Old friends become enemies

As Peter contends with this threatening new adversary, he reconnects with his old pal Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), who’s become head of the mega-corporation Oscorp in the wake of his own father’s death. Desperate for a cure to the degenerative — and hereditary — disease responsible, Harry discovers that Peter’s father developed a pioneering serum that could save his life. Spider-Man appears to be the beneficiary of the serum, but when Peter refuses to put Harry in touch with the crime fighter the two friends become enemies, and Harry teams up with Electro to take his revenge.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 was released 10 years ago this summer, and it’s impossible to avoid comparisons between Webb’s film and what many regard as one of the best superhero movies ever made. The romantic relationships are nearly identical in both films, though Gwen is a decidedly better companion for Peter than Kirsten Dunst’s dream-girl Mary Jane was. But here his wishy-washy attitude is even more exasperating, the entirety of their problems boiling down to the amount of guilt he feels about his promise to her father in any given scene. Until it’s time for Gwen to become a pawn or damsel in distress, watching her and Peter interact feels like sitting through a documentary about two indecisive teens — and it’s exactly as tedious as that sounds.

Good actors can’t save bad writing

The good news is that Garfield and Stone give this superficial complexity every ounce of energy they’ve got. But they can’t out-act bad writing, and screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Transformers, Star Trek) give them nothing but soapy angst to explore. Still, that’s more dimensionality than the supporting characters get, who as a whole resemble the sort of over-the-top cartoonish villains the genre has spent decades trying to live down.

The problem with Electro isn’t that he looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze, but that he was conceived like Jim Carrey’s Riddler: a “brilliant,” socially awkward doormat who perceives every compliment or slight as if it’s a life-changing event. Dane DeHaan throws himself into playing Harry Osborn with abandon, regurgitating exposition with sincerity and transforming Harry’s parental neglect into an almost believable sense of rage. But if James Franco’s portrayal in the first Spider-Man movies lacked enough internal torment, DeHaan exudes too much, never once seeming like the young man he’s supposed to be — even one coming to terms with the responsibility of a billion-dollar company and a potentially terminal disease.

That said, the over-the-top characters do complement the enormous technical ambition of the action scenes. The film’s centerpiece takes place in Times Square, cleverly using its 360-degree video screens as the eyes of the world that Electro so desperately wants to impress, and the eventual showdown is genuinely impressive. Notwithstanding the fact that his powers make him feel like a junior version of Watchmen’s Dr. Manhattan, Electro gives Spider-Man a challenge that is genuinely exciting and even dangerous.

The problem is that by the time The Amazing Spider-Man 2 reaches its finale, the action has become so polished and joyless that you just want it to be over with. There are painfully few applause-worthy moments for a movie intended to be a crowd-pleaser, as the filmmakers seem determined to get to the end of the story out of dutiful obligation to the source material rather than passion or interest. Of course, even that level of broad good guys-vs.-bad guys adventure will undoubtedly keep burgeoning superhero fans entertained. But for anyone who’s enjoyed watching the genre grow and mature over the last decade, Webb’s sequel feels like a cautious reminder: we can go back to the days of lame puns and larger-than-life bad guys, but we probably shouldn’t.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is now playing internationally. It opens in the US on Friday, May 2nd. All images courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Compared to the original’s slick, darkly funny efficiency, the most significant change Padilha makes is in creating a more measured, meditative emotional journey for Murphy. As wonderful as Peter Weller was in 1987, Kinnaman’s interpretation of the character is more complex and tortured as he’s confronted with the realization he would be little more than a few slabs on a coroner’s table were he not in the suit — but also that he is never truly himself even while he is in it. Where in the first film his transformation took place via an extended montage, here it’s a 40-minute set piece where Murphy discovers what has happened to him, and slowly comes to terms with how Norton and his colleagues have co-opted his identity.

The science of RoboCop is remarkably prescient, engineering a half-man, half-machine that its creators acknowledge is outdated; it’s a step back from unmanned drones that are faster and more precise. But so too are the film’s insights into the symbiosis between corporate and political maneuvering. Sellars builds a device — to him, another product — with the emotional and moral compass of a man, but only to appease public opposition to robotic surveillance and secure a lucrative government contract. Padilha and screenwriter Joshua Zetumer brilliantly observe that in an era where drone strikes and artificial intelligence are already a reality, enhanced strength and accuracy are nominal improvements — and essential human qualities such as compassion are impediments to the sort of efficiency that technology is meant to facilitate.

