Star Trek: Into Darkness

Plot: A rogue Star Fleet officer (Benedict Cumberbatch)  attacks several Star Fleet sites and then runs off to a far away planet. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and the Enterprise follow minus Scotty (Simon Pegg). When Kirk catches him, the Enterprise does battle with a giant enemy ship, and the plot twists people's loyalties.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: A top movie with action, personality, plot-twists and moral dilemmas -- I really liked it. Even though the special effects are gripping, the interactions between the characters are the best part. The close-up interactions between the crew and with the villain -- make this an action movie with people we care about. The Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto scenes are strong especially the facial acting. There is quarrel between Saldana's Uhura and Quino's Spock that is priceless and funny.

The special effects were excellent, we expected that. The music was boring however. I did not like the scene of the space ship crashing on San Francisco. The scale of everything wasn't right -- distracting.

Star Trek gets extra credit for having a moral dimension. In a Hollywood where there are too many mind-less shoot'm ups, I liked angst about the morality of killing enemies, for example using a missile to destroy a terrorist instead of capturing him and returning him for trial. I think this builds the notion of the Star Trek universe as being a utopian peaceful place.  The last Bond movie, Skyfall, also had a moral dimension.

There was a lot of "hat tipping" to old Star Trek episodes, and these were cute and lightened up the tone. Hard-core fans want the film to be dark and serious, but Star Trek has always been a mixture of dramatic and comic.

Since I am a fan, perhaps I love this movie more than I should, but I liked it a lot. I want to see it again.

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch

Directed by: J J Abrams

Rating: 4.0 stars: I loved it. Fun to watch. Engaging. Thought-provoking. 

 

More: And it sets up years of sequels . . . 

Even more: I was very disappointed that the theater rescheduled our 3D screening into 2D. I really wanted see it in 3D. Nearly drove to another theater.

Spoiler: So why could Spock talk to Leonard Nemoy and ask him questions. What weird sort of time-travel is going on? I'm not sure what I think about young Spock getting his war plans from old Spock.
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The Great Gatsby (2D)

Plot: Young writer Nick (Tobey McGuire) goes to see his psychologist, and tells him a story about Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), and his romance with his married cousin Daisy (Carey Milligan.) In flashback, Gatsby has over-the-top parties at a grand mansion on Long Island Sound near New York with many important and famous guests. Daisy's wealthy husband Tom (Joel Edgerton) is keeping a mistress in a run-down part of town.  Nick visits Daisy, goes with Tom to party with the mistress, and then hooks Daisy up with Gatsby. The love triangle plays out and this leads to the film's tragic ending. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Spectacle! The beginning of the film is beautiful to look at, full of music, costumes, and choreography. Wonderful! I really liked the beginning.

I liked the modern rap tracks and the cool trumpet jazz. I need to buy some of these songs. I loved the trumpet player on the roof.

As the movie progresses, Leo's Gatsby is cool and mysterious. It keeps the tone going for a while, but the love triangle just isn't that interesting. The latter part of the film is just OK, too bad.

Since most of us read Gatsby in school, it is easy to pick out the literary themes. The hollowness of life, the silence of god, the longing for the past, the lost object of desire, the injustice of life, and so on. Early  in the movie, this is done well. See how in the movie poster, we have the eye's of God watching us.  Later in the movie we spend too much time staring at a green light in the fog. Not so well done.

The great parts are great, but the love triangle doesn't work, so the movie fails.

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey McGuire, Carey Milligan, Joel Edgerton

Directed by: Baz Luhrmann

Rating:  2.5 stars: uneven. Still fun to watch.

 

More: Deserves awards for set design, art direction and music.

Even more: The movie is in the 3D, and there are several parts that utilize that.  3D is part of the over-the-top aspect of the spectacle.

Sadly, I saw this in 2D because my DW has bought into the false idea that 3D movies are dimmer, while choosing to ignore that theater bought a new 3D projector sized for their auditorium. Obviously the screen is brighter with the glasses off, but the project lantern is sized for the technology. Theater owners need to do some informational advertising.

Iron Man 3

Plot: Terrorist 'The Mandarin' (Ben Kingsley) nearly kills a friend of Tony Stark/Iron Man's (Robert Downy Jr) and Tony gets on TV and threatens the Mandarin. Almost immediately the Mandarin destroy's Tony's house and workshop full of Iron Man gear.  Soon Tony is off in Tennessee with a broken down Iron Man suit looking for clues with help from a middle school kid. Meanwhile wife/girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is double-crossed by an old friend and is in danger from the glowing fire-people who are bioengineered stooges for The Mandarin. Tony gets back in the fight with low tech tricks, and then reboots for a final battle. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: In the third installment, the Iron Man schtick is getting familiar, but the writers know that. They overlay three new things in Iron Man three: Tony becomes a less egotistical; that Tony is the hero not his armored suit; and his home life with Pepper. Despite the writer's efforts to freshen the story up, "3" is not as fun as in the first movie, and the drama is not as strong as in the second movie.

