REVIEW: Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013): Dir. J. J. Abrams. Written by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof. Based on Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry. Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, John Cho, Alice Eve, Simon Pegg, Peter Weller and Anton Yelchin. Rated PG-13 (Bloodless action). Running time: 133 minutes.

4 stars (out of four)

Star Trek Into Darkness is a perfect summer movie. It is smart, fast-paced and emotionally engaging, grabbing your attention in the opening moments and refusing to let go until it’s over. Scene after scene, it surprises and thrills. You can’t help but get drunk off its relentlessly exhilarating energy.

The film, which is J. J. Abrams’s second Star Trek feature, begins by following what I feel is one of the cardinal rules of any great action movie: Open with a scene so good, a lesser movie would have used it as its climax. Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) runs through the blood orange jungle of an exotic planet, chased by spear-throwing natives with chalk white faces. A mostly self-contained episode, this first mission involves dropping First Officer Spock (Zachary Quinto) into an active volcano and sets the tone for the rest of the film, which oscillates between edge-of-your-seat suspense and comic levity.

This is a delicate movie alchemy and too many directors get it wrong, overloading their films with convoluted, disorienting action and occasionally punctuating the monotony with ham-handed one-liners. But J. J. Abrams makes it look simple. The comedy flows easily from his cast and the action is never difficult to follow. There is a clear sense of space and Abrams plays with it.

Take one scene, for example, when the starship Enterprise is under attack. The ship spins through space, tossing around the crew inside. This forces our heroes to run along walls and ceilings as the ship turns. Another scene gets a laugh from watching Scotty (Simon Pegg) sprint down the seemingly endless length of a ship’s hangar. Abrams delights in creating locations that feel real and lets his characters interact with the space. I’d bet half my paycheck he played with Legos as a kid.

He also uses this inventiveness to build a large, richly detailed universe. Even a relatively agnostic Star Trek fan such as myself (in my formative years as a nerd-movie padawan, I sweat and bled Star Wars) could not help but become completely absorbed by it. Along with production designer Scott Chambliss, costume designer Michael Kaplan and countless others, Abrams creates an authentic, believable world. Any given shot is packed with fun things to look at in the background. You get the sense that not a dollar of the movie’s massive budget was misspent. Even the ice cubes at the bar – little spheres of ice that spin when dropped into a whiskey glass – are cool.

But all of these details and embellishments are merely decorative, like so many ornaments Abrams hangs on this dazzling Christmas tree of a movie. The script, written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof, is the fuel that powers this warp speed adventure. Into Darkness is always two steps ahead of its audience; just when you think you know where it’s heading, it twists and turns back on itself. The stakes are always high but ever changing. Villains become allies, friends become enemies and the movie keeps cartwheeling like this until the very end.

Following the wonderfully fun prologue, the plot begins in earnest with the bombing of a Starfleet building in London. Admiral Alexander Marcus (an excellent Peter Weller, growling and snarling his lines) assembles a group of Starfleet commanders and explains who the suspect is: a disgruntled former employee named John Harrison (a steely and terrifically ruthless Benedict Cumberbatch). Harrison attacks a second time and flees to the Klingon homeworld of Kronos. Tensions are already high between Starfleet and the Klingons, and Harrison believes Starfleet would not dare risk starting an all-out war by following him there.

Harrison does not take into account, however, the daring of James T. Kirk, who offers to take the Enterprise and its crew on a covert mission to Kronos to take out Harrison. Armed with seventy-two of Starfleet’s newly developed and highly deadly photon torpedoes, the Enterprise blasts off in hot pursuit of the fugitive.

As the plot rockets down its twisty roller coaster tracks, the crew members on board the Enterprise trade snappy banter and gently poke fun at the proceedings. The dynamic between Pine’s Kirk and Quinto’s Spock is much as it was between William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (who has a brief cameo here). The cocky bravado of Kirk provides a nice foil for Spock’s rigid adherence to logic and following protocol. They frustrate the hell out of each other but they also share a deeply rooted respect and love for one another.

The beautiful Lieutenant Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is romantically involved with the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock and has her own reasons to be annoyed with him. Think your boyfriend has trouble expressing his emotions? Just imagine if his species was genetically predisposed to be devoid of emotions.

