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Alex Al ... Himself / Electric and Synth Bass Nick Bass ... Himself / Dancer Michael Bearden ... Himself / Keyboards Daniel Celebre ... Himself / Dancer
Mekia Cox ... Herself / Dancer Misha Gabriel ... Himself / Dancer Chris Grant ... Himself / Dancer Judith Hill ... Herself / Vocalist Dorian Holley ... Himself / Vocal Supervision Shannon Holtzapffel ... Himself / Dancer Devin Jamieson ... Himself / Dancer (as Devin Andrew Jamieson) Bashiri Johnson ... Himself / Percussion Charles Klapow ... Himself / Dancer Jonathan Moffett ... Himself / Drums Tommy Organ ... Himself / Guitar Orianthi ... Herself - Lead Guitar
Darryl Phinnessee ... Himself / Vocalist Mo Pleasure ... Himself / Keyboards / Trumpet Dres Reid ... Himself / Dancer Ken Stacey ... Himself / Vocalist Tyne Stecklein ... Herself / Dancer
Timor Steffens ... Himself / Dancer
Synopsis: Michael Jackson's This Is It will offer Jackson fans and music lovers worldwide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place beginning this summer in London's O2 Arena.
Chronicling the months from April through June, 2009, the film is produced with the full support of the Estate of Michael Jackson and drawn from more than one hundred hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring Jackson rehearsing a number of his songs for the show. Audiences will be given a privileged and private look at Jackson as he has never been seen before.
In raw and candid detail, Michael Jackson's This Is It captures the singer, dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius and great artist at work as he creates and perfects his final show.
Michael Jackson has made his long-awaited comeback with a new song, This Is It, released four months after his death.
The track began streaming overnight on the King of Pop’s official website before being delivered, amidst tight security, to radio stations this morning.
A mid-paced ballad, the sentimental number has received a mixed reaction, delighting some fans still grieving the star’s sudden death but disappointing others who complained about the “cheesy” lyrics and lack of catchy hooks.
One fan commenting on the pop star’s website, wrote: “This single is great, to be honest it is even better than I thought it was gonna be. Unfortunately I am now more broken hearted because This Is It - there's nothing more to come. Such a great loss. But I’m glad he is finally at peace.”
But a barrage of criticism also flowed on to the website’s message boards.
“Garbage”, wrote one disappointed fan. “There is a reason MJ didn't want it on any of his albums. It's not a good representation of the kind of quality he puts into his songs: Awful production, cluttred background vocals, average vocal performance from MJ, cheesy lyrics, melody that goes nowhere. That about sums it up.”
The Times pop and rock editor, Ed Potton, said the song, originally written for the 1991 album Dangerous, was no match for Jackson’s many iconic hits.
“It's a perfectly pleasant piece of mainstream soul-pop, but it's no classic - hence why it was left off Dangerous.”
“I can understand why they're releasing it now, as it epitomises Jackson's more vulnerable, sentimental side. If I want to get nostalgic, though, I'll still be sticking to Off the Wall and Thriller,” he said.
Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles, however, was won over, describing the song, which he played on his show this morning as “very much old school Jacko".
The song takes its name from the hugely-anticipated comeback shows that were supposed to have taken place at London's O2 arena in the summer. It features backing vocals by Jackson's brothers, with whom he became famous in 1969 as the Jackson 5.
Jackson died aged 50 on June 25 at his home in Los Angeles after a heart attack. His death was later ruled a drug-related homicide by the Los Angeles County coroner's office.
Fans will be able to buy the song as part of an album from October 26. It can also be heard on the closing credits of a film, This Is It, which has been made using footage of rehearsals for the O2 concerts, due to be released in cinemas on October 28.
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The main theme of the film is revenge. The film is set in an alternate history of the Second World War in which the entire top leadership of Nazi Germany, namely Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Bormann attend a film premiere in Paris celebrating the exploits of a German sniper who had managed to kill 300 American soldiers in Italy. Most of the film's timeframe is set in early June 1944, after the D-Day landings but before the liberation of Paris.
The film tracks the separate attempts to kill Hitler by two disparate forces, one being the "Basterds", a motley crew of Jewish American soldiers out for revenge against the Nazis. The Basterds have a modus operandi whereby each man must cut off the scalp of a dead Nazi soldier, with orders to get 100 scalps each. The Basterds allow one German soldier to survive each incident so as to spread the news of the terror of their attacks. However, the Basterds carve a swastika into the forehead of that German. The other force concerns Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), the only survivor of a Jewish family killed by the Jew Hunter, who plots her own revenge on the Nazis. The Basterds and Shosanna remain unaware of each other throughout the film.
The film opens in 1941 with Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) of the Waffen-SS, proudly known as the "Jew Hunter", interrogating Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet), a French dairy farmer, over rumours that he had been hiding a Jewish family. Landa manages to break down LaPadite and locates the hiding place of the Jews underneath the floorboards. He orders his soldiers to fire into the floorboards, killing all but the teenage Shosanna.
Four years later, by 1944, Shosanna has assumed the identity of "Emmanuelle Mimieux". How she manages to do so is not revealed. She has also become the proprietress of a cinema, which is chosen by Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), a spotlight-hungry sniper-turned-actor whose exploits are celebrated in the Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (A Nation's Pride), as the setting for the film premiere. He is attracted to Shosanna and convinces Goebbels to hold the premiere in her cinema. Shosanna does not reciprocate Zoller's feelings.
Shosanna realizes that the presence of so many high ranking Nazi officials and officers provides an excellent opportunity for revenge. She resolves to burn down her cinema using the massive quantities of flammable nitrate film in her storage rooms during the premiere and makes a fourth reel in which she tells the Nazis present of her Jewish identity and revenge.
In the meantime, the British have also learned of the Nazi leadership's plan to attend the premiere and dispatch a British officer, Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), to Paris to lead an attack on the cinema with the aid of the "Basterds" and a German double agent, an actress by the name of Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger).
Hammersmark arranges to meet Hicox and the Basterds in the basement of a French tavern. Unbeknown to her, however, the night of the rendezvous is also the occasion of a German staff sergeant (Alexander Fehling) celebrating the birth of his son with his soldier comrades. One of the German soldiers present strikes up a conversation with Hicox and notices that his accent is "odd". An SS officer (August Diehl) who is in the tavern as well also notices that odd accent. When Hicox gives the wrong three fingered order for whiskies (without using his thumb, a traditional German gesture), the SS officer realizes their deception. A firefight breaks out in which the British officer and two of the "Basterds" are killed as is everyone in the tavern except Hammersmark, who is wounded in her left leg.
Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), a U.S. Army second lieutenant in the First Special Service Force [7] and the commanding officer of the Basterds, interrogates Hammersmark and decides to continue the operation against the cinema under the guise of Italians as suicide bombers. Colonel Landa, now an SD officer, is able to retrieve one of Hammersmark's shoes from the scene of the firefight at the tavern and also an autographed napkin which Hammersmark had signed for the staff sergeant's son. He approaches Hammersmark and Raine in the cinema lobby and is able to easily see through their disguises, as none, even Raine, can speak any Italian or German. He questions Hammersmark alone and makes her try on the shoe he had retrieved from the tavern. It is a perfect fit. He violently strangles her to death as a traitor, and orders the arrest of Raine.
