DOCTOR STRANGE 2: With Sam Raimi At The Helm, I Expected More MADNESS

Now playing at a multiplex in a multiverse near you:

DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

(Dir. Sam Raimi, 2022)

It’s not surprising to me that my first press screening since The Before Times would be for a Marvel movie. 

That’s obviously because there’s so damn many of them – case in point, this Doctor Strange sequel is the 28th film in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). It’s also the sixth time that Benedict Cumberbatch has portrayed the titular master mystic as, apart from his 2016 stand-alone adventure, he has appeared in two AVENGERS movies, one THOR entry, and only several months ago was a major player in the super successful SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME.

 

So why does the character still not feel fully fleshed out to me? Cumberbatch brings the wit, and all the clever charisma he can muster, but his Dr. Stephen Strange still seems to stiffly be going through the Marvel movie motions in yet another overly familiar formula film. But what’s most surprising here is that this is the return of comic horror filmmaker extraordinaire Sam Raimi. Since Raimi’s last movie, 2013’s OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, wasn’t that great and/or powerful, I was both hoping for a big comeback, one that would re-establish the man’s credentials for batshit-crazy cinema, but alas the supposed madness that the title boasts is severely muted due to the lack of pure oomph in the project.

 

It was difficult for me to care much for the plot that somehow involves a new, well, new-to-me character, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) whose power of being able to travel through the multiverse is being sought by Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) so this keys into last year’s Marvel TV series WandaVision. It’s one of the film’s only inspired moves to make Olsen’s Scarlett Witch into the villain here, but her motivation – i.e. needing to stay with her kids in their universe at all costs – doesn’t make for really riveting stakes.

 

Like in the first DOCTOR STRANGE, there are a variety of arresting visuals, and a lot of immersive imagery, courtesy of literally thousands of digital artists whose names you’ll have to wait for to get to the obligatory post credits stinger, but in our current world of blockbusters, where even many bad films are graced with stunning effects, those descriptors mean less and less as accolades.

 

Cumberbatch does an admirable job pulling triple duty as he plays alternate universe versions of Dr. Strange: Defender Strange, Zombie Strange, and Strange Supreme, but the character himself is strangely lackluster overall. The supporting cast, well, supports adequately with turns by returning cast members Chiwetel Ejiofor as Karl Mordo, and Rachel McAdams as lost love interest Christine Palmer being the stand-outs.

 

I just wish Raimi had thrown the superhero conventions out the window, and did a deep dive into the possibilities of loco landscapes, infinities of insanity, and nutso narratives. Has his younger self’s go-for-broke hunger that resulted in the over-the-top EVIL DEAD series really been completely satiated? If it doesn’t rear its head in a movie so calling for some “next level shit” ambition, when will it get another chance to thrive?

 

But while it consists of more exposition than explosions, DR. STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS is a serviceable vehicle in the franchise, but maybe it would’ve been better broken down, and embellished into another streaming Marvel television show. It simply doesn’t fare any better or worse than what Disney+ has been serving up on that front recently.

 

Raimi’s workmanlike DOCTOR STRANGE sequel will unlikely be remembered much by me or many other movie-goers in the future except as just another chapter in the never-ending MCU. Perhaps the most telling factor is in a previously reliable element that Raimi fans will be anxiously awaiting upon viewing this movie – the Bruce Campbell cameo. That even that moment doesn’t truly deliver sadly says it all about Marvel Movie #28.

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Hey Kids! Fun Time 2022 Oscar® Predictions!

Emilia Jones in CODA, a front runner for the 2022 Best Picture Oscar

Yes, it’s that time again - the 94th Academy Awards® Ceremony is tonight, and I’ve got my predictions ready. After last year’s weird ceremony with no official host at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, the show is back at the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center, and this time, there are three hosts - Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall - who I’m sure will bring the funny.