Other franchise mainstays include the ship’s doctor, Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), and its chief engineer Scotty (Pegg, relishing the character’s trademark Scottish brogue). A few, including Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) are present too but are featured less prominently.

For some viewers, there may be additional buzz surrounding this movie beyond the anticipation generated for a sequel by Abrams’s lively and entertaining Star Trek in 2009. Earlier this year Abrams was announced as the director of the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII. But calling this movie an audition for Star Wars feels unfair because Into Darkness, one could argue, is actually better than at least half the Star Wars movies. Prior to seeing Into Darkness, even thinking such a thing would have seemed blasphemous to me. (I believe I already mentioned my allegiance to the Force.) But perhaps the clearest sign of this movie’s greatness is its ability to turn anyone who sees it into a Trekkie.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/21/13

REVIEW: Total Recall

Total Recall (2012): Dir. Len Wiseman. Written by: Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback. Screen story by: Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Jon Povill and Kurt Wimmer. Based on the short story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick. Starring: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, John Cho, Bokeem Woodbine and Bill Nighy. Rated PG-13 (Mostly bloodless action and exactly three breasts). Running time: 121 minutes.

1 ½ stars (out of four)

In the distant future, chemical warfare has left Earth uninhabitable in all but two regions: the United Federation of Britain and Australia (known now as the Colony). The UFB is your run-of-the-mill dystopia: a bustling high-tech metropolis plagued by overpopulation and the terrorist attacks of a rebel anarchist group. An ominous Chancellor named Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) rules the nation, his giant face projected on TV screens throughout the city as he addresses his citizens.

Fear not, he says. To counter the increase in terrorist bombings he will increase the size of the synthetic police force – an army of sleek, faceless robots carrying automatic weapons. Something tells me the Chancellor doesn’t have the people’s best interests in mind when he announces this.

Meanwhile, the citizens of the Colony live in comparative squalor. The streets of its drab concrete cities are brightened only by neon signs (in a shrewdly prescient touch, Chinese letters always accompany English). The Colony always seems to be overcast and rainy too, a meteorological curiosity I might have liked explained.

It is here that Douglas Quaid (a sleepy Colin Farrell) calls home. He works at a factory in the UFB where he builds those synthetic police officers. He commutes there daily with his buddy (Bokeem Woodbine) via a fascinating innovation in transportation called The Fall. The Fall is a “gravity elevator,” a sort of train that zooms down into the ground, past the Earth’s core and back up to the surface on the opposite side of the globe. Halfway through the trip, gravity reverses and passengers momentarily float in their harnesses. (This comes in handy later during the film’s best action scene.)

In the future there is also Rekall, a company that offers customers the opportunity to plant fabricated memories inside their minds. The memory can be anything you like – a passionate affair, a luxurious vacation, a stint as an international spy – and Quaid thinks he might like to try the spy fantasy.

But before the Rekall attendant – a slick, white-haired and wonderfully goofy looking John Cho – can start the procedure, the cops bust in to arrest Quaid. What do they want with him? Is this all a Rekall memory? Or was his old life an illusion created by a past trip to Rekall?

Next thing Quaid knows, he is on the run from the law and has gotten two beautiful ladies caught up in his newly complicated life. There is Lori (Kate Beckinsale), Quaid’s wife of seven years who may be more than she initially seems, and Melina (Jessica Biel), a member of the rebellion who claims she already knows Quaid. To Melina, however, he is a man named Carl Hauser.

Most of this should be familiar to anyone who has seen the 1990 Total Recall starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (both this film and that one are based on the Philip K. Dick short story, “We Remember It for You Wholesale”). But it is not familiarity that sinks this movie. (In a year that saw successful revamps of 21 Jump Street and Spider-Man, why not this too?)

The premise is intriguing and the set design impressive but the script by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback is awful. It rushes through the set-up and then wastes time in the middle. The dialogue is clunky and utilitarian; characters speak in exposition or they don’t speak at all. Total Recall begins as hard sci-fi but devolves into mindless action. It needs to choose; it can’t have it both ways. (On second thought, Christopher Nolan’s Inception did exactly that. Hm.)

