Just a gal and her dog. And bombs. Gabriella Cowperthwaite's moving film, MEGAN LEAVEY

One of the strengths -- there are a lot of them, along with a few weaknesses -- of the new film MEGAN LEAVEY, directed by Gabriella Cowperthwaite (of Blackfish fame) and written by Pamela Gray, Annie Mumolo and Tim Lovestedt is that it refuses to turn the character of its titular Ms Leavey into anything approaching the typical movie bio-pic "wonderful-person" heroine. Megan is clearly a problemed young woman who has major trouble with what we might call just plain socialization. Her "people" skills are greatly wanting, probably due to that usual combo of nature and nurture. In fact, it seems that she joins the U.S. military because it just might prove pretty much the only way out of her currently dead-end life.

As written by that above trio of screenwriters and directed by Ms Cowperthwaite (shown at left), the movie never sugar-coats Megan's lack of social skills. We're not even certain, by film's end, that she has gained much more of these, other than her newfound and terrific ability in handling military dogs.

And yet we're with this young woman -- hoping for her, even as we wince at her mistakes -- all the way. This is due to the filmmakers' skill at showing us various situations in which Megan finds herself, along with the difficult, if typical, ways in which she tries to extricate herself. Usually with negative results. We feel her pain and understand her anger, even if we also wish she could learn how to control/use it more wisely.

All this is due as much to the rich and rounded, warts-and-more-warts performance from actress Kate Mara (above, front and center) in the title role. Ms Mara keeps us with her at every moment, never more so than when, finally, she begins bonding with those military dogs and slowly discovers the one area in which she truly excels -- below -- training those dogs to sniff out possible IEDs in our still current and probably for-fucking-ever middle east wars and then remaining smart and intuitive enough to understand and interpret the dogs in action.

Ms Mara, Ms Cowperthwaite, and her crew do a bang-up job of all this, in particular one lengthy, sustained scene in which Leavey and her dog do that good work, are hit and injured for their trouble, and then keep on doing more of the work immediately after. Though Leavey and her dog(s) were responsible for many "saves" during her time "in country," this single scene is all we need to understand what her work entails and why it was so important.

Cowperthwaite is not known as an action director, but she certainly proves to be one here, and the scene is as good as anything in the recent The Wall, or any other of our middle-east war movies I can readily recall. Suspense, surprise, shock, action, drama -- the director gets it all. (Along the way, she, her writers and Mara even give us a little humor now and then to interrupt the unpleasantness at hand.)

We also get a little "family" time, during which Edie Falco (above, left) plays Megan's controlling and generally selfish mom, and Will Patton her disliked step-dad. A particularly good performance comes from Common, shown below, who proves anything but in the role of Leavy's strong, stern and caring commanding officer, Gunny Martin.

Love interest is provided by Ramon Rodriguez (below), and although he and Mara work well together and never have a dishonest moment, this part of the film seems somewhat "inserted" to provide a bit more popular appeal and to further "humanize" our girl.

No matter. What I have not yet mentioned and what is most true of this film is that it's an "animal movie" (as was Blackfish), in particular a dog story -- so animals lovers will cream and kvell at the goings-on. Deservedly. Cowperthwaite never tries to jerk those tears. There's no need. They'll come unbidden and of their own accord because of the tale told and the outcome here.

Opening wide this Friday, June 9, Megan Leavey , running just short of two hours, may prove the most successful of all the movies released so far by the little distributor Bleecker Street. It's certainly opening at the most theaters I've seen from this distributor. And why not? It's patriotic and pro-military without being stupidly "America first," animals lovers will embrace it, it's feminist without pushing things, and it's an excellent character study, too -- of a woman who can't/won't fit in and then, finally, does.

Wherever you are across the USA, to view/find the theater(s) nearest you, simply click here. In South Florida, the movie will be opening on oodles of screens, including AMC's Sunset Place 24, Hialeah 12, Aventura Mall 24, Tamiami 18, Pompano Beach 18, City Place 20, St Lucie 14, Indian River 24; at Cobb's Hialeah Grand 18 and Miami Lakes 17; at CMX Brickell City Center 10; at Silverspot Coconut Creek Cinemas; at CFB Majestic 11; at Cinemark Palace 20 and Paradise 24; at Flagship Cinemas 14; at Paragon Ridge Plaza 8 and Wellington 10; at REGAL's Magnolia Place 16, Cypress Creek Station 16, The Falls 12, Oakwood 18, Kendall Village Stadium 16, Westfork 13, Treasure Coast Mall 16, Broward Stadium 12, Shadowood 16, Southland Mall Stadium 16, Royal Palm Beach 18, Sawgrass 23, Wellington Cinema 8, and South Beach 18; and at the Regency Cinema 8 in Stuart.

Aping humanity: DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES keeps rebooted franchise firmly on track

Initially, I was disappointed to hear that Matt Reeves was replacing Rupert Wyatt as director of the second in this rebooted and infinitely finer series than any of its predecessors. Although I loved Reeves' Cloverfield (the best modern monster movie of 'em all) but found his remake Let Me In simply unnecessary, Wyatt's record as director (The Escapist and the Rise of the Planet of the Apes) is pretty extraordinary. Still, Reeves (shown below) has come through with a fine and brawny sequel that puts the apes front and center and teaches us that, when it comes to apes -- just like with Christians, Muslims, Jews, Gays, Blacks and what-the-hell, Russians, Romanians and Americans -- there are good ones and there are bad ones.

