Dungeons And Dragons - Honour Among Thieves

Gelatinous Expectations

Dungeons And Dragons -
Honour Among Thieves
Directed by John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein
United States/Canada/United Kingdom
/Iceland/Ireland/Australia  
2023 Paramount
UK cinema release print

Warning: Minor sequence spoilers.

I wasn’t going to bother with Dungeons And Dragons - Honour Among Thieves, initially. Primarily because I used to love the game when I was a kid and didn’t see how a movie could do that kind of experience justice (yeah... still can’t actually). I remember my dad getting this game somewhere between the early to late 1970s and I used to love reading the various descriptions and images... pretty much none of which I can now remember except the one creature that always intrigued me... the gelatinous cube which slowly digests you if you get caught inside it. So I’m really glad, actually, that the gelatinous cube has made it into this movie incarnation... that’s a big plus in its favour. But, that being said, I’d have to say that I don’t have a clue about all the many obvious in-jokes in the film although, I did notice a vaguely familiar band of adventurers in a cameo during a sequence at the end, where everyone is trying to get through a giant maze.

However, the trailer to the film is really fun (although some of the line deliveries and dialogue are, I think, from different takes than used in the final cut of the movie) and, honestly, I haven’t seen a bad word about the film in any review... even from those from people who are not RPGers (which is the camp I would consider myself in now... it’s probably been nearly four decades since I played). So I thought I’d give it a go and, the first thing which surprised me about the film is that it’s... drum roll... based on a property from Hasbro! Seriously? When did this happen? I remember the set we used to have (and probably still have somewhere) was branded up as TSR Games. Did they sell it?

Anyway, this is going to be a very short review I think because, I can tell you right away that I’m not as enthusiastic about the film as all the other people I‘ve seen talking about it. It is, however, a fairly entertaining romp of an adventure, to be sure. Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez play thieves Edgin and Holga (my favourite class of D&D character... the one I always used to pick to play) who escape from their prison at the start of the movie and go on a quest to try and regain Edgin’s daughter (Chloe Coleman) from the clutches of traitorous former partner Forge (played by Hugh Grant). To do this they have to go on a quest for a legendary artefact and band together with a few other characters played by Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis and, in what amounts to a very good extended cameo section, Regé-Jean Page.

And all of the actors I just mentioned in this are absolutely wonderful performers and they all have great chemistry. So I’m not quite sure why my personal reception of the movie was somewhat diminished because I can tell you for sure that the movie is certainly pacey, has plenty of fantasy action and has a lot of humour with a script that walks a delicate tightrope between peril and humour with ease. And, to boot, the dialogue isn’t bad either... I suspect I would like this a heck of a lot more if I watched it a second time, now that my head has processed the entire experience. Some movie just hit me like that and I get so much more out of them on subsequent rewatches (such as The Mummy Returns, La La Land and Knives Out, for example).

The highlight sequence, for me, asides from the appearance of the gelatinous cube, would be the sequence with all five heroes in a cave being chased by what has become, the fattest, roly poly dragon I’ve ever seen in a movie. This sequence is a real testament to how easily the film can play with your expectations, throw up a ludicrous concept... because that huge, fat dragon sure looks silly not being able to fly, falling over and rolling around almost crushing our heroes... and still present it as a credible and quite threatening enemy to the other characters. There’s also a great sequence where our heroes are using an incantation to wake one of the dead to ask an alloted five questions and that becomes an extended sequence of wasted, ‘I didn’t mean that as one of the questions’ moments and continued digging up of dead bodies, until the characters finally get the information they want.

So, yeah, I didn’t quite gell with the movie but I certainly don’t have a bad thing to say about it either. For me, Dungeons And Dragons - Honour Among Thieves was an okay time at the cinema with a movie which entertained but didn’t bowl me over completely. As someone who hasn’t played in almost forty years, I still found it quite accessible and I don’t think you have to be a hardcore RPGer to enjoy the movie. I would certainly recommend it to experienced players who are going to have a lot richer experience than I did, due to understanding a lot more of the references and jokes but, yeah, I think a lot of people will find this one entertaining and have a good time with it.

Carriers

Trip Tease

Carriers
USA 2009
Directed by David and Àlex Pastor
Paramount Pictures

Warning: Spoilers may infect all readers and,
also, it’s an extremely short review... sorry about that.

Sometimes you just want to watch a movie, any movie, which reflects the current times in which you are living. So, for me, any kind of post-apocalyptic viral infection movie is game right now, to remind me that we are all in the same boat and, you know, as something I can get hints and tips from on how to survive because, if my own government keeps reacting to this stupid Coronavirus disaster in a way which makes it more protracted and less reversible, we might all be in the same situation the characters in films like this find themselves in at some point very, very soon.

So Carriers stars Chris Pine as Brian, Piper Perabo as his girlfriend Bobby, Lou Taylor Pucci as his brother Danny and Emily VanCamp as Danny’s friend Kate (that's Sharon Carter to all you MCU fans). They live in a world were a lot of the population has already died out from an unnamed virus and we join them, already on the road, in a stolen car as they are on a cross country road trip for a few days, to get them to a beach that Brian and Danny used to love as kids. Now, to me, this sounds like a bad idea to begin with. I mean, what do you do for petrol if you need it? Well, the answer seems to be you get lucky (or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint of how various things go down here) and steal it by force from other travellers who you, somehow, might meet on the way. Which seems pretty silly, especially when you realise just how bad things have gotten.

