Category Archives: Movies

Sep 10 2022
Leave a comment
Movies

Movie Review – Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

More Thor, 3.5 readers. More Thor indeed.

BQB here with a review of Marvel’s latest.

I fear we might be in the Jump the Shark phase of the most expensive television show ever created, that being the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man is dead. Captain America is old and Hulk? Well, he could never sustain a movie on his own.

Like Paul McCartney, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is left to perform solo without the trio of mates who made up the fab four. However, if you’d like a brief Guardians of the Galaxy flyby followed by a team-up with a Lady Thor, Valkyrie and a rock man, then this movie might be up your alley.

Christian Bale stars as Gorr the God Butcher, and to Bale’s credit he really is one of few actors who can completely transform himself into a virtually unrecognizable new person. Gorr and his daughter, Love, the last of an ancient race, seek help from their God Rapu, only to be mocked. Angered when Rapu refuses to help his dying child, Gorr claims the necrosword, slays Rapu then goes on a killing spree across the otherworldly realms, slashing his way through many a god from ancient mythical folklore.

Meanwhile, Thor is hot off a streak of saving various worlds from villainy with the help of his new BFFs, the G of the G when Gorr attacks New Asgard a little refugee town on Earth, home to the children of many a god who perished in Old Asgard during Thor: Ragnarok.

When Gorr kidnaps the Asgardian kiddies in the hopes of drawing Thor into a trap, Thor teams up with other friends Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and Jane Foster, now Lady Thor, having sought out the power of the hammer of Thor in the hopes of curing a fatal illness only to become a Thor herself.

I’m not sure how the Thor movies turned into a joke every 5 seconds laugh fest but I suppose they were always semi-intended to be a parody of ancient religion. Screaming goats, a bloated Zeus played by Russell Crowe, Thor’s clothes getting blasted off only for women to feint at the sight of his studly bod are just some of the many goofy happenings.

It’s funny and fun. On the other hand, it feels stitched together at times. Gorr is the most interesting character and arguably, has a justifiable grievance, having lived a pious life only to be mocked by a God he worshipped in his time of need. We see very little of him until the end. The Guardians are fun but it feels like they as well as other MCU characters have cameos limited to whatever the actors could do in a very quick time frame to scoop up a quick payday.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy but like the recent Dr. Strange, I’m at the point where I don’t rush out to the theater anymore to watch these flicks. Rather, I just wait until they are on Disney Plus now.

OK I’ll give my rant. I’m not a huge fan of the trend where every male hero gets vaginized. I turn on a Hawkeye series only to see it’s mostly about Hawkeye training a lady apprentice to become a lady arrow shooter. Lame in theory but fun in practice.

Meanwhile, She-Hulk is more interesting than any stand alone male Hulk movie.

And though I balked at the previews, when I saw the movie I felt like, yeah, I can see how Jane would try to use her scientific mind to locate and harness the power of her ex’s hammer to gain newfound strength in a dark time.

So, to give props to Disney, it’s all done in interesting, watchable ways. And Marvel as well as DC always had a habit of just creating female versions of their superheroes when they ran out of ideas for their male heroes.

But I guess my complaint is that there seems to be a trend toward pushing women to become manly, as if being a woman is somehow a bad thing and women will never be whole unless they turn into dudes.

In other words, there’s a part where Jane corrects Gorr, telling him she’s not Lady Thor. She’s either Mighty Thor or Dr. Jane Foster and I just wonder, couldn’t she have just grabbed Mjolnir and become her own new hero? But then I guess anything but Natalie Portman in a Thor suit wouldn’t have sold tickets.

Tagged , , ,
Sep 05 2022
Leave a comment
Movies

Movie Review – Loving Adults (2022)

Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of Netflix’s Danish dubbed in English hit.

These are not great Danes. Ha! See what I did there?

Christian and Leonara seem to have an idyllic life. Sure, they have had their share of problems in life. They have spent the past several years as well as boatloads of money helping their son beat an illness. However, now that battle has been won and with the lad off to college soon, it’s time for these middle-aged folk to have some quality time.

But not so fast. Christian has fallen in love with the much younger Xenia, gratuitously schtupping her behind his wife’s back and apparently Danish cinema still allows boobies on screen because America sure as hell doesn’t. Violence, bloodshed and mayhem? Sure, but boobies? Never!

Anyway, hurt feelings lead to accusations which lead to threats which lead to murder, murder and more murder. One thing this movie does well is leaving you with a sense that there really is no one to root for here. At first, I found myself siding with Leonora, the faithful wife ousted after years of devotion for a younger model. But then her retaliations go above and beyond the punishment deserved by a pervy cheating husband. Mr. and Mrs. go back and forth, first at war, then as accomplices stuck with one another. A truly disastrous marriage that dredges up past sins and presents a terrible future.

All framed around a police commissioner narrator who tells his daughter about this case, what he describes as the most horrifying case he ever investigated in his time on the force. This isn’t really a story a daughter wants to hear on her wedding day, but alas the investigation led the old timer with such a blatant fear of love that he feels he must warn everyone of the dangers of falling for someone. Love, the good inspector advises us, can drive people mad and cause them to do terrible things.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. You’ll have to get used to the English dubbing and there are some words and phrases that I assume sound better in Danish that don’t translate to English. Otherwise, a scary story that will make you think twice about tying the knot. You don’t just have to worry about your partner’s sanity today, but for years and years to come.

