Goodbye Iain M. Banks
I in all ways qualify as a fan boy. I am really into and obsess about certain nerd sub cultures and will fight tooth and nail to defend my position against the ignorant savages who want have deluded themselves into believing that the Star Trek reboots were decent films, or that Superman is as good a comic book character as Batman, or that the Alliance is better than the Horde because the characters are prettier (2009 Star Trek image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category). If you ever get me into a discussion of the relative merits of the new Star Wars verses the original three prepare to be either bored or enthralled (depending on your own fan boy status) for several hours as I discuss exactly how Lucas failed and betrayed us all in excruciating detail.
The thing is I am for the most part I am a fan boy of characters and concepts far more than people. I am a huge fan of Han Solo but given the opportunity to meet Harrison Ford I could take it or leave it. My love of Han never got me to become a big fan of Indiana Jones. The point is that one of the few actual real life humans I am a fan of is the late, great Iain M. Banks.
I wrote something about his developing cancer a couple months ago so I am not going to gush on about how great his books are or how much they always meant to me. If you are that interested you can check out the blog I did back then here. Sufficed to say he was one of the few people in the world I would have gone to great lengths to meet and discuss his work with, and with his passing yesterday the world feels like a more bleak place for me. Anyone who knows anything about Science Fiction (or just dark, gothic fiction) knows what he was to our beloved genre, and I hope you all take a minute out of your day to reflect and appreciate what a rare gem he was; a truly creative and humorous soul in a literary world cluttered with sparkly vampires, dragons burning sky worms, and every other rampantly prolific author of pulp designed to regurgitate every trite sci fi idiom as a bland paste.
Iain M. Banks, I for one will miss you.
Dave
P.S. Mr. Banks managed to finish his last novel three weeks before his death. Not at all surprisingly it is about a man with cancer. It is called The Quarry, and I recommend we all buy and read a copy as a tribute to a great author. I am looking forward to it.
D.
Star Trek Into Darkness Review
ABRAAAAAAAAMS!!!!!
I am in every sense of the term a nerd. I love science and (to a lesser extent) math. I would rather read a book than watch or participate in a sporting match. Solving problems logically is a joy. I am socially awkward, especially with women and dating. I used to have 20/400 vision and wore thick Coke bottle glasses but had laser eye surgery (and as further proof of my nerdishness went into the operation with the secret hope that a freak lab accident would give me the ability to shoot lasers out of my eyes). In college I wore only the worst possible clothing (ever wonder what tie dye shirts and camouflage pants looks like together? I don’t have to) and had the personal hygiene habits of pig/monkey hybrid (ponkey?) with dysentery. My nerd interests are legion, including science fiction, comic books, cartoons (anime), video games, role playing games, and miniature war games.
However first and for most I am above all things a Star Trek nerd. Star Trek was my introduction to the nerd world, opening the door to the wonders of science fiction and datelessness, enticing me through with soft music and the delicate scent of flowers and bacon. Kirk and Spock were the friends I wished I had when my so called peers were kicking the crap out of me in grade school and my actual friends looked on. Most of my childhood was spent wishing for the chance to beam the hell out of my life and then call in an orbital phaser strike on Palisades Elementary School.
I start this review thusly in order to establish where I am coming from. I am sure any marginal or non fan will have no problem with this film and enjoy it immensely (although any fan of movies without gargantuan plot holes will be bitterly disappointed). However, as a fan of both Star Trek and well written movies I find myself once again frustrated and insulted by the lazy pap thrown up on the screen.
I tried. Honestly I did. I have had a few years to get over how butt hurt I was at the whole remaking of the entire Star Trek universe into the developmentally challenged image that J.J. seems to feel is appropriate. I have been watching episodes of Fringe in an attempt to acclimatize myself to his particular story telling style (of course in a recent interview on the Howard Stern Show he said he was not really involved a whole lot in Fringe and has not even seen all the episodes) and showed up at the theater wearing a Star Trek t shirt and a heart full of hope.
132 very long minutes later I walked out and the only thing I could think of was “It’s going to be really hard to remember all the plot holes and canon screw ups when I write my review tomorrow”. After about an hour the part of my brain that feels pain every time they butchered another piece of my childhood was nothing but a burned out mass of scar tissue and all that was left was the occasional flare of ire at the laziness of the script and honestly a certain amount of boredom.
So, Star Trek Into Darkness, or as it should have been called Star Wars Into Dark Side. I have always said J.J. Abrams always wanted to be making Star Wars not Star Trek and never has it been more clear. It started when I realized the new formal uniforms that Star Fleet now wears look like a slightly more Nazi version of the uniforms of the Death Star officers. There was a scene where a suspiciously coin shaped ship squeezed through a narrow passage in an almost exact reproduction of the Millennium Falcon’s assault on the Death Star in Return of the Jedi. Instead of the trademark long sweeping maneuvers from TNG we get either Episode IV style dog fights or Episode III style long slow battles. Even the aliens looked a lot like the aliens from Star Wars, including one that looked suspiciously like a scaly Ewok in size, facial features, intellect, and demeanor.
I’m about to lay down some pretty heavy spoilers as I don’t think I can pass all my bile out without doing so. If you feel like this will ruin the experience for you and/or don’t want to be bummed out by my banging on about Star Trek canon why don’t you got back and read the review I did for Oblivion? That review is far more upbeat than this one. Come back after you see the this movie and finish reading this review. Be sure to let me know here if you agree with me or are a poser half assed fan who didn’t vomit all over his or her popcorn when you watched Generations. I promise I won’t ignore you to death.
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT! This movie claims to be a remake of my most beloved Star Trek movies The Wrath of Khan, and for sure is uses a character with the same name and sort of the same back story but other than that it is such a miss I’m not sure they were even in the same ballpark. I think in a week or so I will do a detailed list of all the plot holes, stupidity, and canon rapes this movie has but for now I think it would be amusing to keep a counter going like this (0).
So the film starts off with Kirk and Spock violating the prime directive by saving an indigenous people from an exploding volcano. All Star Trek fans know that the Prime Directive is more of a guideline and nothing at all to be taken seriously (1). For some reason they have to hide the Enterprise under the sea because they can’t launch the shuttle craft from orbit (2). I’m OK with the transporter not working as that is a pretty standard Star Trek thing. In an effort to maintain a low profile and not interfere with the primitive alien culture Kirk and McCoy sneak into the alien temple for no apparent reason whatsoever (3) and Kirk opts to shoplift some kind of holy drawing of a Christmas tree (4). They run away and jump off a cliff in order to swim back to the Enterprise using some kind of underwater jet boots (no number there. I actually thought those were kind of cool).