It’s gotten so terrible by the point that we join the four travellers that they’ve made up a set of rules to get them by, which are roughly summed up as follows:

1. Avoid the infected at all costs, their breath is highly contagious. 

2. Disinfect anything that they’ve touched within 24 hours. 

3. The sick are already dead, they can’t be saved.

So, yeah, a road trip to a favourite beach seems fraught with peril, if you ask me.

And the film does what it does, hitting all the expected points along the way. Chris Pine plays his character as an absolutely angry, low intelligence idiot. Literally the last person you would ever want to be stuck with if you were trying to survive the leftovers of a pandemic. The other three seem mostly level headed but this doesn’t stop them from occasionally, often inadvertently, breaking their own rules and getting heaps of trouble piled on them. And on their road trip, they reluctantly find themselves in a position to try and help a father (played by Christopher Meloni) and his dying, infected little girl get to a hospital which is ‘supposed’ to have some miracle cure (yeah, you can guess how that one pans out), come across a bunch of aggressive survivalists, hide from groups of people who hunt others and so on and so forth. They also kill innocent people to further their cause for the next full tank of gasoline and, inevitably, leave their own companions behind at the first sign that any of them are infected, putting them in a position at some point where one brother has to kill another so the pointless road trip can be continued.

The actors are all good and, while not remarkable, the film is competently put together and I had no complaints. There are also some nice little nods to science fiction movies from the past such as Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior and A L I E N, among others I’m sure I didn’t pick up so, yeah, it’s an okay watch. The only real problem the film has is that, by the time two of the travellers finally make it to the beach, the objective of the trip has lost all meaning and there’s a point in the last ten minutes of the film where you really wonder why the characters are trying to fulfil that story arc at this point. So, by the end of the film, it all seems pretty pointless and downbeat. And, I get that this is kind of the point anyway but, you know, I already got that vibe from the start of the movie. It feels like there was never any progression to the story for the characters to be let down by at the end. I think there needed to be more of a point to their quest because, really, the disappointment voiced by one of the characters at the finish could easily be met by the audience with a collective shrug and the response... well yeah, what did you expect?

And with that... I don’t really have that much more to say about Carriers. As post apocalyptic movies go, it just feels kinda empty and undeveloped in many ways. It’s not something that’s going to haunt me at any point or even linger in my memory for much longer than me writing this review, I suspect. But, it is entertaining enough to the point that it held my interest for the short running time so, yeah, it’s certainly not a total loss. I wouldn’t recommend anyone go out of their way to watch it but I’m not giving up on finding another post-virus apocalypse movie that I can recommend. The hunt continues.

Wonder Woman 1984 (aka WW84)

 

 

Paw Deal

Wonder Woman 1984 (aka WW84)
UK/USA/Spain 2020
Directed by Patty Jenkins
Warner Brothers

Warning: Yeah, this will have loads of spoilers so,
you know, see the movie first.

Okay, so if you know me at all in real life you’ll know that, for me, Patty Jenkin’s 2017 movie Wonder Woman (reviewed by me here) is not only the best superhero movie ever made but also one of the greatest movies, to date, of the 21st century. There was no way in hell WW84 (aka Wonder Woman 1984, if you go by the posters as opposed to the title on the actual print of the movie) was probably going to come even close to the greatness of the first movie and, yeah, that’s probably the case here but, although it maybe has a few very slight problems, I’d have to say it wins through with what are, for me, the two most important things to get right... one is it’s vastly entertaining and two, it doesn’t let the side down when it comes down to living up to and respecting the original.

What I’m trying to say is, although it doesn’t deliver quite the same experience (I wasn’t weeping throughout the whole movie as I tend to when I re-watch the original one time and time again), it’s a pretty good movie and it certainly has a lot of spectacle to it.

As different as it is to the first film, however, it does try to match some of the elements of the first, attempting to give the fans of the first film more of what they want to see in regards to the specific ingredients which may (or, arguably, may not) have made the first film such a huge draw for the box office.

Perhaps the most blatant of these, at least visually, is a very strong opening action sequence which takes us back to the 12 year old Diana on Themyscira, taking part in a huge sporting contest reminiscent of the games the Amazons used to play on Paradise Island back in the 1940s iteration of the comics (which are, at the moment, the only ones I’ve read... well, just the first couple of year’s worth and a stretch by John Byrne a fair few decades later). This is really a spectacular sequence and Hans Zimmer’s score matches that spectacle note for note. I’ll come back to the scoring of this in a little while.

Another very blatant thing to capture the essence of what made the first film so successful is the return, in 1984, of Steve Trevor, portrayed once again by Chris Pine opposite the sensational Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. People who have seen the first movie will know that Trevor dies at the end of the first film, sacrificing himself at the end of World War I... however, the surprise return of the character fits into the ‘magical’ theme, which sees an ancient artefact of the Gods granting wishes (mostly unconsciously) and thus Diana Prince accidentally wishes Trevor back to life. As does Kristen Wiig’s character Barbara Minerva, who wishes for Wonder Woman’s powers and becomes (although not named in the movie), her alter ego of The Cheetah (or one of them... I’m only familiar with one of the earlier incarnations of Cheetah so I’ve no idea how this character lives up to the comics). So, yeah, you have all that and with it you therefore have the fish-out-of-water scenario from the first film, where Diana was trying to grapple with the world outside her invisible island, reversed here with Steve Trevor trying to catch up with a culture which has moved on almost 70 years. We also get a similar reversal of the costuming scene in the first film, with Trevor this time trying to find something to ‘blend in’ with 1984.

One other nice touch is the way photographs in Diana’s apartment show that the writers have not forgotten the power the photo from the first movie had as an emotional punch on the audience and, although 'that photograph' is not easily in evidence here, there are some moments where the poignancy and emotion of photographs are dwelt upon just a little longer than you may expect in any other film where this fetishism to the static image was not rendered so lovingly in the previous installment.

