"Star Trek Into Darkness" review

Into Entertaining but VERY Familiar Territory

J.J. Abram’s initial “Star Trek” movie was great fun.  It injected a long overdue burst of energy, humor and excitement into a franchise that had long become stale.  Of the films made with the Next Generation cast, only “First Contact” felt like a full-fledged movie and not a longer and slightly better produced episode of the television show.  The other four Next Generation films were either too cerebral and filled with technobabble or were severely lacking emotional and psychological heft.  While this "reboot" film has its share of flaws, it was such an enjoyable experience that I didn't care.

I was excited for "Into Darkness" because it seemed that the crucial problem had been solved of creating a villain with enough charisma and power to counter the capable Enterprise crew.   Benedict Cumberbatch is a wonderful actor, and he is an excellent choice for the role, but he spends more time pronouncing the impending doom of the Enterprise crew instead of taking actions that make sense.  His character does get up to some varied shenanigans, but the ultimate goal remains murky.  Even when it is finally revealed, the plot had become so convoluted that I was past caring.

“Into Darkness” becomes tiresome quickly because it tries to do too much.  There are too many characters and too many over-extended action scenes.  Haphazard transitions between quiet scenes of character development are followed by yet another visual and acoustic bombast of explosions.  The film rarely allows for moments of calm and introspection.  While the ones that occur are well done and very welcome, they are breathless pauses in an adrenaline-fueled foot chase that threatens to exhaust the audience's ability to keep up.

One of the pivotal problems is that the film follows the story and character beats of “The Wrath of Khan” too closely, and there's very little dramatic tension because so much of it feels so familiar.  The opening sequence is clearly designed to fool us into thinking that Spock might die, which is the same way the original film began.  A more significant scene near the end, also cribbed from "The Wrath of Khan", lacks any emotional impact because we know it can’t be true.  Film studios rarely exhibit the courage to kill major characters, especially in such a long-established franchise.  This inability to take risks makes for movies that are entertaining at the time, but do not last because of their failure to emotionally engage us.  Ba-DUM, tisshhhhhhh!  :-D

It is a shame that J.J. Abrams could not boldly go where no franchise has gone before, for it would have been much better if he had.  While a filmmaker in a franchise must recognize the desires of the fans and honor the canon, this can become a crippling problem if carried too far.  Much of the running time of "Into Darkness" is spent playing to the audience's prior knowledge, and the references are glaringly obvious.  Fan service is not inherently bas, but it must be done with the utmost subtlety to avoid breaking the fourth wall and ruining the sense of immersion.

While “Into Darkness” has a engaging cast and a superb array of technical tools as its disposal, these things did not obscure the very well-trodden path that the film takes.  The biggest mistake was trying to hide the true nature of Benedict Cumberbatch’s character.  When my suspicions were confirmed, it wasn’t shocking or exciting.  Instead, all of the villain's mystery and allure vanished, to be instantly replaced by resigned boredom.  This was not an original character.  It was a very familiar character, desperately dressed up and presented as something else.  I was supposed to go along with it and be shocked at the revelation, but all I could think of was:

"Iron Man 3" review

Temperamental, but not tempered.

          Tony Stark begins his fourth outing as Iron Man in a bad place.  He is haunted by his near-death experience with The Avengers in New York, and is suffering serious post traumatic stress disorder.  Tony's once charming narcissism is now being eroded by his growing fear of death, not only from his new-found knowledge of massive alien armies lying in wait in beyond the stars, but also from the more intimate fact that now he truly has something to lose:  Pepper Potts.  Tony can’t sleep at night, and his fear over his ability to protect Pepper drives him to stay up all hours building new suits.  Despite the toll it takes on his mental state, this obsession is the only thing that assuages his worry over protecting his true love.

