Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Directed by: Justin Lin

IMDB Page

Star Trek 3: Beyond the Fast and the Furious 8 is the latest Trek Film in the rebooted JJ-verse of faster-er, more explosion-y, screamy, punchier Star Trek films. In this film, bad man wants revenge. Enterprise and co. are sent to stop the bad man. The enterprise is destroyed, leaving Kirk and the rest of the crew to stop bad man before he does bad thing, because revenge. 

(Note: Don't get mad at me about spoilers, the trailers already gave away everything. There will be one spoiler I'll stick at the very end )

But seriously this time. Star Trek: Beyond follows the crew as they are left marooned on a planet. Their ship is destroyed, leaving the crew with their wits and scrounging abilities to escape captivity and stop an evil alien terrorist before he attacks a Starfleet base. 

Star Trek: Beyond was an enjoyable film on a very superficial level. I like to judge these new Trek films as just generic space action movies, because you'd never be able to sell a "real" Trek movie that wasn't an over the top, supercharged action film. So on those merits, it works. Although this entry sometimes feels like its trying to do two things: Be an action movie and be an actual Star Trek movie. There's all of the action, punching, screaming, revenge-y bad man, and explosions that we've come to expect in this new series. And then there's some actual moments and images that feel like Star Trek. Like the look of the alien planet that the crew finds themselves marooned on. It looks like a supped up version of some corny alien planet right out of the 60's TV show. Shots of all of the colored uniforms on the planet when the crew was imprisoned looked cool.  There was lots of more neat and funny character moments. More of Bones and Scotty, whom I like way more than Kirk and Spock in this new series. They do try to tack on a scene where Sulu is revealed to be gay in this universe. It feels silly and pandering, something George Takei has even given the film criticism for. 

The rest is... Well, the same as the last two films. It was kind of laughable of how the villain was just another random guy with anger problems who wanted revenge against Starfleet for some reason. Nero, the villain from the first film, was a random guy who was angry and wanted revenge. Totally not Khan who ended up being Khan was a random guy who wanted revenge, except it was dumb that he did because Kirk and co. never met him before in this rebooted universe like they originally did in the TV series. In addition to Revenge man, they have also added a Marvel style MacGuffin to prod along the plot in the first few scenes. This movie also tries to do a plot twist that is both stupid, lacks any weight or consequence, and was literally given away in the trailer. It even has a laughably bad enhance, ENHANCE, E N H A N C E scene. 

The action, while well shot and visually good looking, is tiring after even just the first third of the film. However, just having good looking action shouldn't get you props these days. Its normal for a $175 million blockbuster to have good looking effects and action. But, it gets tiring. Every punching fight has to last 10 minutes. Every character appears to be some kind of martial arts expert. Fights lack any real weight to them and feel overly choreographed. 

Bottom line- 3/5- It had more good character moments and more fun than the last entry, but its so, so stupid. 

SPOILER BELOW 

I never thought there would be anything more stupid than Jeff Goldblum using his old timey Windows laptop to destroy an alien fleet. This movie destroys an alien fleet/swarm with the Beastie Boys. They literally play the Beastie Boys really loud and all of the alien ships explode. They plug a boom box into the ship, turn on the Beastie Boys, and alien ships start exploding in sync with the music. 

"You're welcome"- Tim Burton

District 9 (2009) Review Update

Directed By: Neill Blomkamp

IMDB Page

I know I've reviewed this movie in the past. I've re-watched it recently and had some more feelings I'd like to mention. You can read my 5-year-old review here if you want to hear me just gush about it. My feelings have changed slightly. I still like it, I like it a lot and it remains in my top five movies.

My new thoughts have more to do with the director than the film itself. After seeing D9 for the first time I was super excited with what Blomkamp would do in the future. He's done two more films, as you're probably aware, Elysium and Chappie. Elysium was somewhat disappointing if meh/ok action movie. Chappie was kind of a mess. I went back into watching D9 with these other two films in the back of my mind. What flaws there were in D9, kind of a simple main plot, hollow villains, social commentary as subtle as a sledgehammer to the forehead, some odd character choices, all were much more apparent to me than the first few times I saw D9. When the main villain proclaims with a maniacal laugh that he "loves watching prawns die" I groaned when I'd never groaned in that spot of the movie before.  I noticed these same issues on a larger scale in his other two films. I tried hard to think of why D9 worked and Elysium/Chappie didn't. So what I did whatever any other self respecting loser movie nerd would do: I went and watched all of the behind the scenes special features.

District 9, like many films by first time directors, was made on a modest budget with a lot of guerrilla style film making involved. Lots of location shoots, lots of improv on part of the main actor and his co-stars, and lots of budget limitations that limited the overall scope. I noticed Blomkamp commenting in one of the special features that D9 was a very stressful shoot because of the lack of planning and concrete script. He later says that he would "never make a film like that again". That "everything would be planned out". And then I was disappointed.

Sometimes, the best film making comes out of adversity. Making a new, original idea on a modest budget forces you to make compromises. It forces you to listen to others ideas, consider other options and change things on the fly. Imagine if George Lucas had already been a sellout hack fraud a famous, successful director before he decided to make Star Wars. Imagine if James Cameron had conceived and filmed The Terminator in 2009 on a $240 million budget. They would have been totally different movies. They were shaped by time in which they were made and circumstance as much as they were by the writers and directors.

Blomkamp seems to be a visual director. He makes excellent use of special effects in his films. The CGI creatures and tech in D9 blow me away even today; on a budget of pennies compared to Hollywood blockbusters that manage to churn out dull, cartoonish, suspension of disbelief shattering CGI garbage every summer. His other two films share the same visual language and good effects. Dirt, realistic looking robots, interesting world building. But the story, message and characters seem to have fallen apart.

I know I'm arm chair quarterbacking to the max here, I have no experience in film aside from watching them and offering my non solicited opinions. But I hope Blomkamp can pair with a good writer/producer team that has him making good movies again. Who knows, maybe he'll be the next Ridley Scott, who manages to turn out at least one OK movie for every three they do. We (I) can only hope.