Movie Review: Star Trek: Into Darkness

So I loved the 2009 Star Trek movie. Seriously, that level of entertainment and witty dialogue is what I want out of my own writing. I’m also a big fan of JJ Abrams movies. Note the emphasis. I fucking hated Lost. Seriously hated it. The minute I saw a main enemy was a monster made of smoke I couldn’t take it seriously. Also that ending.

ANYWAY. Y’all didn’t want to read a Lost rant! No, no, you came to hear me rave about Star Trek: Into Darkness, right? Because that’s all you’ll get out of me about it.

I loved this movie for what it is: a science fiction action adventure LET’S GET INTO TROUBLE DAMMIT JIM I’M A DOCTOR FASCINATING time. Yes. That is an actual genre, specified only for Star Trek movies. Ahem. If you haven’t noticed by now, I am A-okay with movies that entertain only. I like depth, don’t get me wrong (and I love deeper science fiction movies), but I will watch and become a rabid fangirl of stuff like this, too.

Plot

Commander John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) starts some shit and Kirk (Chris Pine) goes on a rage-induced manhunt because of it. From there, all sorts of things happen in typical Trek fashion — as in it’s one series of events after another after another and fight scenes and and oh what wait.

They end up on Kronos (YAY KLINGONS) during said manhunt, then they end up in space, and then and then. No really, this plot is very straightforward and I don’t want to give spoilers.

HONESTLY THOUGH these spoilers are practically not spoilers. Cumberbatch’s character is supposed to be a Starfleet secret or some such, whose real identity is carefully hidden by the higher ups and JJ Abrams alike. If you have even the TINIEST knowledge of Trek lore or past movies, you will know exactly who he is the minute certain things are mentioned (WHICH I WON’T MENTION BECAUSE SPOILERS). Or if you happened to casually look up the movie on IMDb. DON’T YOU DARE DO IT.

There’s a lot of caps lock going on in this post.

Things I Liked

Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Kirk have some fun dialogue and derps. If you liked their interactions in the first movie you will definitely like it here.

All the characters are as lovable as ever. From Scotty (the hilarious Simon Pegg) to Chekov (Anton Yelchin) to Sulu (John Cho) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana), everyone is on par with their older counterparts. I know, I know them’s fightin’ words, but IT’S TRUE FOR ME. I love new Star Trek characters, but I understand why it must be weird (or downright wrong) to see these beloved people remade. I was more of a Picard fangirl. If/when they get to his era of things I’m going to have a hard time imagining anyone NOT Patrick Stewart filling those shoes. So I get it. But still, if Not-Patrick-Stewart did a great job and the movie was good, I’d still like it. That’s how I am.

Holy crap that was a long disclaimer-esque paragraph.

The graphics are awesome.

Not once did the pacing lag or bore me. I was completely engrossed for the majority of the movie.

The snarky dialogue and character interactions even in dire moments made me laugh a lot. The whole movie theater did, really. In that sense Into Darkness is a lot like Iron Man 3, just not QUITE so much. (That’s a different review though.)

Uhura and Spock are a strange couple to me, but I like it. It shows that this Spock is more human than alien, and it’s a nice change of pace. Quinto’s Spock isn’t trying to be Nemoy’s Spock, and I’m beyond grateful for that. Why? Because I love the fuck out of both of them, but if new Spock was just a copy of old Spock he wouldn’t be half as interesting.

EDIT: I FORGOT TO MENTION SOMETHING. I really liked that this movie revolved around the peacekeeping vs militarization of Starfleet. It really pushed this WE NEED TO KILL but is that really right? IT’S NECESSARY SOMETIMES but is this right? This isn’t what we do, is it? Should it be? I really liked that question, and it was something I felt was a nice addition to the movie. (It’s not totally explored. I admit I explored it a lot on my own time though. I’m cool that way.)

Um um um I really can’t think of anything bad — oh wait.

Things I Didn’t Like

ALICE EVE’S CHARACTER. I get who Carol Marcus is, but seriously? That girl was there to take her clothes off and get rescued. She was beyond pointless and useless and annoying. But I have a thing for strong women. Even Uhura is slightly on the weaker end (SLIGHTLY. She was pretty badass in this movie though, and definitely more independent than Marcus’s and other stereotypical female side characters).

Rating: 4/5 stars

Tl;dr: If you don’t think about the plot too much (because this is action adventure scifi with ridiculous tech) it’s a very very very fun movie. DON’T go see it if you have a super hardcore attachment to old Star Trek stuff. DO go see it if you like fun scifi movies with great action and characters.

