Star Trek Into Darkness
I always make a point of trying to catch up on previous movies whenever a new chapter in a serial is released. Most times, I just can’t fit in the time or effort to watch (got about 40 minutes in of Iron Man 2 the day before seeing Iron Man 3). Star Trek is massive enough that trying to watch even just the movies or one series before a new chapter would take weeks. Luckliy the reboot is only one chapter deep, so Dawn and I played scrabble one night and took in the first movie again. It left us fully prepared for what came next.
Into Darkness is the best Star Wars movie this generation. That is not a typo. While I was intially upset JJ Abrams would abandon his sci fi franchise for a space fantasy, I now realize that is what he wanted to make all along so just let him do it. Kirk isn’t Shatner’s Kirk and not because he’s Chris Pine, it is because he’s playing Han Solo. Spock is a Jedi Knight. The Enterprise behaves more like the Millenium Falcon, until they introduce a ship that actually looks like the Millenium Falcon and perform exact manuevers from Star Wars. And the ship introduced later in the movie to face the crew was basically the Death Star.
I could grumble about this some more but it would serve no point since I already established that Into Darkness was great. It is a great action adventure movie. It has amazing performances from it’s cast, it handles twists well, and while the references to older movies before the reboot are frequent, they don’t play so heavy that you need to see the old movies just to get it.
My only plot gripe is that when the crew and John Harrison are faced with a common foe, that it didn’t turn the expectation sideways and make Harrison and ally rather than have him become a bigger threat. Also when a character appears to have died the explaination later was cheap and easy.
Man Of Steel
This was an amazing remake. Not of Richard Donner’s Superman, of which there is no parallel (but still mired in its period) but of the 2009 Star Trek. Zod is Nero and he’s going to drill a hole in the planet to kill every body, but not if the son of the man who tried to slow him down 30 years ago can stop him!
It is Zack Snyder’s most accomplished movie. I famously (in my circles anyway) tore apart 300 as dumb. I wanted to sleep by the end of Watchmen. I liked a good part of Sucker Punch, but my expectations were low and it made great efforts to do what Snyder does best with great visuals and music punching every beat in a fight.
Man Of Steel is brutal. It is very violent. So violent, I probably won’t let my kids see it for years to come (they’ll start with Donner or more likely Bruce Timm’s Superman). I’m not sure if we’re making up for lost time here or what, but aside from one daring rescue an a flashback and another as an adult, we don’t see Clark catching or saving too many people in this movie. In fact, as the destruction mounts from General Zod and team’s attacks, I would’ve liked to see a bit more grabbing people out of harm’s way and juggling that along with the fighting. Or at least Clark could pull the attack to a safe distance away from Smallville or Metropolis.
And I must stress there is a difference between VIOLENCE and ACTION. You can still have buildings explode and danger with action. Violence is when you just have 30 minutes of punching with no consequences.
The father/son stuff that Superman Returns fumbled so badly is very effective here. Maybe it is because I’m a father myself now, but there were many tearjerker moments with Jor El and Jonathan Kent.
I appreciate that one of the most well worn tropes in Superman mythology is the fact that Lois Lane doesn’t realize Clark is Superman and it is just destroyed here. She figures it out because she is smart and it makes her beleivable as an investigative reporter.
Another apt comparison I couldn’t help making was the 2007 Transformers movie. Filled with a lot of promised, mired in unexpected military scenes, and more violence that I was comfortable with. The big difference is that this movie had a lot of heart where Michael Bay’s Transformers had toilet humor. I hope that Snyder can continue to improve and give us an even better movie next time out and that Warner Bros doesn’t just shove Henry Cavill into a JLA or World’s Finest movie just to compete with Disney.
Perhaps the greatest praise as a geek I can give the movie is I want to see it again and I want an action figure.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High
With TV in reruns all summer, I’m trying to catch up on movies. Dawn and I had never seen Fast Times. It is a 1980s comedy with all the same pedigree of movies I love from that era from Caddy Shack to Ferris Bueller. The cultural significance is a little lost on me since I was very young when this movie takes place, (in that way Clueless is more generationally significant to me) but I’m glad to finally get to see stuff I’ve heard referenced for decades. Sean Penn’s Spicoli is clearly the model for characters as going from Wayne Campbell to Michealangelo from TMNT.
And it was funny in a way that comedies aren’t funny today in. The 80s high school comedy is indescribable as a genre, but it has so much going on in the way the characters behave like adults and real struggles between the gags.
Also boobs. So thumbs up.
Total Recall
Got about 2 minutes into the remake before I turned it off.