Double Feature: Star Trek: Beyond (2016) & Baby Driver (2017)

We are nearing the end of the year which means I’m going to try to get a lot of these backlogged movies reviewed. While I did write a review over on Weibo for Baby Driver already, I haven’t done one here and I’m not going to lie that Star Trek Beyond was a few months ago so its starting to get a little blurry.

Star Trek: Beyond (2016)

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Joe Taslim

The crew of the USS Enterprise explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a new ruthless enemy, who puts them, and everything the Federation stands for, to the test. –IMDB

After the last Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness (review), I had my reservations about this one. For one, the first and the second had this conflict in tone and humor. There was this narrative that worked but the villains felt underused or not quite as effective. Thinking back now, it felt like a fairly unsatisfying and forgettable movie experience save for some of the returning cast who had roles which were quite fun to watch. Star Trek Beyond however takes a different approach. It may have to do with the fact that Simon Pegg doesn’t only appear in the film but also does the writing for this one. It also helps that Justin Lin, a director that I like a lot in the Fast and Furious franchise takes the helms of this sequel. A lot of the factors makes this one such a fun and entertaining movie experience that reminds me a lot of the fun I had in the first Star Trek film.

Star Trek Beyond resumes the familiar roles. Its a good thing because for those who have been following the franchise, its a nice little team that we know the personality of. There is this well-oiled machine dynamic despite the issues they encounter. Everyone delivers it very well. I completely had forgotten that John Cho was in this as well especially since I had just seen him in Searching (when I saw this movie in August or something..Searching review here). Then of course, we have Anton Yelchin that is still such a huge loss in my heart because he is so incredibly talented. However, I think what deserves a mention here are the new additions. The first is the girl on the planet they land on called Jayla, played by Sofia Boutella who has such a fantastic character design appearance wise and her weapons and Sofia Boutella does a great job. On top of that, mostly unrecognizable except for his voice is Idris Elba who plays the villain, Krall. He still feels a little underused but the presence is very much there.

Baby Driver (2017)

Director (and writer): Edgar Wright

Cast: Ansel Elgort, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Lily James, Eiza Gonzalez, Kevin Spacey

After being coerced into working for a crime boss, a young getaway driver finds himself taking part in a heist doomed to fail. – IMDB

Every once in a while we get a new gimmick and it works for some and doesn’t work for others. Baby Driver utilizes the constant soundtrack in Baby’s life to  work around it. It starts off fairly fun and charming, if a little odd especially when he turns on the wipers for no reason but to match the lyrics or sounds or something. There is a charm to it all. However, Baby Driver reminds us how sometimes soundtracks are used sparingly for a reason because it accentuates a scenes. As clever as the idea itself and how the execution works in some parts, it doesn’t translate to everything. There is no doubt that the soundtrack is really good, except I would have liked to not be overloaded with music so much.

As charmed as I was with the use of music and soundtracks and how that was executed well enough, the story here is fairly basic. Its actually not even very fleshed out for any of the characters. Its almost like the gimmick is the reason for the whole thing. The action sequences are done pretty good though and the bombastic characters played by Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez and Jamie Foxx all are quite memorable. When things get dicey though, the characters are really just shells and the story is pretty much on rails following everything as expected and predicted.

Is it as awesome as it seems to be for a lot of people? For myself, I don’t really think its that well-rounded. There are aspects that stand out and as much as I like the music and cars and this one delivers two things I love, it somehow outlived its hype. Its not a bad idea and its a fun little experience but somehow it just lost its charm in the second half.

Wonder Woman (2017)

This week and the next one will be mainly focused on all the reviews that I haven’t got around to and hopefully along with other fun things. I could do these 2017 movies in double feature but as an effort to catch up and not just wave it off quickly, it is worth a full review, although I am sure that everyone else has said it all.