Tony does a lot of the movie without it or in a broken down suit and this creates more death-threatening scenes. We see Tony and Pepper's home life, and  Pepper becomes a 2010's feminist ideal -- a high powered exec who can take care of herself. 

A highlight was Tony sparring with the middle school kid in Tennessee and the snarky dialog. As funny as this was, it was something we expected from the egotistical and smug Tony Stark. By the end of the movie, Tony learns not to be such an ego-maniac, and creates a twist in the Iron Man legend.  Robert Downey Jr is a good actor and he gives a great performance again. Gwyneth Paltrow is also good. Villain Ben Kingsley is a comic element and villain Guy Pearce is disappointing. 

A better villain with a better super-power gimmick might have saved Iron Man 3. It is dumb to complain about superpowers that don't make sense, because they never do, but the battle scenes with the fire people aren't very satisfying. The main villain has a back story, but it doesn't seem substantive enough.

There is a floating brain sequence that seems made for 3D. I recommend the 3D glasses. Flying scenes are always good in 3D. 

The end was clever, and I liked the twist in how the bad-guy finally dies.  

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce

Directed by: Shane Black

Rating: 2.5 stars - a little stale. It has good parts, but not satisfying .

More: It seems clear that this is the end of Robert Downy Jr in Iron Man movies, and the next movie will be a reboot with younger actors. I still expect to see Downy in The Avengers 2. It would be fun to see Gwyneth there too!

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The Place Beyond the Pines

Plot: Luke (Ryan Gosling) finds out he has a boy in Schenectady, so he moves to town, and robs banks for money. He gets caught by local cop Avery (Bradley Cooper), and unexpectedly the movie starts following the cop -- who has a son the same age. After a subplot involving police corruption, suddenly we start following the now high school aged boys Avery's son Jason (Dane DeHaane) and Luke's son AJ (Emory Cohen), who unexpectedly become friends in school. Avery finds newspaper stories about the fathers, and reenacts the drama between the fathers. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: The Place Beyond the Pines is three related stories, and like Cloud Atlas each story is in a different style. The first story is about outlaw Luke, who is colorful and dynamic even if he makes bad choices about risk-taking. Luke meets his friend Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) riding his motorcycle beyond the pines. 

The second story is a cop drama with police corruption and threats of getting snuffed out by cops in the woods beyond the pines. It feels cold, calculating and political.

In the third story, the two boys meet and talk with well-written dialog, and they get in various kinds of trouble. Without giving too much away, AJ forces a final confrontation out beyond the pines too.

At the very end, a final scene wraps the three stories together. 

Beyond the Pines is always interesting and keeps you watching with a fast moving, plot-intensive story. There is a good chase segment at the end of the 1st story with a jerky motion that seemed artificial and little distracting, but increased the energy and tenseness too.

The photography is gritty, grainy and conveyed the mood well; however there is little spectacle. The soundtrack is unexceptional, and the closing credit song was singularly awful and made me want jump up and leave the theater so I could avoid it.

I liked Ryan Gosling's acting -- he made a bigger than life character believable. Eva Mendes has a pivotal role in the story, but the movie would have been stronger with bigger parts for the female characters.

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Dane DeHaane, Emory Cohen

Directed by: Derek Cianfrance, who is also credited as a writer.

Rating: 2.5 stars: Like a page-turner novel. You need to keep watching to see what happens. 

 

More: I did not like the ending for Avery and Jason, although the ending for AJ seemed appropriate. 

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Oblivion

Gray. The movie poster is all gray. Look at
the plastic rifle. 

Plot: In a post-apocalyptic world, aliens have invaded, and earth has been evacuated. Jack (Tom Cruise) repairs robots including killer robots that hunt down the enemy called Scavs, aided by fellow service member and bed-mate Victoria (Andrea Reiseborough.) The rebels have been shooting down a lot of robots while Tom and Olga try to last just 2 more weeks until they evacuate to the Tet -- a giant tetrahedral satellite in the sky where humans go for evacuation to a new planet.  After Jack meets mysterious survivor Julia (Olga Kurylenko) and rebel chief Beech (Morgan Freeman,) everything is not what it seems, but Jack finds his core values to push through to the heroic conclusion. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Not Fun. Empty with work-a-day doggedness. Colorless scenery with colorless dialog and a soundtrack that is too quiet.  Yes, all the special effects must have been expensive, and there is something cool about their base on a tower in the clouds, but there are too many scenes of Jack working in solitude.