This Oscars further displays how much the streaming services are gaining ground in these races. Netflix got 27 nominations for 10 titles, while Apple got six, Amazon got four, and Hulu got one. The two front runners (CODA, and THE POWER OF THE DOG) in the Best Picture showdown is basically Apple vs. Netflix. But let’s get right to it my complete, final predictions of what’s gonna go down tonight:

1. BEST PICTURE:  Jane Champion’s THE POWER OF THE DOG

Sien Heder’s CODA has picked up a lot of Oscar buzz late in the game, and many critics from such outlets including the New York Times, Variety, IndieWire, and Vulture are predicting that it’ll win the big one, but I have a feeling that Jane Campion’s THE POWER OF THE DOG, an early major contender will still out. It would be fun to have an upset in this category, like if BELFAST or LICORICE PIZZA somehow got more votes. I won’t be surprised if CODA wins, as it’s so much more of a crowd pleaser than POWER OF THE DOG, but I’m gonna still go with the Campion crowd.

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Jane Champion (THE POWER OF THE DOG) Same deal here.

3. BEST ACTOR: Will Smith (KING RICHARD) 

I’m not the biggest Will Smith fan, but I think he’s excellent in this film as the stubborn tennis coach father bully, Richard Williams, and deserves to take home the gold. Several weeks ago, I would’ve said Benedict Cumberbatch was a lock for TPOTD, but Smith has the edge now, and I bet his acceptance speech will be epic.

4. BEST ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain (THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE)

This may be the toughest category in a program full of tough category as there doesn’t appear to be an actress that doesn’t have a big chance. Nate Jones of Vulture wrote, “Many categories, including Best Picture, seem like genuine fifty-fifty calls. (Best Actress might be 20-20-20-20-20.)” I’m going with Chastain, whose performance as the scandal queen televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker was stunning, despite the actual film being way less so. Like Smith, it’s her third Oscar nomination, so I’m counting on it being the charm.

5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Troy Kotsur (CODA)

Now, I’ll be very surprised if this guy doesn’t win this. He’s the best thing in CODA, and he’s already won a British Academy Film Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Critics' Choice Award, and stole the show at each ceremony. If he wins, he’ll be the first deaf actor to score the statue (his CODA co-star, Marlee Matlin, was the first deaf actress to win an Oscar for CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD in 1987), so that’ll be a cool thing.

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Ariana Debose (WEST SIDE STORY)

I don’t have a strong feeling on this one, I’m just seeing that just about everyone is saying this is a lock, and I’m going with the flow.

Now here’s the rest of the categories, the ones that are getting the shaft this year by their exclusion from the live broadcast.

DOCTOR STRANGE’s Origin Story Is An Incredible Looking Mystical Mess

Opening tonight at multiplexes everywhere across multiple dimensions and alternate realities:

DOCTOR STRANGE (Dir. Scott Derrickson, 2016)

The beginning of DOCTOR STRANGE, involving a foot chase and fight over the sides of shifting, folding buildings (like INCEPTION times ten) inside the London skyline, is one of the most spectacular opening sequences of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) series.

However, what follows all too soon settles into an overly familiar origin story formula.

In a New York operating room, we meet Benedict Cumberbatch as snarky neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange, whose arrogance around his fellow colleagues, played by Rachel McAdams and Michael Stuhlbarg, makes him come off more than a little like Dr. Gregory House, especially since Brits Cumberbatch and Hugh Laurie’s American accents are extremely similar.

Strange gets in a near fatal automobile accident while texting in his Lamborghini *, and when he comes to he finds that his hands have been mangled and his career as a surgeon is over.

Strange’s physical therapist (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) tries to encourage him by telling him that one of his former patients made a full recovery from the same type of injuries, so our not yet hero seeks the man out. Benjamin Bratt as the former paraplegic points him to Kamar-Taj, a monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, to which Strange immediately travels.

There he meets sorcerer Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who takes him to the Ancient one, an ageless, bald, androgynous Tilda Swinton who silences Strange’s cynicism about their religion by thrusting him into outer space and a series of alternate dimensions which convinces him that he should shut up and train to be a sorcerer himself.

Meanwhile, one of the Ancient One’s former pupils, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) plots to destroy the sanctums that protect earth from other dimensions and conquer the world in the name of the powerfully evil Dormammu of the Dark Dimension.

So after the set-up, the second half of the film is all action with Doctor Strange, still developing his powers to bend time, make portals to different locations, and create fiery weapons by making shapes with his hands, fighting Kaecilius amid an ever shifting New York cityscape.

As incredible as so much of the imagery is – and with the backdrop of skyscrapers morphing into kaleidoscope clusters, it’s pretty incredible – the narrative follows a tediously predictable path, and too much of the dialogue is over expositionary mystical mumbo jumbo that left me scratching my head.

