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Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Meh.
I did like the original Wrath of Kahn of course, but I can also appreciate this movie on its own merits and don't care much that they changed it all.
Having said that I have numerous problems with the movie.
#1. The Enterprise never fires a shot, and is simply a punching bag for a bigger meaner ship throughout the movie. I suppose if you like your starships heavily damaged and passive, this is the movie for you. Most sci fi fans can tell you that the Enterprise is just as much a character as any of the people onboard. It deserved a chance to fire its weapons, to engage in battle, not just get the stuffing blasted out of it. Even the TV episodes allowed the Enterprise to fight back a little, and in Wrath of Kahn the two major ship battles were very cool indeed. Next time let the enterprise do some destroying instead of being destroyed please.
#2. Kahn was overacted, with magical blood that raises creatures from the dead. I don't see why the writers keep insisting on putting in these ridiculous plot points when they are totally unnecessary.
Aside from that, I just can barely remember what happened in the movie aside from a few decent scenes but its all disjointed, as if each scene were just an excuse to have the characters running flying and firing phasers.
Ascension (2014)
I read this book when I was a kid.. possibly by Pohl
I forget the title of the book, but it was possibly by Frederick Pohl, was written in the 60's or 50's. The meta plot was exactly the same. A giant multi-generational ship is launched, but its really just an experiment, and the crew has no idea that they are actually still on earth. I remember in the book the point of it was to make geniuses breed with each other, and give them no entertainment except for scientific problems and see what these bottled-up geniuses end up sending "back" to earth. In the book they solved numerous mathematical problems that had befuddled people for centuries, as well as numerous other scientific things. This is touched on in at least once scene in the series. About halfway through the book the funding for the project was reduced and the spinning motion of the ring (which is not on the show) was stopped, which was immediately noticible to the crew. Only one super genius kid was able to figure out that there was no way that the amount of gravity they were feeling was from the thrust of the engines of the designs that they had and that they must be sitting on a planet. Again, as with the mini series, there was an inside man who was fully aware of the outside world, but he had an actual way to get into and out of the ship. I wish I could remember the title and author but I immediately recognized it when I watched the show so maybe some other old school scifi fans out there can find out who wrote the original book some 50 years ago?
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014)
Finally a science show that doesn't bow to superstition
I love that in every episode they bring up the battles between religion and science and spell out exactly whats what. No more bowing down to primitive superstitions. No wishy washy political correctness. Just pure science, fact, and logic. I love that for example he says "people say evolution is just a theory like its somebody's opinion, but then so is the theory of gravity." Evolution is a fact that we can prove and have proved. Ask any virologist how they make those cures for the various viruses that come along. By evolving the right cure that's how. But I don't have to prove anything to you guys. If you watch the show, you're already tuned in to reality and don't believe in magic or myths from the bronze age. My kids love it, yours will too. Jump on the bandwagon, this is fantastic education. Learn something!
White House Down (2013)
Goofy Die Hard.
Lets cheer for the president as he fires a rocket launcher out the window of his armored limo. I didn't know what I was looking at half the time in this movie. Is this supposed to be a serious action movie or some ridiculous over the top Hot Shots type of movie? I was leaning toward the latter, but they kep putting in the super serious presidential music that they play in the background of every super serious presidential or war movie.
Lets get down to it though, shall we? This movie is goofy. Period. I loved when Maggie Gylenhall and the rest of the guys just looked so amazed and aghast that the whitehouse was STILL under the control of a handful of terrorists as they stand in a big war room surrounded by 50 soldiers and agents of various types. Well, if all you do is stand around in a big war room then the bad guys can't be stopped right? The movie depends upon just about everyone in the film being completely incompetent at their job, except of course the terrorists who are supernaturally good at killing, and Channing Tatum, who is the new Bruce Willis in this die-hard wannabe.
I wanted to laugh. May have worked as a comedy, but as an action movie, not so much.
Gravity (2013)
This really is a great movie, scientific inaccuracies aside.
This should have won for best picture hands down. You see on the message boards here one after another people saying that this wasn't "enough" but that they haven't seen 12 years a slave, but they were sure that it was a better movie. Exactly. I haven't seen 12 years a slave either, never even heard of it until Oscar night, and have no plans to ever see it. Probably like all the other people who spend hundreds of millions going to see Gravity.