And everybody is good in this. Pine and Gadot are excellent in their roles, both retaining certain character traits to keep them credible, although I would have liked to see Diana take a punch in a thoughtful manner the way she did in both Wonder Woman and Justice League (reviewed here). Kristen Wiig is also very good in her role, although she totally goes through exactly the same kind of transformation (just a little more gradual) that Seline Kyle went through in Batman Returns (reviewed here). And when it comes to that character, this was one of my slight criticisms of the film... there needed to be a five minute follow up to explore the post-story relationship between Minerva and Prince, I felt. Unless they’re maybe saving her for a sequel.

Pedro Pascal, The Mandalorian himself, does an equally fine job as villain Maxwell Lord and I was very impressed with the arc of the character, who starts off so smarmy that you really dislike him from the get go but then (just like Wiig’s villainess), as more of his back story is revealed, you begin to feel a lot more sympathy for and I was very happy that the arc for both of these villainous characters were handled in a way which was much more appropriate to the title character’s realm and not as they might have been disposed of in other films.

The movie perhaps feels a little light in action in places and another minor criticism is that it starts with a bang and maintains the rush right through to about maybe halfway through the film, with a big desert vehicle chase which, after it has finished, kind of leaves the film a little flat in some ways. I think, however, when I watch this one again, I will probably be more on board with the second half of the piece and I’m pretty sure I’ll regret writing that previous sentence before long.

Just as I regret criticising Rupert Gregson-Williams score in the first movie. By the second screening of that one, I was totally on board with his score and, frankly, tend to get more than just a little teary eyed when I have it on the headphones, walking down a street. I’ll say here that, although I love Hans Zimmer’s music as a composer for a lot of movies, I wish that Rupert Gregson-Williams had been asked to return for this one because, although Zimmer did build the basic Wonder Woman motif for Batman Versus Superman - Dawn Of Justice (reviewed by me here), I thought the stuff that Gregson-Williams brought to the table in the first one far exceeded Zimmer’s wonderful contribution. That being said, Zimmer does have vague hints of Gregson-Williams thematic material from time to time and, of course, he does retain his own Wonder Woman theme with an appropriate build up to it in this film. Other times, though, I thought the score seemed wildly inappropriate, with a comic theme which recalled, to me, his Electro theme from The Amazing Spider-Man 2... a score I was not all that fond of, to be honest. Still, there are also some wonderful pieces of music in WW84 and I certainly can’t wait until the CD arrives in the post.

The structure of the film is clever too and The Monkey’s Paw element of ‘magic’ at the heart of the story (something it comes clean about a few times in the film) extends in like spirit to a credible, if you’re on board with this central concept (I expect some people won’t be), rendition of a new twist on the old Invisible Jet that Wonder Woman used to have in the comics and TV series, imbuing it with a new accessibility which could prove interesting in the future, if the film series keeps going.  Alas, the way the story is put together also reveals the end game quite early on and the obvious ‘sacrifice’ on the table here... I mean, I knew it would have to come anyway but there’s a point in the film where audiences are going to figure out, probably before Diana does, that a certain character is going to have to disappear into the ether again for her to be powerful enough to resume her stance as a guardian of the planet. It doesn’t take the sting out of it too much but, yeah, things are pretty obviously pointing to both this and the mechanics of how the ending is going to have to work to give each of the ‘super-villains’ a way out of the mess they’ve, almost inadvertently, created. The ending is nice, though and, certainly retains both the spirit of the first film and, also, the way the character arcs would tend to go in those 1940s comics I’ve read.

And that’s about me done with Wonder Woman 1984 (WW84) other than to say, if you’re a long term fan of the character in the medium of the moving image, you’re going to want to stay around in the cinema for the mid-end credits sequence. Again, I could see the reveal there coming before it happened and, to be honest, it was done in perhaps one of the least subtle, cheesiest ways imaginable but, you know, without revealing too much, I really loved it and hope a certain character can return if there is a sequel made to this movie. Other than that, it fits in surprisingly well with the continuity of the other three DC Universe movies in which Gal Gadot has played this role and I would recommend this as a high calibre superhero movie for most people but, with the small caution that there was no way it could ever be better than the first one. Definitely worth most people’s time though. Loved it!

Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse

Morales Dilemma

Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse
2018 USA
Directed by Bob Persichetti,
Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman
UK cinema release print.

After a sequence from this movie played by way of a second post-credits scene in Venom (reviewed here) I was really not that into bothering to go see Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse at my local cinema. After all, this film looked from the trailers like it was going to be focusing on the Miles Morales version of the character, with Peter Parker as a secondary character and, I have to say that, for the most part (with a few minor exceptions) I have pretty much only ever read the first ten years or so of Spider-Man’s comic book adventures, starting from his first appearance in an issue of Amazing Fantasy (which is nicely parodied as an alternatively titled comic book in the version of reality in which this movie is set). So I have absolutely no idea who Miles Morales is.

Two things changed my mind. One being that the score for this one has been composed by one of my favourite ‘new’ composers Daniel Pemberton and, frankly, I expect what he does to be exceptional (this movie score is certainly that).

The other reason I finally decided to give this one a go is that the film has been getting some exceptional word of mouth on Twitter, with some people citing it as their favourite movie of the year... and I didn’t want to get left out. So I went and saw the thing and... yeah... I didn’t regret it.

