THE MOVIE WAFFLER

Stardate 2013 - The Undiscovered Country (1991)

2013-05-21T20:18:00.000+01:00

Kirk and McCoy are imprisoned for the murder of the Klingon High Chancellor.

Directed by: Nicholas Meyer
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Christopher Plummer, Kim Cattrall, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Mark Lenard, David Warner, Christian Slater

When Praxis, the Klingon moon and site of their energy production facility, explodes, the Klingons decide they must come to a peaceful agreement with the United Federation of Planets in order to survive. Much to his chagrin, Kirk (Shatner) is ordered to take the Enterprise to meet with Gorkon (Warner), the Klingon High Chancellor, and escort him to Earth to begin negotiating peace. After sharing a meal with the Klingons, someone on the Enterprise fires torpedoes at Gorkon's battlecruiser, disabling the anti-gravity mechanism. Two assassins in Starfleet suits, equipped with gravity boots, beam aboard and kill Gorkon. When Kirk and McCoy (Kelley) beam aboard to explain they weren't responsible, the Klingons refuse to listen, placing the pair on trial for Gorkon's murder.
The original series of 'Star Trek' was known for tackling the contemporary issues of the day through a science fiction filter. While 'The Voyage Home' had addressed environmental issues, it did so in a blatant manner rather than an allegorical one. For the sixth film, Leonard Nimoy suggested a plot-line which would mirror the ending of the cold war, as the Berlin wall had just come down in 1989. The relationship between the Federation and the Klingons had always been a thinly veiled allegory of that of the U.S and U.S.S.R so it made sense to now bring the onscreen cold war to an end.

With the preceding three movies directed by Nimoy and Shatner, the director of the series' best installment, 'Wrath of Khan', Nicholas Meyer, was brought back. As a result, this movie has a level of class that had been absent from Nimoy and Shatner's work. Despite working with the same level of budget, Meyer's film looks like a much larger scale movie, utilizing the relatively modest sets (many of which were borrowed from 'The Next Generation') to great effect. It's a shame Meyer never went on to bigger things as few of today's Hollywood directors have either his talent or integrity. Should you ever get the chance to listen to one of his DVD commentaries, I thoroughly recommend it, as he provides some great insights into the story-telling process.
This was the final film to feature the original crew in its entirety and, although he would return in a reduced role in the next installment, Shatner really milks his screen time here, putting in a tour de force like only he can. Kirk had fought himself in the original series and does so again here, thanks to the shape-shifting alien played by Iman. The dialogue here references the actor's notorious ego as Kirk exclaims "I can't believe I kissed you", only for his adversary to reply "Must have been your life's ambition!". The legendary Plummer is fantastic as the Klingon, Chang, replete with an eyepatch nailed into his skull. Cattrall, relatively unknown at this point, is perfectly cast as a deceitful Vulcan.
Youthful composer, Cliff Eidelman, took over soundtrack duties, providing one of the series' best. The opening credits theme is a rousing riff on Gustav Holst's 'The Planets', at Meyer's suggestion. There's little reference to previous Trek themes as Meyer wanted the score to feel like a "fresh start".

This is the sort of Hollywood movie that's all too rare now, fun without being dumb, involving without being convoluted. It's a shame the cast found themselves at an age too advanced to be taken seriously any longer as, under Meyer's guidance, this film feels like a new beginning, with Trek just hitting its stride as a big-screen franchise. Although 'Generations' ends the story-line of Kirk, it's 'The Undiscovered Country' which really acts as a farewell to the original crew. A fitting farewell.

8/10

Eric Hillis

New Release Review - The Hangover Part III

2013-05-21T15:13:00.003+01:00

The latest installment in the blockbusting comedy series.

Directed by: Todd Phillips
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Heather Graham, John Goodman, Jeffrey Tambor, Melissa McCarthy

Off his medication, Alan (Galifianakis) is becoming increasingly deranged in his behavior. His latest madcap idea, buying a pet giraffe, causes a freeway pile-up, the news of which leads to his father's death from a heart attack. Alan's friends, Phil (Cooper), Stu (Helms) and Doug (Bartha) hold an intervention, convincing him to book into a psychiatric institution. The four hit the road to deliver Alan to the home but are run off the road by a bunch of gangsters, lead by Marshall (Goodman), who take Doug hostage.

Cinema-goers have recently witnessed a disturbing new breed of fascistic comedy emanating from the Hollywood studios. The days of self-deprecation seem to be over, replaced by a strand of humor which pokes cheap, and dangerous, fun at anyone who doesn't happen to be a white, straight, Anglo-Saxon male with a perfect physique. 'The Hangover Part III', the latest of such "entertainments", doesn't actually feature the titular condition. What it does contain is a copious amount of racism, homophobia, and a disturbing, and puzzling, amount of animal cruelty. Cooper, the film's sociopathic WASP superman, is never the butt of what passes for jokes here. Such cheap jibes are reserved for those who happen to be overweight, Jewish, or simply non-white.

The film's central quartet are an unlikable group of fiends, yet the film tries, and fails, to convince us otherwise. "He killed a giraffe, who gives a fuck?", is one of Cooper's first lines. What a charmer. There is, of course, much comic gold to be mined from such sociopathic characters. Just look at TV shows like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' or 'The Larry Sanders Show'. (Please, watch those shows before you go near garbage like this). Unfortunately, the writers seem to have an inexplicable affection for these characters, asking us to laugh with them, rather than at them. I counted no more than two half-chortles, enough to elevate it above '21 & Over' and 'Movie 43', but only just.
If you were the kid who cheered on the jocks as they toweled the nerds in gym class, this is your movie.

1/10

Eric Hillis

New Release Review - Populaire

2013-05-21T00:00:00.000+01:00

A klutzy secretary enters the world of competitive speed-typing in fifties France.

Directed by: Régis Roinsard
Starring: Romain Duris, Déborah François, Bérénice Bejo

Rose (Francois) is an awkward but pretty girl living with her widowed father in a small Northern French town in 1958. When she applies for a position as secretary to handsome local insurance man Louis (Duris), her impressive typing speed gets her the job. Once in the position, Louis discovers Rose is a disaster, thanks to her clumsiness. Her one skill, that of typing at an incredibly rapid pace, intrigues Louis however, who insists she enter a local speed-typing competition. When she succeeds at this, Louis devises a rigorous training schedule for Rose, with the aim of entering the national championships.

The idea of taking an obscure sporting or competitive event as the backdrop for a comedy has been milked to death in recent comedies. We've seen figure-skating in 'Blades of Glory', ping-pong in 'Balls of Fury', and dodgeball in, well, 'Dodgeball'. None of those movies worked for one very simple reason; they revolved around one joke and died stretching it out to feature length. With this knowledge, I expected little from Roinsard's debut feature. Thankfully, he's used the concept of speed-typing as no more than a "MacGuffin". It's simply the backdrop to what is, essentially, a homage to the technicolor world of fifties Hollywood.

France never had this sort of cinema back then and there's a sense that Roinsard is trying to rectify this. The film is awash with references to that golden age of entertainment, from the primary colors of MGM musicals to a Saul Bass influenced credit sequence. There's even a 'Vertigo' homage which, unlike last year's 'The Artist', pays respect in the correct manner. Duris and Francois are playing the sort of roles Rock Hudson and Doris Day would have taken over half a century ago. Due to its fifties setting, accusations of male chauvinism may be leveled but, thankfully, Roinsard makes no concessions to modern sensibilities, (unlike Spielberg's 'Lincoln'). His film bears no resemblance to reality, instead it's set in the world of the cinema. In real-life, Normandy is a drab, grey region, lacking the brightness and color on display here. This is what movies of this nature do, they transport you from the humdrum of reality into a world where something as simple as a room of frantically typing secretaries can explode with the energy of a Busby Berkeley dance number. In French, the word "entertainment" literally translates as "diversion" and, as diversions go, 'Populaire' is one this year's best.
C'est le divertissement!

8/10

Eric Hillis

New Release Review - The Lords of Salem

2013-05-20T19:30:00.002+01:00

A radio host receives a mysterious record which seems to cast a spell on her.

Directed by: Rob Zombie
Starring: Sheri Moon Zombie, Bruce Davison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Judy Geeson, Meg Foster, Patricia Quinn, Ken Foree, Dee Wallace, Maria Conchita Alonsa, Andrew Prine, Michael Berryman, Sid Haig

Radio host Heidi (Zombie) spots a figure in a darkened doorway at the end of her apartment corridor but is confused when her landlady (Geeson) insists that nobody occupies the room. At her workplace, a rock radio station in Salem, Massachusetts, she receives a record in the mail from a band called 'The Lords of Salem'. Heidi takes the record home and, when she plays it, has visions of a group of witches murdering a newborn baby. The next night, she plays it over the radio, causing several women in the town to go into a trance. It would seem the record has woken an evil which has rested in Salem for centuries.

Rob Zombie is one of American cinema's most reviled directors, thanks mainly to his unwatchably bad 'Halloween' remake and sequel. Previously, he demonstrated no evidence that he knew the slightest thing about film-making, giving us a string of repugnant movies, ugly in both tone and aesthetic. I'm delighted to say he seems to have taken the criticism on board, as 'The Lords of Salem' contains few of the elements which made his previous directorial work so unbearable. Gone is the shakey-cam and poor composition, the constant immature swearing, and the juvenile gore. I can't believe I'm saying this but Zombie has made a stunning looking film, he and cinematographer Brandon Trost composing their shots in a manner so immaculate as to make Kubrick look like Paul Greengrass.

He also seems to have learnt a thing or two about creating mood, with the movie's first half genuinely atmospheric, thanks to an efficient use of long takes and extended silence. Sadly, for all his progress as a director, his writing is still awful. Halfway into the film you realize it's all going nowhere, as Zombie seems to be making things up as he goes along, ending in a twenty minute sequence that resembles a Monty Python parody of a Jodorowsky film. He also still insists on casting his wife, here in the lead role. She's not the worst actress I've ever seen but she simply doesn't have the charisma to carry a film by herself.
'The Lords of Salem' certainly isn't one I'd recommend but it is nice to see a film-maker learn from past mistakes.

