There's lots to see in "Captain America: Civil War," but not much stands out.

In Captain America: Civil War, the Avengers are forced to sign a treaty with the United Nations that will prevent them from interfering with bad guys unless specifically conscripted by individual nations. This causes a rift between the Avengers, some of whom (including Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson) consider it a necessary evil, while others (among them Captain America, played by Chris Evans) see the treaty as a form of surrender that will tear the Avengers apart. The latter eventually happens, and we see multiple Avengers fighting each other in a mostly light-hearted sequence. It’s lighthearted because so little is at stake: we know that none of the Avengers is actually going to be killed. Usually in any narrative, low stakes are a reason not to care about what’s happening, but in this case, the low stakes are a relief.

I found myself enjoying this scene all the more because it wasn’t an excuse for rampant destruction of whole city blocks. Instead, the writers and directors punctuate this scene, which takes place at an airplane hangar, with a flurry of mini-conversations between all these characters (Captain America, Iron Man, Falcon, Hawkeye, Black Widow, etc) as they spar with each other. Ant-Man (played by Paul Rudd) cuts every moment down to size with a dumb joke. (He may be the least respected and most undervalued of all superheroes.) And the sequence showcases the amusing, cocksure arrogance of a young Spider-Man (Tom Holland).

Of course, the great heretofore unacknowledged joke of most superhero movies is that the heroes end up destroying the city in an attempt to save it. We see some all-powerful evil agent smashing cars and toppling buildings, and the heroes are forced to add to the destruction, though we assume it’s out of necessity. These movies gleefully stage enormous battle sequences that should kill thousands of human beings, but because the films are targeted at kids, we’re supposed to be okay with it. And, conveniently, nothing too horrible ever happens to a discernable human being. (Don Cheadle does get hurt pretty bad in this one, but he’s one of the heroes, not some innocent bystander.) It’s nice that Captain America: Civil War incorporates this joke/problem into its story.

The rest of the film vacillates between mindless, sped-up action sequences and little dramatic exchanges reminiscent of The Young and the Restless. The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) is traumatized when she uses her powers and accidentally destroys a whole building. (This is the impetus for the disputed U.N. treaty.) Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is still haunted by the deaths of his parents. Captain America has a little romance brewing with CIA agent Sharon Carter (Emily Van Camp, who has a real screen presence). There are others, but I’ve already forgotten them. These dramatic moments don’t ever really pop, perhaps because they’re cloaked in sameness. The film certainly has a rhythm, and directors Joe and Anthony Russo are smart enough to give the audience little breaks between all the fighting. But they seem to have only two approaches to a scene: make it fast or make it slow. Perhaps we wouldn’t need so many breaks from the action if it were meaningful and not mindless, if it were artful and clever and exciting and not merely overwhelming and predictable.

I tried hard to discern what was going on during those moments of fighting between multiple characters. The action is sped up so much that it’s impossible to sort out what amounts to a jumble of images. Is this supposed to be entertaining? Don’t people find it chaotic and therefore impossible to connect with or enjoy? I realize that these films appeal to viewers as mindless entertainment, but how is it entertaining when you can’t even tell what’s happening? Whenever filmmakers overly rely on shaky cameras and rapid editing, my assumption is that they’re covering up their ineptitude, hoping we’ll give them credit for putting something up there, whether it possesses visual logic or not, whether it’s well-choreographed or not.

Action—whether derived from a comic book or not—doesn’t have to be this way. See John Wick, and you’ll see how to make a mindless action movie with real visual elegance. Of course, John Wick is also R-rated, and it’s likely that the need to make a PG-13 rating prevents movies like Captain America from reaching the glorious heights of violence that John Wick enjoys. But sanitizing the violence in order to make it kid-appropriate is actually worse: it diminishes the shock factor. A movie like John Wick never ceases to shock me, to convey the reality that violence can wreak havoc in people and places and cause real physical pain. What we need are more real, sharp comic book movies and less of this vague, “cleaned-up” drek.

But at least there are lots of familiar faces that unexpectedly pop up. Jeremy Renner appears (as Hawkeye) in the last third of the movie. As irritating as it is to see a character (played by such a great actor as Jeremy Renner) introduced so late in the film, his presence filled me with gratitude. And Tom Holland makes a good impression as Peter Parker. (Even though Andrew Garfield was terrific in the role.) The scene where Tony Stark enlists Spider-Man’s help is the best one in the movie: it’s funny and revealing and has some shape to it. We see Peter Parker coming to grips with the nature and the implications of his power; we see Tony Stark at his most desperate, making a trip to Queens to ask for a high school kid’s help. (But aren’t we all tired of Robert Downey, Jr.’s shtick by now? He’s been playing the smart-ass smart guy for over a decade.)

