Star Trek Into Darkness

ACTION/ADVENTURE, SCI-FI/FANTASY

Wrath

8.5 out of 10 | MOVIE, DVD

---

Rated: PG-13  Intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence
Release Date: May 16, 2013
Runtime: 2 hours 12 minutes

---

Director: J.J. Abrams
Writers: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, based on the characters and television series created by Gene Roddenberry
Cast: Chris Pine, Zachry Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Benedict Cumberbatch, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller, Alice Eve

---

Watch Trailer

SYNOPSIS:  After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

REVIEW: J.J. Abrams (Super 8) returns with his highly anticipated follow-up to his grand re-imagining of the Star Trek universe. With fans clamoring for the next installment, Roberto Orci (Cowboys and Aliens), Alex Kurtzman (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), and Damon Lindeloff (Prometheus) draft a retelling of, perhaps, the most beloved Star Trek big screen tale that doesn't involve whales.

James T Kirk (Chris Pine, Rise of the Guardians) is the captain of the USS enterprise. Ignoring Starfleet Federation prime directive, Kirk and McCoy (Karl Urban, Dredd 3D) steal a religious scroll in order to lure the planet's primitive inhabitants away from danger. When Spock (Zachery Quinto, What's Your Number?) gets into mortal danger, Kirk again ignores regulation to save his friend. With catastrophe adverted, Spock and Kirk face disciplinary action back on Earth, with Kirk losing command of the Enterprise and Spock being reassigned. Their demotions and reassignment are short lived when a terrorist within the Federation bombs a London technology archive and then targets the captains and commanders of all the local Starfleet ships. After the second attack, Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller, RoboCop) declares an all out a manhunt for the man named Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, War Horse). Armed with a classified payload of photon torpedoes, Kirk is reinstated as captain of the Enterprise and sets off to the neutral zone in pursuit of Harrison. But when he and his crew arrive, their ship is disabled and Kirk's conscious get the better of him against the man who killed so many. Instead of bombing Harrison on the planet with the torpedoes, Kirk decides to arrest him and make him face the charges against him. But there is more than meets the eye as Harrison reveals that there is a bigger conspiracy within the Federation. Kirk and crew must decide whether to investigate Harrison's claims or ship him back to Earth for trial.

J.J. Abrams is a huge fan of the Star Trek universe and deserve the accolades of his reboot/prequel/sequel of the long-standing series. How do you take a 50-year-old franchise back to its roots in a satisfactory way? Abrams took all the time-warping story-twisting that Star Trek is known for to make a phenomenal reboot of the franchise. Many speculated that this second film of Abrams would be similar in scope to the second film of the original cast films with the story of Khan. I believe any fan of the universe will realize that Cumberbatch is the villain as soon as they see any of the trailers or commercials. Abrams must be an encyclopedia of Star Trek lore. He adds in details, Easter eggs, and nuances that may be evident to only the most diehard Trekkie fans. Sure, there are references that any casual fan will recognize, but there are also other references that would not be known unless a true die hard of the Star Trek mythos pointed them out. All add to the familiar, but new, trek universe that the director has created.

Pine, Urban, Saldana (Colombiana), Quinto, Pegg (Shaun of the Dead), Cho (Identity Thief), and Yelchin (Fright Night) fall into their old roles of Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, and Checkov, respectively, with ease, more natural in their takes of their characters than ever before. The brash young, seemingly infallible Kirk learns the hard way that luck, a cavalier attitude, and a blatant direspect for the rules will not always win the day. Uhura and Spock learn that logic and emotion are not mutually exclusive. McCoy continues to spout out mixed metaphors in the face of adversity. Sulu finds his voice and confidence, seemingly ready to become a star fleet captain himself one day. Scotty, always wary of the shenanigans of his superiors off the Enterprise, puts himself in several picarous situations when his mouth runs too long. And Checkov continues to be a jack of all trades, helping the bridge, running engineering, and figuring out complex formulas. Benedict Cumberbatch, as the infamous Khan, takes a classic original series villainous character and turns the new incarnation on its ear. Still a brilliant warrior with advanced genetics, Cumberbatch is even more savvy and charismatic than that played by Ricardo Montelban. Cumberbatch looks menacing, superior, and self-assured just standing at attention in the Enterprise's brig.

Abrams Delighted with his re-imagined Enterprise in the original Star Trek mythos. He follows up with the story that every fan wanted to see, giving the fans what they wanted in an familiar, but unexpected way. New fans will love this story that was put together, while older die hard fans of the original films may be bothered by the fact that one of their beloved antiheroes has changed so much.

