Mina could use a change.

Oh sure, Mina actually changes plenty. Every night the woman goes out to the bar, the 28-year-old shows up as someone else. She might be a brunette ballerina. Or a red-headed singer. The blond just dons a wig, slaps on a new personality and voila! No more Mina.

Just as well, she figures. Who’d like Mina anyway? Mina doesn’t even like Mina that much.

But still, a change of scenery would be nice. So when her pet-store-owning boss asks her if she’d be willing to transport a pricey golden conure (think large parakeet) across Ireland, she’s happy to do so. A little road trip might do her good.

But when that road takes her deep into the dwindling Irish forests, something goes mysteriously awry. First, her car conks out. Then, when she gets out of the car to search for help, it vanishes altogether.

And let’s not forget the strange flocks of birds overhead. Or the rumbling ground. Or the creepy sign that says, “Point of No Return 12.”

Mina—still toting her own bird around in its nifty little cage—is getting seriously creeped out when she spies a concrete bunker, with an elderly woman standing in the doorway.

“If you care to live, you’re going to have to run,” the woman tells her.

Run where? Well, to the bunker, presumably. So run Mina does, golden conure swinging by her side. She rumbles into the bunker, takes a breath and eyes her new surroundings.

It’s a simple place: a table. A couch or two. A tube TV and an old-timey phonograph. Oh, and three people. The old woman introduces herself as Madelyn. Danny’s a young man—not much more than a boy, really. And then there’s Ciara, a young woman around Mina’s age. She’s still hopeful that her husband might come back after leaving the bunker—a place they call the “Coop”—six days ago. 

Then there’s that wall of glass. Mina’s barely had time to take a second breath before Madelyn asks everyone to line up and face that glass, so that they can get a good look at the Coop’s newest resident.

They? The Watchers, of course. Those outside the Coop, those who rule the forest, those who hide in in the day and run wild and ravenous in the dark.

Those who kill anyone they catch.

The forest stretches too far in every direction to leave before nightfall. Ciara’s been in the Coop for five months. Madelyn? She might’ve been there for years.

Yeah, Mina needed a change.

But this? Not the change she had in mind.

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“We’ve come to it at last, the great battle of our time.” – Gandalf

The Return of the King, the climactic chapter in J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, draws to a close the events of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Gollum continues leading Frodo and Sam toward Mordor. But he has no intention of letting the hobbits destroy his “precious” by casting the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. The emaciated, desperate and devious creature plants seeds of doubt in Frodo’s mind about Sam’s loyalty (which remains unwavering). That allows Gollum to lure Frodo, alone, into the lair of a giant spider named Shelob. With Sam alienated and Frodo dead, the ring would be Gollum’s for the taking.

Concurrently, the armies of men begin marshaling their forces to defend Gondor’s seven-level city of kings, Minas Tirith. Soaring more than 700 feet above its main gate, and fortified with numerous walls and battlements, Minas Tirith would seem impregnable. However, the dark forces massing against it are formidable. Orcs. Haradrim. Easterlings. Nazgul. Huge trolls that tote battering rams and wield massive maces. Rampaging, elephant-like giants called Mumakil.

There’s no king to defend Gondor from within. Denethor (father of Boromir and Faramir) is the city’s steward, but pride, grief and an unsound mind have rendered him ineffective at protecting his people. Only Gandalf and Aragorn (the one, true king) can lead the ragtag armies of Middle-earth in what could be their last stand against Sauron. Among the human armies that ride to Gondor’s aid is Rohan, led by King Theoden. Hidden among their ranks, the lady Eowyn and an impassioned hobbit seize the chance to fight for all they love and believe in. The troops are vastly outnumbered. To even the score, Aragorn hopes to collect on a centuries-old debt and enlist a legion of cursed undead to fight on their side. Little does Aragorn know that his true love, the elf princess Arwen, has foregone immortal bliss in the Gray Havens in favor of a mortal life with him. But she grows weak. Only the defeat of Sauron will restore her health and secure their royal future. That, of course, is up to Sam and Frodo. Can they survive Gollum’s nefarious schemes? And if so, can the armies of man buy them the time they need to fulfill their calling and drive a stake into the heart of evil?

