"World War I"

1957 · Stanley Kubrick · 88 min · War

Paths of Glory is 88 minutes of cold fury aimed at the machinery of war, and every second counts. Kubrick strips the anti-war film down to its essential argument: the real enemy isn't the opposing army but the institution that treats soldiers as expendable arithmetic. Kirk Douglas anchors the film with controlled outrage, the trench sequences are technically stunning, and the courtroom scenes carry more tension than most action films manage. It was banned in France for nearly two decades, which tells you everything about how effectively it hits its target. Nothing about it has aged.

2017 · Patty Jenkins · 141 min · Action / Adventure / Fantasy

Wonder Woman succeeds as an origin story and as an action film for roughly two-thirds of its runtime, buoyed by Gal Gadot's magnetic presence and a handful of sequences that rank among the best the superhero genre has produced. The sincerity of its message lands, the World War I setting provides freshness, and the chemistry between its leads carries slower stretches with ease. Then the final act arrives and trades everything distinctive about the film for a CGI battle against a poorly realized villain. It's a frustrating stumble because everything before it was working so well.