Star Trek Beyond

A truth about Star Trek that holds for every incarnation: It’s good and bad. At its best, it’s capable of smart sci-fi, at different times cerebral and emotive. But the films as well as each individual series have also presented their share of frankly idiotic premises, forced and silly allegory, and flat-out bad stuff. And after two good movies, that truth is catching up with this rebooted series. Star Trek Beyond isn’t close to depths of, say, “Spock’s Brain” bad, but there is a noticeable leveling-off.

Instead of rebuilding continuity, this one returns to a standalone episodic structure that served the old films (mostly) well. But its plotting is as generic, bad-guy-of-the-week as it gets: While on their five-year exploration mission, the Enterprise crew travels into uncharted space in response to an alien distress call. Predictably, they come across a hostile enemy, get stranded and separated on a distant planet, and must race against time to stop an alien menace (Idris Elba) from unleashing an unspeakably destructive ancient weapon on the worlds of the Federation.

And, that’s about all there is to it. Oh, it looks good. There are some creative and uniquely designed environments and spaceships, which make for some exciting battles. But beyond the blockbuster flash, the film has nothing to say, none of the big, interesting ideas (even interestingly bad ones) that are the Trek brand. The closest thing to one is a last-minute twist, but it’s a twist so weak and inconsequential that the movie would have played little different if it were written out of the script.

Rather, director Justin Lin tries to apply his ensemble action-comedy formula he perfected with the Fast & Furious series. The results include admittedly good sequences (the initial attack on and boarding of the Enterprise in particular). But a dirt bike chase in the 23^rd century? It was already ridiculous when they did it with a dune buggy in the Next Generation crew’s kiss-off Nemesis. An even worse sin is making a Beastie Boys song into, quite literally, an integral plot device. Going gleefully silly and over-the-top and relishing in it works for a franchise built on car chases, but it just seems off for Star Trek. Way off.

Another thing that’s true of all Trek is that, like a starship, it’s only as good as its crew. This is why the original 1960s cast still ranks as the best, as they could do the good stuff but also ride out the bad as comedy, and sometimes even turn dreck into gold. This crew, while far from the icons their predecessors were, is pretty damn good, which is good news for Beyond. Pine makes a fun and solid Captain Kirk, if decidedly un-Shatner-like. Also, the cantankerous interplay of Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), the comedic heart of the series when the late Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley played the roles, is played to the fullest, giving the picture its best source of humor. The cast makes a completely average summer product eminently watchable, which is more than can be said about some of the lowest points this franchise has seen over 50 years.

Ghostbusters

This could have been just another reboot of an old Hollywood property like we’ve seen a million times (and as it turns out, a pretty good one). Instead, it’s awash in a nasty sort of anti-hype after being attacked at every step of its production and marketing, by coordinated online misogyny for recasting the leads as female, or by nominal adults who contend that remaking Ghostbusters with any new players besmirches a beloved piece of their childhood (which really just seems like a sad attempt to legitimize said misogyny).

This sad turn of events is subtly acknowledged by the film itself, with a few barbs in the screenplay whose real targets are quite obvious. Also, Neil Casey’s bad guy in some ways embodies the type of socially inept, woman-hating troll with delusions of sophistication and superiority, not unlike the hordes of forum-dwellers who decided they hated this picture as soon as they heard about it. It does not dwell on the subject, though, and instead bests its haters the right way by being a well-made, well-acted, frequently hilarious movie.

It’s a clean reboot this time, with no narrative connections to the first two films (though references and cameos abound). In it, Kristen Wiig plays a scientist who loses her prestigious professorship at Columbia after a book on the paranormal she co-authored years earlier resurfaces. Coincidently, while confronting her estranged collaborator (Melissa McCarthy) about the matter, an occult-obsessed loner (Casey) begins summoning spirits around Manhattan. So, the two scientists, along with an eccentric inventor (Kate McKinnon) and a subway worker (Leslie Jones) with an encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s paranormal history, begin a small operation hunting apparitions run amok.