This film manages to do a lot of cool things and get most of everything it juggles just about right. It has many separate different versions of Spider-Man from multiple dimensions that have crossed over... including two versions of Peter Parker (one of them played by Chris Pine), Spider-Gwen (the spider powered version of Gwen Stacy), Spider-Man Noir (a black and white one from the 1930s, played here by Nicolas Cage), a strange manga/anime based looking version called SP//dr (consisting of a girl, a robot and a spider) and everyone’s favourite Spider-Pig, Peter Porker - The Spectacular Spider-Ham... there’s even a Spider-Man 2099 cameo too but... yeah, I won’t say too much about that. And, of course, Miles Morales, whose story we follow in a little more detail than the others although we get some incredible back story flashbacks for all the other characters by way of a running gag which, frankly, really works well.

As you can tell from the diverse character cast consisting of different tonal styles, the film is trying to juggle a lot of balls in the air as it switches from moving drama to broad humour and all the things in between at a fair pace. The amazing thing, though... perhaps even more amazing than The Amazing Spider-Man... is that it manages to tell a story of a team of Spider-Heroes working together in all these different styles while being as post-modern as can be and with a fairly quirky, bordering on very surreal, animation style and it doesn’t at any point lose you and, frankly, it all meshes together very well. Which seems to me to be very against the odds.

It’s fast, it’s colourful and there are some really great compositions as several source references often fight for space in the frame... this is an incredibly detailed movie and I know I’ll notice a lot more when I catch up to this one again. There’s quite a lot of the syntax of comics throughout history used, all colliding with different styles and a wonderful use of typography all clamouring for attention. In fact, even the blink and you’ll miss it typography hits have some nice jokes in certain parts which reference each other. There’s also some visual references to off-set litho print being off-register in a few cases (if I’m reading the intention of the filmmakers correctly... at first I thought there was something going wrong with the projection).

Another really great thing in this is that the non-stop cleverness never lets up and is with you right from the start. Since the nature of the film is about several universes colliding and constantly going out of phase in terms of the characters when they’re in Miles’ version of the universe, even the Columbia Pictures logo and the Marvel logo at the start of the picture are doing some dazzling things (including a nice little shout out to Cat Ballou, of all things). The logos are even followed by a nice big ‘Approved By The Comics Code Authority’ stamp... which should have a lot of people my age tripping down memory lane (are those things still on modern comics?

As you would expect, there are lots of metatextual references to various things in the Spider-Man comics and also, from very early on, quite a few references to the various Spider-Man movies over the years... but there’s also a lot of little jokes about other things making their way in there too (I loved the Shaun Of The Dead parody poster they kept flashing up in the background) and, of course, the usual nice cameo from the now departed Stan Lee (I believe it was the last ‘voice performance’ he recorded... which I suspect means we’re far from done with the cameos in the live action movies at the moment).

And, yeah, the glue which makes all this possible in terms of keeping it all together as one coherent experience, as far as I’m concerned anyway, is Daniel Pemberton’s wonderful score, which should be swinging it’s way on a shiny disc to my letterbox in a week or so, fingers crossed. I can’t wait to hear this thing as a stand alone listen.

So, all in all, glad I went to see Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse (the film with too many hyphens) to find out what all the fuss was about. One last thing before you rush to your nearest cinema, though. If you’re a fan of the old 1960s Spider-Man cartoon show, not to mention internet memes, then you’ll really want to wait until the end credits are over because... well, just watch it. You’ll see what I mean.

Wonder Woman

Blood n’ Wonder

Wonder Woman
2017 USA/China/Hong Kong
Directed by Patty Jenkins  
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Very slight hints at spoilers.

I was actually quite apprehensive about going to see the latest of the DC superpowers movies. Not half as much as anxious as I am about seeing what looks like quite a dreadful attempt to put the Justice League of America on screen later in the year but certainly, given the last three films by the studio... the terrible Man Of Steel (reviewed here), the not too terrible Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice (reviewed here) and the passable but superfluous Suicide Squad (reviewed here)... were all much less than great movies, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to how the studio might screw up Wonder Woman. As it turns out... I needn’t have worried. This movie is easily the best movie they’ve put out in the last five years and even towers above a fair few of the Marvel movies released during the same period.

Wonder Woman made her first appearance in comics in 1941, which is a time period a bit further in the future to the setting of the majority of this movie. For some reason the writers here decided to take her out of her original World War Two setting and instead go back to the First World War. I’m not complaining though... it works really well for the movie. She was created by psychologist William Moulton Marston, who invented one of the key components in what is commonly known as the ‘lie detector’. He also tended to inject the stories with a lot of oblique references to what we know these days as BDSM (which may mean he was a lifestyle practitioner himself... I don’t know) and so if you ever wondered where he got the idea that Wonder Woman would utilise a magic golden ‘rope of truth’ with which she could tie up unsuspecting captives and compel them not to lie... well there you go.

This film is pretty much pitch perfect and the director, Patty Jenkins, does an absolutely astonishing job here. Bookended by a scene set bang up to date with the recent DC movies, we first see Diana Prince (aka Wonder Woman aka Princess Diana of Themyscira) as she receives a gift from Bruce Wayne (although Ben Affleck is not present in the flesh in this movie). The gift is an old watch and the photograph of Wonder Woman standing with her allies in World War One which we first caught a glimpse of in Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice. I was pretty sure that photo would be making an appearance and its used here as the element which allows us into the movie length flashback of Diana’s exploits during World War One.

The film actually keeps the same kind of tone, visually, as the Batman Vs Superman movie (with lots of bleak colour palette) but this serves to highlight the times when stronger colours are suddenly used to good effect and it’s also very well used, as it was in that previous movie, in contrast to Wonder Woman’s magic lasso... the colours absolutely pop whenever it’s used in action.

