Multi-Million Dollar Movies!
May. 12th, 2009 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaosvizierWith two of the season's biggest draws in my head, it's time to give them their fair review and see what happened. More is yet to come, of course; Terminator Salvation, Transformers, Angels and Demons, G.I.Joe, and more all demand attention. Let's hear it for action!
But first, let's see what we have already.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The X-Men- young mutants feared and hated by a world they've sworn to protect, yada yada. The success of the X-Men film franchise is not linked to its writing, or the moral dilemmas they attempt to face and solve; rather, I think it comes from the actors chosen to play the key roles. No one is going to dispute the prowess of Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellan, but the real surprise lay in newly discovered actor Hugh Jackman and his portrayal of the savage and worldly Wolverine, a man whose bones were laced with indestructible adamantium, who had metal claws coming out of his hands, and whose body regenerated itself so completely that wounds vanished in moments and even age was slowed to a crawl. Here was a character that the audiences went crazy for, and so, in classic movie fashion, he got a spin-off.
Spin-off: That's movie/TV-talk for "We've milked this series dry; where can we go from there?" Sometimes spin-offs work: M*A*S*H the TV show led to Trapper John MD. Cheers led to Frasier. And sometimes they don't work: The Mummy led to The Scorpion King. The X-Files led to The Lone Gunmen. On a scale of crap to awesome, "Wolverine" falls into the higher end. Not the highest, but close.
The plot: Wolverine kills people, stops killing, falls in love, starts killing again, and makes all the ladies in the audience swoon. He's the best at what he does.
The pros: If you're making a Wolverine movie, then you'd better have a lot of action and fighting. On this count, they certainly do not fail. If you're playing the Wolverine character, you have to be gruff and tough and kick some impressive ass. Hugh Jackman has been doing this well for several years now, and continues to lay it on. And finally, if you're making up crazy stuff about Wolverine's origins, you might as well throw in as many cameos as you can find. It looks like the directors grabbed a Marvel Character Encyclopedia, grabbed ten random names, and made them characters. And some of these characters work. Liev Schreiber is a perfectly villainous Sabretooth, the foil to Jackman's Wolverine and yet a strange ally. (Hard to imagine that he was so doofy and young in "Scream"...) Ryan Reynolds gets pitifully minimul screentime as the talkative Wade Wilson, which is a shame. And look, Merry from LOTR is getting work again! As a bonus, the storyline is surprisingly decent (for a spinoff of a series with average scripts) up until the end, and it follows as logically as a comic book plot could.
The cons: Extreme fans of Deadpool will be made sad. Extreme fans of Gambit will probably also be made sad. Maybe even fans of general Marvel Canon will be made sad. These are given. Let's move on. Some of the special effects are a bit weak, the story at the end is not as strong as the buildup in the beginning and the middle, the "plot hook" to get Logan to go from Happy to Angry is poorly thought out, and Deadpool getting better after his head gets chopped off is just too much. Also, I never liked Gambit; he's so overrated. Really, what this boils down to is "another turn-your-brain-off-at-the-door-and-enjoy-the-action movie". By my standards, that's great. But then again, my standards are notoriously low.
The verdict: Good clean simple fun. With a high body count. That's pretty much what you should have expected.
Disclaimer: There's a scene where Wolverine is running naked through a lab and forest. The smell of estrogen within the theater was so potent, I grew B-cups. Hugh Jackman's mutant power is painfully obvious.
Disclaimer: So, if the adamantium covers the bones, and the claws are actually natural bones, then how do the cylindrical-and-pointy bone claws become razor-thin blades? Even the comic doesn't answer that. Wankers.
Star Trek
The best way to describe this movie is by calling it a rebooting of the franchise. Witness "Batman Begins" and "Casino Royale" as examples of movies attempting to breathe new life into a well-known and well-worn series. Note also that both of these movies were large successes, and began their second-generation franchise series anew with good sequels. I honestly feel that we can now add this year's "Star Trek" to the list of successful franchise reboot movies.
