Clint Eastwood isn't necessarily bad here; at times, he's even enjoyable. But while I don't wish to be indelicate, there's no getting around the fact that, at the time of filming last year, Clint was 90, and he looks 90, and sounds 90, and moves 90 … and somehow, maddeningly, not one character in the film seems to notice.

An introduction to the martial-arts master and eventual world-saver who debuted, in comic-book form, in the 1970s, Destin Daniel Cretton's MCU outing is prototypical origin-story world-building to its teeth, but not entirely unenjoyable.

I wish I could say that writer/director Lisa Joy's futuristic noir gave Hugh Jackman opportunities to access the performer's lighthearted, effortlessly winning side that we rarely get to see outside of him playing The Greatest Showman on-screen or at awards shows. Alas, it doesn't. But at least this intricately plotted, visually arresting crime thriller gives its audiences a few legitimate reasons to grin.

Writer/director James Gunn's re-imagining of David Ayer's Suicide Squad – now outfitted with a “The” and an identifiable sense of humor – is almost inarguably a stronger piece of work than DC Films' five-year-old predecessor: more tightly structured, more visually audacious, almost entirely exposition-free. Yet it's still a rather depressing experience, because instead of finding ways to make the “old” movie better, Gunn appears merely to have found ways to make a Guardians of the Galaxy flick gorier.