Star Trek: Into Darkness

Star Trek: Into Darkness

I have to give J.J. Abrams credit.  Star Trek was dead.  As much as I liked the Next Generation television show, the films featuring that cast were abysmal by the end.  The franchise, one I grew up with, seemed to be over.  When word of a reboot began to spark up, I wasn't too excited.  I did not want to see a young Kirk and Spock in the Academy.  I thought that was a terrible idea, made worse by the fact that I thought no one would be able to replace William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and the rest of the gang.  I happily admit that I was wrong!  Despite a few silly plotting moments and way too many lens flares, the reboot of Star Trek was a rollicking good time, and I think Abrams deserves credit for that.  But the real miracle was that cast!  He had somehow pulled off the impossible and found a group of young actors who perfectly embodied the iconic characters without resorting to simple impersonations (well, mostly).  The film was a hit, and naturally a sequel was planned.  It took a bit longer than anticipated to get here, but now we have Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Without ruining too much, I will try to describe the plot in a sentence or two.  A mysterious agent named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) stages a series of devastating attacks on Starfleet and Kirk and Company are sent out to kill him.  The planned assassination is against the law, something that irks many on the Enterprise crew, creating a divisive atmosphere on the Enterprise.  It is this morally ambiguous area that I think gives the film its subtitle.  Into Darkness does not refer to the darkness John Harrison brings, but the darkness inside Star Fleet, an organization meant to be morally pure, intellectual, peaceful, and idealist.  But thanks to the catastrophic events of the previous film, Star Fleet is changing its tune, adopting a more warlike and shadowy stance.  It's a nice direction to take the franchise in, providing some nice moral dilemmas for a young Kirk to consider as he still adjusts to command.  That said, it is hardly original, since the franchise already mined this territory superbly in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Overall, Star Trek: Into Darkness is, well...objectively, I have to say it is not bad.  It is probably better than the previous one.  The plot is leaner and more focused, and some of the sillier slapstick instances of comedy have been replaced with more character-driven humor.  Abrams' direction is fine (though he still has too many lens flares) and Michael Giacchino's score is superb.  So why am I so disappointed with the film?  It unfortunately all comes to Benedict Cumberbatch, who is just woefully miscast as John Harrison.  I don't want to ruin anything, so I'll just leave it at that for now.  My Spoiler explanation is below.

I'm not sure what else to say.  There are some plot holes and the ending just goes too over-the-top with references to the previous films, but generally the movie is okay.  I think most people will like it.  I just couldn't get into it.  The casting just nagged me the whole film.  Full disclosure, the casting hasn't really bothered many of my friends so maybe I'm making a big deal about nothing.  But I couldn't get past it.

SPOILER ALERT HERE:

So why did Benedict Cumberbatch bother me so much?  I'll be upfront and say it has nothing to do with his performance which is committed, arrogant, and passionate.  He's a great super human.

But he ain't Khan.  In the original series, Khan was a sikh from northern India.  When I think of a Northern Indian, I do not think of a tall, thin British guy.  And yes, yes, I understand that Ricardo Montalban, the original Khan, is Mexican.  But that was how Hollywood casted projects back then, and he at least tried to evoke the character's heritage with his performance.  And I think most people agree that his Khan is one of the greatest villains in science fiction history.

Friends have told me that this is an alternate universe so maybe in this timeline Khan IS British.  But I counter that by saying that timelines are supposed to be the same until that moment when the planet Vulcan blows up.  So Khan shouldn't change.  He should still be a sikh.

So why cast Cumberbatch?  Maybe they just felt no one can play morally superior as effectively as the Brits.  Or maybe the PC police were slamming on Abrams' office door and demanding that in a movie about terrorism it would be a bad idea to have the bad guy be a foreigner.

...

Either way, Khan is not a tall British guy.  End of story.

I'm not a religious obsessee of Star Trek canon or continuity.  I'm not someone who looks for minut details and pinches a fit if they don't jive with with the continuity of some random episode of Deep Space Nine.  I don't care that much.  But for some reason, this really, really bothers me.  This franchise reboot has been an impressive and worthwhile experiment.  And given that they had already achieved the impossible by finding great replacements for Shatner, Nimoy, and Co., I am surprised they dropped the ball on this one.  For some reason, this casting just nags at me. I think what it comes down to is that they decided to create an all new character and name him "Khan" just so they could pay lip service to fans who wanted to see the infamous villain.