4/10

Eric Hillis

New Release Review - A Hijacking

2013-05-20T17:52:00.003+01:00

A Danish ship is hijacked by Somali pirates.

Directed by: Tobias Lindholm
Starring: Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling, Dar Salim, Gary Skjoldmose Porter

Danish cargo ship, MV Rozen, is sailing through the Indian Ocean when a gang of Somali pirates seize the vessel. News quickly reaches the company offices in Copenhagen where the decision is made to bring in an outside adviser, Connor Julian (Porter), an Englishman with experience in dealing with pirates. Julian suggests the best course is to hire a professional negotiator but company C.E.O Peter Ludvigsen (Malling) ignores his advice and insists on handling matters himself. When an initial cash offer fails to satisfy the demands of the hijackers, the situation escalates.

Lindholm was responsible for writing duties on last year's excellent 'The Hunt', and here takes his sophomore directorial bow, proving himself something of a master of tense, yet realistic, drama. For a long time, Danish cinema was associated with the extravagances of film-makers like Lars Von Trier and Nicholas Winding Refn, but a new wave of gritty realism is sweeping the country's cinematic landscape. 'A Hijacking' is the first of two movies we'll see in 2013 dealing with this topic, as Paul Greengrass' Tom Hanks vehicle, 'Captain Phillips', is due later this summer. I'm not going out on much of a limb by theorizing Lindholm's film will be the more subtle of the two, as it's an underplayed, yet all the more tense for it, realistic piece of high drama.

It would have been all too easy to make the Peter character the villain and portray him as someone who cares more about the company coffers than the lives of his workers. Lindhom resists this, making Peter a reluctant hero. Malling is fantastic in the role, an actor with the ice cold exterior of a future Bond villain, and one I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of, outside of his homeland. As the situation escalates from weeks to months, his calm exterior slowly and subtly breaks down; there are no Hollywood histrionics on display here. The entire ensemble are thoroughly convincing as real characters, dealing with a horrific scenario in their own unique ways.
'A Hijacking' is another quality piece of drama from a country punching above its weight.

7/10

Eric Hillis

Summer 2013 Animation Preview

2013-05-20T12:55:00.000+01:00

In a summer exploding with sequels, reboots and potential franchise starters, one couldn’t be blamed for forgetting the animated films being released in the coming months. 'Man of Steel', 'The Lone Ranger', and 'Pacific Rim' are just a few of the many summer hopefuls that are appearing on many want-to-see lists. Even so, one shouldn’t overlook the animation field, which is constantly expanding, and this summer is no exception. Here are the 5 biggest animated films of this summer.

Epic

Directed by Chris Wedge—20th Century Fox/Blue Sky Studios

Blue Sky Studios, best known for 'Ice Age' and its many sequels, as well as films like 'Horton Hears A Who!' and 'Rio, seem to be stepping a little out of their comfort zone with their latest film, 'Epic'. This film is about a seventeen year old girl who's curiously shrunk to a miniscule size and discovers a strange group of warriors called the Leafmen. She is forced to assist the Leafmen in a war against the evil Boggans, while simultaneously trying to get back to normal size.
Though Blue Sky’s films have been strictly comedies, 'Epic' seems to be adding some fantasy and drama elements to the mix. In fact, 'Epic' in general appears to be a more serious film than anything Blue Sky Studio has released previously. Whether this change in tone is a good thing has yet to be seen, though with a release date as soon as this Friday, the wait to find out won’t be long.

Monsters University

Directed by Dan Scanlon—Pixar Studios

I guess I should mention that I am really psyched for 'Monsters University'. Coming from (arguably) the best animation studio working today, 'Monsters University' is a prequel to one of Pixar’s classics; 'Monsters, Inc'. Instead of the great pals they were in the original, Mike and Sulley are meeting for the first time in college and they are anything but friends. In fact, their intense rivalry ends up landing them in big trouble, and they’ll have to learn to cope with each other in order to fix things.
Considering the weak critical reception that 'Cars 2' received and the disappointing (but still positive) reviews for last year’s 'Brave', 'Monsters University' has a lot to prove. Can it convince the naysayers that Pixar is still the number one animation studio in the world? I certainly hope so. Not since 'Toy Story 3' have Pixar’s films been regarded with much by the way of universal acclaim. If nothing else, 'Monsters University' should serve as a perfectly likable and entertaining film that should suffice until Pixar’s 'The Good Dinosaur' hits theaters in 2014.

Despicable Me 2

Directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud—Illumination Entertainment

2010’s 'Despicable Me' was a funny, charming, and very original film that managed to take many by surprise. Though it was forgotten at many award ceremonies among other animated films that year (namely 'Toy Story 3' and 'How to Train Your Dragon'), it clearly grabbed audience attentions, and 'Despicable Me 2' is likely to be just as successful as the original, and possibly even more so. Or will it?
'Despicable Me 2' has had a few stumbling blocks along the way, specifically the recent announcement that Al Pacino, who had signed on to play the film’s villain, left the production due to “creative differences.” Though Illumination Entertainment hired a replacement very quickly (Benjamin Bratt will now be portraying the villain), there’s less than two months until the film opens, leaving 'Despicable Me 2' in a bit of chaos. It’s likely that the release date will get pushed back a bit, and considering that most of the film is probably animated already, Bratt will be forced to confine the character into the one that has already been animated. Hopefully, 'Despicable Me 2' can recover.

Turbo

Directed by David Soren—DreamWorks Animation

'Turbo' details the story of a snail named Theo who wants to be a racer. Wait, it gets better. Theo gets trapped in the grill of a car where his DNA is fused with nitrous oxide, giving him super speed. What is DreamWorks thinking?! Frankly, I’m not trying to show a lot of bias against any of these animated films, but this is just absurd. DreamWorks is essentially crafting a super hero film, except the super hero is a snail. I just don’t understand what compelled anybody to make a film like this.
Still, 'Turbo' will probably make a decent run at box office. The DreamWorks name usually attracts a sizable audience, and there’s an impressive cast as well. I just don’t see how this film could possibly seem entertaining to anyone over the age of 10. Still, in all fairness, I’m basically judging the film off of a few teasers and one full length trailer. For all I know, this could be a really great movie! For now, I suppose I can give 'Turbo' the benefit of a doubt, though this won’t be a film I’ll be rushing to see in theaters.

Planes

Directed by Klay Hall—DisneyToon Studios

A spin-off from the financially successful 'Cars' sequel, 'Planes' takes place in the same world, but in the air. I have to say, even I was initially uninterested in this one (especially considering it was initially going direct-to-DVD), but then a new trailer came out, and then I saw the cast, and I have to say, I’m kind of interested now.
The visuals look pretty nice, and with John Lasseter on board, this may not be so bad. If nothing else, 'Planes' will probably take in a decent sum of money from box office receipts, as long as it keeps advertising its relation with the 'Cars' franchise. Will it do well with critics? Probably not. But honestly, what looked like a mere product at first, seems a bit appealing now. It might be worth a rent down the road, though in all honesty, it’s hard to see any adults coming to see this film without a kid or two.

And those are the big animated films of the year. Is there an animated film that you’re looking forward to this summer? Sound off in the comments!

Joshua LF Mitchell

New Release Review - The Great Gatsby

2013-05-19T13:44:00.001+01:00

One of America's literary treasures gets Luhrmannized.

Directed by: Baz Luhrmann
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Tobey Maguire, Amitabh Bachchan, Jason Clarke, Elizabeth Debicki, Isla Fisher

In 1922, Wall Street bondsman Nick Carraway (Maguire) rents a small house on Long Island, across a bay from his cousin, Daisy Buchanan (Mulligan), and next door to the palatial home of an extravagant millionaire, Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio). Carraway learns that Gatsby and Daisy have a romantic history, and after making the former's acquaintance, decides to help reunite the two. Standing in the way is Daisy's husband, Tom (Edgerton), a man of "old money" stock who disapproves of Gatsby's self-made ways.
The Great Gatsby. In 3D. Just think about that for a second or two. The fact it doesn't sound ridiculous tells you where Hollywood finds itself in 2013. We now accept movie concepts that sound like one of Tim Robbins' crass ideas from 1992's 'The Player'. Two decades later, Altman's film has become prophetic, as Hollywood descends shamelessly into self parody. I guess we should be thankful Luhrmann has shown restraint, having resisted the urge to turn Fitzgerald's most famous character into a vampire hunter. Otherwise, this is very much a Luhrman speakeasy, one which will have you calling for cinematic prohibition.
The Australian director should be buried in a time capsule, marked "Hollywood, early 21st Century". Over his short career he's committed several cultural atrocities, with a film-making style that delivers crassness in spades. It makes sense he should make a movie about the American dream, as he's proof of the concept's existence. If Luhrmann can make it, surely anyone can? His films are to history and literature what that great cultural shame of the twenties, the minstrel show, was to Jazz; designed to pander to a class of cretin who really doesn't deserve such acknowledgement.