Cumberbatch is well cast in the role as he greatly resembles the character created by legendary comic book artist Steve Ditko, and it’s amusing to see him capture Strange’s snobbiness turning into enlightenment as he learns what appears to the film’s message: “It’s not all about you.”

Yet despite Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty) doing some script doctoring, many of the good doctor’s one-liners fail to land. Of course, some of this is purposeful as in the moment when during his training, says to the Kamar-Taj librarian Wong (Benedict Wong) “people used to laugh at my jokes.” Wong replies, “did they work for you?”

It would’ve been nice if they gave McAdams more to do as she only seems to exist to aid Cumberbatch’s Strange as the clichéd love interest on the sidelines role. Swinton unsurprisingly steals her scenes, but this movie for sure doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test (what Marvel movie does?).

As for the other supporting players, Ejiofor and Mikkelsen bring the necessary intensity, while Wong, Stuhlbarg, and Bratt have their brief but sweet moments.

DOCTOR STRANGE is far from a dud as I felt reasonably entertained, but I believe it’s going to fall in line with the lackluster THOR films in future appraising of the Marvel movie canon. It’s the 14th film in the MCU, the second after CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR in the series’ Phase Three, so, of course, there’s formula fatique (not that it’s the first time), but there are times when the ultra trippy effects help to transcend that.

Those effects, the immaculate CGI courtesy of Luma Pictures and Industrial Light & Magic, are what audiences will most take away. When Derrickson, Jon Spaihts, and C. Robert Cargill’s screenplay falters, the inventive, mind-blowing visuals sweep in to save it. The IMAX 3D screening I attended was stunning, so I’d recommend considering that format.

I bet hardcore Marvel fans will be pleased with this addition to the MCU – it’s another round of member berries with all the requisite elements - Stan Lee cameo, surprise Avengers member appearance, post credits stinger, etc. – in place. Casual fans of the films, who also aren’t that familiar with the comics, may get a bit bored during this incredible looking but mystically messy movie. And I speak from experience.

* I love that there’s this disclaimer in the end credits: “Driving when distracted can be hazardous, drive responsibly.”

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THE IMITATION GAME: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now playing at an indie art house (and some multiplexes) near me:

THE IMITATION GAME 
(Dir. Morten Tyldum, 2014)

This historical biopic is the perfect storm of a holiday season prestige picture.

It’s got the ‘true story of a hero who triumphed against all odds’ scenario. It takes place during World War II. In Benedict Cumberbatch, it stars an A-list leading man that people haven’t gotten sick of yet. It’s got Keira Knightley. It’s got a distinguished supporting cast. It’s got a sweeping score by acclaimed composer Alexandre Desplat. It’s being distributed by the Weinstein Company.

Yeah, it’s got Academy Award fodder written all over it.

But wait, for Morten Tyldum’s THE IMITATION GAME, which tells the story of Alan Turing, the mathematician and logician who cracked a German code helping to win WWII, is a much livelier, wittier, and all around more entertaining piece of Oscar bait than just about anything else in the current crop of contenders.

Especially when it’s compared to James Marsh’s bland Stephen Hawking biopic THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, or Bennett Miller’s unengaging FOXCATCHER.

Turing’s tale is told through flashbacks to the late ‘30s through the mid ‘40s from the vantage point of the early ‘50s when the police, in particular Detective Nock (Rory Kinnear), are investigating a suspicious burglary of Turing’s home in Manchester, England.

This is where we first meet Cumberbatch’s Turing, who comes across like a blend of his own Sherlock Holmes, with Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, and Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory in his amusingly heightened arrogance about his superior intelligence. 

After Detective Nock sizes Turing up as an  “insufferable sod” who may be hiding something, the film flashbacks to 1939 London right as war is being declared on Germany. The 27 year old Turing, then a Cambridge undergraduate in mathematics, is recruited by Britain’s top secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park to be part of a team of the country’s top cryptographers to try to crack the Germans' “Enigma” code.

Turing considers the code “the most difficult problem in the world” and is determined to solve it, not caring about alienating his colleagues, which include Matthew Goode, Allen Leech, and Matthew Beard, or pissing off his superiors, which include Charles Dance as a highly irritated British Commander and Mark Strong as the icy head of MI-6, with his methods. 

