Shazam! (2019)

Remember how Marvel Studios released a movie starring Captain Marvel last month? I bet you didn't realize that DC Comics has their own Captain Marvel too. No, really!

Their Captain Marvel made his debut in Fawcett Comics' Whiz Comics #2 in 1939, the creation of Bill Parker and C.C. Beck. He was a nearly instant success, his comics even outselling Superman's at one point in the '40s. But a combination of the dwindling popularity of superheroes following World War II and a lawsuit from DC Comics (who alleged that Captain Marvel was a ripoff of Superman), Fawcett Comics canceled all of Captain Marvel's comics by 1954.

He was eventually revived by DC Comics in 1972 after a little legal wheeling and dealing, but Marvel Comics had trademarked the "Captain Marvel" name in the intervening years. The original version's books were rebranded "Shazam!" as a result (eventually becoming the character's actual name during DC's "New 52" reboot in 2012), and the rest is history. The character was popular enough to spawn a live-action TV show that ran from 1974 to 1976 on CBS, and has appeared in in DC's animated work and the occasional video game (Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Injustice: Gods Among Us come to mind), but he's never been one of their top-tier characters.

But then Hollywood came knocking, and now DC's Captain Marvel is getting his own blockbuster movie. Of course, the name is different, but not much else has changed. And while the DC Extended Universe has gotten a lot of flack in the past for how weak their movies have been, but I'll tell you this: Shazam! is a hell of a lot of fun.

Fourteen-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel) has spent most of his life bouncing in and out of every foster home in Philadelphia. He never stays for long, constantly running away to search for the birth mother he hasn't seen in years. As the movie begins, he's dropped off at a new home that's populated by a few other foster kids. Among them is Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), a physically handicapped fan of superheroes who immediately welcomes Billy into their family.

Billy initially dismisses Freddy and his other foster siblings since he's not planning on sticking around for long, but he can't help but save Freddy from some schoolyard bullies. The bullies end up chasing Billy into a subway car, where he is magically transported to a cave called home by the ancient wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou). The dying wizard has spent centuries searching for someone pure of heart to inherit his powers and defend the world, and Billy is his last hope. All Billy has to do is say the wizard's name, and he is transformed into an adult superhero (Zachary Levi) with a multitude of amazing abilities.

An astounded Billy returns home and reveals his situation to Freddy, and the pair start exploring the adult Billy's new superpowers. Their training videos end up going viral online, and Billy starts irresponsibly using his powers to start busking around the city.

Doing so, however, draws the attention of Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), who was called by the wizard as a child in 1974 but was deemed unworthy. He was left immensely bitter by the rejection and has spent every moment since then obsessed with claiming that power he believes is rightfully his. While Billy spends his time doing parlor tricks with his powers to tourists, Sivana accomplishes his lifelong goal and finds a way back to the wizard's cave. He steals a mystical orb that imbues him with the demonic essence of the Seven Deadly Sins, returning to Philadelphia determined to force Billy to surrender the powers of Shazam to him.

I can't say that I was all that familiar with Shazam before seeing the movie. I'd heard of the character, sure, but my previous experiences with him have been the video game appearances I mentioned earlier and a 2005 episode of Justice League Unlimited where he fights Superman. But I went into the movie excited because of how good the trailers were, and I was far from disappointed. Shazam! not only rivals Wonder Woman for the title of "best movie in the DC Extended Universe," but is genuinely one of the most entertaining superhero movies I've seen in a while. It's wonderfully charming, with lovable characters and a real emotional weight to it. It felt to me like a more modern, more comedic take on what Richard Donner did with Superman in 1978, and I am never gonna complain about something like that.

Shazam! is the third feature-length movie from director David F. Sandberg, and I thought he did a great job at the helm. He plays the movie more for comedy, which is a refreshing change of pace considering how seriously most movies in this genre seem to take themselves nowadays. The movie actually plays like a superhero version of the classic Tom Hanks movie Big, right down to a fight between Shazam and Sivana going over a giant piano on the floor of a toy store. That isn't a bad thing either, since it makes for an entertaining time at the movies. The DC Extended Universe gets a lot of well-deserved flack because of how unrelentingly grim Man of Steel and Batman v Superman were. While that doesn't necessarily apply to Wonder Woman or Aquaman, Shazam! does its own part to break the mold. It's not a bleak, dreary tale with no hope, but instead features characters that truly care for one another and a superhero that's actually having fun instead of feeling miserable.

I also liked that Sandberg focuses more on developing the characters instead of letting the special effects dominate the movie. The more the movie progresses, the more you want to see where Billy and his foster family go and how they grow together. Yeah, we've got the standard "hero vs. villain" effects-heavy showdown at the end of the movie, but it's still done in such a way that it feels like a logical conclusion for the paths the characters have taken.