Despite some reviews I heard where the pacing was criticised, I found the speediness of this movie to be pretty good and evenly paced throughout.

After the opening bookend we start with Diana as a child on her invisible island of Themyscira (or Paradise Island as it used to be known before a well known writer was let loose on one of the many revamps of the character some decades ago) and watch her grow up as an Amazon in training... preparing for the day the God of War will return to destroy humanity. We are presented with the... I’m sorry but this was such an obvious reveal from the start... so called ‘mystery’ of the ‘God killer’ and this is used later for pretty much the only moment in this wonderful film you might see coming. Soon the actresses playing the younger versions of the title character mature into lead actress Gal Gadot and she rescues the main male protagonist, Steve Trevor (played by Chris Pine), when he accidentally pierces the veil which hides Themyscira from the outside world and also accidentally brings an army of death dealing German troops, hot on his tail, who kill many amazons before they are slaughtered themselves.

When Diana learns of the ‘war to end all wars’, as it was known before we stupidly had a second one to warrant the first with a numeric designation, she shuns the wishes of her mother and accompanies Steve to the outside world to see and destroy Ares, the God of War.

That’s the basic set up but let me say that, apart from the really obvious reveal of the ‘God killer’ towards the end of the movie, the film is so less formulaic than you would reasonably expect it to be and it also plays on the innate sexism of its audience - male and female alike - in one sequence by refusing to conform to having a certain fight scene between two characters when you are probably thinking, all the way through the movie due to the expectations of how these things are usually written, that it’s a pretty inevitable scene. Instead, the film actually managed to surprise me in regards to a reveal towards the end of the villain of the piece and, if you read my reviews regularly then you’ll already know that there’s nothing I like better in cinema than if it can actually catch me off guard and surprise me.

And it all looks so brilliant and, yep, the cast are fantastic, too.

Gal Gadot, as she did in Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice, absolutely nails Diana as a title hero you can believe in. Demonstrating a strength of character and also a sense of vulnerability and mental progression which matches the writing and rewards the viewer with a pitch perfect performance. She really is a great Wonder Woman and a worthy successor to Linda Carter in the good old 1970s TV show of the same name. I was really in awe of this performance and thought she brings a carefree but responsible attitude to the character. And luckily for DC, the supporting cast are also all great. Chris Pine probably puts in the best performance I’ve seen him do here. Lucy Davis as Etta is perhaps a little underused but shines whenever she is on screen. Elena Anaya, who was so good in Room In Rome (reviewed here) makes for a menacing presence as a German villainess, as does the always remarkable Danny Huston, playing her boss. It’s also good to see the Scottish well represented by the likes of Ewen Bremner and James Cosmo and especially great to see one of my all time favourite actors, the amazing David Thewlis, here too.

There’s a certain stylistic dynamism to a lot of the scenes and, although there were a lot of slow motion scenes which were a little distracting, I can see why director Patty Jenkins chose to use these and, overall, I think she’s done a fantastic job here, giving the modern DC cinematic universe their most credible and polished film to date. There was one shot which did puzzle me but I think I’ve maybe worked out why she did it now. I’ve seen other directors do similar things but she only does this once in the movie and so it kind of stuck out a little. There’s a scene where Steve Trevor suggests to Diana that she “follow the smoke” while he looks around to find a motorbike and then we follow her progress as she gallops off into action on a horse. For some reason, the shot is turned on its side and it looks really alien to what you would expect to see. The shot then cuts to a similar shot the right way up. It looks pretty odd and I don’t know whether the shot was actually shot at this angle or whether it was actually turned on its side during the edit. Looking at the overall effect, though, I’m guessing that the camera movements in the shots proceeding, coupled with the direction in which the bike which Trevor finds is pointing, meant that the director decided she wanted the next shot to follow through on the ‘right to left’ forward motion of the preceding shots and so used that version of the shot in the final movie to keep momentum going. Maybe it looked even more jarring if she cut a ‘right way up’ version directly in? Who knows? That’s my best guess on that one though.

As per usual, I have a couple of slight criticisms of the movie but they are very minor things, to be honest.

The first is that I thought that the film could have maybe had just a few more humorous one-liners in it. Sure, there’s humour in here but I just felt it could have been a little less poe faced on occasion. Although, of course, we are dealing with The Great War which is not something to be humorous about and, also, it feels like the current crop of DC movies almost have 'a lack of humour' written into their brand guidelines... so I’m not too fussed about and it works so well with less of that comic element in it anyway that I’m certainly not complaining.

The other thing, though, is the lack of blood. It’s the First World War. People are getting blown up in this movie, mutilated, dying in various horrible ways and even getting run through with a sword. And it’s all quite bloodless. I don’t blame the director for this. She probably well knows that she might have been fired if she didn’t deliver a film suitable for young children so the studio can get a bigger profit (and you just need to look at the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies to see how far this ridiculous predilection for grim violence with no blood to appease the censors can be taken) but I do feel that the gravitas of the war and the message that violence is a bad thing would have been better served by showing, just a little more, the direct consequences of that violence. The director does her bit by showing the mutilated bodies of the survivors to strike home the horror of war and Diana’s awakening to that horror but... it just felt unnecessarily bloodless is all. Like I said, though, we are unfortunately living in a social climate which makes those kinds of censorious decisions a necessary choice in an art form which can only thrive when commercial considerations are accommodated so... yeah, I guess the director does pretty well getting in what she is able to in this one.