Oddly, the titles of these two new(er) Apes movies ought to have been reversed. Clearly the first one was the "Dawn" and this new one constitutes the "Rise." But Hollywood has always been pretty terrible regarding handing out movie names, so we shouldn't expect much here. (The penultimate film in this series will probably bear the title, "The End of the Planet of the Apes," while the final film will be called "Return to the Planet of the Apes.") Because Dawn takes place around a decade after the "Simian Plague," as it has come to be called (and which was seen beginning right at the end of Rise), has decimated human kind, the movie sports an apocalyptic look -- all blues and greys and smokey fractures.

The apes are now more or less in charge and can live without the kind of needs -- fuel and electricity and such -- that humans require. Yet the human base that remains in the San Francisco area must somehow get to and make active again the dam that resides in ape territory, which could provide much-needed electrical power. This "quest" pretty much provides the plot of the movie, as well.

It also provides the conflict that arises between the two leading apes -- Caesar (Andy Serkis, above) and Koba (Toby Kebbell, below, left) -- both of whom we met in the earlier film. The former was raised in a loving environment, while the latter was subject to constant abuse for much of his earlier life, and this now marks the enormous difference between the two, as they begin to vie for power.

The humans we meet (shown below, left to right, are Kirk Acevedo, Keri Russell, Jason Clarke, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Enrique Murciano) don't register as strongly as did most of the characters in the earlier "Rise." No fault of the cast, which also includes Gary Oldman (shown at bottom). It's simply that this movie is much more ape-inclined than human: It's the simians' story.

And it's a good one -- fast-moving, exciting, propulsive. If there is nothing here as occasionally joyful or moving as the earlier film (Caesar's last line of dialog, for instance, regarding "home"), this is because "Dawn" is darker in every way. The worst has happened to mankind. We shall see, in the movies that continue this so-far excellent re-boot, if and how humanity struggles to regain a place at the table.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes -- from 20th Century Fox and running two hours and ten minutes -- is (or recently was) playing at a theater near you, in both 3D and 2D (we saw the latter). If you don't catch it now, it'll look plenty fine, come its Blu-ray debut later this year.

Rupert Wyatt's "Rise" has risen -- and those "Ape" movies will never be the same

Destined, I believe, to become one of the great movie heroes of all time -- and ironically so, since we ought to be rooting for the humans (more of this below) -- Caesar, the chimp from the new RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (shown below and above), is an amazing creation. This is thanks to the work of actor Andy Serkis and the motion-capture of the special effects people. (As a true movie buff, however, you owe it to yourself to see Mr Serkis in a film like The Cottage or the upcoming and generally dreadful Brighton Rock, in which he gives the juiciest performance, just to discover how good this guy can be without special effects.) And the movie itself? Not only does Rise put to shame the rest of of the obvious, obtuse films in the Planet of the Apes franchise, thanks to its immediacy, vibrancy and sheer, near-tactile force, it puts in the shade just about every other summer blockbuster of these past few years.

For those of us who felt that director Rupert Wyatt's last terrific film The Escapist was unduly neglected, this "Rise" is payback indeed, showing that he -- along with his writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (who, together, were among the co-writers of the under-appreciated The Relic) -- is capable of handling mainstream and making it, dear god, so much better than what we are generally offered. (I doubt that the simple line "I am home" has ever seemed so poignant or meaningful.) Handling a variety of genres in a single film -- family film, sci-fi, fantasy, action thriller and animal movie -- after giving us a state-of-the-art prison-break film with The Escapist, Mr. Wyatt, shown at right, may only be beginning to display his array of smart movie-making skills. Just wait.

One thing is certainly clear. The guy loves working with men. In a men's prison movie, this is standard, of course, but his ape movie, too, has surprisingly few females on view -- in the office/business venue or even in the "family," which is made up of only men: son (James Franco, above, right, and at bottom, right), dad (John Lithgow) and then Caesar. Thankfully, the primary woman is played by the gorgeous Frieda Pinto, (above, left) who is given little more to do than look beautiful -- which she handles quite well, of course.

How Wyatt and his team move fluidly from the sci-fi and family story to the animal-in-jeopardy and then into the all-stops-out action finale is extremely well done. Yet when the pace quickens, even the gentler, emotional scenes are handled with more subtlety and tact than we expect. Consequently we're moved when we should be (wait'll you see what Caesar draws on his wall of his cage), and then excited beyond measure as action, emotion and rush-to-justice collide.

Audiences, most of them anyway, will be rooting for the apes against the humans -- which is a very odd position for a human being to find himself. But this movie may be timelier than we know. As America sinks deeper into its morass of greed, stupidity and the utter heedlessness of a people following directives so obviously set by those who have our worst interests at heart, the film should prove a fascinating wake-up call, delivered just a tad too late. Clearly, we are incapable of governing ourselves. Great: Let the apes give it a try.

Rise of the POTA is showing just about everywhere, but the movie's web site only allows Fandango to sell you tickets. So click on the link and see if your favorite theater is included.