Kim Gentes

Boldly go where no prequel has gone before.

Summary: Instead of patronizing us with a film to placate the trekky hordes, this film completely revamps the Star Trek legacy, giving us grit, humanity, plot believability and fantasy in what used to be a one dimensional world of trek-dom; a triumph of what can be possible with a great filmmaker at the helm.

Review: Writing a new movie for a decades old iconic franchise is the pivotal "chance-of-a-lifetime" for any director. And few succeed. But JJ Abrams is no ordinary director. His prestine vision of the ultimate rebirth of the Star Trek universe infuses, above all, a powerful humanity into the long-loved science fiction yarn.

For over 40 years the legacy of Gene Roddenberry's story has conveyed many things- fantasy, fiction, technology, adventure, characature and time travel.  But rarely did you see much more than characature and stereotype in the development of the cast.  This may seem strange given the cast, but we found each member of the Enterprise to ultimately become one dimensional place holders that allowed for a plot driven TV show that lived on twists and technology to keep us interested.  Character development was never a strong suit of the franchise.  It was attempted moreso in the follow-on movies of the last 3 decades, but never ascended to become more than enhancements of the originals: an arrogant Kirk, calculating Spock, acerbic Bones and mindless Checkov (etc).  

Then comes this new Star Trek, told to us this time from the man who brought us the best movie of 2007 (Cloverfield)- a movie he shot (seemingly) entirely through a single camera- and pulls it off with flying colors.  Abrams is always reaching to pull in the viewer, making everything human, flesh-touchable, gritty.  He succeeds in Star Trek (2009).

Kirk becomes pretentious and arrogant, but fraught with that same guise as a mask to his own failure and pain. Bones is acerbic, for sure, but we gain a look at his real life that exposes those origins. Most of all, we see Spock.  A Spock that is far more human than he ever has been.  Strangely, this makes his Vulcan story seem far more believable.  You grasp his story, you believe it, and you love the ride it takes you on.  But let's be clear- this story is about the rise of James T. Kirk.  It's his human path to a starry, almost super-human stature as the pre-eminant character of science fiction lore.

It's perfectly done, very well acted, and a great adventure tale to boot.  There have been rumblings of "true trekkies" that have dissed the film.  I expected as much.  The vitality of the tales have never been more brilliant in this new film for Star Trek, but we have left behind the plastic, inhuman characters that the original series had given us.  A welcome change.  If you even remotely like sci-fi, this film will delight you.  See it in the theatres, as the shots and action are very engaging.

(I have to say it... even if Nemoy won't!)

Live long and prosper!

Amazon link: http://amzn.to/UvqQty

Review by Kim Gentes.

A truly special movie.

Summary: Ingenious story, focused acting, indie grit visuals and daring direction that doesn't falter; content warnings- some offensive language, some violence and drug use. In my opinion, this movie is not for anyone under 15.  Serious emotional and adult concepts that will be too much for any child.  Again, this movie is rated R, and is not for children.

Full Review: We all strive to be something important in life.  To make a mark, to be involved in something significant.  We want to love and ultimately be loved for who we truly are.  We want to be special. To someone.  Les Franken (played by Michael Rapaport) is just just like you and I.  He is looking for that time, place and relationship in which life fits, your contribution counts and things matter.

But like so many of us, the outward signs for Les are not harrowing his uniqueness in the universe.  Quite the opposite. From his job, to his friends, to desolate outlook on his daily existence, Les's life is a deluge of despair all quietly festering in polite secrecy to the rest of world. 

Until today. Les gets a chance to join a study for a final trial on an anti-depressant drug.  In fact, the drug becomes all Les dreams- or more aptly- Les becomes all he dreams.

The story and preview market the movie as though it were some smart-neck comedy, but it is far from that.  With blisteringly wry pathos "Special" delivers an unnerving look at the human soul.  Simplistic at times and broken, as we all are, it reverts to the disparity between emotional hopes and the blunt force trauma of reality. There are plenty of coy hyperboles here, but all hit you like a sledgehammer instead of a joke.  In the end, the movie watcher feels like the only joke has been in the shallow portrayal that Hollywood film so often (otherwise) makes of real people's problems.