More meditative character study than techno-thriller

At the same time, Padilha asks the question, When does a man sustained by technology stop being a man? There’s even less left of Murphy in this film than its predecessor — this time he’s basically a face, hand, and pair of lungs — and the character rightly struggles to determine what kind of normal life he can ever experience again. His family not only still exists in this version; they very much wants to see and reconnect with him. But how much of a father can Murphy be to his son, much less a husband to his wife, when he can barely interact physically with them and is due back at a lab to have his blood cleaned?

Do these ideas make it a relevant, thought-provoking film? Indisputably. But do they make it an entertaining one? Not always. Although there is a showdown with some of RoboCop’s automated counterparts — including, yes, the ED-209 — the action scenes in Padilha’s version are few and far between. This feels much more like a meditative character study than an energetic techno-thriller. Gone are the comical advertisements that served as scene breaks in the original, here replaced by the ongoing manipulation of Murphy’s identity by his creators to make him as appealing to consumers as possible. (When RoboCop abandons his programming and decides to pursue suspects in the unsolved case of his own murder, Omnicorp’s head of marketing considers it a publicity bonanza.) Padilha replaces all of the media coverage from the first film with an interactive right-wing television show hosted by Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson), whose penchant for actorly exaggeration feels all too similar to our modern day political pundits. In 1987, RoboCop mercilessly satirized the existing media as it grew increasingly polemical, but more than 25 years later, it plays like a forecast of things to come. And for better or worse, that can’t help but feel a little bit less fun.

That said, Kinnaman’s solid, introspective performance helps bring the character to life. Although he repeats a few of the hallmark lines that immortalized the character in 1987, the young actor delivers them with a slightly more humanistic edge: “Thank you for your cooperation” is more of a sarcastic riposte than an automated reply. As the CEO of Omnicorp, Keaton taps into a sort of dark-side Steve Jobs persona that is at once Machiavellian and earnest, determined to conquer the market but convinced that he’s doing it in the world’s best interests.

But that general self-seriousness may simply be a result of the film’s sobering look at what might happen if this sort of experiment were to actually occur, which is admittedly a sort of way-home consolation for never hearing anyone utter the phrase “bitches, leave” or watching a man take a bath in toxic waste. Unlike the original’s glorious, crowd-pleasing triumph, the new film does leave you with the thought, Where does RoboCop go from here? Even if he vanquishes all of his foes, he still has to face himself — to survive as a political symbol and technological anachronism, but never again as a human being.

Seeing the inescapability of the situation, Dr. Norton says apologetically, “We have failed Alex Murphy.” But in acknowledging the culpability of his creators, and exposing the character’s uncertain future, José Padilha has not. Mind you, that doesn’t make the 2014 RoboCop a great film. But it makes for a much more interesting product than anyone expected — a remake that for once doesn’t feel like it rolled off of an assembly line.

José Padilha’s RoboCop opens Wednesday, February 12th. Photos courtesy of Columbia Pictures and MGM Pictures.

Jonze is no stranger to stories about the weird ways in which technology affects our lives

Initially, Samantha seems like a sort of ideal personal assistant; in addition to streamlining Theodore’s inbox and keeping him on top of his responsibilities, she offers occasional comfort and reassurance when he retreats into his head. But Samantha’s programming allows her to grow as she learns, and she becomes as involved with him as he is with her — taking inspiration to explore the world, even if it’s through Theodore’s eyes. But Samantha’s curiosity quickly evolves beyond the common sensory experiences of her human counterpart, and she begins contemplating deeper philosophical ideas. Soon, she is yearning for the same kind of intellectual and emotional gratification she provided for Theodore, forcing him to confront the possibility of losing her as she embarks on her own journey of self-discovery.

Jonze is no stranger to stories about the weird ways in which technology affects our lives, but Her is resonant in a completely different way from his earlier work. It eschews the weirdness of Being John Malkovich and the melancholy of Where The Wild Things Are to explore ideas that are specific and intimate yet shockingly universal. Indeed, Her is only incidentally science fiction — its interactive, reciprocal artificial intelligence is seemingly less possible than inevitable — while Jonze examines the nature of companionship, and the ways in which we define and maintain the relationships that are most important to us.

the film observes how easy it can be to substitute or mistake technology for real human interaction

Notwithstanding the increasing normalcy of internet dating, this is a film that makes the argument that any online relationship can be meaningful, even when it stays online. Where movies like Catfish underscore the potential for these interactions to be phony or facetious, Jonze’s film argues that virtual interaction is valid and meaningful even without physical consummation. In his construction of Her’s “tomorrowland” future, Jonze predicts that these relationships will not just become prevalent, but socially acceptable, and with few exceptions the characters around Theodore eagerly legitimize the bond between him and Samantha. It not only normalizes Theodore’s behavior, but allows the audience to see the essence of his relationship with Samantha as a natural byproduct of integrating technology into virtually every life experience — in much the same way that sharing one’s aspirations, insecurities, fears, and dreams makes any relationship that much deeper and more meaningful.

