One for the Money Review
A bad night at the movies, or a mediocre night at home watching a TV pilot.
Yes, I saw this. I will say that this story appeals to a very specific audience, and that audience seems to be middle aged women who like to see men in pain. I was one of four guys in a half full theater and clearly the only one who hadn’t been dragged along by a significant other. One of the major problems this film suffers from is that if you had shown it to me on DVD I would have said it was a TV pilot that failed to go anywhere. I kept waiting for commercial breaks.
My predictions for this movie did not come 100% true. She did have feelings for her ex, but they did not do anything to prevent her from doing her job. She did outdo a more experienced bounty hunter, but only in the most superficial way. My last prediction did indeed come true, although instead of kicking a guy in the nuts it was shooting him in the chest.
I said one of the major problems with this film is the fact that it felt like a TV show, but there are many others. Another huge problem is the fact that the plot runs like a Ruth Goldberg machine that keeps breaking down. You know, the woodpecker breaks the wood pin that causes the iron tied to a string to release, turning the cog that pulls the trigger on the pistol, starting the bowling ball to roll along the tracks eventually turning on the washing machine etc etc? Except in this case none of the separate devices connect properly and you can see the director and the producers (including star Katherine Heigl. More on that later) running around putting the bowling ball back on the track, replacing the woodpecker when it dies, and using the pistol to shoot their agent for getting them involved in this dog. The plot (for lack of a better term) advances only through the most random happenstance and farcical connections.
Another problem this movie suffers from is the incredibly bland supporting characters and the avalanche of otherwise interesting minor characters who vanish off the screen after a couple scenes. Katherine Heigl is the Executive Producer of this thing and it really feels like she is dealing with a massive insecurity issue. In other words, she won’t put anyone on the screen who may overshadow her. Everyone else in the film is a relative nobody. Also, there is not a single scene except for a couple out of focus flashbacks that don’t feature her. The most interesting characters are all the minor ones to literally don’t last past the two minute mark. Her competing bounty hunter gets killed within one minute of meeting her. A goofy Asian pot head with a dragon tattoo on his forehead gets killed in the scene after we meet him. Her best friend only appears on screen in phone calls and then vanishes into the ether, along with the mother and daughter of the hooker she is trying to help. Even the main bad guy has one lousy scene with her and then kind of waits in the wings to do anything.
The last problem, although not as major as the first three, is the stupid voice over monologue. I know this is a movie adapted from a book, but honestly books have expository monologues because they are made of words. Movies are made of pictures and sounds and as such can convey events and feelings without telling us what is going on in the dumbest manner possible. The only genre where the expository voice over works is in noir detective stories. This movie is not noir. 
Look at Bladerunner. The voice over monologue was forced into the film by the studio, and in the end when they came out with the directors cut it was entirely deleted, making for a much better film (Replicant image courtesy of the Science Fiction T Shirt category).
Anyway, the story. Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy, Knocked Up, Life as we Know It) plays Stephanie Plum, an ex lingerie salesperson who is desperate for some kind of income. She has dinner with her family, the New Jersey Stereotypes, and gets told that her cousin Vinnie (no joke. Her New Jersey cousin is named Vinnie. My Cousin Vinnie? By the way, he is played by Patrick Fischler-Twister, Old School, Speed, Mulhulland Drive), who owns a bail bond shop, has a job. She ends up, with no training, experience, or equipment, a bounty hunter and is hot on the case of the guy who took her virginity (a fact that we are repeatedly and painfully reminded of over and over again) back in high school, Joe Morelli (Resident Evil Extinction, Life on Mars, Terra Nova). He is a cop who has been accused of shooting a drug dealer or something. By the time we get to what actually happened all the Ruth Goldberg devices had so cluttered up the screen that I couldn’t really tell what was going on. Anyway, she embarks on a wacky adventure to all the worst parts of town and doesn’t seem to get killed. She meets up with another bounty hunter named Ranger (Daniel Sunjata-All My Children, Rescue Me, the Devil Wears Prada) who buys her a gun (in complete disregard for cooling off periods and/or concealed weapon laws) and shows up to back her up occasionally. She meets the very scary and intense villain (Gavin-Keith Umeh-Law and Order SVU, Unforgettable, White Collar) but I guess he was too cool to actually show as he spent most of the movie not on screen. Probably it was felt he would overpower Heigl’s performance. A car gets blown up. Oddball plot twists that add nothing and don’t make a lot of sense crop up. The pilot (I mean movie) ends and retreats to the failed idea shelf.
The stars. I don’t know. There were a couple of entertaining scenes, I guess. One star. I would normally give a star for some interesting minor characters, but they all vanished like free finger food at an open mike poetry reading. Katherine Heigl is definitely easy on the eyes, and seems to have cornered the market on skin tight jeans (and giant purses). One star. She does a partially nude scene that is pretty good, but since she is only half naked I can only give her half a star. Total: Two and a half stars.
The black holes. Disjointed Ruth Goldbergian plot. Two black holes. Making me pay for what in reality should have been a free pilot episode. One black hole. Bland, boring support characters. One black hole. The voice over monolog that made me want to run screaming into the night. One black hole. In addition to being a big, disjointed mess, the end of the movie was at the same time labyrinthine and pat. Basically you couldn’t have wrapped up the story neater if the main character had actually been a producer of the film (oh, wait…). One black hole. A complete disregard of all forms of gun laws. One black hole. Loading the plot with extra characters and then erasing them to make more room for Katherine Heigl. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
So a grand total of five and a half black holes. Not a great score. I don’t really have anything against Katherine Heigl. I think she has talent and is super hot. I enjoyed her as the stuck up prissy girl in Knocked Up. If she could find the right role I would be happy to give her a good review. This one isn’t it. Worth seeing? Not really. There is nothing in this movie that makes it worth spending your hard earned dollars. It really does feel like you are watching TV. Date movie? Actually yes. This might work as a date movie to a certain extent. You will sit there fuming about having to spend money and 106 minutes of your life on it, but as long as your date doesn’t have to pay for it she might well enjoy it. The chemistry on screen is tepid at best, but could put her in the right mood, if you know what I mean.
Man on a Ledge later today, so look for that review tomorrow. Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I have some thoughts on the Academy nominations and might blog some about them later this week. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Iron Lady Movie Review
This film was kind of out of focus, and I don’t mean by the projectionist.
