Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

Oh, Star Trek, I am disappoint.

Warning: spoilers forthcoming, because I do have to explain why I was disappointed with the film.

I watched Star Trek (2009) prior to seeing Star Trek Into Darkness (STID).  It remains a fun and energetic movie, though the second half suffers from rather bad writing.  Abrams was able to make it work by keeping things moving, and with the performances from everyone involved that refreshed the original Star Trek mythos.

STID… not so much.  It’s a solid action movie with several great set pieces and a truly great performance from Benedict Cumberbatch, but the writing is pretty bad again, with Abrams unable to pull the film from the lack of originality it has.

Let’s start with the good though.  Obviously Cumberbatch as Khan, he was masterful.  He’s a terrific actor in general, having watched some Sherlock Holmes, but also random movies he’s appeared in that I didn’t even realize he was in (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Atonement).  He plays Khan like a mad genius, or as mad a genius as you can get with how shaky he was written.  He commands one of the film’s best scenes though, where he’s interrogated in the brig, and talking about his “family”.  So much power and raw emotion there.

All of the returning stars get something to do as well, for the most part.  Scotty (Simon Pegg) does a lot more this time around.  Sulu (John Cho) starts demonstrating that he has captain chops.  Chekov (Anton Yelchin) becomes chief engineer over a moral quandry.  And Uhura (Zoe Saldana) speaks Klingon, or something.  It took me a moment to remember that she did something worthwhile other than “stare at Spock [insert emotion adverb here]“[1].  Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, as Kick and Spock, both hit their roles again.  Quinto is actually pretty good here, blending the logical Vulcan side of Spock with his emotional human side.  The last half hour or so has him fighting that balance, with an event that sets him off and unleashes a new kind of fury within him (though that’s wasted completely, see further).  Oh, and Bones (Karl Urban) helps save the day too.

The special effects are a definite improvement over the first film.  The Enterprise looks sleek and impressive (though I still don’t know where anything is at inside that ship), the military ship the Vengeance looks appropriately intimidating, and several sequences involving those ships were well done.  The warp trail was a neat touch too.  The score was amazing as well.

This was a well directed film in general – no real incompetence about it – and if you’re able to ignore the glaring problems forthcoming, then you’ll probably enjoy it.  It isn’t as fun as the previous film, but there are some fun sequences in it (the opening sequence on Niburu, the interaction between the crew of the Enterprise), and there are things to definitely enjoy in the film.

*spoilery bits probably start here* But then stupid things happen, and you almost want to get sucked out of a cargo bay door to get away from it.

The biggest thing: Khan.  The promotion for this film, or at least his reveal, was handled poorly.  Is it just some guy named John Harrison, or is he really Khan, and they’re going in that direction with the film (I had mentioned Schroedinger’s Khan to a friend, and that’s what it felt like)?  He was Khan though, and when he said his name… nothing.  I didn’t feel the shocking reveal or the clever twist as, say, Iron Man 3 with the Mandarin.  Then again, I don’t think it was intended that way, since Khan continued to talk of his plight, but I didn’t feel any emotional resonance there.  I just didn’t care, honestly.

And I think from there is when the film, running decently at this point, stumbles and falls apart, and just rehashes the better parts of Wrath of Khan, or at least what I can recall.  There are tons of red herrings with the conspiracy theory plotting – is Khan the bad guy doing the good guys? is Admiral Marcus the good guy doing the bad guys work[2]? (Does anyone really care?)  The role reversal in the warp core would have worked better if Kirk stayed dead longer than ten minutes, but the emotional resonance from that scene (and it was probably the most heartfelt scene in the film, judging by the sizable amount of sobs heard in the theater) was undermined minutes later.  At least Spock stayed dead between films!

Oh, and Spock yelling “Khan” made me cringe.  I can’t remember if I wanted to laugh, but it just felt wrong.