The three leads – Mr. Farrell, Ms. Beckinsale and Ms. Biel – all have the dazed look of actors on a greenscreen. What a shame. Colin Farrell can be such an energetic and dynamic presence. Why, if you cast him in this movie, would you have him play such a muted and humorless character? Director Len Wiseman should have let him loose, popped a cigarette in his mouth and allowed him to speak in his foul-mouthed brogue. The movie would have come alive.

There is one actor who gets it right. Bryan Cranston, in a limited role, makes for a great antagonist. Late in the film he delivers a monologue explaining the whole knotty plot. I didn’t understand a word of what he was talking about but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. During that chase scene with the hover cars? I was checking my watch.

- Steve Avigliano, 8/11/12

REVIEW: A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011): Dir. Todd Strauss-Schulson. Written by: Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris, Thomas Lennon, Amir Blumenfield and Danny Trejo. Rated R (An endless night of debauchery including drugs, cursing, sex and tasteless humor). Running time: 89 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

In A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Santa smokes from a bong, a claymation penis leaps off the screen and an infant tries every party drug your D.A.R.E. instructor warned you about, mercifully not all in the same scene. These are hardly the funniest moments in the movie nor are they even the most ridiculous, which should say something about the spectrum of insanity on display here. AVH&K3DC is ruder, cruder and in general escalates the crazy compared to the previous two installments of the stoner buddy comedy franchise. To say that the film was made to seen in a specific state of mind goes without saying, but the film, in its giddy willingness to do anything and everything for a laugh, gives off an intoxicating effect all its own. Just watching the movie gives you a sort of contact high.

Of course, none of the film’s THC-induced antics would work were they not funny. And AVH&K3DC is very funny. Its breakneck pace is a major asset to its success because no gag runs the risk of overstaying its welcome. Didn’t think that perverse twist on a classic scene from A Christmas Story was all that funny? Maybe you thought that bit about nuns crossed the line? Not to worry. That was already two jokes ago and the movie is onto something new. And unlike a lot of comedies that offer equivalent jpm (jokes per minute), the hit-to-miss ratio here is high in favor of laughter.

The manic pacing and style of the movie works also because the plot is pushed so far into the realm of the absurd that there is no chance anything will be taken too seriously. Writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (who have written all three films) have wisely upped the stakes with each passing movie (from a late-night trip to White Castle to a brush-up with the government in Guantanamo Bay to this) and have successfully kept the franchise fresh rather than retreading familiar material.

What’s truly astonishing though is how our hazy heroes, Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn), remain grounded in reality even as the world around them careens out of control. There are some genuinely touching moments between the two (usually offset by a gross-out gag to avoid sentimentality) and the strength of their friendship lies at the heart of these films.

As is typical for a Harold & Kumar film, there is also a dash of social commentary, though this outing’s racial-political consciousness is far more muted than before. The movie pokes fun at racial stereotypes and the casual prejudices people harbor in modern-day America but these concerns do not pervade the film’s humor, which mostly prefers to indulge in the raunchy and juvenile. Of the film’s women I will not elaborate other than to say that they are merely marginalized rather than degraded; take that for what it’s worth. AVH&K3DC is smarter than your average male-dominated raunchfest but isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel; it’s still very much in love with its lowbrow self.

The use of 3D is a silly gimmick but in a way (and bear with me for a moment here) is kind of groundbreaking. The effect, often toted as an immersive technology is self-consciously acknowledged in both the dialogue and its actual execution. In one scene, for example, a traffic cone is hurled toward us only to crash against the camera and crack the lens. The movie calls attention to the artifice of 3D and then uses that as a tool to further its self-referential nature.

The Harold & Kumar franchise continues to reshape itself in new and unexpected ways and if there is a fourth film (Neil Patrick Harris, again playing a hilarious Bizarro version of himself, flat out announces in this film that there will be a fourth) there may need to be a more substantial story, but this episode should not disappoint fans of the previous two. It is a wild and reckless blur of a movie that defies my better judgment and admittedly made me a laugh a whole lot. It understands the importance of brevity, doesn’t try too hard and is a wholly satisfying, smoky affair.

- Steve Avigliano, 11/9/11