Even with its high concept and (for the time) impressive special effects, the original Ghostbusters was more understated than people seem to remember. Much of the fun and charm was in simply watching some of the best comedy actors at the high point of their careers interact with each other in situations both normal and fantastical. This new version carries on this tradition, with most of the laughs coming from the four superbly funny leads playing off one another. And they’re not simply gender-swapped versions of the original four. Each character is funny in ways different from their 1984 counterpart, and their interactions are funny in different ways. Despite hitting some of the same plot beats, each set piece is also new and original, never a retread and always funny. And Chris Hemsworth is completely hysterical as their indescribably dimwitted male secretary.

If there’s one thing the original did decidedly better, it’s that it kept a leash on the special effects, using them in funny ways but never overusing them. This one goes a little crazy with them in the final act. One might call it a spoof of overblown, CGI-cluttered action sequences, but it plays a little too straight to cut it as good parody. Fortunately, though, the jokes and banter make it to the other side of the mayhem, and things get back on track quickly with some truly great one-liners in a film full of them.

This Ghostbusters is how a reboot should be done, taking a familiar premise and doing its own new things with it. The result is not only something that doesn’t feel immediately stale, but one of the most fun pieces of entertainment in a summer that’s so far been pretty underwhelming. And yeah, I’ll admit it: after all the unwarranted hate this one got, it feels good to say that.

Finding Dory

Aside from dominating the animated movie game for some time (though Disney’s other animation arm presented a strong challenge for the crown this year with the great Zootopia), Pixar has also been notable for very, very grown-up pathos in a handful of its features. There was the gaping fear of loss and obsolescence pervading Toy Story 3, or the heartbreaking first few minutes of Up. Apparently, many audiences also felt last year’s Inside Out was a bevy of emotions, though while I enjoyed the film, it didn’t quite get to me like it did for some.

As for Finding Dory…well, by and large, it’s the type of joyful, vibrantly animated delight one would expect from Pixar. But pieces of it tread towards strong, even dark emotional territory. The picture nearly gets there, too, before hitting the brakes at the last minute.

In the film, set not long after Finding Nemo, the amnesiac blue title fish (Ellen DeGeneres) starts to regain memories of her childhood and her parents (Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy). To find them, she and her clownfish friends Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence) travel across the ocean to an aquarium in California. Unfortunately, once there, Dory is caught, placed in a storage tank, and scheduled to be transferred across the country. While she enlists the help of the park’s residents in looking for her family, Nemo and Marlin hatch a rescue plan, no easy task on dry land.

Brooks is as on game as last time, if a little less comically cowardly, but it’s DeGeneres who carries the film, stepping up from comic relief to singular lead smoothly and effortlessly. Wisely, though, returning characters outside of the main cast are kept down to cameos or framing scenes, keeping things fresh with new faces and locations instead of treading the same waters. Each new scene and sequence is a fun and clever surprise, and every new player a funny addition, the standout being Ed O’Neill applying his perfected gruff deadpan to a broken, seen-it-all octopus. It all moves at a more urgent pace than Nemo due to time constraints laid out by the plot, but never seems too breathless or frantic like so much children’s entertainment.

It’s in the moments between the big, bold, fun stuff, however, that the film delivers arguably Pixar’s most potent emotion thus far. Flashbacks of the young Dory (Sloane Murray) lost and alone, unable to remember enough to even be helped, are devastating, and I’d imagine a little terrifying for younger viewers. In a series notable for its bright, lush colors, these scenes are darker, greyer, and muted, giving them a subtle intensity. And though there are still jokes at the expense of the title character’s short-term memory loss, its depiction is more sympathetic and reasonably realistic (aside from, you know, the fact that she’s a fish instead of a human). It’s often aggravating and dispiriting, but other times, it’s a challenge that feels rewarding to overcome. And yet, that positive feeling is mostly fleeting, for what it most often reveals is a sense that Dory’s quest will inevitably end in disappointment, lost on the innocently naïve fish but not the audience.