Tagged , ,
Sep 05 2022
Leave a comment
Movies

Movie Review – Bullet Train (2022)

Guns! Swords! Disco!

BQB here with a review of Bullet Train.

I had a fun time but I had absolutely no idea what was going on. That sums up a) this movie or b) my life, except that you’d have to take out the part where I said I had a fun time.

I’d explain the plot in full detail but I’m still figuring it out in my head and failing. The condensed version is that pretty much every passenger on board a high-speed train to Tokyo is an assassin who either wants to kill, is a target of or somehow otherwise connected to The White Death, a Russian who took control of a Japanese Yakuza syndicate.

Amidst the chaos, passive assassin Brad Pitt must snatch a suitcase full of money while escaping the clutches of a brother duo Lemon and Tangerine, a Mexican gangster, a professional poisoner, a schoolgirl with a penchant for explosives and you know honestly I eventually lost count.

The fight scenes are prolific, the plotting, conspiring, double-crosses, and jokes abound. It all has a very Tarantino-esque feel, though the heavy dependance on flashbacks can be annoying.

My main reason for applause is that in most films, Brad Pitt just seems like Brad Pitt, a super handsome man who just shows up and is super handsome. Here, he really convinces us he’s a nebbish type, a nerd riddled with anxiety armed not with guns but with calming techniques and self-help quotes. Yes, he does kill, but only when necessary, and he legit feels bad about it and tries his best to avoid it. In other words, Brad Pitt becomes someone else in this film.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. You’ll have to check your brain at the door and you may have to watch it twice to fully understand what happened, since it all moves very fast yet there are so many moving parts.

Tagged , ,
Sep 04 2022
Leave a comment
Movies

Movie Review – The Gray Man (2022)

Explosions! Espionage! Intrigue!

BQB here with a review of Netflix’s The Gray Man.

I’d been avoiding this one for a while too, largely because I assume most Netflix flicks are trash, but everyone’s favorite streaming service has been surprising lately. This one is a special effects laden, hardcore action, ridiculous amounts of destruction action scene and had it been released in a theater I would have been satisfied on the return on investment on my ticket price.

Many stars and Netflix doesn’t do the thing they often do where they just pack a movie full of stars and they have them do a passable job on a lackluster script.

Ryan Gosling plays Sierra 6, one of a numbered agent assassin program devised by Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton.) The sierras are ex-cons, released from prison in exchange for a lifetime of service taking out bad guys at the CIA’s command.

Alas, when Six is ordered to take out a fellow Sierra, said target provides our protagonist with evidence that his bosses are up to no good and now the hunter becomes the hunted. Yes, I know this literally the plot of most spy movies, but it is done in great globetrotting style here.

Chris Evans plays against type, here as uber douche Lloyd Hansen who is an ends justify the means type of guy, completely uncaring as to how many innocents have to die in the name of acquiring his target. He even brags about his villainy, so that’s different for the guy we’re used to seeing as squeaky clean Captain America.

Meanwhile, the ever lovely Ana de Armas, who I intend to propose to when my self-publishing millions come through, rounds out the cast as Miranda, a spy who sometimes is out to help Six, or catch Six, or help him again, depending on where we are in the movie.

It’s up to Six and Miranda to save the day, and Fitzroy’s niece Claire (Julia Butters), kidnapped by the vile Lloyd in the hopes of drawing Six out.

Amidst all of this mess, lots of people get shot like cannon fodder and there are lots of explosions and car chases and plane explosions and train explosions and at one point I was like, “Oh come on, I don’t think the CIA would kill that many people just to get one guy” but hey, it’s a movie, it’s fun, so stream it today.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Between this and Day Shift, Netflix is really winning me over lately.

Tagged , ,
Aug 29 2022
Leave a comment
Movies

Movie Review – Day Shift (2022)

Wow, 3.5 readers. Every once in a while, Netflix gets it right and when they do, boy do they ever get it right.

Grab your fangs (preferably in a bottle) and come along for BQB’s review of this fun horror action comedy.

This film imagines a John Wickian world where vampires live and conspire in the shadows, while vampire hunters operate as independent contractors, ganking the undead then turning in their fangs for cold hard cash. One such hunter is Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx) who operates an LA-based pool cleaning business as a front for his vamp blasting game.

Alas, Bud has a long history of not playing by the rules. This has led to his expulsion from the vampire hunting union, a sprawling underground bureaucracy operated by a bench riding brass who require its members to comply with a whole laundry list of conflicting regulations but bench riders that they are, don’t realize as Bud does that sometimes when you’re out in the field, you just have to shoot a bloodsucker first and ask questions later.

Thus, the Budster eeks out a meager living by selling dispatched vamp fangs to black market dealers, but when his estranged wife announces a plan to move to Florida to live with her mother who will help share living expenses (said plan to include taking their daughter which will crush Bud as she is the light of his life), he has one weekend to rejoin the union and extract a mother-humping shit load of vamp teeth which can be redeemed at much higher union prices, thus proving to his wife that he is a good provider and there is no reason to leave. Oh, did I mention the reason for the separation is that she has no idea her husband is a contract killer of things that go bump in the night and just assumes that all his running around at late hours means he is a devious lying so and so?