The use of anamorphic photography continues from the first film, adding extra dimension to every frame of celluloid. The CG effects are astounding, the battle sequences are amazing, the story is strong, and the characters are just what you want them to be. For the franchise uninitiated or deeply devoted, Star Trek Into Darkness should be a fun warp ride into the unknown frontier.

---

The Words

Fiction or Life

---

Rated: PG-13 Smoking and brief strong language
Release Date: September 7, 2012
Runtime:  1 hour 36 minutes

---

Director: Brian Klugman, Lee Sternthal
Writers: Brian Klugman, Lee Sternthal
Cast:  Dennis Guaid, Jeremy Irons, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, J.K. Simmons, Olivia Wilde

---

---

SYNOPSIS:  When a struggling writer Rory cannot catch a break, a found manuscript propels him to a successful book and awards. When an old man confronts Rory to tell the writer that the words Rory wrote were his, Rory struggles with what to do next.

REVIEW: Writer Brian Klugman Lee Sternthal, writers of Tron: Legacy, step up their game by writing and directing the words they scribed. The writing, and now directing, duo trade the inside of a computer built on written code to the inside of several paralleling stories revolving around the written word.

A struggling writer Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper, Limitless) spent three years writing a book. Shopping it around to the literary agents, Rory is eventually contacted and told that although the book is a beautiful work of creative art, there would be no way for the agent to shop this type of work to any publisher from an unknown writer. Rory, already going to his father (J.K. Simmons, Contraband) for financial help, realizes he must make a choice between his fiction and his life. He takes a job at a literary agent office, now able to make ends meet and able to support and marry Dora (Zoe Saldana, Takers). On their honeymoon to Paris, Dora and Rory happen upon an old worn satchel in a second-hand shop that Dora promptly buys for the man she sees so much potential in. Back at home, Rory now has problems writing anything new. One day, he discovers a complete manuscript in the satchel and reads its. Realizing that he will never be the writer of stories that he had just read, Rory is haunted by what he just experienced and rewrites the entire manuscript word for word just to feel the words flow from the old parchment through his fingers onto his laptop. Dora finds the new work on the computer and pushes Rory to shop the work to his boss. When the agent loves the book, it is published and becomes a great success. Torn up inside by his plagiarism, Rory is uncomfortable with his success. Things get worse when an old man (Jeremy Irons, Margin Call) confronts Rory in Central Park about stealing his work and tells Rory of a Young Man (Ben Barnes, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) after the Second World War and his enlightening experiences in Paris with a local girl named Celia (Nora Arnezeder, Safe House) that became the genesis of the work that Rory copied. The question is... what are the old man's real motivations, and what can Rory do about it?

The Words is a layered piece of fiction with stories within stories, fiction intertwined with reality. At the onset, we catch a glimpse of a man preparing to read excerpts from his book 'The Words'. What we do not expect is the fact that the author of 'The Words' is Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid, What to Expect When You're Expecting), not Rory. Immediately we find that Rory and Dora are characters in Clay's newest book. As the story unfolds, Clay recites the words that brings Rory and Dora to life. But as we get deeper into these characters' lives, we find more layers as a found manuscript typed decades earlier unveils an even more heartbreaking story written by a man who was struggling in his own life. Artistic inspiration comes from heartache, struggle, loss, joy, and pain. In The Words, catharsis comes from pouring one's soul from the heart and mind through the fingertips into fiction that imitates life.

The Words is well crafted, each perspective of the story differing from the others. The writer of 'The Words', Clay Hammond, lives in a world of accolades. A young woman, Daniella (Olivia Wilde, The Change-up), corners him and asks him about the book. When they retire to his modern high-rise apartment, she realizes that the glorious city skyline is tempered by stark modernism and sparse furnishings. In the New York City where Rory and Dora live, they are surrounded by a more earthy bohemian environment, struggling to make ends meet but loving each other. The discovery of the old manuscript brings uncomfortable success and the old man who actually wrote, then lost the story decades earlier. As the old man recites his own tale that led to the writing of his manuscript, the world of his younger version and Celia in post-war Paris, the world becomes softer and grainier, the streets fit for a world recovering from a violent era in history.

The story captivates most of the way through, offering intriguing dialogue and scenes. The weaving of the three tales allows the slower pace to be more interesting and varied. The music is driving and harmonious to each scene, helping to tie the worlds together and providing another unspoken character to the film. The pace is slow and deliberate, but not distracting. Only when you return to the outer shell of the story with Clay and Daniella does the film truly slow down to the point where you wonder whether Clay's writing and reading of 'The Words' is truly necessary.

