Open Letters Monthly: Star Trek Into Darkness

It's been four years, millions of dollars and trillions of 3D applications, but we're finally getting our new Star Trek. Star Trek Into Darkness is the continuing story of J.J. Abrams' reboot of the Gene Rodenberry 1960's television show, replacing legends William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. It shouldn't have worked, but thankfully 2009 saw tons of respect thrown towards Trekkies of all ages, and Abrams' vision proved amenable to moviegoers everywhere. Now he's back with BBC's 'Sherlock' as a villain, and the result is everything you would want from the director before he runs off and directs the new Star Wars sequel.

After a mission in which Captain Kirk betrays the sacred Prime Directive to save his friend, he finds himself stripped of his rank, his friendship, and his command of the starship Enterprise. But a second chance makes itself known when the terrorist known as John Harrison attacks Starfleet, igniting an epic manhunt when he flees deep into Klingon territory. Now it's up to Kirk and the Enterprise to capture one man and make him pay for the lives he has taken. But everything is not as it seems, and Kirk may learn that his brash actions have consequences affecting everybody under his command.

Star Trek Into Darkness is directed by J.J. Abrams and stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Alice Eve, Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Anton Yelchin.

Click here for the full review at Open Letters Monthly.

Animation Nation

Well, hey, if Martin Scorcese can make an excellent family film on his first go around, who's to say that Steven Spielberg can't make an equally great animated film in his first attempt? December has proven to be a big name for the iconic director, whose live-action War Horse has already been nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture and will surely be have been considered when the Academy Award nominations roll around. Beyond that, he released his first animated film (alongside another epic filmmaker, Peter Jackson) The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, which has received a Best Animated Film nomination and will likely be the pick for what has become the Academy's annual nomination of an animated feature to the Best Picture category. Based on the classic comic book series by Belgian artist George Remi (or as he's more popularly known, Herge), Spielberg has owned the rights to make Tintin since shortly after Remi's death in 1983. For one reason or another - whether due to unacceptable scripts or other responsibilities - Tintin did not make it to the big screen, and we would never see a live-action version of this international sensation in movie theaters. Enter Peter Jackson, who had used motion capture technology in creating amazingly lifelike nonhuman characters for films King Kong and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Suggesting that Tintin could be made into an animated film using motion capture equipment, he and Spielberg set out to do something never before accomplished, and for the most part they got it right.

A Library? Don't you know all good adventures start in a tavern??

When renowned Belgian reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) purchases a beautiful three-masted ship model at an outdoor market, he doesn't think anything of it. He doesn't know that simply purchasing  the ship may present him with the story of a lifetime. He certainly doesn't expect that it will set him on a globetrotting mission to uncover the secrets of a lost treasure, restore the legacy of a cursed family tree, and suffer through disasters on land, sea, and air to survive by the skin of his teeth every time. Escorted and aided everywhere by his white fox terrier Snowy and new friend Captain Archibald Haddock (Andy Serkis), Tintin is in a race against time to find a sunken treasure before criminal mastermind Ivan Sakharine (Daniel Craig) can steal it to fund his nefarious deeds.

Yes! Saved from a life of glorious adventure!

The stills I've compiled don't do enough to show how brilliantly animated this film is. The Adventures of Tintin possesses the most realistic depictions of human characters I've ever seen in a non-live action film, and anyone who's seen what bad human characters look like know how big a deal that is. Never has Uncanny Valley been so conspicuously absent, and several scenes are so realistic they look as if they were shot with live actors instead of their digital counterparts. This is especially true of the main character, whose likeness to actor Jaime Bell helps connect him to the viewers, but who also must be believable in every scene. And since he's in just about EVERY scene there is... well, what's important is that the animation not only doesn't detract from the adventurous aspect of the film, it actually assists in making it more engaging to the audience. In fact, I'd say that should Spielberg become interested in doing a line of films in this vein, it would make for a natural progression of the Indiana Jones series, which shares many similarities with his variation of Tintin. After all, there's nothing that could cleanse the palette of Crystal Skull better than to reboot the franchise with computer animation, in my opinion.

No, really! I always do the crossword in the blood of my enemies!