Meryl Streep is an exceptional performer in every sense of the term, and delivers another great performance. The problem is I can’t figure out if the director (Phyllida Lloyd-Mamma Mia!, Gloriana) actually likes or hates Margaret Thatcher. I went in kind of expecting a tribute to one of the greatest world leaders of the 20th century, with highlights and low points presented in an interesting manner that included contributing personal moments and insights. You know, what a good movie would have. Instead we got a disjointed series of vignettes that seem to gloss over her triumphs and linger lovingly over Lady Thatcher’s mistakes and failures while alternating to the present where we get to see an ailing woman dealing with dementia. It’s like if you made a movie about a family trip to Disneyland but had 2/3rds of the footage be of them looking for their car in the parking lot at the end of the day.
This looks like another chance to use my recently coined term script confusion, but a more colloquial and possibly accurate term might be fence sitting. Growing up in the 80’s Thatcher had a well deserved reputation as a ball busting bitch (I mean that term with enormous respect). As a staunch ally to our country she was always perceived as a good person, but she definitely had her issues. However, this movie takes her triumphs and makes them into miniscule points that bookend long exploration of her failures, including the decline of her career, while completely glossing over the majority of her very serious personality issues (her total contempt for the poor and unemployed, not to mention her attitude towards other women). The director seemed unsure if she wanted to praise or denigrate Margarette Thatcher, and consequently never really committed far enough in either direction.
Interspersed between these vignettes was the story of a lonely old woman dealing with dementia and the death of her husband that was as depressing as possible without actually featuring your ex girlfriend sleeping with someone else on screen. I’m not kidding here. We are talking Leaving Las Vegas depressing. This over story only managed to break up any decent momentum the historical story had going and cast a terrible pall over every scene in the movie. SPOILER ALERT INCOMING. And does the film end with a scene of Margaret Thatcher’s triumph and happiness? No. It ends with her political career ending in ignobility and failure, more or less wandering down a corridor in an Alzheimer haze.
As you may have inferred from my rant so far, the story is of the infamous Iron Lady, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. There are two stories going in side by side, but as the main one seems to be a go nowhere plot about her failing years, I will sum that one up with she gets old, deals with the death of her husband, packs up his things for charity, and wanders off. The rest of the movie is a Cliffnotes version of her career, starting as the daughter of a grocer and advancing her politically as she runs for office, gets married, and becomes Prime Minister. The highlight seems to be her actions during the Falklands War, when she kicked the crap out of major world superpower Argentina. The rest of the events all seem to blur together with no real resolution. Somehow she managed to turn the economy around, but there is no real indication how she did it. There are about 1,000 scenes of riots, and the image of rioters beating on the sides of her car recurs several times. When she first gets into office the story seems to be about the trade unions destroying the economy of Great Briton, but then two scenes later the unions are gone and the economy prospering with no word of how it was accomplished. With a few exceptions this story about one of the most powerful and influential women in modern Western politics seems to treat her more like a passenger on a bus than the person behind the wheel.
The other thing that fails miserably in this film is the fact that due to the disconnected pacing and editing at no time do we actually get to connect with Meryl Streeps character. Just as you start to feel something for the crazy old lady hallucinating about her husband it cuts to her bitching out another minister in Parliament, and just as you start to connect to her as a political savvy woman struggling to make her way in the boys club of British government we cut back to her asking about her son visiting when he is in South Africa. There is nothing solid for the audience to latch onto and connect with. Meryl Streep is such a good actress that to treat her performance with such disregard for the continuity of the story is almost a crime. It’s building a house with the best bricks money can buy and assembling them with spit and chewing gum.
The stars. Meryl Streep delivers the best performance possible given the flailing vehicle she was forced to drive. One star. Some of the history was interesting. One star. For such a mediocre script, the dialog was surprisingly good, although that might just be me once again being taken in by British accents. One star. Her husband Denis (Jim Broadbent-Moulin Rouge, Gangs of New York, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) was fun and entertaining, although definitely felt 
out of place like a clown at a funeral (clown image courtesy of the Science Fiction T Shirts category). I won’t black hole them for that, as I think the movie needed some kind of comic relief. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Really, really depressing to no purpose. Two black holes. Disjointed editing. One black hole. Pacing was awful. The scenes with Thatcher as a decrepit crazy woman dragged on and on, while the scenes with her as an effective and capable leader were rushed through at high speed, almost as if the director resented having to do them and was just trying to get them out of the way. One black hole. Meryl Streep really not given the proper treatment to deliver her normally great performance. One black hole. No sign of character development or anything for the audience to connect to. One black hole. The entirety of Thatcher as a senile old biddy was completely unnecessary and pointless. Normally I would give this one black hole, but since this seems to be the majority of the screen time I will bump it up to two. At the end of the movie I found myself wondering what the entire point of the movie was. I actually have a theory on the directors actual purpose that I will get into in the conclusion. One black hole. Overall I left the theater feeling like I had just wasted my time and money. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
A total of five black holes. If you are a huge fan of the Devil Wears Prada and/or Meryl Streep see it just to see it, but I don’t think you will come away with anything worthwhile. While writing this review I did a little research and have come up with a theory as to what was really going through the director Phyllida Lloyds cranium on this on. You see, she is best know for directing opera, a genre not really known for its uplifting message. I suspect she was infused with a desire to make a film about a lonely old woman dealing with her dead husband and uncaring children. The scenes I wanted to see of Margaret Thatcher changing the face of Briton were rushed, stilted, and treated as secondary to scenes of her making two eggs, one for her and one for her eight year dead husband. Seems a shame. However, this production was entirely funded by the UK Film Council, and trying to hold a public commission to the same bar as a Hollywood production is an exercise in futility. I’m just surprised that the Britons wouldn’t want to see Thatcher painted in a more positive light. Of course, when we do a movie about an American historical figure we tend to look for all the dirt possible (most recently J. Edgar), so perhaps the attitude here actually reflects the prevailing attitude most Britons have towards her. I don’t know.
Thanks for reading. Not a lot coming out until Friday, so I will probably do more end of the year stuff tomorrow or just blow it off entirely. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu to get announcements of new reviews, or just subscribe to my RSS feed. Talk to you all soon.
Dave
War Horse Movie Review
Decent movie, but don’t see this if you actually love horses.
This movie was actually better than I expected. Sure, it’s Spielberg, but I had just been disappointed with Tintin and as masterful a storyteller as he is, he has a tendency to let his story dip into the sappy zone and hover there, like in E.T. However, while the sap was there (lots of young boys snuggling horses) the story, after a sluggish start, really drew you in.