Things are ultimately wrapped up conveniently and nicely; toy with our feelings though they have, I don’t think Pixar (or the big mouse that owns them) is ready for a decidedly unhappy ending. And that works just fine, because the picture has so much else to enjoy. Still, after pushing the envelope for much of the movie, one wonders if Finding Dory would have worked as well (or better) if they had gone all the way. I think it would have.

Independence Day: Resurgence

1996’s Independence Day endures in the pop culture consciousness because everything about it was huge: the spaceships, the explosions, the spectacle, the special effects (the perfect moment in time where old-fashioned model-making met the dawn of CGI), and the personalities. Also, it’s just a complete blast, as fun today as it was 20 years ago (and for me personally, as enjoyable in adulthood as childhood).

How do you top something so big, and really, can it be topped? Independence Day: Resurgence doesn’t hold the answer to either question, not only falling far short of the first film’s legacy, but barely looking like the filmmakers even tried to live up to it. Unless, of course, they’re saving their better ideas for later; in spite of depicting a world where the last 20 years went very differently, one thing the movie couldn’t shake from our world is the blockbuster trend of always setting up for a potential franchise. 

Resurgence catches up with the world two decades after the invasion in the first film. All nations are united in peace. Using leftover alien technology, the planet’s militaries collaborated to create the interplanetary Earth Space Defense in case the invaders should return. What little good it does, because once the baddies show up, the ESD is overwhelmed, much of Earth is devastated, and humanity is once again pushed to the brink.

And it all seems so small. Despite an alien ship bigger than any we saw last time, the destruction-as-spectacle that’s director Roland Emmerich’s specialty feels uncharacteristically insubstantial. Only a single short sequence, in which a futuristic London is toppled by several continents’ worth of landmarks falling from the sky, is memorably impressive. The rest of the brick-and-mortar carnage and the aerial dogfights that follow aren’t exactly inadequate, but all seem rather contained and claustrophobic, something that can rarely be said of Emmerich’s work, good or bad.

That’s not the only failure where its predecessor succeeded. The underlying message of global brotherhood, already a tad cheesy in the first film (not to be unpatriotic, but no, President Bill Pullman’s famous speech is not up there in the American oratory canon), is so forced here. So is the characterization. Whereas the original placed the main characters in simple family units and left them to interact like normal, those in Resurgence lack any natural chemistry even in the easiest, most familiar of roles. Where main character deaths before aroused a sense of tragedy or heroic sacrifice, players new and old are expended without the slightest wisp of feeling, even in another major sacrifice scene (one wonders if the presence of Will Smith would have registered at all had he been included). Comic relief courtesy of Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, and Brent Spiner somewhat works, but also feels tacked-on instead of organic and spontaneous. And whereas simplicity worked best (“the aliens want to kill us and take our planet” was enough), the picture adds unnecessary and fairly ridiculous rules and hints of a greater mythology, blatantly planting seeds for multiple sequels.

The dogfights are passable, at least. Even though they’re decidedly less than his best work, it cannot be said that Emmerich doesn’t know how to direct an action sequence. That much makes Resurgence an average enough two hours indoors avoiding the hot summer weather. Then again, with Fourth of July weekend almost upon us, that time might be better spent catching the classic original on TV.

Money Monster

A note for screenwriters and directors: if your film is aiming to vent some righteous fury at the system, it helps if the vessel for doing so is compelling, charismatic, and heroic. Or at the very least, sympathetic.

Money Monster's vessel for that is regular working stiff Jack O'Connell, who, after losing his life savings, snaps and walks into the Manhattan TV studio of a Jim Cramer-esque financial pundit (George Clooney) with a gun and bomb. As the on-air hostage situation escalates into a worldwide media phenomenon, the show’s director (Julia Roberts) and production team attempt to uncover just why a company touted by the show, and in which the hostage-taker invested, sustained heavy losses.

 
So, it’s angling to be Dog Day Afternoon for the post-Great Recession, cable news era. But, sadly, O’Connell’s no Al Pacino. His desperate gunman ultimately says very little, and comes off as totally out of his depth. He doesn’t even manage a satisfying moment of putting Clooney in his place, or getting the audience to dislike him. And Clooney is really trying to be dislikable, playing to the hilt a caricature cocktail of Wall Street bro, showbiz prima donna, and gasbag pundit. But he acts circles around O’Connell when the two share the screen.