The thing that took me out of the film completely happened a bit earlier, when future Spock showed up to discuss the plot.  It was just frustrating, and instead of showing us how the crew of the Enterprise would discover Khan being a evil dude, they called future Spock to have him tell us[3].

And this, I think, reveals a problem with this alternate reality universe they made with these Star Trek films.  They can, at any time, call future Spock to ask him about a big bad threat, listen to the same spiel of the temporal prime directive, and then say “fuck it, I’ll tell them anyway.”  He’s their ultimate deus ex machina (Jean just quipped “Spock ex machina”, which nails it), and that will forever prevent this crew from doing anything original because of their connection to future Spock.

There were other stupid things as well, some examples include: a post-9/11/terrorism theme that would have worked if the film was better but just feels tossed into it to add some relevance; terrible macguffins scattered throughout (mobile transwrap teleportation device? Khan’s blood?); and the question of whether Alice Eve served any other function besides fan service[4].  In the end, it’s the lack of original ideas and the constant recursion to the original Star Trek universe that killed this film for me.  I blame the writers, or at least Orci and Kurtzman.  I didn’t actually sense Lindelof’s hand here much: his Big Ideas were rather muted, and everything did more or less wrap up, unlike the mess he made with Prometheus.  Orci and Kurtzman wrote the first film though, and while I gave them the benefit of the doubt there (between how rushed Star Trek felt and how much Michael Bay redid Transformers 2 to the disaster piece that became), I can’t this time.  I doubt Abrams will be back for the third film, since he has Star Wars coming in two years, but if Orci and Kurtzman are back for the next film, consider me out.  They’re just not good at all.

In summary, Star Trek Into Darkness is a well directed and nicely produced film, but bereft of any original ideas.  I am truly disappoint.

[1]She also stunned the shit out of Khan, so that was cool.

[2]Gotta say, Peter Weller played the hell out of that role.  He was a generic villain (“I want to start a war hurhurhur”), but a well played generic villain.

[3]This sequence looked like it was filmed after the fact too, given how weirdly it looks compared to stuff that happens before and after.  Or they probably just called Nimoy to deliver the monologue and have him on his way.  Either way, it’s a dumb part of the film that just ruined it for me.

[4]Jean and I both wondered whether Eve’s character (Dr Carol Marcus, the daughter of Admiral Marcus, one of the bad guys in the film) was in league with Khan or not.  That stuck with me until she ran up to the bridge when the Enterprise was under attack and pleaded to speak with her father.  So, yeah, fan service and nothing more.

Review: The Great Gatsby

Ah, such a wonderful, beautiful mess of a film.

I find it strange how I’ve seen three of Luhrmann’s five films.  I don’t recall Romeo + Juliet much (and I haven’t seen Moulin Rouge! either), but I do remember Australia being two epic films connected together by a montage of sorts.  It was strange, and disconnected from itself, but it was big and bold and certainly impressive.  Gatsby shows that off again, with the grand scale, how big and stuff everything is, and how it threatens to overwhelm everything at times.  It’s melodrama is so over the top at times too, and yet it’s that melodrama that drives the film forward to its devastating, tragic end.  The voice over is all over the place at times.  It’s a mess, but it’s such a great mess.

Oh, and the soundtrack and score is incredible too.  It shouldn’t work (especially the use of modern pieces over some specific 1920s era parties), but it adds a certain flavor to it and gives it new energy and passion in the proceedings.  Again, big and beautiful and messy.  I’m curious if that’s Luhrmann’s motif in general.

All the actors are in top form here.  DiCaprio is certainly awesome as Jay Gatsby, a man with great charm but who hides behind many secrets.  Carey Mulligan, one of my favorite actresses (see An Education, Never Let Me Go, Drive, and Shame as prime examples), is once again great as Daisy Buchanan, playing well with a character who is more superficial than she appears.  Tobey Maguire is good as Nick Carraway, the man stuck in the middle of Gatsby wanting to relive his past and trying to figure out his own future.  I really like Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan though, a truly rat bastard of a character.  His performance probably sold me on how much I hate his character.