Spielberg appears to be using this production as a tool to show the horror of WWI like he did with Saving Private Ryan. However, in spite of a much more terrible war (WWI was way more brutal than WWII. WWI is why they created war crimes) it does not come even close to how well Private Ryan did. The blame for this I put firmly on the PG-13 rating Spielberg bends bars to maintain. I am not one of those guys who feels the need for gore and blood in everything, but the impact of a battle scene loses something when nothing brutal is shown. Guys get shot and just fall to the ground. One of the main characters gets caught in a gas attack and in the next scene, instead of showing him lying in a cot coughing himself to death (mustard gas) he has a bandage over his eyes. There was none of the horrific desperate attempts to hold your own entrails in, or guys getting their limbs blown off. It was almost sanitized, like a video game, and that sensitization kind of washes away a lot of the impact.
However, as kind as Spielberg was to his human characters he makes it up in his treatment of the horses. Through a series of really good puppets and camera work with very little CGI he shows all kinds of horrible things happening to horses. To be honest it was more than a little stomach turning, and I had to look away during a couple scenes. A horse is a noble creature, and should not be shown in extreme pain and horrible situations. I can’t actually call anything that happened animal cruelty, as none if it was malicious or intentional, but just really hard to watch. This goes out to my horse loving friend Lauren in particular. Don’t see this if you have a love of horses.
Anyway, the movie, with a few spoilers. It follows the life of Joey, a thoroughbred horse born on a Scottish farm prior to WWI. His birth is witnessed by young Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine-no other film roles), who takes an instant bond with him. The horse goes up for auction and Alby’s drunken father Ted (Peter Mullan-Trainspotting, My Name is Joe, Boy A) makes the mistake of buying him for a very large amount. This is going to cause them to lose the farm, literally, unless Alby can train Joey to pull a plow and can then plow the most rock filled field in all of Scotland. He does so and all seems well until the crop is ruined from a storm. Ted is forced to sell Joey to a cavalry officer (Tom Hiddleston-Loki from Thor, Midnight in Paris, Conspiracy), who takes him to France where he learns what happens when sword wielding cavalry charges machine guns. Joey is captured by the Germans and put to use hauling ambulances. He then goes through a long series of owner changing, from two German deserters, a French jam maker and his granddaughter, and a German artillery officer who seems to relish putting down injured horses. He finally breaks free in a panic and runs out into No Man’s Land and gets caught up in the one scene I had the hardest time watching. He gets rescued by a Scottish corporal with the help of a German infantryman (a love of horses supersedes the need to kill each other) and is eventually reunited with Alby, who apparently joined the infantry while all this was going on. Some other drama goes on before the end.
The stars. Decent if sappy story. One star. Amazing camera work and visuals. Two stars. While not graphic enough to really impact, the fighting did illustrate a lot of the horror of WWI. One star. The uniforms and equipment seemed correct, including the German spiked Kaiser helmets, and the entire film was very well within period. One star. This is something only a treadhead would appreciated, but they actually did show a rhomboid tank (I think it was a MkV Heavy, but they didn’t really show it off entirely). I don’t know if they found a functional unit (there are a few in the world) or just built a replica, but really cool. One star. The horse handling, puppets and special effects were stunning. One star. I don’t want to get into it too much, but this movie did manage to draw out an emotional response from me. One star. Overall good movie. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Stomach wrenching horse-in-pain scenes. One black hole. For the most part, all the characters seemed flat and uninteresting. I don’t know if this was the writing or the fact there doesn’t actually seem to be a real protagonist. The focal character changes every 15 minutes or so, never allowing you to connect with any of them, and Joey the horse does not show enough of a distinctive personality to really connect with. For the most part he acts like a horse and a horse is a horse (of course, of course). One black hole. Each sub-character seemed to have a whole new sub plot that disappeared with that character. One black hole. What could have been a great R rated war movie got a PG-13 rating tied to its feet. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So a grand total of five stars. Decent movie in all regards, and well worth watching. I will also say that the visuals are amazing, and if you don’t see it in a huge theater you will not get the full effect. Go out and see it. I don’t know how this would work as a date movie. Sure, it has horses, but it also has a lot of other stuff that might turn a girl off. She might respond well to the ending, but I personally don’t like to leave stuff like that to chance.
That’s it for now. I have a freakishly busy weekend coming up (party, party, dinner with friends) and don’t know if I will get to see anything. It might be Monday before I blog again. (Party Like a Vulcan image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts). Thanks again for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Darkest Hour in 3D Movie Review
Is finding a non-moronic reason for aliens to invade the Earth really such a challenge for Hollywood?
This may sound weird, but in my opinion the best reason to invade a movie has come up with in 2011 has got to be Skyline. Stealing human brains to operate the biomechanical constructs makes sense to me. It is a resource you can only get here. The Darkest Hour suffers from the same problem that plagued Battle LA: the aliens are here to steal resources that are easily available any number of other places in the universe that don’t have the pesky natives fighting back all the time.
I don’t know. I guess this premise was slightly more plausible than stealing water, but even so if you are even going to give us a reason spend a little more time thinking about the mechanics of it. Any race capable of traveling light years to Earth should not have a huge problem with asteroid mining and so on.
Anyway, that is my true geek issue with this movie. There are other, more general reasons but that is mine. The movie starts out with two young software engineers (Emile Hirsch-Into the Wild, Milk, Speed Racer, the Girl Next Door and Max Minghella-the Ides of March, Social Network, Agora) flying to Moscow to pitch some kind of social media service to some ill defined Russian group (government? Corporation? Russian mafia?) only to find they are being totally ripped off by their Swedish former business partner (Joel Kinnaman-the Killing, Easy Money). They decide to blow off steam the way any rational human would-by getting hammered and hopefully laid at a sleazy Russian nightclub. There they meet two girls from America and Britain (heartbreaker Olivia Thirlby-Juno, No Strings Attached, the Wackness(?) and hot blonde Rachel Taylor-Transformers, Bottle Shock, Shutter) and talk the night away. Then, sparkly Christmas tree lights land and go invisible. They kill everyone they come into contact with in a very PG-13 friendly instant dissolve. They are invisible but activate light bulbs whenever they get near so you can sort of see them coming, at least in urban areas.
The kids hide in a storage room for a few days, and then have to trek across Moscow. People get dissolved. They discover the only really interesting character in the movie, a Russian electrician (Dato Bakhtadze-Crash, Wanted) who invents a microwave gun that can disrupt the alien shields. Then he gets killed. The group in joined by yet another hot young person (Veronika Ozerova-no other credits) who adds nothing nothing to the group except a sexy Russian accent (“Boris! We have to get moose and squirrel!”). For some reason I hope she does well, if only because this is her first film and she is pretty cute. Anyway, more stuff happens. Toward the end of the film the writers started channeling Independence Day. I mean, they figure out how to make the aliens visible and vulnerable to regular guns, and that is supposedly enough of a fighting edge to let the humans actively resist. They still don’t really address the fact that until the aliens get shot by the gun they are mostly invisible, a tactical advantage on the order of bringing a gun to a knife fight. If you see the movie you will see what I mean. After an hour and a half of plodding but in tone sci fi movie progression in the last ten minute the plot takes a left turn into Cheesy Valley and founds a township there.