The screenplay goes a long way in helping that, as well. Loosely based on Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's comic book story that rebooted Shazam as part of DC's "New 52" relaunch, the script by Henry Gayden (from a story by Gayden and Darren Lemke) has a huge amount of heart in it. It doesn't feel like your typical origin story, mainly because of the strong emotional depth of the movie. It's best exemplified by how Billy and Sivana are polar opposites of one another. Billy was abandoned by his mother and spent his whole life searching for her before stumbling into a family that loves him unconditionally. Sivana, meanwhile, spent his whole life searching for a way to get rid of the father and brother he hated, and was found by a group of monsters that use him for their own nefarious ends. Billy's powers were gifted to him, though he believed himself unworthy of them; Sivana stole his powers and greedily sought more. They're two sides of the same coin, their arcs moving in such a way that makes the story more fascinating to watch as it plays out.

But perhaps the best part of Shazam! is its cast, all of whom hand in strong performances. I really enjoyed Faithe Herman as Billy's enthusiastic little sister Darla, while Jack Dylan Grazer is fantastic as Freddy. He's really funny in the role and proves himself to be the perfect sidekick for both the teenagew and adult versions of Billy.

Mark Strong, meanwhile, brings a real sense of menace to the character of Sivana. The movie establishes that Sivana's fatal flaw is how much he covets power because of how ineffectual he felt as a child. Strong effortlessly shows that, playing Sivana with all the jealousy and anger someone like that would feel towards people he felt looked down on him, and how corrupted he is by the power he has.

And that brings us to the two actors playing Billy Batson. Asher Angel is perfect as the teenage Billy, bring some serious feelings of longing and melancholy to the character. His loneliness is front and center, along with some of the ego he develops as the videos of his superpowers go viral, and Angel makes it all believable. Zachary Levi, on the other hand, is hilarious as the adult Billy. Not only does he convincingly play an adult version of Asher, mannerisms and all, but as his viral notoriety go to his head and he starts showing off more, Levi gets funnier and funnier as the movie goes along. He's obviously having a blast playing Shazam, and it's an infectious kind of fun.

And I could say something similar about Shazam! as a whole that I said about Levi: it gets better and better with each passing moment. By the end, you don't want it to be over because it's 131 minutes of pure fun. I honestly can't say enough positive things about the movie; I hate to sound hyperbolic, but it's true. And while Shazam! might be left in the dust once Marvel's Avengers: Endgame is released in three weeks, I'm happy that DC could provide us with an entertaining diversion before we get there. There's plenty of magic in Shazam!, and you'd be doing yourself a favor by checking it out.

Final Rating: ****

Aquaman (2018)

Out of all the superheroes in the DC Comics pantheon, Aquaman has to be the one with the worst public perception. The creation of writer Mort Weisinger and artist Paul Norris, he debuted in 1941, but has spent much of the last few decades as a punchline. A lot of people must've never seen anything other than his appearances on the old Super Friends Saturday morning cartoon from the '70s and '80s, because "Aquaman is lame because he talks to fish" is one of the hokiest, most tired jokes out there.

A movie based on Aquaman was even a recurring gag on the old HBO show Entourage, with a lot of humor stemming from how unlikely such a thing would happen in real life. But here we are, talking about the second movie featuring Aquaman in a major role. And it's a solo movie too! And you know what? The Aquaman movie is not a joke; it's actually pretty great.

The movie begins with a brief prologue taking us to Massachusetts circa 1985, where lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry (Temuera Morrison) finds an unconscious woman washed up on the shore during a storm. She awakens and introduces herself as Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), queen of the mythical underwater kingdom of Atlantis. The two fall in love and eventually conceive a son they name Arthur.

Atlanna, however, is soon forced to return to Atlantis to fulfill her side of an arranged marriage. Her young son grows up to be extraordinarily strong and fast, and finds he can telepathically communicate with aquatic life. He hones his abilities and becomes a skilled warrior under the tutelage of an Atlantean named Vulko (Willem Dafoe), but ultimately chooses to stay among the surface dwellers after discovering that his mother had been killed once the king of Atlantis learned she'd given birth to a surface dweller's child.

Cut to the present day, a few months after the events of Justice League. The adult Arthur (Jason Momoa) has styled himself into a sea-faring vigilante the media has nicknamed "Aquaman." He is approached by Mera (Amber Heard), the princess of another underwater kingdom. She comes bearing a warning, that the reigning king of Atlantis, Orm (Patrick Wilson), plans to instigate a war with the surface world with the combined armies of the Seven Seas.