Another step in the right direction is the breadth of characters made open to us, thanks especially to Spielberg's faithfulness to the source material. Though we learn little about Tintin himself (a byproduct of Herge, who developed all his secondary characters more than he did his hero), his visual demeanor and Jamie Bell's reading of the role make him instantly likable, as Bell gives Tintin a youthful exuberance in which you can't help but get caught. Also a lot of fun is Andy Serkis as Tintin's friend Haddock, an alcoholic and self-proclaimed failure who rediscovers his sense of adventure and self-respect of the course of the film. Playing the role of crowd favorite, it's the most fun I've had seeing a Serkis performance since he played Gollum in Lord of the Rings and even that thirty seconds of awesome that was Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Daniel Craig rises above his so-so no-Bond 2011 with his best performance of the year, and that's mainly because it's the only one in which you're not sure it's him until the final credits. As the film's main villain, Craig comes off as devious, cruel and completely lacking in compassion, which is exactly what was needed. A nice addition to the cast are the comedic duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thomson and Thompson (yes, two different spellings) as identical policemen who are allies with Tintin. While not deeply ingrained to the main story, their sporadic appearances do provide quite a bit of levity to the story, which occasionally needs it when gunfire is present at regular intervals. Finally, one of the film's better roles might be for a non-speaking part, as Spielberg takes his love of furry animals to the ultimate level with the rendering of Snowy, who is as fleshed out a character as can be, despite the dubious distinction of walking on four feet.

Aye, he's an angry Scotsman

If there's one problem with Tintin, it's that it's directed by, well, Steven Spielberg. Don't get me wrong; in his early years, Spielberg was a genius director for whom the sky was the limit. However, he hit that sky more than a decade ago, and these days seems to settle his business quickly and efficiently, resulting in some underwhelming and overrated titles that survive mainly due to his name and the talent he attracts to his side. One major problem with his work is that the message of the film or even a single scene is placed out there in the open, and he can't help but constantly point to it and figuratively say "See? See? Aren't I clever?" It's less present in Tintin, but still present a bit too often; Spielberg must have heard the moviemaking manta "show, don't tell", but if he has it has no presence in his work, with characters espousing plot devices and any important information instead of letting us work it out for ourselves. That's what makes him such a mediocre (and ironically, popular) director; his films these days rarely make you actually think, allowing you to turn off your brain and not ponder what you see or hear. Most people like that, but as a regular film-goer, I prefer subtlety and intelligence to rule the day.

Hey, don't you know it's impolite to eavesdrop??

Despite this, The Adventures of Tintin is an exciting, fun film for the whole family that is a modern miracle in human engineering. I was not bored one moment throughout the film, and while some quiet moments would have been welcomed, I can't help but feel this is a more trivial quibble than a real critique. Some moments, such as an amazing chase through the streets of Bagghar, Morocco, count among the greatest feats of cinema in 2011, and it's that visual spectacle alongside some real human heart that rates this title so highly in my eyes. It's no Arthur Christmas in terms of overall film quality, but Tintin is still one of the best animated films I've seen recent years, and it's lack of inclusion in the Top 10 is by no means meant as a snub. A very good film that you should see in the theater, this is by far my favorite Spielberg film this decade. With an attempt to try something different on your part, it could be yours too.

A Tom Cruise Horror Story

The search for last minute additions to 2011's "Worst Of" list continues. Today's contender is the latest in Tom Cruise's popular Mission Impossible films, code-named Ghost Protocol. It's relative easy to write off Tom Cruise these days. Ever since he decided he was going to act all bat-shit crazy, his box office performance went from "sure thing" to "meh" in a heartbeat and although he's still a profitable actor, he's nowhere near the superstar he was a decade ago. Thankfully for his agent, there's still one franchise that is completely under his control, and that's the Mission Impossible series. With both his sexuality and religion constantly under fire, it must be nice to be able to make an escapist film with zero elements of realism and earn a ton of cash doing so. In this latest installment, Cruise upped the ante by bringing in such talented performers as Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton and Michael Nyqvist, not to mention director Brad Bird in his live action film debut. So will this latest entry have the same draw as the series' earlier titles? I'd be content knowing whether or not it was any good.

Tom Cruise: rugged and loving it

After his IMF unit breaks him out of a Russian prison, super-spy Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is tasked with the mission of breaking into the Kremlin to extract sensitive nuclear launch information before it can be appropriated by a fanatic intent on starting a worldwide nuclear holocaust. When they fail and the Kremlin is bombed in a related attack, Hunt and his team are blamed, forcing the US President to declare "Ghost Protocol" in effect, disavowing the IMF completely. Now this small group must stop terrorist Kurt Hendricks (Nyqvist) from successfully launching a nuclear warhead, and they must do it without backup, support or any allies to fall back on. Win or lose, they must do it on the fly and with whatever materials they can scrounge up, from Moscow to India and home again.