In the closing stages of the film Quentin Tarantino sets the quirks which show that the film is in an alternative universe. Landa reveals himself to be a turncoat. While speaking with Raine and Utivich, he tells them that four major Nazi leaders must all be killed to end the war immediately. They are all attending Nation's Pride, and he is prepared to let the assassination continue-- for a price. He has no intention of helping end the war only to be tried by a Jewish tribunal for war crimes and end up facing the gallows. In order to help end the war, he wants to make a deal, one Raine cannot authorize, but his commanding officer (Harvey Keitel) can. Landa has his radio operator help Raine reach his general, where Landa states the terms of his deal-- he wants full military pension and benefits under his current rank, a medal of honor for everyone involved in the operation, American citizenship and a home on Nantucket Island. He also reveals that he had planted Raine's stick of dynamite in Hitler's box at the cinema, meaning that there are now three attempts against Hitler's life. Raine is placed on the radio and his general tells him that Landa and his radio operator will drive him and Utivich in a truck to American lines, then surrender to them, whereupon Raine will drive the truck to base and bring Landa and the operator to him for debriefing.
Meanwhile, during the showing of Stolz der Nation, Shosanna and her assistant (and lover) Marcel (Jacky Ido) are manning the projection booth when he tells her it is time. He needs to lock the auditorium and go behind the screen. As Marcel makes his way toward the auditorium, two of the Basterds, Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) and Pvt. Omar Ulmer (Omar Doom), leave their seats and exit the auditorium heading upstairs to the balcony level. Donowitz carefully spies on the guards watching the entrance to Hitler's opera box from the nearest bathroom.
Shosanna loads the doctored fourth reel of Stolz der Nation onto the projector camera as Marcel locks the auditorium doors, sliding the safety locks at the tops and bottoms of the doors into place, and then slides a heavy iron crowbar through the door handles, further barring them. He steps behind the screen where Shosanna had placed her entire stack of nitrate film. Shosanna pulls a lever to switch the projector to the doctored reel. Watching from behind the screen, Marcel lights up a smoke and waits.
Meanwhile, Zoller, uncomfortable with the way he is portrayed killing Americans in Stolz der Nation, leaves the cinema auditorium and makes his way to the projectionist's room to hit on Shosanna. She is deeply concerned at his intrusion and tries to get rid of Zoller, but he pushes his way into the room and angrily confronts Shosanna about her treatment of him, warning her that she's no longer in a position to disrespect him. Needing to get Zoller out of the way, she asks him to lock the door, dropping a subtle hint, 'we don't have much time.' Soon as Zoller's back is turned to her, she pulls her gun from her purse and shoots him in the back, mortally wounding him. Quickly she glances into the auditorium to make sure she wasn't heard. Suddenly, she hears Zoller groan and realizes he's still alive. In an apparent moment of pity, she turns him over, and he shoots her dead.
We see Donowitz and Ulmer preparing their ambush to take out the opera box guards. Donowitz is dressed as a waiter delivering a glass of champagne. The ambush goes off without a hitch and they kill both guards, taking their machine guns.
Meanwhile, we see Hitler greatly enjoying the battle scene in the movie, where Zoller is taking out numerous American soldiers by himself. But his joy comes to a quick end when Zoller's challenge (in Stolz der Nation) is answered with the changes Shosanna made to the fourth reel. She tells the audience that they're all going to die, and she is a Jew ready to take revenge. On her cue, Marcel flicks his cigarette into the pile of nitrate film, igniting it. The fire bursts through the screen, causing a pandemonium in the auditorium. Just then, Donowitz and Ulmer burst into Hitler's box and gun down Hitler, Goebbels and the other Nazi leaders. As the cinema is engulfed in flames, they fire randomly into the crowd, who are attempting to flee, but escape is impossible, as the auditorium doors are now locked and barred. Finally, the dynamite that Landa had planted in Hitler's box, as well as the dynamite strapped to the Basterds' legs, now goes off. The cinema is destroyed in the subsequent inferno, killing all inside.
In the final scene, Landa and his radio operator set off with Raine and Utivich towards the American lines in Normandy, as part of the deal he had made with Raine's commanding officer. At the American lines, he surrenders to Raine and hands over his gun and sword. Raine orders Utivich to handcuff Landa, and shoots the driver dead, ordering Utivich to scalp him over Landa's outraged protest. Raine reveals that while he appreciates Landa's underhanded deal and all the perks he's secured for himself, he is incensed that on arriving in America, Landa intended to take off his SS uniform and blend in to the American populace, with nobody remembering all the heinous deeds he committed as a Nazi officer. Raine plans to remedy that. The film ends with Raine carving a swastika into Landa's forehead and declaring that it may just be his greatest 'masterpiece.' [D-Man2010]
Review: by BRUCE KIRKLAND - Sun Media
What is not to like about dispatching armed and angry Jews to kill Nazis during the Second World War?
Especially in a Quentin Tarantino film.
It means there will be blood. And violence. In extreme close-ups.
There are shootings and beatings and scalpings. Swastikas are carved into forehead flesh. A German soldier's head is bashed in with a baseball bat, a home run that is dedicated to Ted Williams.
Feeling squeamish?
Too bad, then don't go.
Meanwhile, if you forget why Nazis are monsters, Tarantino launches the narrative with a brutal but realistic Holocaust scene of Germans butchering a family of Jewish dairy farmers.
The story's mesmerizing villain -- an S.S. officer played with oily charm and creepy, poetic intelligence by German actor Christoph Waltz -- is introduced right at the beginning and controls the arc of the entire film. That means Brad Pitt plays a secondary if memorable role, as do other key actors from Eli Roth to Diane Kruger, Julie Dreyfus, Til Schweiger, Michael Fassbender, Daniel Bruhl, an amusing Mike Myers as a British general, plus Sylvester Groth as a slimeball Goebbels and Martin Wuttke as a spittle-spewing psycho-Hitler.
Despite the violence -- in part because of it -- Inglourious Basterds is a brilliant example of shock cinema. But it owes more to the stylized traditions of spaghetti westerns than it does to classic American war movies. It is also a Jewish revenge fantasy -- with emphasis on the fantasy.
While extreme in its grit and gore, Inglourious Basterds is often surprisingly funny, like Pulp Fiction was between the murders. With its deliberately misspelled title as an indicator of the off-kilter story to come, Basterds tells the politically incorrect and historically inaccurate story of a platoon of Jewish-American soldiers dropped into occupied France in 1942 to wreak havoc on the Germans. The goal is a reign of sheer terror. Tarantino does not differentiate between regular German soldiers and the S.S. goons. The Basterds kill all they meet, except one who can then tell the tale.