But wait! That's not all! J.J.Abrams has put on an extra-large set of brass balls and tried to make the new series more accessible to everyone. In the past, a lot of people probably agree that "Star Trek" movies were for "Trekkies" and other sci-fi fans. This new-and-improved model is much more active, more energetic, and more... youthful than the other films. If you've never seen a Star Trek film/episode/whatever before, you can start right here, completely ignorant, and not feel like you're losing out on anything. And that's a good thing, no matter what the old-school hard-core fans might think.
(Will the movie spawn a reborn TV series? That question is beyond me... but I'd settle for just more movies. TV Trek is a dead horse that even this film cannot resurrect.)
The plot: Time travellers, the bane of all plot points, try to change the past and create an alternate history. And, umm, they succeed? Also, Kirk has sex. At least some things never change.
The pros: Like I said above, this is Trek For Everyone. You need zero knowledge to come to this movie and appreciate it for an adventure in space, in which an unlikely group of characters come together through chance and circumstance to form a team and face a serious challenge. It's like "Heroes", without superpowers, and in space. Ok, it's nothing like Heroes. Move on. Trek For Everyone, however, has a lot of bonuses for the fans of ST:TOS (that's Star Trek: The Original Series, for those outside of Trekkie vernacular). All the key quotes are there: "Beam me up", "Hailing frequencies open", "Live long and prosper", "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a [something]", and many more. The guy in the red shirt dies. Kirk has sex with an alien. Pavel Andreivich Chekov cannot pronounce the letter V (even though his name contains three V's; irony is silly sometimes). Sulu uses a sword. All the classic bits are there, they just have a shiny new paint job. And that's okay. Finally, the actors do a great job filling their characters' well-worn shoes: most people will give props to Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto as Kirk and Spock, but I'll throw an extra shoutout to Karl "Eomer" Urban as Dr. McCoy, the gruff space-fearing doctor who, with Kirk and Spock, rounds out the most impressive trio ever put on screen.
The mids: The most important point that all the complaining old school fans have to remember is this: THIS IS AN ALTERNATE HISTORY, IN WHICH THINGS ARE DIFFERENT. That is, literally, the plot of the story. Nero is from the future in another timeline, where Captain Kirk and Spock and co. are the people we all know and love. Now Nero is travelling backwards in time, to change history in his favor. The result is this: the same people, changed, in a new and yet slightly altered situations. Hence, the "reimagining" of Star Trek History, while still acknowledging what we remember as the "original" history. Move along!
The cons: I hate time travel, just out ofprincipal DURRR! principle. If that's what they feel is necessary to start the franchise anew, so be it. But still... cheeky. The scientific hoobajoob "red matter" is a pretty flimsy plot device, which is perhaps the one unfortunate continuity with good old fashioned Star Trek. Instant black hole! Just add... space blood? Or something? Quoi? Uhura's romantic attachment to Spock is thrown in to perhaps make things more... sexy for viewers, but really: she's a student and he's her professor, and then she's an ensign and he's a commander, and she starts super-smooching him in the elevator, and WHOA DOGGIE UNPROFESSIONAL! Finally, Simon Pegg as Scotty is excellent, and the only negative is that I would have loved to have him on screen even more.
The verdict: If you like the classic "people unite, meld into a team, and defeat world-threatening challenge" storyline, then this movie is for you, regardless of how much Trek you know.
Disclaimer: OH GOD I AM SUCH A NERD WUSS I TEARED UP AT THE END WHEN SPOCK SAID "SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER". DESPITE THE FACT THAT MY PENIS FELL OFF I STILL HAD A HUGE NERD BONER SO I GUESS IT WAS OK.
Disclaimer: Going out to a Scottish pub for dinner afterwards where the waiter spoke JUST LIKE SCOTTY did nothing for my case of the giggles. I should have thought that through in advance.
Disclaimer: Vulcan bullies are funny. There's really no getting around that. Also, ANGRY SPOCK IS ANGRY.