His latest atrocity continues on the tradition, but now he finds himself in the era of his protege, Joe Wright, who last year out-Luhrmanned the Aussie with his disgustingly moronic 'Anna Karenina' adaptation. He rises to the challenge with the aplomb you'd expect, though with slightly more respect for American literature than Wright displayed for its Russian cousin. This respect is, ironically, one of the film's biggest problems. Taken as a simple narrative, Fitzgerald's novel is pretty unremarkable, it's his prose style which gives it such a respected place in history. Rather than translating this into cinematic prose, Luhrmann simply puts the author's words on screen, literally. Vast chunks of the novel are heard through Maguire's voiceover while the words appear on screen, words which Luhrmann is clearly in love with. The voiceover, as is usually the case, is completely unnecessary, simply describing what we can see for ourselves on the screen. We don't need Maguire to tell us Gatsby is an extravagant fellow when we're seeing a party of a scale that would put the opening night of Studio 54 to shame. The effect is like listening to an audiobook while watching MTV on mute.
The movie's quieter moments, of which there are scant few, give a glimpse as to how a straightforward adaptation could have worked, despite the dull narrative, as DiCaprio and Mulligan are fantastic in their brief moments together. The same can't be said for the dull-as-ever Maguire, an actor whose stature is baffling to anyone who has the misfortune to watch one of his movies. Luhrmann fills the secondary roles with his Australian compatriots, Edgerton, Clarke and Fisher, all of whom give the worst American accents this side of a Beijing drama school's 'West Side Story' production.

For such a modest narrative, Luhrmann goes out of his way to render it unnecessarily complex. There's a strange disconnect between the audience and the uninvolving on-screen drama, like attending a lavish party you haven't been invited to and don't feel welcomed at. No doubt, sadly, Luhrman will host such parties in the future. We can castigate him with our reviews but it's a futile effort. Hollywood has left taste and integrity behind. We can but beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into Hollywood's golden past.

2/10

Eric Hillis

New Release Review - Clear Lake

2013-05-19T12:41:00.000+01:00

A young man is offered a second chance to fulfill his childhood dream.

Directed by: Mick Paulusma
Starring: Roddy Piper, Daryl Dorge, Sarah Murphy-Dyson, CindyMarie Small, Leonard Waldner

The film begins by introducing the main character, Jimmy (Dorge), and his two friends, Pete (Waldner) and Jenny (Murphy-Dyson), as children, doing what all children do; playing. The three want to cross a dangerous frozen lake to see hundreds of Snow Geese before they migrate, as winter is coming to a close. Enter Jimmy's loving, but extremely overprotective father, Wayne (Piper), who clearly doesn't want to, or maybe just can't, understand his own son's fascination with the birds.
After Jimmy discovers his dad's most recent plan to stop him from seeing the geese, he decides to leave after his father falls asleep. As the weather gets worse, Jimmy's mother checks on him but finds he has run away, and, understandably, the two panic and go out into the deadly storm to find their son. They end up getting in a car wreck that kills the mother and paralyzes the father before they are able to find Jimmy.

Fast forward twenty years and we find that Jimmy still has not made it across the lake, and he actually still lives and cares for his disabled father, feeling it is his own fault. Quickly, through Jimmy's interactions with the townspeople, it becomes clear that, over the years, Jimmy has developed a reputation, and pity, from the rest of the town, and it is apparent that unless he does something drastic, his life will pass him by before he ever actually lives it.
With such little effort in deep character exploration, and spotty acting at best, it is hard to relate to any character on almost any level. Even losing his mother, who helped fuel his love of geese, seems to have barely any effect on Jimmy until he confronts his father, who flat out blames him for the accident and her death. Wayne seems to spend the entire film in a roller coaster of emotions toward the subject of his son and his obsession. As for the three friends, they do get reunited and even express that, after years of being apart, you can't just pick up where you left off, but in actuality they do quite easily as they join together to cross the frozen lake once again.
While I am sure that some will find some value in this sort of "coming of age" tale, all I got from it was that Jimmy cared for nothing more than seeing some birds that showed up in his yard all the time. Coming of age films only work when characters are developed, lovable, and experience things to which the audience can relate. This film has almost none of these things, but I will give credit that it does seem to have the best of intentions that, for multiple reasons, just do not make the necessary connections to the audience to forge a lasting impression. I guess I just don't see the point of this film because, at times, it seems it is about growing up and moving on, but I don't believe any character ever really comes close to doing either.

2/10

Andy Comer

Summer 2013 Movie Preview

2013-05-18T23:53:00.001+01:00

What better way to spend those warm summer days than in a darkened movie theater? TMW looks at the most interesting movies on the way this summer.*

Behind the Candelabra

'Side Effects' may have technically been Steven Soderbergh's last theatrical feature, but this movie, which he made for U.S cable network H.B.O, is receiving a cinema release in Europe. After a career which covered such heady themes as drug trafficking, disease, and the pharmaceutical industry, it seems the director is going out on a lighter note with this biopic of the outlandish musician.

Man of Steel

With Zack Snyder at the helm, it's been hard to get excited for this new incarnation of America's favorite superhero. If it's the Snyder of 'Dawn of the Dead' we could be in for a treat. If, however, it's the Snyder of '300' and 'Sucker Punch', we'll be sticking with our Christopher Reeve classics, thank you very much.

Before Midnight

It's hard to believe it's been 18 years since Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's first encounter in 'Before Sunrise'. In this second follow-up, they're now married with kids and, worryingly, there's a 'This is 40' vibe off the trailer. We fear Linklater's series may have jumped the shark.

World War Z

Having made one of the worst blockbusters of the modern era with 'The Quantum of Solace', it's baffling why Marc Forster was chosen to direct such a large-scale project as this adaptation of Max Brooks' popular novel. Frankly, if I never see another zombie movie it'll be too soon but Brad Pitt has a good recent track record. The fact that the film's release was pushed back by major re-shoots doesn't bode well though.

The Bling Ring

It's almost a tradition now for former female child stars to choose a bad girl role in an attempt to shake off the baggage of their past career. Here, Emma Watson casts aside Hermione to play a real-life valley girl who, as part of the title group, raided the homes of L.A celebs. Think 'Spring Breakers' with mini-skirts rather than bikinis.

A Field in England

The English civil war gets the horror treatment in Ben Wheatley's homage to the period horrors of seventies British genre cinema. If he can recreate the mood of 'Kill List', while adding the substance his previous work lacked, Wheatley could be onto a winner.

Breathe In

Watching Drake Doremus' unintentionally hilarious 'Like Crazy' was one of the most entertaining experiences I had in a cinema last year. He's quickly assembled his next film, re-teaming with the delightful Felicity Jones, an actress who really should be doing better for herself. Has Doremus learnt anything about script-writing in the past year or will he continue his role of the Ed Wood of mumblecore?

Frances Ha

Noah Baumbach is responsible for some quality films ('The Squid & The Whale', 'Margot at the Wedding') but can straddle a line of quirk which he's at times crossed disastrously at times ('Greenberg'). 'Frances Ha', starring the mumblecore high priestess, Greta Gerwig, seems to once again tread this perilous line. Frances could be a lovable character or she could be the type of irritating twenty-something New Yorker she played in last year's 'Lola Versus'.

Blue Jasmine

The great thing about a poor Woody Allen movie ('Whatever Works', 'To Rome With Love') is the comforting thought that his next one is less than a year away. The plot remains a secret but I think it's fair to say Louis CK will be playing the Allen surrogate.

Pacific Rim

Giant robots fight giant monsters in Guillermo Del Toro's biggest ever project. While the concept appeals to the ten-year-old in all of us, the footage released thus far reminds us a bit too much of 'Transformers' with its cartoonish tone.

Only God Forgives

The most anticipated premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival sees acclaimed Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn re-team with his 'Drive' star Ryan Gosling. Not too much has been made public, plot-wise, but, visually, this looks incredible.

Pain & Gain

Michael Bay's first straight drama, though with so many close-ups of male biceps, we're not sure just how "straight" this is. Released Stateside a few weeks back, its gotten a lot of bad press, as you'd expect for a Bay production, but it looks so bonkers our curiosity is getting the better of us.

Elysium

The director of the over-rated 'District 9', Neill Blomkamp, returns with more sci-fi fare. Having previously tackled apartheid through the medium of genre cinema, he now takes on the class system with a tale of a future where the wealthy now live on a space station, leaving the working classes to reside on a ravaged Earth.

*Based on U.K release dates.

TV Waffle - The X-Files (1993-2002)

2013-05-18T21:29:00.000+01:00

On its twentieth anniversary, a look back at the sci-fi phenomenon.