Each character is portrayed with capable hands by each of the actors and actresses. Some of the best scenes are those between Bradley Cooper's Rory and Jeremy Irons' Old Man. Their dialogue on the bench in front of the pond is riveting. And the period work of Ben Barnes as the Young Man and Nora Arnezeder as Celia could be a beautiful film unto itself. 

The Words could have been a superior award-winning film, up to the same standard as The Reader. Maybe the slower pace, the twisty ending, or just the novice status of the directors keep it from truly transcending into classic status. A fine film in many regards, there is still an intangible that seems to keep The Words a little too reserved.

---

WORTH:  DVD or Rental

Colombiana

Beautiful Revenge, But Seen Before

Director: Olivier Megaton
Writers: Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen
Cast: Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan, Cliff Curtis, Callum Blue, Jordi Molla

SYNOPSIS: After a young girl witnesses her parents being murdered by the henchmen of a Colombian druglord, she grows up to be an assassin bent on taking contracts to punish the guilty and stepping closer to killing the men responsible for making her an orphan.

REVIEW: Olivier Megaton, director of Jason Statham's Transporter 3, takes a screenplay by Transporter and The Fifth Element scribes Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen to bring Zoe Saldana a role that takes advantage of her body, a rain of bullets, and a bent for revenge. Known for high-octane action flicks, Besson, Kamen and Megaton have the clout to make another hit film. The question is whether the trio delivers.

Zoe Saldana stars as Cataleya Restrepo, the adult version of the little girl who witnesses the death of her parents at the hands of the henchmen of a Columbian druglord. Raised from an orphaned girl by her uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis), young Cataleya (Amanda Stenberg) announced to her uncle that she wants to be an assassin and for him to train her in the craft. Once of age, Cataleya starts taking contracts to hone her skills and prepare for the elimination of those who spilt bloodshed against her family.

Starting off with nice gymnastic evasive pursuit between the young Cataleya and the henchmen led by Marco (Jordi Molla) and followed up with a grown-up Cataleya jailhouse break-in and break-out assassination of a lower level cartel player, Colombiana looked to have the signature Luc Besson flare that audiences have come to expect from the creator of Brigette Fonda's Point of No Return and Natalie Portman's Leon: The Professional. Unfortunately, once you write and deliver stories like The Professional, Taken and The Transporter, Columbiana does not seem to hold up.

Marking all of her victims with a outline of a flower and a label of their crime Cataleya is pursued by Special Agents Williams (Max Martini) and Ross (Lennie James), both thinking they are on the trail of a serial killer and ultimately doing little to fill out the tension in the story. Cataleya finds tenderness and companionship with Danny (Michael Vartan), but his role as a foil for Cataleya's mysterious past and uncertain future is overshadowed by his more simple role as a plot device. Jordi Molla as Marco does give the film weight and a decent character counter to Saldana's Cataleya, and Cliff Curtis as uncle Emilio is reminiscent of a combination of the reluctant guardian Leon and his employer/friend Tony from The Professional.

Colombiana hoped to deliver action, intrigue and drama. But while Zoe gives us glimmers of beauty, bullets, and brawn, the rest of the film plods along with semi-finished story lines and unnecessary or unfulfilling threads. Even the ending comes from an obvious, if satisfactory source. If you are a Luc Besson or Zoe Saldana fan, go to Colombiana if you want, but you may want to save your money for a better opportunity - even if revenge is beautiful.

WORTH: Rental

Takers

Not "Heat", But Hot Enough

[Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen, Matt Dillon, Idris Elba, T.I., Paul Walker]

image from theblackboxoffice.com

RANT: Whispers and baby's cries filled the auditorium as I watched "Takers". I still will never understand the allure of parents bringing their 1 or 2 year old to a movie. For one, the child doesn't need that kind of disruption in their tiny ears. And two, the movie theater is not a baby sitter. After several minutes of the baby crying, the parents finally took the child out of the auditorium, never to return. I know baby sitters are scarce and pricey, but there must be a better way. Maybe they should build sound proof enclosures for families with small children (like in some churches) so everyone can enjoy the experience.

SYNOPSIS: An expert crew of thieves plan and rob banks for a living, leaving a couple years between scores. When a former member is released from prison with a multi-million dollar heist plan thats too good to pass up, the crew change their methods in order to carry out the score in five days.

An ensemble cast is put together for this heist-revenge flick. It boasts Chris Brown (Jesse), Hayden Christensen (A.J.), Michael Ealy (Jesse's brother Jake), Idris Elba (The mastermind Gordon), Tip 'T.I.' Harris (Ghost), Paul Walker (John) and Zoe Saldana (Rachel, Jake's girlfriend). And that is just the bad guys. They are put against the skills of Matt Dillon (Jack) and Jay Hernandez (Eddie) from the police department.