Disclaimer: Wynona Ryder? NNNNOOOOOOOO! We hardly knew you!
Edit: Man, I fail at dork. I can't believe that, when Vulcan was being trashed, I didn't say "I sense a great disturbance in the Force, like millions of pointy-eared computers calmly and rationally facing their deaths, and then suddenly silenced." I did, however, think that someone on the bridge should have called Spock "the pointy-eared boss" when he took the chair.
But first, let's see what we have already.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The X-Men- young mutants feared and hated by a world they've sworn to protect, yada yada. The success of the X-Men film franchise is not linked to its writing, or the moral dilemmas they attempt to face and solve; rather, I think it comes from the actors chosen to play the key roles. No one is going to dispute the prowess of Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellan, but the real surprise lay in newly discovered actor Hugh Jackman and his portrayal of the savage and worldly Wolverine, a man whose bones were laced with indestructible adamantium, who had metal claws coming out of his hands, and whose body regenerated itself so completely that wounds vanished in moments and even age was slowed to a crawl. Here was a character that the audiences went crazy for, and so, in classic movie fashion, he got a spin-off.
Spin-off: That's movie/TV-talk for "We've milked this series dry; where can we go from there?" Sometimes spin-offs work: M*A*S*H the TV show led to Trapper John MD. Cheers led to Frasier. And sometimes they don't work: The Mummy led to The Scorpion King. The X-Files led to The Lone Gunmen. On a scale of crap to awesome, "Wolverine" falls into the higher end. Not the highest, but close.
The plot: Wolverine kills people, stops killing, falls in love, starts killing again, and makes all the ladies in the audience swoon. He's the best at what he does.
The pros: If you're making a Wolverine movie, then you'd better have a lot of action and fighting. On this count, they certainly do not fail. If you're playing the Wolverine character, you have to be gruff and tough and kick some impressive ass. Hugh Jackman has been doing this well for several years now, and continues to lay it on. And finally, if you're making up crazy stuff about Wolverine's origins, you might as well throw in as many cameos as you can find. It looks like the directors grabbed a Marvel Character Encyclopedia, grabbed ten random names, and made them characters. And some of these characters work. Liev Schreiber is a perfectly villainous Sabretooth, the foil to Jackman's Wolverine and yet a strange ally. (Hard to imagine that he was so doofy and young in "Scream"...) Ryan Reynolds gets pitifully minimul screentime as the talkative Wade Wilson, which is a shame. And look, Merry from LOTR is getting work again! As a bonus, the storyline is surprisingly decent (for a spinoff of a series with average scripts) up until the end, and it follows as logically as a comic book plot could.
The cons: Extreme fans of Deadpool will be made sad. Extreme fans of Gambit will probably also be made sad. Maybe even fans of general Marvel Canon will be made sad. These are given. Let's move on. Some of the special effects are a bit weak, the story at the end is not as strong as the buildup in the beginning and the middle, the "plot hook" to get Logan to go from Happy to Angry is poorly thought out, and Deadpool getting better after his head gets chopped off is just too much. Also, I never liked Gambit; he's so overrated. Really, what this boils down to is "another turn-your-brain-off-at-the-door-and-enjoy-the-action movie". By my standards, that's great. But then again, my standards are notoriously low.
The verdict: Good clean simple fun. With a high body count. That's pretty much what you should have expected.
Disclaimer: There's a scene where Wolverine is running naked through a lab and forest. The smell of estrogen within the theater was so potent, I grew B-cups. Hugh Jackman's mutant power is painfully obvious.
Disclaimer: So, if the adamantium covers the bones, and the claws are actually natural bones, then how do the cylindrical-and-pointy bone claws become razor-thin blades? Even the comic doesn't answer that. Wankers.