Alas, getting back in the union’s good graces is no easy feat. To do so, Bud turns to his mentor, legendary vamp hunter Big John Elliott played by the one and only Snoop Dogg and if you think this is just a cameo, think again because Snoop Double D-Oh-G, You See gets plenty of screen time devoted to racking up the vamp kills in his own right. Big John goes to bat for Bud, smoothing things over with union bureaucrat Seegar (Eric Lange).

Seegar agrees to reinstate Lange just to remain on Big John’s good side but secretly yearns to bust the Budster on literally any minor rule infraction, no matter how insignificant. To do so, he enlists green newbie vampire Seth (Dave Franco) to shadow Bud for the weekend with orders to spy on Bud and report any violations he sees. Seth is comically unqualified, as often is the case for newcomers to any profession, but in the fang banging game, inexperience can get a man killed, and to add to Bud’s woes, he must drag around a clueless youngster who literally pees his pants and vomits uncontrollably upon each vampire encounter. Realism in an unrealistic world, I suppose. Who wouldn’t pee and puke the first few times they meet the undead?

Long story short, Bud’s exuberance to pull in big fang cash causes him to run afoul of big vamp boss Karla, who makes it her mission in life to send her minions to serve Bud’s ass up on a platter. Meanwhile, Seth must choose if he wants to be just another paper pushing union bureaucrat or if he wants to learn how to dispatch the damned from a man who has been out in the field for years. BTW, most of this is done on the Day Shift, as the union won’t approve Bud for the Night Shift, a time when vamps are out and about more and thus easier to blast in greater numbers, thus higher profits.

Will Bud save the day and his marriage? Start streaming to find out.

STATUS: So very much shelf-worthy. So many Netflix films are silly, slapped together foolishness, yet if I’d seen this in a theater, I would have been pleased. It’s violent and gory, so if that isn’t your thing, look away. It brings you in fast and doesn’t waste a lot of time on origin story. Even so, it is strong on world building and character development. I could see future sequels, all centering around an underground world where vampires perpetrate evil deeds in the shadows, while vamp hunters pull off their Van Helsing style moves for pay, while also hiding in plain sight. As the film indicates, most hunters have a front, i.e. a home improvement contracting business they run their fang extraction game through, so you never know, the next time you see a pool cleaning truck drive by, it might just be a vamp hunter on his way to battle the undead.

Then again, it might just also be a dude who cleans pools. Bud actually does a fair amount of that too. Have to make ends meet somehow. Did I mention I really enjoyed this?

Aug 28 2022
Leave a comment
Movies, TV

Movie Review – Nope (2022)

Nope is a big nope for me.

BQB here with a review of Jordan Peele’s latest.

It’s hard not to root for Jordan Peele. Very few comedians make the transition to serious movie director. His first two films, Get Out and Us used the horror genre to discuss society’s racial problems that all too often leave black people feeling like they’re living in a real life horror film. Us was especially scary to me, so much so that I never wanted to watch it again, not because it was bad because it was that scary and I didn’t want to get scared again.

But while the first two flicks had clear messages (white people controlling and/or replacing the identity of black people in Get Out or how an underground world of our violent, angry doppelgangers who are just like us suffer while people above thrive serves as a lesson about class privilege in Us) the message here is not very clear, unless I am oblivious, which is possible and if so, feel free to explain it to me in the comments.

The plot? Daniel Kaluuya and Emerald Haywood are OJ and Emerald Haywood, the brother/sister team who, after the untimely death of their father Otis Sr (Keith David) are struggling to keep their family business afloat. The Haywards are the descendants of Alistair Haywood, the jockey who appeared in the very first movie ever, a short film showing a jockey ride a horse. Thus, a Haywood was Hollywood’s first actor, stunt man, and animal trainer. The Haywoods have run a ranch in Agua Dulce, California ever since, providing horses to Hollywood productions. Alas, as often happens in family businesses, the loss of their father leaves a big hole to fill, the kids feel like they don’t measure up to the old man’s years of experience. OJ knows how to handle horses but is painfully shy. Emerald has no interest in helping out at the range but is boisterously outgoing, thus the person who communicates to all the Hollywood folk. Ultimately, they need each other.

Their competition is Jupiter’s Claim, a ranch run next door by former child actor Ricky Park (Steve Yeun). OJ and Ricky know that animals are unpredictable, and have seen devastating results that suggest animals really were never intended by nature to be sources of entertainment for man. As a child, Ricky was the only member of a sitcom (about a family that adopted a chimp) cast to avoid being either killed or horribly maimed by a chimpanzee’s on set freakout. OJ’s lack of communication skills (well, maybe rather a lack of ability to communicate authoritatively) lead to a crew member getting kicked in the face by a horse. Sadly, despite seeing what can go wrong when animals are controlled, OJ and Ray stay in the animal training business anyway.

Anyway, when strange doings in the sky transpire above Agua Dulce, OJ and Emerald see dollar signs. The family business has been losing customers and therefore money ever since their father passed. They hope if they can catch photographic evidence of UFO activity, they’ll get a payday, fame and maybe even an interview on Oprah. (When was this movie supposed to take place? Oprah has been off the air a long time.)

Meanwhile, Ray hopes to wow audiences by baiting the flying object into appearing for the viewing pleasure of his ranch guests.

