Category: Movies

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Star Trek stages an Insurrection

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Star Trek: Insurrection is a 1998 film and the ninth Star Trek feature film.  It is the second film to use only the Next Generation cast, and it is directed by Jonathon Frakes.  Does it live up to the standard set buy First Contact?  It sadly does not.

The films starts out with Commander Data going crazy and attacking his fellow Star Fleet members while monitoring an apparently less developed race the Ba’Ku, and then holds the Star Fleet members captive.  Admiral Matthew Dougherty then calls Captain Picard for the Data’s schematics, so they can find a way to turn him off.  Picard thinks something sounds a little off and then goes to the Ba’Ku home world to investigate, and of course he finds that all is not as it seems.

The main problem with this movie is the plot.  It sounds kind of original when I condense it like that, but it is not.  This movie is like several episodes that Star Trek: The Next Generation has done before, and what is so depressing is that in the movie they discuss needing every new race available to join the Federation so they can defend against the Borg and the Dominion, and either of those bad guys would have made a better movie than this, but instead we get a recycled and forgettable script from the TV show. I suppose we should be thankful it is a better then average episode.

The cast continues to do their jobs well, and they know how to play their characters. One of the nice things about this story is that planet rejuvenates people, so they all get to act young and a little silly. Jonathan Frakes continues to be a steady hand behind the camera and proves that he is a good director.

I liked Star Trek: Insurrection more this time I watched it, but I think it is because I hadn’t watched the show in so long that watching a longer then average episode of Star Trek: TNG wasn’t as disappointing, but still it is a shame that they hit a home run with all the same people in their previous outing, and they go and follow it up with a bunt.

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I Give Blade Runner a Second Chance

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Blade Runner is the landmark 1982 Sci-Fi film by Ridley Scott.  This movie has always been a source of conflict for me because it has things I like in a movie, a realistic dystopian future, a film noir atmosphere, and Harrison Ford at the top of his career, but I didn’t like it the first time I saw it, but since it is held in such high regard, and the Blu-Ray was five dollars on Amazon, I decided to give it another try.

The film is about a special type of police officer a Blade Runner that hunts down and ‘retires’ (kills) replicated human type beings (Replicants).  This is because the Replicants had rebelled against their creators and thus banished from Earth.  Harrison Ford plays Richard Decker a Blade Runner that has been enlisted to find four Replicants that have come to Earth to try and find the key to live past their four year lifespans.

Despite the Sci-Fi trappings, this is really just a Film Noir Detective Movie from the 1940s but made in the 1980’s, and that is probably why I didn’t like it the first time I watched it because these type of movies take their time to set the mood, drink a lot of whiskey, and be generally unhappy, and in my youth I didn’t have the patience for such things, but this time I was much more contented to let the movie suck me in. Like many good detective films this movie doesn’t answer all the questions it asks, and the people in the movie are no better off when the movie ends than when it started.

The best part of this movie is by far the set and production design: the always dark and rainy LA with the over crowding and neon Asian signs.  It just seems like a real place, and you can tell why this movie set the look for so many films and shows that followed.  Firefly and the new Total Recall to name a couple.  Between this movie and Alien Ridley Scott cemented his place as one of Sci-Fi’s greatest film makers.

I liked this movie much more the second time I watched it.  It blends the Sci-Fi setting and the Film Noir style so well that I am ashamed to have disliked it so much the first time I watched it.  Maybe there are more films I need to revisit.

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Can you defeat The Man with the Iron Fists?

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The Man with the Iron Fists is a Kung-Fu action movie written, directed, and stared in by Wu-Tang Clan rapper RZA.  He has created sound tracks for several movies, mostly by Quentin Tarantino, but can he translate that experience into successfully creating a full film? It is a valiant fist try, but it comes up a little short.

The movie’s plot is fairly simple.  The Governor of the province is shipping gold through a town named Jungle Village.  This town happens to be caught between a never ending conflict with its warring clans, so the Governor pays one of the clans to protect the gold, but things go quickly wrong, and soon it is every man for himself in Jungle Village.