A set of parallel stories leads the Basterds toward the film's fiery climax.
One story chronicles the activities of Waltz's Colonel Landa, who is proud of his nickname The Jew Hunter. He plays with words with aplomb, making his character even more romantic and dangerous. And Waltz handles the complex Tarantino dialogue with ease in English, French, German and even Italian (in this film, people talk in whatever language is appropriate to the situation, and we get English subtitles on the French and German).
Another storyline shows what happens to a young Jewish woman (the fetching Melanie Laurent) who escaped one of Landa's atrocities. She is now running a theatre in Paris, offering both sex appeal and respect for cinema.
Her theatre, and Laurent, attract the attention of a cocky German war hero (Bruhl) who is also the star of a German war film depicting his exploits as a sniper. Roth, who plays the baseball-wielding Basterd, also directed Bruhl's black-and-white, neo-classic, film-within-the-film.
Tarantino, being a cinephile, finally concocts a fantastic plot device to bring the loose ends of the plot together. It involves film, as a medium for conveying propaganda and as a volatile physical entity.
In addition, the emotional twists that bring Inglourious Basterds to its bittersweet end are pure cinema.
Don't look for reality.
Tarantino makes outrageous and glorious movies, not documentaries.
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Synopsis: Antarctica, the coldest and most isolated place on earth. Temperatures drop to 120 below. Winds whip across the ice at over 100 miles an hour. Home to one of the deadliest forces in the world.
It's a place U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) won't miss. As the lone Law Enforcement Agent at the Amundsen, Scott Research Station, her tenure here has been not only harsh but uneventful. In three days, when the station powers down and the sun sets for the long winter, she'll be getting out; leaving Antarctica for good and turning in her badge for a new life.
But when a body is discovered in the no man's land on the open ice, Stetko is plunged into shocking mystery. Bizarrely battered and miles from camp, the dead man is Antarctica's first homicide victim and Stetko's first real challenge in a long time.
Her investigation soon involves U.N. Special Agent Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht), sent to monitor her progress in this ungoverned territory. As the case takes a deadly twist and a 60-year-old secret is unearthed, Stetko herself becomes a target. Pryce could prove to be a powerful ally but only if solving the murder is what he's really after.
With only days before the last plane out, Stetko must race to unravel the mystery or risk being stranded on the ice as darkness and the killer closes in.
Review: by Robert W. Butler, McClatchy Newspapers - azcentral.com
Early in "Whiteout," a murder mystery set in a South Pole research station, a federal marshal played by Kate Beckinsale strips down and takes a shower.
Why? No particular reason. But enjoy it while you can, fellas. She'll spend the rest of the film in a parka.
That scene makes about as much sense as anything else in Dominic Sena's thriller.
Beckinsale plays Carrie Stetko, who requested this remote, easy assignment after a particularly ugly on-the-job incident. Her main duties involve riding herd on several dozen young scientists who behave like college freshmen during orientation week.
But after two years Carrie is ready to rejoin the real world. That is until a pilot reports seeing a corpse out on the ice.
The dead man, a geologist, has been murdered. The trail of clues leads Carrie to an abandoned Russian outpost - now occupied by a masked killer with an ice ax - and a Soviet transport plane that has been buried in the ice for 50 years (we saw it go down in the film's prologue).
Something important was aboard that plane. Something worth killing for.
Based on Greg Rucka's comic-book series, "Whiteout" is one of those mysteries in which every character is a potential murderer. These include a pilot (Columbus Short), an FBI agent (Gabriel Macht) who mysteriously pops up on the scene, the station's venerable old sawbones (Tom Skerritt) and a cocky Aussie researcher (Alex O'Loughlin) whom we first see running a naked race in57-below temperatures .
Oh, did I mention that the Antarctic winter is blowing in and that once trapped, Carrie and the few remaining inhabitants will be stuck there for six months?
The screenplay by Jon and ErichHoeber and Chad and Carey Hayes (too many cooks?) is confusing and leaps huge gaps in logic.
But an unsung crew of f/x guys does a heck of a job re-creating a screaming Antarctic blizzard. This is one bone-chilling movie. It got that right, at least.
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Karolina Kurkova ... Courtney A. Kreiger / Cover Girl
Byung-hun Lee ... Storm Shadow
Sienna Miller ... Ana / Baroness
David Murray ... James McCullen - 1641
Rachel Nichols ... Shana 'Scarlett' O'Hara
Kevin J. O'Connor ... Dr. Mindbender
Gerald Okamura ... Hard Master
Ray Park ... Snake Eyes
Jonathan Pryce ... U.S. President
Dennis Quaid ... General Hawk
Synopsis: Warning! This synopsis contains spoilers
The film opens in France, in 1641. The Scotsman Klan McCullen has been accused of selling weaponry to both the Scots and French. Rather than being executed for treason, the jury brands his face with a white-hot mask in order to humiliate him. In the near future, weapons expert James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) has created a nanotechnology-based weapon capable of destroying an entire city. His company MARS sells four warheads to NATO, and the U.S. Army is tasked with delivering the warheads. Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are delivering the warheads when they are ambushed by the Baroness (Sienna Miller), who Duke recognized to be his ex-fiancee Ana Lewis. Duke and Ripcord are rescued by Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). They take the warheads to The Pit, G.I. Joe's command center in North Africa, and upon arriving rendezvous with General Hawk (Dennis Quaid), the head of the G.I. Joe Team. Hawk takes command of the war-heads and excuses Duke and Ripcord, only to be convinced to have them join his group after Duke reveals that he knows the Baroness.
McCullen is revealed to be using the same nanotechnology to build an army of soldiers with the aid of the Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), planning on using the warheads to bring panic and bring about a new world order. Using a tracking device, McCullen locates the G.I. Joe base and sends Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun) and the Baroness to retrieve the warheads with assistance from Zartan (Arnold Vosloo), inflicting casualties on several G.I. Joe soldiers. After a fight, Storm Shadow and the Baroness retrieve the warheads and take them to Baron DeCobray, the Baroness's husband, for him to weaponize and use them to destroy the Eiffel Tower to serve as a showing of the warhead's destructive power. Making their way to Paris, the Joes pursue them through the streets but are unsuccessful in stopping them from launching the missile. Duke manages to hit the kill switch, but in doing so he is captured and taken to McCullen's base under the Arctic.
G.I. Joe locates the secret base and fly there as McCullen loads three missiles with nano-mite warheads. After Snake Eyes takes out one, Ripcord pursues the remaining missiles in a prototype Night Raven jet while Scarlett and her group infiltrate the base. While Scarlett and Snake Eyes attempt to shut down the Arctic base, with Heavy Duty leading an attack on Cobra's forces, Duke learns that the Doctor is Rex Lewis, Ana's brother believed to have been killed on a mission led by Duke four years ago. He was trapped in a bunker with Doctor Mindbender (Kevin O'Connor), disfigured in the blast which everyone presumed had killed him. The Baroness tries to free Duke but the Doctor reveals he has implanted her with nano-mites which has put her under his control for the past four years, admitting his amazement that she is resisting the programming. Attempting to kill Duke, McCullen ends up being facially burned as he flees with Rex to an escape vessel. Duke and the Baroness pursue him while the Joes fall back when Rex activated the base's self destruct sequence.