Ultimately, I’m not exactly sure what the film’s message is. There’s an obvious ribbing of man’s desire for fame and fortune, as well as the stupid lengths we go to grab it. Ray clearly lives in the past with an entire room dedicated to his child sitcom star days, even though one would think the horror he experienced on set would have gotten him out of the acting alongside animals game for good. Emerald wants to be an actress herself, going to great lengths to promote herself during set visits while ignoring very real aspects of her family’s established business.

It all culminates in a final half where everyone’s running around trying to film whatever the heck this flying thing is rather than embracing the survival instinct and getting the heck out of there. It’s all about grabbing the footage to get the cash, no one ever thinking maybe they ought to call the government, get the area closed off to save lives, then protect themselves. People doing stupid things in the name of good footage to post online seems like a problem in the social media age.

I’ll share in other online criticism in that the previews made us think we were getting a pretty awesome UFO flick while the movie itself is very long and the first half is mostly dedicated to how shitty the Hollywood animal training business is and how perhaps it shouldn’t even exist because humans are stupid, treat living things like props and attempts to control living things inevitably explode in dangerous ways. All valid points and feel free to make an entire movie about that, but as a viewer, you just sit around, look at your watch, and wonder when the UFO is going to appear.

The last half featuring a showdown between the flying object, the Haywoods and their buddies Angel, an IT tech and documentarian Antlers Holst (Brandon Perea and Michael Wincott) who serve as the cameramen tasked with documenting the phenomenon while the Haywoods draw it out.

Perhaps Holst provides the movie’s message. “This dream you’re chasing, where you end up on the top of the mountain and everyone is cheering for you. It’s the one you never wake up from.”

In other words, we’re all fools and the lengths we go to in order to get noticed, to get rich, are all silly and ill-advised. Maybe the work-a-day stiffs have it right. Earn a living, keep your head down, stand by your family. Everyone else trying to be famous will never find what they’re looking for.

STATUS: Borderline shelf-worthy. I almost ranked it non-shelf worthy but it has fun moments. The movie’s running joke, where OJ sees danger, says “Nope” matter of factly, then hides from it, is funny and perhaps is the best strategy for life. When you sense something is wrong, usually it is, so don’t run toward it in hopes that you’ll achieve fame. OJ is the reluctant hero as he doesn’t really long for fame and fortune and is only participating in the alien photography project to save the business his father and family created and built. Ultimately, I think the film’s extra long run time makes it suffer and Peele needed to decide if he wanted to make a movie about UFOs or about how the Hollywood animal training industry sucks. You might not believe he eventually does tie the two together, but you do have to wait for it.

The stars are good. Kuulaya plays a quiet man so doesn’t get a lot of material, but uses what he gets well. Keke is funny as an attention grabber. Steve Yeun gets a chance to shine and this might be his most interesting role since playing The Walking Dead’s Glenn. Everyone does their part, I just think the movie wasn’t sure what it wanted to be.

Tagged , , ,
Aug 06 2022
3 Comments
Movies

BQB Reviews Star Trek – Star Trek – The Motion Picture (1979)

Woo hoo! Star Trek on the big screen! Good for you for following this blog. When you do, you get news like this over 40 years late.

BQB here with a review.

I saved the first Shatner-centric Star Trek movie review for last for a simple reason. I literally have never seen it before.

I know. Gasp! Gasps all around. A man who professes to be a nerd having never seen this movie before. What can I say? It came out before my time while I saw the others either in the theater as a little kid (The whole trio of Spock dies, is reborn and gets delivered home arc) or on VHS (the last two.)

At any rate, I’d seen bits and pieces of it but never the entire thing at once.

So let’s dive in.

At the outset, you can tell that this film was released at a time when Star Wars unleashed a wave of space flicks, all the studios thinking there is gold in them thar space movie hills. I don’t think any of these space flicks matched up to Star Wars, though the Star Trek films were at least profitable and memorable.

You can tell though that the producers, writers, special effects team, etc. are all trying to do things with the franchise that would have never been possible in the original 1960s TV show.

It all begins with now Admiral James T. Kirk arriving at the Enterprise, where it is being worked on in space dock. In an early scene, Scotty pilots a shuttle craft, bringing Kirk to the ship and the scene is dragged out, going out of its way to show the sheer size and magnitude of The Enterprise in all its glory, whereas the best they could do in the old TV show was show a teensy model that we were supposed to pretend was big.

The special effects are amateurish compared to today’s CGI, but at the time surely wowed audiences. Smaller craft fly by the Enterprise. There are dudes in astronaut gear flying around it, though they don’t seem to serve any purpose other than some technician wanted to prove he could put a little astronaut guy out there flying around the ship. If you can forgive the bad effects, you do get a sense of awe as you picture what it might be like for a person in the 2300s seeing an enormous spaceship.

And now to the story. A bizarre entity, some sort of large energy field is headed on a path to Earth. Dum-dum Klingons try to intercept it only to be instantly vaporized. Kirk arrives to take control of the Enterprise from Captain Decker (Stephen Collins who would join the actress who plays the lady whale scientist in ST5 to play the other half of a couple with a lot of kids in 7th Heaven.)

A pissing match between Decker and Kirk ensues. The old Enterprise is no more. This is an all new Enterprise, complete with computers and bells and whistles that Kirk has never trained on. Decker knows all the changes. Kirk doesn’t. Decker presumes Kirk is just using the crisis to take over the Enterprise because that’s what he really wants. There is truth to this as Kirk hates being behind a desk and wants to be out on the open space road, living a life of adventure, punching out alien d-bags and getting jiggy with fine ass green space hotties.

