Captain America: Civil War, the latest offering from the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, is technically the third film in the Captain America series but given its inclusion of so many of the studio’s other superhero characters, it plays more like a semi-sequel to Avengers: Age of Ultron (The Avengers 2.5, let’s say). As such, it’s the most narratively dense and potentially overwhelming Marvel movie to date but it’s also the most morally ambiguous and dramatically ambitious entry thus far. The important part is that despite the heaviness of the story and its themes, there are also counterpoints of levity and dazzling action setpieces that strike up a sound balance of enlightenment and entertainment.

The story picks up after the disastrous events in Sokovia from Ultron and following a more recent incident in Lagos that left unexpected civilian causalities, the actions of the Avengers are being scrutinized more thoroughly than ever before. The United Nations puts forth an act that calls for more oversight and regulation for those with “advanced abilities”, which Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) views as a sensible guideline of personal responsibility but Captain America (Chris Evans) sees as an oppressive measure of over-regulation. This ideological rift, among other factors, leads to a showdown between Team Captain and Team Iron Man (involving too many superheros to name here) that threatens to permanently tear the Avengers team apart.

Those uninitiated with the MCU and the events of the preceding films will likely be completely lost within the first 10 minutes of Civil War and even if you are a more-than-casual fan like myself, you may still find yourself misplacing certain characters or trying to recall previous plot points during its lengthy runtime. What’s important here is that directors Anthony and Joe Russo tell their story with respect to the intelligence of their audience regardless of how familiar they are with each facet of the Marvel world. Of course rigorous superfans will likely get the most out of the experience but even first-time viewers should find plenty to enjoy among the well-choreographed fight sequences and the reliable acting talents of the impressive ensemble cast.

One of the most refreshing elements of this film is the emphasis of accountability that has been breached in several other superhero movies before but not to the degree to which it’s examined here. On the basis of entertainment, we continually watch these characters lay waste to one major city after another but Civil War tactfully explores the residual effects that these catastrophes have on the ordinary people who occupy those affected areas. When the mother of a son who died in the Sokovia incident confronts Tony Stark after he gives an impassioned speech, it reaches a level of poignancy and groundedness that is uncommon among other films of this genre.

Without delving much more into the elaborate storyline, I should mention just how happy I was with the ultimate villain of this film. Between Age of Ultron‘s Ultron to Ant-Man‘s Yellowjacket (not to mention whoever the villain of Guardians of the Galaxy was), Marvel has been seriously lacking in the compelling bad guy department but Civil War brings about the most satisfying antagonist since Loki in The Avengers. In the words of Roger Ebert, “each film is only as good as its villain” and I’m happy to report that both are first-rate.

Television comedy stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele make their film debut with an unbearably adorable co-star in the new action comedy Keanu, which isn’t without its intermittent charms but ultimately feels like a series of five-minute comedy sketches separated by noticeable gaps of filler. Key and Peele play cousins Clarence and Rell, the latter of whom finds solace post-breakup in a newly discovered kitten who he names Keanu (a possible allusion to the similarly-plotted Keanu Reeves movie John Wick). After Rell’s apartment is burglarized and Keanu is nowhere in sight, the two team up to infiltrate the feared 17th Street Blips gang when they learn that the group’s leader Cheddar (Method Man) may have kidnapped their tiny feline companion.

Right from the beginning, the film’s most obvious positive attribute is the flawless comedic chemistry on display between the two lead actors. After 5 consistently funny seasons of their acclaimed TV show, it’s comforting to find that none of the duo’s wit or timing has been lost in translation when making the leap to feature films. While the two aren’t aided much on the comedy side of things —Will Forte is horribly mis-cast as a clueless drug dealer and a second act cameo similarly falls flat— I was surprised how grounded and, dare I say, compelling the acting was from most of the gang member characters.

As is to be expected, most of the film’s laughs come from the fish-out-of-water premise that arises when these two laid-back guys hastily adapt their own “gangster” personas in order to earn the trust and respect of the 17th Street Blips. Key and Peele, along with director and TV series collaborator Peter Atencio, attack this central joke from just about every conceivable angle and approach subjects of race and class with the same level of intelligence displayed in the best sketches from their show. All of these elements are wrapped up perfectly in the movie’s most successful scene: an impromptu George Michael listening session initiated by Clarence, who gives a hilarious retelling of the rise and fall of the pop group Wham! to a car full of pensive young gang members.