Knowing nothing good could come from Orm's war, Mera has sought out Arthur so that he may use his status as Orm's older half-brother — and thus the rightful king of Atlantis — to challenge Orm's claim to the throne and prevent the war. He is initially hesitant to accept, still bitter about his mother's death. He's convinced to help, however, when a massive tidal wave manufactured by Orm wreaks havoc on much of America's east coast.

Their initial attempts to step in don't quite go as planned, and Arthur and Mera soon find themselves on the run. While they search for a mythical trident that will help Arthur stake a proper claim as king, they must avoid the machinations of both Orm and "Black Manta" (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a dangerous pirate armed with experimental Atlantean weapons and a personal grudge too settle with Arthur.

I've never been a big Aquaman fan. Nothing against the character, but I've never been really drawn to him. I haven't read any of his comics, and I missed out on quite a bit of his appearances in animation. My only past real experience with Aquaman before his big-screen debut last year was Alan Ritchson's appearances as the character on four episodes of Smallville. But I did like Jason Momoa's take on the role in Justice League, I'm a fan of the director, and I'll see pretty much every comic book movie that comes out, so I wasn't about to skip this movie. And truth be told, I can't say that I was disappointed. The movie feels like a throwback to the cheesy comic book flicks from the '90s. Sure, not all those movies were good, but that isn't an insult to Aquaman. Far from it, because Aquaman takes that and makes itself a hell of a lot of fun.

At the helm is James Wan, who honestly isn't the first person I'd think of when it comes to directing a movie like this. He's no stranger to action movies, having made Death Sentence and Furious 7 in the past, but I've always associated him with the horror genre. The guy co-created the Saw, Insidious, and Conjuring franchises after all. But Wan is a talented filmmaker no matter what genre you put him in, and he shows it with Aquaman. Starting with a 30-second sequence at the movie's beginning that sees Atlanna fight off a number of Atlantean soldiers in Arther's childhood home in one unbroken shot, we can see that Wan means business.

Wan's direction here is outstanding, filling the movie with one visually stunning scene after another. Whether it be the action sequences or even just the digital set design, Wan builds a movie that is amazing to look at. The undersea scenes, especially Atlantis, look like an aquatic version of the world from Avatar, a visual feast blues, purples, greens, and golds looking absolutely beautiful. It's also helped by the movie's amazing cinematography, which makes the movie look even more incredible if you see the movie in 3D like I did.

And as I said before, Wan might be particularly recognized for his horror movies, but he knows his way around an action movie too. I already mentioned Atlanna's fight at the beginning of the movie, and it gets even better and more exciting as we progress. There's a scene where Arthur and Mera fight Black Manta and the Atlantean commandos in Sicily, the heroic duo are pursued by and brawl with their enemies on rooftops and through homes with neither side being able to really get the upper hand until the very end of the scene. It reminds one of the thrilling parking lot chase scene from Wan's own Death Sentence. The scene is amazing, and just when you think it can't be topped, the movie ends up proving you wrong.

The cast is a mixed bag, though I can't complain much about what I disliked. Dolph Lundgren (who appears in a small role as Mera's father) and Temuera Morrison put forth likable performances, as do Willem Dafoe and Nicole Kidman. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II isn't bad, meanwhile, but he's forgettable. He only has three or four scenes in the movie, with maybe only fifteen minutes of screen time in the whole thing. Most of that is action scenes where he was most likely replaced by a stuntman or a CGI stand-in for the scenes where he's in the Black Manta armor. But I will say that whenever they get around to making Aquaman 2, I hope to see more of what Abdul-Mateen can do.

I also can't say I particularly cared for Amber Heard. She and Jason Momoa don't have much on-screen chemistry together from what I could tell, and her performance feels sorta one-note.  The whole "Mera thinks Aquaman is an idiot and the surface world is uncivilized, but then she changes her mind over time" thing and the belligerent sexual tension concept are played out but could be blamed on the script, but I didn't think Heard did much to make it tolerable.

But I will say, though, that we did get two fantastic performances from our hero and our villain. Patrick Wilson is no stranger to superhero movies (having starred in Zack Snyder's Watchmen adaptation), and he's also turned up on several of Wan's past movies, so I was excited to see him turn up here. He plays Orm as the ultimate douchebag. If the movie had been made in the '80s, he'd be accused of doing his best impression of William Zabka. Wilson plays Orm in such a way that you can't wait for Aquaman to put him in his place and punch him right in the mouth. It's rare that I've seen Wilson play a bad guy, and I kinda hope he does it more often in the future because I thought he was great.