This movie starts off great with a Kung-Fu fight choreographed with a killer Hip Hop beat, and if the whole movie would have been like this it would have been an instant action cult classic, but sadly it looses its way.  When people are not fighting in this movie it is stilted and boring.

Most of the actors handle the action of this movie well, but once that talking starts they are awful.  With the notable exceptions of Lucy Liu and Russell Crowe.  They seem to having a great time in this movie being.  It is like they are on vacation in a bad movie or something and it is wonderful to watch them.  They took on their roles with vigor and kind of just went for it.

The Man with the Iron Fists could have been a great movie, but as it is it is just an amusing movie with Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu having a good time.  It is a shame it couldn’t live up to the first few minutes of the movie.

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My Favorite Star Trek Movie: First Contact!

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Star Trek: First Contact is the first movie in the franchise to only feature the Next Generation crew.  It is also the first feature film directed by Jonathan Frakes more commonly known as Commander William T. Riker.  How does the new crew do on their first solo voyage? Splendidly.

The movie starts off with Captain Picard dreaming about his time as a Borg which happened six years earlier.  He is then woken up by an Admiral explaining the new Borg threat.  He will not be assigned to deal with the threat because the Federation is worried his past will affect his actions.  Things do not go well for the Federation, so Picard takes the ship to deal with Borg anyway, and when they stop the Borg Cube a Borg Ball ship shoots out from the Borg Cube and travels in to the past.  The Enterprise must follow it to save our future.

It sounds like a confusing plot, but it is actually pretty easy to follow, and works quite well.  The Borg are my favorite Star Trek enemy, so to have a movie where they are the bad guys is excellent, and it allows Picard to deal with his feelings about the Borg captivity from the show.  Their leader the Borg Queen is played excellently by Alice Krige.  She gives the Borg a little life and attitude.  The rest of the cast all know their characters, and play them well.

The special effects and sets for the most part work very well.  My only critique is that the human camp they have to help in the past looks like a good Sci-Fi TV set not an A-List movie set, but it is a minor flaw in an otherwise great movie, but it seems like something they could have worked on a little bit.

This was always my favorite Star Trek movie.  It had the Next Generation cast, and it featured a good story with a lot of action and a great villain, and while she may not quote Shakespeare like other villains, she is still quite memorable.  Star Trek: First Contact is on the sadly very short list of truly good Star Trek movies.

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MST3K Triple Shot

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I have watched quite a bit of MST3K lately, so instead of giving separate reviews I thought I would give you three little quick ones.

The Castle of Fu Manchu:

Christopher Lee stars as an Asian guy that is going to take over the world by threatening to freeze the oceans.

This movie is bad, and not in the good way that makes you laugh, but that it is incredibly dull.  Once you get past the fact they dressed up Christopher Lee in the most racist way possible, nothing happens in this movie.  The best jokes in this film are about how shaken the crew of the Satellite of Love is by having to watch this awful film.  It is funny at times, but jut not enough happens.

Attack of the Giant Leaches:

This movie has a short about how the people of Atlantis are causing earth quakes, it is very funny.  I can’t believe how awful the old serials were.

Attack of the Giant Leeches is kind self explanatory.  Leeches start attacking people that live in a town near a swamp.  This is a great bad movie.  The dialog is nonsense, and the leeches are just plastic bags with circles stuck on them.  I laughed a lot during this film, and the robots and Joel have field day.  Thank you Roger Corman!

Swamp Diamonds:

This movie also has a short. It is about how to go on a date.  Oh my gosh the 50’s were awesome.  I couldn’t imagine having to watch these PSAs.  It is very funny.

The movie is about an undercover cop and some women thieves looking for diamonds their gang boyfriends hid there before being sent to the electric chair.  This movie is Roger Corman’s directorial debut, and he starts off his career like he ends it, making great bad movies.  No one knows how to act, and it is filmed like the world’s worst nature documentary.  I think this was my favorite out of the three just because the short was so good, and they followed it up with this just fabulously awful movie.