Wonder Woman (2017)

Director: Patty Jenkins

Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner, Eugene Brave Rock, Elena Anaya

When a pilot crashes and tells of conflict in the outside world, Diana, an Amazonian warrior in training, leaves home to fight a war, discovering her full powers and true destiny. – IMDB

Wonder Woman is my first full experience into the DC Universe. I’ve never made it past the first ten minutes of Man of Steel and not particularly willing to fork out a ton of money for Batman vs. Superman because it doesn’t have the rental option apparently and well, I flat out missed Justice League because I have never caught up with any of the others so why now, right? Wonder Woman got some incredible reviews and because its such an empowering character and I personally like Gal Gadot a ton and thought she would make this role great, I ended up renting it. As with Marvel films, I have never read the DC comics so I don’t know about the source material and have no comparison.

Wonder Woman is an exhilarating and exciting experience. Visually, it starts off very beautiful in the matriarch hidden island of Themyscira. This island is beautiful along with its lady warriors who are competent and strong. The mood changes complete when Diana Prince (aka Wonder Woman) goes to London and from there, the World War 1 has taken its toll and its grim and dark. The setting drives the atmosphere and ton and this one does that pretty well.

The cast also does a great job. The dialogue is decent and they manage to crack a few lighter moments in with Steve Trevor’s assistant and the drunk sniper hired for their expedition and Diana not knowing how normal people dress and act. I love films which use adapting to and learning a new environment as comedic moments and have a really soft spot for it. Wonder Woman does that very well. The standout role here does go to Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. She is strong and powerful and most importantly, very righteous. The ladies from the island was an interesting look at the protected life of Diana Prince as she was growing up and how she fought to be different and strong to one day fulfil her destiny if they were ever found by the God of War. When she does leave, the team that Steve Trevor (played by Chris Pine) puts together to find the God of War turns out to be quite the talented and strategic but somewhat of a ragtag team altogether.

Do I think that Wonder Woman is amazing? Maybe less than some of the other reviews out there. This was a competent movie and very entertaining. There was a lot of great moments both comedic and emotional ones. There was some great content here to be had. It definitely exceeded my expectations. However, I did find some pacing issues. And forgive me when I can’t quite take seriously that as amazing as I think Wonder Woman is that she was the one that crossed No Man’s Land and defeated the war. But then, I feel slightly contradicting saying that when I can accept all that Marvel Universe superheroes have accomplished in their movies. It was a great scene and triumphant but we did have a good laugh out of the thought of it. Just a minor sidenote about the thought I had when I was watching it. Other than that, the villain here wasn’t exactly standout but still was decent. I’ve seen less prominent villains before.

Overall, Wonder Woman is an entertaining DC addition that was a nice first step into this universe. Gal Gadot does a great job. There’s a nice balance between comedy and emotional elements here. There’s a good bit of action which works for the most part. I had some issues with it but nothing that made me feel like it took away too much from the entertainment value. I’d really like to see another Wonder Woman film though. Probably as this movie took time to set-up Wonder Woman’s origin story, the next one will  give it a deeper plot.

This Means War (2012)

*I got a movie review in!*

This Means War has been a movie I’ve been meaning to watch for a while.  I was always a little hesitant because of certain factors, mostly being that I never really liked Chris Pine in anything other than Star Trek and then its not really the type of guy I’m attracted to, so with this being a romantic action comedy, I wasn’t exactly too sure.  Either way, lets check it out!

Director: McG

Cast: Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon, Chelsea Handler, Til Schweiger

FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) are top CIA agents and good partners as well as best friends.  After an operative gone bad, they are pulled off the field for a while and Tuck decides to join an online dating site.  He ends up meeting the very attractive Lauren (Reese Witherspoon).  Afterwards, Lauren meets FDR spontaneously and he also is attracted to her.  When FDR and Tuck realize that they are pursuing the same girl, they decide to use their own measures to see who can get the girl first.

Like I mentioned before, this is a romantic action comedy.  I’m going to say that I didn’t hate the movie and for the most part it was pretty entertaining at a good many parts of the movie.  To be absolutely honest, this was a pretty average movie, story-wise at least.  Maybe its because it was a huge mumbo jumbo of stuff.  It tried to get a bit romantic but never really going there and then there was some action but then not really but then it was also supposed to be funny and I’m not exactly sure if I found it completely humorous.  I guess the sum of it all would be that it entertained me for the evening and I’ll probably forget most of it soon enough.

