Star Trek

Rating: ****

Star Trek is dead, long live Star Trek. I think that’s the tone aimed for and achieved by J.J. Abrams in making this re-imaged/prequel/re-launch of the 43-year-old franchise. Warnings said that die hard Trekkers should stay away, but why? I would never refer to myself as die hard, I neither own a Starfleet uniform nor am I able to recite episodes chapter and verse. I will say that I’m a fan, and as a fan I just wanted a good Star Trek movie. Whether it’s cannon or not, a prequel or a sequel, all I wanted to see were 2 hours of vision and cinematic ambition that didn’t wear the series baggage like the weight of Jacob Marley’s chains.

Well, mission accomplished J.J. This Star Trek is probably the first film with a truly cinematic scope since Star Trek the Motion Picture. No one will accuse Abrams effort for being either cheap or feeling like a bloated 2-hour episode. As a bonus though, this film is extremely accessible, cutting down on the technobabble and focusing on the characters and their relationships, and when all else fails, some really sweet looking effects. And although it pays lip service to cannon by explaining how the two versions of the Trek Universe can sit side-by-side, frankly, I could have lived without. Nothing grinds proceedings to a halt more than explaining time paradoxes.

Fortunately, that’s only about three minutes out of the two hour plus running time. The focus is on two guys named Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto), two very different young men, both with something to prove, and destined to become best friends and comrades in arms. Kirk arrives at Starfleet Academy with a chip on his shoulder, his father having died a hero saving 800 lives on the U.S.S. Kelvin. Spock comes to Earth after growing up on Vulcan, struggling with his emotions and his half-human ancestry. He also has something to prove: a destiny to call his own.

But all bets are off when Nero arrives (Eric Bana). A Romulan from more than a century in the future that witnessed the destruction of his world and blames the one man that could have prevented it: Spock. Or rather, make that the older Spock (played again by Leonard Nimoy in his first film role since 1991’s Star Trek VI). Bana disappears into Nero thanks to a sparse though effective make-up job, which thankfully doesn’t include the ugly Romulan cranial ridges from Star Trek Nemesis. But Nero is probably, the most sympathetic villain in Trek history, his motivation a combination of vengeance and penance. He doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but it doesn’t matter because the film’s not about him.

Yes, the focus is on the new model original crew, all of whom are excellent even in spite of Anton Yelchin’s nearly over-the-top Russian accent. I especially owe an apology to Karl Urban because I never thought in a million years that the guy that played rough rider Eomer in Lord of the Rings, would be good as the crotchety, country doctor “Bones” McCoy. Of all the cast, it’s Urban that strikes the best balance between homage to his character’s predecessor and coming out with a new twist on the personality. Pine though doesn’t try to mimic Shatner, thankfully, but he finds the right balance of leadership and machismo to create the spirit of Kirk regardless. Quinto’s Spock was a little more emotional then we’re used to but I think it was fascinating to see a Vulcan character treated with nuance for a change rather than just portraying them as emotionless automatons.

But a Spock that’s a little more terse isn’t the only noticeable shift in this Trek. The smart thing Abrams and his writers, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, did was find a way to combine the old and the new. What’s new is that there’s some kind of acknowledgement of Earth culture. In Trek’s past everything’s always Romulan ale and Klingon opera, but in this movie young Kirk goes for a joyride in his stepfather’s classic car while blaring the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” from the Nokia PDA on the dash. For fans there are the usual in-jokes and asides, like Scotty’s (Simon Pegg) jab that he tested one of his transporter experiments on “Admiral Archer’s prize beagle.”

But while tips of the hat to the fans are fun for those in the know, the bottom line is that the number of people filling those seats in the theatre was dwindling. If Abrams’ Trek feels drastic, it does because it is drastic and boy did the franchise need it. The series needs new blood and new fans, and if there’s one thing that this film does well, it’s peel away all the rules and all the baggage so that Star Trek can be something everybody can enjoy again. Like Casino Royale and Batman Begins, a new groundwork’s been laid that works both on the level of dramatic satisfaction and popcorn movie theatrics. Live long and prosper, new franchise, and may the Force be with you.

