'Star Trek Into Darkness (3D)' Review (dir. J.J. Abrams)

 Score: C-

In 2009, director J.J. Abrams was successful in making Star Trek alluring for the next generation (no pun intended) with a film reboot of the franchise. With his follow-up to that movie, 'Star Trek Into Darkness', the overall quality has been diluted down into a medial summer blockbuster that was seldom entertaining or engaging. In my mind, 'Star Trek Into Darkness' has made its mark as one of the most disappointing films so far this year, and misses its mark, by a substantial margin, as the great science fiction flick I was hoping for.

       In 'Into Darkness', the crew of The Enterprise is called into action after a terrorist attack on London, which leads them to chasing the perpetrator into deep space. The story follows a direct path and there aren't really any surprises along the way (except one reveal that seems rather pointless). I thought the story had a very unnatural flow, and it was way too fast-paced; I enjoy it much more when a story has the ability to take its time. The plot was not very engaging in the least, it was hard to get into and it was hard to care about what happened to the characters in the story.

All of the original cast returns this time around along with a few new additions. None of the performances are particularly standout, other than Benedict Cumberbatch who plays the villain, John Harrison, in this movie. He does offer one of the few improvents over the first film, as his villain is a large improvement over Eric Bana's Nero. I enjoyed Chris Pine as Captain Kirk in the first movie, but here he portrays a very annoying and obnoxious character that it is very hard to care about. The actors have some chemistry here, but it is hard to recognize under all the clunkly dialogue.

    The screenplay was one of the film's weakest points, at times it was unintellegent and lazily written, and most of the dialogue between the charachters felt like pointless banter. Other parts of the script seemed like they were just put in to make time go by. The script also had a hard time generating emotional moments between the charachters, and all of the more "heartfelt" scenes felt forced.

Abram's directing job is a serious downgrade from the first movie; I feel like there were parts of the film that were rushed through just because he didn't feel like working on them. Abrams also wasn't able to build the tension in this film very well. There were no edge-of-your-seat moments that are essential for a film like this to work. The action scenes in this film all seemed sloppily put together. They were fun at times, but there were very unorganized, muddled, and paid little attention to detail.

       I think Abrams knows that people are going to go see this film regardless of what he does, so maybe he decided to kick back and take it easy for 'Into Darkness', or maybe he is just out of ideas, so he resorted to making such a formulaic Hollywood movie. I also know that he got the job for the Star Wars film during the making of this movie, so maybe he was sidetracked with is other projects. Whatever the case, I truly hope that he does not return to direct the third film.

The best thing about the movie was the visual effects, which are some of the best I've seen in any film to date. All of the textures, enviornments, explosions, and scenery looked absoluteley perfect. I can't think of a movie in years with visuals this amazing! The other technical aspects of the film that stuck out were the sound editing and mixing, which were perfectly done as well. I ended up seeing this movie in 3D, which was not worth it. There were a few cool 3D moments, but very little was actually done with the 3D.
     In the end, 'Star Trek Into Darkness' is a disappointing follow-up to a good movie. As I said there are some positive things in the film, but a lot of them are overshadowed by the negative elements. To some it may be worth checking out, but it is a film I would have a hard time recommending. Hopefully, this year's summer blockbusters will get better as the year progresses, but for now, I will just have to deal with the dissappointment of this film.

     







'Iron Man 3' Review (dir. Shane Black)

Score: ★★★★/★★★★★

 

Going in to 'Iron Man 3' I was expecting to sit down and watch an enjoyable comic book film, but I must say, the first act of this film almost shattered all hopes of that. The first act had poorly-written dialogue, two-dimensional characters, and almost every Hollywood cliché in the book. However, as soon as the second act started, the movie transformed into a fantastic comic book adaptation with a very involving story. From then on out it got better and better, until a disappointing and anti-climactic final fight, but even with some flawed moments, this is still one of Marvel's best films to date.

