• 6May 09

  Newest 'Trek' boldly goes into future

  For the first time since "First Contact," the "Star Trek" franchise has gone where no "Trek" has gone before.

  Instead of continuing ahead with "The Next Generation" or spinning a movie out of the prequel "Enterprise," J.J. Abrams boldly decided to reboot the venerable franchise and start over from scratch. The final product is not only a credible entry into the franchise, but a new lease on life, not unlike V'Ger's resurrection at the end of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."

  The simply titled "Star Trek" delves into the untold history of Captain James T. Kirk's formable years at Starfleet Academy. Certain events have been altered thanks to the intrusion of a time-traveling Romulan named Nero. Instead of the standup cadet who cheated on the Kobayashi Maru, Kirk is a partying farm boy who loves to get into trouble. His famous solution to the unbeatable test is finally shown, including the reaction from his fellow cadets and the academic elite.

  Mr. Spock's origins are also touched on as he tries to find the balance between his Vulcan and human identities. Zach Quinto's Spock is a much more conflicted person than Leonard Nimoy's portrayal in the original series. This uncertainty, combined with the actions of Nero, puts the uneasy relationship between Kirk and Spock to the test.

  The marketing hype is correct: this is not your father's "Star Trek." There's more drama, more suspense and a much deeper insight to the characters than any other movie in the franchise. The opening scene alone is reminiscent of a science-fiction "Saving Private Ryan." As much as this writer has always loved "Star Trek," the emotional depth of the characters in the original series has always been as shallow as a wading pool. That's not the case here. You see the characters grow and evolved over the course of the two-hour movie.

  The only problem the movie has is a shoehorned love angle between Lt. Uhura and Spock. The relationship makes no sense and plays out like nothing more than a feeble attempt by Abrams and Company to attract a female crowd. There is a distinct lack of chemistry between Quinto and Zoe Saldana and every intimate scene between the two feels forced.

  However, any "Star Trek" fan, or "Trekkie" who has been worried about whether this will live up to the franchise's legacy need not worry. The actors are a little young, but the perfect thing about them is if you didn't know their names or their roles, you could easily pick out each individual character based on their mannerisms and the delivery of their dialogue.

  The casting job was nothing short of perfect. While there will always be only one James T. Kirk, and he is William Shatner, Pine fills the role well with the trademark Kirk sleazy look. The star of the show has to be Karl Urban, who plays Bones, the ship's senior medical officer. He is perfect for the role. He looks and sounds like a young DeForest Kelley. Quinto also does a credible job as Spock, which is perhaps the hardest character to play in the series.

  The music and visuals are both a sight to hear and to witness. The Enterprise NCC-1701 has never looked more beautiful on the big screen. And while Michael Giacchino's score doesn't necessarily sound like something from older "Trek" movies, the final credits music is straight out of the original series down to the campy 60s overtures.

  Perhaps the best way to sum up the quality of this movie is to compare it to the watermark of the franchise, "Wrath of Khan." While not necessarily as good as the franchise's second movie, "Star Trek" succeeds in everything possible. The visuals, the music and the acting are all top notch and worth of the legacy. This is a movie that "Star Trek" fans will grow to love with its inside jokes and shout-outs to the series. And it is a movie that will pull new people into the fanbase. Even if you've never liked a "Star Trek" before, check this one out.

  • Posted May 6, 2009 12:28 pm PT
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• 5Mar 09

  Who watches the Watchmen?

  For 20 years, "Watchmen" has been seen as the unfilmable graphic novel. With so many twists and turns, flashbacks and side-stories, how could a director ever fit it into a two-hour film without completely ruining it? Well "Watchmen" fans, Zach Snyder failed. He filmed the unfilmable graphic novel, but he didn't cram it into a two-hour film. Instead, the "visionary" director behind "300" crammed the majority of "Watchmen" into a 165-minute film. And what a fine job he did.

  "Watchmen" takes place in 1985 when Richard Nixon is still the president of the United States, the Doomsday Clock is at five minutes to midnight and blue man with superhuman powers walks around completely nude. Obviously, Nixon still being president is the most absurd of these differences.

  At the start of the film, Edward Blake, a.k.a. the Comedian, is violently murdered in his apartment. When I say violently, the 225-pound man is picked up like a sack of potatoes and slung all over his apartment like he was a pillow. After an intense fight, he's thrown out of his window and falls dozens of stories to his death.

  This murder sparks an investigation by the sociopathic vigilante Rorschach which involves many fingers being broken, numerous people getting blown into bloody messes and a blue man with superhuman powers walking around completely nude.

  On the surface, "Watchmen" not only sounds absurd, but it sounds like something that would only belong on the pages of a graphic novel. Had anyone else tried to adapt the graphic novel, I would have agreed. Alan Moore crafted a masterpiece of literature that no one will ever be able to touch. Names like Batman, Spider-Man, Superman and X-Men mean nothing in the face of "Watchmen."

