Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Star Trek (2009)

I’ll start by stating, that if you have not already gone to “Star Trek”, then stop what you are doing right now and GO!

I am not a “Trekker” by any means – I can’t rattle off trivia about the show in my sleep. But I have watched more than my fair share of the original series, “Next Generation”, “Deep Space Nine”, “Voyager” and (my favorite) “Enterprise”. And I am a fan of the overall series and what Gene Roddenberry created.

That being said, I’m a huge J.J. Abrams from back in the days of “Felicity”. And the man is a frakkin’ genius. He didn’t create a prequel to the Star Trek series – he rewrote science fiction history with his re-boot of this classic series.

The movie explains how the two lead characters (Kirk and Spock) developed into the men that they are “today”. And it brought a whole new level of appreciation to the characters that Shatner and Nimoy played in the original series.

J.J. Abrams honored all the franchises by sprinkling the film with in-the-know references. The great scene at the beginning with the canyon running through Iowa was a direct reference to an episode of “Enterprise” that rivals our 9/11. Abrams and his crew (many of the folks also work with him on “Lost”) wrote a great story that was also deeply entertaining.

And the support cast was superb. I loved the performances from Simon Pegg (Scotty), Karl Urban (Bones), John Cho (Sulu) and Anton Yelchin (Checkov). I’m not going to give a more thorough review, because in this instance, seeing is really believing – and until you go you just won’t believe how great it really is.

However, I do have to end the review giving props to my brother who worked a camera crane on this pic and shot a number of scenes including the car chase scene, the winter planet scene and the entire parachute/fight scene on the drill (just see the movie and it will make more sense).

Below are trailers from the pic. Enjoy!

End.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Before I begin my review, I should preface that I do not read the X-Men series comic books and don’t know the mythology of the story.

With that being said, it is my second favorite movie time of the year (after the Academy Awards) – summer blockbuster season. As the first official movie of the season, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” kicks the season off to a decent start.

The opening credits were wonderfully shot, setting up the story of two brothers that don’t always see eye to eye, but have each others’ backs. This definitely is a key plot point to what happens throughout the rest of the film.

The first half of the movie was great. It moved along at a good clip and was full of action. I didn’t even mind the fact that some of the effects didn’t look great (Wolverine’s “claws” lacked something) and the pointless inclusion of the storyline regarding Chris Bradley/Bolt (Dominic Monaghan).

I loved the scene with Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and John Wraith (Will i Am) road into New Orleans to find Remy LeBeau/Gambit (Taylor Kitsch). And that is where my interest started to wane. Once Wolverine arrives on the island, I started to lose interest. The storyline of Weapon XI didn’t interest me (and he really creeped me out).

Overall, I was entertained for the first 80 minutes and slightly let down towards the end. It was definitely worth seeing however if you enjoy the summer blockbuster season as much as I do.

Next up – “Star Trek”. Can’t wait.

End.