Somehow, Scarlett Johansson gets lost in all this. She’s a terrific actress, and certainly skillful in her many fight scenes, but she—like so many others—gets relegated to the sidelines as the film introduces more and more characters. The end result: it’s forgettable but intermittently amusing. Anthony Mackie, who plays Falcon, is a pleasure to watch. Mackie has charm to spare, and he always seems to be having a good time whenever he’s on screen. With Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany, Chadwick Boseman (as the Black Panther), Sebastian Stan, Frank Grillo, William Hurt, Marissa Tomei, and Daniel Brühl.

"The Big Short" takes a deftly comic look at the 2008 housing bubble.

At once documentary and narrative, comical and cynical, The Big Short is a refreshingly un-self-important end-of-the-year release from director Adam McKay. McKay, who’s best known for making such silly comedies as Anchorman and Talladega Nights, has plenty of experience with movies about terrible people in positions of power. Now he’s made a film which depicts real people who did real damage, even though some of the names have been changed. The Big Short examines the housing market crash of 2007-08 and the financial entrepreneurs who predicted it and profited by it. It’s a virtual who’s-who of the country’s greediest people. The film’s wry tone will likely overshadow the real weight of its subject matter. But thematically speaking, this movie is on the level of a massive-scaled Victorian novel: It’s both fascinated by and critical of capitalism, and even if it doesn’t punish its characters with the moral authority of a Trollope or a Dickens, it’s a film capable of lighting a fire in its audience.

The material covered by The Big Short (it’s adapted by McKay and Charles Randolph from Michael Lewis’s nonfiction book) is dense and at times confusing if you are, like me, woefully under-educated about sub-prime mortgages and swaps and all things mortgage-related. McKay knows his material is difficult, which may be one of the reasons he resorts to at times audacious moments of humor. The market’s crash was, of course, a very bad thing for a lot of people. And you can feel the film’s indignation as it depicts all of the financial entrepreneurs who profited by the crash. Playing hedge fund manager Michael Burry, Christian Bale is—according to the movie—the first to recognize a housing bubble. It’s 2005, and Burry, who wears a T-shirt and cargo shorts to the office and blitzes himself out to heavy metal while he stares into a computer screen all day, decides to short the market. His colleagues are horrified that Burry will bring their company to ruin, and the big lending companies are only too happy to take his money, never dreaming that Burry will ultimately be taking theirs.

The film tracks various other financial people who, like Burry, make the decidedly amoral choice to short the housing market, to profit off the impending financial ruin of others. Their attitude is: Anyone can figure this out, but nobody’s looking, so why not us? Moreover, the mortgage industry had been giving housing loans to anyone with a signature. Why shouldn’t they take advantage of the bad behavior of these lending companies who are offering the American Dream to those who cannot afford it?

McKay really emerges as a first-rate director here. Anchorman and Talladega Nights have their moments, but they are both too loosey-goosey in their structure. Working with different material and different actors, and fueled by healthy cynicism, McKay has found his niche as a director. At times, the actors speak directly to the camera, but their speech is always laced with humor, as though we were watching one of Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries. At other times, the movie is surprisingly humane in its treatment of its characters. Steve Carell, playing another investor, named Mark Baum, is a good example of this. Baum is a prickly rat of a man (he looks like Templeton from Charlotte’s Webb) who barges into his group therapy session and interrupts everyone with his loud complaining, only to leave again to take a phone call. He’s caught up in the noise of his own life because he’s doesn’t want to deal with a personal tragedy for which he feels guilty. Later, he’s the one who realizes that taking advantage of other people’s bad practices isn’t good: it’s just more bad behavior.

Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt co-star, although their performances don’t really register. Gosling is quite good at playing a self-aggrandizing asshole, and does that very well here. Pitt’s character is the most laid-back of the bunch: he’s into sustainable living, since he believes the crash will permanently wreck the global economy. (Sustainable living is so much easier when you’re rich.)

With Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei, Hamish Linklater, John Magaro, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Finn Wittrock, Max Greenfield, Stanley Wong, and in amusing cameos, Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain, and Selena Gomez.

The Ides of March

The Ides of March is, at its most obvious, about how corruption is unavoidable in politics. It can be inadvertently bumped into, but regardless, it sticks like glue, leaving an indelible impression. The impression is either on the public, when they are made aware of the corruption, or on the corrupt person who chooses to keep one improper act a secret by committing more improper acts: corruption begets corruption.