Meanwhile Spock is wearing some kind of armor and is going to be lowered on a rope into the volcano in order to detonate a cold bomb and freeze it (no one ever heard of a winch or parachute? For that matter if you are going to lower some kind of explosive device into a lower level from an aircraft wouldn’t it be nice if there were some kind of way of “dropping” the “bomb” without risking someone’s life? Too bad something like that wasn’t invent during WWI. 5, BTW). Apparently if the volcano erupts the whole planet will die (6). Anyway, for some reason they can’t do this at night and only a shuttle craft can sneak into the smoke. Also something was said about the heat damaging the Enterprise (??? Don’t they have shields? Aren’t they capable of withstanding massive energy based damage? For the record heat=energy. 6). Of course the heat managed to wreck the shuttle craft yet somehow Spock is OK in his EVA suit. Why don’t they just wrap the shuttle craft in the same material? (7).
Kirk further violates the pesky Prime Directive by lifting the Enterprise out of the ocean directly in front of the aliens (why did he park it within sight of their village? Also I’m pretty sure the Enterprise was constructed in space and was never intended to land anywhere. I think they expanded the in atmosphere capabilities in TNG but for sure even being slightly in atmo was bad. 8 and 9). Naturally he rescues Spock and goes back to Earth for a nice relaxing three way with some alien chicks. He heads back to headquarters where the look of the season is SS uniforms.
He gets demoted back to first officer under Pike again. Meanwhile the only character that really was worth anything shows up in the form of a traitor named Hamilton (Benedict Cumberbatch). He subplots a guy with a terminally ill daughter and cures the daughter in order to get the guy to blow up something. He then attacks the meeting of all the officers with a gun ship (why would he try to kill them all with effectively a machine gun? Why not just kill them with explosives? 10). Pike gets killed, and Kirk manages to blow up the gunship with a firehose (no joke. 11).
For some reason (I keep using that phrase over and over again but this film is pretty miserly on explanations of pretty much anything) Scotty is part of the forensics team looking into the wreckage of the gun ship (12) and is allowed to wander off with a massive chunk of evidence. It is some kind of long range transporters that indicates the traitor has gone to Qo’noS (that’s Kronos to the posers out there) the Klingon homeworld (I should ding them for the long range transporter but really that was established in the last bad movie). Admiral Marcos (Peter Weller) gives Kirk some experimental photon torpedoes and orders him to park outside of the Neutral Zone (for the record the Neutral Zone always marked the border of the Romulan Empire, not the Klingon. 13) and shell him from a distance but to do so quietly so as to not start a war with the Klingons (14).
A new crew member shows up for no apparent reason and with incomplete or forged orders (apparently if you want to go for a ride on the Enterprise all you have to do is flirt with Kirk for a couple seconds and make up some bogus story. 14) in the form of hot blond science officer who later turns out to by coincidence be Admiral Marcus’s daughter (15). Scotty resigns off the ship in a snit because no one will let him look inside the the new photon torpedoes (for the most part Scotty was a good officer and knew how to obey his orders. Anyone else remember him letting a big computer run the Enterprise in Episode 53 the Ultimate Computer? 16). Kirk remembers his standard orders of peace and law when he gets to the neutral zone and sneaks onto Kronos with no apparent problem (the Klingon Empire has little interest in detecting enemies coming to their home world. 17). He heads to the planet in a shuttle craft they confiscated (apparently the shuttle bay on the Enterprise now has room for a fleet of smaller craft. I guess the ship is a carrier? 18) that looks suspiciously like another space ship that shall go unnamed but sounds like Aluminum Malcolm. He uses that ship to turn sideways and escape between a narrow metal passage while being pursued by tiny little Klingon ships. They are stopped by the Klingons and rescued by the very traitor they were after, who manages to kill like 20 of the galaxies greatest warriors.
The guy surrenders when he finds out how many of the experimental torpedoes they have and reveals that he is Khan as in Space Seed and the Wrath of Khan (wait a minute. Wasn’t Khan Noonien Singh supposed to be Indian? This guy is whiter than Casper and has an English accent. 19). He is taken back to the ship where McCoy examines him and tells Kirk he is 300 years old (note-at the start of the movie they reveal that the year is 2259 which means Khan was born in…1959? He could be watching this movie as we speak at the ripe old age of 54. That’s lazy beyond the pale. It’s one form of lazy to not do any research into any element of your actual source material but this is so lazy you can’t pull out a calculator and figure out the age of your villain is stupid. 20). Also McCoy says Khan’s blood has healing properties and injects it into a dead Tribble (didn’t they encounter Tribbles as part of their voyages? Here it seems like they are as common as guinea pigs. 21)
The ship has a warp core malfunction and is stuck in the Neutral Zone (Klingons still not really great about checking for enemies. Typical. They are generally a peaceful and docile race). Khan convinces Kirk to open up one of the torpedoes. In order to do this he opts to use his new super hot science bimbo (who also happens to be an expert in experimental weapons. 22). She needs help and recruits McCoy because he had steady hands (??? Are there no technicians or engineers on the ship who know how to use a screwdriver? I thought that was what Red Shirts were all about. On this ship there is exactly one medical doctor and about 400 basic bullet stoppers. 23). Naturally he bones it up (haw!) so we can have an “exciting” 30 second countdown to death averted at the last second by just ripping out the computer core or something (24). Inside the torpedo we find a frozen human?
Yes, it’s the rest of Khan’s jolly crew from the Botany Bay. Don’t worry none of them wake up to make this film actually interesting. Somehow Khan or Marcus got the crew stuffed into the torpedo tubes (25) and Marcus was going to fire Khans old mates at him instead of just dropping them into the nearest sun (26). At that point Marcus shows up with a super dreadnaught that has everything a warship could possibly need except for locks on the outer doors (27). Much is said about how this is the first Federation warship and how the Enterprise was just an explorer with guns (sorry, but I have to take issue with this. The Enterprise in TOS was always a considered a warship that was used for exploration. 28). Marcus does the typical evil monolog and plans to kill Khan and the rest of the crew. His daughter comes up to stop him and he just transports her onto his ship (what was her plan exactly? How did she not see that coming? 29). They do a space battle but Marcus’s ship is disabled when it is revealed that Scotty was on board the other ship and shut down the warp core (I might buy his ability to hide on board the ship and shut it down, but how did he know what was going on? For all he knew Marcus was fighting an alien horde. Also remember when communicators were for short range communication? Apparently Abrams does not as hand held communicators can now reach from Kronos to Earth. 30. By the way, when they show Kronos it is with the moon blown up. For those of you who aren’t in the know, that moon got blown up in Star Trek 6, 30+ years after the date of this film and IN AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TIMELINE THAT JJ ABRAMS DESTROYED WHEN HE REBOOTED THE FRANCHISE! For god’s sake if you are going to do something stick with it. Lazy, lazy, lazy. 31).