Yes, Simon Pegg is here... I'm not sure why, exactly, but there you are

As in all the previous Mission Impossible titles, you have to keep a very high measure of disbelief in your system throughout most of your viewing. There is so much that happens, and the heroes (especially Cruise) are banged up so much over the course of the film that it's a shock they can still stand through most of it. Adrenaline and sheer willpower can only take you so far, after all. Still, Ghost Protocol does have some truly exciting sequences, and spread throughout the film to boot. There's no one moment that stands out as best from the others, though sufferers of Acrophobia will probably find it impossible to watch Ethan Hunt scale a portion of Dubai's Burj Kalifa without a safety harness. It's a difficult scene to watch even without the ever-present sense of vertigo setting in. Other standouts include Hunt chasing a target through a sandstorm and Agent Brandt (Renner) diving into a tunnel to get "caught" before he can impact with a giant turbine. The special effects are consistent throughout, with only a few moments looking obviously tweaked beyond the realistic. Bird's live-action directorial debut obviously could have benefited with a step further from the animation that he's used to working with, but to be honest the difference would have been negligible at best.

I'm guessing they can't hear him now. Good.

The acting, like the SFX, is if nothing else consistent. This is the type of film where most actors can get by on their charm, and for most of the people here, that is true. It's certainly the case for Cruise, who (ahem) cruises through everything that happens with a cool face of detachment, except for the few moments in the script that call for mild frustration. Despite his relative career downturn, Cruise hasn't needed to act in almost a decade, and when all he apparently does these days is action films, that's understandable. Less understandable is when a talented performer such as Paula Patton falls in that trap, an actress who has nowhere near the career cachet to justify oozing with charm without bringing more to the table. There's plenty of opportunity for her character to grow, but sadly that never really seems to happen. Simon Pegg is the comedic sidekick and he knows it, but apparently the script didn't, and Pegg does more than you might expect, though it was nice to see him bring a levity among the critically serious characters around him. Veteran actors Tom Wilkinson and Anil Kapoor also do little, with Wilkinson playing his small role as dry as the Sahara, and Kapoor doing just the opposite, playing up on the charm he exuded in 2008's Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire.

The best deterrent against catcalls

But there are still a few actors who defy the shallowness of their roles. It's a shame to see that this year Michael Nyqvist has followed up arguably his most successful heroic role (that of Mikael Blomkvist in the Swedish adaptation of the Millennium series) with two cliched villain parts, first in the stinker Abduction and now this. He's a far more talented actor than he's being given a chance to be in Hollywood, and I wonder how long the good will is to last for him on the big screen in the good ol' USA. Still, he does do menacing well, and his final battle with Ethan Hunt at the film's finale is nothing if not believable. Lea Seydoux also stands out as a French assassin for hire, though she only appears in a few scenes of note. Finally, Jeremy Renner plays the only member of the four-person IMF team given real character development, and he is the only one who actually acts his way through the entirety of the movie. Renner is quickly becoming a true superstar, and I'm happy to see him rise to such heights from the relative success of 2009's The Hurt Locker.

Don't look down don't look down don't look down...

Between the action, special effects, and a liberal dose of humor that doesn't overpower the seriousness of the situations presented in the film, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol does a better than average job of entertaining its audience. It's not a very good movie overall, but nobody expects that of franchise action films these days, and this entry is no different from any similar release. That's it's biggest drawback, of course; you could have literally stayed home and rented any other action film (or an earlier Mission Impossible) and gotten exactly the same amount of fun from that than you would from Ghost Protocol. Still, it's nowhere near as poor as you can imagine, and should ensure more entries to the Mission Impossible series before too long. After all, Tom Cruise has to make money SOMEHOW.