The story itself is fine.  I haven’t read the book in years (though I should), though Jean told me this was a pretty good adaptation of it.  What I think the film does well, and it’s a credit to Luhrmann in general, was to create the craziness of 1920s America, when Wall Street was making tons of money and prohibition fueled cheap liquor and speakeasies all over.  The color and the fashion reflected that, but also the energy and passion.  It showed off rather well too the excess of everything, and how easy it was to both rise to prominence, but also how quickly one can fall, and how hard that fall can be.  The stock market crash that followed a few years later is a grim reminder of such things, and it reflects a lot too on the most recent recession in 2008, where people lived hard and fast and beyond their means, only to see it disappear when the stock market fell and banks foreclosed on a lot of people.

So yeah, the film offers a bit of something beyond the excess and the glam.  It’s interesting in that regard.  It’s Luhrmann though: expect beauty, expect things on a grand scale, expect a mess.  You won’t be disappointed.

EDIT: Jean and I saw it in 3D.  It looked really good, surprisingly.  Just wanted to add that.

Review: Iron Man 3

Tony Stark and Iron Man is back, and after the misstep/retread that was Iron Man 2, in much better form.

I will note now: I will get spoiler-ific, though I’ll keep it separate from the actual review.  There will be a line separating the two sections.  Though, $175 million open weekend?  You should have seen it by now at least.

As for the review?  Well, Tony Stark, facing anxiety from the events in Avengers, is trying harder than before in keeping himself (and others around him, like Pepper Potts) protected.  The Mark 42 suit, for example, is a suit constructed of individual pieces and controlled by small receivers embedded in Stark’s arms.  He runs into trouble though when unexpected demons from his past show up, along with the terrorist known as the Mandarin.

Iron Man 3 is a much better film than the second one was, simply by not rehashing everything from the first film (climactic battle against bigger badder suit? check).  It keeps away from all of the Avengers stuff too, and that I feel is a good thing.  Iron Man 2 suffered a bit as well from trying to connect Iron Man to the whole Avengers universe.  The singular focus helps in a good way.  It’s not as tight as the first film – it feels looser, and some scenes don’t connect well – but it’s still well filmed, especially with the big action pieces that occur (Tony’s mansion, Air Force One, and the harbor sequence at the end).

Everyone that returns from the previous film is good. Downey Jr is impeccable as Tony Stark, as always.  Gwyneth Paltrow is great and is given a lot more to do, which is awesome (though being the damsel-in-distress for a moment again is wearing thin).  Don Cheadle is back as Col. Rhodes/War Machine (or, jokingly, the Iron Patriot) and has some good scenes as well.  The several new cast additions were all good as well, to a varying degree: Guy Pierce is good as Aldrich Killian, the founder of AIM and the creator of the Extremis virus, which acts as one of the plot catalysts; Rebecca Hall plays Dr Maya Hansen well, though I was confused at times with her motivations; and Ben Kingsley is the Mandarin, and part of the spoiler discussion coming.

All in all, this is a good, solid film.  Better than the second film, and a natural progression for Tony Stark/Iron Man to take.

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There are two bits of spoiler stuff I want to discuss, both good: the post-credits sequence and the Mandarin.

The post-credits sequence, with Bruce Banner as a “psychologist” to Tony Stark, is pretty funny and works well. The one thing I was particularly glad to see what that they didn’t advance any sort of Avengers plot. What I’m guessing is that the Avengers stuff will be limited to post Thor (given how galactic that one will be), if they do that, and Guardians of the Galaxy. The latter seems the more natural fit, since that film will transition into Avengers 2, if they’re going to do the Thanos route with it.