Even though this film clearly isn’t aiming for a plausible or remotely realistic storyline, I do wish there was much more creativity with the storytelling and the style behind it. While the setup is simple, the steps that the story takes after it begin to get ludicrous in a hurry but not in a way that’s especially entertaining. Satirizing big action scenes isn’t necessarily a flawed concept (Hot Fuzz did this to tremendous effect) but when you do so without any sort of attitude or new perspective towards the source material that you’re spoofing, it just comes off as lazy and anonymous filmmaking. There’s no doubt that Key and Peele have a great comedy movie still in their future and my best hope for Keanu is that it does well enough at the box office to make that future possible.

With numerous film adaptations under its belt already, Rudyard Kipling’s story collection The Jungle Book receives its most expensive re-interpretation to date. This “live-action” version (a term I hesitate to use, given how much reliance there is on computer-generated effects) is most closely related to Disney’s 1967 animated version and could be considered more of a remake of that film rather than a strict retelling of the source material from Kipling. While this newest iteration puts forth some truly jaw-dropping visual effects and an outstanding voice cast, there’s still something hollow at the heart of this film’s execution that makes it come across as more of a nostalgia cash-grab rather than a faithful re-telling of the original story.

This film follows the same narrative beats of Disney’s previous animated work, which introduces Mowgli (Neel Sethi) as an orphaned young boy living among talking creatures in a mythical jungle. His surrogate father, a black panther named Bagheera (Ben Kingsley), also acts as Mowgli’s protector as he is being mercilessly hunted by the vengeful tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba). On his journey to flee the now unsafe jungle, he also receives aid from the sloth bear Baloo (Bill Murray) and a smorgasbord of other animals with more questionable motives at play.

I should re-iterate early on just how blown away I was with director Jon Favreau’s visualization of this jungle landscape. I didn’t have high expectations for seeing a film shot entirely with green screens but there’s an attention to detail in the settings and the realization of each creature that is breathtaking and clearly state-of-the-art. As good as the movie looks, the sound design may actually be even more laudable than the visual achievement put forth. When you take into account the cacophony of ambient noise present in such a vast nature setting, it’s mind-boggling to think how much time went into re-creating all of the levels of auditory realism.

In addition to the stellar work from the audio side of things, the vocal casting is particularly on point as well. Bill Murray brings a warm humor and quiet gentleness to Baloo and Idris Elba is properly menacing as the most despicable version of Shere Khan yet. Lupita Nyong’o, who plays a wolf and mother figure to Mowgli, is absolutely astonishing in the few scenes that she has in the film. Sadly, Neel Sethi’s performance isn’t quite up to the level of his co-stars and is undercut by stiff line readings and an underlying artificiality behind his interactions with the computer-generated creatures.

On the surface, there may not be as much to criticize here but my chief complaint is perhaps more of an esoteric one: this just feels like a very safe play for Disney at this point. I won’t deny the craft and creativity that went into making this film but at the same time, it could have been a much more memorable achievement if Favreau and his production team hadn’t hedged their bets with a more conventional storytelling approach and an almost slavish reverence towards the far from perfect animated movie. We’ve seen with recent successes like Zootopia how rewarding it can be when Disney steps even a bit outside their comfort zone and in terms of narrative ambition, The Jungle Book feels like more of a step back than it should have been.

Over the past 30 years, renowned Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli has produced several of the Japan’s highest grossing anime films ever but since its co-founder Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement in late 2014, the studio’s future has been in limbo. Fortunately, fans in the US have a new reason to be excited, as one of Studio Ghibli’s seminal works is finally being made available for American audiences. First released in 1991, Only Yesterday is director Isao Takahata’s follow-up to the devastating war film Grave of the Fireflies that serves as a ebullient and life-affirming counterpoint to the overwhelming tragedy of his previous work.

We begin in 1982, where 27-year-old Taeko (Daisy Ridley) finds herself yearning for a more simplified way of life after having lived in the non-stop hustle and bustle of Tokyo her entire life. She decides to take a trip to visit relatives in the rural countryside but during her overnight train ride, Taeko is overcome with vivid memories from her schoolyard days that cause her to reflect on the purity and innocence of her childhood. The film wistfully tracks between this time period in 1966, where 10-year-old Taeko (Alison Fernandez) is just starting in the fifth grade, and the “present” time in 1982 that finds her helping her relatives harvest their seemingly endless fields of safflowers.