Star Trek
The best way to describe this movie is by calling it a rebooting of the franchise. Witness "Batman Begins" and "Casino Royale" as examples of movies attempting to breathe new life into a well-known and well-worn series. Note also that both of these movies were large successes, and began their second-generation franchise series anew with good sequels. I honestly feel that we can now add this year's "Star Trek" to the list of successful franchise reboot movies.
But wait! That's not all! J.J.Abrams has put on an extra-large set of brass balls and tried to make the new series more accessible to everyone. In the past, a lot of people probably agree that "Star Trek" movies were for "Trekkies" and other sci-fi fans. This new-and-improved model is much more active, more energetic, and more... youthful than the other films. If you've never seen a Star Trek film/episode/whatever before, you can start right here, completely ignorant, and not feel like you're losing out on anything. And that's a good thing, no matter what the old-school hard-core fans might think.
(Will the movie spawn a reborn TV series? That question is beyond me... but I'd settle for just more movies. TV Trek is a dead horse that even this film cannot resurrect.)
The plot: Time travellers, the bane of all plot points, try to change the past and create an alternate history. And, umm, they succeed? Also, Kirk has sex. At least some things never change.
The pros: Like I said above, this is Trek For Everyone. You need zero knowledge to come to this movie and appreciate it for an adventure in space, in which an unlikely group of characters come together through chance and circumstance to form a team and face a serious challenge. It's like "Heroes", without superpowers, and in space. Ok, it's nothing like Heroes. Move on. Trek For Everyone, however, has a lot of bonuses for the fans of ST:TOS (that's Star Trek: The Original Series, for those outside of Trekkie vernacular). All the key quotes are there: "Beam me up", "Hailing frequencies open", "Live long and prosper", "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a [something]", and many more. The guy in the red shirt dies. Kirk has sex with an alien. Pavel Andreivich Chekov cannot pronounce the letter V (even though his name contains three V's; irony is silly sometimes). Sulu uses a sword. All the classic bits are there, they just have a shiny new paint job. And that's okay. Finally, the actors do a great job filling their characters' well-worn shoes: most people will give props to Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto as Kirk and Spock, but I'll throw an extra shoutout to Karl "Eomer" Urban as Dr. McCoy, the gruff space-fearing doctor who, with Kirk and Spock, rounds out the most impressive trio ever put on screen.
The mids: The most important point that all the complaining old school fans have to remember is this: THIS IS AN ALTERNATE HISTORY, IN WHICH THINGS ARE DIFFERENT. That is, literally, the plot of the story. Nero is from the future in another timeline, where Captain Kirk and Spock and co. are the people we all know and love. Now Nero is travelling backwards in time, to change history in his favor. The result is this: the same people, changed, in a new and yet slightly altered situations. Hence, the "reimagining" of Star Trek History, while still acknowledging what we remember as the "original" history. Move along!
The cons: I hate time travel, just out of
The verdict: If you like the classic "people unite, meld into a team, and defeat world-threatening challenge" storyline, then this movie is for you, regardless of how much Trek you know.
Disclaimer: OH GOD I AM SUCH A NERD WUSS I TEARED UP AT THE END WHEN SPOCK SAID "SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER". DESPITE THE FACT THAT MY PENIS FELL OFF I STILL HAD A HUGE NERD BONER SO I GUESS IT WAS OK.
Disclaimer: Going out to a Scottish pub for dinner afterwards where the waiter spoke JUST LIKE SCOTTY did nothing for my case of the giggles. I should have thought that through in advance.
Disclaimer: Vulcan bullies are funny. There's really no getting around that. Also, ANGRY SPOCK IS ANGRY.
Disclaimer: Wynona Ryder? NNNNOOOOOOOO! We hardly knew you!
Edit: Man, I fail at dork. I can't believe that, when Vulcan was being trashed, I didn't say "I sense a great disturbance in the Force, like millions of pointy-eared computers calmly and rationally facing their deaths, and then suddenly silenced." I did, however, think that someone on the bridge should have called Spock "the pointy-eared boss" when he took the chair.
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Date: 2009-05-12 04:16 pm (UTC)