The Mandarin reveal was interesting, and a welcomed change of pace from the norm. Yes, he’s Asian in the comics apparently, but terrorists from anywhere in Asia has been done to death in movies. Making him a drunk British stage actor named Travis is a bold, brilliant move that works, especially in the movie: have someone act as your face while you cause all the mayhem in the background. It’s a clever bit of misdirection. Though, Killian as the main villain was hard to say. I didn’t mind too much, though I’ve heard both positive and negative reactions to him.

There’s also this piece over on Badass Digest that pretty much says that no one saw the Mandarin reveal coming, since Marvel didn’t hype it up. There’s the comparison to JJ Abrams and Star Trek regarding Schroedinger’s Khan as well, though I might have different problems with the film besides that. I won’t voice them until I see the film though, if those criticisms do apply.

So one speculation and one awesome reveal. Dicussions?

Review: From Up on Poppy Hill

There seemed to be a slight lull coming from Studio Ghibli as of late.  Arriety, for instance, seemed to lack a sense of peril or danger, while Tales from Earthsea was a bit of a mess in general.  I’m glad to see that From Up on Poppy Hill is a return to form for Studio Ghibli, and, at the very least, makes Goro Miyazaki a pretty good director.

There’s a lot going on in this multi-layered film, from the slice of life romance between Umi and Shun, to Umi’s Topsy-turvy home life.  I was most intrigued by the historical aspect of the film and the plot concerning the Latin Quarter, an old building facing demolition, and the students at Umi’s school that are fighting to save it.

The film is set in 1960s Japan, as the country prepares for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics*.  There was a mad rush to update the infrastructure to accommodate the influx of athletes and tourists from around the world.  And they were successful, both in the improvements they made, but also showing the world how much they’ve changed in 20 years since the end of the second World War.

While looking up info about this period, I couldn’t find any dissent, or anything that would suggest what was seen in the film.  The Latin Quarter, with its dusty floors, cluttered rooms, and paint peeled decor, represented, I suppose, the old way that Japan looked.  The school council, probably in line with the ideas of the time, wanted to tear it down and replace it with a more modern building.  The students, fearing the loss of history, made a huge effort to restore it, and even then that wasn’t enough.  So Umi, Shun, and Shiro head out to Tokyo to directly appeal the school board’s chairman.

Again, without other research, I’m just speculating on what the film suggests.

The characters themselves are rich and fabulous.  Umi is another strong creation from Miyazaki: headstrong and confident, fearless at times too, though troubled a bit when it comes to Shun.  Shun himself is smart, though occasionally reckless, throwing himself twice into dangerous situations.  A lot of the other characters have fleshed out, vital roles as well, such as Shiro, Sora, and Sachiko.  The translation worked well too, and the voice actors used in the dub were pretty good.  It’s probably a coincidence, but Audrey Plaza looked a lot like Sachiko, the character she voiced, or at least her character from Scott Pilgrim.  Though, I was kinda iffy on Anton Yelchin as Shun, but that might be my ear.

All in all, a solid return to form for Studio Ghibli.  I liked this one a lot.

*For more history during this period, refer to this essay: http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/japans_rebirth_at_the_1964_tokyo_summer

Return to the movies/Review: Oblivion

And then this blog disappeared for nearly two and a half years…

Of course, that’s what happens when 1) you only see half of the movies in 2011 and 2012 compared to 2010, and 2) head off to grad school and lose all grasp of time.

Of course, 1) I might start seeing movies a bit more often again, because 2) grad school is done!  Or just about, since I have a final to take.  Hopefully this will find me a job somewhere within the HSE field, or something similar that’ll make me good money with consistent hours.  In the mean time, with my college writing done, I need to do something to keep my writing (somewhat) sharp.

Hence, this blog is making a comeback.