Writer-Director Kosinski probably thought the aseptic coolness and frigid relationship between Jack and Victoria was foreshadowing the conclusion. However Beech with his fat cigar, and Julia in her flying casket were just as emotionless as Victoria. The only homey place was Jack's earthy hideout on a lake where he listened to 1960's rock on vinyl and stared at the lake.  Why and where was the barren earthscape hiding this idealic paradise? Somehow this is tied in to their mantra, 'Another Day in Paradise,' but I can't figure out how.

This movie could have used a better villain -- one evil mastermind would have helped a lot. Fighting robot villains makes blowing them up less morally offensive, but where is the drama? Jack could have used a better sidekick than his bobblehead doll.

This movie needed more drama, more fun -- less glass & shiny plastic.

Cast: Tom Cruise, Andrea Reiseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman

Directed by: Joseph Kosinski, based on the comic book by Joseph Kosinski and Arvid Nelson

Rating:  1.5 stars: not very fun. Boring characters. Personality-free villain

More: I liked the visual allusions to older Sci-Fi movies. Inside the Tet was like V'ger from Star Trek TMP. The flying robots looked like Darth Vader's fighters in Star Wars. 

Even more: Why is the movie called Oblivion?  Try a Google search on Oblivion -- there are a zillion comic books with Oblivion in the name or characters called Oblivion. This goes to the lack of creativity in the film. 

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Olympus Has Fallen

Plot: Korean terrorists take over the White House and capture the President (Aaron Eckhart). It is up to ex-Secret Service agent Mike Banner (Gerard Butler) to rescue hostages and save the day. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Bang, Bang, Guns, Missiles, Crashing Fighter Jets, Blackhawk Down! Nuclear Launch Codes. It's all action during Olympus has Fallen -- non-stop and full speed. 

The action is so fast that you might miss how unrealistic most of the story is.  And if you are loving it, you will miss how shamelessly jingoistic and saccharine patriotic it is too. 

The special effects are good. The plot, such as it is, keeps the action rolling. The villain comes up with enough plot twists for 120 minutes, and the end feels satisfying. Gerard Butler's Banner is a pretty good action hero that is likeable, human, and not a too much of a super-hero. 

I was put off by the pandering patriotism. How many shots of the flag did we need? Did it have to flutter down to the ground in slow motion? I get that it was the White House, and how symbolic that is. 

Cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman

Directed by: Antoine Fuqua

Rating: 2.0 stars. A little too melodramatic for me. Fun to watch.

 

More: So ironic that the villains were North Koreans, and right now they are threatening nuclear war. Even more "Life Imitates Art," that Kim Jong Un had a map of the US with targets on it on the wall of his command center. 

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The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Plot: Childhood friends Burt (Steve Carell) and Anton (Steve Buscemi) learn magic as kids and grow up to have a show in Vegas. They grow old and get stale, and upstart magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey) comes to town with a bold street magician act. Soon Burt and Anton are booted out and are doing birthday parties and old folk's homes. At one home they meet old-time great magician Rance (Alan Arkin). Rance re-inspires Burt about the wonder of magic, and soon they are back out hustling. In the end there is a magical face-off with rival Steve Gray.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: The funny parts are funny, but the majority is dry and a bit dumb. Overall, I was glad I saw it, because it was light and likable. 

Highlights are the intro scenes with kid actor Mason Cook as young Burt. Those scenes were very evocative. Any scene with Jim Carrey was good. Jim Carrey was so intense that his stupid tricks seemed great. I loved the swollen cheek trick. 

I liked the soundtrack too, but sadly the pop songs were left off the soundtrack album. 

Cast: Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi, Jim Carrey, Olivia Wilde, Alan Arkin

Directed by: Don Scardino

Rating: 2.0+ stars: Some parts are very funny, and maybe that makes it 2.5, but mostly its just a little too dumb. A little life from Steve Carrell might have kicked it up a rating point. I am glad I saw it on this relatively weak movie weekend.

More: The guy in the poster just doesn't look like Steve Correll. There has never been such a poor likeness. 

Even More: Real magic shows are more fun than movies about magic because all the tricks in a movie are special effects.  The illusionist aspect of magic is missing, and that makes magic seem retro. 

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