This movie was brilliant, but it is not for everyone.  If want a chuckle, don't go here. If you want an answer, you're not looking in the right spot either.  But sometimes to find a crumb of truth, you need to search for something found only in pain and failure.  And into this world you go, with Les as your guide. And if you can handle the journey, you will indeed find something Special.

Amazon Link : http://amzn.to/UKJlKW

Review by Kim Gentes.

Amazon DVD Link Lovely, Still

Review by Kim Gentes

Another good idea beaten with a club.

The idea of prehistoric man has always been intruiging to viewers of movies. It links our imagination with our humanity by placing what looks like regular people (with bad hair and low tech) back in a land of monsterous animals and mystical understanding.  10,000BC is another very good film concept.  But like my last review (Jumper) it turns out to be a good idea that seems to get the Jr. High School treatment from the filmmakers. The setting is the African continent, likely across the mid to northern parts of Africa leading from the Great Rift Valley through the Sahara to the Egyptian outlet of the Nile.  It is not completely clear where the journey begins, but it is possibly somewhere around Mount Kilimanjaro or Mount Kenya, and ends up in the early stages of the Valley of the Kings, where the pyramids are still under construction.

The story starts out being about a small tribe of hunting nomads who survive on herds of migrating mastadons.  As the creatures migrations slow down the tiny tribe is slowly dieing off.  A personal struggle is introduced and our protagonist is a young tribal leader named D'Leh, whose love interest is kidnapped by marauding horse riders.  In his quest to free and regain his love, D'Leh and several of his tribesmen wander through Africa, gaining tribes of men to help them against the mighty armies of the evil Egyptian empire.  What begins as a simple love story tries to end up being the ultimate movie about class struggle.  The movie has just two problems- no acting and no directing.  The story was strong enough it could have held a good script under its premise, but the writing and details here totally make the film fall flat.  This film in the hands of a master (Speilberg, Coen brothers, or even Gibson) would have been fun if nothing else.  But not only was the directing about as inspiring as 3 day old soda left in the sun, but the acting consisted of glistening-eyed-looks with pretty people headshots and not much else.

Every attempt at emotion and engagement with actual human characteristics falls dismally short of plausible.  The one thing that does work is the well done visuals and excellent set work.

If you have big screen HD TV, wait till this film comes out on BluRay DVD.  You may otherwise feel like you have lived through 10,000 years of tired, cold popcorn crumbs before this film is over on the silver screen. The film is PG13, but that may be simply because it was just too bad for kids under 13 to experience.  The rating here could have PG and it would have been fine. There are a couple scenes of battle and people getting killed in epic battle scenes, but nothing grisly, or frightful for children 10 or over.

Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/T6F5sZ

Review by Kim Gentes

It was good, until the movie started.

You ever get the feeling that someone handed a great idea over to a bunch of 7th graders? If so, you have probably seen Jumper.  This is the action/sci-fi/adaptation gone awry from author Steven Gould.  The screenplay underwent a couple of revisions and direction landed with Doug Linman.  Perhaps another couple script revisions were in order here.  Jumper has a fun premise- teleportation.  Certainly people are gifted genetically to teleport, or so the story goes.  David Rice (played by Hayden Christensen) is one of those people.  The story follows David as he grows from adolesence to adulthood, though he remains selfishly focused throughout.  The story has a few plot twists, but nothing teleports the audience to a believable or even enjoyable place.  Ultimately, the film ends with less pizzazz than it starts and the audience is left wondering how such a cool idea was maimed into the resulting film.  There are touches of interesting action, but the plot and the characters remain undeveloped.  Christensen has even less acting presence in this film than he did in the Star Wars episodes where we played Anakin Skywalker. In fact, he still continues to brood of seemingly nothing in this film, leaving me to believe that he has about 3 poses and about zero acting ability.

The film would have been a good rental or netflix download, but paying full price was probably leaving us all feeling like someone just teleported off with our hard-earned money.

Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/S2Xnsz
 

Review by Kim Gentes