman, always the charismatic heart of the franchise through good and bad, does some of his best work here. Stewart, contrasting his usual authoritative manner with a heartbreaking brokenness and vulnerability, is at his very best. Keen, though, is a real revelation. She conveys some deep emotions with little more than a stare and broken English. And yes, she can slice up baddies just as well as her companion the film is named after.

Finally allowing the bloody fight scenes befitting Wolverine provides catharsis worthy of a finale (if this is, in fact, Jackman’s last rodeo), and is all the more satisfying because it’s the only true release the picture provides. But Logan is not really about the action. Nor is it all that concerned about whether or not the hero beats the bad guy, which is pretty fundamental to each and every superhero film since time immemorial. It’s about the slower, quieter moments where the characters reveal their soul, the humanity within the superhuman. These stick with the viewer afterward more so than (okay, as much as) the most climactic action sequence, visual effect, or one-liner. Some are saying for this reason, the film doesn’t feel like a comic book movie (a reductive statement that implies the genre is incapable of depth); I say it breaks some exciting new ground for the genre, while at the same time closing a significant chapter of it on a high note.

Silence

Martin Scorsese’s years-in-the-making passion project, based on the Japanese novel of the same name by Shūsaku Endō, is a strong piece of filmmaking. That’s not to say it’s a good work of entertainment by any means. No, here, the director is in a petrifyingly serious mode, more solemn than his last out-and-out religious film The Last Temptation of Christ, more pained than even Raging Bull. He’s made longer pictures, but between the pace and the heaviness of its subject, Silence seems to last longer, almost like it’s work to watch. I wouldn’t quite go so far to compare it to a religious trial, though considering what the film’s about, it’s possible that's what Scorsese had in mind.

The setting is Edo Japan in the mid-1600s, a time when Christians were brutally persecuted in the country. From this hostile land comes news that a Portuguese Jesuit missionary (Liam Neseson) has committed apostasy and joined the Japanese. Two pupils of his (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) are sent to the country to find him and learn the truth. Upon arrival, they find small sects of Japanese Christians (the Kakure Kirishitans) living secretly, in fear of torture and death at the hands of the authorities, and deprived of the basic rituals of the Church. Mostly, the journey is told from Garfield’s point of view as he struggles with his faith and laments his powerlessness at the suffering he sees.

Wide-eyed and young-looking, Garfield at first seems ill-suited for the part, but soon proves himself to be a good fit. His beaming true believer enthusiasm (obliquely conjuring present-day stereotypes of Christians as faithful to a fault that, fairly or not, have taken root in our culture) is almost necessary for a narrative that takes faith so seriously. When the horrors he witnesses put that faith to the test, his torment is appreciable, whereas a more nuanced piety might have been simply drowned out by it all.

That torment and violence (less graphic than some of the director's other work, but constant and dispiriting, likely intentionally so) is the focus of around 90 percent of the picture. This is probably the most spartan film Scorsese has ever made. There’s none of the crackling editing or sequences that stand out like in his most famous films. There’s barely even any music. Despite the lush Taiwan scenery of the production, there's rarely a chance for the viewer to take it in. It’s as if the director has stripped it down as much as possible until the only thing left to counter the brutality is the character’s faith, bare and undiluted by even basic cinematic flourish.

The picture is dead serious about that faith, too. This isn’t a story interested in any ambiguity. To the lament of opponents of the “white savior” trope, the Japanese point of view is never explored; their depiction is entirely one-note, either stubbornly ruthless or as nameless victims. They exist less as characters than human faces for Garfield's trials and tribulations. He wavers a bit surrounded by such anguish, but he never doubts the righteousness of his God or his mission. And the picture accepts that he's truly doing the Lord's work as a given from the start.

Whether this approach is successful is dependent on the viewer. An audience of believers might find the film to be an ultimately uplifting story of faith against great adversity, where faith itself is the only and total reward. The less faithful may simply see a harrowing matter-of-fact depiction of a brutal chapter in history. There’s no filmmaking flair to sway the viewer for the sake of narrative; either you believe it going in or you don’t. Either way, Silence can be appreciated as an admirable work, even though it’s not a picture one really likes watching.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

The last half-hour or so of Rogue One is sure to be the talk of the whole picture, and might even be remembered as one of the top moments in the Star Wars film canon. The audience is treated to a Rebel firefight from the ground-level vantage points of the people in it. In the sky above, X-Wing and TIE fighters engage in some of the franchise’s best dogfights since at least the snow battle in The Empire Strikes Back. Then, it pulls off its real, see-it-to-believe-it masterstroke, connecting directly into the original Star Wars (as in, practically tacking its last frame onto to that film’s first), complete with digital re-creations of old familiar faces (literally). It’s utterly ridiculous, but damn if it isn’t impressive. Just one little problem: getting to this final blowout is a slog through mediocrity.

This is a production trying to be too many things at once. It wants to be a gritty war movie, yet undercuts its own efforts with a lighter, sometimes comedic blockbuster approach to several scenes. The tone is also hindered by the inclusion of seemingly every possible in-joke and reference. It aims to expand the franchise lore, but dwells too much on filling in timeline blind spots and plot holes (the reason the original Death Star has such an obvious weak spot is revealed, for example) than new and interesting storytelling. It’s also rather cluttered with cameos that add nothing to the narrative. Even marquee star Forrest Whitaker seems only in the movie to connect it to the popular cartoon series (and like Bryan Cranston in director Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, is in it much less than we were led to believe).

Everyone remembers how the 1977 original revolved around the stolen Death Star plans. Well, Rogue One tells us how the Rebel Alliance got a hold of those plans. It was the work of a ragtag group of rebellious souls, led by the iconoclastic Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), whose military scientist father (Mads Mikkelsen) was kidnapped by the Empire and forced to design the battle station. But stealing the plans is no easy task, requiring a dangerous mission into an Imperial stronghold, in the same mold as so many World War II pictures featuring a colorful cast of characters.

Except, the characters here are all one-note, or no-note. There’s little appeal and even less depth or backstory to let us know what drives them, even by the slim standards of war ensemble genre films. About all they do is yell at each other spelling out the plot points, or go through the motions through speeches and scenes you’ve seen in other movies, including other Star Wars movies. Only Alan Tudyk as (ironically) a digitally-created droid displays any bit of personality, though still, C-3PO he ain’t. As for Ben Mendelsohn’s bad guy, he’s upstaged by the returning Grand Moff Tarkin, which wouldn’t be so embarrassing if it were the real Peter Cushing instead of a hologram. 

The Force Awakens was far from original in its environments and action sequences, but one could argue that’s because it was aiming to be a nostalgia fest. Rogue One has no excuse for it. All the new planets and sets are rather drab with dull colors, not to mention derivative of earlier Star Wars and countless other sci-fi movies. Even the grand finale’s location looks like it was filmed on a tropical resort, one where they barely even bothered to disguise the swimming areas. And for the first half or more, when there’s action, it’s mostly standard shaky cam and uninspired CGI.

The only part of the whole thing that looks like it was made with care and skill is the final act. It’s as if they came up with this ambitious sequence and worked backward from it. And they pulled it off wonderfully; I’ll reiterate that it’s a fun and exciting 30 minutes or so. But it might have been better off as a short film, rather than the climax of an otherwise thoroughly unexceptional work.