Rex then heals McCullen's burned face with nano-mites, encasing it in silver as he christens McCullen "Destro" and assumes the identity of Cobra Commander before they are captured by G.I. Joe soon after. On board the supercarrier USS Flagg, Baroness is placed in protective custody until they can remove the nano-mites from her body. Meanwhile, Zartan, having been earlier operated on by Rex, infiltrates the White House during the missile crisis and assumes the identity of the President of the United States.
Review: by BRUCE KIRKLAND -- Sun Media
Busy little boys with big bad toys: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is all testosterone, mad science and military might.
In the midst of real world conflict that looks ugly on TV, G.I. Joe glorifies an exciting fantasy version of good vs. evil. It is wish fulfillment. The good guys are ready to kick bad guy butt in what is called "the not too distant future."
The movie is all spectacle. If you already love the Transformers series and you want your summer movies to be brainless adrenalin rushes, then G.I. Joe is more of the same, only different.
The same, because both came from Hasbro action toys and each franchise is designed to sell more merchandise.
Different, because Channing Tatum's hero character in G.I. Joe is so bland, in comparison to Shia LaBeouf's quirky performance in Transformers.
The same, because things blow up real good in both movies. Why bother with character development when you can destroy something, like a car, a truck, a train, a reputation, an iconic landmark or a whole city?
Different, because G.I Joe is all about humanity, while Transformers uses Earth as a playground for alien conflict.
The same, because the storylines are simple minded, the jokes are cheesy and the people are caricatures.
Different, because G.I. Joe has delusions of 007 grandeur, while Transformers steals more from the Terminator series.
As toys, the G.I. Joe line was launched in 1964, later morphing into a comic book and cartoon series. Video games followed, and now we have Mummy creator Stephen Sommers' expensive big-screen adaptation.
Sommers plays fast and loose with the imagery, weaponry and origins stories from the comics and cartoons. He mostly gets away with it because the the Joe world is less established than other comicbook heroes, such as Batman.
Other than the boring Tatum, the Joe casting works. Sienna Miller is eye-candy in black leatherette as good-bad girl the Baroness. Ditto for Rachel Nichols as redheaded heroine Scarlett.
Among the men, Dennis Quaid does his usual gruff authoritive thing as General Hawk, while Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje commands our attention as Heavy Duty. Christopher Eccleston is all brash bravado as the arms dealer McCullen, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt is suitably creepy as the madman doctor.
For comic relief, Marlon Wayans plays Tatum's soldiering sidekick.
Mentioning the actors, however, might give the impression there is acting in the movie. Not really. There are archetypes, actors posing just long enough to establish a character, get into the body armour and start the action by kicking, punching, running or shooting.
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Synopsis: Warning! This synopsis contains spoilers Under the watchful eye of Father Silvano Bentivoglio and Dr. Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), the CERN scientists start the Large Hadron Collider and manage to capture three vials of antimatter. Immediately afterward, someone kills Father Silvano, and uses his retina to break into the containment room to steal one vial of anti-matter.
In Rome, the Vatican mourns the passing of the Pope. The Vatican staff prepares for the Conclave of the College of Cardinals, which will select the next Pope. Until the Conclave selects a new Pope, the Camerlengo (Ewan McGregor) assumes day-to-day control of the Vatican. Reporters, nuns, priests and other faithful all crowd into St. Peter's Square, waiting for the white smoke from the Conclave. But the Illuminati, a 400-year old, underground secret society, kidnaps the four most likely candidates (preferratti) before the Conclave goes into seclusion. The Illuminati threatens to kill them at 8, 9, 10 and 11 PM, and then destroy the Vatican in a burst of light at midnight. A video feed shows the missing anti-matter vial, which will destroy the Vatican and parts of nearby Rome when the magnetic containment field fails.
The Vatican summons Drs. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and Vittoria Vetra from CERN to help them solve the Illuminati's threat, save the four preferratti, and replace the vial vial's batteries. Langdon listens to the Illuminati message and deduces that the four cardinals will die at the four alters of the Path of Illumination. However, no one knows where these alters are located. Vetra demands the Swiss Guard fly Father Silvano's diaries from Switzerland. They hope he wrote down the name of whomever he discussed the CERN experiment. Langdon demands access to the Vatican Library (something he has requested 10 times already) to see the original copy of Galileo's banned book. Using the clue from this book, Langdon, Vetra, and Lieutenant Valenti (Victor Alfieri) of the Vatican police race to the first church, only to find the body of the first Cardinal, branded with the word, Earth (in English!). They find the direction of the church with the seond Illuminati alter, but arrive in time to see the next Cardinal die, branded with the word Air. Langdon locates the third church with the third Illuminati altar, but tries to save the third Cardinal from burning to death, while the assassin kills the Vatican policemen. He convinces the Rome police to race to the last church of the Water alter, and manages to save the last Cardinal. However, location of the last Illuminati altar remains in question.
When Langdon discovers evidence of the resurgence of an ancient secret scientific society known as the Illuminati - the most powerful underground organization in history - he also faces a deadly threat to the existence of the secret organization's most despised enemy: the Catholic Church. When Langdon learns that the clock is ticking on an unstoppable Illuminati time bomb, he jets to Rome, where he joins forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and enigmatic Italian scientist. Embarking on a nonstop, action-packed hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even to the heart of the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra will follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that mark the Vatican's only hope for survival.
Angels and Demons was the reclusive authors third novel after he gave up his job as an English teacher. It tells the story of Langdons brush with a shadowy secret society, the Illuminati, and his frantic quest for the worlds most powerful energy source, in the company of a beautiful Italian physicist whose father, a brilliant physicist, has been murdered.
The team behind the global phenomenon "The Da Vinci Code" returns for the highly anticipated "Angels & Demons," based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard religious expert Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Ron Howard again directs the film, which is produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and John Calley. The screenplay is by David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman.
It is Ron Howard's excellence in directing such films as "A Beautiful Mind" that make this film so superb. It also lies in the simple things that keep characters like Hanks true to life, with his wearing of a simple Mickey Mouse watch, much like the truth to Russell Crowe playing John Nash in "A Beautiful Mind" and admitting to "taking the newer medications." Howard is excellent in depicting the simplicity of complexity and complex issues. (Top 5 Contributors: ysc, peter-925, clubone37, chefjudy, scouterdap )
Review: by JIM SLOTEK - Sun Media
Ron Howard now says he was too faithful to The Da Vinci Code, and felt liberated to cut freely with his movie of the other Dan Brown best-seller, Angels & Demons.
Trouble is, Angels & Demons -- which was actually Brown's first book starring symbologist/Vatican-bete-noir Robert Langdon -- can be charitably described as a "fat-free" thriller. Whatever you cut is pure bone.