Rupert Gregson-Williams score to the movie is serviceable but feels a little bland and unnoticeable in a lot of the movie... like it could have done with more textural contrast to make some of the cues stand out. However, at a couple of key points he, or whoever made the decision, does the right thing and brings in musical continuity by referencing Hans Zimmer’s Wonder Woman theme from Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice. The theme was already prominent in the various trailers for this movie and I’m glad the powers that be saw sense and used it here... he also goes with a full on rendition of this theme at the start of the end credit music so, you know, special shout out to DC for considering the musical continuity, finally. And at least this one has got a proper, physical CD release so there’s at least that. Having now listened to that CD release, I can  confirm that, as a stand alone listen away from the images, it’s really powerful and was maybe suffering a little in the movie from being slightly buried in the final sound mix in some points. There are some nicely subtle textural contrasts here... they just can't necessarily be heard amongst all the blood n' thunder of the final cut.

If you are a fan of superhero movies then Wonder Woman is absolutely unmissable. It feels like a completely epic cinematic spectacle and, well... that’s because it is. If you are not all that familiar with superhero movies, however... go see this one anyway. It doesn’t matter because it’s a pretty fine example of the current trends in cinematic art done almost perfectly and should be supported by all enthusiastic cinema goers. An all round positive recommendation from me for this one to pretty much everyone I know. Both Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot deserve some serious recognition for this. Can’t wait to see what direction the sequel takes us. I’d personally like to see Wonder Woman in both the Second World War and the Vietnam War in future movies, maybe?

Star Trek Beyond

Peachy Elba

Star Trek Beyond
2016 USA Directed by Justin Lin
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Very slight spoilers beyond...

Well the thirteenth cinematic Star Trek movie is finally here and... I still don’t quite understand why the heck it’s called Star Trek Beyond but... oh well... abstract title for a bit of a fuzzy movie. Star Trek Beyond is probably my least favourite of the mini trilogy within a franchise (to date) which began with the 2009 Star Trek (reviewed by me here in one of my earliest NUTS4R2 reviews) and continued with Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here). That being said, it’s nowhere near being a bad movie, certainly in terms of the Trek franchise as a whole... it’s much better than Star Trek Nemesis (reviewed by me here) for instance.

Okay... the story isn’t all that great on this one, to be honest. However, you can tell that British comedy guru Simon Pegg, who plays ‘Scottie’ in the new films, has been let loose on the script for this one because the dialogue is pretty sharp. It’s also a movie which is big in action but still lives up, somewhat thinly perhaps, to the basic science fiction storytelling which made the original 1960s series which these current movies are based on so great.

The actors are all fine here with a much bigger role for both Simon Pegg’s Scotty and Anton Yelchin’s take on Pavel Chekov. I’m sure the majority of my readers will know of the tragic accident which claimed the life of Yelchin about a month ago, a big blow to the acting community, I believe. I remember how good he was in the Jim Jarmusch movie Only Lovers Left Alive (reviewed by me here) and, just recently, Green Room (reviewed by me here). So it’s actually very sad to see him go. Something which I’m sure won’t get easier for audiences as each of the other four films he still has coming out this year are released.

Ironically, Yelchin’s part is somewhat beefed up in this movie and, although Chekov is still very much assigned to a functional role in this, Yelchin gets his chance to shine as he’s with Chris Pine’s incarnation of James T. Kirk for large chunks of the movie, as the two pair up to try and find their lost crew. I think the dead give away that the writers have been getting more interested in Chekov as the franchise continues is the inclusion of a nice line towards the end which certainly echoes the original character, as played by Walter Koenig in the TV show. “Did you know that Scotch was actually invented by a little old lady in Leningrad?” asks Yelchin, which made me smile and realise they were possibly looking to get much more invested in the character as the franchise continues.

Star Trek Beyond is not just a memorial movie for Yelchin, however, who gets a credit at the end of the movie which simply states... For Anton. Pryor to this on his own memorium credit, and throughout the movie, we are continually reminded of another famous Star Trek actor who passed away recently... Leonard Nimoy, who played the original Mr. Spock and continued to do so in the previous two movies. Nimoy is the one constant that bridges the original franchise and this so called reboot (or sequels as most people know them) as his original character went back in time and bore witness to the creation of this redirected timeline that started off this version of the adventures. With two identical Spocks at different ages living in this timeline, the writers have now chosen to kill off the Nimoy version of the character too... or Spock Prime, as he is now known. It’s a touching moment when the current Spock, played so well by Zachary Quinto but with a slightly diminished role in this adventure, is left his older self’s few artefacts which, presumably, he managed to somehow bring back in time within him. Amongst these is a photograph of Nimoy and the rest of his fellow cast from the original movies, grouped in a publicity shot that I’m guessing was one used for Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (reviewed by me here). It’s one of a few touching moments and, probably, one of the very last times we’ll see Nimoy’s face in a Star Trek movie.

All the other actors are great too, of course, with Judge Dredd himself, Karl Urban, playing a great version of Doctor McCoy, Zoe Saldana as a much more active Lieutenant Uhura than Nichelle Nichols ever really got the chance to be and John Cho continuing his good work as Sulu. Also joining the cast are Sofia Boutella as new ally Jaylah and the always watchable Idris Elba as the main villain of the piece, Krall.

So solid acting, great dialogue and special effects which are up to the scratch, as usual. However, there’s perhaps way too much action in this one or, at least, way too much motion. I’ve not seen any other movies by director Justin Lin but in this one the camera seems to be swooping all over the place for most of the time. It rarely comes to a stand still, even in the quieter, more low key scenes, and while this technique serves some scenes well, like the first proper ‘swoop through’ of the ‘snowglobe space station’ Yorktown and also in some of the action scenes... the camerawork does get kinda dizzying and disorienting at some points, it has to be said.