Anyway, the stars. Sci fi movie. One star. 
The aliens, when you finally see them, are pretty cool looking although highly derivative (cough cough ripped off cough cough) of Alien (Alien image courtesy of the Sci Fi T-Shirt category). One star. Olivia Thirlby was driving me crazy throughout the movie. If anyone were to ask me what type of girl gets me the most, it’s hers. One star. In spite of some other issues that will come up later in the black hole region, I thought the actors all did an admirable job with the material they were given. One star. Some interesting scientific concepts used here. None of them really possible given the actual laws of thermodynamics, but interesting nevertheless. One star. You don’t see a lot of movies filmed in Moscow that aren’t spy films. One star. Overall pacing was good. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. Cheesy ending. One black hole. Stupid reason for the aliens to invade. One black hole. A complete lack of character development from anyone. There was a little bit before the start of the invasion, but it actually made me dislike the characters more than like them. They were all painfully flat and one dimensional. I felt no real connection with any of them and therefore did not really care when they died. One black hole. Somehow a movie featuring invisible aliens did very little to terrify me. It’s like when you see a campy movie where the guy is boxing someone invisible (Cave Dwellers starring Miles O’Keefe, for example). You just can’t really take it seriously, and you suspect the scene is there to spare the movie makers the cost of hiring another villain, or in this case spending more on complicated CGI. In this sci fi horror film I felt little to no horror. Two black holes. This script was a blatant tool to get young hotties on the screen. It’s OK to have someone older than 25 on a screen once in a while. Sometimes their wisdom and experience can offset the brashness of the younger people, and by contrast actually make the young hotties even more hot (let’s just say I was feeling my age watching this, and a movie should not alienate (haw!) parts of the audience if they want to build any kind of loyalty). The one old guy died within 10 minutes of appearing, and in truth he was the most interesting character. One black hole. Remember all that lack of character development I was just bitching about? Well, the movie felt kind of short overall. I know I have been spoiled with good, long films lately but 89 minutes felt kind of short. Seems they could have padded it out with something more on the characters. One black hole. A few glaring plot holes. One black hole. I have kind of stopped bitching about poor 3D and the headache I get watching it, but a weird thing happened in this movie. It was filmed in Moscow, which should make for some cool visuals camera work. However, the 3D managed to make all that look like they filmed the whole thing on a sound stage with green screen and painted on backdrops. I don’t think it added much to the film, and in fact hurt it. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
So a grand total of two black holes. Not nosebleed inducingly bad. You can enjoy it if you just want to see stuff get wrecked and can stomach a lot of cheese. Also, if you saw Skyline and Battle LA this year you might as well complete the mediocre alien invasion triumvirate. Personally I think there is a lot of other stuff out there that is better. The new Mission Impossible and Sherlock Holmes are both hard to not like. Date movie? Probably not. I don’t see any girl really being into this film unless she is a total geek. Pick your battles. This one is not worth the effort to drag her to the show.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Lots more movies coming out, so more to see soon. I have a busy schedule this weekend (Party!) but will try to squeeze in a couple more. Talk to you all soon.
Dave
50/50 Movie Review
100% a good film.
I have been looking forward to this film. I am a Joseph Gorden-Levitt fan ever since he was on 3rd Rock From the Sun and thought he was excellent in Inception. Seth Rogan I enjoy a love/hate relationship with; love for Superbad and Pineapple Express, hate for his active participation in the cinema abortion known as the Green Hornet (Knocked Up I have mixed feelings about. Good in parts, but possibly a case study in the worst relationship in human history). Anna Kendrick I don’t have a real opinion about, although I liked her in this one. She still carries the stink of Twilight about her, however.
So last night I went and was not disappointed. The story was real, with some funny moments and a lot of scary, depressing moments. I was honestly touched at several points, and while I hate admitting I am becoming more girl-like as I get older actually felt myself tearing up at a few moments (some people might call that maturing emotionally, but I refuse to walk down that path). What was cool was the emotional response was honest, sincere, and built up over time, not the hamhanded “let’s kill the one character you like in the movie” approach I suffered through in One Day. The director (Jonathan Levine, who has done nothing I have heard of but whom I expect to see a lot more from) and writer (Will Reiser, who’s only real credit seems to be the Allie G Show) managed to make the audience connect with every character on the screen, but most closely with Adam, the protagonist. You really end up identifying with him and his situation, and I spent the last 30 minutes of the movie praying that he wouldn’t die.
I don’t know who to lay the laurels on for this one. Honestly, I really think it was a near perfect storm of great acting, directing, and story writing that led to such a good experience. Of course, the last film I saw before this was Taylor Lautner’s lamentable and horribly misnamed Abduction, so it could be that the part of my brain responsible for movie appreciation has taken one too many hits to the head. This film was like a man dying of thirst finding a full water cooler in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
Anyway, the story is of Adam, a young Seattle urbanite who, in spite of his extremely cautious and healthy lifestyle, develops a rare form of cancer on his spine. His best friend is Kyle (Seth Rogan), a lackadaisical, unhealthy slacker. The story goes through the drama of Adam dealing with his selfish and self centered cheating girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard, the hot blind girl from the Village, but she also played in Spiderman 3, Terminator Salvation, and the Lady in the Water, so she doesn’t exactly have a great filmography) who is super hot but such a reprehensible person you want to cheer when Adam boots her out. He has to also deal with his extremely engaging worrywart mother (Angelica Houston, looking better than I have seen in years), his Alzheimer father (real trend towards Alzheimer dad’s this year), and his own emotional stress and stages as he goes through the suffering of chemotherapy and eventually surgery. He is aided by the very young councilor in training Katherine (Anna Kendrick) who comes to play a bigger part in his life, but his rock throughout the movie is his friendship with Kyle. Kyle shows what true friendship is about. I don’t want to give this one any spoilers as I expect you all to see it, but when you do look for the scene where Adam finds the book and you will know where I really started to tear up.
The stars. Extremely well acted. Two stars. Good story, if somewhat linear and kind of predicable, at least in parts. Two stars. Some really funny moments. One star. It managed to pry a real emotional response out of my cold, dead heart (odds are it will have most of you crying like a little baby, so macho am I). One star. Anna Kendrick was looking heartbreakingly cute throughout the movie, and can actually act. One star. The Adam shaving his head scene was really fun and cool. One star. All the interactions between the characters, especially Adam and Kyle, were extremely real. One star. A generally good movie experience. Two stars. Total: eleven stars.