Neither ship has weapons capabililty (nothing more exciting than a space battle involving two ships aimless drifting at each other) so Kirk recruits Khan to personally assault Marcus’s ship before they are all killed (the Enterprise has a crew of over 400 people. Doesn’t he have anyone who knows which end of a phaser the pew pew comes out of? 32). They capture the ship and of course Khan betrays them. He extorts his crew out of Spock and starts blowing the hell out of the Enterprise. Naturally Spock send over armed torpedoes and blows his ship up (by the way, much is said to establish that Vulcans cannot lie in order to make this deception a big deal, but that was never a part of any Star Trek until this movie. Spock could lie when it suited his needs, and his wife T’Pring lied her ass off at him).
Now we get to the part that made me want to weep. The core is knocked out of alignment and in a sort of homage to TWOK with a super “fun” twist it is now Kirk who has to go into the radiation room and fix the warp core with precision kicks (literally. Everyone knows you can fix high tech equipment with blunt force, like Fonzie and the jukebox. 33). They do the whole Spock death scene exactly as they did in the good film only without the emotional gravitas or weight. Anyway, Spock now has an emotional freak out (34) and screams Khaaaaan to no one in particular (35). Khan has crashed his ship in San Francisco (did I not mention that the whole fight took place 200K kilometers from Earth? Good thing Earth doesn’t have any kind of detectors or ships around that might have done something. 36) and Spock goes after him (again, no one else on board who can shoot?). They do a foot race that looks a lot like the final fight scene from Revenge of the Sith (with less lava, of course) and he captures him. JJ then pulls a happy ending from the deepest recess of his sweatiest ass and has Khan’s blood return Kirk from the dead (37), effectively removing any possible emotional connection with this film and draining the last of my interest.
I’d like to comment a bit on fake death scene and why it was such a miserable failure. I have often said that that scene in TWOK made me cry like a little girl and to this day tears me up. It was the death of a legendary icon, my childhood idol and best friend, and the effective end of the franchise (sure they kept it going but really the Star Trek I grew up with died there). In this film we get a cheesy reimagining with characters we don’t really give a damn about and an event we all know the studio will never let stand, especially when McCoy was already working on blood with regenerative abilities. It has all the weight of a wet fart and was about as annoying and insulting. Also, when Kirk scream Khaaaaan in the good movie Khan had just left them to die on a rock and Kirk was in communication with him, not bellowing at an empty bulkhead. This scene was forced into the movie with all the subtlety of a gardenhose colonoscopy and was about as painful. The only thing I felt when Kirk died was a weird kind of relief that that scene was over and a slight wonder as to when they would do the blood thing.
Oh, by the way why the need to capture Khan alive? Does Kirk need a full body transfusion? A tiny syringe of blood was enough to revive the Tribble. Couldn’t they mop up Khans blood off the pavement, or drain it from whatever body parts are still lying around after Spock gets done with him? Also aren’t replicators pretty well established in Star Trek and couldn’t they just whip up a batch of it on their own? How about the fact that they have like 72 other frozen super humans with the same blood, including the one guy they pulled out in order to freeze Kirk in the first place? For that matter what motivated to McCoy to inject Khan’s blood into a dead tribble in the first place? Is this some kind of standard Starfleet Medical procedure? “Well, you tested negative for all STD’s and your Dead Tribble Revival rating is through the roof!”? Am I the only one seeing these things? 38, 39, and 40.
The stars.
Special effects are great, but if you are going to a Star Trek film for special effects you are missing the point. One star. Some of the stuff I liked included the underwater jet boots and the look of the Federation Dreadnaught. One star. Uhura and the new girl are very easy on the eyes in a family friendly PG-13 way. One star. For all my bile, it is still a Star Trek movie. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes.
So 40 plot holes, canon mistakes, or just stupid plot devices and that’s after a tertiary examination. I think that’s worth at least three black holes. Using Star Trek to warm up for his Star Wars movie. One black hole. Chris Pine is still not Kirk. One black hole. The crowbaring in of the death scene and the Khaaan moment in a worthless and painful manner. One black hole. Essentially a very lazy script that only picked the low hanging fruit, while leaving all the good stuff that required a step ladder to rot. Two black holes. Extra character who added nothing. One black hole. It’s weird to say this, but this movie had a strange pacing. Normally 135 minutes of sci fi is easy for me even if it’s not Star Trek, but this one felt like a grind. One black hole. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; there is a limit to how many near death escapes a character can survive before you stop giving a damn, and this one hit the limit in the first 20 minutes. Every scene was yet another shockingly (yet not really shocking. More like licking a 9 volt battery than getting hit with a tazer) close call. It’s like being given a delicious chocolate sunday and as soon as you are done being fed 23 more in two hours. Eventually you are going to vomit and go into a sugar coma. One black hole.
A grand total of seven black holes. An incredibly disappointing score for me for a Star Trek movie. However, understand that as I love Star Trek so much I hold anything related to it to a higher standard. If you are not a rabid fan and/or just want to be entertained go for it. I think you might get a little bored by the end but no worries. You will feel like you got your monies worth. Date movie? It annoys the crap out of me that I have to say yes as being a Star Trek nerd has for years been a huge deal breaker for me and women, but I think it would work. Bathroom break? Honestly the death scene is the perfect time, and since no one actually dies it has zero weight or merit. Go for it.
Thanks for reading. This is another one I hate myself for doing, but I am in almost all things honest, especially when it comes to things I love being abused by people. For the record this is the longest review I have ever written. Follow me on Twitter NerdKungFu. Feel free to post comments here on my review or this movie. Off topic comments, suggestions, or death threats can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Girl Rising Movie Review
An important lesson is learned about always watching a trailer before seeing a film.
Not to say this film was bad. Just that I walked in expecting to see a chick flick with lots of people coming to terms with stuff and instead got a documentary designed to make me feel guilty for living in a 1st world country and for being a man.
As an extremely regular movie goer I have memberships to pretty much every theater reward program out there. Typically this gets me cheap popcorn and the occasional free movie ticket but a couple weeks ago it spat out a free pass to see this movie. I am if nothing else cheap, and giving me a free pass to a new screening is akin to waving the red flag in front of the bull (although I will admit on the rare occasion that I see a film for free or early I tend to start of more kindly disposed to the film (to any Hollywood marketing firms out there that was a less than subtle hint)).
