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Star Trek
By Scott Mendelson
JJ Abrams's ambitious Star Trek reboot desperately tries to have it both ways. Not confident enough to choose its path, it straddles between affectionately campy homage and its own franchise. Like Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, it is too afraid to boldly chart its own destiny, but refusing to be a true extension of the original franchise. While it portends to separate itself from the Star Trek mythology that inspired it, the picture completely counts on said mythology for any and all emotional impact.
A token amount of plot - Born on the very day his father died aboard a star ship, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is adrift on Earth, unwilling to decide what to do with his life. Fate intercedes when Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) challenges him to live up to his father's example and join Starfleet. Meanwhile, on the planet Vulcan, the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock (Zachary Quinto) is torn between his destiny as a Vulcan, and his desire to embrace his human side. Their destinies will soon intertwine, and the rest of our favorite USS Enterprise crew members will join in a maiden adventure that will test and define them and their novice crew.
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and the rest of the gang are all in ship-shape form. While Karl Urban comes on a little strong right out of the gate as Dr. McCoy, his character works well once he actually has more to do than complain. Pine keeps the frat-boy rebel clichés to a bare minimum. Quinto gives an impressive interior performance when the script isn't forcing him to give on the nose speeches and engage in plot-mandated emotional outbursts. The rest of the gang is barely sketched in, but our memory of the original actors does most of the work for us. Sulu's (John Cho) main character beat is cribbed from Galaxy Quest, although he does get a fun action scene. Chekov speaks in an ultra-thick Russian accent for comic relief and does little else. Scotty (Simon Pegg) shows up fully formed, while Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is allowed to take her character in some surprising directions.
Many of these characters depend on our affection for their prior legacies in order for us to care about what happens to them. Great pains are made to allow the plot to both set out on its own course and allow the prior Star Trek continuity to remain intact. The film eventually becomes the equivalent of an 'elseworld'. Let's put aside the film's lack of courage in picking a path and my distaste for the concept of the 'multiverse'. Taking as its own thing, does the film work? Not really.
The villain, played by Eric Bana, is the least interesting adversary in any tent pole adventure film that I can remember. While he is given token 'motivation' against Spock, it doesn't make much sense, and he is given so little to do that the character becomes 'insert antagonist here'. While the film never, ever stops moving, there is actually little true action. Only a pointless but frightening chase involving a snowy monster and a swashbuckling duel involving Sulu atop a giant drill elicit any sense of excitement. By the time a climactic phaser shoot out occurs, I couldn't help thinking how much more emotionally involved I was in said shoot out at the end of, yes, Galaxy Quest.
There are countless comic callbacks to the original franchise, but most of them feel so forced and out of place that they take us right out of the picture. They do not feel organic and imply Abrams's lack of confidence in his own ability to please the Trek fans without resorting to 'oh, that's from that movie/episode' moments. The biggest 'callback' involves the second act appearance of a major character from the prior franchise. Said character becomes an hour long deus ex machina. He constantly offers plot exposition, tells the characters exactly what they need to do in order to progress, and then tells the characters what they should do once the film is complete. Said character comes off not as someone imparting wisdom, but rather as one who has already read the script. Ironically the best nod to the original show is the subtlest, involving the unspoken destiny of Chief Engineer Olsen.
In the end, despite fine acting, several moments of potent drama, solid production values, and high ambitions, Star Trek comes off as a 'Star Trek for dummies' variation on the fabled story. Similar to X-Files: Fight the Future, this film is Star Trek for people who have never seen the shows or the movies, and furthermore need their characters drawn in broad strokes and the philosophies explicitly explained in monologue. Maybe if I had no prior knowledge of the franchise I could take it all at face value and simply acknowledge that it is a broadly drawn big-budget B-movie with an incredibly weak villain and some poorly staged action beats. But because the film continuously reminds us of its legacy, I have no choice but to judge it in comparison to its predecessors. Despite all the pomp and circumstance, J.J. Abrams's Star Trek remains merely another disappointing odd-numbered Star Trek picture.
LITTLE ASHES
By Ted Ott
In 1898 the Empire of Spain lost a four month long war with the United States. At the end of the war, all of Spain's Pacific possessions, (Philippines, Samoa, and Guam) and her two biggest Caribbean possessions (Cuba and Puerto Rico) were ripped from her. All she had left were the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco. For Spanish intellectuals this was a watershed of unbelievable proportions. As a culture and a nation there was an unchecked emotional downward spiral that was years in the curing.