           'Iron Man 3' is directed by Shane Black, a large improvement over Jon Favreau (the director of the first two films, and also the actor that has played Happy Hogan in all three Iron Man movies), and (of course) features Robert Downey Jr. reprising the role of Tony Stark (Iron Man). The film picks up soon after 'The Avengers', and the events of that film are haunting Tony Stark, who is constantly having nightmares and panic attacks. Soon, he is threatened by a new villain, The Mandarin, who is planting bombs all over the United States. After one of Stark's friends is injured in a Mandarin attack, he returns as Iron Man to fight off the new villain.  

The plot and structure of the film are not paticullarly great, nor are they even that good. Some of the characters' motives can seem far-fetched, and some of the characters seem to have no real reason for behaving certain ways. There are several plot holes in the movie, but it would be futile going over them since they really don't affect whether or not I liked the film. The script is alright, nothing particularly special about it, when the screenplay takes a lighter tone it works better, but when it takes itself seriously it can go way over-the-top. I thought most of the humor in this movie worked quite well. Out of all the Iron Man films thus far, it was certainly the funniest.

        As for direction, like I previously said, this a huge improvement over the direction of the first two films, but again, it's nothing that special. Shane Black handles the action sequences very well, but the more emotional and intimate scenes scream mediocrity. In the previous films, I thought Favreau did a better job with the one-on-one character interactions, and did a less impressive job with the action sequences. The visual effects here are very impressive, the best I've seen in any movie this year besides 'Oblivion', especially one scene towards the end of the first act.

 

The performances are solid in this movie, the two best being Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, and Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin. I enjoyed Robert Downey Jr.'s character in this one much more than I did in both 'The Avengers' or 'Iron Man 2' (I found him very tedious in bothe those films, due to an endless supply of one-liners), you get to care more about his character in this movie. I loved Ben Kingsley in the movie, however, I did not enjoy the villian, but I can't say why without spoilers. All three Iron Man movies have had very weak villians, especially 'Iron Man 2'. The other thing I would like to mention about this film was the editing, I thought it had some very bizarre transition shots that could get annoying. However, the cinematography, score, sound, performances, and direction were all good.

       This is not a perfect film, it has some very good moments, and it has some very weak moments, but in the end I'd say its positive qualities overshadow the negative ones. This movie is a lot of fun, I can say it is a huge improvement over 'The Avengers' and 'Iron Man 2', I would actually go as far as to say that this is my favorite Iron Man in the series by quite a bit. I'm glad this movie turned out the way it did, and I can't wait to see Iron Man return to the screen again. On a side note, please do not sit through the entirety of the credits to see the clip they play after it. You will be thoroughly disappointed.    



 





 

 

 

 

 

'Mud' Review (dir. Jeff Nichols)

Score: ★★★★★/★★★★★

 

'Fool's Gold', 'Faliure To Launch', 'The Wedding Planner', and yes, the horrifically painful 'How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days' are just several of Matthew McConaughey's previous endeavors into cinema. Take note of the word "previous", because the trajectory of his acting career has changed from "How will he embarrass himself next time?" to "How will he reinvent himself in his next role?" Don't believe me? Well, take a look for yourself: Last year (2012), he starred in such critically acclaimed films as 'Magic Mike', 'The Paperboy', 'Bernie', and 'Killer Joe'. This year, not including 'Mud', he lost an incredible amount of weight for 'The Dallas Buyers Club', where he will play a man diagnosed with AIDS, and will be working with Martin Scorsese in his latest movie 'The Wolf of Wall Street'. Next year he'll star in Christopher Nolan's latest thriller 'Interstellar'. However, now, he has 'Mud', which earns the title of the best film you'll see this year.

        Muds's story revolves around two young Arkansas boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), who discover a fugitive named Mud, played by Matthew McConaughey, who is livng inside of a boat on an uninhabited island on The Mississippi River. The boys form a pact with him, not only to help him escape the island, but also help reunite hilm with the love of his life, a girl named Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), but as the boys continue to help Mud, their situation becomes increasingly more dangerous. The plot is stark and simple, and may even feel familiar at times, but it is executed differently than the films that may come to mind when watching it.  

