Action & Adventure

Kamala Khan isn't your typical Marvel superhero. Sure, she battles bad guys. But she's also a Muslim high school student living with her Pakistani-born parents in Jersey City — which makes Ms. Marvel the first show or film in the Marvel universe to feature a Muslim hero.

When Yeoh first read the script for Everything Everywhere All at Once, she gave a big sigh of relief: Finally, here was a film that put a middle-aged mother in the role of action hero. She spoke with Tonya Mosley about her path from dancer to martial artist to leading lady, as well as joining the boys' club of stunt work.

Major characters go down in showers of blood and gore in the latest stand-alone Wolverine film. Critic David Edelstein says that Logan is an "incredibly bleak ... crackerjack piece of work."

George Miller's latest Mad Max film, Fury Road, has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, but the director still isn't sure how the movie will hold up over time.

Reviewer David Edelstein says Joss Whedon's new film plays like "a strategic set-up for a Hollywood franchise." Viewers will be blitzed by sound and fury — and a certain amount of "gobbledegook."

The newest Marvel comic adaptation features five motley warriors, including a raccoon and a tree, against an armada of space villains. The big-budget effects-laden movie is light and funny.

Director Gore Verbinski and star Johnny Depp have turned in a busy, expensive take on the masked lawman of the Wild West. It's long, tone-deaf, and ultimately crushingly bad.

Director and co-writer Shane Black kicks Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr., out of his comfort zone — a choice that has Stark functioning as a lone gumshoe, thinking like a garage mechanic and, when necessary, straight-up MacGyvering a fix.

James Bond and The Rolling Stones both turn 50 this year. As critic John Powers points out, both may have been born in response to a dying British Empire, but their evolving legacies have reflected the times through which these brands have lived.

Two of the year's most highly anticipated movies arrive this week. Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, and Skyfall, the third film starring Daniel Craig as James Bond 007, directed by American Beauty Oscar-winner Sam Mendes. Film critic David Edelstein has this review of both.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm first published Snow White in 1812, but the story had been around for centuries and would continue to evolve. Opening Friday is the latest and perhaps darkest treatment, Snow White and the Huntsman, starring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth.

In Joss Whedon's The Avengers, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor and Captain America unite in what, on the basis of advance ticket sales, promises to be one of the biggest blockbusters of the summer. Critic David Edelstein says the movie's a blast -- and one that will let fanboys geek thoroughly out.

The latest Marvel Comics superhero movie stars Chris Evans as the 98-pound weakling who transforms into Captain America. Critic David Edelstein says the film "has an easy, classical pace and a lot of good, old-fashioned craftsmanship."

One humble, one humongous, these movies couldn't be more different. Larry Crowne is low-tech with human-scaled characters. Transformers: Dark of the Moon is like War of the Worlds on steroids. But in their own way, each one is perfect for the holiday weekend, says critic David Edelstein.

Barry, who died Sunday at age 77, wrote the scores for 11 Bond films, as well as the theme songs for Goldfinger and Thunderball. Fresh Air remembers the prolific, Oscar-winning film composer with highlights from a 1999 interview.

Both The Green Hornet and The Dilemma open this weekend. The two big-budget male buddy pictures -- one starring Seth Rogen; the other Kevin James and Vince Vaughn -- illustrate that the juvenile "bromance" genre is just getting old.

Two gross-out movies open this weekend. Todd Phillips' buddy comedy Due Date and Danny Boyle's 127 Hours, about a hiker, played by James Franco, who has to chop off his own arm after he's pinned under a boulder. David Edelstein says the two films are "relentlessly in your face."

Critic David Edelstein says the effects-mad blockbuster is a smart piece of work. The sequel to the first Iron Man stars Robert Downey Jr. as a billionaire superhero who must simultaneously do battle with his enemies and with Congress.

Luc Besson's latest action fantasy, From Paris With Love, stars John Travolta as an FBI agent and Jonathan Rhys Myers as a diplomat trying to stop a terrorist attack in Paris. The story moves at warp speed — and it doesn't skimp on thrills.

Critic David Edelstein says Watchmen is the most faithful film adaptation of a comic book ever — which might not be a good thing.