Gravity was spellbinding, incredible, capturing the almost real-time struggle to survive in the most dangerous space catastrophe that it would be possible to have.
If I didn't know that communication satellite orbit 20 K miles higher than the shuttle and the space stations fly, (enough to fit 2 Earths inbetween) I would have given it a higher rating. But I'm also willing to suspend disbelief enough to fully enjoy it. The most fantastic space adventure it is possible to have.
See it!
The Purge (2013)
Ignores the large scale just a basic horror flick
On the large scale, allowing anarchy to reign in any country would just encourage revolution and insurgence. Gangs of dissatisfied citizens would plan every year to sow anarchy during the time they know cops aren't going to be around to enforce the laws. If they start eliminating all the cops in large regions, as they do in revolutionary and anarchistic countries, then after the purge is over, who is there to restore order? This is the problem we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the new cops are killed off at graduation ceremonies, and police stations are bombed. What results is a perpetual anarchist state, ruled by warlords and gangs.
Well, its against the rules of the purge to use automatic weapons or to go after cops. Again, people who like hunting other people aren't going to just follow the rules because they are docile and easily controlled. They'll probably just do as they wish, eliminate the cops and the authorities while they have a chance, and cause the downfall of the government.
Any society is just a few days away from revolution. Take away basic services over a large enough area, take away emergency and policing, make it hard for people to get food.
Overall, this is just a childishly silly premise for a basic horror movie. What we see in the movie is extremely limited and small scale, ignoring what would actually happen if this ridiculous Purge were to pass.
World War Z (2013)
Zombie Movies are now Family Friendly
What kind of zombie movie is this? The kind of bloodless, family-friendly PG-13 fare that Hollywood churns out now apparently, and I hated it. What kind of ZOMBIE movie has no blood in it? Even the zombies themselves just look like regular people with a few minor bloodless wounds that run around. They aren't scary, they aren't gory, they aren't worth watching. I haven't seen such a poor excuse for zombies since I AM LEGEND.
I have seen zombie movies before where somebody was bitten and they amputated the affected limb. Take Day of the Dead for example, one of the bloodiest, goriest movies I have ever seen. They show the gore in all its gory glory. In World War Z? Nah, no blood, cut away, don't shock the audience, don't show anything. In fact I don't think I saw one person die in this movie.
I suppose if you want to take the kids to see a zombie movie, this would be the one to go to.
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
Chick Flick and utterly terrible
I expected something with steve carell to be funny. I did not laugh once. The situation is ridiculous without any hint of realism. Obviously a vehicle for overwrought female emotions and no connection to the real world at all. Keira Knightly shows some really bad acting that made me cringe (what WAS his name?) A shelter in somebody's basement coated with 12 inches thick of titanium? How much does a slab of titanium 12 inches thick weigh? How did you get it in there in the first place? Where would you go to buy 12 inch thick slabs of titanium? Why do these guys care about Keira Knightly in the first place as she seems to have no traits that any reasonable man would desire.
Overall one of the worst movie experiences I've ever endured.
Pacific Rim (2013)
The most epic movie I have ever seen
I have been an avid fan of sci-fi action movies ever since I first saw Star Wars back in 1977. Watching Pacific Rim gave me the same feeling that I had when I was 7 and saw that movie. Pacific Rim is epic in scale, story, visuals, and sound like Star Wars, Aliens, Jurassic Park, the Matrix and Avatar before it. I compare it to these giants of science fiction because thats where Pacific Rim belongs.
My jaw dropped at the scale, at the amazingly realistic action scenes. The musical score was heroic and inspiring, unique and memorable. I cheered, I gasped, I was completely enthralled in this movie beginning to end. I saw images unlike anything I had ever seen before and I was deeply saddened when it was over. This is a true masterpiece.
There has never been a movie like this one, at least regarding subject matter. I suppose it took Hollywood technology this long to get to the point where they could make a Japanese Anime movie like Robotech or Evangelion in a realistic manner.
The Kaiju were monstrous, threatening and never once did I think that the Jaeger would just walk up and kill the thing with one punch like the Hulk. These Kaiju were a real threat, mostly bigger than our own titanic robotic Jaegers and often throughout the movie I knew that the pilots were in true peril. Each fight was a work of art, never shying away from the blood. This is no bloodless superhero romp, but a gritty visceral experience that is terrifying and thrilling.