One of the artistic techniques that Takahata uses to differentiate between these two time periods is to depict the past with a sort of hazy glow around the edges of the frame but it’s not done in a way that calls too much attention to itself. Besides being a clever way to visually distinguish the story’s timeline, this also serves as a subtle commentary on how we tend to overly sentimentalize stories from our childhood when the memories become blurred and fuzzier as time goes on. The sharp, crisp animation style of urban Tokyo shows a world with clear limitations but the bright and dreamlike scenes from Taeko’s childhood suggest a largely undiscovered world with infinite possibilities.

The flashbacks play like extended vignettes that aren’t meant to relay specific sets of plot-relevant details but rather convey the feeling of longing that the main character is consumed with during her later years. These stories seem to come about in an almost random order but nonetheless cover a wide range of emotional territory: some are bittersweet, some are heartbreaking and some are quite amusing as well. An awkward first exchange between Taeko and her first childhood crush, during which the two share a hilariously unproductive conversation about whether they prefer cloudy or sunny days, perhaps best captures all three of these sentiments within one scene.

The coming-of-age material is very effective on its own but ultimately, this is a story of a young woman coming to terms with her past and deciding to break free from the burdens and expectations of her friends and family. The movie’s originally title translates roughly from Japanese to “memories trickle down” but it turns out that Only Yesterday is an even more evocative and appropriate title after all. It not only captures this film’s signature brand of charming nostalgia but also serves as a potent reminder that the past can be rendered inconsequential for those willing to overcome it.

Two titans of the superhero genre square off for the first time on the big screen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a needlessly dour and overwhelmingly senseless affair that hopelessly squanders an intriguing premise. Director Zack Synder’s follow-up to Man of Steel is one of the most distracted and disjointed action films I’ve ever seen: a result of way too many ideas being thrown around carelessly with no guiding vision. Even the incoherent plotting and the muddled character motivations could have been overlooked if this movie was any fun but it even manages to forget how to have a good time at all.

We pick up two years after the events of Man of Steel, where a devastating battle at the heart of Metropolis has led to intensified scrutiny surrounding Superman (Henry Cavill) from numerous parties. Most notable among his newfound objectors is neighboring city Gotham’s Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), who views him as a lawless alien and an imminent threat to the safety of the entire planet. After being coaxed by Metropolis business magnate Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), Wayne seeks an opportunity to face off against Superman as Batman and save their collective cities from any further destruction.

I’ve intentionally left out the innumerable contrivances that lead to these two figures being pitted against each other but it’s important to reiterate just how overstuffed and out of control this narration is. Characters are introduced and re-introduced at such a breakneck pace that plausible development and motivations don’t have a chance to manifest themselves organically from the story. If you don’t already have at least a passing familiarity with most of these comic book characters, I can’t imagine how confusing this movie will be for you. Each scene vacillates so wildly from one narrative thread to another without the slightest sense of tactful cohesion or thoughtful storytelling. There’s just no time for anything meaningful in Batman v Superman.

Beyond the whirlwind of narrative disconnect, just about any shred of spectacle or wonder is undermined by the oppressively brooding nature of the film’s look and feel. Zack Snyder collaborates with his go-to cinematographer Larry Fong to create a vision of Gotham and Metropolis so glum, it makes Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy look positively buoyant by comparison. I don’t have a problem with dark storytelling in comic book adaptions (recent Netflix series Jessica Jones did an excellent job of this) but it’s not enough to just be “gritty”: there has to be an underlying intelligence that informs the stylistic choices.

I sat through Batman v Superman thinking “why does something like The Avengers work so much better than this?” It turns out that there are plenty of answers to that question but most importantly, Marvel has done an excellent job in taking their time to flesh out their characters before bringing them all together. Clearly this is DC’s attempt at creating their own version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but they spend so much time trying to bring these superheroes together that they forgot to create a standalone movie that’s worthwhile on its own merit. It seems comic book fans will need to wait a bit longer for a film that does their legacy justice.