By the early 1930s Spain was finally beginning to turn around. A vibrant intellectual and artistic life was again flowering. But, events overtook Spain and the forces which would soon lead the entire world into a war of unprecedented savagery and bloodshed first raised its gory head in Spain as that worst kind of war, a civil war.
One of the leading intellectual lights of Spain's early 1930s was a poet and playwright, Frederico García Lorca. This wonderful film attempts to tell the story of the brief but intense love affair between García Lorca and Salvador Dalí. García Lorca is portrayed as the genuine intellectual that Dalí wanted to be. There is only one part of the story which this version of the story of García Lorca glosses over - the manner used by the fascist Falangists when they killed him.
Like their Nazi successors in Germany, the Falangists in Spain hated many things, intellectuals and gays being at the top of both lists, not unlike some right wing politicians, commentators and beauty queens here at home, today.
As a film, this is a thing of beauty. As an attempt to educate and therefore to warn a new generation, it is nothing if not hopeful. Eleven years ago, there was another cinematic attempt at telling the story of García Lorca. The Disappearance of García Lorca was a dismal failure. It failed for artistic cowardice and deservedly few remember it today. But, Little Ashes is so much superior in effort. It deserves to be seen and remembered.
Interestingly enough this is only the second post-Twilight film that Robert Pattinson has appeared in. The first was a comedy How to Be which sank like a stone. His portrayal of Dalí in Little Ashes is breathtaking. The artistic courage so lacking in The Disappearance of García Lorca is all over the screen in Pattinson's performance. His brief paramour, García Lorca is brilliantly assayed by Spanish actor, Javier Bletrán in his first English language feature film. The artistry of Marina Gatell and Arly Jover is definitely such that one hopes they with Beltrán will cross the Atlantic and invade Hollywood in the near future.
Now a word about things not usually covered in a review. Visually each frame of this movie is vibratingly gorgeous. The Art Direction was absolutely masterful. The blending of colors, textures and feelings conveyed with the brush stroke more of an El Greco than a Dalí.
I'm not sure how wide a distribution this will get, so you'll have to be vigilant and hunt it down. But, do spend the effort; it's most definitely worth it!
'X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE'
SUMMER X-CITEMENT
By Sean Chavel
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a technically Marvel-ous action picture. Setting off in the Canada Northwest Territories in 1845, Logan and Victor learn of their mutant powers and discover they are blood brothers following a family calamity. Then it spearheads into a wham-pow credit sequence with Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber, now as grown-up brothers, fight their way through several major wars that include the American Civil War, World War I, World War II (strong echoes of the Normandy beach invasion of "Saving Private Ryan"), and Vietnam. One brother fights valorously while the other, uh, loses perspective. American Intelligence eventually learns of these twos' powers and decidedly turns them into special operatives known as Team X whom are dispatched for highly classified secret missions. After getting into more gratuitous bloodshed than he can stomach, Logan retreats into the Canadian Rockies where he shacks up with Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins).
Lest not we forget that Hugh Jackman is the top headliner in this picture - it's all about Wolverine and his genesis into an angry and rebellious but morally principled hero. He would rather be a lumberjack than a mercenary for a shadowy U.S. agency, but he'll activate his razor-blade claws if it means protecting his honor. In this franchise entry intended to expose the complicated facets of Wolverine's personality, Jackman delivers his dialogue in a cross between wooden and deadpan but nevertheless goes into ballistic rage if stripped of his human rights. The furious roar of Wolverine is what we are paying to see, right? The story is required to give Wolverine the right provocation. William Stryker (Danny Huston) is the Team X leader who will do anything to re-assign Wolverine to agency duty, and that means he will step over the line to get his way.
It's not hard to see why Logan-Wolverine is in love with Kayla - she hands him a beer, fastens onto his lap and tells him fables of conquest at nighttime. It must be said that Jackman and Collins share a ravenous chemistry on-screen. Kayla, of course, is Logan's weakness and doing harm to her is the fastest way Victor-Sabretooth and Stryker can get his attention. Are Sabretooth and Stryker on the same side? The script by David Benioff and Skip Woods makes it obvious so it doesn't have to keep you guessing.
