Anthropoid - 1 1/2 smiles

"Anthropoid," based on a true story behind two Czechoslovakian operatives' mission to assassination S.S. General Reinhard Heydrich, should be more engaging and suspenseful than it is. In December, 1941, when Czechoslovakian loyalists Josef Gabcik (Cillian Murphy) and Jan Kubis (Jamie Dornan) parachute from London into their nazi-occupied homeland, they must devise a way to implement 'Operation Anthropoid.' As the logistical architect of Hitler's Final Solution to eradicate the Jewish population, Heydrich was known as 'the butcher of Prague' for his ruthless brutality. The narrative lags from their attempt to contact what's left of the Czech Resistance, represented by Ladislav (Marcin Dorocinsk) and 'Uncle' Hajsky (Toby Jones) to their dubious reconnaissance cover of romancing two local girls (Charlotte Le Bon and Anna Geislerova). The only excitement takes place at a local church, where there's a final, six-hour shoot out.

This vital snippet of history warrants more than a simple rehashing of the basic story. The script, co-written by director Sean Ellis and Anthony Frewin, asks us to care, to invest ourselves in the seldom-explored tale of the Czech resistance. But the forced dramatics and lack of character development weakens the movie. No time was spent exploring the personal and psychological toll of war.

Note: A second film about Mission Anthropoid is scheduled later this year, starring Jack O'Connor and Jack Reynold.

Pete's Dragon - 3 smiles

"Pete's Dragon," Walt Disney's soulful remake of its whimsical 1977 animated movie, is a gentle, understated family adventure, full of magic and wonder. A four-year old boy sits in the backseat as his parents drive through the Pacific Northwest forest. 'We're on an adventure,' his mother tells him and when the boy asks if the adventure won't be a little bit scary, his dad tells his son that an adventure often requires bravery. Moments later, the boy watches curiously as everything turns upside down around him, the car rotating off the road and into the woods. Six years after the accident that claimed his parents' lives, Pete (played at 10 by Oakes Fegley) is a wild child living deep int he woods, protected by an enormous dragon, a green, furry, flying creature Pete has named Elliot. The two sleep together, et together and play together, leaping through the trees in unabashed delight. As it turns out, the dragon of Millhaven is a kind of local legend, joked about by everyone but taken seriously by kindly old Meacham (Robert Redford), who likes to tell the story of his long ago encounter with the dragon to scare local kids. When Meecham's dubious daughter, park ranger Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) discovers Pete out in the forest, she immediately opens her heart and family to him. He responds, and naturally wants his new friends to meet his old friend Elliot.

The plot of "Pete's Dragon" is simple: Pete gets lost, Pete gets found, Elliot gets captured (in a remarkable scene that younger children might find a bit too scary), Elliot gets rescued. With a plot this thin, the movie isn't helped with a villain (Karl Urban, most recently Bones in the Star Trek series) who seems more cartoonish than real. What saves the movie is the on-screen magnetism of 79-year-old Redford who gives the entire enterprise a certain gravity, the beauty of the majestic Northwest and the CGI actions of Elliot, who behaves like a big dog that can fly and turn invisible. "Pete's Dragon" is a genuine family movie that everyone will enjoy.

Hell or High Water - 4 smiles

The bleak, barren Texas terrain is a forceful character in director David Mackenzie's "Hell or High Water," starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham. Shots of refineries and oil rigs that visually obscure the horizon, deserted homes and businesses, dusty open spaces - a cowboy's dream gone bad. Now the banks seem to be the only thing surviving. This movie is a drama with a lot of gallows humor; it's a road movie; it's a buddy movie; it's about the little guy getting a bit of his own back. The story begins with a low-key bank robbery committed by brothers Toby (Pine) and Tanner Howard (Foster). Although Toby professes non-violence, we're not so sure about Tanner, who is an ex-con. Their motives, which involve reverse mortgages, oil drilling rights and Toby's estranged sons, remain murky. This appears intentional as Mackenzie and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan are content to allow the information to emerge organically. As a balance, the other side of the story is represented by two Texas Rangers - soon-to-retire Marcus Hamilton (Bridges) and his earnest partner Alberto Parker (Birmingham). These two share a companionable enmity with Marcus using Alberto as a verbal punching bag and Alberto holding his own. The strength of the screenplay allows us to see both sides and cheer for both sides and feel sorry for both sides. How cool is that?

Strong acting is another of the film's strengths. Pine, who has become synonymous with being the new James T. Kirk, is given an opportunity to show his genuine acting chops. He's excellent here. Foster, who co-starred with Pine earlier this year in The Finest Hours portrays Tanner as a loose cannon whose love for his brother is his saving grace. Jeff Bridges adopts a laid-back attitude, but underneath this lazy exterior is a savvy lawman. And Birmingham is the perfect foil to Bridges, tolerating the outdated political incorrectness of the older Ranger. The nature of the Ranges' relationship is as crucial to the story as the relationship between the brothers. "Hell or High Water" is a must-see. I hope you don't miss it.