Girl Rising is a documentary about the importance of educating girls and young women in third world hell holes. As a marketing tool I will have to say it is shockingly effective as I am now an advocate for this. No joke I am going to try to scrape together a few ducats and send it to the charity behind this thing (and if you knew how I live you would understand what that means. My life savings is in t-shirts right now and my business is not exactly capable of doing more that buying me the occassional quesadilla from Burrito Ole’.) Showing real people in real situations is always more impactful than all the fake tears and stuntmen Hollywood can through at us, and when those real people are cute little girls from across the globe it will pull at your heartstrings with monster truck force.
During the course of this film I felt a wide gamut of emotions. I felt fear for a couple of the girls who were honestly in danger, rage and helplessness in the face of others who were raped or sold (if you don’t feel an urge to punch the first six men you come across after listening to a 12 year old Egyptian girl talk about being raped and then married off a year later you are not human. Feel free to leave the planet by the quickest method available), and happiness and exaltation for the girls who managed to succeed and excel through education. 
I have spent most of my life pretending to be Spock emotionally (DJ Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category) but this film blasted through my defenses like a bullet train through a paper towel fence.
The overriding message is that educating girls in Third World countries is an extremely powerful tool for helping not only the girls themselves but the world in general. Educating girls will grossly benefit the countries GNP, cut down immensely on rape, human trafficking, death from childbirth, overpopulation, and reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS. This is all in addition to the massive personal benefit to the girls in question. It shows this presenting short vignettes about 9 different girls from 9 different countries. Some of them are stories of girls finding an education in spite of the cultural and economic issues facing them. These are the happy stories. Others are about girls who can’t get an education due (and in some cases it is illegal for them to do so) and the horrible things that happen or face them because of that. Each vignette is followed by very interesting statistics on how education can benefit these girls.
I was going to give a quick rundown on each of the girls but halfway through it decided one sentence descriptions does not do them the justice the deserve. I will just say it’s worth your time to see each one, even if some of them will have you clawing your own face off in frustration.
I am not going to bother with my usual stars/black holes rating system. I called this blog a review for lack of a more descriptive term but this film can’t be reviewed by normal means. It is not a traditional film. Is it powerful? Yes. Will you want to do something at the end of it? Yes. Will you feel good afterward? Depends on which story you want to focus on, but knowing that for every positive one there are probably thousands of negative ones probably not. Not all movies are about feeling good.
The part of this film that I had the hardest time was waiting for the denouement. As a patron of the Hollywood movie set I spent most of the movie waiting for Jason Stratham to break in with a sub machine gun and rescue each of them but you know what? That sort of hero doesn’t exist in real life. The actual heroes are regular people like you and me who take a stand and do what is within our means. I don’t usually do this sort of thing but I invite each one of you to visit Girl Rising, the website of the organization that put this film together, and do whatever you can to help. If you have money send money. If you don’t then try to watch the film or social media the crap out of them. Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is you kids are doing these days to get the word out. I am not much of a social activist and I hate this Jerry’s Kid’s style telethon BS intensely but if you saw this film you would understand why I now care (and if you know me you know how little I care about almost anything). Please do what you can.
I always say thanks for reading at the end of my blogs, but this time really thank you for reading. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this cause or movie can be put here and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Thank you again.
Dave
Happy -210th Birthday, Captain Kirk
Yes, 210 glorious years from now the greatest military man in the history of the human race will be born, destined to make it with every hot alien chick in the universe. Soon the universe will enjoy his clipped manner of speech and amazing hair (suck it Captain Picard).
One can only wonder if the should rolls of the future will measure up those we are so familiar with.
Of course Captain, since your fate is now in the hands of J.J. Abrams and he has already shown your history the respect a drunken homeless person shows a public lavatory it could be that you end up somehow completely different. Maybe he thinks it will be fun to have you go bald, or catch space AIDS, or just get married and forgo your rakish ways. However, based on what I have seen so far it would not surprise me to see him give you some kind of “force” power and equip you with a laser sword (or saber) of some kind. Since he has already remade Star Trek into some kind of war in the stars movie nothing would shock me now.
The Kirk image here I got from the Star Trek T Shirt collection. Fingers crossed that Into the Darkness is not what I kind of expect it to be.
Dave
Dead Man Down Review
I’m down with this film.
I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. It has been a long, grueling trip through the first part of this year with most of the movies I have seen being only slightly preferable to spending a week in an oubliette. As my personal and professional life gets busier I don’t get to see all the movies I used to, which makes seeing three bad ones in a row that much more grinding. (Dead Man Walking image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category)
So when I saw that the first English movie for Swedish director Niels Arden Oplev (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish version), Worlds Apart, We Shall Overcome) was coming out I was intrigued in the same way a shipwreck victim in intrigued by a life vest. Yesterday was an ETC Warhammer practice day and afterwards I got two of my friends to check it out.
Well done, with a different kind of story. I love revenge stories. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite books, and I have a love of revenge movies that goes way back. V for Vendetta is awesome, and if you ever have the chance check out an old movie called Johnny Handsome. Mickey Roarke when he was still young. This movie reminded me a lot of Johnny Handsome, in that a guy works for years on his revenge plot. It is not flawless, and the main issue stems from the movie shifting gears in the last 20 minutes from an intricate crime drama into a Die Hard remake, but for the most part is pretty damned good.
I am going to go easy on the story recap as it has a lot of cool twists I don’t want to see you miss out on. Colin Farrell (Phone Booth, Total Recall, In Bruges) plays Victor, a mid level thug who works for Alphonse (Terrence Howard-Iron Man, Hustle and Flow, the Crash). Alphonse is the subject of a long term revenge plot by an unknown assailant for an unknown reason. Meanwhile Victor’s neighbor Beatrice (Noomi Rapace-the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Prometheus, Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows) witnesses him killing a guy in his apartment and uses that information to blackmail him into killing the man who wrecked up her face (drunk driver).
Meanwhile another thug and friend to Victor (Dominic Cooper-Captain America, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Devil’s Double) is actually making progress on unraveling who the unknown assailant is. The plot unspools nicely with beautiful pacing and a clear character arc for both Victor and Beatrice. Unfortunately in my mind the very cool tragic ending the movie was gearing up for doesn’t quite manifest itself and the toward the end it takes a sharp left into Action Movie Junction.