Beyond Jonze’s detailed world building, Phoenix and Johannson do an incredible job making us believe that they are two equal entities, and that their relationship is authentic. On screen, the two of them interact via Theodore’s cellphone (which serves as her eyes to his world) and an unobtrusive Bluetooth-style earpiece, but after the initial awkwardness of their introduction it’s easy to forget that she isn’t “real” — or at least as real as he is. That Jonze presents Samantha as a sort of unseen commentator or companion makes us at ease with her physical absence, but Phoenix’s body language — a heroic one-man show of vulnerability — underscores how deeply he cares for her, and how strongly he’s affected by the twists and turns in their relationship.

Simultaneously, the film observes how easy it can be to substitute or mistake technology for real human interaction. When Theodore buys Samantha, it seems pretty clear that he’s looking for something, or someone, to be his partner, even if it’s only virtual, and she quickly becomes the first and often only person he goes to with his experiences. That hermetic bond enables him to avoid interaction with the outside world, not just ignoring possible problems but retreating from the messy unpredictability of the human beings around him. In a strict sense, Theodore is vaguely aware of the risks he runs by dating an OS; he recognizes the limited feasibility of doing things like double dates with Samantha. But he also fails to consider how consuming his relationship becomes, and the film delicately highlights how he achieves a state of normalcy for himself that estranges him from those around him, such as his friend Amy.

But Jonze seems to think through just about every aspect of his idea, and executes it in such a poetic way that it only ever feels like the story of a relationship, as opposed to, say, a technophobic fable or science-fiction conceit. There’s an amusing, recognizable honesty in Theodore and Samantha’s exchanges that highlight moments in “real” relationships: the awkward morning-after conversation that follows their first sexual encounter, the bemused daydreams that accompany a day trip to the beach, the desperate fear of not being able to reach, or find, a person whom you fear is drifting apart from you. And given that Samantha is a computer that learns about the world through her interactions with Theodore, it seems inevitable that she changes to incorporate the experiences she has — just as with a relationship between two people.

‘Her’ only ever feels like the story of a relationship, and never a technophobic fable or sci-fi conceit

At the same time, Theodore’s insecurities and his ingrained pathological responses create the same sorts of conflicts they would with another person, and the evolution of their relationship unfolds both with the awkward humanity of fumbling efforts to communicate and the clarity and perspective of a machine capable of assessing those efforts psychologically. On two occasions, Samantha attempts to compose music as a way of articulating her reaction to their shared experiences, and it’s telling that the second is more complex than the first — snapshots of specific moments that encompass the tone of their relationship and the experiences that led up to each one.

As with Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, Her wraps itself up with an ending that feels indefinite, but complete. The difference between this film and others more openly critical of technology is that the character’s interactions with his operating system would ordinarily stunt or inhibit the ones with the humans around him, but in Her the opposite proves true; ultimately, he’s better able to deal with the failures of his past and understand how not to repeat them in the future.

Ultimately, Her possesses the epic sweep of a science-fiction opus that speculates where we’re going as a species and how we might get there, and yet applies its discoveries to the individual. All of which is why it’s a modest sort of masterpiece, a truly great film that manages to make an unconventional relationship seem enormously rewarding, but mostly because it accomplishes in Theodore’s life what we wish real ones did in ours: teach us about ourselves, and help us to be more — not less — open to love.

Her opens in limited release on Wednesday, December 18th.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Savages) once again plays Dave, the high schooler who introduced the world to real-life superheroes when he created his alter ego, Kick-Ass. Although he’s officially retired from his days as a masked vigilante, Dave repeatedly tries to convince former comrade Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) to team up with him to fight crime. After she turns him down in order to contend with the villainy of her “mean girl” classmates, Dave joins a small group of like-minded do-gooders, including Jim Carrey’s Colonel Stars and Stripes, Night Bitch (Lindy Booth), Dr. Gravity (Scrubs’ Donald Faison) and his buddy Marty, now dubbed Battle Guy (Clark Duke of The Office). But Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) blames Kick-Ass for the death of his father, and the former Red Mist recasts himself as the world’s first supervillain — The Motherfucker — and recruits a rogue’s gallery of “heavy hitters” to help him exact murderous revenge.

