TNMC Recent Reviews

This week’s movie was McG’s “Terminator Salvation” starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Helena Bonham Carter, Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard, Michael Ironside, and a few surprise guest stars. I enjoyed it a lot. This is one that you have to see in the theater.

This week’s movie was Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons,” starring Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgård, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and a whole bunch of other people you probably don’t recognize, including Ronny’s own dad, Rance Howard.

I haven’t read the book, so don’t ask me how it compares.  My girlfriend tells me they left a lot out.  But what they included makes for a good, rousing, fast-paced scavenger hunt through Rome and the Vatican, and hundreds-of-years old art treasures.  Basically, somebody has wired up the Vatican to explode at midnight, and Harvard Professor of Symbology Hanks thinks he can find the bomb.  How?  Well, a secret society knows as The Illuminati has taken credit for the upcoming explosion, so Hanks (playing a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Indiana Jones) follows historical clues to try to track down their secret lair.  Along the way, we face chase scenes, gun fights, priceless historical artwork, high-energy particle physics, political backbiting between Vatican officials, and a severed eyeball.  Something for the whole family!

I’ve never been a huge fan of Ron Howard’s directing; he has a tendency to be too sappy and sentimental for me.  Not this time!  This movie goes for broke with non-stop action, violence, and grim determination.

One caveat:  Don’t think about the story TOO hard, or, like cotton candy, it starts to fall apart.  But as I gulped it down by the sweet mouthful, I couldn’t help but enjoy it.

My one quibble:  I’ve been to Rome, and it is very beautiful, in a decadent, decaying, tumbling down ruins kind of way.  I was hoping for some beautiful photography to take me back.  No such luck.  The camera work virtually ignored all the beauty and fallen majesty, and focused on the action.  On the other hand, if they had lingered lovingly on every statue and tapestry, that might have slowed it down too much and I’d still be bitching.  Oh well!!

This week’s movie is J.J. Abrams’s “Star Trek,” starring a bunch of new people that you probably all know by now.

Full disclosure:  This reviewer is a total Star Trek geek, so I went in to this movie with a bit of apprehension.  So far, in my long misbegotten career of watching Star Trek television series and movies, they have all been shepherded by either original creator Gene Roddenberry, or his hand-picked successor, Rick Berman, and they all conformed to the same ethos, which I loved.  Now, we have a new guard, selected by the suits at Paramount.  Naturally, I was apprehensive.  But, I am glad to report that they very nearly got it right.

As a movie, for the casual fan or the new fan, it was very very good.  Lots of good action, good special effects, good acting, just the right amount of comic relief without going overboard (as the “first generation” movies tended to do).  Modern sensibilities, directing, writing, and so on, with no feelings of nostalgia.  So, if you are not a Star Trek geek, but love modern action movies like “Die Hard” and the like, I think I can unreservedly say that you will probably love it.

For the true geek, such as myself, there is the little nagging matter of violating “canon,” or those established “facts” that all previous incarnations stick to.  Since this movie hinges on time travel (which, I must confess, I’m really tired of in Star Trek plots), and a resetting of the time-line, you could argue that older, established facts are not “ignored,” but are truly changed within their own universe due to the time travel.  Whatever.  It bothers me a little, but not enough to take away from my enjoyment of the movie.  And, on the plus side, ST Geeks like myself will enjoy arguing about them for years!

What, the story?  Oh, all right: it’s an “origins story” about the early years, and how Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, et. al., end up on the Enterprise and begin their storied careers.  The bad guys are Romulans who have been thrust back in time from a century or so in the future, and hold a major grudge, especially against the planet Vulcan, but with enough animosity left over for the Earth and the Federation, too.  Hilarity ensues.  No, not really hilarity, but major explosions and some nice butt-kicking.

So, bottom line: go see it, whoever you are.