The stars. I’m not really a Colin Farrell fan but really liked him here. Who knew he could do grim so well? He might have just won me over. One star. I also enjoyed Noomi Rapace a great deal. She plays the wounded dove very nicely. One star. I cool, complicated story that managed to reveal itself in a manner that didn’t drive me nuts or leave any loose threads. Two stars. The director didn’t feel the need to over explain everything and even left a few plot points hanging for your imagination to fill. It’s so nice when a director doesn’t operate on the assumption that we are all mouth breathing moronic losers. I see it as a sign of respect. One star. Pacing ran like a well oiled machine for the most part. Just the right amount of exposition interspersed with some decent action. One star. The action, while in some cases out of place, was well done and exciting without being ridiculous. One star. Generally a fun movie. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. That shift of gears to action felt really out of place. One black hole. I’m not going to lay this on Terrence Howard as I think he did a good job with the role, but the character of Alphonse felt kind of fake to me. He was at times comically stupid while at other times acting like he had read the script. I think a better job could have been done writing him. One black hole. Again, not going to throw in any spoilers but the ending that the movie was building up to and really deserved never manifested itself, leaving us with something that didn’t really match. One black hole. Three black holes total.
So a grand total of six stars. Definitely worth seeing, especially since we have been faced with nothing but garbage like A Good Day to Die Hard. Nothing on the screen really needs a theater, but if you want to join me in supporting decent films try to go see it. Otherwise NetFlix would work fine. Date movie? I’m going to say yes, in that this is a perfect comprise film. There is a love story that she will appreciate and enough crime and action to keep you entertained. Bathroom break? Not a lot you are going to want to miss. I’d say the scene right after Beatrice gets hit in the head with something doesn’t do more than support the romance part of the movie and could be missed without too much consequence, but hurry back as things ramp up pretty quick after that.
Thanks for reading. Plenty more to see out there so hopefully I can find some stuff to work on. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post comments on this film or my review at the bottom of this post. Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Rise of the Guardians review
Fun but kind of soulless.
Yes, I’m back on the reviews and will try to keep up on them. Things on the commercial site are busier than ever and I’m kind of going nuts on it, but I think I finally have things back under control. By the way, if you didn’t read my last post about my friend burning his ass with a hot pocket I highly recommend it. I’m still laughing.
So, Rise of the Guardians. Honestly I think this movie is just a little too polished and perfect. 
It’s like if Data from the Next Generation were to write a kids movie script (Data image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category). He would reference every known source for kids movies, examine every film and treatise available, and ultimate come out with a script that had all the right elements and was technically perfect but ultimately lacking in heart and soul.
This movie was technically perfect. Classic kids references, some humor, and plenty of bright images to entertain the wee tots. However, while I sat in the theater doing my usual “creepy single guy at a childrens film” thing I noticed that a lot of the kids were not really laughing or enthralled in the film. A good kids film should entertain children while having enough adult jokes and references to keep the parents from falling asleep. Wreck it Ralph is a perfect example of this. Honestly I think this one landed too heavily on the adult side of things. The characters and plots were too complex, and the villain was honestly scary. I think the producers wanted to do something more like Coraline but managed to miss the adult wonder of it. This film felt more like it was written for teenagers than kids or adults, except I really doubt teenagers would go see it.
I really went to see this film because it has grossly underperformed in the box office for what a holiday kids film is supposed to do this time of the year and I wanted to see if it was a train wreck. I really think the failure to lock onto the real demographic for kids is the big problem. I also see this as an study of hubris. Calling any film “the Rise of” basically says “We the studio are going to spontaneously create a franchise and you mouth breathing unwashed masses will attach yourself to it because we say you will.” The title says the producers were so confident of this films success that they have already written the next four sequels, and I honestly believe that the one thing that unites the unwashed masses is a resistance to being told what to like. It’s subtle, but I think when at the box office most of the people on line do not want to get sucked into a franchise they know nothing about. Title failure IMO.
On the other hand, this film is one of the more visually stunning films I have seen. I liked that aspect because it really shows what good, well applied CGI is capable of. The images and art direction is great. I will also give massive props for the very creative re imagining of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Sand Man, and the Easter Bunny. If this isn’t what the real classic character are like in a perfect world they would be. Santa is a brusk, Russian, sword wielding Czar, the Tooth Fairy a hyper type A fairy assisted by thousands of tiny mini fairies, the Sand Man a whimsical silent fat kind soul, and the Easter Bunny (my personal favorite) a 6’5″ Aussie jackrabbit with boomerangs. Jack Frost (the protagonist) is a white haired hipster prankster with the power of winter.
Of course, all great comic-like movies rest on the strength of the villain, and in this case they pulled it off with Pitch Black, the Boogieman. I say pulled it off because while he was perfectly executed he was entirely formulaic in his style, plan, and personality. This is really where the soullessness comes in. He is like the perfect villain grown in a medical lab, with just the right element of sinister yet weirdly appealing and human. I can’t put my finger on what it is about this film that seems too polished, but I think a lot of it resides in Pitch.
The story. Jack Frost is an independent sprite who wanders around causing kids to have fun in winter. He was created by the Man in the Moon, some kind of ill defined god or king. Jack gets drafted into the Guardians, a team of mythical fairy tale creatures who’s vague job is to protect the children of the world. Their relative strength resides in how many children believe in them (anyone ever read Hogfather by Terry Pratchet? If so this story will seem suspiciously familiar) and since no one really believes in Jack Frost he is the one with the least solidity. Pitch Black is bitter because no one believes in the Boogieman any more and so sets on a course of taking over the Sand Mans dreams to instil nightmares into the children while at the same time convincing the kids that the others don’t exist, thus draining their power (this was a little vague, by the way. At the beginning of the film no one believed in Jack Frost yet he had all kinds of winter related super power, but as the others lost believers they all were drained or diminished. Also the loss of belief happened with all the gradual pacing of flipping off a light switch).
Anyway, at that point it is the classic struggle of good verses evil. We get to see some great visuals (I especially liked the Easter Bunny’s kingdom) and Pitch does what villains usually do. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but really there is nothing in here that would really surprise you.
With kids movies I don’t do the stars/black holes. I usually judge them by how well the kids in the audience seemed to be responding. By that basis I think I’m going to have to deem this film not so great. Kids were not laughing or going nuts. There were long stretches of dialog and expository flashbacks that I think a kid would find downright boring. Pitch Black was honestly scary (the film got a well deserved PG rating) and there was even one death (sort of) scene. I honestly think this film tried way to hard to appeal to everyone and ultimately didn’t really appeal to anyone. Jack Frost was in there to appeal to the teenage girls (geez, they even got Chris Pine to do the voice), there were cute walking Easter Eggs for the little kids, and a fairly complex story involving torturing kids in their dreams for the adults. Trying too hard IMO.