Not unlike how The Dark Knight further developed ideas that were introduced in Batman Begins, Kick-Ass 2 intends to use the first film as the foundation for a deeper discussion about the divide between wish-fulfillment heroism and the cost of doing good in a world plagued by actual evil. Nolan’s films tapped into the concept of escalation, and in the world of Kick-Ass, where superheroes are quite literally inspired by their comic book predecessors, Wadlow’s film highlights the evolution of an opposing force. The Motherfucker is a good guy “turned evil” by Kick-Ass’ defeat of his crime-boss father, and he not only pits himself against Dave, but assembles an army of criminals as his minions.

Hit Girl is focusing on the villainy of high school

It can’t tell the difference between comic book spectacle and true destruction

But the film makes an unconvincing case as it tries to have its cake and eat it too. The problem isn’t that it fully takes advantage of its R rating to maximize the intensity of the action and make every blow sound and feel as bone-crunching as possible. It’s that Wadlow, as writer and director, can’t keep straight the difference between comic book spectacle and true destruction. Immediately after The Motherfucker threatens a female hostage with the horror of sexual assault, his lieutenant Mother Russia (Olga Kurkulina) walks into the middle of a suburban street and executes 10 police officers by gun, fire, and lawn mower.

It’s as if the only lives that are important are those directly related to the main characters, while the rest are fair game — as victims or perpetrators — for any manner of pain the filmmakers can imagine inflicting. The constant speeches by seemingly every character that insist “this is the real world” and “there are consequences” to violence end up feeling like lip service when we’re supposed to laugh off an attempted rape, but actually recoil in horror after it may have occurred. (The victim is shown later, beaten up, but it’s unclear if The Motherfucker followed through on his threat.)

Meanwhile, various characters in the film repeat platitudes about people being themselves and not hiding behind masks (literal or figurative), even when in several cases their true self is a person who wears one. While this theoretically could be an interesting point to make — the notion that some people find their true purpose when they adopt another identity — the film seems equally confused about this as well, validating even the most harrowing betrayals (from characters we like) as some sort of empowerment or self-actualization. It certainly doesn’t help that the characters frequently contradict themselves about what drove them to be heroes, or that their definition of heroism seems to change according to the demands of the plot. Sometimes it’s “making a difference,” sometimes it’s lying to loved ones, and sometimes it’s beating people to a bloody pulp, according to Wadlow’s ensemble of schizophrenics.

Kick-Ass remains the least-interesting character in the ensemble

Despite what were likely Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s best efforts, Kick-Ass remains the least-interesting character in the entire ensemble, and his remarkable lack of presence is even more apparent in comparison to the new characters that the film introduces. Unfortunately, Mintz-Plasse doesn’t have the chops — or the material on the page — to elevate Red Mist to the rank of truly interesting villain, but as the vengeance-obsessed Motherfucker, he at least provides the film with a suitably absurd counterpart to Kick-Ass’ milquetoast heroism.

As in the first film, Moretz not only has the most interesting journey to make, but she gives it some real substance. Hit Girl’s struggle to find a place in the shark-infested waters of high school confronts her with the challenge of discovering who she really is, with or without a mask. Jim Carrey’s Stars and Stripes offers a soulful, centered maturity to real-world heroics, and while his decision to recuse himself from publicizing Kick-Ass 2 is entirely understandable given the film’s nihilistic attitude towards “justice,” he proves to be its secret weapon. He plays the role as a case study in what it means to do good in a world filled with so much evil, and imbues the character with a dignity and gravitas that’s all but absent elsewhere. That these two characters remain subordinate to Kick-Ass might be a necessary byproduct of the film’s title, but it’s to the film’s detriment, elevating the main character’s petulant quandaries while effectively ignoring the supporting cast’s more substantial ones.

Jim Carrey imbues his character with a dignity and gravitas that’s all but absent elsewhere

Even looking only at the action and escapism for which superhero movies are known, there’s still precious little to sustain one’s interest. With the exception of a breezily staged showdown between Hit Girl and the gun-toting passengers of a speeding van, none of the fight scenes are memorably conceived, and they’re seldom funny. Just like with the film’s underlying themes, Wadlow relies more on glib payoffs than meaningful observations, mistaking meanness for honesty and brutality for realism. Kick-Ass 2 is a flaccid commentary that scarcely manages to implement the genre conventions it aspires to examine.

Kick-Ass 2 opens on August 16th.

When you were preparing the Kubrick Archives book for Taschen, how did you decide what you wanted to include, and how did you decide how much you wanted to pull back the curtain on Stanley’s creative process?