The most memorable character for me had to be Tuck played by the ever so handsome and charming Tom Hardy.  Like I said, I’m not into Chris Pine’s type of appearance or even the character he played.  He kind of reminded me of the annoying boy in high school math class that sat in front of me and I just wanted to slap the back of his head to shut up.  Sure, he was entertaining but when there wasn’t much connection to the characters themselves and their relationships, I was secretly rooting for Tom Hardy because I thought he was just so…awesome and attractive.  I have a thing for British accents…its just a trait I’m attracted to, what more can I say? Plus, his dialogue was just so much more sophisticated and romantic.  Its hard to really see him as Bane when I think about it…

Tom Hardy was the highlight of this movie aside from the silly chasing and using their CIA resources to get the girl funny moments and some very cutesy Reese Witherspoon moments aside, the story was not too great.  I never get too picky with these things for romantic comedies though.  There just seemed like something was missing and I couldn’t really feel the connection to the romance going on.  I’m not going to comment on the visuals as my right eye still goes blurry once in a while so I’m not going to be a good judge of it 😉

With everything considered, This Means War is an average, possibly forgettable romantic action comedy.  Tom Hardy was my highlight and Reese Witherspoon had quite charming moments as well.  Chris Pine was good also, although I just never seem to connect with his character as much.  Even though there’s not much surprises to expect from the story, it was entertaining enough that if it does cross your path, you could sit back and enjoy it.  Its worth the one viewing 🙂

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Star Trek Into Darkness is one of my most anticipated releases of 2013 and last night I finally got well enough and suppressed my cold enough to head out and catch it.  May is a tight month so there is no missing out on this week’s because next week we have Fast and Furious 6 to see.  Back on track, I really wanted Star Trek to succeed because I’m not much of a Star Trek fan ever but the first one surprised me so much and I fell in love with it.  Its one of my absolute favorite movies.  Lets see how Into Darkness went…

Director: J.J Abrams

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Benedict Cumberbatch, Peter Weller, Alice Eve

When Starfleet is under attack by one of their own, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) is sent to take his team First Officer Spock (Zachary Quinto), Lieutenant Uhara (Zoe Saldana), Bones (Karl Urban), Scotty (Simon Pegg) and Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin).  They set off under the orders of the admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) with their newest advanced weapons of torpedos to go to a deemed uninhabited area of the Klingon planet to hunt and terminate the fugitive (Benedict Cumberbatch).  However, the challenge is to try to avoid war with Klingons or head to head challenge.  When Captain Kirk decides to change his plans and capture the fugitive instead to further investigate the situation and to attempt to avoid starting war with Klingons during their sudden appearance while their spaceship is under maintenance to regain full power and capability, things start turning bad.  The situation gets a lot more serious and it turns into determining who is the friend and who is the enemy?

Thats a crazy vague synopsis in my opinion but for some of you who haven’t gone to see it yet, I’m trying to keep all the surprises for yourself to discover.  You know why? Because this movie deserved every ounce of it.

Unlike the first one, Star Trek didn’t have that same beginning that impacted me to just get drawn into the movie.  This one starts off still in an intense sequence but is slower to lead you to the actual plot.  You can tell right away that there’s a darker concept to the whole story.  Its about Captain Kirk learning how to be himself but also thinking about the consequences and his crew.  Its a story about right and wrong and possibly honor and family.

Above everything, this is an action sci-fi thriller.  I’m not a big fan of sci-fi but Star Trek has me hooked.  This one lacked a bit in the beginning sequence but when it finally picked up after 15-20 minutes later, it was non-stop action that had me at the edge of my seat.  My eyes were literally glued to the screen waiting to see how Kirk would react, what logically correct thing Spock would say, what comeback Scotty would have and everyone else on the starship.  The team that we came to love and became familiar with in the first one.  I love movies that manage to keep the same cast from lead to supporting and simply adding a few other characters to help the story along.  Alice Eve’s role was quite good and I think she will be a great addition if there are any future Star Trek movies.

