Movie Review Time!
May. 11th, 2009 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kirby1024A few Movie Reviews
I've seen a couple of films over the last month, but never got around to writing the review for them, so here's my take on them both.
Star Trek
I'll admit - I'm a big Trekkie. Star Trek was one of few activities that I shared with my parents. Every month, we'd go to the video store and get the latest videos so we could watch the next few installments. I was a big enough fan to collect a lot of Star Trek paraphernalia, and it was a big, big part of my life for quite some time.
However.
A while back I stopped watching and got into other obsessions, and now that I look back on Star Trek, I can see a lot of problems with it. It was a product of the 60s, and even the newer Star Treks still took a lot of that onboard, all the while updating to more modern sensibilities. Also, let's be honest - there's a lot of dumb that crept into Star Trek over the years (unsurprising considering the large number of writers over so many years), and I've oftens said to other people that Star Trek could really use a reboot - take the Trek concept, remove all the dreck, start over, with a more modern take.
So I was very interested in what the new Star Trek movie would be like, and in grand tradition, I went to see it with my parents.
**Warning: There are spoilers here - do not continue if you do not wish to be spoiled**
Put simply, it was not the vision I was expecting. Admittedly, I had a very detailed, big long sense of what I would rebuild the Trek universe into, and this was a movie with very limited time, so obviously nothing the movie could come up with could get close to what I was expecting. But it was good. Very good. It took a very refreshing look at all the characters, at the universe itself, and actually built some very good characters where, frankly, very little existed previously.
I enjoyed Kirk the Hot-headed, cocky farm boy, and I also enjoyed the movie continuing the tradition of Kirk being constantly beaten up by, well, everyone. I liked watching him go from farm boy to captain. The idea that even with a different set of starting variables, Kirk was bound to be an astonishingly brilliant man.
I enjoyed watching Spock, with a greater emphasis taken on his mixed heritage. Spock in Old Trek seemed to be just Vulcan, that half-human part only really talked about, but rarely having any impact on him. In this movie, we get to see the real impact. And I may be a bit of a heretic here, but I like watching Vulcans get emotional. It's always been said that Vulcans just suppress emotions, that they do have them, and the actors who played the vulcans here gave a compelling performance of that. The line where Sarek tells Spock "I married your mother because I loved her" was a line that sent tingles through me - That frank admission that Vulcans feel, and that sometimes, they let themselves. It's something that was missing out of Old Trek.
McCoy I'm a little up in the air about. He's a decent character, with some great scenes, but I didn't come out of the cinema with any real, well, hold on him. He kinda disappeared by the end of the movie, with not much to do at all. I think there could have been a lot more done with him if they tried.
Uhura... I was impressed. She was shown as highly competent, driven, with her own mind and desires, far superior to Old Uhura's glorified telephone operator. The storyline with Spock was interesting, but probably could have been written in better, although it wasn't terribly grating to me. What I'm most pleased about, though, was that Uhura was her own character, not just Spock's love interest. Also, the fanboy in me was pleased about the Running gag regarding her first name. That had me giggling throughout the entire movie.
Scotty was, well, brilliant. Simon Pegg just took the character and made it his own, and he stole pretty much every scene he was in.
Sulu, I feel very similarly to McCoy. There was some good characterisation, but not a lot done with him at all. I didn't feel there was much memorable about him, although his action scene was very nice.
And I'll admit, Chekhov the Geek was cute. The run to the transporter room to get a falling Kirk and Sulu was a nice little moment for him, and I enjoyed watching his, well, awkwardness throughout the movie.It was very fun to watch, for me anyway.
The plot itself, well, it's an actiony plot, nothing particularly surprising, although I was impressed that they rebooted the universe in-character. Eric Bana was a fairly stock-standard villain, with not particularly interesting motivations, but worked as a villain consumed by rage. Having Leonard Nimoy star as old Spock was completely out of left field, and I am once again seriously impressed at Nimoy's acting skills with the role that, unfortunately, left him totally type-cast. The destruction of Vulcan... I must say, that took chutzpah, and I was almost waiting for them to hit the reset button and save the day... But it's clear that it's not going to be that sort of Star Trek. It's not a brilliant movie, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable one, one that's very obviously going to be a different type of Trek.