The writing is just as weak, unsubtle and eye roll-inducing even by movie standards of disbelief. When the action leaves the studio to the streets below, the implication is, of course, that this is a rare and unfamiliar event for Clooney’s rich loudmouth, walking amongst the regular people. Yet as obvious as that is, the film ultimately never says a thing about real financial crises of late. The impetus for the story's conflict is revealed as nothing more than generic Hollywood white collar bastardry.

The whole thing is also tonally askew. Moments of moralizing or that are supposed to be heartwarming directly follow moments of tragedy or tension, or at least are supposed to have tension. Jokes are thrown in at the most inappropriate times (a subplot involving a penile enhancer defuses the tension before it’s even really built). Other parts are funny, but seem like they weren’t intended to be funny.

At the very least, Clooney and Roberts are still pros, navigating the jarring shifts in tone and doing what they can in each scene. If nothing else, they give the whole thing a brisk momentum that keeps it from stalling into a total mess. Thanks to them, as well as said humor and overall technical competence, Money Monster could hold some entertainment value as a fun bit of unintended cheese. But as the important, timely message thriller it aspires to be, it’s not even close.

Captain America: Civil War

About the only thing wrong with Captain America: Civil War is the title. Cap’s (Chris Evans) name may be on the thing, and he certainly plays an integral part. But it’s more accurately an Avengers movie, and the strongest individual character arc belongs to Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.). And while the conflict between the characters is gripping, it’s not quite a war on the level of the Civil War comics. This is merely an observation, though, not a complaint, of which I have few.

The film literally namedrops The Empire Strikes Back, as perfect a blockbuster as there’s ever been. Sure, making funny pop culture references is a standard part of the Marvel formula, but it feels like the studio is slyly eliciting comparison to what’s likely the be-all and end-all of movies for many. And you know what? They’ve managed a film that can back up such an audacious claim. Yes, it’s that good.

The movie opens with an Avengers mission in Nigeria that accomplishes its objective, but results in the deaths of many civilians. This latest incident, on top of all the destruction in the previous films, leads the nations of the world to adopt an agreement that would put superheroes under government authority. Tony Stark, restless and guilt-stricken, supports the idea. Captain America, apprehensive that answering to the government could prevent them from saving people, opposes it. This difference of opinion comes to a head and sides are taken when the bombing of a diplomatic gathering is blamed on Cap’s childhood friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), formerly the assassin known as the Winter Soldier.

The Civil War comic event was a months-long conflagration spanning most of the Marvel universe, and was a rather one-sided affair (Stark’s faction acted rather super-villainous, some thought). Smartly, the film takes a different approach, paring the conflict down to a more intimate level and giving both sides compelling arguments and motivations, if not equal points. Despite the side-taking marketing angle (Team Cap or Team Iron Man), rooting interest in the viewer’s chosen team eventually diminishes, giving way to an aura of tragedy that the heroes are coming apart. And the villain (Daniel Brühl) is revealed to be a more thoughtful and sad figure, a nice counter to the (somewhat apt) criticism that Marvel’s baddies are mostly generic one-offs.

Fear not, action fans, for there’s still the big, satisfying slugfest with all the heroes (including a few new ones) we were promised. But it’s the smaller, closer, more personal fights that are truly affecting, so great is the underlying emotion and weight. Evans is still as much the moral rock as he’s ever been as the good captain, and Stan reveals a sad emptiness to his character. But this is inarguably Downey’s movie. This is the finest he’s even been in the series, his tortured soul barely being contained by his smart-aleck exterior. The clashes of character as well as fists add more fuel to the fire with every scene the three share. By the time the picture reaches peak climax, the effect is nearly as tragic, shattering and cathartic as a certain familial reveal in Empire. If Disney didn’t also own Star Wars, Marvel could tell The Force Awakens to eat its heart out, and would be totally justified.