The villain in this one was so complicated.  It was also what had the twists and surprises at every corner.  The fugitive was Khan played by Benedict Cumberbatch.  I haven’t seen this guy before but he sure looked all kinds of sinister and evil.  He was crazy manipulating. I have to say that he was a pretty awesome villain because for a moment there, I started wondering if he really was a bad guy. There just seemed to be a deeper part to his story.

I could’ve described Star Trek Into Darkness with just a few words.  INTENSE, ACTION-PACKED, THRILLING, FUN! This is definitely right now the best movie of 2013 so far.  It always surprises me how I get nervous about seeing it and it always kicks some serious ass! I love coming out of a movie and being so happy and fulfilled as I was with this one!! I’m definitely recommending this one.  Its one you don’t want to miss this summer 🙂

Rise of the Guardians (2012)

Saturday movie night with my best friend ended up being her choice out of my unseen movies pile! We love watching animation together and its been forever since we’ve actually sat down at home eating dinner together and just enjoy a movie.  Last movie we saw was in the theatres last year, Brave and it was totally awesome 😉 Rise of the Guardians was one that we believe we saw the preview of when we went to see Brave.

Director: Peter Ramsey

Voice Cast: Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher, Jude Law, Dakota Goyo

The Four Guardians have always taken care of the hopes and beliefs and happiness of all the kids around the world.  They consisted of a russian accent Santa Claus called North (Alec Baldwin), Easter Bunny called Bunny (Hugh Jackman), Tooth Fairy called Tooth (Isla Fisher) and Sandman called Sandy who doesn’t talk.  When North sees that the Boogeyman called Pitch, has come out of hiding and used his darkness to try to take over the Earth, he calls up the Guardians for a meeting.  When asking advice from the moon, they see that they are to summon a 5th Guardian, who is a mischievous Jack Frost (Chris Pine). This comes as a surprise to both Jack Frost and the Guardians.  As Pitch launches his plan to come out of hiding and destroy every child’s dreams and happiness, the Guardians along with Jack Frost needs to find a way to work together and figure out how to stop him before its too late.

Was 2012 the year of awesome animated flicks? I loved The Lorax (although there was a fair share that didn’t).  I absolutely adored Brave and now I had so much fun with Rise of the Guardians! I just totally blame the promotional team for this one.  It was so awesome but yet the trailers, not for one second, made me want to go see this.

This movie is definitely one that I found was really magical.  Its suitable for kids but gives the adults a good sense of adventure as well.  Its not dumb childish humor but actually rather witty dialogue.  Bringing in the mythical characters that a lot of children do (or adults have) believe in and setting them as the heroes of the story makes it very unique.  It also gives them a meaning as we are revealed that even our heroes before they become immortal have to earn their way to be who they are and each one had a life before this one.

All the characters were designed really well.  My best friend (and I) particularly loved how they made North have a Russian accent.  I thought that was really nifty and cool.  Easter Bunny was made all ninja style and he rocked the screen under Hugh Jackman’s voiceover. That makes sense since he has to jump and hop everywhere.  His interaction with everyone was most of the comic relief.  Chris Pine did a very good Jack Frost, although I almost didn’t even recognize his voice at first.  His story was the main focus throughout this flick so his character grew on me as it progressed.

This flick had Pitch as the villain. I think he did so amazing.  For one, he has one of the best voices in the business and its actually sad that I don’t recall him doing any voice work before.  He rarely does bad guys but somehow I felt he was a good level of evil to make everything work out.

One last thing that I really loved was the visuals.  The way the designed each of the “palaces” where the guardians lived were all very creative.  They each gave a beauty and imaginative.  The way the characters would use their magic and the colors they used were absolutely amazing.  I may have talked about this last but it was the big element that kept drawing me into the world of the Guardians.

This flick had a good amount of action to hold both children and adults but in no time did it feel that it was too intense or inappropriate for children at least.  They kept reminding us that we all have that child in us.  I’d recommend not only for a fun magical adventure but also that it carries a deeper meaning that we need to find our center.  No one will treat situations the same way but we all are unique and that gives us our advantage.