However, as any of you who have read a few of these knows, the movies without any black holes are extremely few and far between (and for the record, they are The Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner Directors Cut, TWOK, and Fight Club. Boba Fett image courtesy of the Star Wars t shirts category), and this movie is not one of them. First of all, the trailers I saw made this movie look about 10 times funnier than it actually was. I know, how much can they do with cancer, but still there were some great lines in the trailers that got cut out of the film entirely. One black hole. While well written, a careful analysis of the story shows a decent percentage of cliche-sium. One black hole. Finally, again while the movie was overall great, the shift in tone from humorous buddy movie to emotional tear jerker was jarring at times. I’m not sure how they could have gotten around that, but still. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
Total of eight stars, and I do highly recommend this film. If you can convince a girl to go on a date with you it is a great date flick. See it in the theater in order to support good movies, but honestly you won’t miss much if you wait to see it at home. In fact, this might be the perfect movie night at home date movie, if you know what I mean.
Thanks as always for reading. I think tomorrow I will see Dream House even though it looks like it will creep me the hell out. Actaully, if I can find it nearby I want to see Machinegun Preacher. On the other hand, if my movie partner joins me tomorrow I will probably have to see something tamer, like I Don’t Know How She Does it or What’s Your Number. God save me. Anyway, follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
George Lucas sucks
So I didn’t have time to see another movie the weekend, and won’t see one tomorrow as I actually have a date with a woman (??!), but I wanted to talk about something that has been on my mind a lot with regards to the Star Wars franchise. I admit a lot of this has been inspired by watching the Harry Plinkett reviews on Red Letter Media (I highly recommend you check them out), but this has been something that thought of years ago when I first saw Episode III, Revenge of the Sith.
See, the thing is, I am a huge Darth Vader fan. I love the guy. Big, scary, intimidating, ruthless, clever, and has mysterious powers and a laser sword. How can you not love him? So when I first heard that the Episode I-III prequils were going to be about his origin, I was totally excited. I dreamed of watching him fight in the Clone Wars, tearing ass through Jedi and enemy troopers while all around him despaired. More than anything I wanted to see more of Darth Vader in all his cool badness. What I didn’t expect was the whole incoherant, disjointed, amaturish mess that Lucas excreted and should have flushed. (Vader image courtesy of the sci fi t shirt category)
First we had Episode I, the Phantom Menace. I, like most folks, was confused about the title and what it was supposed to mean. To be perfectly honest, this was my state of mind even after having watched it. There was no real story, tension, or drama on any level. The robot army fell to the Jedi with little to no effort and posed absolutely no real threat. Even if they did pose a threat, I wouldn’t have cared as none of the good guys gave me the slightest reason to care one bit about them (actually, a lot of them gave me reason to hate them and hope they died **cough cough Jar Jar Binks and the entire Gungan race cough cough**). The Jedi’s were lame, Padme was hot but lame, and young Anakin Skywalker made me want to push a kid out of an emergency exit on a moving bus. The only character I even remotely cared about died. No, not Qui Gon Jinn. I spent most of the movie hoping he would die. It was Darth Maul, the only character with even the slightest tinge of coolness and the only character who didn’t act like there were taking double doses of Prozium (that’s an Equilibrium joke, if you care).
Anyway, the point here is that this movie had absolutely none of Darth Vader. Instead we got to see a kid who couldn’t act spout out trite and stupid dialog (yes, George, this is all pointed at you) and generally make me want to set fire to the screen. By the way, George, how did an eight year old Anakin find a child sized helmet in the cockpit of a Naboo fighter supposedly piloted by an adult? So Episode I Darth Vader content = 0.0.
Then came Episode II, Attack of the Clones. I prayed for Darth Vader in this one. I thought, “This has to be the part where Obi Won pushes Anakin into an acid jacuzzi and he gets into the cool suit.” Or at least have him enjoy some preminition vision of the mask, the suit, or something about him joining the Dark Side. Remember when Luke had a vision of himself in the mask during The Empire Strikes Back? Something like that. Instead we are subjected to the lamest romance in the history of the human race, much less cinema. Seriously, there was more chemistry in the romance in Lars and the Real Girl. How does a girl fall in love with a guy who murders an entire village, including women and children? We also get to see some really stupid plot developments. Did Obi Won or anyone ever think to maybe ask where the order or money for all the clones came from? We also get to see young Boba Fett and early Stormtroopers, which should have been cool, but kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe it was all the giant bugs at the end.
Anyway, instead of seeing Darth Vader in all his glory we are subjected to a whiny teenager who just made me want to punch Hayden Christensen so hard his mother would feel it, and his cradle robbing cougar girlfriend (did no one else remember she met him when he was eight and she was a fully grown woman? No creepy factor there at all). Episode II Darth Vader content = 0.0.
Then we get into the finale of this debacle, Episode III, Revenge of the Sith (anyone else ever wonder about revenge for what? What exactly did the Jedi do to the Sith that made a guy who wasn’t even alive when whatever happened want revenge?). I heard early on that they actually signed James Earl Jones to do the Vader voice, and I couldn’t have been more excited. “OK,” I thought. “This is where Anakin Skywalker goes full evil. If Lucas has any kind of dignity, respect, and understanding of his audience he will have Anakin take his molten lava bath in the first 30 minutes and then spend an hour and a half vivisecting Jedi.” Nnnnnnnnope. Instead we get more inane romance, everyone in the movie except Palpatine acting like they ate an exclusive diet of lead paint chips, and completely pointless and stupid CGI action. Anakin finally gets off his ass and goes Dark Side, but does it still as whiny metrosexual Anakin Skywalker. The final fight scene goes on so long that when he at last lands in the hot lava I didn’t really care anymore. Then, in the last few minutes, we get a look at the “great” Darth Vader. However, he is not walking around delivering chilling dialog and thinly veiled threats while force choking disbelievers who doubt the power of the force. No. We get him acting like a stupid cry baby. By the way, I really mean stupid. He knows Palpatine is Dark Side and tends towards evil. Did it never occur to him to ask to see Padme’s body before becoming the Emperor’s towel boy? Did he really think that the man who just got him to betray everything he ever stood for and kill all his friends in a megalomaniacal bid for total galactic power might have just bent the truth even a little? Not only would I want to see the body, I’d want to be present for the autopsy. Also, did he also really not think to ask about the kids she was about to drop? At that late a stage in pregnancy it is very possible for an unborn child to survive the death of the mother. Maybe his helmet was just one size too small.