Speaking of great, I can't say enough good things about Jason Momoa. He was one of my favorite parts of Justice League, and he does another awesome job here. Momoa plays Aquaman with a charming likability, but even when he's cracking jokes and being kind of a goofball, he always makes the character feel like a total badass. One gets the feeling that if you met this Aquaman in real life, he'd be the life of the party and your best friend if he liked you, but God help you if he didn't like you.

If there were any lingering jokes about Aquaman being lame, then James Wan and Jason Momoa have killed them dead. The movie has its flaws, sure, but they're easily overlooked because the movie is just so much fun. Aquaman never ceases to be exciting, providing two and a half hours of pure, unadulterated entertainment from beginning to end. So if you're on the fence about Aquaman, unsure about whether or not you should check it out, I'll totally recommend seeing it. It's most certainly worth your time.

Final Rating: ***

Halloween (2018)

I don't know if there's a whole lot of room for debate when I say that the original Halloween is an absolute classic. Say whatever you want about the sequels and remakes, but there's no denying that John Carpenter's original movie from 1978 was a landmark moment in the horror genre. It helped birth the rise of the subgenre of slasher movies in the 1980s, and has served as a tremendous influence on a lot of horror films and filmmakers ever since its premiere forty years ago.

And as the original celebrates its fortieth anniversary, Universal Studios and Blumhouse have teamed up to give us a sequel to it that's practically a fresh start for the whole franchise. Gone is the cult of Thorn in the middle sequels, gone is the '90s flair stolen from Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Gone is the seven-foot-tall beast from a white trash family that Rob Zombie gave us. This new entry in the saga of Michael Myers is a direct follow-up to the very first movie that eschews everything that followed it, and it's one hell of a ride.

Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney) has spent the forty years since his brutal killing spree incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital, and is soon to be transferred to a maximum-security prison. Or at least, that's the plan. Instead, Michael escapes when the bus transporting him crashes and he makes a beeline for his old stomping grounds of Haddonfield.

But waiting for him is Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who has lived in unending fear that she might cross paths with Michael again one day. She lives alone in the middle of nowhere in a heavily fortified house. There are bars and tons of locks on all the windows and doors, security cameras and giant floodlights surround her property, and there's a panic room full of guns in her basement.

Laurie's inability to overcome her traumatic past, however, has heavily soured her relationship with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer), who forbids her own daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) from interacting with her grandmother. But once word gets out that Michael has returned to Haddonfield and has started adding numbers to his body count, Laurie heads back into town herself to protect her family and kill the monster that has haunted her for so long once and for all.

I'll admit that I've never really been a fan of the Halloween franchise. I just never really latched onto them growing up the same way I did the Friday the 13th movies. That said, I went into the theater hoping that at the very least, this new incarnation of Michael Myers would wash the taste of those godawful abominations that Rob Zombie directed out of my mouth. And you know what? This new Halloween kicks ass. It's a genuinely scary movie that I'd honestly call probably the best of all the franchise's sequels. (Or at least my favorite of the sequels with Michael Myers, because I do love me some Halloween III.)

While director David Gordon Green might sound like an odd choice to helm a movie like this due to his past work being a long list of comedies, he proves here than he can make one hell of a horror movie. Green does an amazing job actually building to scary moments rather than just trying to startle the audience with cheap jump scares. Take, for example, a scene at a gas station early in the movie. Michael ever so subtly moves in the background, just slightly out of focus. You might not even really notice him at first, depending on what part of the screen you're paying attention to. But then you start noticing just what Michael has been doing. And just as we begin to realize just how much trouble the characters are in, Michael strikes and takes tension to full-blown terror.

Green also doesn't hold back when it comes to showing just how much of a monster Michael is. The character almost seems like a blend of the cold, focused boogeyman from the 1978 original and the brutal animal from the 2007 remake. Roughly halfway through the movie, there is a three-minute sequence that is one unbroken shot of Michael walking down a street surrounded by trick-or-treaters. The camera follows Michael as he sneaks into different houses at random and kills the occupants inside. It's terrifying in its utter senselessness. Michael has absolutely no reason to do this, no greater purpose for it beyond pure sadism and malice. Green making this one unbroken shot gives us no escape; we're following a monster in a white mask as he cuts a bloody swath through a small town for no reason other than because he can, and there is no stopping him.

I also thought the movie benefitted from a strong script, written by Green, Jeff Fradley, and Danny McBride. (Yes, the same Danny McBride from Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, and Eastbound & Down.) I thought Halloween H20 was bold to remove the fourth, fifth, and sixth movies from continuity, but Green, Fradley, and McBride go as far as to ignore all the sequels, evidenced when Allyson dismisses the idea of Michael and Laurie being siblings as a bunch of malarkey thought up by a sensationalistic press. Much like H20, it streamlines things for people approaching the franchise for the first time, since you don't have to worry about having missed anything beyond one movie. And even then, you don't need to have seen the original to understand this one. They fill in enough of the gaps that you more than likely won't feel lost if you're new to the Halloween movies.