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The confrontation of good vs. evil in mythical Middle-earth continues. Let’s jump right in—as the film does—to the second act in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy [for information about act one, see our review for The Fellowship of the Ring]. With the fellowship broken, warriors Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli embark on a rescue mission, tracking the detachment of battle-bred Orcs that made off with Merry and Pippin. In the process, they encounter horsemen of Rohan and visit a kingdom facing extermination at the hands of Saruman’s Uruk-hai army. The Rohan monarch, King Theoden, has had his mind poisoned by a traitorous advisor named Grima Wormtongue, leaving Theoden incapable of ruling his people. But intervention by Gandalf (we learn that he conquered the fiery Balrog and emerged as Gandalf the White) restores Theoden to full health. Wormtongue is exiled, and returns to his true master, Saruman, who plans to wipe out Rohan at the hands of 10,000 Uruk-hai soldiers in a climactic battle at Helm’s Deep.

Merry and Pippin escape the Orcs on their own and wander into Fangorn Forest where they meet Treebeard, part of a race of tree-like creatures called Ents. The Hobbits appeal to the Ents to join the fight against Saruman, but the complacent Ents are reluctant to do so until they realize their future may be threatened as well.

Meanwhile, ringbearer Frodo and his trusty companion, Sam, must proceed alone toward Mount Doom to fulfill their mission of destroying the seductive gold band coveted by the dark lord Sauron. The pair realizes they’ve been followed when a pathetically emaciated, psychologically tormented creature named Gollum is caught stalking their camp. Gollum’s history with—and addiction to—the ring make him both a valuable asset and a potential liability to their quest. Gollum can guide them to Mount Doom. But are his intentions honorable? Is he simply biding his time in order to kill the Hobbits and steal the ring? It’s a risk Frodo—who is beginning to show wear and tear from his immense burden—believes they should take.

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It’s helpful to think of the three-hour epic The Fellowship of the Ring as the first act of a three-act play which includes the films The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Middle-earth, with its diverse population of men, elves, hobbits, dwarfs and wizards, stands at a crossroads. For generations, these races and tribes have battled to keep the dark lord Sauron at bay. Insulated from this ongoing conflict are the hobbits, a carefree, simple-hearted colony of little people too busy farming the land, enjoying food and raising families to care much about the ominous occurrences outside of the Shire. But their pastoral existence, indeed the future of all Middle-earth, is threatened when Sauron, obsessed with recovering an evil ring that would give him supreme power, learns that his prize is somewhere in the Shire.

Of course, one might assume that a righteous hero could use the potent ring of gold to thwart Sauron’s mounting forces. Not so. Many have tried . . . and failed. Created for evil, the ring can only be used for evil and corrupts whomever wears it. It can yield no good. That’s why fate has chosen a virtuous hobbit named Frodo Baggins to guard the ring until it can be thrown into the fiery bowels of Mount Doom where it was forged.

After learning about his destiny and the dangerous ring’s history from a wise wizard named Gandalf, Frodo embarks on his journey alone. He’s barely out of the Shire when he gets company. His hobbit pals Sam, Merry and Pippin join him, though they have no clue what they’re getting themselves into. A series of scary scrapes and narrow escapes lead the youths to a pub where they connect with a mysterious wanderer named Aragorn. Pursued by black-clad Ringwraiths (mounted, sword-wielding spectres) and a growing army of orcs (hideous, screeching goblins), the young heroes head for Rivendell, where representatives of Middle-earth’s inhabitants form a fellowship to escort Frodo on his perilous mission to Mount Doom. The fellowship is made up of Frodo, Gandalf, Sam, Pippin, Merry, Aragorn (revealed to be heir to the throne of Gondor), Boromir (a warrior of Gondor), Gimli (a burly dwarf) and Legolas (an archer elf). After three hours of thrills, chills and impressive visual effects, the fellowship is broken, and these characters chart separate courses in the protection of all that is good.

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Koichi Shikishima didn’t die when he was supposed to.

It’s 1945, and the Japanese kamikaze pilot has just launched into what’s supposed to be his sacrificial mission. But instead, Koichi takes a detour, landing at a Japanese mechanical outpost, Odo Island. He claims his plane was having some issues—issues that no one on Odo Island can seem to identify.

The truth is, Koichi is a coward.

One mechanic doesn’t blame him for backing out. They’ve been fighting a losing battle against the United States for a couple of years now.

“Why obey an order to ‘die honorably’ when the outcome is already clear?” The man says.

But Koichi has no time to grapple with his actions: Alarms blare. The outpost is under attack. And when they shine a light on their attacker, they find a massive reptilian creature dubbed Godzilla whose claws tear through the base like a hot knife through butter. The others task Koichi with running to his plane and shooting the beast, but he freezes in terror. And by sunrise, he’s one of a mere two survivors.

A couple of years later, Koichi’s still plagued with guilt over the deaths of the men at Odo Island. It certainly doesn’t help that others constantly remind him of his failure. After all, kamikaze pilots aren’t exactly supposed to come back home. The disgraced man takes a job on a small minesweeper crew, sailing the Pacific Ocean to find and detonate leftover bombs.