Worth seeing? If you like animated movies then sure. The visuals alone make it worth the time. However, if you are only going to see one animated film this season I think Wreck It Ralph is way better. Take your kids to see it? Sure, if you are desperate, but I think Ralph again is better. Date movie? Yes. Not as good as Ralph, but good nonetheless. Bathroom break? Weirdly enough this is one film where I think the action scenes are the more disposable. The best visuals and character development are in the non action films, and when the fighting starts it tends to get kind of muddied up.
Thanks for reading, and look for my Life of Pi review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review of it feel free to post them here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions email them to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II Review
Something broke in that theater. I think it was my brain.
Do you know why so many hapless red shirts died in the original Star Trek series (I swear I have a point and am not just finding excuses to talk about Star Trek in my Twilight review)? It’s because whenever a character, even a minor one, dies it indicates that the story and situation are extremely serious. It’s a way of drawing you into the story and actually caring about what happens. The old news phrase “If it bleeds, it leads” can be rewritten for fiction into “If no one dies, no one cares” (Dead Man Walking image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts).
The point is the entire Twilight series has been about as willing to let any character of any worth die as any hot girl is willing to go on a second date with me (by that I mean extremely unlikely, to any new readers out there). This seems to have been true in all the movies, but never so much as in this one. By the end of the movie I was expecting to see all the sets wrapped in bubble wrap and corner protectors like a house baby proofed by the most anal and overprotective parent in history. Stephanie Meyer seems to treat these characters like spawn of her own loins in every sense of the term.
I’m about to get extremely free with the spoilers, so if you are some kind of freak who plans on seeing this movie without having read the books for any purpose other than to write a bitter and acerbic review you should probably just skip to the end where I beg you to follow me on Twitter.
The part that really crushed me was towards the end. You see, the entire series has been building up towards a huge epic battle between the vampires, werewolves, and some other vampires called the Vulturi. After literally hours of teasing the crap out of it they finally throw down and I have to say it was pretty freaking cool. For the first time in the entire series I felt pulled in and actually excited. Vampires and werewolves were dying in big batches, including some of the main characters (which kind of made sense as this is the last episode). Super powerful vampires were being foiled by other vampires and vamps that had been more or less jerks for the entirety of the series were getting their long deserved comeuppance. For the first time ever I started to doubt my conviction that the Twilight series was the McRib of the film industry.
Then, in the biggest blue ball inducing cop out in the history of movie making the entire bloody mayhem scene turns out to be some kind of induced vision brought on by the future seeing vampire (that was the big spoiler, by the way. Sorry if you didn’t take my advice a few lines ago and skip to the end). Absolutely nothing gets even remotely interesting, and they pull an ending so painfully happy and cheesy that it would embarrass an episode of My Little Pony (no, I am not a Brony). I didn’t think a writer had depths deep enough in his (or in this case her) ass to pull this ending out of. Nothing is resolved, nothing really changes, and everyone wanders off to a blissfully happy immortal life while all the interest and tension they managed to actually build drained out like a water balloon hit with a shotgun blast.
I am going to join all the other reviewers in a lemming-like chant of saying that this is the best of the series, but that is like having to swim in three different pools of raw sewage and Hep C before finally finding a pool only filled with pond scum, dead rats, and tuberculosis. It is the Revenge of the Sith of the Twilight series, but like that episode it is still part of that horrible family of films.
Before I get into the story, I want to rail a bit on a few things that really bugged me in this film. First of all, for a movie that had a $120,000,000 budget the CGI wolves still look like stickers taken from a nature book and stuck into a children’s coloring book. I thought we had progressed beyond bad CGI. However, as bad as the wolves looked the were like a nature documentary compared to the CGI baby Renesmee (still the stupidest name for a baby ever). It literally looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid.
As bad as the baby looked, it still was more human and lifelike than Animatronic robots they got to play the main characters. Kristin Stewert overwhelms every scene with a massive tsunami of mundanity and wooden facial expressions. I would have taken even stupider looking babies and wolves if they could have CGI’d some acting into her performance. Talk about overrated. Robert Pattinson was not much better, but he was better and therefore his bland performance was totally eclipsed by Kristin’s.
I suppose at some point I should get into what passes for a story here. It is actually the best part of the series and the most linear and non aggravating one to date (mainly because it skips on the whole Bella/Edward/Jacob bland love triangle and focuses on something even slightly interesting). The story picks up almost to the second where the last one ended. This is a good thing, as the first movie was nothing but padding to milk more money from brain damaged teenaged girls (and bitter movie reviewers). Bella is now a vamp, and has to learn to control her yearnings which she does with remarkable ease. She and Edward are supposedly deeply in love, although their sexual chemistry has all the passion of an amoeba reproducing through binary fission. Their child Renesmee (even typing it hurts my eyes. When I finally conquer the planet any of you who thought this is the perfect name for your child will be relocated to slave camps at the bottom of the ocean) is growing up at 7 times normal rate. Jacob has imprinted with her as an infant (nothing creepy to see here folks. Keep moving on) and acts as her protector, which is pretty good since Bella and Edward seem totally content to ignore her for the most part. She is growing up fast and in no time is the exact age of the child actress they hired to play her (Mackenzie Foy).
She is spotted by some other vampire everyone else seemed to recognize but I couldn’t pick out of a lineup to save my life (the film was kind of overrun with hot blond girl vampires). She runs to the Vulturi where it turns out one of the biggest laws they have for their culture of people who eat people is never turn a child into a vampire (if this is their biggest law why is it we never hear about it before now? I hate it when writers make stuff up to facilitate the story and then act like you are stupid for not knowing it all along). The head guy (looks like a younger, heavier Alice Cooper) has some trick where he attacks a vampire family, kills them all off but one, and then recruits that one into his secret vampire army (? Anyone else have an issue with the idea of recruiting someone by murdering all their friends and loved ones?). He wants Alice, the future seeing vampire. Edward and his brood run around trying to recruit vampires from across the world to act as witnesses and red shirts for the upcoming epic battle. Battle is joined, and then not as it all turns out to be one of Alice’s vision.