Which means a whole first act of yakety yak to explain missing chapters of story -- just your first hint that, as terrific a filmmaker as Howard is in other genres, there's one he's only average at -- action movies.
Despite cerebral-sounding trailers that are all about Byzantine plots and secret societies, Angels & Demons is a simple, breathless action thriller, like the Bourne films' dumber brother, or an episode of 24.
You've got an anti-matter bomb in the Vatican, and four Cardinals kidnapped on the eve of a Papal conclave, with a promise from the kidnapper to kill one every hour leading up to the main event.
You've got clues left by the villains (ostensibly the ancient secret society known as The Illuminati) leading you around the city of Rome, and a guy (Tom Hanks) with almost superhuman abilities to solve said clues.
Simple, huh?
Bourne's Paul Greengrass would make mincemeat of it. God help me, Michael Bay could make a decent popcorn movie out of it.
Howard, however, doesn't go much beyond Langdon running and talking and thinking and running.
Among things excised from novel-to-script: physical struggles between Langdon and the assassin (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), and a romance with physicist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), designer of the anti-matter retrieval process. Which means no butt-kicking and no love interest. You call this an action movie?
Presented as a sequel to the events in The Da Vinci Code, we jump from the bloody theft of the anti-matter at the CERN lab in Switzerland to Langdon doing laps in a pool Stateside.
There, a Vatican official appears to tell him about the anti-matter bomb and the kidnappings, and to fly him in for his date with destiny and Roman rush-hour traffic. (A funny thing about Angels & Demons is how quickly Langdon gets miles across Rome in minutes -- when in real life, drivers leave their cars in the street to buy an espresso, knowing it will still be stuck there when they return).
With the death of the pope, decision-making falls by decree to his assistant, the Camerlengo (Ewan McGregor, phoning it in), a devout young man with a secret.
His main problem: convincing the senior Cardinals and the Swiss Guard, led by the surly Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgard), that he has the authority to let Langdon loose in the Vatican Archives and ultimately, to evacuate The Vatican itself.
Within said archives, Langdon and Vetra find Galileo's secret Path of Illumination map. Bernini statues of angels point this way and that, from the Santa Maria del Popolo to Piazza Navona to Castel Sant'Angelo, etc. -- clues all unravelled instantly by the steeltrap mind of Langdon, who then runs off, explaining his deductions between breaths.
Why does this take nearly two-and-a-half hours -- albeit breathless ones?
As my priest used to say when I'd ask annoying questions in Catechism, "It's a mystery, my son."
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Synopsis: Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts turns out to be quite the exciting year. First off is the arrival of a new teacher at Hogwarts, Horace Slughorn, who is a bit more useful to Harry than he realizes. Next, Harry obtains a Potions book which used to belong to the very mysterious Half-Blood Prince. Harry finds that the Half-Blood Prince's ancient scribbles are written along the margins of almost every page, giving Harry advice on how to improve greatly on his Potions work, and also teaching him a few helpful (and dangerous) spells along the way. Amidst this, Harry is starting private lessons with Professor Dumbledore, during which Harry learns the dark secrets of Voldemort's past, hoping that they could use these secrets to find a way to defeat him. Harry's year gets even more stressful with the suspicious actions of Draco Malfoy, who has been sneaking around the school doing, so Harry assumes, Voldemort's bidding. Harry quickly becomes determined, and slightly obsessed, to find out exactly what Malfoy has been up to and putting an end to it. Yet, during this time, Harry and his friends go through daily life, busy with school work, Quidditch (in which Harry has been made captain of the team), and, of course, romance. Ron has found a new girlfriend, Lavender Brown, a perky (if not obnoxious) Gryffindor student, and Hermione is not happy about it. Ron and Hermione's friendship takes a toll throughout the school year and Harry, as usual, is stuck in the middle. Harry, meanwhile, is facing a romantic dilemma of his own: he realizes he is falling for his best friend's sister, Ginny Weasley, who is unfortunately dating Harry's classmate, Dean Thomas. Harry's pining for Ginny and Ron's hilarious relationship with Lavender give this story a large dose of reality. Throughout all the school drama, however, the obvious darkness of Voldemort's impending rise to power is always apparent. The incredible action-packed climax is sure to leave the audience stunned and, inevitably, prove that you shouldn't trust everybody who you think is good and also prove that not everyone can manage to survive. -ceeotters
Review: Rent Angel (Renty The Raven) from London, England
Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince is an excellent followup to the fifth film in the series, Order of the Phoenix. I was not too big of a fan of the first film. The second was excellent in my opinion. The third was horrendous. The fourth had its moments but was disappointing. The fifth was a fantastic return to form (even with its many cuts, which displeased the majority of fans of the books) and the sixth is just as excellent as I thought it would be. I came in with high hopes and walked away from this viewing experience very satisfied and sure that the final installment (The Deathly Hallows, which will be two separate films) will be as wonderful and as thrilling as the book, since this one captures the essence and the spirit of Rowling's sixth installment with relative ease.
I am not going to bother even getting into the plot, seeing as the majority who go to see these films are fans of the books anyway and know what is going to happen. All I will say is that this film is as dark and as depressing as the book it is adapted from. I am sure that there will be shrieks of delight as well as of fear and there is no doubt in my mind that there will be plenty of tears shed upon the dramatic and shocking climax. Save for a few missteps here and there, David Yates employs a directional style that has vastly improved and that fully takes advantage of the dark subject matter of the novel with its excellent understanding of dramatic tension as well as black comedy and simple fun moments which define the friendship and the lives and times of Harry, Ron and Hermione at Hogwarts.
For those who have read the novel and are expecting to see some hormones raging—the film definitely delivers. Rowling made her readers squeal with joy upon introducing romantic subplots and while some are sweet and serious (Harry and Ginny Weasley) and some are downright hilarious and at the same time cringe-inducing (high school students will understand the relationship between Ron and Lavender Brown perfectly). This all works because the three main actors have definitely matured. Daniel Radcliffe (though still weak at some points) is growing up to be a fine young actor. The great reviews that came his way with his triumph in "Eqqus" are put to excellent use with his nuanced performance. I see a great many good things ahead of him. Rupert Grint provides excellent comic relief as the gangly Ron and Emma Watson gives an excellent performance as the kind and intelligent Hermione Granger—growing up to be quite beautiful and not to mention into an excellent young actress was not easy I am sure, seeing as she as well as the other two were thrust into the public eye at ages so very young, but she has matured the most out of the three of them and it is a shame that she has claimed that she is giving up acting practically completely in favor of a college education. While that is all well and good, I do hope that this young talent changes her mind, as she is excellent! While she will surely go far regardless, I hope she never truly shuns the spotlight.
