Summer Blockbusters
So in the span of two weeks, I've seen two major summer movies: Iron Man 3 and Star Trek: Into Darkness. Both were generally good and enjoyable.
One only ever took me out of the movie once in a minor way and even upon leaving the theater, while I could ask further questions, nothing struck me as a disruptive "plot hole."
The other charmed me with some parallels to the past, but had me thinking "wait, what?" and "why?" several times during the movie. I felt like the movie was trying so hard to be non-stop action and tension that it actually ended up feeling uneven to me. And as events occurred, the stakes actually felt like they were lessening rather than increasing. Scrutinizing afterward makes these details look even larger, but these days I think I feel the disruption while watching is the greater failing.
The opening away mission was a little over the top, but served fine in a number of regards. "Harrison's" introduction, however, felt totally clunky to me. I guess we're supposed to feel sympathy for the officer who's "forced" to turn suicide bomber, but for me it was several minutes of meta-thinking "I'm sure this is going somewhere, but it looks totally irrelevant."
The whole movie is a bunch of Kirk making bad decisions that he shouldn't be in a position to make. His command is revoked, then sort of reinstated almost by default. Near the end, he's basically admitting (which I guess may be progress) that he has no idea what he's doing. But seriously, we're two movies in and I, as a viewer, find it requires a huge, deliberate suspension of disbelief to accept anyone is still letting him captain anything.
We're led to belief Starfleet is under terrorist attack! Then, we're told the Federation is on the brink of war with the Klingons that could be triggered by sneezing wrong - yet somehow a couple Federation capital ships floating around Klingon space attracts less attention than an unarmed ship flying around an uninhabited (yet strangely overdeveloped and patrolled) section of a Kronos and there appear no signs of war building up over the next year. Then... well, the Enterprise is in danger! Okay, this has to be the real climax of the film, right? Well, maybe not... 'cause now the Enterprise is in danger from gravity alone! Oh, the Enterprise is okay, but now Spock has to chase down the villain or all (okay, one person) is lost! ... There's a reason movies usually have the showdown with the villain simultaneous to the stopping of the big, feared event - you build action to a climax and resolve things together. This movie doesn't. It resolves one thing, leading into the next crisis, but after you peak at "the Federation is in danger," everything else becomes less and less.
Now, I will say that I liked the role reversal toward the end that had Kirk in a position to sacrifice himself for the ship and Spock chasing down the villain in a hand-to-hand showdown. And the reactor scene callback was a little bit touching in spite of being so transparently not as meaningful as what happened in Wrath of Khan. But the blood thing was telegraphed from miles away, and it makes ridiculously little sense that they said "We need Khan's blood!" instead of "Gee, we've got 72 similarly modified people in cryo tubes we could take samples from right here." Knowing that little deus ex machina was right there took any edge off the Kirk/Spock scene for me.
Overall, it wasn't a bad ride for a movie, but it's one of those that I'm left feeling could have been so much more.
... though the movie has the disturbing trait of being less appealing the more I think about it. Little things but me more and more like:
- While the overall Klingon threat never pays off, the Klingons that are in the movie only seem to serve the purpose of proving how badass Khan is.
- Though the space battle in Wrath of Khan felt a little like some turn-based simulation between the Enterprise and the Reliant, it was still more satisfying than what's in this movie. The dreadnaught catches the Enterprise in warp (okay, sure, new tech, whatever...) and cripples it. One-sided, end of any ship-to-ship fighting.
One only ever took me out of the movie once in a minor way and even upon leaving the theater, while I could ask further questions, nothing struck me as a disruptive "plot hole."
The other charmed me with some parallels to the past, but had me thinking "wait, what?" and "why?" several times during the movie. I felt like the movie was trying so hard to be non-stop action and tension that it actually ended up feeling uneven to me. And as events occurred, the stakes actually felt like they were lessening rather than increasing. Scrutinizing afterward makes these details look even larger, but these days I think I feel the disruption while watching is the greater failing.
The opening away mission was a little over the top, but served fine in a number of regards. "Harrison's" introduction, however, felt totally clunky to me. I guess we're supposed to feel sympathy for the officer who's "forced" to turn suicide bomber, but for me it was several minutes of meta-thinking "I'm sure this is going somewhere, but it looks totally irrelevant."
The whole movie is a bunch of Kirk making bad decisions that he shouldn't be in a position to make. His command is revoked, then sort of reinstated almost by default. Near the end, he's basically admitting (which I guess may be progress) that he has no idea what he's doing. But seriously, we're two movies in and I, as a viewer, find it requires a huge, deliberate suspension of disbelief to accept anyone is still letting him captain anything.
We're led to belief Starfleet is under terrorist attack! Then, we're told the Federation is on the brink of war with the Klingons that could be triggered by sneezing wrong - yet somehow a couple Federation capital ships floating around Klingon space attracts less attention than an unarmed ship flying around an uninhabited (yet strangely overdeveloped and patrolled) section of a Kronos and there appear no signs of war building up over the next year. Then... well, the Enterprise is in danger! Okay, this has to be the real climax of the film, right? Well, maybe not... 'cause now the Enterprise is in danger from gravity alone! Oh, the Enterprise is okay, but now Spock has to chase down the villain or all (okay, one person) is lost! ... There's a reason movies usually have the showdown with the villain simultaneous to the stopping of the big, feared event - you build action to a climax and resolve things together. This movie doesn't. It resolves one thing, leading into the next crisis, but after you peak at "the Federation is in danger," everything else becomes less and less.
Now, I will say that I liked the role reversal toward the end that had Kirk in a position to sacrifice himself for the ship and Spock chasing down the villain in a hand-to-hand showdown. And the reactor scene callback was a little bit touching in spite of being so transparently not as meaningful as what happened in Wrath of Khan. But the blood thing was telegraphed from miles away, and it makes ridiculously little sense that they said "We need Khan's blood!" instead of "Gee, we've got 72 similarly modified people in cryo tubes we could take samples from right here." Knowing that little deus ex machina was right there took any edge off the Kirk/Spock scene for me.
Overall, it wasn't a bad ride for a movie, but it's one of those that I'm left feeling could have been so much more.
... though the movie has the disturbing trait of being less appealing the more I think about it. Little things but me more and more like:
- While the overall Klingon threat never pays off, the Klingons that are in the movie only seem to serve the purpose of proving how badass Khan is.
- Though the space battle in Wrath of Khan felt a little like some turn-based simulation between the Enterprise and the Reliant, it was still more satisfying than what's in this movie. The dreadnaught catches the Enterprise in warp (okay, sure, new tech, whatever...) and cripples it. One-sided, end of any ship-to-ship fighting.
Comments
Post a Comment