Elysium (2013)
Neill Blomkamp follows District 9 with another grubby, inventive piece of science fiction, and pairs a knockout world with a blunt message. The design carries it where the script does not. 8/10.
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The World’s End (2013)
Edgar Wright closes out the Cornetto trilogy with a pub crawl that curdles into an alien invasion, and finds something sadder under the gags than either Shaun or Fuzz dared. Funny, clever, and quietly bruised. 8/10.
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The Wolverine (2013)
James Mangold takes Logan to Japan for a smaller, sadder, more grown-up superhero film, and for an hour it is the best one the X-Men franchise has made. 8/10.
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Pacific Rim (2013)
Guillermo del Toro hands the summer a love letter to giant robots and giant monsters, built with real conviction and very little cynicism. The story is thin and the spectacle is enormous, and it knows exactly which one you came for. 8/10.
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World War Z (2013)
A troubled production turns out a lean, frightening pandemic thriller that races round the globe one outbreak ahead of the dead. It throws out almost everything that made the book good and gets away with it on pure momentum. 8/10.
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Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
J. J. Abrams brings his rebooted Enterprise back for a faster, darker second outing built around a villain it would rather you did not name. The energy is real, the secrecy is silly, and it lands just shy of the first film. 8.5/10.
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Iron Man 3 (2013)
Shane Black takes the keys to the biggest franchise in cinema and quietly turns it back into a buddy thriller about a man and his nerves. Divisive, funny, and far better than its problem-child reputation. 8/10.
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Oblivion (2013)
Joseph Kosinski follows Tron: Legacy with a gorgeous, melancholy science-fiction puzzle that borrows freely and looks like nothing else this spring. The story is familiar, the world is immaculate, and on mood alone it earns its keep. 8/10.
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Cloud Atlas (2012)
Three directors, six stories, five hundred years and one cast playing everyone. A magnificent folly that mostly holds together, and the rare puzzle film you want to take apart again. 8/10.
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Jack Reacher (2012)
Tom Cruise takes on Lee Child's wandering ex-cop in a lean, old-fashioned investigative thriller from the man who wrote The Usual Suspects. The casting is all wrong on paper and the film is much better than that ought to allow. 8/10.
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