Star Trek Into the Darkenss

‘Star Trek: Into the Darkness’ is a worthy sequel to the reboot started by J.J. Abrams in 2009.  It lives up to it’s promise: “This is not your father’s Star Trek”.   Given that I consider myself a purist when it comes to Star Trek, I am surprised I enjoy this reboot as much as I do.  In fact, in some ways, it veers away from what Star Trek is supposed to be all about.  Growing up, there were two groups of people.  Star Wars fans or Star Trek fans.  Both are impressive views of the future and of science fiction story telling, but they approached it in very different ways.  Star Wars is all about the swashbuckling.  Basic stories of good and evil told in a classic fashion albeit in the wondrous worlds of science fiction.  Star Trek was more subtle. The voyages of the Starship Enterprise were about exploration and the discovery.  It explored the philosophical and human conditions through science fiction metaphor.  We saw our own political and moral crisises illustrated and exaggerated through the stories of observing other races and planets.  Star Trek was much more of an intellectual exercise of what was possible for humans to aspire to.  Star Wars was all Saturday matinee swashbuckling adventure.

The director J.J.Abrams takes the Star Trek concept in a decidingly more action based direction.  In this day and age of summer block busters one has to compete with the explosions and super human exploits of almost every big budget film out there.  Abrams does this unapologetically and I must confess that I thoroughly enjoy his vision.  This isn’t to say that Abrams doesn’t explore the characters or the inner demons they wrestle with, but the star of these movies is the visceral. 

J.J.Abrams has found a way to skirt the Star Trek purist’s devotion to sequence and timeline in the Star Trek universe by deftly creating an ‘alternate universe’.  This allows him more freedom to create a vision where we are not exactly sure what will happen.  SPOILER ALERT: This film borrows loosely from the events that took place in the classic “Star Trek :The Wrath of Kahn”, the 2nd installment in the original movie series and by many accounts, the best of the Star Trek series.  It’s difficult to go into too much detail without revealing too many of the surprises in this film.  In my humble opinion Ricardo Montalban (who was almost considered a kitsche actor at that time) deserved to be nominated for an Academy Award for his Milton inspired performance of Khan Noonien Singh.  To this day, he is arguably the best Start Trek villain ever.  With that being said, I was pleasantly amazed by Benedict Cumberbatch’s rebooted portrayal of this great villain.  He is receiving universal praise for his performance and I predict this will be a breakout role for him.

The story itself takes place just prior to the 5 year mission made legendary by the TV series.  When a series of terrorist attacks rock Star Fleet to it’s core, The impulsive and brash (and still untested) Captain James T. Kirk talks Star Fleet Command into letting the Enterprise go after the suspected culprit.  Unfortunately, the rogue villain (called Ben Harrison at this point) has taken refuge on the Klingon home world and any attempt to bring him to justice could ignite an interstellar war.  While the original series celebrated Kirk’s brashness and cowboy ways, this version explores the consequences of action without prudence.  Ego coming before decisions of llfe and death is not always a good thing (or even mostly). 

The relationship between Kirk and Spock was always one of polar opposites.  Kirk leaps before he looks and prefers action to prudence where Spock was a study of dispassionate logic and analysis.  Each viewpoint ineffective and dangerous  taken to the extreme, but the two balance each other out and somehow the two form a close bond because of it.  This film does a great job exploring the budding ‘bromance’ between Kirk and Spock.  One where, despite the tension and frustration,  grows stronger than any other relationship they have known.  

This film provides the action and adventure that the current money spending theatre crowd demands, but provides plenty of inside jokes and tributes to the old series to quell the agitated über nerds who obsess on how this film doesn’t fit into the Star Trek universe. Cumberbatch is the true star of this film even though I thought much of his performance borrowed liberally from Tom Hiddelson’s Loki portrayal in last year’s ‘The Avengers’.  Cumberbatch is the visceral force of this film and you are mesmerized during each solioqy (actually , they aren’t soliloquies, but you barely notice anyone else in the room when he goes off on a rant).  Cumberbatch’s excruciating pronunciation and emphasis of every syllable that comes out of his mouth  oozes evil and menace.  The slower he talks the more intently we listen.  Just a great performance.  

I give this film high marks and is a worthy successor not only as a sequel to the last Star Trek, but to J.J. Abram’s status as an A-list Hollywood director.  It’s going to be interesting to see how he transfers this mojo as he heads the new Star Wars trilogy coming out in 2015.

I give this film **** stars

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1207936793/

The Great Gatsby

I pride myself in liking all types of movies.  In my mind, I hold very few biases in regard to artistic vision as I admire the act of creation.  So i am surprising myself as i call the latest interpretation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby a complete pile of garbage.  This is one of the worst movies that I have seen in recent memory.  I have no great love for the original  work of F Scott Fitzgerald, so I have no purist’s bias when I watched this film.  While I respect The Great Gatsby for the great American novel that it is, i went into this film with a relatively open mind.  I will admit that I find the director Baz Luhrmann underwhelming in the extreme, but I was excited by the talent in the movie and looked forward to a modern and artistic interpretation of the film.