That said, what I felt made the movie so strong was not only its fresh take on the franchise, but in how Green, Fradley, and McBride depict Laurie Strode. This Laurie is so different from the one we saw in H20. She's not trying to hide from her past at the bottom of a liquor bottle and keep it a secret from the world with a new name. This Laurie has suffered all kinds of trauma, so much so that it has left her an utterly miserable person even decades later. She can't let herself move on because the psychological wounds are too deep to heal. Sure, Laurie was messed up mentally in H20 (so much so that Jamie Lee Curtis's cameo as the character in Resurrection was set in a mental institution) and in Rob Zombie's second movie, but it feels more believable, more real here.

But I'll also say that I didn't think the script was perfect either. And it's for one reason: the Dr. Sartain character. I got the feeling that Green, Fradley, and McBride wanted to put a Dr. Loomis kind of character in the movie but didn't have the heart to recast the role, so they came up with Dr. Sartain instead. Dr. Sartain has none of the gravitas of Dr. Loomis, and a stupid third act twist does the character no favors either.

And then there's the cast, the glorious cast. The supporting actors are fun (I especially liked Jibrail Nantambu in his small role as a smart-aleck kid being babysat by one of Allyson's friends), and Judy Greer is quite good as Laurie's estranged daughter. Greer especially gets to show off once her character is stuck facing her unhappy childhood once Michael starts coming for her family.

James Jude Courtney, meanwhile, is terrifying as Michael Myers. Nick Castle plays Michael in a handful of scenes, reprising the role he played back in 1978, but it's mostly Courtney we see on-screen. Courtney has an aura to him that makes Michael scary to even just look at when he's standing still. I never really got why Michael was always called "The Shape" before, but now I think I do. Courtney's Michael is the shape of evil, the shape of what goes bump in the night. And honestly, this is probably the scariest depiction of Michael I've seen since the original movie.

And I can't talk about the cast without discussing Jamie Lee Curtis. Some people might be seeing this movie just for Michael, but Curtis as Laurie is just as important. Her depiction of Laurie here is of a woman not to be trifled with. She reminds me somewhat of Linda Hamilton's performance in Terminator 2, how she'd transformed from naive young woman to hardened warrior. The difference between them, though, is that Laurie feels much more raw. Her pain, worry, and paranoia are much more palpable, and Curtis plays the role with an intensity that keeps your eyes on her. If Michael Myers is the shape of evil, then Curtis makes Laurie Strode the shape of unprocessed rage caused by trauma and a desire to make sure nobody hurts like she does.

The opening credits of the 2018 version of Halloween are a montage of names next to a rotten, destroyed pumpkin. But as the names flicker by and John Carpenter's iconic theme reaches is crescendo, the worn-out pumpkin rebuilds itself into a vibrant jack-o'-lantern. It seems rather fitting, as if it represented the Halloween franchise as a whole. Michael Myers hasn't had it easy through his last few movies, but this new one is the perfect way to remind us why Michael and the Halloween name are so important to the horror genre. And I can't wait to see where the franchise goes from here.

 Final Rating: ****

Justice League (2017)

Even before I actually started reading comic books on a regular basis, I loved DC Comics. I grew up watching DC's characters in cartoons, TV shows, and movies, and I've always held them very close to my heart even if I hadn't always been familiar with their origins on the printed page. So when I'd heard that Warner Bros. was going to borrow an idea from Marvel Studios and create a shared cinematic universe featuring DC's heroes and villains, I was excited... until I actually saw the movies.

As good as Wonder Woman might have been, the utter awfulness of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Suicide Squad really dampened any sort of excitement I had for what's been named "the DC Extended Universe."But regardless, I was still drawn to Justice League. I mean, how could I not go see it? And while it's certainly a very, very flawed movie, I still enjoyed it for what it was.

Thousands of years ago, Earth was invaded by the warlord Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) and the armies of the dystopian planet of Apokolips. He was ultimately repelled by the combined efforts of humanity, the gods of Olympus, the Amazons, the people of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, and members of the Green Lantern Corps. Steppenwolf's weapons, three powerful artifacts known as "Mother Boxes," were separated and hidden away.