'The X-Files' is now twenty years old, its place in the firmament of classic American TV Science Fiction shows assured. It is up there with 'Star Trek' and 'The Twilight Zone' as instantly recognizable to a mainstream audience. Satirized in 'The Simpsons', with its theme song reaching Number Two in the British music charts, it's a show that was birthed alongside the internet revolution to be picked apart, analysed, and scrutinized ad infinitum by its core of obsessed devotees. It also did what most shows of its ilk failed to do, which was to garner a general audience. With a new Blu-Ray box set of Chris Carter's show on the horizon, how does it now fare against the more knowing and slickly produced shows coming from HBO, Showtime and the JJ Abrams factory?
Looking back on the first season, it is amazing how tonally different the pilot is from the show we now hold dear. It has a breezy lightweight quality. Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is an insouciant, sarcastic and glib character and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is a one note character, there to ground the storyline in reality and allow the audience to enjoy the silliness as if the creators are implying they too know it's not to be taken seriously. The first season is hugely derivative, its "monster of the week" episodes riffing on films as diverse as 'The Thing', 'Predator', 'The Omen', 'Scanners' et al, with a hint of seventies paranoid conspiracy thriller just below the surface. It's only towards the end of the season that the overarching narrative structure of the show is fixed; the Alien conspiracy and the disappearance of Mulder's sister.
Like most networks shows of this era, 'The X-Files' had to balance the need for audience jumping-on-points and stand-alone episodes alongside the overarching narrative structure and character development that would appeal to the existing fan-base. One of the great triumphs of the show is how it maintained this delicate balance between the deadly serious Alien conspiracy and the more jokey stand-alone and monster efforts. This did become more problematic as the show progressed when major changes to Mulder And Scully's lives are put on hold. In one episode, Scully is dying of cancer, while in the next episode we are dealing with a camp Frankenstein monster with a Cher fixation.
Looking at the show with a decade's distance, the pacing of episodes is one of the most interesting aspects. It's not afraid to be slow and talky. At times it takes itself with the utmost seriousness. Even when dealing with God, there is an Alien hokeyness. It's lugubrious, desolate feel can sometimes be wearying when watched in bulk, a tone that became even more heavy handed and stifling in Chris Carter's other show, 'Millennium', leading to the alienation of its audience and eventual cancellation.
The success of 'The X-Files' lead to better production values as seasons went on and allowed the narrative to develop in a confident and complex way. Success in some ways for 'The X-Files' turned into its own worst enemy. A movie released after the fifth season asked more questions than it answered and the mythology was spinning out of control. Unlike a novel or a film, network TV shows don't end if they are a success, they just go on until viewer fatigue sets in and ratings drop, either grinding to a halt mid season or finishing in a desultory, half thought out, nonsensical manner.
Looking at the show as a whole, it is easy to see that the show was spinning plates by half-way through Season Six. By then the Alien Invasion thread has been pretty much wrapped up and by Season Seven there is even a resolution of sorts regarding Mulder's sister. With contract negotiations with the leads, and the uncertainty of continuing, they worked hard to give the show a sense of closure. Seasons Eight and Nine that followed seem like an act not wanting to get off the stage, one encore too many until the audience are booing them off the stage.
With everything wrapped up, the creators then had to pick at the threads and unravel a new conspiracy similar to previous events, even interconnected in some overly convoluted way. With new characters introduced to make way for the absence of main characters, this didn't feel like a new beginning or natural progression for a show, more a screensaver to keep you viewing while contract negotiations went on behind the scenes. Even the Eigth season manages to find closure and a grace note to end on. This is then scuppered by a Ninth and final season that again has to dredge up another conspiracy with pale facsimiles of the original until it reaches a finale that pleases no one and leaves more unanswered questions than existed in its initial endpoints. Questions are still left hanging even after a second movie, which no one wanted to believe existed once viewed.
With the creative control that would be available on a cable network, it would be interesting to see how 'The X-Files' would have played on modern TV. Would carefully choreographed 12 episode seasons have allowed for rigorous quality control? Or is the ramshackle, some good, some execrable, stand-alone and mythology episodes, part of its overriding charm?
What has changed most profoundly now is the way in which we watch television, the weekly segments of shows parceled out to us no longer the only way to watch our favorite programs. Downloads and box sets have allowed us to binge on whole seasons of a show in one blissful couch-bound weekend. It's allowed shows to explore, with confidence, one main story over a whole season, knowing that viewers can handle complex narratives spread over many hours and viewed in different ways. The DVD box set in many ways works against 'The X-Files'. Watching an episode once a week means that the stand-alone episodes have a chance to breath. The whip-pan change of pace and tone seem less disorientating with the distance. It also means that the various gossamer thin strands of the conspiracy are more easily overlooked, and extraneous information conveniently dropped or forgotten, rather than picked over relentlessly to the point of abstraction.
It is arguable that the mythology is a smokescreen to the true narrative drive of 'The X-Files' - the love story of the mind between Mulder and Scully that slowly develops over the seasons and culminates in the apotheosis of the Season Eight finale. Together, with child, love is unsaid but implicitly fades out. Possibly the reason that Season Nine is so reviled is that essentially Mulder does a runner and Scully turns into a shrill single mother trying to find her man like some Science Fiction Jerry Springer hybrid.

Despite its flaws, 'The X-Files' more than deserves its ranking as one of the most successful and influential shows of its generation. It changed the way network TV treated Science Fiction, allowing the quirky and unusual to be shown before the internet gave geek culture a voice that eventually dominated media culture. Simply, without 'The X-Files' there is no 'Lost', no 'Fringe', no 'Supernatural'. Its influence is wide, it allowed complex interesting characters to develop and pushed the boundaries that others now seek to fill. When it was at its best it expanded the possibilities of what could be seen on TV and, even when it was bad, it still happily whiled away 40 minutes. Except for the 'Fight Club' episode. That was bad, oh so bad.

Jason Abbey

New Release Review - The Sky in Bloom

2013-05-17T12:11:00.000+01:00

Blackly comic crime thriller set in the world of human trafficking.

Directed by: Toor Mian
Starring: Bill Thomas, Sean Knopp, Ross Mullan, Paul Marc Davis, Kelly Eastwood

Have you ever watched a film you knew absolutely nothing about and once it’s over you are completely floored by what you’ve just seen? Enter ‘The Sky in Bloom,’ a film with great characters who deliver clever, snappy, and witty dialog that, at times, shows sparks of genius, not unlike that of Tarantino or Ritchie. Writer/Director Toor Mian has done such a great job with this terrific little thriller that I am going to keep my eye out for what he has coming next.
The film begins with a man driving another into a secluded field, with devilish intent, before rewinding to a few days prior, where we are introduced to the usual array of low-life characters. Mr. Hammond (Thomas) is a loving father who is dying, co-runs a successful human trafficking and prostitution business, and has an oddly funny obsession with carpeting. Sean (Knopp) and Ducek (Mullan) are two enforcer types whom are employed by Mr. Hammond and come across a peculiar murder that requires Mr. Hammond’s help as they attempt to find the one responsible, before the one responsible gets all of them.
What seems like a cut and dried story becomes a bit more complex when Sean is revealed to be dating and in love with Mr. Hammond’s beautiful daughter, Amy (Eastwood), without his knowledge. Sean must then tip-toe his way around Mr. Hammond until he finds the best moment to ask permission to marry her. Unaware of Sean and her father’s real occupation, Amy, who is the only clean-souled character in the entire film, has no idea why Sean is so frightened by her father.
With a great cast and script, the only real drawback to this intelligent, entertaining film is when the camera becomes a little jittery during the intense scenes, but I have to give credit to Mian for being able to go from dark comedy to horror with such ease. Hopefully, this great outing will help Mian work his way up to a bigger production budget, like Rian Johnson working his way from 'Brick' to 'Looper'.
Ultimately, if you enjoy the quick dialog and quirky characters of Tarantino and Ritchie or even dark comedies like ‘In Bruges,’ I know you will enjoy this as much as I did.

7/10

Andy Comer

New Release Review - Something in the Air

2013-05-16T15:20:00.001+01:00

A group of French teenagers mope around 1971 Europe.

Directed by: Olivier Assayas
Starring: Clément Métayer, Lola Créton, Felix Armand

Gilles (Metayer) is a young wannabe-anarchist in his final year of high school, engaging in riots, graffiti-ing, and various other disruptive modes of communicating his political philosophy. One night, he and his friends attack their school with petrol bombs, resulting in an injury to a security guard who has a bag of cement dropped on him from a height by Gilles. When one of the group's ID cards is found at the scene, they flee France for Italy, beginning a summer of sex, drugs and psychedelia.

There are some films I like to give a few days to sink in before writing a review. Such films usually receive positive reviews from me, if for no other reason than the fact they occupied my thoughts in a positive manner. Then there are those films which are so bad, I rush to my keyboard to exact a petty form of revenge, chasing the film-maker off the lawn of my subconscious before he can get his creative ball back. I know, of course, he'll simply buy a new ball, one which will find its way over my wall at some point in the future, but it gives me a small pleasure to deflate this one, regardless. 'Something in the Air' is one such film. Allow me to puncture Assayas' ball.

The film is thought to be somewhat autobiographical, and, if this is indeed the case, Assayas teen years are nothing to boast about. I struggle to remember a lead character I wished to smack bout the face so much as the dopey-eyed Gilles, a spoiled, self-righteous brat who inexplicably seems irresistible to pretty French girls. Along with his friends, they're a despicable bunch of entitled clowns who speak about helping the "working classes" as if referencing a group of disease-sufferers. The idea that some people work for a living seems repugnant to these middle-class snobs. They're like a seventies, European version of the elitist teens of 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', but with more body hair, and, no doubt, worse body odor. Watching these juvenile Citizen Smiths sit around discussing Buddhism, Communism, Feminism, and many other "isms", in their uninformed way, is one hell of an irritating way to spend two hours.
There's nothing in the air of Assayas' shallow film. I've seen more profound Tommy Hilfiger commercials.

3/10

New Release Review - Third Contact

2013-05-15T17:11:00.003+01:00

A psychotherapist investigates the mysterious suicides of two of his patients.

Directed by: Simon Horrocks
Starring: Oliver Browne, Cristiana Dell'Anna, Kristina Erdely

Third Contact marks the feature debut of Simon Horrocks. Shot on a minuscule budget of £4000, it certainly doesn't lack in ambition. This, however, is very much an example of reach exceeding grasp.
The film tells the story of Psychotherapist David Wright (Tim Scott-Walker), in a state of existential crisis following the break-up of his relationship and the apparent suicide of one of his patients. A discussion with Karl (Oliver Browne), one of his patients, regarding "quantum suicide", leads him to a dark journey of the soul. Meeting up with Rene, the sister of the suicidal patient, reveals a sinister company offering 'Destinations'. What part have they played in the suicide and will they be targeting another of David's patients?

It is at least a pleasure to see a new British film that does not resort to cockney gangster stereotypes, however this feels like a short film stretched beyond endurance. Shot in moody black and white, and with a nicely used score, it tries hard with its intellectual mind games and woozy dreamlike mood. This is very much a film of dialogue, rather than action, and unfortunately his actors are not capable of doing the heavy lifting needed to make this fly. Tim Scott-Walker is adequate as the lead but it's the other actors that let him down. Karl is a pivotal role that Oliver Browne is really not capable of realizing. These amateurish performances really destroy the atmosphere that director Horrocks is trying hard to maintain. This coupled with second-year student pop psychology dialogue and some scenes of hard drinking, alcoholic, despair that border on parody, scupper an interesting premise.
It's a shame that it's so lugubrious and stodgy at the outset, because it's final 20 minutes show that Horrocks may have some promise. Reminiscent of the psychological games of David Cronenberg's 'Videodrome' and Gela Babluani's '13', Horrocks shows that he can do more than stage endless scenes of portentous dialogue. With a more disciplined script and tighter editing this may have yielded more excitement. Horrocks is a one man band at the moment; writing, directing, editing and composing the score, one can admire his ambition but on this evidence he has spread himself too thin. His shot choices are interesting and he knows how to evoke atmosphere. With better acting and a tighter, less pretentious script, he may develop into an interesting director. File under noble failure.

