STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - episodic felicity

Star Trek Into Darkness comes to us with all the trimmings we've come to expect from J. J. Abrams from great special effects, lens flares, humorous characters to ambiguous baddies—all the trimmings that is except a captivating story.

We are of course set up with leadership conflicts near the start which get resolved rather quickly when the primary antagonist of the movie, Khan (Cumberbatch), starts wasting top Fleet Academy members. Kirk demands justice and with rage barley in check, pursues vengeance, with Spock at his side to curb the harboring vigilante within. On route to the Klingon homeland in hopes of annihilating Khan is the only logical narrative step. The crew arrives to kill or apprehend Khan only to discover a juicy secret which is the most interesting aspect of the movie. But after 5 minutes of explaining away the motives, the enigma of the story loses any real hopeful anticipatory excitement. 

I still walked away enjoying Star Trek. It just wasn't a great movie and certainly not as good as the first one. The film does give fans and hardcore Trekkers (as they prefer over Trekkie) some scenes of reminicent bliss as well as a twist reverse near the end concerning Spock and Kirk but not really enough to say 'wow' that was someting special. It felt like an excellent high budget episode of  TV Star Trek. Maybe this is all we really need but I wished for more.

Recommended Viewing: Star Trek II - Star Trek (2009) - Star Trek (1979)

              Bob Scale: The Critic: 7.2   -   The Fan: 7.9

             MetaCritic: 72

 Rotten Tomatoes: 87

                    IMDB: 8.3

DREDD - judge not lest you be judged

Dredd is another current scifi flick that you might see advertised and ask why? In the end, there was very little science fiction but ample use of gratuitous violence to satisfy. 

I saw it in 3D against my will—my belief in the abject use of this potential medium was once again reestablished. 3D looks great on expensive home theater systems but generally not in the major auditoriums due to projector bulbs not being turned at full brightness to save money and myriad other reasons. I will, however, admit that the slomo scenes in 3D involving the titular narcotic were seriously stunning. I wished for more. 

Judge Dredd is based on a long running UK comic strip which also inspired the original, with Sylvester Stallone in the lead. This current film follows a completely different story line which, I must say, is rather facile and hackneyed. If anyone caught the great Indonesian film, The Raid, earlier this year, expect a far less cool facsimile. The only interesting futuristic gadget was Dredd's gun, albeit physically impossible in design. This may be a good movie if you're inoculated with an obscene amount of a certain green plant.  

Recommended Viewing: Equilibrium - Judge Dredd - The Raid

              Bob Scale: The Critic: 6.0   -   The Fan: 6.4

             MetaCritic: 57

 Rotten Tomatoes: 77

                    IMDB: 7.8