And part of me is a little sad about that, but for the moment, I reserve judgement. I think that one of the things about Star Trek that separated it from a lot of other Sci-Fi franchises was that singular optimism. It made it a little hokey at times, but where other shows tended to be very gritty, very pessimistic in how they peceived humanity, Star Trek always said "Sure, there's gonna be problems. But this is where we'll be. We can be greater than we are." And if the new Star Trek loses sight of that... well, is it really Star Trek? I think I saw some glimmerings of that kind of Hope in the Movie, the starting scene in particular was a brilliant example.
In less words? It's a good movie. If you're a Trekkie, don't think too hard about it, but do keep a lookout for all the callouts. If you're not a Trekkie, you'll probably enjoy it, if only for the action and nice characterisation.
Mary and Max
I saw this on my birthday witherinkyan, and I really, really liked it. The story is about a pen pal relationship between Mary Dinkle, an 8-year old girl in Mount Waverley in Australia, and Max Horovitz, a 44-year-old man with Asperger's. It's by the same person who made "Harvey Krumpet", although I've not seen that movie just yet. The story is kinda charming in it's innocence, and yet at the same time it tackles a lot of very deep ground, with a sort of light-hearted but respectful tone.
Now that I read that paragraph back, that must be very confusing, but I can't think of a better way to describe it. It simultaneously dark and innocent, playing very close to the bone but pulling it off with a lot of humour and innocence. The storybook-like narration by Barry Humphries just adds to the point, I think. I guess it's kindof like a kid's book for adults. On that note, by the way, It's definitely not for kids, unless you want to explain a lot of very interesting jokes to them.
I really enjoyed some of the stylistic choices they made with the movie, like how all the Australian scenes are done with a sepia pallet, while all the New York scenes are done with a Black and White pallet, not just defining the mood, but also adding a lot of dimension to the fact that there are two different stories playing out here, while they intersect all the while. The ending was, while bittersweet, really heartwarming, and just thinking about makes me almost cry all over again.
In less words? I'd highly recommend anyone watch it, it's a really good movie. If you're still able to, go out and see it, as this is the kind of movie you'll want to support.
I've seen a couple of films over the last month, but never got around to writing the review for them, so here's my take on them both.
Star Trek
I'll admit - I'm a big Trekkie. Star Trek was one of few activities that I shared with my parents. Every month, we'd go to the video store and get the latest videos so we could watch the next few installments. I was a big enough fan to collect a lot of Star Trek paraphernalia, and it was a big, big part of my life for quite some time.
However.
A while back I stopped watching and got into other obsessions, and now that I look back on Star Trek, I can see a lot of problems with it. It was a product of the 60s, and even the newer Star Treks still took a lot of that onboard, all the while updating to more modern sensibilities. Also, let's be honest - there's a lot of dumb that crept into Star Trek over the years (unsurprising considering the large number of writers over so many years), and I've oftens said to other people that Star Trek could really use a reboot - take the Trek concept, remove all the dreck, start over, with a more modern take.
So I was very interested in what the new Star Trek movie would be like, and in grand tradition, I went to see it with my parents.
**Warning: There are spoilers here - do not continue if you do not wish to be spoiled**
Put simply, it was not the vision I was expecting. Admittedly, I had a very detailed, big long sense of what I would rebuild the Trek universe into, and this was a movie with very limited time, so obviously nothing the movie could come up with could get close to what I was expecting. But it was good. Very good. It took a very refreshing look at all the characters, at the universe itself, and actually built some very good characters where, frankly, very little existed previously.
I enjoyed Kirk the Hot-headed, cocky farm boy, and I also enjoyed the movie continuing the tradition of Kirk being constantly beaten up by, well, everyone. I liked watching him go from farm boy to captain. The idea that even with a different set of starting variables, Kirk was bound to be an astonishingly brilliant man.
I enjoyed watching Spock, with a greater emphasis taken on his mixed heritage. Spock in Old Trek seemed to be just Vulcan, that half-human part only really talked about, but rarely having any impact on him. In this movie, we get to see the real impact. And I may be a bit of a heretic here, but I like watching Vulcans get emotional. It's always been said that Vulcans just suppress emotions, that they do have them, and the actors who played the vulcans here gave a compelling performance of that. The line where Sarek tells Spock "I married your mother because I loved her" was a line that sent tingles through me - That frank admission that Vulcans feel, and that sometimes, they let themselves. It's something that was missing out of Old Trek.