Through a newspaper crossword puzzle competition, a young woman named Joan Clarke, played pristinely by Keira Knightley  comes aboard the project, and goes on to have a close relationship with Turing, despite the fact that he's a homosexual.

The film skip seamlessly skips back and forth from wartime to the investigation of Turing in the '50s (even including some flashbacks within flashbacks of when our protagonist was a school boy), even making space for some WWII footage (maybe its most unnecessary element - I mean, we have the History Channel for that), with a very pleasing pace. 

Many have pointed out that this film, which is based on Andrew Hodges' 1992 biography “Alan Turing: The Enigma,” takes a lot of liberties with the facts concerning what really went down at Bletchley Park.

I.e. the real life Turing didn't singlehandedly invent and build the machine that broke the code, he didn't name the machine Christopher after his first lover, the police didn't uncover Turing's homosexuality while investigating him for being a possible Soviet spy, Turing didn't have any contact with the actual Soviet spy John Cairncross (played by Leech) who's depicted in the film as threatening to expose Turing's homosexuality if he blows his cover, and Turing wasn't a cold humorless robot who wouldn't understand an invitation to lunch.

But despite these fabrications, or possibly because of them, the film is a rousing experience with a compelling narrative drive. Graham Moore's elegantly written screenplay makes the biopic formula feel fresh again, and power and passion that Tyldum brings to telling Turing's noble story can be felt in every frame. So much so that its abundance of inaccuracies can be forgiven as conventions created for dramatic effect.

The fine performances by Cumberbatch, Knightley (this sure makes up for LAGGIES), and their fellow thespians are no small part of how well this machine of a movie works as well.

THE IMITATION GAME will undoubtedly and deservedly get major award season action, but don't dismiss it because it so blatantly looks like it was designed just for that. It's a thoroughy engrossing introduction for movie goers to the basics of why Turing is incredibly important to our modern world, but folks who see it should really do a little reading up on the man too.

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12 YEARS A SLAVE: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now opening at a theater near me today, that is, exclusively in Raleigh at the Rialto Theater:

12 YEARS A SLAVE
(Dir. Steve McQueen, 2013)

12 YEARS A SLAVE, the third full length feature by 44-year old British filmmaker Steve McQueen, is going to be the movie that everybody feels that they absolutely have to see this season. But don’t go mistaking it for just another piece of big issue Oscar bait, for it’s a powerfully personal story driven by an exemplary performance that movie-goers will benefit greatly from experiencing.

The British born Chiwetel Ejiofor has shown he’s got the actorly goods before in numerous movie and television roles, but here he works his worry lines like never before as Solomon Northup, a New York native who was born free but kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841.

The film, based on the real life Northup’s 1853 autobiography of the same name, focuses without shuddering on Northup, renamed Platt by his abductors, as he tries to survive unspeakable conditions for over a decade on a Louisiana cotton plantation.

Ejiofor’s Northup would get beaten, brutally lashed, if he protests that he’s not a slave so he resigns himself to the misery of the hand he’s been dealt, and, despite the movie posters showing him on the run, largely doesn’t try to escape (on an errand he take off through the woods at one point but runs into some evil white men hanging slaves and thinks the better of it).

McQueen (wish he’d use a middle initial or something so people would stop asking me if he’s *THE* Steve McQueen) populates his film with recognizable actor folk like Paul Giamatti as a cold slave trader, Benedict Cumberbatch as a slave owning preacher, Paul Dano as a particularly abusive foreman, and Michael Fassbender as the worst of the worst slave drivers who constantly refers to Northup and his people only as his “property.”

All the white people aren’t evil however as Cumberbatch appears to have some compassion, and Brad Pitt (one of the film’s co-producers) shows up as a wizened Canadian carpenter and abolitionist, who just may be able to help Northup out.

Aided by cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, who shot the director’s previous films, McQueen makes use of long takes and lingers on some shots in a effectively stirring manner that makes us feel what our poor protagonist is going through intensely. One scene, in which Dano strings up and attempts to lynch Northup, has our suffering lead left dangling with only the tips of his toes touching the ground as the other slaves continue their daily activities quietly behind him.