3/10

Jason Abbey

New Release Review - Fast & Furious 6

2013-05-15T16:11:00.001+01:00

Sixth installment in the high-octane franchise.

Directed by: Justin Lin
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Gina Carano, Jason Statham, Elsa Pataky, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson

Retired criminal Dominic Toretto (Diesel) is living in exile in the Canary Islands when he is approached by Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs (Johnson) with an offer of a full pardon for his crimes. Hobbs needs Toretto's crew to help take down a London based criminal, Owen Shaw (Evans), who is using a crew of expert drivers to pull off heists across Europe. When Hobbs shows Toretto a recent photo of his girlfriend, Letty (Rodriguez), who he presumed dead, working for Shaw, Toretto accepts and assembles his crew.
'The Fast & The Furious' franchise has a curious history. The first installment, a loose remake of a 1955 Roger Corman production, was a relatively big hit, given its medium budget, and made Diesel a star for a brief few years. Diesel was doing so well he turned down the sequel and made just a short cameo in the third movie. By the time the fourth movie arrived in 2009, however, his career was well and truly washed up so he was happy to return to the series. His return boosted the fortunes of the franchise and, unbelievably, 2011's 'Fast 5' enjoyed Universal's biggest ever opening weekend, ensuring this latest episode of vehicular mayhem. The first movie was a simple, and pleasant enough, reworking of the "cop seduced by crime" theme explored so well in 'Point Break'. Now the budget's as bloated as Johnson's biceps, as is the running time (a mind-numbing 130 minutes).
Watching this film is like being repeatedly struck on the head by a wrench, thanks to a script that seems to have been written by the producer's ten-year-old nephew. This is a thinking man's blockbuster, but only in the sense that you'll spend two hours trying to wrap your head around what exactly is happening before your eyes. The film raises a lot of questions. Questions like; why are the streets of Europe's busiest city always so empty, how can a car drive at 100mph for 20 minutes down an airport runway without running out of tarmac, and, if two objects collide in mid air at velocity do they...well, you get the idea. The characters here break a lot of laws, including several laws of physics.
Little in this film makes any sense. Why Johnson decides to recruit this inept bunch of criminals is beyond me as we don't see them achieve anything that actually requires their particular skills. In fact, everything Diesel and his crew touch ends in disaster. Johnson bullies his way around Europe, mocking those pansy European law officials' soft approach by employing his own brand of violence, a tactic which, shockingly, results in scores of civilian deaths which are never acknowledged in the film's happy ending. About fifty Spanish motorists are killed in one set-piece, but hey, Diesel gets his girl back in the end so it's worth it, right? If this was meant as an allegory for American foreign policy, it's genius. I'm not going to give the film-makers that much credit.
The concept of high speed chases through London must have looked great on paper, but Lin films it in such a dull, confusing manner, the onscreen result is completely underwhelming. If you're the sort of viewer who thinks a rim-job is something a mechanic does to your tires, you'll probably be satisfied by this. The rest of us will stick with movies like 'The French Connection' and 'To Live & Die in L.A' for our car-chase kicks.

3/10

New Release Review - Simon Killer

2013-05-13T16:12:00.001+01:00

A young American sociopath spends a winter in Paris.

Directed by: Antonio Campos
Starring: Brady Corbet, Lila Salet, Mati Diop, Constance Rousseau, Nicholas Ronchi

Following a rough break-up with his girlfriend, twenty-something New Yorker, Simon (Corbet) travels to Paris where an acquaintance, Carlo (Ronchi) has allowed him to make use of his apartment. Simon spends days walking the city, seemingly attracting negative attention from many locals. One night he wanders into a brothel where he meets prostitute Noura (Diop), who seems to show him more affection than is normal for such a situation. A few nights later, Simon is attacked by a group of youths (after possibly provoking them on purpose) and turns up at the brothel, telling Noura he has nowhere to stay. She invites him to stay with her and quickly falls for him romantically. It soon becomes apparent he's far from the innocent abroad she mistook him for.

Last year, Campos acted as producer for Sean Durkin's feature debut, 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'. Here, the roles are reversed, with Durkin producing Campos' follow-up to 2008's 'Afterschool'. Between the two of them, they seem to be forming a two-man American new-wave. While the rest of the American indie film community seems intent on boring us with dull "dramedies", Campos and Durkin ignore the restrictions of their budgets to give us low budget movies of a quality not seen since the Australian New Wave of the seventies. Like those Aussie flicks, their movies feel geographically unique; not quite American, not yet European, but borrowing the best elements of both schools.

Like 'MMMM', 'Simon Killer' is a "snippet" movie. Rather than a traditional three act structure consisting of a beginning, middle and end, we find ourselves thrown in at the deep end of the narrative. At first Simon appears to be a sympathetic victim of his own romantic nature, struggling to adapt to an intimidating alien city. It's a cinematic con-trick, deftly played by Campos and his committed, perfectly cast, leading man. Over the past decade we've grown accustomed to seeing Anglo-Saxons suffer at the hands of Europeans, be it physically ('Hostel'), psychologically ('Berberian Sound Studio'), or culturally ('Vicky, Christina, Barcelona'), but here Campos and Corbet flip things around. Early on, Simon appears to be suffering from mistreatment at the hands of Parisians, both aggressive males and apathetic females. As things progress, and Campos' constantly tracking camera begins to allow us to see his subject's face, rather than following him from behind to conceal his true nature, we realize Simon, not Paris, is the film's true antagonist.
Campos isn't a film-maker prone to spoon-feeding his audience, and his long takes (one unbroken static shot on a dance-floor is a stunning representation of Simon's coiled aggression) may well test the patience of less committed viewers. Those who appreciate a film which allows you to fill in the blanks will be richly rewarded. The American New-Wave has arrived!

8/10

TMW's 500th Post!

2013-05-13T14:28:00.000+01:00

TMW has hit our 500th post. Allow us to get all nostalgic.

The site was started by myself, Eric Hillis, back in February 2009 with an embarrassingly poorly written review of Marcus Nispel's 'Friday the 13th' remake. For the next couple of years the site was barely touched, save for the odd dabbling here and there.
It wasn't until late 2011, after being made redundant from my decade long job running a DVD store, that I decided to knuckle down and try and make something of the site. Taking out a loyalty subscription with my local Dublin branch of Cineworld, I decided to review every movie released.
I continued with this tactic until early summer 2012 when I figured I'd get myself added to the press lists of distributors, thus allowing me to attend press screenings. The first screening I attended was 'The Dark Knight Rises', courtesy of Warner Bros, the first distributor kind enough to add me to their list. This completely changed the profile of the site in terms of visitors, as my review was one of the first to appear in the IMDB critics section for the movie. Gradually, other distributors added me and now there is but one who still choose to ignore me, (a certain Hollywood studio associated with a right-wing news channel).
Along with screenings, I began to be regularly contacted by low-budget film-makers asking if I would review screeners of their films, something I was more than happy to do.
In November of last year, my review of 'Skyfall' impressed a writer for The Irish Times, leading to me acquiring a position as journalist with a local Dublin newspaper. Now, finding the time to review new releases as well as screeners is getting tougher, which is why I've recruited several other writers, and still need more.

Roughly 90% of the content here comes from me but other contributors have provided great stuff. They are Joshua Mitchell, John Saltwell, Ruairi Kavanagh, Nick Sauer, Denny Spangler, Courtney Young, and Michael Parkes. My thanks goes out to all of them.

Want to write for us?

There are three areas in which we need more contributors. While Nick and Michael have come on as TV writers, we'd love some more help as there's just so many damn shows out there. We're also looking for someone to review new release documentaries for us. Lastly, if anyone is interested in reviewing low budget screeners, which we'll have posted to you, this would be a helpful addition also.

If you fancy coming on board in any of these areas, or in any other capacity, drop me a mail at eric@themoviewaffler.com.

The Waffler's World

Back in the beginning, it was only personal friends who knew about the site, but now we have a worldwide audience. Our readers come from literally all over the globe. Here are the ten countries TMW is most popular in, according to Google analytics.

1. United States

2. United Kingdom

3. Ireland

4. Canada

5. Germany

6. Australia

7. France

8. Israel

9. India

10. The Netherlands

Our 5 Most Read Reviews

1. Life of Pi

2. Paranormal Activity 4

3. Skyfall

4. Bullet to the Head

5. Sinister

The 10 Best New Releases Of Our Run

1. Martha Marcy May Marlene
2. Mud
3. The Hunt
4. Margaret
5. No
6. To the Wonder
7. The Grey
8. The Muppets
9. Melancholia
10. Blue Valentine

If we can see another ten movies of this quality over the next 500 posts, we'll be very happy indeed!

Thanks to everyone who has helped us out over the years and, most of all, thanks to all our readers!

Stardate 2013 - The Final Frontier (1989)

2013-05-13T13:49:00.000+01:00

The Enterprise is hijacked by a Vulcan who plans to use the ship to find 'God'.