It was with great difficulty. I was left all of these hundreds and hundreds of boxes of stuff we’d been climbing over all of our lives. There was so much rubbish that came out of each film, and Stanley never tidied it up. It was very melancholy work to go through these things when he was dead, and I was just a basket case, trying to do this. And then a Frankfurt museum became very interested and they sent an archivist — and that opened my eyes to how to do that, and what would be of value to young people, and also very much [gave me] an awareness that all of these films were made without computers, and so there was so much more documentation. Unfortunately, on computers, much gets lost, while rubbish gets saved forever and ever. And then we would go through it box by box by box, and we left this to the University of the Arts London, which is a huge university combining all of the other art schools with a vast website. And I thought very carefully who I should leave this to, and I chose them. And then they dedicated a big part of the building — almost a wing — to it, which they decorated like the big wheel in 2001. And so I was happy with all of that. And then following all of these exhibitions, eventually when the exhibitions are finished, it will also go to the university so it will all be in one place, and they’ve dedicated all of the new technical ways of saving every photograph and that sort of thing.

How comfortable do you think he would have been showcasing the work in the Archives book?

You know, you save your own stuff, and you know exactly what you want people not to find, and what you want people to find. And especially in his very early work, there were certain films — your first efforts in journalism or writing, how many people do you want to read that? And so there’s obviously some that I don’t give out, and lots of personal things I don’t. But I tried to imagine if he was hanging over my shoulder, when would he start screaming, you know, “Don’t show this to anyone”? And this is how it would go. And I think Stanley would have been totally amazed at the amount of interest he has. We, his family, were amazed; we knew he was a good film director, we knew that he made films that did well — we were very aware of that. But we didn’t know that he was well-known. And so that was both ghastly because he had just died, and wonderful to see how much he was remembered.

And the great complaint about him not giving interviews was so easy to explain — because he was also the producer of his films, he wanted to advertise them well. He wanted to be in control. He wanted to write the text he wanted, posters and all, that he wanted — and he didn’t want to ruin it by giving bad, hasty interviews. Especially chat shows, he considered extremely dangerous at selling your product. And so he just didn’t give many interviews. And he had a few selected journalists all of the time, but on the whole, not much.

That’s the only sin he committed in the press’ eye, and so they went to town on him. They made him into a completely, utterly insane fruitcake, you know, who had the most unattractive phobias. And that was very hurtful for us to read — and totally invented. And the only reason we then finally as a family got together and said, “We actually now have to say it, otherwise it gets carved in stone.” These things are not true at all! He was not even remotely like that. And then my daughter and I got together and my son-in-law and anybody who could write a little bit, and we met some journalists and said, we want to now say what he was like.

Because you’re trying to shepherd a more balanced perception of him, are you making decisions to show things he might not have wanted to be made public, but that you feel have artistic or personal significance?

I knew him for a long time, so I imagine I’m doing it more or less right. And I try not to be overwhelmed by questions that make me say things that are too personal; women always get asked much more personal questions than men. My brother is always getting the technical, cool questions. I always get the moisture-seeking missiles. [laughs] So that’s harder.

How much do you feel like he would have embraced the technology of DVD and Blu-ray, particularly since he was so careful to frame his films to suit the aspect ratios of VHS presentation?

Yes, he would want very much good prints [to be transferred to video] and we’re fighting for that. And Warner Bros. is wonderful, you know, really wonderful in the way they’re doing this for us, and for themselves also. I think that Stanley was always so careful with the technique — I mean, he was the first person with a computer, ever, that I knew of. And you had to have lessons — do you remember? Ah, you’re too young. But they were these great, big, huge beige things that would arrive and some young lad would come up and teach him and scream at him. But he would have so [loved] every new thing that comes out, every iPhone, every iPod, everything. I think of him, how much he would have liked that.

“He always used to say, ‘either you care, or you don’t. There’s no in-between.'”

Looking back at his films, were there any that we now just think of as a masterpiece, but at the time of their making, he really struggled with?

He had both fun and he struggled. He liked struggling. He always used to say, “Either you care, or you don’t. There’s no in-between. And if you care, then go all of the way.” And I think he did, and I think his life was more interesting for it. I found it more interesting than anybody else because he was so intense. Not beavering away like a suffering, hard-working person, no. That was his toy. He liked filming, he liked all of the difficulties, and he worked all of the time — because that’s what he liked best. He at the same time did not interrupt anything, because he had one enormous gift: that he could concentrate very well. And if children and dogs and the country matters — because we live in the country now — would intrude on whatever he was doing, he would pay attention to it without freaking out or anything, and then go right [back] to the middle of a sentence. And I think that was the gift of a very concentrated person. But he wasn’t trying for that, he just had it.

You have been very active in correcting the misperceptions about who he was. But in something like your daughter’s documentary, Making ‘The Shining,’ he’s working with Shelley Duvall in a rather aggressive way. What do you make of his actions there?