  But unlike those properties, which had succesful adaptations, "Watchmen" has struggled. Its complex nature always has hindered it from coming to the big screen. After watching "300" and already being a fan of Snyder from his remake of "Dawn of the Dead," I was willing to give the man a chance. After all, nothing could ever ruin my enjoyment of the source material.

  Sitting alone in the Carmike theatrer, I felt nervous when the Warner Bros. logo flashed on screen in yellow and black. Everything had been against this film from Moore's refusal to support it, to multiple production misfires to 20th Century Fox trying to block its release. It almost seemed like fate itself had destined the film to the depths of Hollywood Hell to never be released. And here I was, sitting in the theater more than 12 hours before the official release, getting ready to see it for the first time.

  When the final credits rolled and 70s rock filled the theater, I really didn't know what to expect. Perhaps it was the bloody violence, perhaps it was seeing Silk Spectre II naked, perhaps it was the blue guy walking around completely nude. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to think about it. But I eventually found myself trying not to clap out of embarrassment. I've never clapped at a film, but I had to restrain myself from doing so.

  This is not only the best movie I have seen in months, if not years, but it is handedly the best graphic novel or comic book adaptation I have ever seen. Not only has the unfilmable graphic novel been filmed, but it has been done in such a way that it puts every other effort to shame.

  Snyder's movie captures the despair, the depression, the utter lack of humanity that is present in the graphic novel. This story beats you with its dark themes, it mames you with its ultra violence and it kicks you when you're down with a complete absence of anything decent. Not one single person in the novel or in the movie are good. Everyone has their flaws and they're so exagerrated that it makes you pity them.

  The "hero" of the story, Rorschach is a violent sociopath who's a complete right-wind nutjob. And you can't help but cheer for him when he kills child murderers and says "people get arrested, dogs get put down."
  Nite Owl is the only decent human being in the whole story and even then, he's no saint. The man lusts after another man's girlfriend and then can't seem to consumate the relationship without wearing an owl suit. He stands in front of the suit naked and talks to himself.

  Let's not even get started on Silk Spectre, Sally Jupiter, and her daughter Laurie. Sally gets raped by the Comedian, but still loves him and Laurie carries around so much emotional baggage that she loves a blue superhuman who walks around in the nude. This is like watching an episode of "Seinfeld" with superheroes.

  The graphic novel and the movie revel in their grotesque nature. Snyder's interpretation not only welcomes the brutality, it embraces it. Arms are cut off, people are blown up faces are melted and every single scene is necessary. Snyder never threw in any sex, violence or gore that wasn't necessary or excessive.

  The film's casting is definitely spot-on. Even with a cast of relative unknowns, the performances shine through. Jackie Earle Haley not only looks like Walter Kovacs from the graphic novel, but he sounds exactly like the voice I made in my head when reading the graphic novel for the first time. Christian Bale should take note, Haley's voice is how superhero voices should be done. His performance is haunting and disturbing. You can't tell where the actor stops and where the character begins. Haley is Rorschach.

  There are two weak links in the production and for a 165-minute movie, that's not bad. The origin story of Dr. Manhattan, the blue superhuman who walks around in the nude, draws on and on until it gets to the point where I was about to fall asleep. For all intents and purposes, Manhattan is a god. He can split molecules, he can make multiple versions of himself, he can see the future and he can blow people into bloody messes. Snyder meant for his voice to sound distant and unhuman and it works. Manhattan sound so out of touch with everything in the film. But when he talks, it's so monotone and boring that nothing happening on screen seems exciting.

  The other weak link is the acting of Malin Ackerman, who plays Laurie Jupiter. At times, she seems like she's reading her script off screen. Her acting is hollow and without feeling, which is made worse by the fact she's one of the cruxes of the entire story. She's carried by the rest of the cast, including Jeffrey Dean Morgan who plays the Comedian. But for such an important character, he looks carry more weight than her acting.

  The film is loyal to its source material almost to a fault. Some aspects including the "Black Freighter" were removed to trim the film down to a suitable length and there is a distinct lack of calamari. The constant flashbacks are fairly easy to keep up with, but can be confusing if you're not familiar with the source material. One minute, Comedian is dead, the next minute he's alive and about to shoot a Vietnamese girl.

  Even though there are slight changes, everything was done for the greater good of the film. It still keeps its dark message. This isn't your ordinary comic book film. It's a majestic exercise in brutality that not only manages to entertain, but makes you think. The good guys aren't always good and the bad guys aren't always bad. I have never seen so many shades of gray in such a colorful film. The darkness is alarming and even with today's problems, the world of "Watchmen" is without so much hope, that if you don't get anything else out of the film, you can feel better about the world you live in today.

  • Posted Mar 5, 2009 12:20 pm PT
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• 24Jan 09

  The Adventures of 'Dark Knight' Fanboys and the Oscars

  It never fails. Every year, there's a lot of buildup around the announcement of the Oscar nominations and fanboys across the Internet get into a tizzy. Will this be the year that X genre finally makes it to the big time? And every year, the Academy shoots down the hopes of fanboys with a very conservative list of nominations. This year is no different.

