STAR TREK Into Disappointment

Opening today at nearly every multiplex in the galaxy:

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS 

(Dir. J.J. Abrams, 2013)

At first, it seemed that it was just that this sequel was just messier and less fun than Abram’s 2009 reboot. That the freshness of how that movie so entertainingly re-established Star Trek’s most iconic characters with new faces had faded.

But as the quick-cut convolutions of the plot swirled around my head, aided by the heavy lens glare (now in 3D!), I began to shudder. Abrams, along with screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof, were no longer simply paying homage, they were blatantly ripping off scenarios, dialogue, and the emotional pull of what many consider the best of the original run of STAR TREK movies.

Of course, I’m talking about STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (from here on: STII: TWOK).

Nicholas Meyer’s 1982 sequel to Robert Wise’s STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979) was a game changer for the franchise. The first one, which brought the cast back from the popular '60s TV series in part to capitalize on the STAR WARS craze of the late ‘70s, was seen as too cerebral, and worse – boring, but the second one was a terrific action adventure that appealed to both fans and a mass audience, without sacrificing the smarts (largely thanks to an excellent screenplay by Jack B. Sowards and Meyer).

Abrams had already touched on STII:TWOK in his first installment of STAR TREK, with the Kobayashi Maru element (the no-win scenario Starfleet test) and a few lines, but here the allusions are out in full force starting with Benedict Cumberbatch as a villain from 300 years in the past that, c’mon, everybody knows going in who he’s going to turn out to be.

The entire cast returns headed by Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, who again lives to ignore Federation regulations, have sex with alien women (he’s in bed with two of them early on), and perform death defying stunts at early possible chance.

Their amusing rivalry has died down, so Kirk and Zachary Quinto’s Spock are settled into the friendship as seen on the old series, and Spock’s romantic relationship with Uhuru (Zoe Saldana), something that was somewhat shocking when it was introduced 4 years ago is also background fodder here. As for the rest, Karl Urban as McCoy, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, and John Cho as Sulu, they’re around mainly to say their character’s classic lines (McCoy: “Damn it Jim, I’m a Doctor not a torpedo technician!”).

So the movie has Kirk being demoted for breaking the Prime Directive (you know, the deal where Starfleet can’t interfere with the development of an alien civilization) in the film’s big ass opening volcano sequence, then made First Officer under Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood, also returning from the previous film). When Pike is killed by Cumberbatch (who has some effectively sinister moments but is no Ricardo Montalban) in a gunship in a violent assault in San Fransisco, Kirk and crew chases him down with the Enterprise to the Klingon territory of Kronos.

With the Klingon entanglements, sometimes confusing negotiation tactics, and muddled back story about Cumberbatch’s people each encased in hollow photon torpedoes, I got a bit drowsy, but I snapped too when I realized they were not only trying to replicate the high points of the 2009 reboot (revealing that they can do something new with warp speed, Leonard Nimoy cameo, etc.), they were mounting a re-approximation (with an obvious variation) of one of the highest points of the entire franchise, i.e. Spock’s death scene in STII:TWOK.

No doubt, some folks are going to enjoy that they did this. The film goes so by fast, with a lot of kinetic energy surrounding the immaculate CGI, that movie-goers are likely to get caught up in it all, and then love that they recognize the set-up with some of the same dialogue as it unfolds, but when I saw that they were so transparently aping what worked so well in the past it felt forced and a bit desperate to me.

I also didn’t buy the extra villainy of Peter Weller’s (ROBOCOP!) angry Starfleet admiral Marcus (father of Alice Eve as Carrol Marcus, another element from STII:TWOK), who threatens to destroy the Enterprise and everybody on it just to get to Cumberbatch.

On The Daily Show earlier this week, Abrams admitted, as he has many times before, that as a kid he was never into Star Trek, adding that “it always felt too philosophical to me.” Here it really shows that his STAR WARS-ified sexed-up version of the world that Gene Roddenberry created just aims to be mindless entertainment. 

At its previous best, say in STII:TWOK, Star Trek was never mindless, even in its most failed forays, say the William Shatner-directed STAR TREK V, it had an aim to question and seek out new possibilities.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, surely to be a blockbuster knocking IRON MAN 3 out of the #1 position at the box office this weekend, is a disappointment on many levels, the biggest one being that it retreads sacred ground with no new purpose.

Now Abrams will go off and reboot STAR WARS (set for Summer 2015) for probably even bigger box returns. That franchise is obviously better suited for him (and he’s actually a fan of it) so I hope the Force is strong with him in that galaxy, because he really broke the Prime Directive of this one.

More later...

New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 5/14/13

Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, and Tom Tykwer’s CLOUD ATLAS, starring Tom Hanks (Reader Digest's most trusted man in America), along with Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, and Ben Whishaw (all playing multiple roles), comes out today in a Blu-ray/DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy Combo Pack and a standard stand-alone DVD release. The film, which I called “epically entertaining but empty” in my review when the film was released theatrically last October, is joined by 7 “Focus Point” featurettes that add up to around an hour.

Next up, the newest addition to the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE franchise, John Luessenhop’s TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D is out today in a 3D Blu-ray + Blu-ray + Digital Copy + UltraViolet package and a single disc 2D DVD (also contains Digital Copy + UltraViolet). I don’t have a 3D TV so I can’t speak for that aspect, but the movie, which picks up where Tobe Hooper’s 1974 original film ends (with footage from the first to boot), is pretty trashy and stupid, yet still fun, if you have no issues with gory deaths that is.