Directed by: William Shatner
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Laurence Luckinbill, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, David Warner

Spock's half-brother, Sybok (Luckinbill), shunned by the Vulcan race for his embracing of emotion, has taken hostages on the planet Nimbus III. Kirk (Shatner), McCoy (Kelley) and Spock (Nimoy) have their shore leave interrupted as they are ordered to take the newly rebuilt Enterprise to the planet. Once there, they are overpowered by Sybok and his followers, who he controls through a form of "mind meld". It becomes apparent that Sybok used the hostage-taking as a ruse to acquire a starship. His plan is to take the Enterprise to find the mythical 'Sha Ka Ree', the place where, according to Vulcan lore, the universe began.
With Nimoy directing the previous two installments, Shatner insisted on being allowed to direct 'The Final Frontier', having come up with the film's original concept. After the high-concept, commercially appealing story-line of 'The Voyage Home', Shatner wanted to pursue a more heady plot-line, one which essentially boiled down to the crew of the Enterprise setting out to find God. In concept, it was closer in theme to the first movie, but the lighter tone of parts two, three and four continued here. In fact, this is by far the funniest installment of the series.

At the time of its release, 'The Final Frontier' was slated by critics, chiefly for its ambitious but simultaneously weak plot. It's this lightness of plot that makes the film enjoyable though, as we get to spend time with the central trio. The opening and closing campfire scenes are some of the best seen throughout the franchise. The relationship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy is Trek's greatest asset and it's a joy to just hang out with these characters. Personally, if the entire film had just followed the trio on their camping trip for two hours I would have been quite happy.
The plot is indeed nonsense but Luckinbill, an actor Shatner discovered playing President LBJ in a one-man show, gives a great performance which really sells the idea. When we do finally meet 'God', it's an anti-climax, but how could it ever not be?
The sound of 'The Final Frontier' is notable, reprising the bells and whistles so familiar to fans of the original TV series, yet largely absent from the previous four films. Thanks to the return of composer Jerry Goldsmith, we get the best score since 'The Wrath of Khan', erasing the memory of Leonard Rosenman's horrible work on 'The Voyage Home'. Goldsmith reprises the march he wrote for 'The Motion Picture'. At the time, younger fans mistook it for a borrowing of the 'Next Generation' theme, which was, of course, the very same theme.
If you're looking for a gripping story, this wouldn't be your first choice among the Trek series but, if you just want to hang out with three of pop culture's great icons for a couple of hours, 'The Final Frontier' is thoroughly enjoyable.

7/10

10 Great Public Domain Horror Movies You Can Watch For Free

2013-05-13T11:32:00.000+01:00

pub·lic do·main
Noun
The state of belonging or being available to the public as a whole.
Not subject to copyright.

There are hundreds of movies which, for varying reasons, have no copyright, meaning they can be legally shared online. Here are ten of the best from the horror genre, available to view in full right here. (Of course, for the best experience these movies need to be seen on DVD or Blu-Ray).

Night of the Living Dead

Carnival of Souls

The Last Man on Earth

House on Haunted Hill

Dementia 13

Nosferatu

The Most Dangerous Game

White Zombie

Freaks

Horror Hotel (aka City of the Dead)

New Release Review - Everybody Has a Plan

2013-05-12T20:03:00.001+01:00

A doctor assumes the role of his dead twin to escape his marriage.

Directed by: Ana Piterbarg
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Sofia Gala, Soledad Villamil, Daniel Fanego, Javier Godino

Buenos Aires doctor, Augustin (Mortensen), has grown tired of his middle class existence in the city. When his wife, Claudia (Villamil), pressures him into adopting a child, he confesses a wish to leave the relationship, locking himself in his study for days until Claudia eventually leaves their apartment, putting it up for sale. Augustin's identical twin brother, Pedro (Mortensen in a dual role), arrives in the city from his home in rural Argentina to inform his estranged brother he is suffering from terminal cancer. Pedro wishes Augustin to euthanize him, something which the doctor refuses at first, but realizing this is the perfect way to escape his life, Augustin drowns Pedro in his bath, leaving the body there for all to assume it as his. Now adopting his twin's identity, Pedro leaves for his childhood home but, once there, discovers Pedro is caught up with a dangerous gang of local kidnappers.

'Everybody Has a Plan' is a movie whose protagonist finds himself in an unfamiliar situation, but it's also made by people themselves working in foreign territory. Mortensen, pulling a "Kristin Scott Thomas", gives a performance entirely in his second language, Spanish. Piterbarg is a female writer-director making a movie about emasculation, both literally and figuratively (The impotent Augustin embraces his macho twin's tough lifestyle). The plot feels like a combination of Antonioni's 'The Passenger' and Hitchcock's 'Strangers on a Train', with the existentialism of the former struggling to share a bed with the thrills of the latter, resulting in a film that can't decide whether it's a crime thriller or a meditation on masculinity.

Neither element is explored to a satisfactory degree, with little in the way of either plotting or character development. Augustin's motivations are sign-posted through a quick scene where some noisy toddlers get on his nerves. (Sure, kids can give you a headache but it hardly seems enough motivation for committing fratricide and changing your entire identity.) For a movie written and directed by a woman, its female characters are given particularly short shrift. The subplot involving Augustin's wife is rendered pointless by her indifference. I rarely condone remakes but this is a case where a more experienced film-maker could likely craft something impressive from this bizarre but thrilling scenario. While ultimately her ego is writing checks her talent can't cash, Pitarbarg has made a film that's an indulging enough watch (thanks mainly to Mortensen and the sleazy charm of Fanego), but one which should be so much more.

6/10

TV Waffle - Leverage (2008-2012)

2013-05-11T15:32:00.001+01:00

A look at the show which followed the exploits of a team of high-tech crooks.

'Leverage' was a series produced for Turner Network Television (TNT), a cable channel in the United States. The series premiered on December 7th, 2008 and ran for five seasons, ending on Christmas day of 2012. The series is fairly unique in that it doesn’t fit easily into any standard television format and the only other series I know of comparable to it is the British series 'Hustle'. 'Leverage' is about a crew of criminals, who have since decided to become a bunch of modern day Robin Hoods, under the leadership of a former insurance investigator named Nate Ford. Perhaps the best description of the series is the tag line used in the credits “The rich and powerful, they take what they want. We steal it back for you.”
The heart of the show is the characters themselves. The team leader and mastermind is Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton).He was an insurance investigator who quit his job when the company he worked for refused to approve a medical treatment for his son that ultimately cost the child his life. Nate was apparently very good at his job as all of the other members of the crew knew who he was before they first worked together. Eric Hardison (Aldis Hodge) is a hacker extraordinaire. If you don’t want to risk him tampering with your computer, don’t connect it to the internet. Elliot (Christian Kane) is the team’s hitter who, as he says on a regular basis, doesn’t like guns. This may seem like a bit of a limitation for an enforcer but he demonstrates repeatedly that this is not the case for him. Then there is the team’s thief Parker (Beth Riesgraf).Parker had an “interesting” childhood as shown through a number of flashbacks throughout the series. Elliot is fond of saying to her “There’s something wrong with you”, and he could very well be right, as the question of her mental stability is never really answered. Last, and most certainly not least, is the grifter Sophie (not her real name), played very ably by Gina Bellman. While Sophie is a horrible actress on stage, this talent completely reverses when she is pulling a con, which Nate likes to describe as her “true stage”. While these characters are pulled together for a job which they all agree will be a one time affair, the reward to their collective egos for doing what they know to be the right thing proves too alluring and they end up forming a more permanent arrangement to continue with these sorts of jobs. The fact that they end up filthy stinking rich at the end of the pilot does little to hinder that decision either.
'Leverage' is a largely episodic program with the standard continuing character development happening throughout the series. In the third and fourth season, they do introduce a season spanning story arc but there are still stand alone episodes in each season as well. This makes the series more accessible than the increasingly common full story arc seasons we get in other series. It also makes the series easy to revisit as you can pretty much throw on any episode without having to worry about having to remember where you are in a major story line.

Each episode starts with the crew being approached by an individual who has been wronged in some way. This can range from something as simple as a church being threatened by an unscrupulous land developer to something as big as a corrupt congressman.At this point the crew will dig into information on their target and decides what sort of scam they are going to use to help their client which often, but not always, equals money. While the formula is the same the series regularly finds ways to turn the dynamic on its head. There are enough twist episodes, or twists within episodes, to keep you guessing and, as a result, you are always guaranteed a pretty wild ride along the way.
One of the other features I love about 'Leverage' is the in-jokes for fans of genre television. These usually involve 'Doctor Who' but have also covered 'Star Trek' and 'Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy' at times. In one season, a 'Warehouse 13' reference was not only thrown in but also provided a bit of foreshadowing with regard to that season’s finale. You don’t lose anything from the story if you miss these throw away references but the extra effort to put them there in the first place demonstrates how much the show goes that extra little bit for its audience.
The series ran for five seasons of varying lengths but averaged around 15 episodes per season. This variability in the length of each season hints at the somewhat dismissive attitude TNT seemed to have regarding 'Leverage'. Being a TNT original series, one would think that, like most cable channels with original series, they would put a good deal of effort into ensuring their series success. This seemed to not be the case with 'Leverage' from the beginning as TNT decided to air the episodes out of their intended order. If you buy or rent the DVD set for season one, just watch them in the order on the discs but, if you look at the dates of broadcast given in the index, or consult IMDB, you will notice that they were shown in a completely different order. Due to the more episodic nature of the series this was not a deal breaker but it did lead to some weird out-of-sequence moments, especially with Elliot’s personal history. I’m also wondering how aggressively TNT advertised the series as I didn’t even know it existed until I saw an advertisement for season four at a movie theater, and I can safely state that I was probably a member of the show’s target audience. To its credit, the series managed to still find enough of an audience to make five seasons and those audience members that I do meet tend to speak as highly of the series as I do. Even though the show was cancelled somewhat unexpectedly, the final episode is an actual series finale. Shown on Christmas Day of 2012, I found it to be a perfect holiday gift for the loyal fans of the series.

