Wonder Woman was pretty much a perfect movie.

I loved it, Sandra loved it, and we’re both extremely happy that it is a thing  that exists in this timeline.

Does it redeem the clumsy, colorless DC movie franchise? Well, if my ticket purchases for those other movies (the ones with with the altruistic alien, the disturbed rich guy, and the clown-guy’s psychiatrist) helped fund Wonder Woman I have exactly zero regrets, and would spend that time and money again. Twice more, even. But I’m glad I don’t have too, because now I still have that time and money, and can go see Wonder Woman again.

Wonder Woman clears my Threshold of Awesome, and while it doesn’t quite edge GoTG2 out of the top slot, it comes really close. It’s not as if these things matter. I get to live on the timeline where I can enjoy both of them.

In a completely unsurprising turn of events, Alien: Covenant is not the feel-good hit movie of the summer. It’s powerful, and beautiful, and horrifying, and bleak, and thoughtful, and none of those things guarantee that it will be fun.

There was some fun, of course. I liked (in a sinking feeling sort of way) how they tied 2012’s Prometheus and 1979’s Alien together, explaining a few things that have always been puzzlers for me. Prometheus left me with more questions than answers. This movie left me wondering why Prometheus wasn’t just two movies in a row… until I remembered that in 2012 the Marvel Cinematic Universe was still a gamble.

I really enjoyed Fassbender and Waterston’s performances. Waterston seemed especially perfect, since she can shine with stoic confidence AND exude primal terror¹, and sometimes switch between the two while the camera dares us to try an not believe it’s real.

Fassbender was no slouch, of course. I’d say more, but describing how perfectly an actor does a particular thing is not always appropriate when the reader might not yet know that said thing is even a thing².

I loved the scope and scale of things in the film. This shot worked really well for me: human people for scale, really big things next to them, and something even bigger in the distance. And my eyes can’t find the seams between reality and rendering. We’ve come a long way in 38 years.

Alien: Covenant doesn’t cross my Threshold of Awesome, because my rankings are based on “fun.” It wasn’t disappointing, either. If you like the Alien franchise, this is a movie that is probably also something you’ll enjoy.

¹ I first saw Waterston in Fantastic Beasts, where even at her most heroic she seemed trodden upon. In Alien: Covenant, however, we see a dynamic range that makes her a worthy heir to Sigourney Weaver.

² If you watch the trailers closely you’ll pretty quickly figure out what’s coming next during the film, and which character(s) will be standing  too close to whatever is coming once it arrives. And that’s still no excuse for me to post spoilers. 

Here are the things you need to know, as a Schlock Mercenary reader whose tastes are statistically likely to align with my own on matters of humorous space opera:

1. See Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2 in theaters. It’s worth your top-dollar entertainment budget.
2. Good reviewers, like good friends, don’t spoil movies for people.
3. The opening credits “romp” is, in my admittedly non-expert-yet-neveretheless-non-humble opinion, the very best one that Hollywood has delivered in the history of these things.

There you go. My 21yo and I saw it last night, and were giddy all the way home. We discussed and deconstructed some parallels between GotG 1 and 2, and I cannot tell you more because spoilers, but it’s safe to say that these sorts of discussions are at their best when the movie is good enough to make them intellectually stimulating, which this one was.

There are movies that I watch again and again. There are movies I’ve seen several times in theaters. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 is so good I almost want to wait until the Blu-Ray before watching it again, just so I can watch it three times in a row while taking notes, and eating something from my own kitchen.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 takes my top slot for the year, at least for now. Disclaimer notwithstanding, it may be tough to displace, because while all of the impending contenders are solid, comic space opera is in my wheelhouse, on my lawn, and in my heart.

For me, Ghost in the Shell was big-budget ‘meh.’ I liked it okay, but it didn’t clear my Threshold of Awesome despite some amazing story telling.

I think the best part of Ghost in the Shell is the implicit question, “what is truth,” in a society heavily overpainted with augmented reality. We could have hours of discussions about the issues that arise when two people look at the same thing, but see different things, and how this conceit—conflicting augmented realities—is simply an exaggeration of how real humans differently perceive the world we live in.

We can have those discussions without the film, of course, and it might be easier to do so, because most discussions spawned by the actual film will necessarily focus on why Scarlett Johannson wasn’t the right person for the part.

For me, her mainstream Hollywood looks (and race, yes) were distracting and alien, and in a way that kept pushing me out of the story. There are better ways to say “this person doesn’t fit.”

I recently re-watched Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, and loved the way some of the big scenes were presented, with slo-mo, extreme slo-mo, and odd perspective cuts, mixed in with real-time action. These methods showed me how the characters felt about the mess they were in while simultaneously delivering some stunning visuals. Compare this to shaky-cam in the Transformers franchise, which is deployed as a shortcut, telling the audience that their own confusion is what the characters are feeling.

In short, “show, don’t tell.” Wherever possible, use the full suite of cinematographical tools to communicate nuances of story, rather than taking shortcuts.

That’s why I think Scarjo was the wrong pick for Ghost in the Shell. Her race and familiar looks are like shaky-cam, and will prevent many audience members from enjoying the story for having been pushed away from it. There are far better ways to say “this character feels out of place and alone,” and the filmmakers aptly demonstrated the skill necessary to make any of those work. I wish they had been given the chance.