The stars. I want to give this one a star for an actual coherent story, but honestly it is only good in comparison to the other three. I guess I can afford to be generous due to the broken firehose of black holes I am about to spew all over it. One star. The fake action scene was actually really good up until the part where it was proven fake. One star. The annoying romance got way less annoying once Jacob stopped mooning (haw!) over Bella. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. Creating a really cool and bloody action scene with lots of great death scenes of characters who well deserve it only to make the whole thing into a fake. Two black holes. I’m not even exaggerating when I say I’ve seen the Muppets deliver better acting and more believable characters than Bella and Edward. At least their facial expressions change when they are supposed to be sad, scared, or happy. Two black holes. A million billion minor characters pulled out of no where that we are supposed to give a crap about (If she were fourteen I would swear that Stephanie Meyer is one of those RPG players who loves nothing more than rolling up hundreds of characters and then creating backstories for them). One black hole. If you haven’t seen the whole series you will be lost at sea without a paddle on this one. One black hole. CGI that is an insult to the industry. One black hole. I know I hit them with this every movie but it remains a thing: vampires who glow in daylight. One black hole. The vampires we are supposed to have sympathy for lose a lot when they are slaughtering people who are begging for their lives. One black hole. A big giant Amber Alert for the whole Jacob/Renesmee romance. One black hole. At no time in this movie (or the entire series, for that matter) does the movie subject matter at all have anything to do with twilight, dawn breaking, new moons, or eclipsing of any kind. One black hole. A happy ending that even the Disney writers would figure as too campy to be taken seriously. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
A grand total of nine black holes. Should you see it? If you are a mewling teenage girl who wants to see Taylor Lautner with his shirt off than sure, why not? Honestly, it boils down to fandom or not. If you have seen them all, read all the books, and have the entire Twilight cast tattooed on your back then by all means go for it. I’m sure you will enjoy it in the same way fans of Nascar enjoy watching cars go around and around a track. If you have not seen the whole series then believe me when I say this film will be a massive waste of time and money for you. Date movie? If your date is a huge fan you will score some good points by being willing to see it, but be warned as I would bet she will want to subject you to the entire series beforehand and that is a torture not to be borne. Also, there is a pretty good chance your date is an insane psychopath. Bathroom break? It’s one big 115 minute bathroom break as far as I’m concerned. However, if you want to find a scene that is more worthless than the rest of them (and that is a deep pit to be reaching into) I’d say any of the Bella/Edward “romance” scenes. It’s nothing you haven’t seen done as mediocrely in the other films and adds el zilcho to the story.
Thanks for reading. Looks like a painful week for your humble reviewer, as I have nothing to do for Thanksgiving except watch Red Dawn. I expect this movie to be the zenith of unnecessary, crappy remakes and could actually cause the long anticipated Movie Apocalypse. Please follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have any comments on this movie or my review feel free to post them here. Any off topic suggestions or questions can be emailed to me at [email protected]. Hate mail from fan boys (or girls) will be completely disregarded, so if you want to tell me what kind of idiot I am best to do it here. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and I will talk to you soon.
Dave
Some thoughts on Star Trek TOS women.
With a bonus note on grammar.
So as I mentioned recently I am watching all the Star Trek TOS episodes while working on my new Warhammer army and am enjoying the hell out of it. Not only am I seeing all my old favorites, but I am also getting to catch up on a few that I only saw maybe once or twice, and even a couple that to my deep shame I have never seen (having only watched them in syndication there were a few that really never go aired much). I am rethinking some of the relative positions for my best and worst episodes (not a lot of shift, but some) but the one thought that is hitting my brain stem more than any other is the Star Trek producers hired only the most gorgeous women in the known universe.
I’m not kidding. It really struck home last night when I was watching Requiem for Methuselah (image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category)and realized that the girl playing Reyna (Louise Sorel) was about 50 times hotter than any women ever seen on any TNG episode, and comparable to Seven of Nine from Voyager (Jeri Ryan). However, she is not alone. Pretty much every episode has a girl so hot it makes your skull hurt. I don’t want to name any here because I think once I am done I will do a list of the 20 hottest girls from the series as a separate blog post (nothing creepy about that). Some of the episodes focused almost exclusively on how hot they were (Mudd’s Women, for example).
This begats the question why can’t modern shows do the same thing? There are some obvious answers. If a show clearly exploited women like TOS did than it would probably be protested by every feminist organization on the planet and then carpet bombed. TNG not only swallowed the PC pill but let it brew into an even more potent mixture in its stomach before spewing it out over every other Star Trek series. However, let’s consider shows outside of the Trek universe.
The modern show that pops into mind for hot eye candy is How I Met Your Mother. Every week Barney hooks up with 2-6 hot girls. If we flash back a bit Married With Children did the same by finding an excuse to have a hot chick walk into Al’s shoe shop or something. However, I would like to point out that while Star Trek clearly was bringing in women to hang on Kirks arm and fall in love with him, in every case they got more than a few lines and were never just bit characters. In most episodes they were critical to the story and not just there to make Kirk look good.
That’s not really the mystery here. The mystery is why is it all the women on Star Trek are way hotter than all the women on How I Met Your Mother (even Robin. Sorry, Cobie Smulders. I still love you). Honestly, I think it’s the presentation. The women on Star Trek (and 60’s TV in general) were presented as sophisticated, elegant goddesses whereas modern women have taken to letting casual be the rule of the day. I’m not saying women don’t spend a lot of time on their looks because they absolutely do. I’m just saying that all the women today want to look naturally hot, which mentally translates into looking like you put no effort in. The average hairdo on a Star Trek babe looks like it took two hours and a vat of hair cream to accomplish, whereas today those same two hours is spent looking like you didn’t have to do anything at all. Furthermore, you never see a Star Trek women wearing jeans. The dress a Star Trek girl wears is one that a modern woman would bitch about having to put on for a formal ball. They just look more put together.
A side effect of looking like you took a lot of time putting your coif and outfit together is you end up looking more like a lady. Not to imply anything, but the women of Star Trek just look a lot more wholesome than the women of the modern TV age. Somehow Elaan (France Nuyen) from Elaan of Troyios looks more ladylike in a metal bikini armed with a dagger than all the women of Sex and the City put together. This might be the most sexist thing I have ever said, but what passes for ladylike dress and behavior in the modern world just isn’t as attractive as what you used to see in the time of Americana.
Congratulations Dave. You have successfully given every woman you meet another reason to reject and despise you. However, given my typical luck with the ladies I don’t really think I could do much more damage. At least if I get rejected by a girl and she says it’s because of this blog post I will have a definitive reason, rather than the horrible vague B-S I get on a regular basis. Besides, don’t all women say they want honesty in a man?