Fast forward to the present day. Humanity has become much more bitter and cynical than ever before in the wake of Superman's death. It is this despair that reactivates the long-dormant Mother Boxes and draws Steppenwolf back to Earth to search for them. Realizing the high likelihood that he might succeed in doing so, Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) begin putting together their own team of super-powered individuals to fight him. Their recruits:

• Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), the half-human heir to the throne of the mythical lost continent of Atlantis
• Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), a nerdy college student who uses his ability to move at superhuman speed to operate as a vigilante known as "The Flash"
• Victor Stone (Ray Fisher), a former college football star whose body was rebuilt with cybernetic enhancements via a Mother Box after a near-fatal accident

And while the team puts up a good fight against Steppenwolf in their first encounter with him, Batman decides that they need a little extra something to bring to their next battle: a resurrected Superman (Henry Cavill). It's a risky plan, one that might not even work, but it might be their only hope.

I entered Justice League with a fair bit of trepidation for a number of reasons. One was the movie's shaky production, which I'll get into later. There's also the fact that DC's movies don't exactly have the best track record lately. Not only have the movies building to Justice League been lousy (with the exception of Wonder Woman), but they've also felt like they're just there to be there, with

When Marvel started their initial build from Iron Man to The Avengers, the majority of the major players got their own individual movies (or plenty of significant screen time if they weren't flying solo) so that the audience would know who they were and connect to them. They took the time to build their universe and mapped out everything, sometimes even years in advance. Each successive movie plants at least some tiny little seed to be expanded upon in later installments, whether we notice it at first or not. And considering that their continued use of that formula has made them billions of dollars at the worldwide box office, I'd be willing to bet that they won't be changing it up much in the future.

DC, on the other hand, hasn't really done any of that. It's really evident that they only had the idea to do a shared universe was something they came up after the success of Man of Steel instead of something they'd planned all along. Their movies seem disjointed, disconnected, none of them remotely feeling like they should or could be taking place in the same world. Yeah, Batman and Flash might've made cameos in Suicide Squad, but the build to Justice League comes across like trying to put together a puzzle with none of the right pieces.

I don't really believe I'm exaggerating when I say I think they've been rushing to get to a movie starring the Justice League but didn't care how they got there. Rather than have a concise game plan from the start, DC has just thrown whatever they could at a wall and ran with whatever they believed would stick. And it's honestly hard to make a connection to these characters when the movie hasn't earned it. Man of Steel and Batman v Superman were the kind of movies you'd have expected to be made by some 16-year-old edgelord who thinks the idea of clearly defined good guys and bad guys is stupid and that idealism is for chumps, while Suicide Squad is basically what you'd get if Guardians of the Galaxy was made inside of a Spencer's Gifts with characters who weren't as developed or likable. Wonder Woman was a fantastic way to let us get to know the character after she showed up in Batman v Superman, but that still leaves us with the rest. Could Warner Bros. and DC not been a bit more patient? Would it have killed them to establish as many major players as they could' before approaching the Justice League?

It wouldn't have hurt anybody if they'd waited another year or two to make this movie. Give the audience something to establish this Flash and show us what sets him apart from the Flash that Grant Gustin plays on that show on The CW. Give the audience something to show that Aquaman is more than just the "lol he talks to fish" jokes that have been told about him for years. Do something, anything, to show us why Cyborg belongs in the Justice League and that he's more than just "that one Teen Titan that says 'booyah.'" (I'm of the opinion that they could've gone with the Martian Manhunter or one of the Green Lanterns instead of Cyborg, but that's just me.) I'm not saying give them their own solo movies right out of the gate; Marvel's Black Widow and Hawkeye haven't had their own solo movies and I still couldn't imagine the Avengers without them. I'd have just appreciated a little something from the newcomers other than "oh yeah, these guys are here now, we'll fill in the details later if we get the time."

The movie's rocky production did it no favors either. While Zack Snyder is credited as the movie's sole director, he left the movie during post-production to deal with his daughter's tragic suicide. Joss Whedon, who Warner Bros. had previously brought on to rewrite Chris Terrio's script, was tagged with completing the movie. This included not just finishing post-production, but doing extensive reshoots too. You can definitely see Whedon's influence on the final product, especially in the dialogue and in the movie's sense of humor. It doesn't feel anything like the dark, morose movies that Snyder made. Elements of Snyder's typical style are still here, but they're toned down, almost as if Whedon was trying to reign in what he couldn't completely change.

The bad part is that with Whedon taking over only a few months ago, the final product feels rushed. There's the dodgy CGI, for starters. Steppenwolf looks like absolute crap, as does most of the final battle against Steppenwolf and his Parademons. And the less said about the hysterically atrocious work they did removing the mustache Henry Cavill had to grow for Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the better. One also gets the feeling that quite a lot of the movie was left on the cutting room floor to keep the movie at a two-hour running time. Maybe that's where all of Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg's backstories went?