Beneath the moralistic, cynical representation of the inherent corruptibility of politics and politicians, George Clooney's latest picture is an attempt to burst the balloon of the Idealist, the one who believes that it's possible for a politician to change the world for the better. It's done with a kind of effortless, winsome skill, because Clooney plays the kind of politician, at the surface level, that you know Clooney wishes could really exist; the kind of politician (again, only at the surface) that Clooney wishes he could be, were he to ever step into the political realm himself. As the hip young(ish) presidential candidate, Clooney's Governor Mike Morris is progressive, answers the questions he's asked, and isn't afraid to say what he really thinks, regardless of how it will be received by the media or the public. He plays the ultimate white liberal--stylish, sophisticated, and dedicated to principle. (Of course, we find out pretty soon what his true colors are.)

Ryan Gosling plays Morris's junior campaign adviser, a rising hot shot who seems to be incapable of making a wrong move or a bad judgment. He believes fully in the cause of his boss, who is trying to win the Democratic primary election against a more traditional, less viable candidate who still has a shot of winning because he's willing to play dirty. Morris refuses do get into the mud. This ultimately becomes a test of wills: how long can a politician afford not to play dirty?

The Ides of March has a conspiracy thriller-esque aura about it, but it's just an aura. The film is deliberately paced, which is fine, but after a while you realize it's not really moving toward anything. There aren't any really pulse-pounding moments, the kind of tingling excitement you expect from a political thriller. Even though the title suggests something dramatic on a Shakespearean scale, The Ides of March is tame. You begin to realize that the lack of pulse-pounding is symptomatic of the lack of a pulse. It's a characterological analysis, not a thriller, which would be fine if it added up to more at the end. It's only intermittently compelling, and ultimately forgettable.

The actors make up for the movie. Ryan Gosling's performance is strong: he demonstrates his capability as a leading man. His character undergoes a major moral and idealistic shift in the film, and he adapts to this shift with masterful control of himself. That's the whole point of the movie, that the real political players will make dramatic, character-changing shifts in the blink of an eye without blinking an eye. But The Ides of March leaves you feeling unaffected by its story and its sobering message, probably because it's telling you something you already knew. It's a moderately entertaining reminder of why we are so disenchanted with politics on both sides of the aisle.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Jennifer Ehle, and Max Minghella co-star.

The Lincoln Lawyer

Matthew McConaughey as Michael Connelly's slick, conniving lawyer, Mickey Haller, who begins to experience a moral dilemma when he suspects his latest client is guilty. It's the closest thing I've seen lately that reminded me of a 1940s detective thriller like The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep. All the little threads tied together in the vein of those wonderfully dark and glossy noirs, but The Lincoln Lawyer doesn't attempt to imitate the style of film noir. Perhaps it's in tune with the crime series on television (that I rarely watch). However, it doesn't forget the qualities that make a movie a movie and not an episode from CSI.

McConaughey is always on. He does the sleazy lawyer thing well, and he gets to play a drunk and a hero and a villain, and a loving father who still socializes and sleeps with his ex-wife (Marisa Tomei), also an attorney. She's "trying to keep dirtbags off the street while he tries to set them free." We're led to believe that Mickey's ambiguous morals contributed to the divorce, but not enough to keep her from getting hot for him after she's slammed down a few beers.

Ryan Phillippe pulls off the spoiled rich boy performance that his career has led him into. I was pondering Phillippe's career and how he's doing supporting parts. I think he's good at them and, while he's too good-looking to be a character actor, he could make a pretty good living off the type of character he plays in The Lincoln Lawyer. William H. Macy also stars, as Mickey's investigator, an example of an ugly character actor who gets all kinds of wonderful and sordid movie roles.

McConaughey is a perplexing looking and acting individual. He pulls off the nuances necessary for his character: likable unlikableness. He has something a bit off-kilter in his eyes--just like Woody Harrelson--and reminds me that he started his career playing a psycho in one of the Texas Chainsaw movies. He's managed to develop that psychotic quality in his later--better--movie roles, and it works for him here. Phillippe couldn't have been as convincing in this role. We can believe he's a spoiled jerk, even a cold-blooded killer, but he doesn't have the likability, that natural mix of charm and insanity that makes McConaughey's performance really kick.

The movie delivers the plot twists, but maybe you'll figure them out before they unfold. I thought it was an enjoyably pulpy good time, with a strong supporting cast (besides the ones already mentioned, who all did good work), that also includes Josh Lucas as the prosecuting attorney who butts heads with McConaughey, Frances Fisher (as Phillippe's rich-bitch mother), John Leguizamo as a sketchy bail bondsman, Michael Pena as a former client, Bryan Cranston (he was the dentist in Seinfeld), and Laurence Mason as McConaughey's driver, probably the most stereotypical and contrived character in the movie. He's such a likable character that you wish he had more screen time.