Whenever someone makes fun of Superman’s red briefs, I roll my eyes. Are his red undies pointless? Maybe from a utilitarian point of view, but there’s a good reason they’re there: to provide contrast to the suit and to keep it from appearing boring. Visually, it’s perfect. Superman without his exterior underwear seems even more childlike to me, like a grown man wearing a pajama onesie. If everything must have a function, then why not ditch the cape while you’re at it? The trademark curl? Hell, why not just change his fucking name while you’re at it?

Ant-Man embraces the fact that its source material is an old comic book. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) is the original Ant-Man who hangs up the shrink-suit early in the picture. In present times he discovers his villainous protégé, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), has stolen his research and plans to sell it to shady individuals. This all sounds awfully standard on paper, but it’s tweaked just enough to function perfectly fine in a comic book movie.

Soon we meet Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a former cat burglar who’s trying to go straight so he can be a good father. Yeah, we’ve seen that a million times before, so it’s best that the movie doesn’t dwell on it. The problem Lang is he’s supposed to be a kick-ass cat burglar, but he and his crew are depicted as bumbling idiots for comedic relief. It’s just kind of hard to believe Pym, a brilliant scientist, would pass the torch to somebody who gets captured by police so frequently.

If Ant-Man hadn’t been included in a double-feature at the drive-in, I would have skipped it. You can’t blame me, though, since we all assumed Disney was backtracking from the standard set by Guardians of the Galaxy after it had been announced Edgar Wright was removed from the director’s seat. There’s no doubt in my mind Wright would have made a (much) better movie, but his stamp of creativity is still here. The final product offers something much more imaginative than routine Marvel movies.

I don’t think there’s enough here to sustain the inevitable sequels, but I’m happy to report the initial outing is not a normal movie. Normal movies don’t have the audacity to make battlefields out of briefcases. Normal movies destroy entire cities, Ant-Man is content with destroying train sets. That kind of ingenuity is so good it hurts and it’s no doubt remnants from Wright’s time on the project.

Two of my favorite subjects are terrible movies and movies which were never made. I always assumed we dodged a bullet when Tim Burton’s Superman Lives fell through, but I’m not so sure anymore. After watching the Kickstarted documentary The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? I think Tim Burton’s Superman would have beaten Snyder’s fist-over-fist. At any rate, we can all agree it would have been better than Wild Wild West, which is the mega-flop Warner Bros. pivoted to after killing Burton’s passion project.

I know it’s popular today to hate comics of the 90s (I still like old school Spawn), but DC’s Death of Superman would have made an interesting movie, even if it did embody what was wrong with the era. I read Kevin Smith’s leaked script back in the AOL days: some of Smith’s dialogue was goofy and verbose (and never would have survived a rewrite), but it was an exciting read if you imagined Christopher Reeve in the part. According to the documentary, that’s exactly what Smith was going for when he wrote it.

Since the movie was never made, The Death of “Superman Lives” uncovers a treasure trove of concept art, including some of Burton’s own drawings. The sheer variety of aliens they designed for Brainiac’s ship suggests we missed out on something special. Interestingly, the budget was initially estimated at $300 million. Comparatively, Waterworld cost $175 million and was the most expensive movie up until that point. Naturally, the studio ordered many cuts to the script.

When you see some of the more fantastical designs for Superman’s look, you can be forgiven for wondering what the hell the production was thinking. The documentary makes it clear Burton’s crew wasn’t taking liberties with Superman’s traditional look, but experimenting with suits he’d wear later in the movie, including a regeneration suit following his resurrection. Burton confesses it’s the reason he’s a lot more careful today about letting pre-production material get out: artists need time to experiment behind closed doors.

While I wouldn’t say it’s a great documentary, it does what great documentaries do: it changes my opinion. I now think Tim Burton’s Superman Lives may have been a fine picture.

X-Men: First Class opens in a concentration camp. The boy who will one day become Magneto is separated from his parents by Nazis, which causes his mutant powers to unlock. Stricken with grief, he discovers he can bend metal with his mind. And you’re right: we have seen this exact scene before.

Around the same time, young Charles Xavier has learned he can read minds. He demonstrates the ability when he discovers a young and homeless Mystique rummaging in his kitchen. I don’t remember Professor X ever recognizing the shapeshifter in the films set after this one, but just go with it. You’ll have bigger challenges with this film, believe me.

Fast forward a few years later and an adult Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is searching for Dr. Schmidt (Kevin Bacon), who cruelly studied his powers of magnetism and murdered his mother. We learn that adult Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and adult Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) have been hiding their mutant powers ever since they met. Mystique is forced to appear in her human form whenever they’re in public; she thinks men are unlikely to find her attractive in her natural blue form (um… sure).