Sabretooth does wrong to Kayla and now Stryker can promise Logan revenge if he participates in a high-tech procedure to make him into what is called Weapon X. "To kill [Sabretooth], you'll have to embrace the other side. Become the animal." But whatever you do, don't erase Wolverine's memory. That will make him mad. Wolverine finds himself pitting against more enemies than just his brother. He goes head-to-head with Agent Zero, The Blob, Gambit and Deadpool - some of these characters more adherent to reason than others. But his final encounter with Stryker must be last and must be lethal. Nobody, but nobody, attempts to erase Wolverine's memory and thinks he can get away with it! You might be able to predict the trigger-effect of this rivalry if you saw "X2" which came out earlier but saw future events.
"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is a worthy edition of Marvel Comics movie adaptations and if anything it stays faithful to its core elements while liberally igniting the requisite high-flying action - airborne motorcycle versus an artillery-equipped helicopter, and a blade-wielding brawl on top of Three Mile Island are perhaps the two standout sequences. For all its virtuosity however the movie isn't always so steadfast in logic. The script never challenges the idea that Wolverine might be torn in his desire of slaying his own brother and the movie has a problem with portraying the year it is supposed to be set in since it is supposed to take place in the short years following Vietnam (Marvel cooked up Wolverine in 1974). The movie nevertheless prevails with its lavishly photographed action and its twist-on-twist outcome which gives us origins orientation to other key characters in the "X-Men" franchise.
'MANAGEMENT'
NUMBED STATE
By Sean Chavel
Steve Zahn is the big loser who has never been in love and Jennifer Aniston is the woman that captivates him from afar in Management. If that doesn't sound too hot for a movie concept you're right - it is generic comedy served lukewarm. For a few moments it has potential but it doesn't take long before it goes humdrum, before it loses its sense of priority (to make us laugh, to make insightful human observations), before it foreshadows a predictable ending coming ninety minutes away. Maybe that's not fair. The feature runs at only ninety-three minutes.
Early on, Mike (Zahn) is a dweeb Arizona motel manager who spots an attractive overnight guest in Sue (Aniston). He makes an awkward encounter when he knocks on her door at night offering her a bottle of wine compliments of the motel. The scene is made more awkward when he offer to open the bottle for her and struggles to have that done. Bad conversation ensues but Sue remains patient and genial nonetheless.
Sue, an art sales rep, is in town on business but her demeanor is indifferent, rigid and listless. Nothing about her life is special, so when Mike knocks on her door to offer her a bottle of wine she accepts despite the transparency of a hidden agenda. What exactly does this guy Mike want? Oh, that! Sue has no interest in being Mike's girlfriend but she does have a veiled experimental personality. Letting him have one little copped feel can't hurt, right? But the next day Mike pesters her for a real date.
No date but Mike gets a tryst with Sue that is played out with knockabout slapstick. It can be analyzed that Sue is playing with Mike's emotions once you accept that Sue is not really attracted to this uneducated guy who, um, has no hobbies. But possibly, the script has a chance of doing something original with this beginning. See, the potential could have been exploring Aniston's character as a lonely woman out to overpower a dimbulb guy, to overcome the lack of power she has going on in the rest of her doldrums life.
Not before long, the movie goes soft and sentimental - one immature guy's trek to make impossible love into something attainable. Mike takes a leave of absence from work (it's okay, the motel is owned by his parents) so he can chase Sue around all over the country. First in Maryland. Out of pity, Mike gets permission to tag-along with Sue on her daily routines. When Sue relocates to Washington without warning, Mike goes there too with unsatisfying results. Mike finds that she is bound for marriage to a loutish yogurt industry mogul played by Woody Harrelson doing a blend of Woody Boyd and Larry Flynt in one, with a touch of rock n' roll rebellion in him - the idea is he's rich but shallow and reckless. Nothing stops Mike in believing that he can't better himself in order to prove his love to Sue. Mike gets a job in a Chinese restaurant and then attempts Buddhism unsuccessfully. The movie is half-hearted, like its protagonist.