They are exactly what Stanley felt at the time, because he wanted to give his daughter the chance to do this documentary because she had learned how to do it and she was very gifted, and at the same time he realized he now has his youngest daughter being a nuisance. And when there was a fight, as there was — I remember the one with the leading actress who hadn’t paid attention, he screamed at her because they were already having trouble snowing onto a district where people didn’t want salt and plastic in their gardens. So it was a bit iffy and expensive to do this, and she ruined a scene by not paying attention. So he screamed at her — not very much, not very loud, but of course his daughter was right under his nose, filming [her] deadly father. And that of course gets a lot of attention because there aren’t many moments by him that would show that. So sometimes when I see it over and over and everything, it really gives the wrong impression — you know, maybe once a year he would lose it over something, and then somebody takes a close-up shot of you. Thank you! You wouldn’t like it. [laughs]

Have you heard about Room 237, the documentary about the many interpretations of The Shining?

Yes, yes, yes. You know, I’m absolutely certain your subconscious creeps into a thousand things, and it is very much your subconscious — you don’t know [exactly] what it is. And if other people think they know, the field is open, with anything you do.

Notwithstanding that subconscious, do you feel like his films had finite interpretations, whether in The Shining or any of his other works?

He wanted to make a ghost film. A ghost film! You know, just that — a good ghost film [that was] scary. That’s what he wanted to do. The rest, I don’t know. I would never try to interpret the depth of your undercurrents — it’s impossible. I don’t know how to think that way, but some people do. And it’s a free world.

There are several unproduced Kubrick scripts being shepherded towards production. How do you feel about that wealth of unproduced material — are there people working now who can, and should, bring it to the screen?

My husband gave two or three stories to his son-in-law, Phil Hobbs, and he’s trying to make something with it. He’s waited for a long time to do this, and I hope it comes through because they’re good stories. He had loads lying around — he wrote them all of the time or he bought the rights to books all of the time. So, you know, there’s a lot of stuff.

The touring Stanley Kubrick exhibition will next visit São Paulo, Brazil, before making its way to Toronto in late 2014.

Humanity comes together to battle the Kaiju

The film takes place in the not-too-distant future, where a portal unexpectedly opens at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, unleashing a wave of monstrous, building-sized beasts called Kaiju upon the world. (The term comes from the Japanese movie genre of the same name, which gave birth to such iconic characters as Godzilla, Mothra, and the Cloverfield monster.) In order to combat these creatures, humankind overcomes its geographic and political differences to create Jaegers, robots of equivalent size that are piloted by two people via a sort of mindmeld called a “neural bridge.” The fraternal bond between Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam, Sons of Anarchy) and his brother Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff) makes them the best monster killers in the Jaeger program — that is, until Yancy is killed in battle, prompting Raleigh’s early retirement.

Five years later, the Jaeger program lives on as a shadow of its former self: only a handful of the machines remain, and even fewer pilots. But when commanding officer Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) turns up to re-enlist Raleigh for a final all-out assault on the portal in the hopes of saving humanity once and for all, the disillusioned soldier finds himself paired up with ambitious novice Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), whose own past traumas may prove to be the key that unlocks the program’s greatest partnership yet.

Although all of that might seem complicated, once you know the words “kaiju,” “jaeger,” and “neural bridge,” you understand all you need to know about Pacific Rim — at least at the outset. What’s interesting about this film’s seeming simplicity is that it highlights an odd truth about cinematic mythologies in general: the more immediately digestible they are, the more interested audiences seem to be in examining their edges, uncovering their details, and expanding the world. For example, all we needed to know about Star Wars in 1977 was the Rebels, the Empire, the Death Star, and the Force, and suffice it to say that a couple of universes worth of characters, species, technologies, and even philosophies have since been developed. Compared to the updates and reinventions in Star Trek, Man of Steel, and The Lone Ranger, del Toro’s film is mercilessly streamlined, an exercise in restraint in spite of the fact that all its machinery (literal and metaphorical) was created from whole cloth.

Speaking of that machinery, the action — no small part of the film’s appeal — is phenomenal. Each fight evolves from the previous one, feels suitably epic, and actually serves a narrative purpose. After an opening sequence introduces the basic science of each Jaeger, the movie mostly avoids too many unnecessary expository details, instead unleashing the established foundation of technique and technology upon whatever odd-shaped monster might be in a Jaeger’s way.

Raleigh’s machine Gipsy Danger, for example, uses an energy cannon, a retractable sword, and a rocket-powered haymaker to combat its opponents. But unlike a James Bond film where the hero advertises a cool gadget, uses it once, and then loses or discards it, Gipsy returns to each of them multiple times. It serves as an ongoing reminder that these destructive ‘bots are not sentient beings a la Transformers, but machines with the skills and personalities of the humans piloting them. The repetition also gives the Jaegers a certain kind of believability — a palpable physicality that suggests there are finite limitations to the ways they can move, much less to the number of missiles they can fire.