And I think they missed an awesome opportunity, too.  John Harrison could have been one of the other super humans in Khan's group, but not Khan himself.  Think how cool that would have been if at the end of the movie, the good guys finally win, breathe a sigh of relief and say, "wow, that guy was intense.  There is no way there is someone more dangerous and horrible than him out there."  And then we cut to the space pods, and do a slow pan over them all...and then we stop at one pod in particular and see Khan's name written on it.  That would have been a great set up for a sequel, and a great way to bring Khan back to the franchise.  As a sikh.

Anyways, this all may seem like a small detail, but it ruined the movie for me.

Oh, and one more pet peeve.  Why did they need Khan's super blood to save Kirk if they had 72 other super humans onboard the ship?  Just saying...

Anyways...


BEST LINE:

Kirk: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Spock: An Arabic proverb, attributed to a prince who was betrayed and decapitated by his own subjects.

Kirk: Still, it's a hell of a quote.

MVP:
I'm going with Michael Giacchino, who delivered a top notch score.  I think it is better than his first Trek score, which while entertaining became repetitive, relying a bit too heavily on the main theme. With Into Darkness, Giacchino takes the best parts of the first score and expands on them, and adds a whole slew of new and exciting music to the mix.  Well done!

TRIVIA:
This is a neat little bit of trivia.  Benedict Cumberbatch recorded his audition in his best friend's kitchen, using an iphone.

John Carter

John Carter

John Carter is the type of movie that makes me just a little sad.  Though it has performed decently overseas, it was crushed at the box office domestically, and Disney is estimating they are are going to lose $200 million on the film.  The movie is going to be remembered as the big flop of 2012.

And it doesn't deserve it.

I'm not saying John Carter is great.  It's not.  The movie, directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo), has some real problems and is even a little clumsy in places, especially in the film's opening scenes.  The script is a bit hokey in places, the acting is sometimes hit or miss, and I don't understand why Mars looks like Utah.  But you know what?  It is ten times better than most of these summer sci-fi blockbusters which end up making a bazillion dollars no matter how bad they are.  And that it just a shame.

Because John Carter is the granddaddy of all of them.  In 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs, who also dreamed up Tarzan, created modern science fiction when he wrote a story about an Virginian cavalry officer who finds himself on Mars, where he has super strength because the gravity makes his human bones more dense.  He is a stranger in a strange land, finds himself siding with the locals against an evil empire and marries a princess.  Sound familiar?  It should, because we've been watching this story all our lives.  Burroughs' work has inspired writers, filmmakers, scientists - men like George Lucas, James Cameron, Ray Bradbury, Frank Frazetta, and Jerry Siegel.  Why wasn't that little fact in the marketing?!  The trailers for John Carter made it look like some lame Star Wars or Avatar clone, when really it is the other way around.

Despite its flaws, John Carter's heart is in the right place.  The film is genuinely exciting in a lot of places, and the comedy is for the most part natural and not forced.  Most importantly, you can tell that the filmmakers are involved not because they want to make a big blockbuster, but because they love the source material.  They are trying to do the classic story justice.   This enthusiasm crosses over to the cast, which includes Taylor Kitsch (Wolverine) as our title hero, Lynn Collins (also from Wolverine) as the Princess Dejah, and a solid supporting troupe that includes Ciaran Hinds (Rome), Polly Walker (Rome), James Purefoy (uh, also Rome), Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes), Dominic West (300), Thomas Haden Church (Easy A), Samantha Morton (Minority Report), Willem Dafoe (Spiderman) and Bryan Cranston (Drive).

TANGENT: Speaking the casting, I have to address some miscasting.  Dominic West was cast as the villainous ruler Sab Than, while James Purefoy was cast a roguish good guy captain Kantos Kan.  Both are fine actors and put in solid work, but it is clear to me that their roles should have been switched.  Dominic West keeps getting cast as villain because of his dark looks and mean glare, but he doesn't have the true menace needed here to be a worthy evil tyrant of Mars.  One look at Purefoy's Marc Antony in Rome and you will see a glimpse of the charismatic, magnificent asshole-ishness that Sab Than should have had.  Purefoy would have been spectacular.  Instead, he is stuck as the dependable and noble Kantos, who has an unfunny comedic scene late in the movie that borders on embarrassing.   Purefoy just looks out of place, but West could have pulled it off.  More than than, as you can see from his vibrant work in Centurion, West would have owned this scene.  It would have been funny without making the character any less badass.  West would have been superb.  I know this is a small detail, but that simple switch would have made a big difference.  TANGENT OVER.

