Top Gun: Maverick, directed by Joseph Kosinski, is a much better film than its predecessor was, and much better than it needs to be overall. Tony Scott's 1986 jockstrap of a movie about hotshot Naval pilots—produced by fast-lane Hollywood players Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who perhaps bear more responsibility for its numbnuts machismo than Scott does—is a caveman relic that has achieved enduring popularity, a high-fiving fantasy populated with dude bros before we even had a name for them. In the '80s, we went to Jim Jarmusch movies to get away from these guys.

Yet it's easy to make peace with the 2022 version of these men, Cruise included. Top Gun: Maverick takes place in a world where no one seems to be all that worried about the threat to modern masculinity. One of the pilots in the current gang happens to be a woman (she's played by Monica Barbaro), but even if that's a significant departure from the 1986 movie, made at a time when women weren't allowed to fly in combat, it's still beside the point. Without ridiculing or diminishing them, Top Gun: Maverick allows its male characters to have doubts and insecurities, to fear that maybe they can't be the best, to worry about being too old to matter.

It may be damning Cruise with faint praise to call him tolerable in Top Gun: Maverick. But even if he's just playing at the indignity of aging rather than truly feeling it, he's at least attempting to be less of a hologram and more a facsimile of a human. Love Tom Cruise or hate him, he's the only one we've got; his particular set of qualities have no equal. The day he stops needing to prove himself will be like the day a lion loses the will to roar. And only a cruel person would rejoice in that.

Across The Spider-Verse is beautifully animated, bursting with wild color and inventive artwork. Every single scene is something to gawk at. The movie isn't content to simply follow the art-style of the first film. Instead, it builds on that style, layering each moment with color and emotion and sound. It's honestly a little hard to describe. There's still that comic book feel of the previous movie, but it's so much more.

The story, meanwhile, goes in places you'll never expect. It's so tightly written that once you understand what's going on, you'll realize there were clues along the way you simply missed. (Or maybe you won't miss them, but I did). One thing is certain: When you get to the end, you're going to want more.

The performances are all as terrific as the animation and the writing. We get a lot more of Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) which I consider a very good thing. Other characters from the first film return, including Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) as well as some newcomers like the anarchist punk-rock Spider-Man, Hobie (Daniel Kaluuya) and even the video game Spider-Man played by Yuri Lowenthal.

It's honestly one of the best superhero movies I've ever seen, bringing not only fresh and new to a genre that feels rather stale, but also superbly crafted storytelling. I think the plot might be a little difficult for younger kids to follow, but they'll enjoy the action and humor and wild animation that's truly unlike anything else out there. Go see it on the biggest screen—with the best sound you can find!

It is a remarkable story. Maybe all the more so because it's true. Director Christopher Nolan wrote the script based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's book—which took years to write. In the hands of a lesser director some of the scenes may have felt too long, too dialogue-heavy. But not here. Maybe that's because the story has taken us to a point in history where almost every decision is critical, where a mistake could end America's hopes of winning the war.

The editing is a marvel; it keeps the movie moving right along even though we are jumping continuously back and forth through time. This is accomplished by switching from colour to black and white scenes, and then back again. Of course, black and white 65mm IMAX film didn't exist until Nolan requested it, but it certainly makes a difference; the detail is startling in its clarity even when not watching the film in an IMAX theatre. Usually, IMAX is reserved for those big action shots or vistas, here they are used intimately for close-ups of the talent too. What action there is in the film is done through practical effects, you will find no CGI here. This means the spinning atoms, the explosions and shock waves we see were all created by an effects team in real-time.

I've come to conclude that Oppenheimer succeeds and succeeds so spectacularly, even with the lengthy run-time, is because all of the film's elements were so well thought out and executed. What we have here is a well-researched and detailed screenplay, masterful directing, awe-inspiring special effects and editing, and an A-list cast. Special mention should also be made of the set work (they did create a 1940s town after all), period costumes and props, and musical score.

This is a story of lost love and childhood crush, the painful and dangerous access to the past given by digital media; the roads not taken, the lives not led, the futile luxury of regret. And it's a movie that speaks to the migrant experience and the way this creates lifelong alternative realities in the mind: the self that could have stayed behind in the old country, versus the one that went abroad for a new future. In this it is similar to the frantic, Oscar-winning multiverse comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once, though I think better and truer.

Lee's brilliant code-switching between her Korean identity with Hae-sung and her American identity with Arthur is gripping, as is Magaro's wary, pained questioning, as Arthur suspects (justifiably) that she is deeply in love with their Korean visitor. And as writers, Arthur and Na-young can see how Hae-sung, though a provincial country mouse compared to them, is actually incomparably more compelling and magnificent: a handsome, dignified, modest, heartbroken romantic hero who has sacrificed everything in his life for this distant real love.

Na-young/Nora talks about the Korean concept of "in-yun", the karmic bringing together of people who were lovers in past lives. This wonderful film suggests a secular, 21st-century version: the past lives of Na-young and Hae-sung are their childhoods, preserved and exalted in their memory and by modern communications. Past Lives is a glorious date movie, and a movie for every occasion, too. As ever with films like this, there is an auxiliary pleasure in wondering how much of her own past life Song has used. It's a must-see.