The supporting cast is excellent as always; Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon are fine and isn't always wonderful to see the familiar faces of others like the great Julie Walters and Alan Rickman? Jim Broadbent (strange casting I thought at first) is wonderful as Prof. Horace Slughorn and there is a surprising turn from Dave Legeno as the evil Fenrir, who I'm sure many have been dying to see on screen ever since reading the novel itself! Helena Bonham-Carter (who wowed me to no end with her minimal screen time as the deranged and depraved Bellatrix Lestrange) delivers once again—she is a delight and fits in wonderfully with everyone else.
This is sure to be loved by all die-hard fans. Much more confident direction, fine cinematography, an improved score and excellent performances by an all star cast mark this triumph, which is sure to be one of the biggest hits of the summer; I await the next installment with much glee, though there will be tears once it is all over I know.
Enjoy the ride while you can!
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Synopsis: "Borat" trickster Sacha Baron Cohen returns to the big screen to offer yet another stinging dose of sociopolitical satire in this comedy that finds him assuming the persona of gay fashionmonger Brüno, the self-proclaimed "voice of Austrian youth TV." Originally conceived as part of Cohen's cult television series Da Ali G Show, the character of Bruno offered a cleverly costumed Cohen the opportunity to highlight the absurdities of the fashion industry by interviewing unsuspecting fashion icons and other haute couture hangers-on. - Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Review: "Brüno" isn't homophobic. But it's also not nearly as funny as "Borat" either.
Or maybe it is. As in "Borat": Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Sacha Baron Cohen's 2006 movie, the comedian creates outrageous situations — and then films how real people react.
And many of the set-ups are admittedly brilliant. Asking stage-mothers if they'd allow their actor-babies to operate heavy machinery, or lose ten pounds through liposuction, or be photographed dressed up like Nazis, pushing Jewish babies into ovens? And having these over-eager stage mothers readily agree to all this without question?
Now that is some amazing parody of America's celebrity-obsessed culture!
Likewise, plenty of the jokes are laugh-out-loud hilarious. I defy anyone not to laugh when "Brüno" has a psychic conjure up the spirit of a deceased member of the band Milli Vanilli — so "Brüno" can proceed to have "spirit" sex with him.
But even if this movie has its inspired moments, it doesn't have nearly the impact of "Borat".
Why? Well, we've seen the joke before: the whole movie is basically "Borat" with a different funny voice. And no matter how well-told a joke is, it's not nearly as funny the second time you hear it.
In short, Sacha Baron Cohen is the Susan Boyle of comedy. He's just as talented as the first time you saw him, but he's only going to knock your socks off once, at least as long as he's doing almost exactly the same shtick.
In the case of "Borat", it was so outrageous, so utterly different from anything we'd seen before, that most of us fell off our chairs laughing, not even noticing its flaws.
This time around, we see the flaws. The movie is more a satire about America's inane obsession with celebrity than it is about exposing homophobia, but both themes have their moments.
Some sequences do fall flat (exactly as in "Borat", even if we didn't notice). A long sequence with a martial arts expert teaching "Brüno" how to defend against "fags" with dildos goes nowhere.
And try as I might, I don't find anything funny about the Middle East situation, even when Cohen pretends not to know the difference between Hamas and hummus.
And why is it funny exactly when someone acts completely inappropriately in a given situation, and then people react with annoyance or outrage?
If I was Paula Abdul and you tried to serve me sushi on a naked male body, I'd get up and leave too. If I was in a focus group and you wasted my time showing what was obviously a ridiculous show (with frontal male nudity, no less, including a talking penis), I'd be annoyed too.
Yes, someone gets naked here, though no word on whether it was really Cohen. But I hope it goes without saying it's the opposite of sexy.
Part of the problem is that the filmmakers, and Cohen, squandered any sense of surprise by generating all those headlines while making the movie, and then commencing with last month's non-stop blitz of stunts and other publicity, including an avalanche of commercials and promotional clips.
By now, we've all seen or read about almost every scene and almost every joke in the movie. It's the anti-Susan Boyle effect where you go into the theater pretty much knowing exactly what you'll get.
The film's other big flaw? It sounds crazy to say this, but I wished I learned something real about "Brüno". I was disappointed the film, and Cohen, never took him even remotely seriously. The character was kept entirely on the level of a Saturday Night Live sketch — and 90 minutes is an awfully long sketch.
Back to the film's alleged homophobia. Two months ago, when GLAAD and others expressed concern about several scenes, Cohen and the filmmakers reportedly made some cuts. And a representative from GLAAD told me that The New York Times and other media outlets had over-emphasized their complaints, trying to create a "controversy" where one didn't really exist.
In any event, I didn't see anything homophobic in the final film. Sure, there are a couple of tasteless jokes — and they have nothing whatsoever to do with "exposing homophobia." But if they were funny, I didn't care, and when they weren't, it was impossible to feel offended given the nature of the movie, and the fact that this is 2009.
And "Brüno" himself? It's literally impossible for me to imagine how any sentient person couldn't see him for the outrageous, over-the-top satire he is (and if someone didn't, they're way beyond the reach of a mere movie anyway).
If you want a good laugh or two, go see it "Brüno". And while you're at it, take another look of that clip of Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent. You'll be almost exactly as entertained.
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Synopsis: The battle for Earth has ended but the battle for the universe has just begun. After returning to Cybertron, Starscream assumes command of the Decepticons, and has decided to return to Earth with force. The Autobots believing that peace was possible finds out that Megatron's dead body has been stolen from the US Military by Skorpinox and revives him using his own spark. Now Megatron is back seeking revenge and with Starscream and more Decepticon reinforcements on the way, the Autobots with reinforcements of their own, may have more to deal with then meets the eye.
THE PITCH: The Autobots, those heroic space robots, must protect Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) from the evil Decepticons when the all-American teen journeys from college campus to Egyptian desert to find an Earth-shaking artifact called the Matrix of Leadership. No, really.
MONEY SHOTS: Cool robot shapes include a mechanical tiger; a parasitical satellite; a flat, origami-like thief; and the giant Devastator made of multiple pieces of construction equipment. Decepticons rain from the sky and destroy an aircraft carrier. Some of the battles are great in theory — like Autobot leader Optimus Prime brawling with three Decepticons in a forest — but the robots have so many moving parts, and there’s so much editing and camera movement that watching the fight scenes is like trying to watch rollercoasters screw.
WORST LINE: “You’ll always be my first car,” Sam tells the Camaro-robot Bumblebee in a dopey semi-break-up scene that is, nonetheless, less boring than a subplot over whether Sam will say “I love you” to his mechanically inclined girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox).
MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY LINE: “Earth! Birthplace of the human race!” announces Optimus Prime in the film’s first words. But you could pick lines at random, and they’d still probably be pretty amusing.
MOST INTENTIONALLY FUNNY LINE: “What you are about to see is top secret. Don’t tell my mother,” announces John Turturro’s squirrelly spy-turned-conspiracy theorist. Turturro’s half-hinged performance is the film's cleverest, most focused quality.