Suicide Squad - 2 1/2 smiles

"Suicide Squad" is about interesting (and, surprisingly, likable characters) looking for a good script. Certainly the one they ended up with should have been better. The premise is good: take the biggest, baddest villains in the DC Comics universe and assemble them on a team whose sole purpose is to save the world from super powerful creatures that normal armed forces can't defeat. Unfortunately, the screenplay is a mix of overcooked action sequences (with an overly loud musical score) and incoherent plot development. Although I'm not that familiar with the Suicide Squad comic universe, I'm sure they could have found a better villain to kick off this series than The Enchantress because the climatic battle at the end is mind-numbingly dumb. The high points of the movie are the engaging performances of Will Smith and Margot Robbie. But then, Deadshot and Harley Quinn are the only two members of the Squad with somewhat fleshed-out backstories.

"Suicide Squad" has its moments, mainly the first third of the movie when the various characters are being introduced. The Squad is a group of misanthropes and sociopaths brought together by tough-as-nails black ops government agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) and her second-in-command, Rick Flag (Joel Kinsman). Their recruits include the hitman who never misses, Deadshot (Will Smith); the psycho girlfriend of The Joker, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie); the boomerang-wielding Digger Harkness (Jai Courtney); the human torch-inspired El Diablo (Jay Hernandez); the incredibly powerful mutant, Killer Croc (Adele Akinnouye-Agbaje); and the swordsman Katana (Karen Fukuhara). Their target is the evil entity The Enchantress, who has possessed the body of scientist Dr. June Moone (Cara Delevigne) and seeks to recreate a world that will worship her. In the background is The Joker (Jared Leto), too clever and evil to be incarcerated, so he pops up from time-to-time to save his girlfriend and Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck), whose longest appearance is during the mid-credits sequence. "Suicide Squad" is loud, busy and, at times, confusing. If you're a fan, you'll probably see it.

Jason Bourne - 2 smiles

Jason Bourne has always had one mission: to find out who he is. He was a human killing machine who operated on intuition and impulse and by the end of Paul Greengrass' 2007 film The Bourne Ultimatum, Matt Damon's spy finally got answers. But nearly 10 years later, Bourne is dragged out of hiding and given more questions to ponder. In Greengrass' "Jason Bourne," the film ignores the events of the Jeremy Renner-led The Bourne Legacy, and picks up almost a decade after Damon's character fled New York after being shot by the former CIA Deputy Director. Greengrass opens this movie with a flashback sequence of Bourne's last moments with his father. Then we discover he's living off the radar and earning money with underground fights. Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) is working for a hacker in Iceland when she hacks into CIA files and discovers a new training program, Ironhand. She also discovers that Bourne's father had connections to Treadstone. So, of course, Bourne is sucked back into searching for information. The new CIA is led by Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) wth the assistance of hacker Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) and they are after Parsons and Bourne to stop them from leaking info about Ironhand. CIA hitman (Vincent Cassel) is hot on their trail.

Although we are happy to have another Jason Bourne movie, the additional backstory about his father is too thin to garner interest and is ignored for much of the runtime. It's been nine years since Matt Damon played this iconic character and Damon looks tired. Maybe it's because Bourne's gotten older, but it also speaks to the superfluous plot. It all seems so redundant and, dare I say it, pointless. On the other hand, "Jason Bourne" does what all Bourne movies do best - action. There's an intense car chases through the streets of Athens, edgy hand-to-hand fights and an over-the-top chase through the Las Vegas strip that demolishes more cars than all previous films. The reunion between Greengrass and Damon should have resulted in a better movie.

Star Trek Beyond - 3 smiles

I'm a big fan of the original Star Trek TV series and I've seen all of the Star Trek movies, including the most recent re-boot. So, I have to say, even though I see some problems with "Star Trek Beyond," I have to give it a fairly high rating. Take that with a grain of salt if you're not a fan. Let me get the weaknesses out of the way first: Idris Elba, who plays the villain, Krall, is buried under too much latex, which makes it hard to understand him at times and doesn't allow for his always expressive face to, well, express. And the script, co-written by Simon Peg and Doug Jung, doesn't bother to explain a lot of things related to Krall (Elba), such as where he gets all of his followers when, at one point in the movie, he says that only three remained.  And if each ship in Krall's fleet is being flown by one of his followers, well.... his fleet has millions of planes (at least, that's what the CGI shows). The movie opens three years into The Enterprise's five-year mission with Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) wondering about who he is and what he's doing. While docking at Yorktown, a spaceport where alien cultures live in harmony, The Enterprise is sent on a rescue mission that turns into an ambush. An enemy horde, led by the fearsome Krall (Elba), blows the ship to pieces, leaving the crew separated and stranded on an alien planet. This set up allows for some playful pairings. Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Bones (a terrific Karl Urban) snipe at each other continuously. Kirk and Chekov (Anton Yelchin, who was killed in a tragic accident) set out to rescue the captured Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho). And Scotty (Simon Peg) matches wits with Jaylah (a scene-stealing Sofia Boutella), an alien notorious for her attitude, black warpaint and combat skills. But Jaylah is a key character and, hopefully, one we'll see in the next installment.

A strength of the movie is the humor, which mostly revolves around Bones and Spock and Scotty. Guess the latter isn't so much of a surprise given that Simon Peg wrote the script, which also gives him a lot of screen time. Another strength is the cast now seems comfortable with their roles and we see a real camaraderie. Casting Chris Pine as James T. Kirk was a stroke of genius as it's his skill as an actor that holds the movie together. Justin Lin, former director of the Fast and Furious movies has delivered a mix of fast and furious action and old school Star Trek thoughtfulness. "Star Trek Beyond" is definitely a must-see and a must-see on a big screen. Don't wait for cable.