This film is what I hate most in artistic vision; style over substance.  This entire film is an exercise in self gratification.  It’s gaudy, loud, and tries to be edgy just for the sake of being edgy. Baz Luhrmann creates a vision that seeks to impress through the fabulousness of his visual canvas as opposed to trying to tell a decent story. The characters are there only to have something to hang the visual party he is trying to throw.  I find it all the more frustrating as I felt several of the actors gave some pretty impressive performances.

Leonardo takes on the title role of Gatsby with the dash and charm required.  He faltered a bit in 1920’s mannerisms and his overuse of the term ‘Old Sport’ when addressing anyone. Carey Mulligan was flawless as the pure yet conflicted Daisy Buchanan.  I didn’t even mind the miscast Tobey McGuire as the narrator Nick Carraway.  What I did mind were these great performances taking a back seat to a Director’s need to impress himself with empty stylism.

Fitzgerald’s story of The Great Gatsby is an American success story whose warnings still hold true and relevant today.  It’s a worthy story for film adaption, even a modern adaption.  Gatsby’s story of a self made man who goes from rags to riches is quintessentially american.  A man whose same passions and drives ultimately prove his undoing is also a quintessential american cautionary tale. Throughout this entire movie I found myself trying to wade through the glitz and wipe away the excessive glamour in order to see this story.  Unfortunately, like aVolkswagon Beetle’s windshield wipers trying to compete with a torrential rain, it was a futile effort.  There was just too much distraction to appreciate any type of story that was trying to be conveyed.

I’m not going to recap the story as most anyone who took High School literature is familiar with it.  I’ll just say that this is not a respectable attempt to retell an American classic.  I want to know how Baz Luhrmann keeps getting work in film.  His level of artistic vision are better suited to a Calvin Klein commercial than a full length feature film.  I would implore everyone to stop buying tickets to his films because this man needs to be stopped.  

http://www.fandango.com/thegreatgatsby2013_149090/movieoverview

I give this film * star

Iron Man 3

I’m going to start off by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.  That being said, I did not get caught up in all the hype (as much as I wanted to).  I found this to be a worthy sequel that was vastly superior to the 2nd Iron Man, but fell short to the mojo that the first installment of this franchise produced.  It was a slick piece of action film making that ultimately falls victim to it’s own grandiosity.

So the first question: Is this a sequel to Iron Man 2 or to the Avengers?  I know most fans, myself included, just want to forget Iron Man 2 ever happened.  It’s actually a sequel to both, but let’s just say that it’s The Avengers direct sequel as much of the movie is Tony Stark dealing with the emotional aftermath of the events in that movie. Iron Man 3 marks the first salvo in Marvel Studio’s ‘Phase 2’ plan.  The first phase culminated in the glorious  Avengers movie and now the second phase will continue until Avengers 2 (nice how that works out).  This movie is a great start and prepares us for the Thor, Captain America, and Guardians of the Galaxy movies that will be coming in the next year.

Iron Man 3 is big and brash and fun.  No doubt about it.  The story starts in the aftermath of the Avengers movie with Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey JR) dealing with the emotional problems caused by his experiences from the alien attack on Earth. He can’t sleep and has frequent anxiety attacks.  Despite all of this, RDJ’s trademark sardonic quips and one liners are in play and often, IMHO, overshadow the story itself.  I felt the story itself was weak and most of the movie rested on special effects and waiting to see RDJ go off on humorous rants.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy great special effects and always respect RDJ’s razor wit and this was a great showcase for them, but it could have been a much greater film if it balanced the style with a little more substance.

The introduction of the Mandarin as an Osama Bin Laden type villain starts off promisingly enough, but soon fizzles out albeit in an amusing fashion.  The Mandarin was never a great comic book villain, but there was a lot of unrealized potential here.  Even the seemingly secondary villain of Aldrich Killian seemed a little ‘cartoonish’ for my taste.  The organization he represented; A.I.M., was not fully developed as it could have been given that in the comic story they are the evil nemesis of S.H.E.I.L.D.  These may seem like petty complaints, but all of the conflict situations felt forced and artificial to me, especially Tony’s anxiety attacks which just seemed to come out of nowhere and with no real resolutions.

Again, I’m complaining a lot here, but that is more out of love for the character and a distaste of manufactured big budget special effect movies.  This was a fun ride and a lot of super hero fun that captures why so many of us loved superheroes when we were younger.  Iron Man the movies have been far more impressive than the character or the comic books were in the Marvel universe, so hats off for not only making Iron Man the flagship of these movies, but improving on the character.  Marvel has done an exceptional job at bringing their characters to the big screen.  Each one makes me look forward to the next.  So despite my critique, I have a lot of respect for this movie.  It’s hard to imagine that the original director, Jon Favreau, had to fight to get RDJ cast as Iron man.  I can’t imagine anyone else in this role (although RDJ hinted that someone will eventually have to take over the character from him).

A very fun time at the movies.  However, go expecting a roller coaster ride of fun over substance.

I give this film *** stars 

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1265935385/