So final Darth Vader content for Episode III = 0.02 in one sense, but in the sense of what I really wanted to see 0.0 again. And that’s it for the whole series. George, you sold out a cherished childhood memory of mine in order to make a ton of money on toys and other crap, and honestly didn’t even do a tolerable job of it. It’s is now obvious to me that you had some talented people working for you (or overriding you in some ways) for A New Hope, the Empire Strikes Back, and to a lesser extent Return of the Jedi (remember the Ewoks). You must have fired them for disagreeing with you and instead surrounded yourself with talentless yes men (Rick McCallum, that last comment was directed at you). What was the problem? Weren’t you already rich enough? Couldn’t you have taken a chance on not making quite as much money in order to retain some form of artistic integrity? Or is this really as good as you can do? In either case, you suck. Don’t ever make another movie again, please.
Movie Review: Attack the Block
Invasion of the midnight black bugbears (why doesn’t spell check call me on that word?)
This movie is one that my friend Dave has been asking me to see and review. I kind of regret not doing it sooner. It wasn’t great, but it was a lot better than most of the movies I have reviewed recently (cough cough Conan the Barbarian cough cough) and I enjoyed watching it. Generally a good experience.
There is one issue I have with this movie, and it is one that has plagued me ever since I started watching Guy Ritchie films: I have a very hard time taking gangsters and gang members with British accents, especially Cockney, seriously or at all threatening. A Cockney accent makes me feel kind of warm and fuzzy, and having some guy spout out hard core gangster dialog just makes me giggle. The disparity is like learning that your sweet grandmother is a five star general and listen to her order men to their deaths. It’s just funny.
I guess the disparity stems in part from having lived around some actual bad ass guys (did I mention I have lived in Oakland for 10 years now?) and seeing them all the time in American movies. Also, the relative rarity of guns in the UK makes crime over there seem somehow less threatening and more amusing. I know for sure that this is just a messed up perception on my part, and if I were on the wrong street in South London I would probably get my ass handed to me pretty quick by guys who sound a lot like Benny Hill. Nevertheless, there it is.
By the way, I do take Irish accents to be pretty serious, but that might be from some of my older family.
Anyway, Attack the Block. Since it is almost out of theaters and wasn’t in a lot of them in the first place I am going to assume most of you will not see it and feel a little free with spoiler, so you might want to skip this next paragraph if you plan to seek it out. Anyway, a gang of youthful hooligans mugs a young girl. During the course of their crime a meteor crashes into a nearby parked car. It contains a very small (pretty much Gremlin sized) alien who attacks the leader of the hooligans. They chase it, kill it, and walk around London carrying it like a trophy. Turns out the little one they killed was a precursor for a swarm of others, all the size of a black bear with midnight black fur (cough cough easy CGI cough cough) and glowing green teeth. They are after anyone who has had contact with the first alien (there is a reason for this, but I won’t spoil that much). 
Alien-esque hijinks ensue. Guys get killed. Aliens get killed with a number of improvised weapons. The mugging victim ends up teamed up with the kids. Some annoying pre-teens show up and do annoying stuff. (Alien image courtesy of the science fiction t shirt category)
The stars. Independent film. One star. Nick Frost. One star. Reasonably believable story. One star. The main group of young teenage hooligans rang really true and acted pretty well for young actors, especially the main one, John Boyega. One star. Story conclusion was well done and hardly smacked of deus ex machina at all. The characters worked hard for it. One star. The girl was really cute, but they didn’t try to crowbar in any kind of dumb romance to gum up the story (this is why I love independent films). One star. The dialog, once you got around understanding all the Cockney, was well done and had some really funny lines. One star. Impressive production values for an independent. One star. The one comic relief character was actually comic relief without being freaking annoying or changing the tone of the film. One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Alien invaders without any kind of technology. Basically it was like being invaded by a bunch of bears. One black hole. Two little kids kept surfacing and harshing my buzz by being annoying. One black hole. After a while the fact that the kids managed to kill aliens over and over again with basically kitchen knives and the like gets less and less believable. One black hole. That’s it. Three black holes.
I have a couple things in the irksome category. For one, the CGI wasn’t the best I have seen lately. However, I am not going to ding them on it as it is an independent and I have seen really polished Hollywood CGI delivering total crap to us lately. Also, throughout most of the movie I couldn’t help but think these invaders could only pull this off in England, as if they landed in the USA our glorious nine guns per ten citizens ratio would have put paid to melee dependent aliens toot sweet.
So a total of six stars. Nice film, and it’s always good to see a film come out of something other than the Hollywood orifice. If you can still catch it in a theater I recommend you do so. If not put in on your NetFlix.
Movie Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Or, I now know which movie from 2011 I most want to own in DvD.
This movie was Smurfing great! (Sorry, I’m still channeling the Smurfs review from a couple days ago). I really can’t say enough good things about it. It’s suspenseful, exciting, well acted, and the apes are unbelievable. I don’t know what kind of pact the animators signed with dark powers to give them the ape visuals, but really stunning.
I don’t mean to gush, but the fact it this is one of the first times in a long time I have been excited by a movie trailer only to find the actual movie exceeds my expectations. Normally I see a really good trailer and am plagued with the thought “That could be decent” only to leave the theater feeling like I vomited in my mouth an hour ago and can still taste a little of it. This film, however, had me leaving the theater just tasting the wholesome goodness of a great movie (and popcorn).
I’m not going to get into the story too much, as most of it can be derived from the trailer alone and also, if you don’t go see this film as soon as possible (like right after reading this review) then you are an idiot of the highest caliber (by the way, I’m still pissed off at movie going America for letting the Smurfs beat out Cowboys and Aliens opening weekend. Really?). Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an origin story without all the origin problems that I have talked about plaguing other origin movies (too focused on the origin of one character, completing the origin in the first half only to have to find a way to fill up the second half, etc.). I actually looked at a couple reviews by other writers (something I really only do for movies that I absolutely love, in case I missed some issue while drifting in my fan boy bliss) and one guy came up with a word that really sums it up nicely: organic. The story is organic and everything that happens seems to happen in a natural order for a completely believable reason.