It’s the late 70s, so Kirk and the original cast aren’t as old but they are all in middle age range. Shatner is actually kinda buff and studly in this one, so they go out of their way to put him in a muscle shirt. The film’s overall tone is quite serious, perhaps a bit more serious than we are used to in ST films. In Khan and later films, we really see the storyline embrace equal parts humor and seriousness. Kirk, Bones and McCoy find their niche as a quasi-Marx brothers routine as space explorers who get on each others’ nerves but at the end of the day, love each other.

Here, the trio comes out of mothballs. Kirk has been riding a desk. Spock and Bones, to my shock, have quit Starfleet only to reenlist (be drafted?) for this flick. McCoy returns with a bushy beard, greatly offended to have been forced back into service. Spock was on Vulcan, learning a process that would truly rid him of the little emotion he had so he can be a full blown logical mofo and not have to deal with emotions from his human side when he senses the entity’s presence and leaves to help his old Starfleet homies. Alas, he’ll never be considered 100 hundred percent logical by Vulcan’s exacting logic standards, though his human friends will always consider him absurdly logical. Dude just can’t win.

Long story short, the crew investigates, even flying through the entity, unraveling the mystery of what this presence is. All that is revealed early is that it calls itself V’Ger. Sadly, and in a rather creepy move, it kills then takes control of the body of Ilia, a Deltan navigator played by the late, great Persis Khambatta. We never see Deltans before or after this movie and all we know is that Ilia is a bald lady who blurts out to Kirk that she has taken an oath of celibacy upon her arrival on deck. The line seems strangely timed and I can’t tell if it is just a fact the writers wanted us to know or if Kirk is such a notorious space-poon hound that she felt she had to launch a preeemptive strike to let him know her lady parts are closed for bidness.

The Ilia-bot scenes are scary indeed. The late 70s/early 80s saw a lot of movies where humans end up controlled by machines and this might be the most disturbing. Her computerized voice, the way she stares coldly at the crew as they realize she is recording info and sending it back to V-Ger, all strange indeed. Decker, who once had a romance with Ilyia, is crushed.

Sidenote: If you look her up online, Persis Khambatta’s story is inspiring yet sad. She was somewhat of a Cinderella story. Born and raised in India, her father abandoned the family at a young age but her mother and siblings scraped by. She gets model work in her teens, gains national Indian notoriety in soap commercials. Becomes a Bollywood star. Gets recognized by U.S. Hollywood. Lands this role. Gets steady work in US movies in the 1980s. Sadly, develops heart problems in the 90s and dies young at 49 in 1999. I always hate to see people die young but at least her star was able to burn bright in her youth.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. The colors are drab and it is definitely trying hard, perhaps too hard, to be very serious. One might argue that when a giant, strange entity is on approach to destroy earth, there is no time for humor, but then again, something is always trying to destroy earth in the other films yet the writers manage to strike a balance between humor and high stakes. There is a scene where the transporter malfunctions and you get to see the horrifying dark side of what happens to people when the transporter shits the bed, making you wonder why anyone would get into the transporter beam field at all. It is a bit of a plot hole that there are no safety protocols, i.e. no one calls and asks ahead like “Hey is your transporter working?” before they start beaming people aboard but oh well. It’s all part of the film’s attempt to say, “Hey, this is grown up adult Star Trek” before someone at the studio apparently advised to make things a little lighter, which I’m glad they did so little kids like me back in the day could have fun watching these flicks.

Tagged , ,
Aug 06 2022
Leave a comment
Movies

BQB Reviews Star Trek – Star Trek 6 – The Undiscovered Country (1991)

“The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.”

BQB here with a review of the final Star Trek film featuring the OG Shatner and Friends Crew.

Star Trek 5 faced heavy criticism, ultimately with many wondering whether a philosophical sci-fi series where characters spend a lot of time debating and contemplating would survive in an era of blockbusters where moviegoers expected characters to kick ass first, second and third and maybe think about it later, four or more steps down the line.

This film closes out the voyages of Capt. Kirk’s Enterprise well, providing a decent mix of action and ass kickery.

Everyone’s least favorite warmongering species the Klingons have suffered a terrible disaster. A mining explosion on Praxis destroys the Klingon moon as well as the ozone layer of their home world, Kronos. If you can cite these intricate details of the Klingon Empire as well as I can then fear not, for one day you can be like me and spend all of your time blogging about Star Trek and not tapping any pussy whatsoever.

Moving on.

Reeling from disaster, Klingon Emperor and total peace-nik Gorkon proposes to turn a crisis into an opportunity – namely, since the Klingon Empire can no longer afford to fund its warmongering expansionist ways throughout the galaxy, they must make peace with their dreaded enemy, The Federation of Planets, i.e. those who gave us Starfleet.

Kirk is not a fan. He is pretty vocal in his hatred of Klingons. Ever since they killed his son in The Search for Spock, Kirk becomes a rabid species-ist and if some sort of KKK-like organization existed in space for the purposes of shitting on, destroying and defiling Klingons, then Kirk would totally volunteer to be its grandmaster. OK, maybe he isn’t that bad but even so, the dude really despises Klingons.