Tony knows that his love for Pepper can be used against him, and even though he builds suit after suit, peace of mind evades him.  Other past events have also come back to haunt him, and the film begins with a flashback where Tony makes two major mistakes that will later threaten to destroy him.  In the present, a new villain named The Mandarin appears, employing ex-soldiers with amazing recuperative powers.  When one of them is defeated in a fight, the resulting incendiary explosion puts Happy Hogan in critical condition.  Tony’s anger makes him overreact, and he dares The Mandarin to take him on.  The Mandarin responds with a rocket-powered helicopter assault on Tony's beach-cliff home.  Pinned down by the collapsing wreckage of his mansion, Tony is dragged to the ocean bottom and presumed dead.

While the action sequences are well-composed and entertaining, and the quips from Tony Stark continue to come fast and funny, the movie never finds its groove because we don’t spend enough time with Tony in those crucial, quiet moments.  The mood shifts too rapidly from scene to scene, and conversations end before they are finished.  “Iron Man 2” was disappointing for this very same reason.  The story was over-complicated and involved too many characters.  “Iron Man 3” is much the same.  It has a lot of good ideas, but nothing feels finished and the story never establishes the right rhythm.

There was a fantastic plot twist involving The Mandarin that I did not see coming, and I was very pleased to have my expectations overturned in such an unanticipated fashion.  However, it presented another problem because once the real villain was revealed, not enough time had been spent to generate much interest or concern.  A great villain must present the audience with the possibility of our hero actually losing the battle.  Tony stands to lose a lot, the stakes don't feel real.  The action sequences are fun, but they get rather silly, and the necessary dramatic heft is undermined or totally absent.

“Iron Man 3” tries to up the stakes for Tony Stark.  By collapsing his world around him, we are presented with a man whose inner flaws stand in sharp contrast to the mechanical marvels he has created.  However, because his character arc has too many ups and downs, it never feels like he’s really hit bottom long enough, the climb back up feels too short.  Instead of a massive boulder in the road, it feels more like a pebble.

"The Fountain" review

Cosmological heartbreak

“The Fountain” is the best film about love and death I’ve yet seen.  No other movie has so successfully encompassed such a beautiful, grandiose and yet intimate meditation on why we are here, what makes life worth living and what it all means in the end.  That is, of course, if you believe that there is an end.  “The Fountain” orbits around the idea of a Big Bang-style event that triggers a rebirth not just of all life on this planet, but in the entire universe.  However it is not just a function of cosmological forces at work, because the genesis of this transcendent explosion is powered by enduring love.

While “The Fountain” has some science fiction elements, at its core it is an intense emotional drama about one man’s inability to accept the impending death of his beloved wife.  Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz play the couple, and both actors excel in creating a powerful and deep relationship with the kind of intensity that feels like it could last forever.  If you have found your so-called soul mate, then the bittersweet beauty of this romance will haunt you long after the credits

Even though there appear to be three distinct stories, they comprise a complex whole that may not be comprehensible upon first viewing.  The fluid nature of the story-line is probably what turned off those viewers who prefer a linear structure that leaves little to the imagination and even less to ponder after the movie is over.  Thankfully, writer and director Darren Aronofsky is not content with such conventions, as he believes that an audience will appreciate having something meaningful to discuss long after they’ve left the theater.

Because of all the mixed reviews that followed “The Fountain” upon its release, I didn’t see the film until two years later.  I still regret that decision.  While the story works just as well on a television, the sumptuous cinematography and visual design demands a theater screen to be fully appreciated.  Micro-photography and CGI were combined frequently to achieve certain effects, and the results are spectacular.  Thematic choices involving certain shapes and color schemes which are present throughout only become apparent and achieve their full significance upon repeat viewings.  I love films that continue to provide new insights when I revisit them.

This movie will not appeal to you unless you are a romantic.  Do you go a big rubbery one for Tin Pan Alley songs crooned by Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald?  When you do, does your heart skip a beat as you are caught up in an emotional flashback of all the special moments with your beloved?  Then “The Fountain” will be one of your favorite films, because this movie celebrates the one thing that makes the brief flame of life worth being burned for; true love.  It both faces us with the temporary nature of our lives and yet gives us solace by demonstrating how the sharing of true love brings meaning to that journey.