Wait, that’s not right. Never mind.

Cloverfield

Rating: ****

Brian the Dog’s assisted commentary for the hearing impaired for The Blair Witch Project was pretty accurate. But mainly what people remember more about that whole episode was the hype and not the nothing that all that sound and fury brought about. Which is what makes Cloverfield the perfect counterpoint to Blair Witch, both movies push the cinéma vérité style to the outer reaches of fiction based cinema. I know that this film has divided the public, and I think I get the reasons why, but there’s one thing I can’t deny and that is I loved just about every second of it.

What begins with a going away party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David) turns into the night from hell as a giant monster begins stomping and trashing Manhattan Island under its gigantic feet. Also dangerous is that fact that the monster can “give birth” to smaller creatures that can infect people with their bites. The survivors attempt to escape the island across the Brooklyn Bridge only to see it destroyed. Rob, along with a few friends, tries to make it to the home of Rob’s friend Beth (Odette Yustman), who we learn from outtakes on the tape from another day, had a bit of tryst with Rob just a few days prior. Through the camera’s lens we see snippets of the army’s counterattack against the monster and some of the destruction that it’s wrought.

Now some people hate the shaky cam, and there are times I must agree as I think its frequent use is unnecessary and has become a lazy way to demonstrate hustle and pandemonium. In this circumstance though, it’s a given and you either learn to go with it or you’re going to have a real uncomfortable 90 minute sit. The second most frequently heard critique: “It’s just Godzilla meets The Blair Witch. And I answer: “Yeah, what’s your point?” Frankly, I don’t know what else you can do with the monster destroys city archetype; the American remake of Godzilla tried to make it about the people and we all know well how that worked out. What the genre needed was a gimmick and this was a heck of a gimmick.

The other thing I know people had a hard time reconciling was the invocation of 9/11 imagery. Again, I understand how this can make people feel uncomfortable, and I appreciate that, but there is precedent for this and I don’t just mean the first 20 minutes of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. Godzilla came out in Japan in 1952, just seven years after the atomic fury was unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. True, the monster was a man in a rubber suit stomping on cardboard buildings, but there was a genuine, primal fear driving this realization of panic by the only people in history who have had a nuclear weapon used against them. So here I think the use of plumes of smoke and falling, flaming paper is apropos to the cause: evoking our shared imagery of being caught in disaster.

What do I like about Cloverfield? First off, I love monster movies, and we don’t get enough of them now in days. I love the gimmickry of this monster movie in particular: the shock value, the traps, the telegraphed scares – it’s all good. I love the way it lures you into a false sense of security right off, how the party scene at the beginning lasts just long enough to make you think that maybe this isn’t a monster movie after all and then it starts to hit you with the action, which then speeds along until the very end. The giddy destruction of New York landmarks is a throwback to more innocent times, but one that’s not taken for granted by filmmaker Matt Reeves and screenwriter Drew Goddard.

What’s not to love? Well, I grant you the conceit that the premise of the film is based upon sometimes stretches the imagination. The natural ending for the movie seems bypassed for the sole reason to keep the story moving until a prearranged running time. And there were occasions when I’d see “camera operator” put down the camera only to pick it back up again and I would think, “You know, if that were me, I’d probably just leave it and run the hell for my life.” Of course though, it probably wouldn’t make for an interesting film if 20 minutes in the camera was left on the ground watching everybody walk away.

Generally though, people who complain about the logic behind a movie that features a giant amoeba playing six-pin with the head of the Statue of Liberty obviously takes life way to serious, and their cinema for that matter. It kind of disappoints me that Cloverfield has disappeared from the radar so quickly, the nature of modern hype I suppose that first weekends set records only to create empty theatres the second week. I hope that Cloverfield sticks around for awhile, I hope that there’s a Cloverfield 2 and I hope that this inspires others to bring back the creature feature, big time!