Klingons feel the same way about humans and tensions are high when Kirk is voluntold by Starfleet to escort Gorkon and his contingent to a peace summit where negotiations with the Federation will ensue. A state dinner between the humans and the klingons is fraught with strife, though not without occasional moments of common ground and lots of Romulan ale, which according to the film is the quickest way to get mad drunk in space.

Alas, treachery ensues. The Enterprise fires upon Gorkon’s ship, taking out much of his crew, as well as the ship’s gravity. Left defenseless as they float around, two mysterious humans in unidentifiable helmets and magnetic boots beam aboard and bat cleanup, zapping the shit out Klingons in a bloody mess that a) seems a bit much for a Star Trek film and b) I can only assume this scene inspired a young Quentin Tarantino.

Kirk and Bones beam aboard the Klingon ship to offer assistance, but no good dead goes unpunished as they are quickly taken prisoner by the film’s villain, General Chang (Christopher Plummer.) Yeah, it was 1991 so some writer somewhere thought it would be cool to make an alien sound exotic by giving him a Chinese name but whatever. It was a different time, right? No, that’s not cool? OK fine. Build a time machine and travel back to 1991 and protest the movie then.

Fun sidenote: Shatner and Plummer are both Canadian Shakespearean actors. Shatner served as Plummer’s understudy in a production of Henry V in the 1950s. Flash forward to the 1990s and Plummer is decked out in heavy alien makeup, hamming it up and chewing on scenery as he convinces a Klingon judge to find Kirk and Bones guilty.

Blah, blah, blah. Kirk and Bones must escape the space prison work camp they have been transported to while Spock and crew, working with she-vulcan Lt. Valeris, scour the Enterprise for clues that will absolve their captain and doctor and point to the true traitors.

Another fun sidenote: Before she became a total Samantha on Sex in the City, Kim Cattrall was a staple in many of your fave 1980s flicks. Mahoney’s love interest in Police Academy. Kurt Russell’s love interest in Big Trouble in Little China. A hot lady vulcan in this film.

Overall, the film is a political thriller, one might call it a Tom Clancy-esque flick of espionage, sedition and intrigue but with dudes in alien makeup grabbing their knees when Kirk discovers that sometimes when you kick an alien in the knee, you are kicking an entirely different and sensitive body part altogether. Whoops!

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Shatner and Plummer’s love of Shakespeare shows in this film. Gorkon is a fan of the bard and quips to his human colleagues that they simply “must read Shakespeare in the original Klingon” one day. While Hamlet referred to “the undiscovered country” as the afterlife, the place humans go after they die, i.e. the last place to explore, this film sees it as a state of peace, i.e. a state long sought after yet never achieved…until now?

Bonus points to the movie for being woke in a time when woke wasn’t really a word, at least not one used in the sense that it is today. Gorkon and Shatner discuss how for peace to be achieved, their elder generation will have to be the ones who suffer the most, learning how to move on and work together while setting longstanding grudges and memories of the other side’s bad acts aside. Younger generations who never saw war and conflict will find it easier to embrace the other. This film came out in 1991, just after the Berlin Wall fell, so one wonders if there aren’t some undertones about America and Russia working together in the wake of the Cold War.

NOTE TO 1990s STAR TREK WRITERS: RUSSIA’S OLDER GENERATION BOSS CONTINUES TO BE AN A-HOLE.

Double Bonus Points – Kirk does grow in this film in that he eventually learns that holding a grudge against an entire species because one of its members killed his son is not cool. We also gain some insight into why Klingons aren’t fans of humans. Throughout the series, Klingons are treated as vile scum for Kirk to fight but we learn that Klingons see the Federation as an organization that is racist against all non-humans and that while the Federation claims to represent many different lifeforms, only humans seem to grab the highest ranks of the organization.

A fitting ending to the 6 film series featuring Shatner and the original crew. Kirk and his crew retire, having played their parts in negotiating what will hopefully be a longstanding peace between two feuding factions of the galaxy.

Even so, Scotty still can’t get the damn warp drive to work.

Tagged , , , ,
Aug 05 2022
Leave a comment
Movies

BQB Reviews Star Trek – Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier (1989)

Space! The Final Frontier!

Ha! They made a movie about the line, you know, from the show. Get it?

BQB here with a review.

Star Trek 5 has the dubious honor of being considered the worst of the 6 Shatner-centric OG Enterprise crew films. I haven’t seen this flick since I was a kid, but as I watched it, it’s funny how a lot of the scenes come back to me and I can remember where the movie is going.

Ultimately, I think it’s a good film that just got a bad rap for a few reasons:

#1 – It was the first film outside of the “find Spock and bring him home arc” that occupied 2, 3 and 4. Those 3 films all tie together so now the producers/writers/director had the difficult task of beginning a new tale.

#2 – It came out in 1989 and if we consider Star Wars of the late 1970s as bringing kick ass special effects to the forefront, the late 1980s and 1990s saw a whole slew of action films that brought the genre to the next level. The film came out in a summer filled with blockbusters and sequels. So many freaking sequels. Lethal Weapon 2. Ghostbusters 2. A few more I can’t think of. Also Batman. How do you compete against Batman 89? You can’t.