Another thing which had me questioning if I had my 3D glasses on correctly was the lighting in some of the scenes... so much so that I had to take them off at one point to prove to myself that, yes, the scenes really were lit that badly. There are certain sequences in the movie, especially in... without giving too much away... Jaylah’s house, that are not exactly dark but... well, just downright dull and which are hard to register on the eyes. Like the interiors in some scenes are all shot through a fine fog which doesn’t quite want to engage you in a way that might help you appreciate the sets. Fair enough, I guess. I’m assuming the director was going for some kind of neutral effect to give other scenes contrast around these, maybe, but it really didn’t do much for me.

The other thing which didn’t quite work for me was most of the last act... the action sequences seem somewhat less than entertaining although, even with all the swooping and whirling camera movement, I was actually able to keep up with the choreography of the kinetic set pieces in this one. So there’s that, I guess.

At the end of the day... Star Trek Beyond is an okay addition to the franchise. Some of the dialogue such as Scotty’s reference to a giant, green hand, which is obviously a humorous reference to the original Star Trek TV episode Who Mourns For Adonis?, had me chuckling a fair bit and you can’t help but buy into the characters when they have lines like this. Alas, it doesn’t make up for a finale which, for me, brought to mind some of the worst Star Trek movie finales such as Star Trek Insurrection (which was an okay film with a terrible last act and which I reviewed here) and the aforementioned Star Trek Nemesis. Truth be told, by the end of the movie, I was getting pretty bored and I think it could have done with either some pruning at the end or, possibly better, a much more interesting couple of set pieces rather than the usual... countdown to stopping the villain realising his plan with just a few seconds to spare kind of scenario. It was already a tired way of doing things back at the dawn of the century... it’s really yawn inducing now. Or, at least, it is the way it’s presented here.

All in all, though, it’s sure to please Star Trek fans who, I’ve no doubt, will turn out for it in force... although I noticed the 3D screening I went to wasn’t even half full on its opening night... which I can’t quite figure out since it easily took number one spot at the box office. So, yeah, not a bad one and I’ll definitely be rewatching on Blu Ray at some point... possibly when it’s been out for a while and goes onto the sale racks. Star Trek Beyond doesn’t really take you anywhere near where the franchise hasn’t boldly gone before but, at least, it doesn’t do that in a competent manner and there are some really witty one liners along the way. Maybe give it a go if there’s nothing else on at the cinema this week.

Star Trek @ NUTS4R2
Star Trek Series 1
Star Trek - The Motion Picture 
Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan
Star Trek III - The Search For Spock
Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home 
Star Trek V - The Final Frontier 
Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek - Generations (aka Star Trek VII) 
Star Trek - First Contact 
Star Trek - Insurrection 
Star Trek Nemesis 

Star Trek 11

Star Trek: In Darkness (aka Star Trek 12)

Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Dark Trek:
Gorn But Not Forgotten

Star Trek: Into Darkness 
(aka Star Trek 12)
USA 2013
Directed by J. J. Abrams
Playing at cinemas now.

Warning: Big, wrathful spoilers will awaken 
in this review and walk over your cold corpses.

There’s an old Vulcan proverb that says that, sometimes, it is possible to have your cake and eat it.

Or at least, if there’s not, there probably should be. I don’t think I mentioned it back in my review of the last Star Trek movie (right here) but this ‘have cake and also eat it’ mentality certainly drove the previous film in terms of skewing off the timeline into a new series of adventures with the same characters without having to worry about any previous Star Trek continuity. And it managed to keep the original Leonard Nimoy version of the Spock character in this new universe too.

Star Trek: Into Darkness also, very much, uses this cake-eating logic because what we’ve got here, and this is something a lot of Star Trek fans guessed from early trailers last year, is a partial remake and homage to the two previous Star Trek stories which featured Ricardo Montalban as the superhuman villain Khan Noonian Singh, namely the original series episode Space Seed and its big screen sequel Star Trek 2: The Wrath Of Kahn. Given that the second film in the series is so beloved by fans and that this is director J. J. Abrams second film for the franchise (but, given the presence of Nimoy as Spock in these films, certainly the 12th in the series and the 8th to feature Leonard Nimoy as the original Spock), I’m guessing the temptation was always there to match the darkness of The Wrath Of Khan and somewhere in that early process the decision was made to... “well, what the heck, let’s just have Khan in it”.

This, is something which, given the pre-publicity hype on the movie, may have been better highlighted in the marketing instead of being kept a mystery because... well frankly it backfires. The film probably works on two levels but most people who are even minor fans of Star Trek are going to figure out what’s going on very early on. When the role played by British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who appears to demonstrate superhuman combat skills (saving key crew members of the Enterprise from a bunch of klingons) asks how many of the strange, new “super proton torpedos” there are and is told that there are 72, people will probably remember there were 72 left of Khan’s superspecies in the original Space Seed episode and, even if you don’t realise that (and I confess I didn’t)... even I, by that time, had figured out that there were super powered beings being hidden in the torpedos long before any of the characters in the Enterprise crew figure it out.

The story structure does seem to be the biggest weakness of this movie, in all honesty. It’s simplistic and the arcs of the characters are too obviously signposted. When the excellent Simon Pegg, playing Scotty, resigns from Kirk’s command due to a difference of opinion, it’s pretty obvious he’s being left behind to save the day when it looks like the Enterprise crew are about to be destroyed... and I found this kind of set up for a touch of temporary deus ex machina just a little disappointing in the overall scheme of things. And that kind of strategy is pulled out and reused quite a few times in this movie.