Anyway, overall, John Carter is a mixed bag.  It has its flaws, but there is a lot to like in it, and I think it is a shame that it got destroyed at the box office when it really isn't that bad.  It deserves better.  I think everyone reading this review should go check it out.  They might be pleasantly surprised.


MVP:  
When he was hired to write the score, Michael Giacchino (Lost) was told to go big, to write "his Star Wars."  And he does.  With some nods to John Barry, John Williams, and Maurice Jarre, Giacchino goes into overdrive, writing a grandiose (if a tad over-used) main theme and a stunning love theme.  His work propels the movie forward and gives the dramatic scenes more emotion than the script sometimes deserves.  It's terrific work.  If the movie had done better, he would have been guaranteed an Oscar nomination.  Alas, I fear that this score will be lost to the mainstream.  But I will do my best to trumpet its cause.  And I will start by giving Giacchino my MVP award!


BEST LINE:
Tars Tarka: When I saw you, I believed it was a sign...that something new could come into this world.


TRIVIA: 
Possibly, this movie has the record for being in 'development hell' for the longest period of time.  The first attempt to make the film was all the way back in 1931.  No one succeeded until now.  That's...over 70 years!!!

Lost (Spoiler Free)

Lost - Spoiler Free

This review is for those who have never seen Lost, the people who are on the fence and can't decide whether they want to commit. Since the review is mostly for newcomers, it will be vague and spoiler free. For everyone else, I will have a more detailed and spoiler-laden post coming soon.

I came to Lost really late. By the time I became interested in the show, it had already been on for so long that I figured I might as well wait until it was all finished and watch the whole thing on DVD. But it was a commitment. That is six seasons worth of TV. It takes some time. Some folks who have never seen the show might be like, "ugh, I don't know if I have time. It is really that good? I have all this new stuff to watch, do I really have to go back and watch this?"

And the answer is an unequivocal YES. Because Lost at its best represents TV at its finest. For the most part, it is one of the most compelling and addictive shows I have ever seen.

The most basic, spoiler-free write up I can give is: a plane crashes on a remote island and the survivors try to stay alive. But this island is strange and mysterious, in good and bad ways, and our survivors are not alone. The cast of characters was huge, and included everything from con men to doctors to rock stars. If I had to list all the characters, this post would go on forever. But one of Lost's greatest strengths is that for six seasons, it adeptly balanced all the characters, adding nuance and depth to each one so that by the finale, we felt we knew them as people - this is quite a feat because most shows struggle to achieve this with one character, and Lost literally pulls it off with over a dozen. Now there are a few exceptions.  A handful of characters never worked for me, but for the most part, they gave us a superb group of memorable and three dimensional heroes and villains. And since the Lost producers were adamant about the show being about the characters first and foremost, I feel I should talk more about that.

The technique that the producers used to help us get to know the characters was by focusing on a single person each episode and intercutting the current plotline on the island with a flashback from their lives before the crash. This was a creative and invaluable tool for helping the audience get to know these characters as human beings, and the technique has been copied many times since - most notably in Battlestar Galactica. While I liked Battlestar a lot, the flashbacks never worked for me because they were poorly used, reinforcing points we already knew and forcing the actors into bad wigs or silly situations that made no sense. In Lost, they actually bring something new to the table and for the most part, connect us to the characters (though they also do have their share of bad wigs). Admittedly, as the seasons went on, the producers started to run out of ideas for flashbacks and you can see them spinning their wheels looking for stories ("hey, let's do an episode about how Jack gets a tattoo!" I'm not joking). But for the most part, this was an inventive way to get to know the characters.