Some reviews peg "Takers" as '"Heat" for a new generation'. I have to disagree. While both "Takers" and "Heat" share some plot points and seem to have some of the same dialogue, Michael Mann's "Heat" is epic is storytelling while John Luessenhop's "Takers" is perfect for the attention deficient disabled. That's not to say I wasn't pleasantly surprised with "Takers". It's just that some critics should watch the two movies on the same day for a more direct comparison (as I did).

Let's list some points that are the same... "Heat" has 4 super technical and proficient thieves while "Takers" has 5 (before Ghost comes back). Both Pacino and Dillon tell the forensics teams to run stuff through the database (fingerprints, aliases) even though they probably will not get any hits, exclaiming "Check it anyway". Members in both crews vowed that they "were never going back" to prison.

Now let's talk about the differences. Pacino has a huge team (with SWAT) to take a run at the criminals. Dillon has only his partner and is working against the department, Internal Affairs, and a seemingly preposterous notion of who the criminals are. "Heat" was almost 3 hours of angst, both for Pacino's marriage, Deniro's solitude and Kilmer's addictions. "Takers" has Dillon's marriage on the rocks as well, but we never see a wife. "Takers" mastermind Gordon has a addict sister, but it serves to propel the story, not add to the depth.

Taken on its own, "Takers" is a good end of Summer film. 'T.I.' serves as a recent parolee who wants back in the crew for a armored car heist that will net all partners a couple million. He does not seem concerned that there was no contact with his crew while in prison, or that his former girlfriend Rachel is now with Jake. Even the Russians do not seem to be a problem. There is a good story and great fire fights and chases. Jesse does amazing stuff as he is pursued by Jack and Eddie. And the climax at the end is almost worthy of a Tarantino film. There is even a hint of Butch and Sundance in there for good measure. Paul Walker and Idris Elba are cool and collected, Hayden Christensen is strong and slick, 'T.I.' is driven and devious. Dillon is in his element with a character similar to what he brought to bear in "Crash" and "Armored".

If you like action, a little revenge, a couple of heists (although the second score is a rip-off of "The Italian Job" as Ghost mentions) and some popcorn, give this film a go.

Worth: Matinee and DVD

I am also trying out a new rating system shown below based on reader reaction to my somewhat complex monetary rating scale. I will give both ratings and see what kind of reaction I muster. A movie can receive up to 5 popcorn buckets. Why popcorn buckets? Because I am a slave to the thousand + calorie delight! Enjoy!

The Losers

It's All About Execution

[Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Jason Patric]

Another week comes and goes, and another comic book adaptation comes to the theater. As a huge fan, I am always interested in how Hollywood expresses the genre. Matthew Vaughn's "Kick-Ass" was exciting, if not critically successful. Bryan Singers; "Superman Returns" was slick, if not memorable. Let's see how "The Losers" fared.

SYNOPSIS: The Losers, a group of black ops soldiers, are framed and betrayed by a rogue CIA spook, Max, during a mission. In order to get their lives and reputations back, they must team up with the mysterious operative, Aisha, with her own reasons to bring down Max.

"The Losers" is a DC/Vertigo property that has been selected for silver screen treatment. The trailers make it out to be a fun, explosive spectacle. But the dynamite must have has a bad fuse, because the films fizzles in its delivery. Don't get me wrong, there are some good points in the movie, but not enough to save it.

The casting was picture perfect. For the heroes you have Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the war-weary colonel Clay, Chris Evans as the smart-alec tech specialist Jensen, Oscar Jaenada as the stoic long-range eliminations specialist Cougar, Zoe Saldana as the sultry Aisha, and Idris Elba and Columbus Short as Roque and Pooch. All of the tumblers click into place for a great ensemble, but the story does not do them justice. There are a few memorable scenes. One involves an elevator, a Journey song and a disrobed Chris Evans. Another involves a girls soccer team, a dispute with a referee and Chris Evans. You may think that Chris Evans was the best part of the film. In fact, you would be right!

So even though the players mesh, the story does not. The battle scenes are both loud and lack. The barrage of bullets is intense, but without emotion. The story, by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, moves along briskly but doesn't bring the audience along after the pre-title scenes. Director Sylvain White certainly does not "Stomp the Yard" with this effort.

Another issue is the use of comic book framing. Just as Ang Lee tried to use comic book panels, to develop and segue scenes to ill effect, Sylvain White falls into the same trap. It manages to be both distracting and unnecessary. The illustrated quality works for the closing credits, but fails throughout the film. Maybe a little research into Robert Rodriguez's illustrated effects in "Sin City" would have helped.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I think you can eliminate this film from you movie going list.

Worth: Netflix