The movie also suffers from having a ridiculously weak villain. I'd never even heard of Steppenwolf prior to seeing the movie. And the character as he's presented here isn't much. He just doesn't seem like the kind of character that would need the entire Justice League to take him down. Maybe Warner Bros. mandated that they had to save Darkseid for a potential sequel? He probably wouldn't have been half as awesome as the one in the comics, or the one Michael Ironside voiced in the various DC cartoons developed by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini during the latter half of the '90s and early '00s. But still, I'd have loved to have seen Darkseid.

I'll say this much, though: the majority of the cast is great, so the movie at least has that going for it. Ray Fisher is forgettable as Cyborg and Ezra Miller is honestly kinda annoying as the Flash. But everybody else is great. Ben Affleck once again makes a better Batman than people thought he'd be when he was first hired for the role. I spoke of solo movies earlier, and I'd really like to see one starring Affleck's Batman.

Jason Momoa, meanwhile, is a total badass in his first outing as Aquaman. He gives off a vibe of being the coolest guy in the room, and easily makes one forget all the corny jokes about Aquaman being lame. I also thought that Gal Gadot was once again fabulous as Wonder Woman. She plays the role with a ton of heart and conviction, and again reaffirms my belief that they couldn't have hired a better actress for the role.

And then there's Henry Cavill, who finally gets to play the Superman I always dreamed he could be here. Despite how poorly Zack Snyder wrote the character in the past, Cavill has always shown a ton of potential that he could be a fantastic Superman with the right material. And there's some strong glimpses of it here, even if Cavill doesn't have a whole lot of screen time compared to the rest of the cast. Seeing him save the day by laying in a few punches to Steppenwolf before dropping everything to save some civilians in peril, all while Danny Elfman's brief interpretation of John Williams' classic Superman theme from 1978 plays? Oh yeah, I want to see more of that Superman!

A Justice League movie could've happened back in 2007, believe it or not. Mad Max creator George Miller was hired to direct what would've been called Justice League: Mortal, along with a cast. But it was canceled due to a combination of budgetary woes and the Writer's Guild strike. Ten years later, the Justice League have finally hit the big screen and the results are... okay, I guess. It's not a particularly bad movie, but it also isn't that great either. It's one of those movies that's just kinda there. It's at least the second-best entry in the DC Expanded Universe, though that's damning it with faint praise. Could've been worse, though; I could've been stuck watching Batman v Superman again.

Final Rating:**½

Wonder Woman (2017)

After the critical and box office failures of Catwoman and Elektra a decade ago, Hollywood seemingly became convinced that female-led superhero movies couldn't work. And ever since then, nobody seems to have made any serious attempt to try again. Yeah, we've had Mystique, Storm, and Jean Grey in the X-Men movies, but they've spent nearly two decades stuck in the shadow of Xavier, Magneto, and Wolverine. The closest any major studio has gotten to giving a female character a role with any real, significant, meaningful substance to it in all that time has been Scarlett Johansson having a major supporting role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But then along came Wonder Woman to shake everything up.

Created in 1941 by William Moulton Marston and an uncredited H.G. Peter, Wonder Woman brought a big dose of girl power to the male-dominated superhero genre. She wasn't some damsel in distress that needed a hero to rescue her; she was the damsel that saved herself. And through all the ups and downs the comic book industry has gone through, and through numerous retools and reimaginings, Wonder Woman has persisted, staying in print on a regular basis since her debut and becoming just as important to DC Comics as Superman and Batman.

But unlike her caped colleagues, Wonder Woman hasn't seen a whole lot of success beyond the printed page. With the notable exception of the classic 1970s TV show starring Lynda Carter, she hadn't really appeared anywhere beyond the various cartoons based on the Justice League. However, when Warner Bros. decided to follow in Marvel's footsteps and create their own cinematic universe starring the heroes and villains of DC Comics, Wonder Woman finally got her big break as a movie star. Her appearance in Batman v Superman was one of the few genuine highlights of that dreadful movie, and with the release of her own theatrical solo adventure, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited to see it. And after the string of misfires the DC Extended Universe has had lately, the Wonder Woman movie is exactly the shot in the arm it needs.

Welcome to Themyscira, a beautiful, secluded island in the Mediterranean Sea that is called home by a proud race of warrior women known as the Amazons. Created by the gods of Mount Olympus to protect humanity, the Amazons relentlessly train as soldiers in preparation for the prophesied return of Ares, the villainous god of war who slayed his fellow gods before being defeated by a mortally-wounded Zeus.