In short, if, like most people, you have never heard of 'Leverage' before, it is definitely worth your time to check it out. I’ll warn you in advance though, that you may very well find yourself with a five season time commitment, so plan accordingly. 'Leverage' is one of those rare shows for me that I like to describe as a “comfort show”. This is a show that I will just put in the DVD player when I find myself in need of some pure, unbridled entertainment and relaxation. It is my sincere hope that anyone who tries 'Leverage' has the same reaction to this amazingly fun series.

Nick Sauer

For more from Nick, visit his site 'Fantastic Television'.

Stardate 2013 - The Next Generation (1987-1994)

2013-05-09T18:24:00.002+01:00

Star Trek's return to the small screen.

The release of JJ Abrams’ 2009 'Star Trek' has retroactively left 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' (known form here on as 'TNG') in a rather unusual place in the history of the franchise. With the general public’s view of Trek being the show with the ‘guy with pointy ears’ re-solidified, and the events of the 'TNG'-era Trek being consigned to an entirely different plain of existence by the alternate-reality-bending elements of said reboot, this incarnation and its sequels have seemingly had their time in the sun. The modern casual film-goer could probably be forgiven for viewing this era as a curiosity, as dated in its own way as the Original Series seemed to us 'TNG' viewers back in the late eighties and early nineties. This is of course a mistake. In its own way 'TNG' is as important as the original theatrical run of movies, starting with 1979’s reviled but misunderstood 'The Motion Picture', and Abrams’ Rock ‘n Roll reboot, in blowing on the franchise's embers and resuscitating it during difficult times.
'TNG' was actually Paramount’s second attempt at returning Trek to TV. The "Great Bird of the Galaxy" himself, Gene Roddenberry, oversaw 'Star Trek: Phase 2', a TV project deemed so lofty that it was going to be used to launch a whole network. Shepherded by Roddenberry, it shared (going on the scant filmed test footage) a similar aesthetic to its primary-colored predecessor as well as similar themes of science versus religion and the evolution of humanity into logical, fair minded super-beings. Of course, the unprecedented success of another ‘Star’ movie suddenly repurposed the pilot into being the foundation for 'The Motion Picture'. Other episodes of the un-filmed season would morph into episodes of 'TNG', often during writer’s strikes, and often supplementing the 'Phase 2' characters of Decker and Ilia with their suspiciously similar 'TNG' counterparts, Riker and Troi.
By the time Roddenberry began to develop 'TNG', with many of the old-hands who had helped make the original 79 episodes, such as Rob Justman and DC Fontana, he was largely consigned to being a symbolic figurehead of the franchise, often critical, usually side lined and reduced to meaningless fan-service titles such as "executive consultant". As the film series successfully continued on, under the stewardship of ex-TV producer Harve Bennett, many of Roddenberry’s philosophical elements had been eschewed. This was understandable as the utopian world of scientific and philosophical discovery he had pushed for in the sixties was hardly fodder for action and conflict.
So while the films had taken a more militaristic, visceral route, it was with Gene’s alternate aesthetic of tight-fitting science jumpsuits, smooth comfortable environments, carpeted walls and psychoanalysis that the franchise he had lost control of in the earlier part of the decade re-emerged into television in 1987. With producer Rick Berman, Paramount Television Networks' ex-vice president for long form projects, at his side, the "Great Bird" took his gamble and began production on what he was touting at conventions as the "true" Roddenberry vision of Trek, not the post-'Star Wars' crowd pleasing, money making and well received nonsense being peddled by Bennett.
To say that the first season of the show is not indicative of the quality it would go on to attain is an understatement of Q-like proportions. It feels self consciously camp in a way the franchise had not been since the notorious third season of the 'Original Series'. The sets were replete with glittery foam rocks and stock alien races that ranged from the absurd ('Skin of Evil') to the downright offensive ('Angel One', 'Code of Honor'). Roddenberry’s school-boy fascination with sexuality and the joy of permissiveness is front and center in a way the films had sidestepped. Initial attempts to ignore the earlier show’s villains were disastrous, with Gene’s new villains, the Ferengi, being hastily consigned to bumbling comedy characters. Worst still, despite the embargo on direct references to the original show, many of the episodes felt like warmed up versions of superior earlier adventures, but less dynamically executed. This was partly down to Roddenberry’s increasingly absurdist view of the franchise's ethos, which he now had preached to the world over at conventions that had elevated him to almost deity levels, but which the original show rarely actually reflected. One of the strengths of the original was that it largely ignored Roddenberry’s conceit that man was perfect and right in all things, as the roster of writers increased and the network leaned on the show to be more action-adventure oriented and less "cerebral". Season one of 'TNG' shows us what Trek must have looked like in Roddenberry’s mind all that time and, as people would decry of George Lucas a decade later, made us wonder if 'Star Trek' was great despite, not because of, Gene Roddenberry. A visionary no doubt, but it was the collaborations of others such as Robert Justman, Gene Coon, Herb Solow, David Gerrold and DC Fontana (who would both return for 'TNG') to name a few, that made the Enterprise fly, and their contributions here could barely lift a runabout.

One thing Roddenberry and Berman got right was the core casting. Patrick Stewart was a left field choice, softened by the likable Shatner-esque presence of the fresh faced Jonathan Frakes as his womanising second in command. Brent Spiner hit the ground running as the android Data, the observer of humanity in the opposite way the iconic Vulcan was. Not all of the character choices were as sharp, and it is a testimony to the touchy-feely sentiment of the decade that a prominent member of the bridge crew was a Counselor gifted with "feeling" as a superpower. There were a few signs of the good things to come; John de Lancie consumed the scenery and flossed with the lighting rigs as the omnipotent Q from the first episode. ‘Conspiracy’, whilst ultimately copping out, broached the previously heretical idea of the Federation being less than perfect and the portentous talk of Federation outposts and settlements simply vanishing, in the season’s final episode, would foreshadow the introduction of one of 'TNG’s most formidable villains, the Borg.
Roddenberry’s health would begin to sharply decline throughout the show's early seasons, and whilst he continued to be a potent figurehead to the wide-eyed young writers, (who viewed him in an almost mythic light), the lion’s share of the show-running was being taken on by Berman who would continue in this capacity through to the end of 'Star Trek: Enterprise' in 2005. It should be mentioned at this point that Berman is now viewed as a controversial figure in Trek history, but his role in nurturing new talent and keeping the franchise alive cannot be underestimated.
As the production values increased from the first season, we had our first bona-fide classics ('Q Who', 'The Measure of a Man'), but the show had still yet to find its own identity and world. This development was hindered by a combination of the revolving door of TV writers, Roddenberry’s continued insistence that character conflict and violence be avoided, as well as a crippling writers' strike that resulted in a number of 'Phase 2' scripts and a (gulp!) clips show being shoe-horned in. It was with the show's third year that everything changed. The introduction of Michael Piller as head writer seemed to be just what the franchise needed and the double header of Berman and Piller on-board along with a burgeoning team of hungry writers, many first generation Trek fans; it was time to get serious. Ronald D Moore and Ira Steven Behr lead the writing charge, part idolising and part challenging Roddenberry to feature more dynamic and edgy storytelling that had more in common with the films Harve Bennet was making adjacent to their TV counterpart. In a matter of weeks we got a staggering array of high quality episodes such as Ronald D Moore’s sensitive ‘The Bonding’ and his intrigue-laden ‘The Defector’. Richard Danus brought us the hilarious ‘Deja Q’ that borders on Jim Carey levels of surreal humor. The cinematic ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’ with its mind bending ‘Groundhog Day’ structure and back-lit visuals gave us an early idea of how the show night look on the big screen, and Ron Moore would hit it out of the park again with ‘Sins of the Father’, rebooting the Klingons in a way that defined them for many years to come. But it was with the season straddling two-parter 'The Best of Both Worlds' that the 'Next Gen' (as it is affectionately know to fans) earned its wings. By defining the almost Clive Barker-esque, cadaverous Borg Collective, and shockingly raising the stakes by having our hero and Captain abducted, and in an act analogous to rape, be assimilated into their hive mind, the 'Next Generation' had arrived and was starting to make the 'Original Series' look like a dinosaur.
As the show moved into its fourth season, the stakes were raised by talk that Patrick Stewart was trying to negotiate out of his contract (he never expected the show to move beyond pilot) and that the Borg cliffhanger was contrived in case he should not return. I have no idea to the truth of this, but it added a palpable edge to the tension and became a vital part of the folklore of the show. It was also indicative of this new regime that Picard was not simply diving back into action the next week. We got a lyrical, peril free episode called ‘Family’ which is essentially 45 minutes of Picard "dealing" with the psychological weight of his experiences. Contrasted with the garish kitsch of 'TNG’s first season it is like night and day. With the dying Roddenberry’s involvement essentially nonexistent by this point it was down to Piller, Moore and Behr along with newer recruits such as Brannon Braga and René Echevarria to deliver classics such as 'First Contact' and 'The Drumhead'. This quality continued through a fifth and sixth season with other must-see episodes such as 'Darmok', 'Unification' (which saw a return for Leonard Nimoy as Spock, legitimizing 'TNG' as true Trek "canon"), 'Cause & Effect', 'The Inner Light', 'Relics' and 'Chain of Command' where we see our Captain tortured by a Cardassian (another great new villain created in this era) in scenes that would have made Roddenberry gasp.
The show faltered in its seventh year as actors began to think of their next gigs and a lot of the writing staff jumped ship to the even less Roddenberry-eque 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'. Whilst this season had a lot of filler, and downright headscratchers ('Masks', anyone? ANYONE?), it went out with a bang with the Ronald D Moore/Brannon Braga penned 'All Good Things'. It is rare that a series-ender is both a poignant love-letter to the show itself, but also a solid episode in its own right. This is made even more ironic considering how quickly and easily the pair wrote it, contrasted with the agony of writing the far less interesting feature 'Generations', mere months later.