It’s not long before Koichi and his crew come face to face with Godzilla. And thanks to United States atomic bomb testing at Bikini Atoll, the beast is even bigger and stronger than Koichi remembers, having been mutated by the radiation. What’s more, the seemingly invincible monster is on a crash course to collide with the Japanese mainland, and the war-weary nation is nowhere near prepared to defend itself.

But for a coward, Koichi sure seems to gravitate to jobs with high mortality rates. And fighting a nuclear reptilian beast with no discernable weakness certainly fits the bill.

Perhaps it’ll even let Koichi finally die with honor—even if the outcome is already clear.

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Colt Seavers used to fall for a living.

Sure, it wasn’t all falling. Sometimes he’d just dangle off a helicopter. Or throw himself against a rock. Or maybe light himself on fire.

All in a day’s work for a Hollywood stuntman.

Not that Colt complained about all the falls and jumps and flames. As the go-to body double for the Tom Ryder, one of the top action stars on the planet, work was fun. The pay was decent. And more often than not, he worked side-by-side with his camera-operating girlfriend, Jody Moreno.

But all that was before Colt had an uncomfortable reunion with gravity: A fall went wrong, and the accident broke his back, his spirit and his relationship. And while he physically recovered, Colt abandoned his career and Jody both. He works as a valet now: The closest he gets to stunt work is parallel parking.

Or it was—until Gail called.

That’d be Executive Producer Gail. Hollywood Mogul Gail. Tom Ryder’s Favorite Film Exec Gail. Seems that Tom’s working on another huge movie in Australia—something called Metalstorm. Gail wants Colt to get back in the game and be the film’s primary stuntman.

Oh, and did Gail mention that Jody—Colt’s still-beloved ex-girlfriend—is the film’s director? And that she asked for Colt specifically?

That’s all Colt needs to hear. He hops on the first flight to Australia, arrives on set and discovers that Jody … said no such thing. In fact, she’d be quite happy if Colt took the first flight home.

Executive producers have never been known for their honesty.

But soon, Gail tells Colt why she really flew him all the way to Australia: Tom is missing. He hasn’t been seen for days. Gail knows that Tom and Colt have a long history: If anyone can find the movie star, sober him up and get him back on set, it’s Colt.

But finding Tom won’t be so easy.

For years, Colt used to fall for a living. But this time he’s working without a harness—and he just might be falling into more than he can handle.

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They worked together, laughed together. And even though they were so very different, they became the best of friends. Through thick and thin they were held together by Ginny’s strong and persuasive personality. For years, these girls would endure a boring year just waiting for summer and another exhilarating summer camp together. 

Five or six decades later, though, their BFF “exhilaration” has, well, waned.

Mary is now an ER nurse who has a rather unhappy marriage. Nora is a widowed workaholic CEO of a chemical company. And Ginny? Ginny Moon is a Dr. Phil-like famous personality known far and wide for her catchphrase: “Get your sh-t together!”

Ginny is also a force of nature. So when she decides that it’s high time to gather the girls together for a summer camp reunion, it will happen. She spares no expense or effort to rent out Camp Pinnacle and to create a massive reunion for all the many campers from years ago.

And the three besties? Well they get nothing short of a decked-out, three-person cabin, redecorated and stocked by Martha Stewart herself.

Hey, even way-back-when camp crushes Tommy and Stevie D show up, much to Mary and Nora’s delight. Ginny, you see, has plans to not only rekindle the flames of friendship with her girls but maybe to spice up her friend’s lives with a little shoehorned-in-place romance as well.

I mean that’s what a relationship guru does, right?

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One last chance.

That’s all Michael Light wants: one last chance to stand in the winner’s circle. One last chance for all the pain to lead to something special. One last chance to erase the title of “the greatest adventure racer to never win a world championship.”

In the 2015 Adventure Racing World Championships—Michael’s last race, his supposed swan song—he and his team, literally, got stuck in the mud. His team didn’t even finish that year. A bitter end indeed for a man as competitive as Michael.

“I raced for 19 years,” he gripes to wife, Helen. “That’s what I’m remembered for?”

But three years later, Michael feels like he has one more adventure race in him. And this time, he’ll win. He knows it. He won’t accept anything else.

But he can’t do it alone.

Adventure racing is unlike any other competition. You race as a four-person team (one of whom must be a woman), crossing hundreds of miles of rugged terrain over a week or more.

