SkyWorld

Spider-Man: Homecoming is the Spider-Man film that should never have succeeded. Reboot after reboot finally gave us a Spider-Man series we can safely trust will be consistently good. I’m going to touch on a few plot points, but no spoilers. Picking up in fresh territory, after the apparent death of Uncle Ben, Homecoming takes us down a thematic path we’ve never seen before. Gone is the dark brooding, the constant crying, and the cheesiness. Instead, we’re confronted with comedy, plot twists, and heart in (mostly) all of the right places. Homecoming could really only be rightfully classified as an action-comedy or comedy-action. There are probably more jokes than punches thrown, now that I think about it. And yet the comedy is miraculously far-removed from the cringe-worthy quips found in most Marvel movies. It’s genuinely, consistently, and thoroughly hilarious. Another fresh element is Peter’s relationship with Aunt May. Gone is...

Oh, The Force Awakens, you really thought you could show up on the scene and not be polarizing. You were so wrong. Spoiler alert for anyone who, by some magic, hasn’t seen this movie yet, because I’m about to dissect the heck out of this film and also The Phantom Menace’s plot. Let’s jump right into the story. The evil First Order has tracked a map containing the coordinates of the location of Luke Skywalker to a planet, where the Resistance races against time to get the map first. The Resistance pilot going after the plans, Poe Dameron, is captured; his droid, however, escapes with the map. Sound familiar? Well buckle up, kids. Familiarity is about to slap us in the face. Repeatedly. From there, the pilot is rescued by a dude in stormtrooper armor (to be fair, he is a stormtrooper), Finn. He’s a traitor to the First Order, and together they escape. The droid with the map, meanwhile, has made his way to a young adult female (why ...

Tomorrow Never Dies boasts what may be the most absurd plot of any Bond film. The head of a media outlet tries to start wars in order to have a monopoly on the media coverage of them. If you can’t comprehend the absurdity of that, let me try to give another example. CNN starts World War 3 and has journalists in place to report these events before anyone else can, and no one on the face of the earth thinks that’s shady in any way, shape, or form except for MI6. The question we should all be asking ourselves is how the heck this movie managed to actually be kind of good with a plot like this. The opening sequence is not quite as exhilarating as we’ve come to expect from Brosnan Bond movies, but it’s competent enough. From there, we’re plunged directly into the story. The first act takes its time, explaining delicately in a detailed manner exactly what the media mogul’s plan is, and how he’s going to carry it out. His plot may be absolu...

Let’s be honest. It doesn’t matter what a Christopher Nolan movie is about; if he directed it, we’re going to watch it. Dunkirk focuses on an actual historic event, a first for Nolan. He executes it beautifully. Also, this is spoiler-free. Dunkirk, like many (or maybe all?) of Nolan’s films, places emphasis on time. In Dunkirk, three story threads are followed, each occurring over a different duration of time, but all converging in the end. This can make for a slightly confusing or even frustrating (in parts) narrative, but most of the time it’s all relatively easy to follow. I’ve thought about it for quite some time, and I’m quite certain that is done both for the sake of heightened realism and tonal consistency. The three interweaving plot threads help greatly in keeping the story interesting, and all three’s contributions to growing intensity make for one of the most claustrophobic and uneasy films I’ve ever seen. Because o...

Ah, Wonder Woman: the anomaly of the DC Extended Universe is the movie that most of us expected to continue the trend of mediocre or even atrocious films. We were all shocked when it became one of the best-reviewed superhero films of all time. Spoiler alert: I’m about to discuss the ending in detail. The plot is a fairly standard, straightforward origin story. It’s given more depth than usual by the fact that the film is set during World War 1. The pacing of the film’s first act is absolutely impeccable, setting up everything to follow with great efficiency. We’re given time to get to know the characters, understand their motivations, and we’re told the backstory that will play into the film later early on in a completely organic way. After Steve and Diana leave Themyscira, the plot begins to move quickly. After a bit of discussion, they decide to join the war with a small band of men. This is the point at which Diana truly comes...