McCoy I'm a little up in the air about. He's a decent character, with some great scenes, but I didn't come out of the cinema with any real, well, hold on him. He kinda disappeared by the end of the movie, with not much to do at all. I think there could have been a lot more done with him if they tried.
Uhura... I was impressed. She was shown as highly competent, driven, with her own mind and desires, far superior to Old Uhura's glorified telephone operator. The storyline with Spock was interesting, but probably could have been written in better, although it wasn't terribly grating to me. What I'm most pleased about, though, was that Uhura was her own character, not just Spock's love interest. Also, the fanboy in me was pleased about the Running gag regarding her first name. That had me giggling throughout the entire movie.
Scotty was, well, brilliant. Simon Pegg just took the character and made it his own, and he stole pretty much every scene he was in.
Sulu, I feel very similarly to McCoy. There was some good characterisation, but not a lot done with him at all. I didn't feel there was much memorable about him, although his action scene was very nice.
And I'll admit, Chekhov the Geek was cute. The run to the transporter room to get a falling Kirk and Sulu was a nice little moment for him, and I enjoyed watching his, well, awkwardness throughout the movie.It was very fun to watch, for me anyway.
The plot itself, well, it's an actiony plot, nothing particularly surprising, although I was impressed that they rebooted the universe in-character. Eric Bana was a fairly stock-standard villain, with not particularly interesting motivations, but worked as a villain consumed by rage. Having Leonard Nimoy star as old Spock was completely out of left field, and I am once again seriously impressed at Nimoy's acting skills with the role that, unfortunately, left him totally type-cast. The destruction of Vulcan... I must say, that took chutzpah, and I was almost waiting for them to hit the reset button and save the day... But it's clear that it's not going to be that sort of Star Trek. It's not a brilliant movie, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable one, one that's very obviously going to be a different type of Trek.
And part of me is a little sad about that, but for the moment, I reserve judgement. I think that one of the things about Star Trek that separated it from a lot of other Sci-Fi franchises was that singular optimism. It made it a little hokey at times, but where other shows tended to be very gritty, very pessimistic in how they peceived humanity, Star Trek always said "Sure, there's gonna be problems. But this is where we'll be. We can be greater than we are." And if the new Star Trek loses sight of that... well, is it really Star Trek? I think I saw some glimmerings of that kind of Hope in the Movie, the starting scene in particular was a brilliant example.
In less words? It's a good movie. If you're a Trekkie, don't think too hard about it, but do keep a lookout for all the callouts. If you're not a Trekkie, you'll probably enjoy it, if only for the action and nice characterisation.
Mary and Max
I saw this on my birthday with
erinkyan, and I really, really liked it. The story is about a pen pal relationship between Mary Dinkle, an 8-year old girl in Mount Waverley in Australia, and Max Horovitz, a 44-year-old man with Asperger's. It's by the same person who made "Harvey Krumpet", although I've not seen that movie just yet. The story is kinda charming in it's innocence, and yet at the same time it tackles a lot of very deep ground, with a sort of light-hearted but respectful tone. Now that I read that paragraph back, that must be very confusing, but I can't think of a better way to describe it. It simultaneously dark and innocent, playing very close to the bone but pulling it off with a lot of humour and innocence. The storybook-like narration by Barry Humphries just adds to the point, I think. I guess it's kindof like a kid's book for adults. On that note, by the way, It's definitely not for kids, unless you want to explain a lot of very interesting jokes to them.
I really enjoyed some of the stylistic choices they made with the movie, like how all the Australian scenes are done with a sepia pallet, while all the New York scenes are done with a Black and White pallet, not just defining the mood, but also adding a lot of dimension to the fact that there are two different stories playing out here, while they intersect all the while. The ending was, while bittersweet, really heartwarming, and just thinking about makes me almost cry all over again.
In less words? I'd highly recommend anyone watch it, it's a really good movie. If you're still able to, go out and see it, as this is the kind of movie you'll want to support.