These harsh incidents are indeed hard to watch, but to fully appreciate the severity of what went down they are a vital necessity. Elements such as Adepero Oduye as one of Ejiofor’s fellow slaves crying uncontrollably over being separated from her children from one scene to the next are as harrowing and haunting as cinema can possibly achieve. Fassbender, who previously starred in McQueen’s SHAME, embodies a creature of pure cruelty so convincingly that you can feel the audience’s hatred of him in full force. There won’t be much sympathy for Sarah Paulson as his wife either, for she’s a wretched piece of wrong-minded menace as well.

Folks may compare it last year’s DJANGO UNCHAINED, but while they may share similar subject matter and may equal each other in the heavy abundance of the use of the “N-word,” Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist revenge fantasy was a cartoon compared to McQueen’s heartfelt and heartbreaking work here with its blindingly faithful to reality rawness.

12 YEARS A SLAVE is McQueen’s best film and one of the best of the year by far. It demands to be seen and felt by everybody who is unafraid to see and feel how somebody can endure such Hellish torture, and survive to tell their tale. It can seem like ancient history, especially as we now have a black President, but here we are reminded that it really wasn't that long ago that there were these horrible conditions in our country, and the repercussions of these injustices are still largely felt to this day. As Faulkner famously said, “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”

It seems these days, the only way to even begin to get past such horrors is to fully acknowledge them. The unflinchingly honest 12 YEARS A SLAVE is here to make it even harder to look the other way.

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THE FIFTH ESTATE: The Film Babble Blog Review

Opening today:

THE FIFTH ESTATE (Dir. Bill Condon, 2013)

“Hero or Traitor?” asks one of the taglines for this dramatized version of the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange releasing today. But perhaps unsurprisingly, the answer to that question isn’t clear at all by the end of the film.

We get from Josh Singer’s screenplay, based on the books “Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange and the World’s Most Dangerous Website” and “WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy,” that Assange is a liar and a manipulator, who secretly dyes his hair and falsifies to the press the size of his site’s staff, but as to whether or not he’s actually fighting the good fight – that’s still up in the air.

As portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, having a banner year as he’s popping up everywhere from STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS to 12 YEARS A SLAVE to the sequel to THE HOBBIT (as well as starring in the British TV series Sherlock), Assange is a restless driven power-hungry player full of pompousness and platitudes such as “Courage is contagious.”

This mixed bag of a biopic begins with a montage of news clips from when WikiLeaks broke with the publishing of State Cables in 2010, then jumps back a few years before that to when Assange recruited German tech activist Daniel Domscheit-Berg to help with publicity and technical support on the up-and-coming startup.

Domscheit-Berg played by Daniel Brühl, also currently playing a real guy (Austrian racecar driver Niki Lauda) in Ron Howard’s RUSH, wrote the first of the books mentioned above that the film draws from, so a lot of the point of view present comes from his character.

It seems that Condon and screenwriter Singer sensed that a movie mostly made up of two hackers on their laptops wouldn’t be very visually interesting so they throw in a lot of visual tricks to sexy up the material. They try to take us on a journey through cyberspace with floating headlines and flashy in-your-face graphics, as well as continually returning to the motif of a sandy landscape featuring rows of desks stretching into infinity.

These artsy surreal elements only serve to distract us from the half-baked narrative, and the far from fully formed thesis. The time they take up would be better spent dealing with the sex scandals Assange was caught in that are only quickly summed up in the film’s postscript.

Cumberbatch’s invested performance is the best thing about THE FIFTH ESTATE as he looks and acts the part to a tee capturing Assange’s eccentricities in full throttle. It’s a shame that it’s in the center of such a fussy un-focused drama that works overtime to dazzle its audience instead of actually giving them any weighty insights.

A subplot concerning Laura Linney as Deputy Undersecretary of State Sarah Shaw and Stanley Tucci as Assistant Secretary of State James Boswell glib reactions to WikiLeaks has a few amusing moments, but like everything else here it never really gets under your skin.

Condon’s KINSEY, his 1995 biopic of sexologist Alfred Kinsey starring Liam Neeson, did a better job covering a real-life subject, but maybe his work on the last two TWILIGHT movies clouded up his vision here. THE FIFTH ESTATE isn’t lacking in ideas; it just doesn’t know what to do with them so it throws them all up on the screen. Trying to make one’s way through them is as futile as trying to find the answer to the hero or traitor question in this stylish mess. It’s not here or there or anywhere to be seen.

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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 flare (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.

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