Anyway, if you have seen the trailer and/or watched Charlton Heston yell at the Statue of Liberty than you know the basic story. Couple minor spoilers coming up so if you get upset at those just skip ahead a little. James Franco plays a biochemist working on an Alzheimer cure in a lab, but the story really isn’t about him. It is about Cesar, the research chimp that he rescues and takes home from his lab. Cesar was infected with the retrovirus the was being worked on to develop the brain cure. He shows unusual intelligence as he grows up. Meanwhile the research 
continues and gets better. Cesar grows up in a loving home but is smart enough to realize he does not have the same rights or identity as the humans. Eventually he attacks a jerk neighbor (played by David Hewlett, of Stargate Atlantis, who plays a jerk better than pretty much anyone else. Dr. Rodney McKay image from the science fiction t shirt category) and gets locked up in a shelter, where he is more or less mistreated by the local white trash handler. It time he escapes, gets a hold of the newer, improved brain cure, and gives it to his other chimp buddies. It might sound a little far fetched, but it all makes total sense when you see it. Ape hijinks ensues. Stuff gets blown up. The apes go a little nuts.
First the stars. Planet of the Apes. One star. The ape animation was so, absolutely freaking good. One star. The pacing and flow of the movie couldn’t be more perfect. One star. You can actually see the humanization of the apes, particularly Cesar, as the movie progresses. Believe it or not, but towards the end you can literally see subtle nuance in the facial expressions of the apes. One star. Great story. One star. They managed to reference the original movie multiple times (Apes on horseback, a barely mentioned but significant missing manned space flight to Mars, even the famous Charlton Heston phrase) without rubbing our faces in it like certain other, lamer directors like to do (suck it, Lucas). One star. The human acting was good. One star. They guy the got to do the motion capture for Cesar was un-freaking-believable. Also, as a baby and young chimp he is super duper cute. Two stars. Jonathon Lithgow (Third Rock from the Sun). One star. James Franco’s vet girlfriend (Frieda Pinto) was so hot she had me channeling my inner primate, if you know what I mean. One star. Somehow the director took a movie about the fall of the human race and made me feel good when the apes won. One star. David Hewlett. One star. And two bonus stars for just a damned good movie. Total: fourteen stars.
As for black holes, I spent a lot of time last night and this morning wracking my brain, but to be honest, can’t seem to find any. I suppose an argument could be made that the apes seemed to go out of their way to try to not kill humans, at least until the end, but that could just be a reflection of Cesar growing up with humans. Another point could be raised out of the fact that, while it was very cool that it was set in San Francisco, there was a lot of stuff that didn’t make sense to a local. We really don’t get mosquitoes, and there is a scene of a guy getting bit by one. We also don’t have a lot of issues with animal cruelty at shelters as there are several hundred thousand animal rights activists who would probably draw and quarter anyone guilty of that. But these are minor and, in a lesser film, would be put in the “irksome but not black hole worthy” category. I won’t disrespect this film with those.
So a grand total of 14 stars, tying for my top score to date. Honestly, see this movie. You will enjoy the hell out of it and hopefully encourage movie makers to keep on doing great films that don’t suck.
On the other hand, for films that I fully expect to suck look for a review for the Change Up later this weekend. This has suck written all over it. Also, I saw another of the Harry Potter movies last night and will continue with my marathon this weekend. Talk to you soon.
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 6: the Undiscovered Country.
I admit I have been putting this off a bit, as this is the last of the “good” Star Trek movies. After this the franchise stops circling the drain and finally goes down. By no small coincidence it was directed by Nicholas Meyer, the man responsible for all the best Star Trek films. They were pretty much done with the actors directing films by this point, although Nimoy did a decent job. (The Undiscovered Country image courtesy of the Star Trek t shirt category)
I have fond memories of this film, and enjoyed seeing it. However, this film really drove home the fact that instead of the young action figures I was used to seeing I was watching some older men kind of fumble around on the screen. When James Doohan was the one to save the day at the end I knew the action days of the Star Trek crew were pretty much over (we’ll talk about Kirk fighting it out with Malcolm McDowell in Generations later).
What was happening in 1991? Well, I was a sophomore in my second try at college. I was grinding my way through the mechanical engineering program and hating it (I would later switch to Studio Art). We attacked Iraqi forces in Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm (good thing we were done there and never had to go back. Oh, wait…). Iraq also agreed to eliminate all WMD’s and, as far as all evidence since has shown, complied. Russia has its first free elections and votes in Boris Yeltsin. A big fire in my home town of Oakland, CA burns thousands of houses. The Prime Minister of India, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandh, is assassinated. South Africa adopts a new constitution that was multicultural. The Balkan war started. Mike Tyson was arrested and charged with rape. The phrase “going postal” started up by a postal worker shooting up a bunch of people. Freddie Mercury died of AIDS. The Rodney King video tape is shown. The Internet is opened to the public and has over 1 million computers on it (ha ha ha ha aha ha). The first web browser is released.
Movies were kind of ok. Good ones included T2: Judgement Day, Silence of the Lambs, Backdraft, Father of the Bride, and Thelma and Louise. Less good ones include Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Hook, the Addams Family, Beethoven, Beauty and the Beast, and the Naked Gun 2 1/2: the Smell of Fear. Popular music included Pearl Jam, Brian Addams, Phil Collins, Guns ‘n Roses, Metallica, Gloria Estephan, R.E.M., U2, Van Halen, the Clash, Garth Brooks, and Nirvana.
So, the Undiscovered Country. The Klingon moon Praxis (by the way, there is a series of books called Dread Empires Fall that talks about the Praxis as a philosophy. Great science fiction, especially if you like space battles that actually take most real physics into account) blows up and more or less wrecks the Klingon Empire. They sue for peace and send Kirk to transport the Klingon ambassador even though it is known that he hates the Klingons for killing his son David, who he knew for all of 2 weeks or so. Kirk is framed for killing the guy, and surrenders to the Klingons. He and McCoy are convicted and sentenced to a prison gulag. Some prison stuff happens, including an attempted escape with the help of a shapeshifter who really plans to kill them. Spock beams them out after he discovers what really happened. They find two assassins dead but trick their accomplice to reveal herself. Turns out it was Samantha from Sex and the City. Anyway, a bunch of Klingon, Romulan, and Federation officers are working together in a conspiracy to prevent the treaty that would allow them all to work together(?). The crew finds the cloaked Bird of Prey that did the original attack and blow it up. They all beam down to the conference and save the presidents life.
What it had:
The full crew. Captain Sulu. Captain Spock. Captain Scott(? I guess all the S names got promoted). Some cool space battles. A decently complicated plot that didn’t drive me berserk. Some decent humor. An illustration of the bonds of friendship between the crew that was organic and not shoved down our pie holes in the form of an awkward dumb speech made around a campfire. A dumb cameo by Christian Slater. Super hot Imam as the shape shifter. A shockingly large number of minor continuity failures. A generally good movie experience.
What it didn’t have:
Sulu on the bridge with the rest of the crew. That’s pretty much it. I can’t think of a lot from this one.