Teams must hit a series of checkpoints during the race, but the path they take to those checkpoints is up to them: Taking a convenient road is one way. Taking a shortcut through the jungle might be another. Teams might well navigate canyons and cliff faces, cross rivers and chasms. They’ll run and bike and swim through the rain, the snow, the heat, the dark of night—hardly sleeping, barely resting.

“Suffering is a skill,” Michael says. And Michael can suffer with the best of them. But he needs a team that’s willing to suffer just as much.

He turns first to William “Chik” Chikerotis, a legendary racer whose age—and bum knee—is catching up with him. Skilled climber Olivia Baker is next: At first she declines, saying she’s given the sport up. But her father convinces her otherwise.

But Michael has no prayer of getting any sponsorship money without bringing social media star Leo along. Michael would rather break a foot than race with Leo again; he was on Michael’s miserable 2015 race, taking embarrassing pictures all the way. But Leo’s a good racer, too. And if suffering is a skill, Michael can suffer his company.

They train. The race begins—more than 400 miles and an estimated 10 days through the worst terrain the Dominican Republic has to offer: jungles, cliffs, unfordable rivers. And every checkpoint seems to be teeming with stray dogs, looking for a handout.

One dog takes a shine to Michael. Michael gives the pooch a meatball.

And then, just like that, the team is off and running again, heading to the next checkpoint.

But the dog—a dog with a bleeding back, broken teeth, too many hard nights to imagine, too many bad encounters to count—sneaks out of the checkpoint and follows, perhaps seeking, finally, love. Companionship.

One last chance.

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In the 2011 film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Will Rodman attempted to create a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. When he tested the new drug on a chimpanzee namd Bright Eyes, it made her more intelligent. And when she later gave birth to a son named Caesar, the baby chimp was able to talk.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go so well from there. The drug lost efficacy after just a few years. And the new formulation—while giving apes the ability to speak—was infectious and deadly to humans.

As the events of successive sequels (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes) show us,the human population was eventually decimated by the virus. Human survivors went underground, allowing apes to rise up and become the dominant species on Earth.

Caesar led the primates through that transition, but he’s several generations dead now. Nature has reclaimed the world. Most humans are mute and primitive. And apes, though still the dominant force, have long forgotten their roots too.

But that all changes when Noa, a young chimpanzee, meets Mae, a human girl who can speak.

Mae’s presence in Noa’s village causes his peaceful clan to be attacked by another tribe of apes. Noa escapes, but his father is murdered, his people are kidnapped, and their homes burned to the ground.

Noa teams up with Mae after learning that she knows where his clan has been taken. But if there’s one thing that every ape knows, it’s this: Never trust a human.

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Irena hustles into the kitchen, ready to clean the plates. The Nazis in the dining room above, after all, are not known for their patience. But kind Mr. Schultz encourages her to sit. Eat.

“Chew your food,” he tells her with a smile. “No one is chasing you.”

Mr. Shultz looks at the 21-year-old Polish woman and is reminded—in her intelligence and spark—of his own daughter. And though he rarely likes getting involved, he gives young Irena what little wisdom he can about how to survive in a Poland occupied by pitiless forces.

“You look down,” Schultz instructs her.

Not to the left or right, not up or straight. You look at your own two feet. You look, in other words, only to yourself.

“Worry about you,” he says. “Take care of you.”

Perhaps, if things had been different, Irena would’ve followed his advice. She would’ve fended for herself and let everyone else do the same.

But then she witnesses the Nazis commit an act of absolute brutality, killing a young Jewish mother and her baby before marching blithely on. She can’t look down after seeing this unspeakable horror. She can’t look away. She must act. In a country where blood is less precious than the cobblestones it covers, Irena decides that, if she can save a life, she will. Or, at least, risk her life trying.

Try she must—and soon.

Irena works for Maj. Eduard Rugemer, a munitions manufacturer for the Nazi war machine. She serves dinner, cleans the house and oversees 11 Jewish men and women, all of whom make uniforms for the front. But she learns that, soon, all the town’s Jews will be rounded up and shipped away. How can Irena possibly buck Nazi authority and keep those men and women safe?

But then she receives an unexpected promotion: Maj. Rugemer is moving up in the world. He’s been given a new, much larger, Polish villa, suitable for hosting the lavish dinner parties expected of him. Rugemer wants Irena to become his housekeeper and supervise the home’s renovations—from its splendid public rooms to its up-to-date kitchen to its cavernous cellar.

It’s a big house—far, far too big for one Nazi major and his Polish housekeeper. The cellar alone could house, oh, a dozen people, with plenty of room to spare.

And, quickly, Irena hatches a plan. What better place to hide people from the Nazis than literally in a Nazi’s own basement?

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