 

Movie Review: Oblivion (as influenced by British Lit homework)

Plot summary

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is a tech engineer assigned to repair drones that might get damaged by scavs (short for scavengers). These drones protect the machines that suck up Earth’s water for use at that Tet, a colony of what remained of humanity orbiting above Earth. Once they gathered enough resources, they would fly off to Titan and establish a new place to live. Jack is assisted by his communications officer and lover Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), otherwise known as “Vika” for most of the movie.

Aliens came and fought with humans. They destroyed the moon. In a voice-over at the beginning, Jack explains that nature did the rest. Tsunamis and all that lovely apocalyptic stuff destroyed most places. Throughout the movie, Jack is constantly walking over memorable bits of New York.

Of course, not everything is what it seems. Jack has dream-memories of a woman (Olga Kurylenko) that he’s not supposed to, and he questions why everyone wants to leave Earth instead of trying to salvage what was left, whereas Vika doesn’t and makes it obvious that Jack isn’t supposed to question it, either.

The previews make it clear Morgan Freeman is involved, too, so you know shit is going to go down. And it does.

My review

So I was finishing up my homework a minute ago. The assignment was to read various articles written by Samuel Johnson, a critic of the eighteenth century. He was a really harsh guy, definitely reminded me of the late and great Roger Ebert. Like a lot of critics and purists, he valued literary integrity over simply entertaining the masses (or, as he said, by entertaining “merely the people”). A writer or poet had to go that extra step for literary purity and meaning instead of leaving it as-is in order to only entertain. That was almost like half-assing it, from what I could tell.

What does this have to do with Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, and two hot chicks in a science fiction movie?

There has been a lot of talk about how this movie is basically a sampling of other, better science fiction movies.  ”All that’s missing is Harrison Ford in a trench coat and an origami unicorn,” according to Entertainment Weekly. This was the most interesting bit from The Philadephila Inquirer review:

There are so many similarities between that modest, melancholy space drama [Moon], with Sam Rockwell as a solitary maintenance man servicing machinery and mining minerals on the lunar surface, and the spectacularly rendered, mega-budgeted Oblivion that it isn’t funny.

Read the full review here if you like.

Here’s the thing. Even I was cracking jokes about HAL in certain places. Yes I saw a lot of older science fiction movies in this one. But you know what? This movie was obviously meant to entertain, not provide intellectual food for thought on our future or humanity in general. It’s not the delicacy that was 2001: A Space Odyssey, sure, but it’s no McDonald’s either.

This is a science fiction/action movie with a very obvious plot (if you don’t try to philosophize about it and just enjoy it for its entertainment value only, it’s really simple). There’s a legit and awesome romance. Morgan Freeman’s role is short but amazing. AND Jaimie Lannister (AKA Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of Game of Thrones fame) is also involved. How can you not like that?

Some noteworthy things

The graphics are amazing. Seriously, seeing post-moon explosion Earth was amazing and surreal. That in itself was a feast. THE SOUNDTRACK. GO BUY IT NOW. Or at least “StarWaves” and “Oblivion.” M83 outdid themselves here. While, like the movie, it’s a sort of mash-up of Tron: Legacy and Dark Knight Rises soundtracks with 80′s synth/rock feel in certain places (particularly in “Oblivion”), it’s great work. I’ve never heard of M83 much up until now, but they have a newfound fan in me.

Also Tom Cruise did a good job in this movie. I’d say this is a good comeback, but I get the feeling no one really liked this movie nearly as much as I did. (On the whole; of course others liked it like I did, but how many?)

The romance was cute. And Jaimie fucking Lannister. NO ONE mentioned him, and I’m a hardcore Game of Thrones fan, so when he sauntered on screen I was like HUSBAND THIS MOVIE JUST GOT TOO BADASS WITH ALL THESE BADASSES.

Yes, I’m a fangirl. This is not the body or text of a literary purist. While I do enjoy a good meal of literary quality from time to time, “merely the people” are the exact people I want to entertain and write for, so yeah. That was a bad sentence, but you get what I mean.

(Also I hope someone makes that title font into a free for commercial use font some day. Would be great for scifi book covers. Just saying.)

Rating: 4/5

Good fun, a good, visually appealing and endearing science fiction movie. Well worth going to see at the movies. Oh, if it means anything, husband approved too.