There are a number of things one must consider, contextually, when viewing 'TNG' today. We exist in a very different landscape now that only the final few episodes of 'Enterprise' years later would briefly crossover with. The "adventure of the week" formula seems almost as archaic in this post-'24', post-'Lost' culture as the Buster Crabbe serials that influenced 'Star Wars' did to children of my generation. Much of the production values and acting styles, particularly in the earlier seasons, might appear unusual and jarring to a modern, Netflix, sensibility but it is key to consider certain things; firstly, this was it. This was pre-'X-Files', Pre-'Xena', Pre-'Buffy'. Weekly science fiction was virtually non-existent, particularly on the scale we saw here. This along with the likability and comfort gained from the weekly (yes, they made nearly 30 episodes a year, none of this 12 episodes nonsense) time spent in the company of these characters recaptured the very simple formula of lightning in a bottle that Gene and his team caught in the sixties: people we like, doing stuff we want to.
The legacy of 'TNG' is uncertain now that Trek is shinier and faster than ever. Episodes such as 'Measure of a Man', 'Darmok' and 'Drumhead' that explored moral issues through the prism of sci-fi, supported by Stewart's authoritative baritone and the sympathetic writing of Piller and his team might seem quaint, but for fans of a certain age, is what 'Star Trek' is, and should be, about.

Michael Parkes

Google's Saul Bass Tribute

2013-05-08T11:36:00.000+01:00

Today, May 8th 2013, Google paid tribute to Saul Bass with a Bass-themed "doodle" on their homepage.
Bass would have turned 93 today, having been born on May 8th 1920. He passed away on April 25th 1996, leaving behind a rich cinematic legacy. Bass is most famous for a series of unforgettable credit sequences, most notably those he designed for Hitchcock. If you missed Google's homepage tribute, you can view it in the video below.

New Release Review - Star Trek: Into Darkness

2013-05-07T15:40:00.000+01:00

The Enterprise is dispatched to eliminate a terrorist responsible for attacks on Starfleet.

Directed by: JJ Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Alice Eve, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller, Leonard Nimoy, Noel Clarke

With his daughter lying terminally ill in a London hospital, a young father is approached by John Harrison (Cumberbatch), who claims to be able to cure her. In exchange for his child's salvation, the young man acts as a suicide bomber, destroying a Starfleet archive facility and killing 42 in the process. Hearing of this, an emergency meeting is conducted in Starfleet's San Francisco headquarters. During the meeting, Harrison attacks the building in a spacecraft and escapes to hide on the Klingon home-world of Kronos. Admiral Marcus (Weller) orders Captain Kirk (Pine) to take the Enterprise and kill Harrison.
With 2009's reboot of 'Star Trek', Abrams faced the considerable task of making the franchise relevant to the general public without alienating its fans, (who are arguably the most passionate in all of pop culture). For the most part, he succeeded. The first film in a new adaptation of a popular brand is always difficult as you have to spend so much time establishing the main characters, and their world, it leaves little room to inject a satisfying story into the mix. Thus, the first film featured a dull villain and not much of a story. We forgave this though as it set everything up for a potentially great sequel. A clever plot device meant Abrams' Trek was set in an alternate reality, allowing him to take things in his own direction. Strange then that the follow-up movie is, essentially, a remake, and a poor imitation, of a previous movie.

There's a mythical figure, let's call him 'Joe MidWest', who Hollywood execs have conjured up and consistently pander to, despite no real evidence he actually exists. Joe MidWest, we're led to believe, won't watch Judge Dredd unless he removes his helmet. He won't watch a 'Halloween' movie unless Michael Myers removes his mask. Now, it seems, he won't watch 'Star Trek' unless the guy with the pointy ears stops behaving like an alien and shows some emotion. What's done to Spock (Quinto) here is bizarre; turning him into a blubbering, emotional wreck which goes against everything that makes the character so fascinating. A huge part of the series' charm came from the interplay between the emotional Kirk, (and McCoy), and the logical Spock. Now that Spock is just as emotional as Kirk, this element is gone. The screenwriters seem intent on shooting themselves in the foot. (Considering the writers are responsible for such travesties as 'Transformers 2', 'Prometheus' and 'People Like Us', a wounded foot is the least they deserve, given the pain they've inflicted on audiences.)
Much of the marketing focuses on the casting of Cumberbatch, an actor who finds his star rising rapidly. Fans of the BBC 'Sherlock' reboot know what a great presence the actor is but he's sadly wasted here. His scenes with Kirk have none of the power of those seen in the older film this one references. The extent of his character amounts to a bit of poorly written exposition and an iconic name. As with the first film, McCoy (Urban) is pushed aside for Uhura (Saldana), seemingly for politically correct reasons. Scotty (the horribly miscast Pegg), by far the worst element of the previous installment, is, thankfully, less of a comedic presence here.

As a director, Abrams does some impressive work. The movie's highlight is a stunning pre-credits sequence set on a vivid red planet that recalls the opening of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. The FX work is equally impressive, particularly a glorious shot of the Enterprise falling through a thick blanket of clouds. The sets, costumes and production design are all spectacular too, as is Michael Giacchino's majestic score. Unfortunately, when it comes to narrative cinema, the most important element is the script. Hundreds of people did fantastic work on this film but three people did a terrible job. Those three wrote it.

5/10

Stardate 2013 - The Voyage Home (1986)

2013-05-05T14:14:00.000+01:00

The crew find themselves in 20th century San Francisco.

Directed by: Leonard Nimoy
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Catherine Hicks, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Mark Lenard, Robin Curtis

A large space-probe takes up orbit around Earth, disrupting the planet's weather and energy sources to create an impending global catastrophe. The probe emits a strange sound which Starfleet fail to decipher. When the crew of the Enterprise, now commandeering a Klingon 'Bird of Prey', arrive in Earth's atmosphere to face trial for the events seen in 'Search For Spock', they decipher the probe's signal as the song of, now extinct, humpback whales. Deciding that live whales are required to communicate with the probe, the crew time travel back to 1986 San Francisco, where a local aquarium houses two such creatures.
If there's one sub-genre which defined Hollywood during the eighties, it's the "fish-out-of-water" archetype. The massive success of 1982's 'E.T', followed by 1984's 'Beverly Hills Cop', meant the sub-genre would be milked till this particular cash cow's teats ran dry. We had gruff Aussies struggling to adapt to life in New York city ('Crocodile Dundee'), geriatric convicts struggling to adapt to life in the eighties ('Tough Guys'), and even kids struggling to adapt in the adult's body they magically find themselves in ('Big'). The permutations were endless, making it a screenwriter's dream. All you needed was a character and a contrasting setting to drop them in. It was drama in its simplest form and adapted easily to comedy. For the bean-counters of Hollywood it was manna from heaven, particularly where science fiction was concerned. In the wake of 'Star Wars', sci-fi was associated with huge budgets but the fish-out-of-water concept changed this. Rather than spending millions creating alien worlds, you could simply bring the aliens to our world. Thus we got 'Starman', 'Masters of the Universe', 'Lifeforce', and countless others. It was inevitable then that Kirk and crew would find themselves Earthbound.
With the success of time travel movies like 'Back to the Future' and 'The Terminator', the producers of 'The Voyage Home' knew they had a winning formula on their hands. Nicholas Meyer ('Wrath of Khan') was brought back as co-writer, along with Harve Bennett ('Search For Spock'). Bennett handled the film's future-set bookends while Meyer wrote the 1986 middle section. In the hands of a lesser writer, the film could have become just another bad eighties high concept comedy but Meyer comes up with some clever ways to mine jokes from the situation without completely destroying the integrity of the characters. Every eighties fish-out-of-water movie seemed to feature a scene where our "fish" is confronted by a mohawk-sporting punk, (Hollywood seemingly failed to realize punk died in the late seventies); "Nice night for a walk", "That's not a knife, this is a knife" etc. Here, Meyer has Spock (Nimoy) employ the Vulcan neck-pinch on one such stereotype, a hood who insists on blaring loud music on a bus. Meyer also gets around the old time-travel paradox with some simple, yet clever, throwaway dialogue.
Some of the jokes don't work quite so well, particularly Chekhov's subplot of being mistaken for a Russian spy. Likewise, Spock's failure to grasp "colorful metaphors" is a tad overplayed. The film is at its best when focusing on Kirk, allowing Shatner to exploit his brilliant, and under-rated, comic timing.
'The Voyage Home' came at a time when special effects where at a crossroads between practical and digital. It's the former which hold up the strongest here, with some stunning model work on display. The early experimental computer generated effects, seen in the time-warp sequence, look extremely primitive now, resembling an Atari ST loading screen. The matte paintings, particularly one featuring the Klingon ship, are totally unconvincing yet still beautiful to look at. Given the choice between real and stunning, I'll gladly take the latter.
The worst element of 'The Voyage Home' is its horrifically bad soundtrack. Following great work by Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner on the previous three installments, Leonard Rosenman's score sounds like it was composed for a Christmas comedy rather than a Trek movie. Bizarrely, along with Goldsmith's work on 'The Motion Picture', it's one of only two Trek scores nominated for an Oscar, yet another reason why the Academy shouldn't be taken seriously.

Of all the Trek films, this is the one which divides fans the most, a movie arguably more appreciated by casual film viewers than hardcore fans of the franchise. Yes, it milks a formula with a minimum of effort so, in this regard, it can be seen as the 'Jaws: The Revenge' of the series. However, in Meyer, you have a writer who cares deeply about his work and this, coupled with the familiarity of the characters, elevates it above the standard commercial dross of the eighties. It was also a massive commercial success, returning $133 million from its $21 million budget, something which became a huge factor in the green-lighting of the franchise's return to TV a year later with 'The Next Generation'.

7/10

Watch the 'Fast & Furious 6' World Premiere Live!

2013-05-04T22:29:00.001+01:00

'Fast & Furious 6', the latest installment in the high-octane franchise, receives its world premiere on Tuesday May 7th. You can watch the event, live from London, right here. Just pop back here at 5pm U.K time, May 7th.