Reviews

I honestly cannot get why supposed Star Trek fans like this movie. If ever there was a Star Trek movie that spit in the face of everything Star Trek was supposed to be about, its this one.

The major issue is the entire Zephram Cochran storyline. Cochran is known, to long time fans of the series, as the man who invents warp drive. The device that gives the "trek" to Star Trek. So the lame producers and writers of this movie have decided that we have to see how it happened. What they do is take the supposed heroism and creativity of Cochran and toss them in the toilet.

Cochran ends up inventing nothing. The Enterprise crew comes back in time and does all the work for him. Cochran creates nothing and does nothing. So there is the initial warp drive trip to take. Instead of the implied solo flight of Cochran, Geordi and Ryker go along with him. No reason for this is ever given.

So we have a supposed hero who knows for a fact that his flight is going to work, and people from the future have come back to take care of all the work. What exactly is heroic or interesting about that? Its lame...completely lame.

Never mind the sudden need to have the Vulcans already running around in space warping wherever they want. What that gives us is some interesting contradictions regarding why the hell would the United Federation of Planets be based on Earth after this? Why would the center of the Star Trek universe be on a backwards planet that is literally hundreds of years behind the advanced universe? It would be like turning New Guinea into the home of the United Nations.

This is all ignored, because the simple minded mouth breathers that created this crap movie just wanted it to "look cool". They don't care about logic or achievement. All they care about is making James Cromwell act like a drunken idiot for comedic effect. If you are a Star Trek fan that likes this movie, shame on you for being as unthinking as the people that made it.

I liked the acting and look of this film, and it comes from an interesting idea, however the entire movie is rife with plot holes a thousand miles wide.

SPOILERS TO COME First of all, why would fuel for a ship genetically modify someone to turn into an alien. It makes no rational sense at all, even if you are trying to suspend disbelief with the old, "Well its alien, so it can do anything." Second of all, why are almost all the aliens mindless drones, except the one guy who is actually technologically advanced. Why are these aliens, who live in an area filled to the brim with alien technology only they can use, allowing themselves to be abused like they are? One alien infected human could pick up one of their weapons, and invade a highly protected secret government site...the same guy is able to get into a single battle suit of the aliens, and defeat dozens of heavily armed humans without a speck of training. Yet over two million of them sit around, being physically abused day after day, and do nothing. The aliens are shown being both physically and intellectually superior to human beings, but then made into placid cows only to advance the paper thin plot.

I do not get the gushing over this film. Its all right, but its no better than something like Cloverfield last year. It seems like because a Sci-Fi film attacks a now dead subject like Apartheid, it gets a free pass into the world of Sci Fi elite.

Its not that good a movie, people. Its an all right action film, but it has serious plotting and character development issues that keep it from even approaching being a great movie.

Visually stunning, with entire scenes that seem to jump out of the comic book. (It WAS a comic book people, it was not a graphic novel.) The casting most excellent,Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan and Patrick Wilson as Night Owl being particularly good. The only weak acting, (Or choice in acting) seems to come from Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, with him being portrayed in a far less heroic fashion, and more like a really arrogant big businessman.

I enjoyed the look of the film, and entire great sequences are brought to life, sometimes even better than the original source material.

I was however, left very cold by the ending. I will not ruin it here, but lets just say that it comes completely out of left field, with no clues or signs of its arrival. In the comic, every single issue had clues leading to why what was happening, was happening. In this movie it is just thrown out there, without any real attempt to build a mystery about it.

I am a huge fan of the original comics. I still own my original 12 bought back in 1986. This movie is a good attempt to try to bring that comic to the screen. Its not perfect, but well worth watching, especially for long time fans.

This movie was worth seeing, but it certainly is not worth as much praise as it is receiving. Its a decent little film, with an excellent cast, and some very funny moments. Its also unbelievable in parts, so jarringly so that it takes you out of the experience of watching it. Each main character (With the notable exception of the mother) has some sort of issue or problem they are dealing with outside of the main plot point of trying to get Olive, the young girl, to the titular beauty pageant. The suicidal uncle, the failure father, the rebel without a cause brother, the drug addicted grandpa....all of them face their demons, so we get to all watch. The exposition of these sub plots is where the movie really loses its way. The coincidences involved in some of these things happening defy belief. (You go ahead and see how long you would have to wait at a gas station in the middle of Arizona for someone you know to wander by...as a for instance.) Of course such an event happens in this movie, The always underrated Greg Kinnear does a fantastic job as the driven, yet doomed to fail father. Steve Carrell is not called on to act much, as the Uncle, (Unless staring with glassy eyes, and speaking with a monotone is acting) however he does have a few good moments. The most interesting and funniest character in the movie is the grandfather, played by Alan Arkin. For a guy that is so familiar to so many movie goers, you will forget its him in just a few seconds of film time, and really believe he is this whacked out, obnoxious yet loving grandfather.

All in all, see the film, enjoy it for what it is, but don't expect it to be a life changing experience.

It is usually a bad sign if a popcorn movie like this clocks in at well over two hours. the amazing thing about that running time is, that not a single plot point is resolved in this film. Everything that is brought into the movie as being there for our hero's to overcome, is still there when the credits roll those ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MINUTES finally end. Two and a half hours, just to set up a third movie? I'm sorry, but that has to be the biggest rip off since Manhatten and those beads and trinkets used to buy it.

To be sure the cast is still beautiful, (At least the leads are) and the action comes fast and furious, but it leads absolutely nowhere. The first movie was a complete film. There was a resolution at the end, and if there never had been a sequel made, it would not have affected what people thought of that movie one bit. This film requires you to see the unreleased (and let me add, not due to be released for almost another year.) Watching Johnny Depp act in these films is worth the price of admission, and its not a bad movie, just a pointless one. Personally I now know I could have saved my time and money, waited till next summer, and gone to the ACTUAL sequel, not this clumsy attempt to pad this into a five hour epic. Sheesh they were able to tell Gone With the Wind, Ben Hur, or Lawrence of Arabia in far less time then the five hours that these two movies will eventually need to resolve issues that everyone in the audience already knows the ending to.

Batman is the ultimate example of a movie I desperately wanted to like, but could not do so. The set's and designs are amazing, and they have proved to be very influential on countless films since this was made. That is the only really redeeming feature of this movie.

The script is flat out awful. Some of the worst dialog in a major motion picture you will ever see. The Vicky Vale/ Bruce Wayne scenes at his manor are downright wretched. The entire "Dancing by the pale moonlight" stuff is pathetic, and the frankly weird need to try to tie Batman and the Joker together by making him be the one to kill Bruce Waynes parents, thereby "Creating" Batman is not needed, and severely strains the credibility of the movie.

The casting, which some have praised, is even worse than the script. From the top on down, every single role is wrong. Keaton doesn't have either the menace or physical presence to play Batman, or the light devil may care attitude that is the face he is supposed to put on as Bruce Wayne. Nicholson was already too old to be playing the spry and limber Joker (Again not physically right for the role.) Jack had already played the same character at the end of The Shining, except with less makeup. Kim Bassinger is wasted as the slight love interest. Most annoying of all, this is right in the middle of the film career of Robert Wuhl, one of the most annoying, untalented actors to ever grace the silver screen. In this film he portrays himself, a fast talking smart ass who always seems out of place in every scene he is in.

I guess its the best of the four Batman movies, but that is faint praise indeed. When compared to Superman, Spiderman or even the X-Men movies, Batman comes up far short of what a comic book movie can be. Hopefully the upcoming batman movie with Christian Bale will begin a move towards a Batman that fans of the comic books and the movies can all appreciate together.