Schmidt has escaped to America under the guise of Sebastian Shaw. During a stakeout, CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) learns Shaw is a mutant who plans to incite nuclear war. See, mutants were born of radiation so they will survive the nuclear winter (never mind the blasts). Most humans, on the other hand, will not. When you’ve got mutants as dangerous as Shaw, you can see why the government wants to track them all, but I digress. Again, there will be harder pills to swallow.

Charles and Mystique are recruited by the CIA to go after Shaw. Charles convinces Magneto to join him. They’re going to need a team, of course, so they scrape the absolute bottom of the barrel. See, for much of the original run of Uncanny X-Men, there was a problem: it was kind of a mediocre comic. It wasn’t until Giant-Size X-Men when the team got interesting. Which begs the question: Why bother making a film about the X-Men team no one, including Marvel itself, gave a shit about?

Look, all superhero movies are at least kind of goofy, but First Class takes the cake. Even the recognizable X-men are portrayed by younger actors with roughly half the gravitas of the old ones. Most of their powers are dull and useless. Worse, Magneto seems to exist in his own movie most of the time, a more serious movie, a darker movie, and a better movie. I would have much rather seen Magneto: Origins than this uneven mess.

Tonal shifts aside, it’s a well made movie made by an accomplished director whose first three movies I admired tremendously. It just isn’t exciting subject matter, unfortunately, and I hope he gets a chance to return to the less-Hollywood fare where he originally made a name.

Most people who give a shit about Batman have probably already seen The Dark Knight Rises. I just feel no urgency to see a movie that’s going to make a billion dollars anyway and I’d rather give my money to Dredd any day of the week. Besides, going to the multiplex fills me with as much dread as getting up for work after a long night at the bar.

Speaking of dread (Have you seen Dredd?), I have a hunch that Nolan was burnt out on the idea of making another Batman movie this soon. If it took him so many years to write Inception (twelve, by his count), I can see how he may have felt pressured wrapping the series up, particularly after the serendipitous forces that made the previous film so unusually good. Nolan does a remarkable job, all things considered, but it’s not even as good as his first Batman picture.

The Dark Knight Rises opens with an airborne heist. We’ve seen that a million times, in a few James Bond films and Cliffhanger. Other than the introduction of Bane, the film’s powerhouse villain, there really isn’t a lot to discuss here. I mean, they’re not hijacking gold bars or anything as tired as like that, so it’s fresh enough and the photography is exceptional. There’s a punk rock energy to Tom Harden’s performance in the sense his version of Bane sounds absolutely ridiculous in the best (least commercial) way possible, as if telling the audience, “This is what I sound like. Don’t like it? Tough shit.”

Cut to a charity event at Wayne Manor. We learn it’s been eight years since Harvey Dent died and Batman disappeared, accused of murder. Gotham is mostly crime-free and Commissioner Gordon comes this close to telling a crowd of people that the district attorney turned into a raging psychopath at the end of the last picture. Bruce Wayne, it turns out, has become a Howard Hughes recluse whose knees are shot. That night, he catches a cat burglar (Anne Hathaway) stealing his mother’s pearls, but gets foiled by his old man cane. (Have you noticed all the franchise heroes are suddenly allowed to age lately? It’s an interesting trend, but a trend nonetheless.)

That’s where the movie lost me. Forget comparing Catwoman’s character to the other films—within the context of this film, the character is too goofy, too Hollywood, and too unbelievable. I’ve seen Schwarzenegger films with fewer one-liners. Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises is like the ewoks in Return of the Jedi. The piece just doesn’t fit the puzzle. Hathaway is great with what she’s given, and predictably looks hot in the part, but this is one of the many reasons I think Nolan needed a little more time to let this one cook.

My second biggest complaint is Marion Cotillard, Wayne’s love interest, who you’ll remember from Inception. Movies in general could use a lot more Cotillard, as far as I’m concerned, but her character in this movie is pretty pointless until the point abruptly emerges. Then there’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I love this guy, but here he’s a little too run-of-the-mill. We all knew it when we saw the trailer, so let’s not even pretend this is a spoiler: he’s Robin, but don’t expect to see him suit up in his trademark underwear and leggings in the Nolanverse.

Then there’s the lighthearted comedy relief. It’s not as bad as, say, Johnny Knoxville in any non-Jackass movie he’s ever been in. It’s not even that bad, really… it’s just not right for this film. I know Rises was designed to be lighter than the last film (alluding to Dent’s speech about the night getting darkest before the dawn), but a second heist, and the ensuing car chase, struck me as a little too routine for Nolan. Meanwhile, the scenes where Batman and Catwoman fight side by side are reminiscent of Batman’s goofier days.

About halfway through the movie, Nolan drops blunt hints to the film’s conclusion. He wants us to know what happens in the end because there’s more to it than what you would expect. The ending is vague and it didn’t necessarily work for me at first. Thinking back on it, though… yeah, it works (I guess). As far as trilogy-caps go, Rises is among the best. That’s a rare honor even if the competition isn’t very thick.

You should give your money to Dredd instead.