Movies

Frank Herbert’s “Dune”—the shimmering mirage that has sent both readers and filmmakers staggering deliriously across the cinematic wastelands—is the sort of Everest that seems to breed not triumph but splendid, gasping misadventure. The mythos is so overstuffed, so cryptic and unyielding, that every fresh assault on its slopes promises a new brand of madness: what you get, more often than not, is altitude sickness in Dolby Surround.

Fasten your spandex—Marvel’s most obnoxious court jester has stormed the palace and, with an exhausted growl, dragged along cinema’s most battered—if not beloved—mutt: Wolverine. Ryan Reynolds, as Deadpool, doesn’t simply arrive in the MCU—he crash-lands, splattered across the screen with the sort of anarchic acid you expect when a franchise finally stops playing spin-the-bottle and just licks the wounds. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, back from the grave, looks at once chewed up and feral—he’s the aging gunslinger who’s realized the last bar’s happy hour is over and the piano man’s dead.