Before I get going I want to mention something about grammar. I have been called to account a few times for being a grammar moron. I typically can write well but seem to screw up on things like “then” or “than”, as well possessive s’s (is it Boy’s t shirts or Boys t shirts???). I do proofread these before posting them but seem to have a blind eye for certain spelling and grammar mistakes. I go back and read old blog posts of mine (yes, my ego is that big. Besides, why would you not read something this brilliant?) and catch things that seem super obvious but at the time I missed twice. I don’t quite get it. If you should spot an error feel free to point it out and I will fix it. Just try to understand that I’m not a total moron and usually I just miss things that on a different day would stick out like a sore thumb. If you are interested in catching me (or just improving your own grammar) I found a pretty handy and succinct resource in this article on correct grammar usage in the modern age. I like it because it is simple and has some cartoons.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to disagree all you want here or hate spam me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu (follow me first, please). Any off topic questions or suggestions email me at [email protected]. My friend Brian is going to show us Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park at movie night. I don’t think I will be doing a formal review but already have a few ideas on blogs I could do about it. I’m headed to the Sacramento Horror Convention this weekend but if I get a chance will try to see a movie and write it up. If you live in Sac stop by and say hi. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Happy Birthday Star Trek!
I keep hearing different dates for the first showing of Star Trek (it was actually the Man Trap, but I don’t have an image for that one. The Cage was the pilot. This image comes courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category). Wikipedia says it was Sept. 8th, but George Takei says it was on the 7th. Regardless of the exact date, 46 years ago a series started that would go on to be a major influence in my life (as well as many others), not only as a young person but even here today. I can honestly say I would not be the person I am without Star Trek.
Honestly, that’s pretty much I I have to say. Regular readers will have heard me gush about TOS before, and write up assorted lists of things I consider important from the series. It might have not been the best written, best acted, or best produced show in TV history, but I honestly challenge you to find one that has had more influence on modern TV, movies, culture, or even technology.
So I will leave you with the most sincere and uplifting salutation available to nerds: to all of you out there, live long and prosper.
Amazing Dave
The Bourne Legacy Review
By “Legacy” I guess they mean cow milking cash grab.
Sorry it’s been a while since I saw something or wrote a review, but I was in Las Vegas most of the last few days at the amazing Star Trek convention. I had a blast, met some great people, sold a ton of shirts, and was soundly rejected by three women (although to be fair I’m not sure if I was really asking one of them out). 
I also discovered that girls wearing a Starfleet uniform from either TOS or TNG are a real turn on for me. I don’t know if I really want to dig deep in that dark hole in my psyche, but if any ladies are looking to catch my eye there’s the way to do it (Uniform shirt courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category).
I made it back in one piece and am now able to indulge in another of my passions: excreting the bitter bile of my soul all over mediocre or lousy movies.
Not that the Bourne Legacy was necessarily bad or even mediocre. I will put it at slightly above mediocre. Like a C+. However, it has latched onto the Bourne teat and suckled that cow down to skin and bones. I kept count and either heard or saw the name Bourne no less than 15 times during the course of the movie. In 135 minutes that’s once every 9 minutes. I guess they felt a cold terror at the thought that the audience wasn’t remembering where this film came from often enough. Speaking of 135 minutes, I was feeling the weight of them by the end of the movie. A lot of scenes seemed to drag on for ever. It would have been nice if they had invested in an ending rather than have the whole movie kind of drift off into space with more or less nothing accomplished other than the finding of a magic MacGuffin.
Bottom line on this film is that it is a decent if fragmented action spy movie. However, it is not of the same caliber as the first three Bourne films. The story is comprised of about 15 spy sub plots and more or less exists as a framework to hang extended action scenes on. I can honestly say this film completely lacks an Act III. There is the intro, a huge development scene, and then all of a sudden it ends with almost nothing resolved beyond the intermediate issues arising from the development. Also, if it has been a while since you saw any of the first three be prepared to get pretty much totally confused as to what the hell is going on. This movie runs in parallel with the other films and if you don’t know what those films were about you will be like Hansel and Gretel without bread crumbs. Furthermore, while it has been a while since I saw those it seems they have taken the whole Treadstone program in a new and stupider direction by making the Treadstone spies the result of some kind of science fiction super drug program rather than just training and psychological conditioning. Again, while I think this would have made for a decent stand alone movie it really didn’t feel like a Bourne movie.
The story. I don’t want to get too deep into it as it will be hard to do without spoilers. Jason Bourne is wreaking havoc across the world. Back at CIA headquarters (or something like CIA) they are all trying to cover their asses by burying the Treadstone program, which involves pretty much killing all the agents and scientists involved. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner-the Hurt Locker, The Avengers, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol) survives his attempted killing, as does scientist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz-the Mummy, the Fountain, Constantine). Aaron is hooked on some enhancing drugs and has to get more so he tracks down Marta. At that point they do the whole “man on the run” spy thing while looking for the thing that will keep Aaron from degenerating. Spy hijinks ensues. The US Intelligence community is painted to look like the most amoral bastards since Hitler. A villain is pullout out of the ether (Louis Ozawa Changchien-Predators, Fair Game, Robot Stories). The Wayback Machine is set for 2006 as parkour rears it’s head once more. The movie comes to an abrupt ending like a car running out of gas.
The stars. I really liked the character of Aaron Cross. Had the movie just been about him I would have like it a lot better. One star. The action was good and fun. One star. The story had a nice complexity and actually required you to pay attention. One star. I always like to see Ed Norton in any film. One star. In fact the entire cast was good and delivered generally good performances. Rachel Weisz was especially good. Two stars. Overall a fun movie. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The movie ran long, and some of the scenes were repetitive and seemed to go on forever. Pacing should have been tightened a lot. One black hole. The constant reminder of Jason Bourne really bugged after a while, and the movie felt anchored down by the need to keep on reminding you of where it came from. One black hole. The story lacked cohesion and most of the characters didn’t really have a motivation I wanted to buy. One black hole. The ending sucked eggs. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of three stars. Not bad, but not great. Worth seeing, but do yourself a favor and watch the first three beforehand. Nothing in this film really requires a large screen so feel free to NetFlix it. Date movie? Nothing about this film will entice your date to take off her clothes, so not really. On the other hand I don’t think it will hurt your chances. Bathroom break? There’s a scene after Aaron first rescues Marta where they are driving in the car that is totally miss worthy. Either that or the big airport/flight scene. Literally nothing interesting happens and it drags on like you are on the 10 hour flight.
Thanks for reading. Now that all the big shows I am doing are done I am going to see more movies and try to write more often. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you have comments on this movie or review feel free to post them here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