#3 – Because moviegoers were demanding action, I think it was a hard sell for a movie where the three main protagonists – Kirk, Bones and Spock, were getting up there. After rewatching it – on one hand, yeah I can’t think of another modern movie with so many oldsters running around fighting bad guys. On the other hand, they make so many movies today where we are expected to believe that 20 year olds are geniuses and super intelligent and know exactly what to do. I think Star Trek handles the age of their stars well, namely, that these are people who have been around the block, have seen some shit, and as they get closer to the end, they have less shits to give. How many times do Kirk and crew tell Starfleet to stick it as they go do their own thing? This isn’t something a young person can do easily but an old person? If you’ve got the skills and experience of a 50 something Capt Kirk, you too would probably find it easier to tell your boss to stick it in the name of doing what is right vs. what is politically expedient.

Alright. Now that we settled that hash.

Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill), the black sheep of Spock’s family, rejects his Vulcan ways, embracing emotion and encouraging his followers to do the same. Vulcans once held emotions like any other species, but they developed a quasi-religion around logic itself, embracing only what is practical.

The mad vulcan kidnaps three ambassadors – a Klingon, a Romulan and a Terran (human), each representing their species on the desolate planet of Nimbus III. Said planet was supposed to be a profit sharing business as all three races were supposed to join forces in building up the world and reaping the rewards but alas, it sucked so bad no one bought in.

Capt. Kirk and crew charge in and save the day in a daring raid. Alas, they’ve fallen into Sybok’s trap. He wanted them to come so he could hijack the Enterprise (they really should put a lojack on that ship because someone is always stealing it) and fly it to Sha Ka Ree, the fabled planet where all life supposedly began and is said to be where God Almighty himself lives.

The humorous relationship between Kirk, Bones and Spock save the film. They are taken prisoner and must break free. As usual, Bones is a pain in the ass naysayer. Spock is a genius who points out options but rarely sees the the emotional toll those options will take on others, much to Bones’ ire. In the end, Kirk is Mr. Let’s Kick Ass, Take Names, and Think About What We Did Later.

As if this weren’t enough, Kirk is once again being hunted by rogue Klingons. Apparently, there isn’t a lot of order in the Klingon military. Klingon ship captains just hear that Kirk is milling about and decide it would be a fun opportunity to built their space street cred and blow him the heck up. There’s never any radioing in to HQ to ask if this would be cool or anything.

Long story short, there’s a lot of suspense as the Enterprise crosses a so-called forbidden barrier and the crew touches down on the planet. Critics argue the ending is a bit of a let down. I won’t spoil it by revealing what they find but I mean, come on. The premise of the film is that space travelers are trying to find God in space. If they do find God, do you think his greatness could be expressed well on film? If they don’t, isn’t that a let down? Then again, if they did, is that blasphemous? If God wanted to be found, he’d invite us all over for tea and cookies, after all.

There is a scene at the end that is often considered silly. The Enterprise crew, Klingons, and even Sybok’s dumb followers join together in peace in a cocktail party. I mean, yeah, that kind of sounds stupid but the message seems to be they were all thrown together by one idiot’s treachery and in the end they all figured out how they did wrong and made amends. If only enemies becomes friends like that in real life.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Ultimately, I think the Star Trek OG Crew just struggled to find a place in a newer era where action reigned supreme, blockbuster flicks demanded a younger cast, and Star Trek tends to be more of a thinking sci-fi fan’s choice, so it became harder to mix the philosophy with all of the ass kicking.

Sidenote: Spock’s rocket boots are cool.

Double sidenote: I doubt you’ll believe this story but I’ll tell you anyway. I was on a ST binge last week, culminating in me watching this movie last Sunday. There is a scene where Sybok’s dimwitted henchmen are lured into abandoning their posts when they spot a voluptuous hot babe doing a scantily clad song and dance routine on the horizon. The pervs run to the babe, only to find Uhura. As she removes her veil, Kirk and crew whip out their phasers and take the bad guys prisoner.

“I always wanted to play for a captive audience,” Uhura quips. She must have been in her 50s at that point but damn, if she still didn’t have all the right moves.

At any rate, I paused the film. I wondered if Nichelle Nichols was still alive. Then I started wondering who else was alive and who had shuffled off this mortal coil. I knew DeForest Kelley and James Doohan had passed. I knew Shatner and Takei are still alive. I knew Nimoy had passed.

I saw Koenig (Chekov) was alive and then I was pleased to see Nichols was still alive. For some reason, I thought she had passed so I was happy to see she was still here.

Then literally an hour later the news popped up on my phone that groundbreaking actress Nichelle Nichols who played Uhura had died.

I don’t know if there is any point to that story other than I got to be happy that Nichols was still alive but then my happiness only lasted an hour.

RIP Nichelle Nichols

Tagged , ,
Aug 04 2022
Leave a comment
Movies

BQB Reviews Star Trek – Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (1986)

Beware the Whale Probe!

BQB here with a review of this fine flick.

3.5 readers. Let me lay the following contradictory statements on you:

#1 – Plot-wise, this should have been the dumbest, shittiest movie ever made that by all rights, should have murdered the franchise.

#2 – It’s pretty awesome and I think most fans would agree, it’s the second best of the 6 films starring the OG Shatner and friends cast, and a very close almost photo finish with Khan at that.

OK. The plot.

A big stupid looking probe that looks like a giant turd appears over Earth. It emits what sounds like a whale call. When it receives no response, it plays the call louder, causing ecological devastation. The tides rise, waves bash the continents, all incoming ships are warned that the earth is screwed so they should fly elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Capt. Kirk and crew are living in exile on Vulcan, having become wanted fugitives for disobeying Starfleet orders and stealing the Enterprise and (SPOILER ALERT) blowing it the eff up so as to gank the dastardly Klingons who invaded the ship sans permission.