The jaegers have a palpable physicality

A rich ensemble of characters

Like some of the most iconic sci-fi blockbusters, Pacific Rim also has the advantage of appealing, archetypal characters and a story that’s both viscerally and emotionally engaging. Whether or not you care deeply about Raleigh, the film’s Maverick-esque rule-breaker, del Toro and his co-screenwriter Travis Beacham (Clash of the Titans) populate the world of the film with a rich ensemble of different characters, each of whom not only serve an important function in the narrative, but also provide a dramatic (or comedic) counterpoint to one another. Max Martini (TV’s Revenge) and Robert Kazinsky (True Blood) play father-and-son Jaeger pilots whose generational contentiousness conceals the importance of deep-rooted connections within a world largely defined by loss, while Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) and Burn Gorman (Torchwood) feature as a pair of bickering scientists — offering a wealth of scientific mumbo-jumbo, but also exemplifying how people make different, equally significant contributions to a war effort even without stepping onto a battlefield.

Raleigh is comparatively the weak link: bland, blonde heroism whose conventional journey provides a nucleus for the more dynamic characters to orbit. (It doesn’t help that Hunnam lacks, or fails to communicate, the quality that differentiates Raleigh’s initial swagger from his subsequent humility.) Meanwhile, the relationship between Martini and Kazinsky’s characters, or Mako and Stacker, reinforces deeper themes within the film — about parents and children, loss and redemption, and the intangible bonds that form between the unlikeliest people.

One of the most satisfying movies of the summer

Admittedly, del Toro’s film is the sort you go to in order to watch giant monsters fight giant robots, and then incidentally stay for all of that character development and thematic complexity. Certainly fans of those Japanese kaiju eiga that inspired Pacific Rim will find much to enjoy amidst its wanton destruction, which marvelously includes the sight of a robot scoring a home run off a monster’s forehead with a bat improvised out of a battleship. But again, the beauty and straightforwardness is deceptive, the simplicity of the film’s bruising physicality hooking you into its more sophisticated underpinnings.

Ultimately, all Pacific Rim really needed to be was a clear-eyed, proficient example of high-concept thrill-ride storytelling, whether or not its “original” premise was particularly original. But del Toro accomplishes that task and then some, making one of the most satisfying movies of the summer — and one of the best of his career — by creating not just a new world, but one whose mythology actually deserves a universe.

Pacific Rim opens on July 12th. If you’d like to discuss the film — spoilers and all — join the conversation in the forums!

Forged by two sets of parents

The film opens on Krypton with the birth of Kal-El, the planet’s first natural-born child in centuries. Kal’s father Jor-El (Russell Crowe), a scientist, has warned the planet’s elders about an imminent environmental catastrophe, but a civil war engineered by Michael Shannon’s General Zod has distracted them from dealing with it until it’s too late. With mere hours remaining before the planet explodes Jor-El ships Kal off to Earth, both to save him and to protect the last vestiges of Kryptonian civilization, which he’s packed away in the newborn’s spaceship.

Decades later, Kal has become Clark Kent (Henry Cavill of The Tudors and Immortals), a migrant worker who keeps to himself as he attempts to figure out his place in a world he knows is not his own. His Earth parents Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and Martha (Diane Lane) have encouraged him to hide his gifts until he figures out what to do with them, but his innate sense of justice — and a desire to help others — repeatedly exposes him, and eventually forces him to move on to another job and another remote location. But after rescuing reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) during her investigation of an alien spacecraft, he finds it increasingly difficult to remain anonymous — especially after she tracks him down at his childhood home in Smallville.

Despite having stumbled across the story of the century, Lois shows Clark compassion when he explains why he’s stayed out of the limelight, and she decides not to disclose his identity to the rest of the world. But when General Zod contacts Earth demanding that its leaders turn Kal-El over to him, Clark is forced to choose between two worlds — the one from which he came, and the one he now calls home.

In a culture that seems as eager to tear down heroes as it is to build them up, it feels like there’s no longer a comfortable place for the pure idealism of Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman, nor even the nostalgic romanticism of Bryan Singer’s flawed but underrated Superman Returns. Nolan utilizes the same technique he used in Batman Begins, grounding everything the character does in a semblance of believable “reality,” while Snyder uses that reality as a foundation for recreating the Superman that audiences know and love — by the end of the film, anyway. Since moviegoers have never seen how Kal-El came to terms with his destiny as Earth’s protector this reverse-engineering approach works even better than it did in the Batman films. The tactic creates a hero’s journey that possesses enormous amounts of human relatability even as it crystallizes the persona of the resolute, incorruptible Superman audiences know and love.