BODY COUNT: Decepticon attacks on the human race cost more than 7,000 lives, according to a newscaster. Few humans are actually shown being killed, except for a caveman stomped in the prologue. The Transformers suffer various stabbings, shootings and smashings, but it’s hard to know what qualifies as a fatal injury for a hunk of metal.
FLESH FACTOR: Megan Fox wiggles into a short dress outside Sam’s garage. Suspiciously amorous co-ed Alice (Isabel Lucas) reveals a lot of thigh and cleavage. We actually see less of Fox or Lucas than we do of Turturro, thanks to a low-angle close-up of him wearing of his jockstrap — from both sides. (Good luck with that in IMAX.) Also: wrecking-ball-sized robot “scrotum.”
PRODUCT PLACEMENT: Like the previous film, it’s practically a commercial for General Motors, so perhaps Josh Duhamel’s Autobot-saving U.S. commandos represent the government bailout. Sam misses his e-date with Mikaela via Cisco Webex. Mountain Dew is conspicuous in Sam’s college dorm, and his parents drink Budweiser in a Parisian café. Take that, Frenchy!
HOMAGES: A fragment of the otherworldly Allspark turns kitchen appliances into evil little robots in a clear lift from Gremlins. Bumblebee speaks mostly in song snippets and movie quotes, including two Tom Hanks films. Director Michael Bay shamelessly — even for him — uses a poster for his Bad Boys 2 as a prop.
POLITICALLY CORRECT? The sexist leering over Fox’s whorey outfits and makeup gives way to outright misogyny in its mean-spirited depiction of sluttish Alice and Sam’s moronic mom. It also indulges in jaw-dropping racial stereotypes with two jive-talkin’, buck-toothed, pop-eyed Autobots named Mudflap and Skids.
BETTER THAN THE FIRST ONE? No. Bay’s original Transformers was hardly an exercise in subtlety, but at least it offered a sense of discovery, built some genuine suspense, and showed some things you’d never seen in a movie before. At once sillier and more pompous, the sequel makes a chaotic hash of things from practically the first scene and draws out for two and a half deafening hours.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Opting for loud, grating comedy and incoherent action scenes, Bay steamrolls over his human and mechanical cast members alike. If you wonder just how stupid Hollywood thinks its audience is, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen provides your answer. If only it could transform into a movie that doesn’t suck.
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Synopsis: Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor is the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright, a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind. Written by Warner Bros. Pictures
Review: by: Brendan Cullin
Terminator Salvation takes us to the year 2018, in the years after Judgement Day, when the robots have taken over the world. An army of Terminators, controlled by the artificial network Skynet, roam the earth, kidnapping and/or killing all humans in sight. Many of the remaining human survivors have banded together to form the Resistance, a desperate group who relentlessly fight the seemingly indestructable machines. Among the survivors is John Connor (Christian Bale), a man whose life goal has always been to save humanity and stop the machines. Unfortunately for Connor, the human casualties just seem to be multiplying and he must find a way to stop Skynet as it continues to evolve and develop new tactics to destroy mankind once and for all. Terminator Salvation also stars Sam Worthington as an ex-con named Marcus Wright, as well as Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard, Helena Bonham Carter and many more. As a sidenote, the T-800 that appears in the movie is actually played by a fellow named Roland Kickinger, not Arnie. Howard Stern fans may remember him from the short-lived TV series "Son of the Beach". It's scary how much he looked liked Arnie but it was not him, in case you are wondering.
I'm sure most movie fans are expecting the world of Terminator Salvation. How could you not? The first three movies were all simply oustanding and are movies many of us grew up knowing and loving. Well, I'm here to report that Salvation is a pretty damn good movie. In terms of action and special effects, it may rank up there as one of the best ever. Sam Worthington's portrayal of Marcus Wright was the performance that was head and shoulders above the other cast members. For all you hockey fans out there, I found the guy looks eerily like Sean Avery (and that's not a good thing - for Worthington). The movie moves at a good pace - it's actually surprisingly short, clocking in at slightly less than 2 hours but with all the fighting and explosions going on, there isn't too much time to sit back and relax. Some of the action scenes and battles between the Terminators and the humans are simply outstanding. For that, I commend the movie-makers.
Unfortunately, what this movie lacks is the story and easy feeling of at least two of the three Terminator movies. Sure the first Terminator movie was very serious, violent and definitely not chock full of laughs - Salvation really has the same somber type of feeling of the first movie. But those second two movies made Arnie's Terminator such a likeable and pretty damn funny cyborg and this has a lot to do with what made both of those movies a hit. Salvation, on the other hand,is dark, violent and I'm pretty sure not one person in the entire movie cracks a smile, not even once. Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure if it should be or not but it would have been nice to have one wise-cracking asshole at least once or twice in the whole movie. Instead, you have a bunch of angry characters (and I suppose rightly so) that you have a really hard time connecting with and having any sort of feeling for any of them. And you also have Christian Bale, one of the greatest actors in the world today, and as good as he was, his talent just seemed kind of wasted in this movie. Don't get me wrong, the guy was good. But he could have had a moment or two in the movie to be "Christian Bale", if you know what I mean. He really didn't get that opportunity, at least not what I saw. In fact, I found the Sam Worthington character to be a lot more endearing and likeable and the guy was a convicted serial killer. Something just seemed to be missing with Bale's John Connor. As a side note, I really wonder what scene it was where Bale had his now infamous outburst...
Overall, I will say that I liked Terminator Salvation a lot, despite all the energy I used typing my complaints about the movie. I didn't love it like I wanted but I can't deny that it's a damn entertaining movie. I guess I was hoping that perhaps an army of human-looking T-800's would infiltrate the resistance or John Connor would have a big moment or Arnie or Linda Hamilton would make an appearance or I maybe would have cracked a smile or shed a tear but none of that happened. It just turned out to be a very loud but very action-packed movie and I guess that's good enough. Too bad it wasn't great enough.
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Synopsis: WARNING! Contains spoilers
The film opens with the Federation starship USS Kelvin investigating a "lightning storm" in space. It turns out to be a black hole, and the Narada, a Romulan mining vessel, emerges from it and attacks. The Kelvin's captain, Richard Robau (Faran Tahir) is captured and killed by the Romulan captain Nero (Eric Bana). First officer George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth) takes command and sacrifices himself and the Kelvin by ramming it into the Romulan ship in order to allow the rest of the crew to escape. During the escape, George's wife Winona (Jennifer Morrison) gives birth to a son: James Tiberius Kirk.