So a very positive experience, especially given the dross we were forced to watch in the last one. Unfortunately this would be the last positive Star Trek film experience, pretty much for ever (and don’t give me any crap about the J.J. Abrams movie. If you are really a Star Trek fan than you know it’s garbage). I warn you now that the following retrospectives, starting with (de)Generations, are going to take a much darker and bitter tone so if you feel you need positivity in your life you might want to skip them. It’ll be a couple more posts before I get to it, especially since I am about to go see Friends with Benifits and expect it to burn up my bile reserves pretty easily.
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 3: Star Trek the Search for Spock
OK, Spock is dead, and fan boys across the planet (like me) are crying about it and demanding something be done. Nimoy has said he want’s to put Spock behind him and move on with his life. How, then, do you get him back in the saddle? (Search for Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T shirts category).
Simple. You offer him a chance to direct the movie. That’s pretty much what Paramount did. They gave Nimoy his first chance to direct, and to be honest, he did a pretty damned good job. I mean, this wasn’t the best Star Trek movie, but I see that as more of a limitation placed on him by the script than anything else (yes, I am that film critic. The one who craps all over every movie he sees until he is confronted by one done by someone he likes and has to find every excuse for them).
Actually, that’s not exactly true. Nimoy got kind of excited about Spock after seeing the TWOK and was gung ho to do the next movie. He himself suggested directing it. Kind of risky on Paramount’s part, in that now you have a director you literally cannot fire.
So what was going on in 1984? I was just out of my first horrible year of hell (I mean, high school). I remember one thing and that is we went to this movie in the back of a pickup truck (on the freeway. God I don’t miss the 80’s). With us on that trip were no less than three girls who were all kind of cute, at least one of which I think in retrospect kind of liked me. My natural awkwardness and inability to talk to women was able to prevent me from gaining some joy in my teenage life. Movie tickets cost at most $3. Ethiopia faced massed starvation and spawned any number of the least sensitive jokes of all time (“What’s the fastest animal in the world? An Ethiopian chicken.”). The Ethiopian tragedy also gifted us with Band Aid and the massive Do they Know it’s Christmas, a chance for every lame pop singer to stroke their egos and look good. AT&T is forcibly broken up (and yet, I am still paying them). We had the first ever (and very cool) untethered space walk. The first ever MTV Video Music Awards starts off, ringing like the death knell over music culture. It was kind of a banner year for movies. In addition to the Search for Spock, Ghostbusters (Sigorney Weaver!, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Beverly Hills Cop, The Karate Kid, Police Academy, The Terminator, and the highly underrated Romancing the Stone all came out. Magnum PI and the A Team were hot. With the exception of music (“Wake me up, before you go go!”) things seemed pretty cool and upbeat. The world wanted new beginnings, and the Search for Spock fit right in.
So Spock placed his soul (his katra) in McCoy just before dying in the last movie. McCoy is haunted by his spirit and they have to get to Vulcan after learning they made a major blunder dropping Spocks body off on the planet rather than returning him home. I guess checking on crewmembers religious beliefs wasn’t high up on Kirks priority list, although you would think he would have done a little more for his best friend. They go back to the Genesis planet where they discover the planet is more or less breaking apart. Spock’s body has mysteriously disappeared out of the coffin, although his Vulcan e coli or whatever have evolved into giant banana slugs. Other stuff happens. The Klingons kill Kirk’s son David. A teenage Spock Pon Fars the hell out of Saavik (played by a young, thin, and super hot Kirstie Allie. What is it about women who are willing to dress up as Vulcans that drives me crazy? I still think about this one girl I met at the Star Trek convention last year. It doesn’t help that, in addition to being super hot, she was also super cool). After years of blue balling himself and coming within a hairs breath of it Kirk finally gets to complete his self destruct sequence for the Enterprise. The crew escapes in a stolen Klingon ship (it’s hard to beat the Enterprise for coolness, but the Klingons have always given them a run for their money).
What the movie had:
The original crew. The return of Spock (although he doesn’t actually appear until the end and only has a couple speaking lines). Modern Klingons. Enterprise blowing up. Planet blowing up. The death of Kirks son, so he wouldn’t be around to clutter up the next few movies. Implied hot Vulcan sex. Effects on par with TWOK. Giant banana slugs with teeth. A clever ploy.
What it didn’t have:
Nicholas Meyer, the writer of TWOK. He stormed off in a huff over the changes the studio forced upon him in TWOK, including the coffin on the planet scene. A rational explanation as to how Spock’s body reconstituted itself (more on that later). Spock playing Spock.
This is the first Star Trek movie that generated some serious questions in my mind with regards to continuity (and probably paved my path to becoming an amateur movie reviewer). First of all, Kirk is really broken up about the death of his son (and in later movies is even more upset about it) but as far as I can tell he only knew the guy for two weeks or so. In the TV show Kirk had crewmembers he had known for years die horrible, horrible deaths (remember the Devil in the Dark?) and didn’t even blink an eye. Secondly, if the cold germs or whatever in the pod with Spocks body were super evolved into giant banana slugs by the Genesis effect, why would it just regenerate Spock in his original form? Shouldn’t he have been a super evolved Vulcan? Or, for that matter, if they sent down his body shouldn’t each cell have evolved into something, possibly resulting in billions of super evolved Spocks? Also, what did young Spock eat? To grow that fast he must have eaten about 10x his weight every day. For that matter, if he speed grew up from a baby who kept him from running off a cliff or what have you? Even with my parents protection I managed to injure myself pretty much every day as a kid. Sure Spock is half Vulcan, but he’s also half human, which in broader terms is half stupid. Also, assuming the planet had evolved an abundance of fruit trees, how did he feed himself as a baby? Also, according the scientist involved in the project there would be only plant life on the planet. So what did young Spock do for protein? Seems the only sources of protein would be giant banana slugs and his own corpse. Shouldn’t he have been suffering from serious malnutrition? Also, if he had never seen another creature in his life when the crew showed up why did he hide from them? Wouldn’t he just see them as some kind of moving plant? Is there any chance Saavik got pregnant and there is a son of Spock running around?
The list can go on, but I will spare you. Overall I would say this was a decent film, and a nice bridge from the end of the series in the last film and the rest of them. The only problem is that this is the last film where you see Kirk as a moderately believable action hero. Last movie saw the end of Spock as we knew him, and this one we see the end of Kirk. From this movie forth he would still do stuff in an action way, but it would take on a Mork from Ork comedy element. If you don’t believe me go back and watch the fight scene from Star Trek Generations. Like I said, decent film. Just not the best.