That said, Man of Steel occasionally feels like a dirge precisely because Nolan and screenwriter David S. Goyer allow Superman so few opportunities to enjoy his principles. (The “Superman has fun saving people” montage that has appeared in every previous film is absent here, and most of his acts of heroism are met with admonishment from his earthly parents for “exposing himself,” so to speak.) Formerly best defined — if not immortalized — by Christopher Reeve’s dryly funny but invariably earnest interpretation of the character, Superman’s natural, wholesome buoyancy is mired here in self-consciousness and insecurity. He’s as fearful of not using his abilities when they’re needed as he is of having them discovered by humankind, and his relentless introspection sometimes becomes as tedious a burden to viewers as his powers are to him.

Nolan utilizes the same technique he used in ‘Batman Begins’

Snyder’s most measured and realistic work to date

Despite the subject matter’s natural suitability to Snyder’s sweeping, larger-than-life aesthetic, Man of Steel is his most measured and realistic work to date, both in terms of its stylistic vocabulary and its dramatic pitch. But even as he resists every impulse to inject the material with the same sorts of visual flourishes that served as directorial hallmarks in 300, Watchmen, and even Sucker Punch, the film’s visceral edges are as aggressive and affecting as the action in almost any recent blockbuster. Though the director’s slow-motion deconstructionism and his fetishization of ideal physical forms are gone Snyder’s staging remains impeccable, enabling Superman’s coming-of-age to unfold on the largest possible canvas while also retaining substantial emotional weight.

Moreover, he solves the problem the Wachowskis struggled with in the Matrix trilogy: how do you keep a fight exciting when it’s between two people who cannot be hurt? The answer isn’t quite as simple as “point-of-view punching,” which does actually become an important (and awesome) part of the climactic showdown between Superman and Zod. Even if the characters themselves are incredibly resilient, Snyder maintains a palpable sense of cause and effect by depicting their fight’s impact on the landscape around them — both in terms of the escalating property damage that reverberates outward from each battle and the larger cultural implications of a superhuman who exists in an otherwise human world.

Where Brandon Routh’s performance in Returns felt like a sense-memory tribute to Christopher Reeve’s iconic interpretation, Henry Cavill aims for something more troubled and complex, which fits Man of Steel’s ponderous tone perfectly but fails to supply the character with more than a perfunctory, bland sort of charm. That introverted charisma similarly undermines the budding, inevitable romance between Superman and Lois Lane, but Amy Adams’ intrepid and yet compassionate take gives the reporter newfound cinematic dimensionality even as she hints at a more profound connection between the two — as best friends rather than lovers. Meanwhile, Costner’s performance as Jonathan Kent is so steeped in heartfelt American self-determinism that it should be accompanied at all times by the strains of Aaron Copland, even as Crowe circumnavigates comparisons to Marlon Brando’s Jor-El by underplaying the character with hopeful pragmatism and a quiet nobility.

As General Zod Michael Shannon possesses none of the theatricality that Terence Stamp brought to the role, but Stamp didn’t have as well-written a part as Shannon does, either. From start to finish Zod is a gratifyingly rational and sympathetic adversary — tactics notwithstanding, his motivations are pure, sincere, and well-intentioned. But even if Shannon doesn’t quite descend into the sort of eccentricity that made many of his past performances so irresistible, his magnetic consternation as Krypton’s would-be savior lends the character a melancholy authority that dovetails nicely into Superman’s ascendant self-actualization.

Even though its cathartic confrontation between Earth’s first defender and Krypton’s last excludes it from earlier timelines, Man of Steel feels like a lost but worthy chapter in Superman’s origin story that could easily fit into Donner’s original without skipping a single bound. After multiple adventures where the same details were repeated about his birth and his adulthood, this — like Batman Begins — compellingly uncovers the intervening years of exploration and self-discovery that led Superman to become the mythic icon we’ve always known.

The last Superman origin story we ever need to see

All of which suggests that this is probably the last origin story for Kal-El that we ever need to see, even as it paves the way for more movies about Superman. And even if its weighty self-importance sometimes seems overwhelming in the context of a franchise that has historically felt more wholesome and light-hearted, the sophisticated foundation it creates allows future installments to function as more than victory laps without requiring them to adhere to a purely melodramatic tone. In other words, thanks to Man of Steel, Superman has truly earned the right to have fun saving people again, precisely because his two sets of fathers — both on-screen and behind the camera — decided to take him seriously.

Man of Steel opens Friday, June 14th. If you’d like to discuss the film — spoilers and all — join the conversation in the forums!