  Even before the first trailer hit the Interwebs, Nolanverse fanboys were proclaiming The Dark Knight would not only be the best comic book movie ever made, but it would be one of the best movies Hollywood ever put out. Unlike most people, I actually kept my expectations tempered and walked out of the theater undisappointed, but not as excited as a lot of people were.

  Before the first weekened's box office numbers were released, Nolanverse fanboys were shouting "Oscars!" from the highest places they could find. I almost spit out my coffee one morning as an Internet poster said Christopher Nolan deserved the Best Director Oscar and Christian Bale and Heath Ledger deserved Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor Oscars respectively. Excuse me while I pause to stop laughing so hard.

  There's one thing that needs to be said first: The Dark Knight wasn't a bad movie. It was a great movie and I wholeheartedly enjoyed it. I'll get called an idiot, among other things, but I honestly preferred Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. If your blind hatred of that movie gives you pause, go ahead and stop reading right here. I'll go as far to say that Iron Man was a better comic book film. Robert Downey Jr.'s performance in Iron Man was better than any perforance in The Dark Knight, save for Ledger's performance as The Joker.

  With that being said, if Ledger had not killed himself, there's no way he would be nominated for an Oscar. I'm sorry, but you can go ahead and put your Joker underwear back in the drawer. His performance was great, I will admit. I will say it was one of the best villain performances ever on film. But (prepare yourself) Jack Nicholson's Joker was better. Yes, I said it. There's all this talk about how Ledger disappears into the character and I just don't see it. Sure, he disappears due to a lot of makeup work, but that's just about it.

  It's like saying Ron Pearlman disappears as Hellboy. The makeup covers the actor, but you can still see him. To be fair, I really don't think there was a great standout performance by an actor or actress this entire year. I would go ahead and say that this year is probably one of the worst years in recent memory for acting performances. The only performance I saw where an actor "disappeared" into his character was Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder. He literally disappeared into the character through makeup and then the character itself. And guess what, he's also nominated for an Oscar. If I had to decide right now, Downey Jr. would win over Ledger.

  I'll admit I have a bias against the Nolanverse movies. Aside from Liam Neeson in Batman Begins, I didn't think there was anything really astounding about the movie. I think after Batman and Robin, we would take almost anything as a replacement. Batman Begins was a solid movie, but nothing more. The Dark Knight was better than Batman Begins in just about every way, but it still wasn't the best movie of the year.

  There's something about the Nolanverse movies that just never clicked with me. Perhaps it's the way they try to take themselves so seriously, but I don't particularly care for Nolan's vision. I think 300 was a better graphic novel movie. I enjoyed Superman Returns more than Batman Begins and it pains me to think Warner Bros. wants to turn the Superman franchise into a Nolanverse-redux.

  But even with bias, I laugh at the Nolanverse fanboys yelling that The Dark Knight wasn't nominated for an Oscar. I remember before the movie came out how some said it was as good as The Godfather or Goodfellas. Well, I'll give them the latter considering Goodfellas was a horrible movie as well. But there's no way I can say with a straight face that The Dark Knight is as good as The Godfather.

  Look at the nominated movies for Best Picture: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which features a great, almost career-defining, performance by Brad Pitt with a wonderful story and direction to boot; Frost/Nixon, good and solid directing by Ron Howard that doesn't rewrite the book, but also featuring a career-defining performance by Michael Sheen who was best known for Underworld; Milk, you have me with this one, Sean Penn has been playing Sean Penn in numerous roles for years now and don't make me bring up the quote from Tropic Thunder, though Josh Brolin was great; The Reader, I haven't seen yet and Slumdog Millionaire, which is this year's Crash, a decent film that's nominated as a race card.

  Two out of the five nominated films are worthy of the Oscar. The Academy forgets Changeling, Gran Torino and The Wrestler. All had strong performances by their leads, all featured excellent directing chops and were mesmerrising. They also have one thing in common: they were all better than The Dark Knight.

  I'm sure people will shout for the next month about how the Academy has a bias against popular films. But that argument really doesn't hold any water considering Return of the King was not only nominated for the second highest amount of Oscars in history, but was the first movie to win every award it was nominated for. The Departed won in 2007 and was Scorsese's most succesful picture to-date. Gladiator, Titanic, Braveheart, etc. The list goes on of popuar, box office-leading films that were nominated and won.

  The only argument I could say fanboys would have is the Academy has something against comic book films. I would agree to one extent, and that's that no comic book film has ever really been a Best Picture contender outside of Richard Donner's Superman, which is still what all comic book films should aspire to.

  In the end, it won't matter. Fanboys will still clutch to The Dark Knight like they did Spider-Man before it. In another five years, a new comic book movie will come out and set the temp for fanboys. I would love to say it will be this year's Watchmen release. But I'm sure fanboys will attack it for messing up the most minute detail in the graphic novel. It's jut depressing how some people get so overhyped and upset by the opinions of the Academy. I know I've had my disputes with what they say and I'm sure this year will be no different, but the reactions of some rabid fanboys on the Internet is downright insulting.

  • Posted Jan 24, 2009 5:23 pm PT
  • Category: Rant
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