For the time being, it’ll probably maintain the same format as before, with writing about the movie briefly before describing what works/what doesn’t/how it makes me feel/etc.  One major change is the lack of grading: I’ll let the review speak for itself, without any arbitrary letter or star grade to act as a final determinant.  I’ve done a lot of reading over the past two years regarding film, much of which has also affected me in terms of personal growth and how to embrace certain things.  The most important thing I hope to pass on to others is to just see movies, whether or not they’re good or not (case in point, the latter with the following review), and to inspire discussion regarding movies.  Why was this movie amazing?  Why was this movie crap?  Why do you feel differently than I do?  Stuff like that.  It’s all about having a dialogue, if I can at least generate one.

Besides theatrical stuff, I’ll be getting through some of my DVDs as well, which is what I had originally intended to do with this blog in the first place.  I may or may not discuss bonus DVD content, though I’ll make up my mind whenever I get to that (note: a lot of DVDs don’t have crap nowadays anyway, beyond trailers and previews. I really should consider a Blu-ray upgrade at some point).

I’ll do some TV discussions as well, starting with Game of Thrones, since that’s the one show I watch consistently.

I’ll probably clean up the tags a bit at some point, but for the time being, they’ll be the cluttered mess that they are.  I never got a good handle on how to tag this stuff, but I’ll stick with what I’ve been doing: title, director, principle leads, and year of release.  That should help, in case anyone wants to look for previous stuff (though, three quarters of the reviews here are 2010 movies).

So I think that’s everything I need to address.  The review for Oblivion starts below the dotted line.

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Over the weekend I saw Oblivion.

Unfortunately, it’s much like Kosinski’s last film, Tron: Legacy.  The special effects were really good, and the score (done by Anthony Gonzalez of M83) was booming (though a bit lacking in the group’s traditional synth work).  Everything else with the movie, not so much.  It was tedious and boring, with a story that riffs off of better sci-fi films and does nothing imaginative with them.  The final third of the film is wacky too, when a lot of the derivative stuff just flies in your face, plus other random things just start happening with no real explanation until really late.

The story itself goes like this: Tom Cruise plays Jack Harper, part of a mop up crew that repairs drones and makes sure that the giant hydro pumps that are collecting the planet’s water are operational.  Earth itself was attacked by aliens called Scavs in 2017, and sixty years later the remnants of humanity has fallen back to Saturn’s moon, Titan.  The Scavs are generally out to sabotage the drones and to prevent humanity from being successful in its water pulling mission.  Jack is assisted by Victoria, played by Andrea Riseborough, who directs Jack around to various fallen drones.

During a routine mission, Jack encounters a rocket falls to earth, with all but one pod in it destroyed by a drone.  That pod has Julia (Olga Kurylenko), and eventually the plot moves forward with who she is, plus the remnants of humanity on earth, and who Jack Harper really is.

That’s about as much as I can say without giving it away completely, though the trailer does a good amount regarding that.  The storytelling is rather thin, with most of the major characters barely fleshed out.  Cruise and Riseborough get the most work, shown as capable coworkers and lovers (“are you an effective team?” is an oft repeated question).  Everyone else is thin: Kurylenko shows up and messes things up a bit, but doesn’t do too much.  Morgan Freeman is the leader of a small group of humans living on earth, and offers nothing more than the occasional sagely advice.  Nikolaj Coster-Waldau randomly shows up in the movie (random in the “holy crap he’s in this movie?”) as a tough guy general who works with Freeman’s character.  The humans in this movie are hard to root for in general, since none of them have any real personality.

It’s just… meh, really.  It’s not terrible, really, just generic, unobjectionable stuff.  It does make me wonder though, between this and Tron: Legacy, why anyone thinks Kosinski is good at all.

I’m curious if this has anything to do with it:

Which, after rewatching, isn’t that great.  It’s effective in setting a mood (Clu chasing down the random program and Kevin Flynn powerless to do anything about it) but the chase doesn’t make sense at all.

In the end, it does make me wonder if Kosinski is just capable of making beautiful, bland stuff, like Oblivion.