Romantic comedies can work if the characters in them are interesting, but Zahn's character is one of the least interesting you'll ever meet. "Management" is a dull and flat comedy, but its biggest crime is that it knows nothing about the real world. The movie makes large leaps of faith look easy, makes cross-country trips on no credit cards look easy, and makes unemployment look easy too. Movie also doesn't have the regard to its audience for ending its final scenes in a soup kitchen that the characters talk about. Why share the idea of a soup kitchen if you're not going to take the movie there?
Our two stars have zesty comedic juice that is absent entirely here. Zahn ("That Thing You Do!", "Joy Ride") has an offbeat charm but has never gone this insipid. Aniston ("Marley & Me," "Friends with Money") has usually been good at selecting cheerful roles but she's never chosen as dinky a project before as this one. These actors must have a seen the sign of a bad project as soon as they arrived on location and saw that they would be filming at a shoddy run-down motel nobody would be interested in visiting. Aniston and Zahn did no favors to themselves or their fans with this one.
Adam
By Ward Porrill
When we first see Adam, the eponymous twenty-something character of this romantic drama, he is attending his father's funeral. No explanation is given for his dad's untimely demise nor is one necessary. We then see Adam coming home to his just-inherited, and rather antiseptic, New York brownstone apartment where he immediately attends to the small wipeboard on the kitchen refrigerator that divides a list of household chores into two categories: those belonging to Adam and those of his father. Adam takes a non-permanent marker and scratches out the heading "Father's Chores," then leaves the room carrying a dustpan and broom. Even in the face of death, one's daily routine must endure.
At this point, you might find yourself having flashbacks of "The Accidental Tourist," the 1988 drama starring William Hurt as a grieving widower clinging steadfastly to his hermetically-sealed lifestyle. Truth be told, when Adam (played by British actor Hugh Dancy) bristles at an invitation to a social gathering from his cute neighbor and aspiring writer Beth (Rose Byrne from the recent hit "Knowing") this reviewer began squirming in his seat.
However, a funny thing happened on the way to the film's second act - it completely surprised me. In this age of spoiler-happy critics, it's very rare to go into a movie not having any idea at all what the film is about. Such was the case with "Adam," and sometimes ignorance can often be to the filmgoer's advantage - ergo, I won't divulge reasons for Adam's xenophobia. You can find the trailer online if you crave plotlines.
After the initial awkwardness of Adam and Beth's meeting, an uncertain romance begins to bloom and the knowledge that we now possess of Adam's condition informs us that the longevity of their relationship will truly be an uphill battle. Not helping matters is Beth's investment banker father Marty (Peter Gallagher doing a riff on his Jewish superdad from the TV show "The O.C.") who we soon learn is standing trial for questionable work methods. Predictably enough, Marty doesn't approve of Adam (is any guy ever good enough for the dads in these kinds of movies?) and there you have the movie's second, and much weaker, conflict. For a better version of this hackneyed subplot, I recommend another viewing of Cameron Crowe's classic teen romance "Say Anything…"
The film's greatest strength lies in the relationship between the two star-crossed lovers - a suitable description considering Adam is an astronomy buff (make that "savant.") Hugh Dancy is very convincing as a completely unselfconscious young man who literally can't help himself while Rose Byrne assays her role as a girlfriend and daughter equally torn by doing what is right and what is expected of her. As was the case with another 1988 drama, "Rain Man," Dancy has the more actor-y Dustin Hoffman role, and though he is quite good, it's Byrne who really impresses in a more understated version of the Tom Cruise part as she too finds herself desperately trying to change someone whose condition makes him completely adverse to change.
Director Max Meyer, a television director by trade, certainly doesn't reinvent the wheel with this "Love Story"-lite tale, but what he lacks in visual flair he makes up in coaxing very affecting performances from his two leads, as well as Gallagher and Amy Irving, who plays Marty's quietly humiliated wife.
"Adam" mercifully doesn't go for easy tears nor is it a completely laugh-free affair - Adam's uneasy friendship with delivery driver Harlan (character actor Frankie Faison) has some good-natured and believable yuks while a sequence in which Beth teaches Adam how to mimic facial expressions during a mock job interview is both clever and oddly touching.
"Adam" might very well be a familiar story to fans of against-all-odds romance tales, but the movie is a worthwhile variation on a popular theme. It's slight, but not without it's charms.