TEXAS CHAINSAW comes with a mess of Special Features including three (!) commentaries including and a “Chainsaw Alumni” commentary featuring stars Bill Moseley, Gunnar Hansen, Marilyn Burns and John Dugan, eight featurettes, an alternate opening, and the theatrical trailer. This is reportedly a reboot to kick off a new 6-part series to rival the SAW franchise. If that’s the case, count me out.

Roman Copppola’s really strange looking A GLIMPSE INSIDE THE MIND OF CHARLES SWAN III, starring Charlie Sheen, Jason Schwartzman, and Bill Murray, is also among today’s releases in single disc Blu Ray and DVD editions (no Digital copies or UltraViolet included here). It got awful reviews (it holds a 16% “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but I still can’t help putting it in my queue. Special Features: a 25 minute “making of” featurette, a 12 minute segment about one of the real life graphic artists whose work inspired director Coppola, and a commentary with Coppola, who also co-wrote the ill-fated production. 

On the older film front, today’s releases include a Criterion Collection edition of Delmer Dave’s classic 1957 Western 3:10 TO YUMA on both Blu ray and DVD, three Hal Hartley films (his 1989 debut THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH, 1988’s THE BOOK OF LIFE, and 2005’s THE GIRL FROM MONDAY) also hit both formats, as does Sam Raimi’s 1985 comedy CRIMEWAVE, co-written with the Coen brothers, another film I gotta queue up. 

Finally, the 21-disc Fraggle Rock: 30th Anniversary Collection is available from (on DVD only, which is just as well since the image is often as fuzzy as the Fraggles themselves), containing all 96 episodes from the HBO show's mid '80s run with a bunch of Special Features (2 discs worth) and a Red Fraggle mini-plush. 

If this set is way too much of Jim Henson’s Fraggles than you or your kids can take, there is a neat 6 episode sampler DVD also out today: “Meet the Fraggles” (pictured above on the left) which has some of the best episodes from the show’s 4 seasons, especially the wonderful song-filled first episode “Beginnings,” which is one of Henson’s best half hour productions ever, and considering how good the 5 seasons of The Muppet Show are that’s saying a lot. Speaking of The Muppet Show, seasons 4 and 5 are still not available on DVD! Somebody do something about this!

As always for a complete list of what’s out today on Blu ray and DVD check out Amazon’s New Releases department.

More later…

The Soulful Warmth of THE SAPPHIRES

Now playing at an art house near you: 

THE SAPPHIRES (Dir. Wayne Blair, 2012) 

The Irish comic actor Chris O’Dowd, best known to British audiences for his role as Roy on the TV show The IT Crowd, and by American audiences for his part as the flirty cop in BRIDESMAIDS, gets his chance to carry a film as the lead in THE SAPPRIRES, a late ‘60s era band biopic about an Australian girl group, that at times comes off like a spirited mixture of THAT THING YOU DO and GOOD MORNING VIETNAM. 

Deborah Mailman, Miranda Tapsell, Jessica Mauboy, and Shari Sebbens play the young indigenous women whose soulful singing of country songs encourages O’Dowd to manage them for a tour to entertain the troops in Vietnam.

The scruffy lush O’Dowd (playing a Melbournian), convinces the spirited but mouthy group to drop what he calls the “country shite,” and take up soul music by way of a montage in which he coaches them into being a more polished and presentable act, with choreography, matching dresses and a new name: the Sapphires.

As O’Dowd and his new singing sensations travel the rough terrain of Vietnam, the film can feel pretty montage heavy, but the string of short scenes flows amusingly enough. There have been many many movies that have covered the same 1968 ground, i.e. the escalation of the Vietnam war, but that’s mainly backdrop here as the focus is on the relationships of these women.

Mauboy may be the lead singer, but Mailman, who O’Dowd says is “mama bear,” to the “little baby cubs” of the others, has the most affecting presence, especially in a monologue detailing her family’s strife fraught back story. Tapsell brings amusing feistiness to her underwritten role, and as the light-skinned cousin who feels she has the most to prove, Sebbens gets to have a likable bit of romance on the side with Tory Kittles.

Based on a popular Australian play by Tony Briggs, which was loosely based on true events his mother and aunts experienced, and co-scripted here by Briggs and Keith Thompson, THE SAPPRIRES is a colorful charmer with a top notch soundtrack.

Songs by Creedence, Sam & Dave, and are in abundance, but the film is at its most toe-tappingly tuneful when Mauboy takes the mike and belts out superb renditions of Motown and Stax standards, as well as the winner “Gotcha,” a new original (written by Mauboy with Louis Schrool and Ilan Kidron).

Sure, there are the predictable “based on a true story” trappings like overused archival footage, and the obligatory photos of the real folks with tidy sum-ups of what became of them, and when Googling the original band you’ll find that O’Dowd’s character is completely ficticious, and only two of the women from the original group went to Vietnam as backup singers for other artists, but I was so won over by the film’s soulful warmth that I could put those things aside.

Starting Sunday night, May the 12th, O’Dowd will be starring in Christopher Guest’s new HBO series Family Tree which looks to be right in line with Guest’s classic ensemble improv comedies WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, BEST IN SHOW, and A MIGHTY WIND. After seeing his ace chops on ample display in THE SAPPHIRES, it’s now a show I’m looking forward to even more.

More later...