There were great lines, great shout-outs to classic movies, and great likable characters. The plot took you everywhere you could hope for and then some. Events happened that I had absolutely no expectation of, amazing things that I will not spoil for you.
I sit here now wondering how long it will be before I can go see it again, or buy a copy so I can put it on and play it all day long. I thank you Mr. Deltoro for creating something so astounding. I hope this is only the beginning of a series.
The Thing (2011)
A fitting sequel and awesome monster movie
The Thing was a very creepy, highly enjoyable monster movie that is a great sequel to John Carpenter's Thing. I can compare this movie to its original in the same way that I can compare Alien and its sequel Aliens. The first movie was a slow, dark, creepy horror monster movie, and the sequel is an action movie with scary monsters. This new Thing movie is much more of an action movie, and is none the worse for it.
This movie has about twice as many cast members as the original, and thus twice the number of gruesome, freaky, exceedingly gory deaths. So there is twice as much happening as in the original, all within about the same length of time. In addition, this new Thing is a much more organic, mobile, quick monster. In the original, due to the special effects of the time, the Thing mostly just sat there and hissed and looked very scary. The only way it seemed to be able to kill anyone was if it tricked them into getting very close. The new Thing RUNS. It JUMPS. It chases and it crashes through walls on fire! Awesome. And honestly, the last thing I wanted to see in this movie was another long dark sequence of listening to antarctic wind blow and people looking scared. The new Thing is much faster paced while losing none of what made the first Thing one of my favorites. There is a big scare factor. Many times I was biting my fingers, on the edge of my seat, wanting to cover my eyes, my heart beating fast in my chest.
I loved it, and fans of sci-fi or monster movies should love it too. I don't think that this movie deserves the negative reviews that it has received at all. They mostly seem to be fanboys who think that A: This movie is too much like the first one, or B: Not enough like the first one. In fact, the only thing that would have made the fanboys happy is if this movie was an exact replica of John Carpenter's movie, complete with Kurt Russell, but also totally different than Carpenter's.
I'd like to remind everyone that Carpenter's Thing was not well received and got mixed reviews from the critics. It wasn't until many years later that the Thing got the attention and respect that it deserved. The haters should consider later on all the other truly horrible monster movies that have been made and give this movie the good ratings it really deserves.
I believe that the new Thing stands on its own as an excellent monster movie and that comparisons with Carpenter's Thing are unfair and unreasonable. This movie delivered in every way that a modern audience could expect. If it had the plodding slow pace of Carpenter's then modern audiences would have gotten bored very quickly.
The plot was solid, the acting from everyone was solid, the effects were quite good, though the CG was not quite at the realistic level I wanted to see (such as District 9). Mary Winstead did a great job as the heroine and has all the sci-fi girl cred she could ever want.
I want to just urge everyone who is a fan of the original to give this one a chance and you won't be disappointed.
Skyline (2010)
Imaginative hard sci-fi hidden in a zombie siege plot.
Skyline presents a surprisingly high-minded and imaginative alien science fiction story hidden within a typical zombie-siege type movie. The movie has been maligned because of the apparent ridiculousness of the aliens themselves but I differ greatly in that opinion. The aliens of Skyline represent the most technologically advanced and thoroughly alien ET's I have ever seen in a movie; convincingly so because true ET's probably don't resemble Earth life at all.
The problem with most hard-scifi is that typical audience members are not smart enough to understand it unless it's spelled out in easy to understand one syllable words. That's why the books of Arthur C Clarke or Poul Anderson remain beyond the reach of most readers; they simply don't have the imagination or knowledge to comprehend it. The same is true of the aliens of Skyline.
What we see here in the movie are not the aliens themselves, but their biological/ cybernetic robots. The squids that fly around are clearly a type of cyborg, while the large tank-creatures are also biological or cybernetic constructs. They are harvesting human brains (not EATING them, as some particularly dim viewers think). Why? Because human brains represent the most complex structure on planet Earth. Supercomputers in a handy 3 pound package, the culmination of 3.5 billion years of evolution. To these aliens, this biological supercomputer was the most useful thing they could find on our primitive world. Just right to reprogram and run their cyber-constructs, as we saw quite clearly at the end of the movie. The aliens themselves are not seen at all, unless they are a collective intelligence.
I can't vouch for the acting or characters, but the science fiction aspects were quite good and I enjoyed it a lot.
Watchmen (2009)
You don't have to be a comic fan to like this!
I have read that if you're not already a fan of the comic book, you won't like the movie. I have never heard of the comic, I never had any interest in comics, and have never owned a comic. But I liked this movie.
This is far from a typical comic story that are so prevalent today. There is very gritty violence, interesting, dark characters, real emotions, and great effects as well as quite a complex story. What I suppose impressed me the most is that these super heroes weren't really heroes at all. Most of them were more like villains, and their powers were, with the exception of Dr. Manhattan, rather unremarkable. Most of them seemed to have pretty impressive, slightly inhuman strength, or speed, but beyond that, they were just people in your typical superhero outfits.
Dr. Manhattan was refreshing in that having incredible, unbelievable powers, he had totally lost his touch on human reality and actually said that living and dead matter were really no different since they were structurally the same. Awesome example of weirdness there.
I saw it more as an alternative super hero story than the x-men, spiderman type stories, and I like it a lot more because of it.
Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Makes Independence Day look like a Disney movie.
OK first and foremost this is an ACTION MOVIE, nothing more, nothing less. It is one of the few pure action movies to come out in a while, and I appreciate that. Many movies make the mistake of trying to create some elaborate plot to tie all the action together and in many cases (transformers 2, iron man 2, etc...) the attempt to create this elaborate and meaningful story and complex characters is the downfall of the movie. Had these action movies stuck to what they do best... Action... perhaps they would have been as entertaining as Battle LA.
Battle LA does not go deep into these characters, and most of them have a pretty short lifespan. Aaron Eckhart does a great job as the lead and many of the secondary characters are totally believable. Again, in defense of the very straightforward story, when a marine unit is called into action, very rarely is there some amazing drama going on. This is actually MORE realistic because of the straightforward, action-oriented style.
The special effects were completely outstanding, the action sequences were awesome, and the dramatic moments were effective. I really enjoyed this movie far more than any of the comic-book action movies I have seen, and it is far and away the most brutal and violent alien invasion movie I have ever seen. And that's a very good thing.
If you are a red blooded male who likes NON-STOP-ACTION then you will love this movie. Its realistic, gritty, and aimed at an adult audience without one trace of cutsie nonsense that is my nemesis in a movie.
Avatar (2009)
I loved the movie but there are some liberties taken with the plot
While I have to say that overall I very much love this movie, there are a couple of small plot points that I have issue with, which can be explored in the form of a mystery.
The case of the mysterious vanishing characters
#1. Where did all the other avatar drivers and their avatars go? When Jake is first taken to the link control center we hear the announcement "Drivers coming out of link." He rolls over and meets grace. In the background we see another driver coming out of a pod, but a strategically placed technician blocks their face, and the third driver is completely obscured. However, when Jake runs from the medical center after going online for the first time, he passes at least SIX other avatars on the base grounds playing basketball and whatnot. Later that night there are at least TEN other avatars in their sleeping facility. So who are these mysterious other drivers and where are their avatars when the big nasty goes down? Why doesn't Grace recruit some of them to her cause? Why don't any others go to Neytiri's tree and help out? Where are they during the big fights, or in fact, the entire rest of the movie because they are never shown again after they are introduced.
#2. What happened to Norm Spellman? His avatar gets killed at the end and we see human Norm emerging from his pod gasping in pain and shock, and then
he vanishes. Jake Scully is supposed to be in the other pod, right there beside him, and Norm should be awake and watching the battle out the window when Jake's avatar and the general duke it out, but Norm has disappeared. The general reaches into the metal trailer and smashes the first pod and looks in
nope, empty, because that was Norm's pod and we saw him come out of it. Then he goes down to Jake's pod. Shouldn't Norm have been there somewhere to get Jake out of the pod and put an air mask on him? He's obviously not hiding under the bed, and he didn't go outside while Jake is in link and could use his assistance. He isn't in another pod in some other trailer either because we see that Trudy only carried one trailer and the 2 pods inside to the Navi' refugee site, and it clearly shows only one trailer in several scenes.
Obviously these disappearances were done in order to make the plot more dramatic. It's much more dramatic if Neytiri rescues human Jake and puts the air mask on him, instead of Norm. And we can't have all these other avatars running around the movie distracting from the story of Jake Sully. Its easy to overlook because of all the action in the movie, but once you know to look for it, it's very noticeable.
Star Trek (2009)
I have problems with several plot points.
I have several glaring problems with the plot. I do demand that movies I watch at least try to make some sense, and not many people seem to have noticed these which I will point out.
1. Spock Ejects Kirk from the Enterprise. Does the starship not come with a brig? What does Spock think will happen to his career if he ejects a cadet onto a barely livable ice ball where he is bound to be eaten by one of several large predators?
2. Just so happens
.. Out of an entire planetary body we would assume is at least the size of our moon, Kirk Just So Happens to land a couple of miles from where Spock is hiding in a cave
and he Just So Happens to run in the random direction of that cave and then encounter Spock.
3. Who are the two very unlucky Romulans in the giant laser drill? What exactly is their job inside there? It looks to be a very precarious and highly dangerous job that must be totally necessary otherwise these two jokers would stay up on the big ship. Honestly I wouldn't want to be inside any kind of mechanism that's dropped 200 miles from orbit into a planet's atmosphere and then periodically spews flames because its getting so hot from the amount of energy it's discharging.
4. The entire mechanism of the giant laser drill and black hole bomb is totally unnecessary. Are you saying that if you created a black hole on the surface of the planet nothing would happen? Trust me, the black hole would eat everything up, maybe just a little slower, and you don't need some elaborate tunnel deep into the core of the planet to do it.
5. Do Vulcan and Earth not have an Air Force? So this giant laser drill is hanging there in the sky blasting the planet for apparently a couple hours or so. Are there NO atmospheric fighter jets anywhere around? A 400 year old F-15 and one missile could have saved the day. A shuttle with a welding laser. A surface to air missile. Randy Quaid drunk in his F-18 from Independence Day crashing into it.
Are you saying that this thing can hang over San Fran and nobody is going to send up a squad of fighters to blow it away and we have to wait helplessly for some starship outside the atmosphere to show up?
And then there was the spot that the drill was firing at on Earth which was into a bunch of water. The exact worst possible spot to try to use a laser drill
oh never mind. None of it makes any sense.
6. Spock needs an Astronomy 101 class. So the back story of why old Spock needs a black hole bomb in the first place is that there is some supernova that is going to blow Romulus up and they need the black hole bomb to "absorb" it. Now I'm not an astrophysicist, but I did take plenty of astronomy classes as I'm sure many Trek fans have.
A supernova is a star blowing up. If it is a star outside the Romulus star system, then, even if the shock wave moves at the speed of light, and that star is right next door to Romulus, then you have at least 4 years before it arrives at Romulus (about the closest distance stars are to each other in this part o the galaxy.) More than likely, you'd have a hundred years heads up because shock waves from supernovas don't move at the speed of light. Since you have ships that can fly from Earth to Vulcan in about 10 minutes I'd say you should have plenty of time to do whatever you needed, and it wouldn't come down to the last second.
Or, if the star that is blowing up is Romulus' home star, then I don't care what you place in front of it to "absorb" the explosion, every planet in the system is done for. The supernova remnant that will be left afterward won't be anything like the star Romulus is used to and nothing on the planet will be capable of living in that radically altered environment. And, incidentally, Romulus would have been engulfed by the star hundreds of years earlier as it grew into a red giant prior to blowing up.
So basically the whole back story is completely impossible, even if we agree that there can be a thing called "red matter" that makes black holes and even if you could use this black hole to travel backwards through time. Since its Star Trek I can buy that, but what I can't buy is this very vague and ridiculously unscientific supernova that is going to blow up Romulus.
So maybe most of the movie-going audience doesn't know a galaxy from a star system or a nova from a nebula, sure I guess I can forgive that. But most of the movie-going audience should know that Vulcan and Earth aren't going to sit there helpless without an air force because apparently in the star trek universe the only things that can fly around and do anything useful are star ships. Are you reading this JJ? Next time at least get the plot to make some sense even if you must totally defy all scientific knowledge about space.