 

The movie is directed by Jeff Nichols, director of 'Take Shelter', and there is no one else who could have directed it better. The films is brimming with tension, but just as quickly as he builds tension, Nichols is able to lighten the mood with humour. This ablility to shift directions is the sign of a very talented filmmaker. Nichols also wrote the screenplay, which is filled with great character-driven dialogue and interesting interaction. It captures the boys' emotions very well. There is not a single moment in this film when I was bored, I was entertained in one way or another by each scene.

        All the actors are on the top of their game here. Normally, I don't care for child actors, I find that either they can't act or they play incredibly obnoxious characters, however, in this film, that could not be farther from the truth. Both of the child stars are incredible, ecspecially Tye Sheridan, who starred in 2011's 'The Tree of Life'! He was excellent there, and he's excellent here. Both boys are able to hold their own against the veteran actors of the film. And, of course, there is Matthew McConaughey, who as the tiltle character takes this film and changes it from something good into something phenomenal! His performance as Mud is by far the best performance I've seen in any film this year, and he is very worthy of an Academy Award.

 

 

The supporting cast, which includes Reese Witherspoon, Michael Shannon, and Ray McKinnon, all give good performances as well. Michael Shannon, who previously worked with Jeff Nichols on Take Shelter, had a very small role in the film. He played Neckbone's uncle, but his charachter seemed there only to lighten the mood, and didn't follow the direction I excpected his charachter to take in the story. Reese Witherspoon is okay here; not terrible, not great. However, all the charachters are linked together in a story of crime, love, rejection, and betrayal that ends in an incredibly satisfying climax.

       The film builds and builds to the climatic conclusion, a conclusion that might have failed in the hands of another less experienced filmmaker, but not Nichols, no, he ends the film on a very satisfying note. Very rarely does a movie get you so involved in it's story, and get you to care so much about it's charachters. All in all, this is the best movie so far this year, a film that I am happy to say is perfect, and a film that you will leave the theatre extremely satisfied. 



 

 

 



 

 



 

'Bless Me, Ultima' Review (dir. Carl Franklin)

Score:★★★★/★★★★★

 

 

 

'Bless Me, Ultima' plays out like a poetry on the screen, no shot is wasted, each scene is poigant and filled with beauty. It transcends from a silmple story about a family in New Mexico to a powerful reflection on God, faith, good, and evil. 'Bless Me, Ultima' is based on the 1972 novel of the same name, and adapted to the screen by director Carl Franklin. The film tells the story of Antonio and his family as an old family friend, Ultima, moves in with them. Ultima and Antonia quickly spark up a frienship as she teaches him about life, culture, and morality.

   At times the movie is very peaceful. Ultima and Antonio's conversation are among the best parts of the film, as they are always engaging, meanigful, and serene. Antonio is a firm believer in Catholicism, while Ultima tries to show him that not all answers come from religion. Other parts of the film are darker as Antonio deals with universal themes of life and death, and seeks meanigful answers. These answers never come, but this is the beauty of life, as it is up to us to find answers to questions like: Why does evil exist in the world? Why does God let these things happen?

   As far as the quality of the film goes, there is never a dull moment. Each scene has value to it, and kept my eyes glued to the screen. The direction by Franklin is excellent, and on the most part the script is well done with a few weak deliveries. In general the performnaces are lackluster with the exception of Miriam Colon, who plays Ultima herself. Colon brought emotional depth and intensity to her charachter, and gave by far the best performance in the movie. The score of the movie accents the film, and adds emotion to the scenes. The cinematography is breathtakingly done by the talented Paula Huidobro.

   Overall this is a very well made film with a lot of heart. I don't expect this film to last in theatres very long, but I encourage every one to see it. In some cases it is flawed, but in other ways it has the making of a classic. Its an intense, harsh look at life and all its struggles that is made with a lot of talent.