It doesn't hurt that the cast is spot on, delivering stellar performances - everyone is putting in some amazing, career-best work. Even for the characters I didn't like, it was the writers who dropped the ball and not the actors, who gave it their all every single episode. And on one related one side note, Terry O'Quinn plays the mysterious Locke, arguably the most popular character on the show. O'Quinn has always been one of my favorite character actors. I've dug him since he played Howard Hughes way back in The Rocketeer. Whenever his familiar face popped up in a movie, I gave a little thumbs up. So to be able to see him finally take the spotlight in a major role and knock it out of the park...it was awesome to see. Okay, side note over.

Aside from the cast, Lost is truly impressive from a technical standpoint. The look of the show was very cinematic, with lush and pristine camera work better than what you see in most television shows. The directing and writing were all for the most part quite good.

But now the bad. And there is some bad. There are always some weak episodes in every show, and Lost is no exception. Especially in the third season, you can see the producers desperately trying to come up with some delaying tactics. The problem was that they had an idea of where they wanted to go, but since they had no idea how long the show would be on for, they were scrambling to spread things out. Once ABC announced Lost would end after Season 6, the show shifts, digs in, and starts barreling towards its climax in a fairly focused way through its last few seasons.

While I liked most characters, most of them had at least one subplot or episode that was kind of lame. I don't want to go into details and ruin anything. But we can talk about it once you've seen it!

The other thing that I think that is important to note is that as the show progresses, it definitely gets more convoluted and bizarre. The show embraces its more mysterious elements. I don't think that was a bad thing. I liked it. But I can see how some people would be turned off, and even I have to admit that the first season by far was the best of the show.

The last thing to address was a major concern during the show's run. I heard a lot of complaints from regular viewers about mysteries not being solved fast enough, questions not being answered, and new characters popping up and distracting from who we really want to focus on. Those viewers are right, but they had an entirely different experience than I did. They had to deal with reruns, season breaks and a Writers Strike that shut down all production in Hollywood. They would literally have to wait for months for a new episode, hoping to find out the fate of a beloved character, only to get an episode about some new character they didn't care about. So the loyal audience was right to complain, but IGNORE THEM! When you watch the show on DVD, you don't need to wait, you don't get affected by the Writers' Strike, and if you watch an episode with a character you don't care about, it's no big deal because you can just watch the next episode right away. And most importantly, on DVD you realize that the showrunners do answer most of the questions and solve most of the mysteries, and they do it at a reasonable pace. No, they don't answer every single question, but they do answer the ones that matter. On DVD, Lost is a different and probably a heckuva lot less frustrating experience.

So there you go. I can't say much more without ruining things. The overall message is that despite some weaknesses, Lost was superb television. And when the show is cooking, it was easily the best show on television. If you haven't taken the plunge, I say do it!

To see my Spoiler-Full review of the show's finale, click HERE. For my top ten lists of the show's best and worst moments, click HERE.

MVP: This is a tough one because each season had its own MVP for me. And I will go into my individual season MVP honors in my next post since that will include spoilers. But for the series as a whole, I think I am going to give it to composer Michael Giacchino (Star Trek, Up). Most shows have a musical formula, which sounds the same every week - a comfortable soundscape that the composers are rarely allowed to deviate from in terms of form or function. It is a rare thing when a composer is given the liberty to branch out and go crazy. But that is what Giacchino does here, and the result is brilliant.  He doesn't only have a main theme, but an individual theme for every single character. And what is remarkable is how these themes evolve over the years, how they grow and expand and how they merge with other themes when appropriate to create new themes. It is an absurdly complicated score, with hints of motifs in Season 1 expanding into full blown glory by the final season. It's a staggering musical accomplishment. At least, to me it is. Is the music the best thing about Lost? No, absolutely not. But Giacchino's work might just be most impressive musical achievement in the history of series television. It's a bold statement, I know, but I firmly believe it. And for that reason, I have to give him a MVP here.

TRIVIA: The castaway's leader, Jack Shepherd, was not supposed to make it very far. He was supposed to be played by Michael Keaton and then as a crazy twist, he was going to get killed off halfway through the first episode. For whatever reason, the studio actually convinced the producers not to kill a major character so quickly. Keaton then backed out. And then Matthew Fox (Party of Five) was cast. Also, it is interesting that with Jack dead, the castaway's leader was going to be Kate, a frumpy, middle-aged businesswoman. But when things shifted, Kate became the young, beautiful badass played by Evangeline Lilly.