The film also breaks new ground for the series in its structure. Remember how Age of Ultron was so stuffed that it seemed like it was bursting at the seams? Well, turns out Civil War is a bit of a continuation of that storyline, tying up loose ends, closing or moving along some arcs, and giving each new character a moment besides just introductions. What seemed like a narrative high wire act in one picture turns out to work splendidly over two, balancing many character arcs and subplots without becoming too busy or convoluted. It even finds room for whole new players and subplots, such as the strong debut storyline of Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther, or the new Spider-Man (Tom Holland) in what amounts to a preview for the coming Disney-Sony co-production starring the charater (it's enjoyable, but it's still pretty blatantly a preview). And it still works!

As a matter of fact, that leads me to the lone complaint I have. Civil War is the best Avengers movie and best Iron Man movie yet, and could be the best Captain America movie (though The Winter Soldier is still tough to beat). Not only does its unexpected and successful execution of a two-film narrative bode well for Infinity War, but the picture clearly plants seeds and leaves things to be resolved then and there.

And after all that, we have to wait two years to see it.

Green Room

Green Room is a slick, nasty little piece of work. That’s a compliment, I assure you, considering the genre and moral universe this film occupies. It is undoubtedly not for everyone, but for certain audiences—grindhouse horror fans, cult film connoisseurs, or any angry viewer looking to purge a little tenseness and bloodlust—this is a cinematic gold nugget, a movie to seek out and enjoy with a like-minded crowd.

The unfortunate protagonists of this horrific ride are The Ain’t Rights (Anton Yelchin, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, and Callum Turner), a punk rock outfit eking out a hand-to-mouth existence on the road. They've manage to land the worst gig imaginable: a dive venue and gathering place for a neo-Nazi gang in the backwoods of Oregon. The group’s performance goes off without much incident, until one member unwittingly witnesses a murder backstage. As a result, the band, along with a friend of the victim (Imogen Poots), are held hostage in the club’s green room, in a situation there appears to be no way out of. Well, no peaceful or pretty way, anyway.

There’s a rough-around-the-edges look to the production, befitting the punk rock element of the story and the unceasing tone equally. The violence is pretty stark (I’ll just say that dialogue specifically lists guns as out of the question, limiting the killing to messier means). Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier certainly gets the most out of the limited space in which the mayhem unfolds. At times, the enclosed eponymous room creates a claustrophobia so suffocating you almost feel like the tension’s going to burst, in a sense both figurative and inexplicably physical. In other scenes, cramped, dank hallways seem like paralyzing chasms, full of terrors unknown.

What’s most effective, though, is that despite choosing villains so simple to root against, the film doesn’t simply make them faceless cannon fodder (or sharp thing fodder in this case) or caricature. The antagonists all seem like real, bad dudes you could run into in real life, and are scarier for it (sometimes more so when you’re waiting for something to happen than when it’s happening). They’re so effective that one of the movie’s selling points, Patrick Stewart taking a villainous role, almost seems a little out of place, his mannered, more written and fleshed-out ringleader clashing with the rawly terrifying hoodlums in his service. That said, it is interesting to see the veteran lend his refined gravitas to a force of evil.

That character realism works both ways. The rockers being held prisoner are terrified as any normal person would be, which only ups the tension for the viewer. All attempts at movie heroism are swiftly, sometimes bloodily put in their place by the circumstances. And when the film employs one of those corny recurring dialogue motifs as a narrative thread, it’s rudely rebuffed, a finger in the eye of cliché that’s totally appropriate and totally punk. It even elicits a hearty laugh, all the more cathartic because such sentiment is so rare in a picture this unforgiving. 

Green Room is cheap thrills as art, like going out to an all-night dive to satisfy your midnight munchies and unexpectedly getting something close to gourmet. I’ll stress that it’s a dish with a very specific taste; in fact, I’d imagine on many a pallet it would go down like a shot of arsenic. Those with the taste and stomach for this sort of concoction (and you know if you are), on the other hand, will gobble it up.