Unique among the Amazons is Diana (Gal Gadot), daughter of Queen Hyppolyta (Connie Nielsen). Despite being imbued with all of the same physical gifts as the rest of her people and trained ten times harder than anyone else, Hyppolyta still attempts to shelter her daughter from combat and discourage her from being like the other Amazons.

That all changes when Diana rescues Air Force captain Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) from drowning after his plane is shot down just off the island's coast. He reveals under interrogation that, unbeknownst to the Amazons, World War 1 has been raging for four years and that he is an Allied spy. In Steve's possession is a notebook he'd managed to steal from Dr. Isabel Maru (Elena Anaya), a chemist working under the command of General Erich Ludendorff (Danny Huston) of the German army. In this notebook is evidence that Maru has not only developed an advanced, even deadlier version of mustard gas, but that Ludendorff plans to use it in an attack on London.

Diana believes the war to be the handiwork of Ares and agrees to accompany Steve back to England so he can deliver Dr. Maru's notes to his superiors. But when Diana and Steve are stonewalled by the Allied forces' top brass as an armistice is close to being signed, they're forced to the front lines to stop Ludendorff and Maru from releasing their gas and changing the tide of the war.

The fourth time's the charm, it seems. I say that because after three movies that struggled to achieve even mediocrity, the DC Extended Universe finally has a winner. Wonder Woman is, no pun intended, wonderful. The movie is a 141-minute adventure that is exciting, compelling, at times awe-inspiring. It's not a flawless movie, but it is a strong effort that I absolutely loved.

At the helm is Patty Jenkins, who has spent the better part of the last decade working in television. Wonder Woman is only her second feature-length directorial effort, following the Aileen Wuoronos biopic Monster in 2003. And while Monster and Wonder Woman are on completely different ends of the specturm in terms of both the size of their productions and the personalities of their main characters, Jenkins proves herself more than capable of playing with the boys in their summer blockbuster territory.

Jenkins does not approach the movie with the overbearing gloom and senseless destruction we saw in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, nor does she turn the movie into a ridiculous mess like what Suicide Squad turned out to be. She instead seems to draw inspiration from Captain America: The First Avenger. Both movies feel rather close in style, especially considering that both movies are period pieces that see superheroes sent to a war in Europe. But that's not to say that Jenkins merely copied that movie wholesale. That doesn't strike me as being the case at all. She does more to capture the horrors of war here than Joe Johnston did in The First Avenger, and to be honest, as much as I love Cap's first adventure as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are parts of Wonder Woman that blow it out of the water.

Take, for example, the scene where Diana leaps out of the trenches and marches into "No Man's Land" so she can liberate a German-occupied village, brushing off bullets and mortar shells with her shield and wrist bracers. It's an utterly amazing, breathtaking scene that how much of a warrior and how much of a hero Diana is. Jenkins puts the scene together masterfully, a perfect blend of cinematography, music, stunts, special effects, and actors perfectly encapsulating their assigned roles. Just thinking about that scene gives me goosebumps. And the moment shortly thereafter, when Diana leaps into a second story window and takes out a group of German soldiers set to the strains of her leitmotif from Batman v Superman, is one hell of an adrenaline rush.

She also has an amazing cast to work with as well. Everyone contributes a fine performance, but I'd be lying if I said anyone other than Gal Gadot and Chris Pine were the standouts. Pine is charming and charismatic, and he and Gadot have a palpable chemistry together. And I'll confess that it's kinda neat seeing a movie where a man is the female hero's token love interest instead of the other way around.

But honestly, nobody is seeing the movie for Chris Pine. Everybody is seeing it for Gal Gadot, and those that are will not be disappointed because Gadot is tremendous here. She captures everything Wonder Woman is and should be. Gadot makes her more than just a warrior; she's graceful, hopeful, idealistic, an agent of peace and compassion that has no qualms about standing up for what she believes in. For the last forty years, Lynda Carter alone has been associated with the role, but Gadot makes it her own with her fantastic performance. In short, Gal Gadot puts the "wonder" in "Wonder Woman."

When I said earlier that the movie has flaws, I wasn't lying. The plot is nothing exceptional and Diana's climactic confrontation with Ares is practically interchangeable with the final battle from pretty much any other random superhero movie from the last fifteen years. But if those are the only negative things I can think to say about Wonder Woman, then the movie is doing pretty damn good for itself. I honestly cannot say enough positive things about the movie; it's everything I'd hoped it could've been. And between you and me, I have yet to figure out why it took so long for Wonder Woman to get her own starring role in a movie? Superman and Batman can get fourteen movies between them 1978 and now, but Wonder Woman just now gets one? Here's hoping she gets a few more to make up for lost time.

Final Rating: ****