Brave souls that they are, they decide to return to earth, stand trial and accept the consequences of their actions. Frankly, this is stupid and I would have just stayed on Vulcan but I guess this is why I’m not Starfleet material and also the movie needs to happen.

While returning to Earth in a stolen Klingon Bird of Prey ship no less, the crew receive the distress call. Spock, big brained mofo that he is, theorizes that the signal sounds like whale calls. Apparently, some species out there in the universe, perhaps space whales, really gives a lot of shits about earth whales, to the point they sent a giant probe to check on them. Your goal, noble reader, should be to find someone who loves you as much as the space whales who sent this probe love earth whales.

Ah but alas, whales are extinct by the 2300s when the film takes place. The movie does become one great big advertisement for environmentalism and ecological conversation but it is done in an entertaining way.

Anyway, the probe needs to hear some mother humping whale calls or else it is going to continue to eff up Earth’s shit. So, Kirk and crew perform a “slingshot maneuver” which means they fly the ship really, really fast and really, really close to the sun and if they are lucky, they don’t get burned up as they travel back in time.

At no time is there any recognition of how this slingshot move is pretty awesome in and of itself and how there should be an entire movie devoted just to it. There is very little attempt at an explanation as to how travel around the sun leads to time travel and I know there is no explanation because it can’t be done yet most of this things in this franchise cant be done but that doesn’t stop the crew from offering the audience a BS explanation for purposes of nerd placation.

SIDENOTE: I recall the crew has time traveled before in the original series. I will have to look up whether travel around the sun at fast speed was involved.

OK. The crew winds up in 1986 San Francisco. They go on a mission to locate a male and a female whale and bring them back to the 2300s so the whales will fornicate and repopulate the seas with whales so the whales will respond to the whale probe and the probe will be happy the whales are still alive and will stop trying to destroy the earth and will go away.

Kirk and Spock meet up with a 1980s lady whale scientist Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Taylor who would later go on to play mother of a shit ton of kids on Seventh Heaven) and after ridiculous efforts, finally convince her that they are from the motherhumping future and that she should help them whale-nap the whales in residence at the whale museum she works at. To Kirk’s credit, he doesn’t pork her, which I want to say means Kirk has grown and matured as a character, having realized he doesn’t need to seek coitus with every female he meets but truthfully, it’s probably just because he never finds the time. The movie moves that fast. It is a mad dash to snag the jumbo sea mammals and get back to save the day, so there’s no time for fornication.

The rule about not interfering with the past to preserve the future is acknowledged by Bones and Scotty, but then pretty much universally thrown out the window by the whole crew. There are fun scenes where the future people are confused about life in the 1980s. In Star Trek’s future, Earthlings have evolved past needing money, they don’t swear unnecessarily (aside from Bones’ “Damn it, Jim!”) and Spock uses a Vulcan neck pinch to stop an obnoxious punk rocker from blasting his boom box on a public bus, thus fully demonstrating that the needs of the many bus riders to enjoy a ride in peace outweigh this mohawked dipstick’s need to crank up his tunes.

It’s well done. It is a lot of fun. Nary a second is wasted as it is quite fast paced, yet it still has beginning and ending scenes in the future that tie it all up in a nice bow. We never do learn who sent the whale probe and can only assume there are some highly evolved space whales out there keeping tabs on earth whales and are ready to declare intergalactic war if humans don’t start being nicer to our whale pals.

Sidenote: You’ll learn more about whales than you ever thought you could know, especially how the whaling industry devastated the whale population. Someone who wrote this movie really, really, really cared about whales because after you see it, you’ll almost want to rush out and donate to a whale preservation charity. I say almost because I didn’t because I am a cheap SOB. You totally can if you want to though.

Double sidenote: There is an eerily predictive scene that gets new meaning when you watch it today. It involves Scotty, who is disgusted when he has to use a primitive 1980s computer. He bemoans having to use such archaic tools as a keyboard and mouse and is surprised that the computer won’t talk back to him or obey his verbal commands. If only the Scotsman had visited today. He might gab with Siri or Alexa and have them get about half the commands right.

I can picture it now.

SCOTTY: “Alexa, put up the shields on the Entreprise.”

ALEXA: “Ordering you a burger with fries.”

SCOTTY: “No, we need to stop the Klingons!”

ALEXA: “Opening your account on Amazon.”

SCOTTY: “Alexa! Fire photon torpedos!”

ALEXA: “Ordering you a burrito. Do you want green sauce or red?”

Yeah, maybe Scotty was better off with a mouse and a keyboard.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I remember seeing this with the rents as a little kid like it was yesterday, and I’m pretty sure my recent viewing was only the second time I’d seen it. All in all, it has the kind of plot that most writers would be afraid to pitch, that would get most writers laughed out of the profession and though it is quite silly, it is done in such a way that it is a lot of fun. Even though the other films and shows have more serious plots with murderous alien fiends and destructive devices and intricate plots, this movie where Kirk tries to explain to a 1980s scientist over pizza how he is from the future and needs whales to save the day will likely remain one of the best films the franchise has to offer for years to come.

Tagged , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →