Well as any of you who read my post about my 30 before 30 challenge one of my aims is to review films that I see in the cinema. Well I’ve got the week off work at the moment so I’ve been able to get to cinema a few times this week. I’ve already been twice this week to see both Star Trek into darkness and Iron Man 3. I will not go into them too much just a brief overview followed by my opinion. I will not be giving a star rating or anything like that. I will simply leave that to your own judgment. So here goes.
Star Trek Into Darkness
First off I should probably make clear I’m not a Trekkie. I
have watched a little bit of the original series, some next generation and a
few of the films including the 2009 Star Trek. So I would definitely put myself
in the casual viewer category. It was the 2009 JJ Abrahams reboot that got me
excited about seeing the new one. I really enjoyed the pace and scale of it.
Into Darkness picks up with crew of the enterprise a few years down the line. They
are out exploring the universe as in accordance with their role. However things
get thrown up in the air when a terrorist from within Starfleet starts a one
man war against them. Of course it’s down to captain Kirk and his crew to stop
him. It’s not that simple of course.
The film kicks off at a break neck speed and barring a few
talky scenes, it hardly lets up for the entire 2 hour 20 minute runtime. From
my limited watching of the show it was never that fast paced which is probably
one of the reasons I never got into it. Sure it was interesting but never
caught my imagination. It may sound an odd thing to say as it’s an incredibly
successful tv show but I think star trek is far better suited to the medium of
film instead of television. The sheer scale of ideas means only a movie budget
can do it full justice. However I’m straying from the point so early in this
review, I’ll get back to it.
I’ll get the bad things out of the way then move on to the
good. The bad things are not so bad it ruined them but it wouldn’t be fair not
to mention them. The pace of the film does overshadow some of the weaker parts
of the movie, most notably the plot that doesn’t really make sense if you think
about it too hard. There are moments that I wont mention in fear of spoiling for
people, however there are parts that for me are set up and resolved so quickly
you don’t get a chance to really care about it. There are a lot of twists and
turns in the story but unfortunately some of them were a little bit too
predictable.
On the good side there is some brilliant acting all round in
this but there were two cast members that really stood out. First of all that
of our very own Benedict Cumberbatch who is not only the possessor of one of
the worlds best name, but he is also of a sublime acting pedigree. He plays
dark and brooding so brilliantly that even though he is the antagonist here a
bit of you wants him to win. The other great performance was that of Zachary
Quinto who doesn’t just play Spock he IS Spock he inhabits the role in a way
changes a great recital to an outstanding one. The central relationship between
him and Kirk, that really holds the film together.
One of my favourite things about the 2009 Star Trek was the
score and the same is true of this instalment. The best soundtracks are ones
that make you fill up with emotion just on hearing it. As soon as that main theme kicked in I was
there with it, rooting for the crew. There are so many action sequences in this
film it’s hard to pick out a favourite but for the most part they are done
exceedingly well. I’m glad I saw this film in 2D as I think there is no way my
brain could have kept up with the pace in 3D. I’m certainly not sold on 3D and
frankly I find it hard to see how a film that looks as brilliant as this could
be improved with something flying out at your face every five minutes.
To sum up I very much enjoyed this film. I can’t say it was
as good as the last because although on an action front it was certainly
cranked up a few more notches it seemed to lack something that the first one
had. I’m not sure if it’s the slightly wonky plot or the fact I could see most
of the major points coming but it didn’t quite hold my attention in the same
way. That said I still left the cinema with a large and satisfying grin across my
face and I’m interested to see what will come next in the franchise. Also the quality
of the action set pieces makes me glad that Abrahams is the man in charge of
the next Star Wars film. I don’t think it could be better hands we certainly know
it’s been in worse.
Iron Man 3
As with Star Trek aside from the marvel films I know
literally nothing about the Iron Man universe. So I’m not going to review it
based on any super nerdy background knowledge of it. So if they have made a heinous
error I simply wouldn’t know about it. The movie picks after the events of Avengers
Assemble which have certainly left their mark on Tony Stark. In fact he’s
suffering from insomnia and post- traumatic stress disorder which is at least
partly debilitating. To top it all a new threat has reared its head. A
terrorist simply known as the Mandarin who has launched several attacks on
American soil and utterly destroys Tony’s world. An angry Tony vows to take the
Mandarin down. However, he is stranded in the middle of nowhere with only a
broken prototype version of his suit and a small boy for company.
So I will start off with what I didn’t like about the film
again because I think it’s always nice to end on a high and frankly there is
not much that I don’t like about this film so it’s good to get it out of the
way. Again I don’t want to give away any spoilers so I will keep details to a
minimum. One of the things that took me out of film a bit as I tried to work it
out but the main adversary’s motivation does seem a little bit abstruse. To be
honest I’m still not really sure why they do what they do. The other problem
for me was with the powers that the enemies have which just seem a little ill- conceived
and inconsistent in their portrayal. As with Star Trek these things didn’t ruin
the film but they do knock a few marks off.
The good things about this film are far more numerous. One
of the over arcing themes of the movie is that when bad things happen society
craves a scapegoat, a hate figure someone to put up as the face of evil. It
also heavily suggests that certain governments are quite happy to find and
promote such an idea. It’s rare you get a blockbuster movie of this size tackling
such subjects so a lot of credit has to go to the writers for bringing that to
the fold.
The action sequences in this are as ever pulled off very
well and as with Star Trek before I’m glad I saw this in 2D not 3D as I’m sure
you would have thrown up trying to keep up with it. Unlike Star Trek where
there are twists they are on the whole pretty unpredictable. One in particular
will definitely catch you out unless you have been scouring the internet
beforehand to find all the spoilers. There are moments of general peril that do
make you worry for your protagonist. The enemy do provide a credible threat and it
does not descend into the transformers-esque robots hitting each other.
Probably the most interesting aspect of the story is that
Stark spends comparatively little time in his suit. A large chunk of the film
is spent with him alone on the road and this made t a lot more enjoyable for me
because you get to spend a lot of time with Tony as Tony. The one liners, the
false bravado and the reminders that this guy is a genius and given scant resources’
can still kick some serious arse.
Iron man has always been on the more humorous side of the
comic book adaptations and this is one of things that make it stand out.
Ultimately many super hero stories follow a very similar path. It’s what you do
to dress it up that makes the difference between the Batman’s and the Green
Lantern’s. Tony Stark is an interesting and controversial character and it’s
Robert Downey Jnr that ultimately holds it together. It’s rare that a 3rd
instalment in a franchise is anything more than a cynical cash grab on the back
of the success of the original. I’m glad to say this is a very successful buck
of trend. That being said its hard to say how much further it could go.