About 22 years later, Kirk (Chris Pine) grows into an intelligent but reckless young man. He meets Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) in a bar in Iowa, where Pike convices Kirk to enlist in Starfleet Academy and follow in his father's footsteps. During his eventful education on Earth, he is suspended for cheating on the Kobayashi Maru designed by the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock (Zachary Quinto). Despite this, Kirk is smuggled onboard the USS Enterprise by his friend, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban), as it is sent on its first mission to investigate a distress signal originating from the planet Vulcan; Captain Pike commands the ship, with Spock as his first officer, and Uhura is also assigned to the ship. En-route, Kirk realizes that the situation is similar to the one 25 years ago when his father died and, with the help of Uhura and McCoy, manages to convince Pike and Spock that the Enterprise is heading into a trap. When the Enterprise arrives, they find the rest of the Starfleet ships destroyed and Nero's ship, the Narada, using a drilling apparatus to tunnel to the planet's core. After promoting Spock to captain and Kirk to first officer, Pike surrenders to Nero, giving Kirk and Hikaru Sulu (John Cho) a chance to destroy the drill. Nevertheless, Nero destroys Vulcan with a small amount of "red matter", dropped into the planet's core, which creates a black hole that consumes the planet from within. Six billion of the Vulcan people die, including Spock's human mother, Amanda (Winona Ryder).
Nero puts the Narada on a course for Earth with the intention of destroying it. Kirk wants to follow Nero immediately, but Spock insists that the Enterprise should regroup with the fleet as per their orders. Spock has Kirk forcibly removed from the Enterprise and stranded on the nearby ice planet Delta Vega, only for him to be rescued by an aging Vulcan who reveals himself to be Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy). This elderly Spock explains that, 120 years in the future, he tried to save the Romulan planet from being destroyed by a nearby supernova, using the red matter in his ship to create a black hole that would neutralise the threat. Though Spock did not complete his mission in time to save Romulusresulting in Nero's vow to take revenge on Spock and the Federationhe stopped the supernova, and the resulting black hole transported Spock's ship and the Narada into the past. Spock takes Kirk to a nearby Starfleet outpost and introduces him to Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg), a master engineer and pioneer of transporter technology. Scott and Kirk are transported back to the Enterprise and, taking Ambassador Spock's advice, Kirk goads the younger Spock into attacking him and demonstrating that he is "emotionally compromised". As a result, Spock relieves himself of command; because Kirk is the next-highest ranking officer, he becomes the new captain of the Enterprise.
Captain Kirk takes the Enterprise to Earth, intending to stop the Narada on his own. Spock, Scott and math-whiz Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin) figure out a way to lie in wait for the Narada and beam aboard, allowing Kirk and Spock to stage a surprise attack. While Spock steals Ambassador Spock's captured ship and lures the Narada away from Earth, Kirk rescues Pike. With the assistance of the Enterprise, Spock then rams Ambassador Spock's ship into the Narada, detonating the red matter and creating a black hole that, aided by a full barrage of the Enterprise's weaponry, destroys the Narada completely. Kirk, Spock and Pike are rescued by the Enterprise via transporter, which is in turn saved from being pulled into the black hole by Scott. Back on Earth, Kirk is commended, promoted to captain and given permanent command of the Enterprise from Pike, now a Fleet Admiral. Ambassador Spock visits his younger self and explains that he helped Kirk directly because he wanted to ensure that the young Spock and Kirk would come to an understanding of each other and become friends. The younger Spock, convinced to stay with Starfleet, requests to be posted to the Enterprise as first officer and Kirk accepts.
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When it comes to a franchise as beloved as "Star Trek", I suppose it's important to let people know where you stand, right at the beginning: I never was able to get into the original Star Trek series (probably because I'd already been indoctrinated into the Star Wars religion), but I knew enough to become a big fan of the first three cinematic adaptations. I think "The Motion Picture" is a fine (if slightly overlong) re-awakening of the franchise, and I'm a big fan of both "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Search for Spock". The rest of the features are slight and forgettable (at best) or drearily familiar, which is slightly annoying because I absolutely adore "The Next Generation" on the small screen. On the big one? Not so much.
But beyond the impact and popularity of a lone franchise, I'm just a huge science fiction fan. Anything that can delve deep into the future and dazzle me with something flashy or fascinating is a good thing indeed. But what makes "Star Trek" such a long-lasting and rabidly adored franchise is that it goes beyond simple "alien adventures" and touches upon ideas, questions, and issues that we always contend with in the "real" world. If you have to travel 100,000 miles and deal with purple aliens to make a clever point about, say, racism, then let's hear it for basic-yet-admirable subtext. So yes, "Star Trek" has always been a smart, insightful, and topical space adventure, but this time out ... it's mostly just fun.
Yes, it's an all-new reboot of one of the most beloved series of all time. Which means director J.J. Abrams and his filmmaking crew are walking on very thin ice. True, it's not like the "Star Trek" series has never seen a bad film, but when you're retro-fitting a mega-franchise in very loud and expensive fashion ... the fans take notice. And they're not afraid to call bullshit at the drop of a hat or a crack in the canon, which is part of what makes the new "Star Trek" such a pleasant surprise. Not only did they "pull it off," but they've done so in rather grand fashion: This is the best Trek since Khan got all wrathful and such.
It's an origin story, which is normally snooze central, but in this case ... well, do you actually KNOW how Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, etc., all met up at the start? I'd assume that only the hardest of hardcore fans know that stuff, and the "flashback" approach allows us to accept an all-new cast as a simple part of the equation. The story of young Kirk, who lost his father only one second after being born, turning away from a rebellious streak and enlisting in Starfleet, only to slowly acquire a rather eclectic crew of friends while battling a mercilessly evil villain ... yeah, this stuff is just plain old fun.
And what a entertaining film this will be for the movie geeks to dig through: Shot like a dream, cut real tight, scored with majesty and power, packed with dazzling sights and sounds and sly little pieces of banter. We've also got the requisite chase and escape stuff, a few nifty creatures, a sweet dash of romance, and even some time-travel twistiness that all but demands repeat viewings. Hell, you could know nothing about the words Star Trek and still find a lot to enjoy here.
Any of the old-school Star Trek fans can tell you: It's the cast that makes or breaks a series. And while it's way too early to tell if this new gang will make a fan-friendly impact, going only by one fine film, this ensemble is aces across the board. So while we don't have that friendly sort of familiarity that we normally have with Star Trek, it's replaced with the sensation of meeting interesting "new" characters who might be a little bit younger (and, yes, a lot prettier) but are still just as likable. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto excel as Kirk and Spock (respectively), but big chunks of the film are stolen by the likes of Uhura (Zoe Saldana), McCoy (Karl Urban), and good ol' Scotty (Simon Pegg). Compliments also to Eric Bana's brooding villainy, Bruce Greenwood's classy authority, and Ben Cross' overt Vulcanosity. (And was that ... Winona Ryder? Nah, couldn't be.) No, this is not the Enterprise crew we know and love, but I know enough to crave a few more adventures with the new guys.
As Star Trek is character(s) first and plot second, it's understood that we spend a lot of time getting reacquainted with everyone, but of course there's just enough of an adventure story to keep the flick cooking. Eric Bana stars as a horrific Romulan with a massive grudge, one who's not afraid to leap back in time to satisfy his lust for revenge. But the real arc of the flick is Jim Kirk, and his journey from Enterprise stowaway to captain. The screenwriters run through a whole lot of road-blocks and temporal contortions to give the Star Trek faithful a reboot to remember, and I'd say they've done one heck of a job.
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