Star Trek: Grade C

C
Star Trek (2009)
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldano, John Cho, with Leonard Nimoy; Director J.J. Abrams.

This is a competently made explosion film that will amuse boys 8 to 14 years old, and is watchable by others because of nostalgia value. It treats the original (1966) Star Trek television series with respect but imagines the beginning of the story as a prequel. Captain Kirk’s father is killed off by evil others (I never have been clear on the difference between evil Romulans and evil Klingons, but whatever), and his successor, Captain Pike is captured, leaving Spock (Quinto) commanding the Enterprise.

But Spock shows emotion when he punches out Kirk The Younger (Pine) for insulting his mother, so he resigns his position, putting Kirk in the captain’s chair. (This development overlooks the fact that Spock had previously been kissing Lieutenant Uhuru (Saldana), but apparently, not with any emotion – a guy thing, I guess).

Meanwhile, Spock as his future self (Nimoy) arrives from the future to give counsel to both Kirk and Spock the younger. It was great to see Nimoy in the pointy ears again. What a hoot that must have been for him. He looks like his 80 years of age, but the voice still says “Spock.”

Ninety percent of the movie is taken up with ballooning exothermic chemical reactions and swooping spacecraft, which is more Star Wars than Star Trek, which tended to the cerebral (and, like the original, ignored the fact that there is no fire in space because no oxygen, and no sound because no medium to carry it).

Also, they didn’t quite “get” the character of Captain Kirk, who was not simply a wild rule-breaker, as portrayed, but was a master strategist, able to change the grounds of engagement to his favor. Subtlety is not a feature of this movie. It is actually quite unimaginative, relying on spectacular effects and ear-splitting noise and music for excitement. Obnoxious (and unnecessary) as it was, the music was actually complex and interesting. The pace was good, and acting competent if hammy. The "human" relationships were compelling but the "scientific" side of the tale was pure nonsense. Kids won't know the difference.

It was satisfying that the script managed to include nearly all the nostalgic clichés. Scotty frets over the engines, Kirk recites into the captain’s log, and Spock says “Live long and prosper.” I missed only “Phasers on stun,” and the whoosh of the accelerating starship. In a final nod to nostalgia, Nimoy read the preamble (“These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise…”) at the end of the movie, only very slightly updated for modern times. It would have been better with Shatner, but he apparently is done with that phase of life.

Australia: Grade F

F
Australia (2008)
Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman; Co-writer and director Baz Luhrmann.

Kidman is an English aristocrat who goes to northern Australia just before the Japanese bombed Darwin in 1942. Her husband is dead but she decides to continue running the cattle ranch with the help of ranch-hand Jackman. There is some predictable humor as the city girl confronts the grit of the outback.

The movie is actually a concatenation of two stories, which explains its 2 hour plus running time. In the first story, she must get 1500 head of cattle to Darwin before the monopolistic cattle baron King Carney sews up the contract with the army. A ragtag crew is put together, including herself on horseback, speaking politely to the cows (guffaw!), a drunk handyman, and a cute aboriginal boy. Together they endure many misadventures as they drive the cattle for several days. The landscape is beautiful and beautifully photographed. There is a subtheme of the boy’s relationship with his grandfather, an aboriginal shaman who seems to live in the wild, away from any community. In the end, the cattle arrive on time, she gets the contract, saves the ranch, earns her spurs and falls in love with Jackman. What more could you want?

Then the second movie starts with the Japanese invasion. There is much fire and destruction, the boy is captured by Catholic missionaries and taken away, and Kidman is separated from Jackman. Each assumes the other has been killed, but then there is a sentimental reunion with swelling violins, and you’d never guess this part, the young boy is returned safely also! Everybody goes back to the cattle ranch happy, healthy, and whole.

The acting is terrible, even from Kidman, who is a master of the craft, so I would have to put that down to bad directing. Everybody barks their lines without context, while gestures are pure canned ham. Even Kidman’s famously expressive facial twitches are exchanged for slack-jaw farce. At first I thought all this was supposed to be ironic, because the movie has the feel of a 1960’s television show, like an extended episode of Bonanza. But it’s not ironic, it’s just bad.

Music is exceptionally obnoxious; loud, irrelevant, in-your-face orchestration that instructs you what to feel at each moment. The aboriginal theme is trivialized rather than explored. CGI effects are primitive, intrusive, and unconvincing. The narrative is just one cliché after another, utterly predictable, cloyingly sentimental. The second story was perhaps supposed to be a Gone With the Wind or Casablanca sort of epic showing individuals as pawns in a larger historical drama, but if so, that failed also, because the individuals were only cardboard cutouts and the war story only perfunctory. Is the great Australian scenery enough of a value to save this movie from failure? Not quite.

Into the Wild: Grade A

A
Into the Wild (2007)
Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Catherine Keener, Brian Dierker, Vince Vaughan, Jena Malone, Hal Holbrook. Co-writer (screenplay) and director Sean Penn.

A young man (Hirsch) leaves his wealthy suburban life in contemporary Atlanta, escaping his battling parents (Harden and Hurt), to pursue his fantasy of a hobo’s life “on the road.” He rides “third boxcar, midnight train.” He works in fast food joints and on a Kansas wheat farm. He kayaks down the Colorado river, hitches with truckers and stays with old hippies in a painted van (Keener and Dierker), until he finally makes it to Anchorage, where he vows to “live off the land,” free of society’s hypocrisy. Along the way he quotes Thoreau, Tolstoy, and great poets (being a recent university graduate). All this makes for a charming, if lightweight, adventure story.

The cinematography is stunning and original music by Pearl Jam’s Eddy Vedder (among others) is gripping. Penn’s directing is intense, thoughtful and nearly perfect. There are some groan-eliciting visual clichés, such as the camera spinning around Hirsch’s uplifted face to indicate giddy happiness, and several scenes drag on, but these faults are overcome by the fine performances Penn gets out of his actors. Hirsch is a standout as the enthusiastic young man. More surprising are tremendous performances from Vince Vaughan (best I’ve ever seen him), and 83 year old Hal Holbrook, who is unexpectedly nuanced. Catherine Keener is as wonderful as she always is and it would have been nice to see more of her. Harden, likewise, gives 100% of her best stuff. Dierker, who I did not know, reminded me of a younger Donald Sutherland.

The young man embodies the idealism of youth, but aside from quoting poetry, he does not make a case that society is corrupt and best left behind. There is a vague suggestion that he is running away from an awful childhood, but that theme is not well-established. Stultifying voice-overs by his sister (Malone), distance us from him. At least it should have been his voice so he could explain to us what was on his mind. Without much insight into him, we can only say, here is a kid on an exuberant, youthful adventure (which ends badly for him, but that hardly matters for the bulk of the movie). Some of his remarks suggest an anti-intellectual tone, as when he says “just being” in nature is the highest good, yet he always has his nose in a book and he declares to Keener that he seeks “truth, not love.” Also, for such an attractive young man, he has no romantic interest, male or female, which seems odd. The point is that it is a superficial, well-worn story, watchable, but of little intrinsic interest. This is, above all, a movie about Sean Penn’s directing and for that it is well-worth seeing.