A puzzling but major source of enjoyment for the film, though, are the direct quotes and scene remakes from both of the first two films in the franchise. Admiral Pike, for example, is once again seen wearing the outfit that Admiral Kirk wore throughout a lot of Star Trek The Motion Picture, and he even has William Shatner’s “They gave her back to me...” line which, actually, given the context of that line in this movie, kind of hit a bit of a false note with me in all honesty. It was also a bit of a shame to see Pike’s final fate as being so different from the character’s farewell in the original series story The Menagerie.

Of course, the big scene which is going to get a lot of Star Trek fans uptight is the remake of the ‘Spock death scene’ from The Wrath Of Khan, which is plugged in near the end of this film but in reverse, with Kirk dying behind the radiation flooded compartment and the two characters switching and referencing each other’s lines from the original. This all, like a lot of the sequences in this movie, relies on a certain knowledge of the previous versions of the on screen references to tap the audience into feeling anxiety and suspense based on prior versions of the scenes, rather than anything created specifically for this movie... although there are those kinds of moments too, to be sure. The real cheat and ultimate disappointment of the ‘Kirk death scene’ in this one, though, is that even before Kirk is dead, you know exactly how he can be brought back to life again... since the story uses advanced genetics as one of its elements. So this movie is, in no way, as gutsy as when Spock was killed off, possibly for good at the time, back in cinemas in 1982 (although, to be fair, they did build in a little escape door in case they could talk Nimoy back for the third film... one which was used for his return soon after).

Okay, so far I’ve mostly talked about the negative or slightly disappointing aspects of this movie. What I’ve been leaving out, however, is that some of these same scenes, along with loads of others in the movie, are also bags of fun and make for an all around ‘grade A’ entertaining motion picture experience. People who took to the last film in the franchise certainly shouldn’t be disenchanted with this one and I, despite all the things I’ve been mentioning here, really loved it.

The performances were all great although there was slightly less of an ‘ensemble’ feel to it with Sulu, Chekhov and even McCoy not getting that much chance to shine here... but then again, that would also be in keeping, to some extent, with the way the original series was put together in the 60s which, although it did have a very good ensemble cast, was very much the Kirk and Spock show for a lot of its running time (something some members of the original cast, famously, never seemed to forgive William Shatner for, for some reason).

There’s a lot of action in this one and lots of bright, classic Star Trek colours (intermingled with a touch of dreary colour homage to the look of the first film in the franchise too). There’s even a nice line which relates to the fan pleasing “red shirt” status, when Chekhov is promoted to Mr. Scott’s post and asked to “put on the red shirt”, which immediately causes the fans in the audience to wonder if they are going to be killing Chekhov in this one. Nice references, too, to past Trek races and characters such as the Gorn and Harcourt Fenton Mudd but, I did wonder why there was only one tribble in the film (which is used as a plot device, as it happens). Surely there should have been more of them after a short while?

One big old character reference is the introduction of a young Dr. Carol Marcus, who we only knew as an “old flame” character at a much later stage in her life in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. We know in the original version of the timeline she gives birth to Kirk’s son who is also in The Wrath Of Khan, and who is killed by the Klingons in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock... so we already have foreknowledge of where these characters may well be going in future films in the franchise.

It’s a shame that Noel Clarke (companion Mickey from Doctor Who and a successful writer/director in his own right) didn’t get more of a role in this film, however. His scenes are over and done with pretty quickly and his character is just used to establish the threat the Enterprise crew in this film face. That threat, however, is indeed Khan, and although Benedict Cumberbatch obviously plays him in a completely different way to the way Riccardo Montalban used to play him, he is still a very real and dangerous threat and, when you’ve got an actor of Cumberbatch’s calibre in the role... you know you are  not going to be let down. I was very pleased to see that the character, and his superpowered army, have all been preserved in cryogenic sleep and locked away in a warehouse, in the style of the ending of Raiders Of The Lost Ark... Khan with a sinister smile on his face. I hope the director and writers consider bringing this character back for the next installment in the franchise to cause more mayhem... he has, after all, kind of become the Moriarty character to Kirk’s Sherlock in a way (which is kinda ironic, given the role he’s most famous for on British TV screens).

Added into the mix, of course, is Abrams’ regular composer Michael Giachinno, who both repeats and builds on his excellent score from the previous film and, thankfully, remembers to bring back Alexander Courage’s original fanfare and theme tune right where it’s needed. I’ve already got the CD on pre-order from Amazon and am looking forward to wearing it out as soon as possible.

All in all, then, Star Trek: Into Darkness is wildly entertaining and, as far as I’m concerned, very repeat watchable (yeah, I’ll be getting in line for another showing and grabbing the BluRay when it’s out). Certainly it might annoy hardcore fans of the franchise but I think, even if they lighten up a little they will probably enjoy it too. The reliance towards past reference to hit the right notes worries me a little in terms of Abrams being entrusted to direct the next Star Wars movies (we need proper sequels, not a bunch of old character references) but certainly he’s not been too disrespectful to the Star Trek franchise and these particular movies seem to be heading in the right direction I think... although the laws of physics are completely abandoned in these new movies. Don’t get me started.

Either way, it was good to see a movie where the famously mocked and quoted Captain Kirk line/word was switched to Spock to deliver in this one... “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!”


Star Trek @ NUTS4R2
Star Trek Series 1
Star Trek - The Motion Picture 
Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan
Star Trek III - The Search For Spock
Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home 
Star Trek V - The Final Frontier 
Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek - Generations (aka Star Trek VII) 
Star Trek - First Contact 
Star Trek - Insurrection 
Star Trek Nemesis 

Star Trek 11

Star Trek: In Darkness (aka Star Trek 12)

Star Trek Beyond