My Friend Paul

I think I realize now why I didn't love Shaun of the Dead when I first saw it. When the zombie-comedy film, co-starring English comedians Simon Pegg and Nick Frost first reached our shores back in 2004, I wasn't in the theaters to see it. I honestly don't remember what I was up to about that time, but despite so many around me raging about how great it was, I safely managed to completely avoid the film release. A year or so later, I finally rented the DVD and despite (or perhaps because of) the tons of positive hype I'd received from friends and acquaintances that this was one of the funniest movies they'd ever seen, I found myself unenthused by some of the obscure jokes and inane plot threads. That's not to say I didn't LIKE Shaun; not at all, I liked it very much. I just didn't LOVE it like so many around me seemed to. So underwhelmed was I by this that I skipped the duo's next collaboration, 2007's Hot Fuzz, altogether, and only in 2009's Star Trek reboot did I see either of the actors (Pegg) perform in another film. So it wasn't with a ton of excitement that led me to seeing science fiction comedy Paul last night. Instead, I decided that the trailers looked good enough, the buzz was big enough, and enough time had passed that I would be willing to give another Pegg/Frost film a shot, even knowing the lackluster Seth Rogen had a role to play. My low expectations then made it that much sweeter when the film proved to be much more than I could have imagined.

The Battle of Helm's Deep re-enactment hit a few snags: nerds

Starting at the last place you would ever expect a film to begin (San Diego's famous Comic-Con), we meet Graeme and Clive (Pegg and Frost), a writer/illustrator duo enamored with all things science fiction. Visiting the United States for the first time, the duo follow up the San Diego stint with a road trip of the US's most famous UFO sites, including Area 51 and the Black Mailbox. They expected to have a fun time. What they DIDN'T expect was to accidentally meet Paul (voice of Rogen), a big-headed "gray" alien who need their help. Paul just escaped from Area 51's lock-down facility in which he'd been held for decades, and must escape to a rendezvous point before the government agents led by Special Agent Zoil (Jason Bateman) can catch up with him and bring the little guy back for dissection.

Headlamps for under $10? I've got to call this in!

The film does a lot of stuff right, and the main reason for that can be attributed to the amazing script written by the film's stars. While the film drags a little bit in the opening, it does make for a nice enough opener and allows those who might not be familiar with the Comic-Con experience to catch a glimpse of what they're missing. Once the duo get on the road and meet their extraterrestrial wingman, however, the film manages to take off and the excitement is perfectly paced throughout. The film doesn't fall in the trap of being too serious, however, as the comedy is solid throughout, with only repeated jokes as to the duo's questioned sexuality failing to inspire much mirth. Director Greg Mottola did his share of work, and while his penchant for potty humor and sight gags is still here, so is his ability to make fun characters connect a-la Superbad. In all, he makes the perfect companion to Pegg and Frost, with all three seemingly on the same page for most of the film.

Obviously though the sign said "No PANTS, No Shoes, No Service"

The best however is the film's unabashed nerdism. There are obvious scenes that are easy to pick out, from Steven Spielberg's cameo and a redneck bar whose band is playing the famous "Cantina Theme" from Star Wars, but the film truly draws from the lesser-known geekery every chance it gets. When you see Graeme wearing a tee-shirt with the comic character Invincible on it or when Clive mutters in his sleep "Boomer, it's forbidden," the true comic and sci-fi nerd can't help but smile at the references. The film doesn't treat these fans as jokes, either; fans of sci-fi and fantasy comics, shows and films have never been shown so much respect from a big-budget Hollywood film, at least not since 1999's Galaxy Quest. Pegg and Frost are as large fans as could be conceived, but neither are portrayed as simple or one-note characters. They're complex creatures with wants, needs and flaws, as far from comic nerd cliches as you can get.

Things were so simple on Arrested Development...

Speaking of Pegg and Frost, their hard work and respect for the subject matter really shows in their performances here. Pegg's acting isn't notably special, but he comes off believably as an artistic nerd who finds himself in a situation he would have thought impossible only days ago. Frost I had expected to dislike, as his sluggish character in Shaun was one of the main reasons I didn't come away a believer. However, he's much more sympathetic here, and in fact manages to steal the spotlight on several occasions. He's simply more fleshed out (no pun intended) and more likely someone you'd want to hang out with. The fraternity between the two stars is obvious, and they work together so charmingly that I'm not sure I want to see them in anything else if the other wasn't present. Some of the film's best bits can safely be attributed to the arrival of Kristen Wiig on the scene as a long-suffering creationist Christian who's mind is blown upon meeting the little grey man. Wiig might be close to graduating from the house at 30 Rockefeller Plaza to become a legitimate Hollywood star, and she's got the comedic timing and talent to make it work. I was worried Bateman would play the straight guy too well, but he puts in a solid performance as Agent Zoil, strong and unpredictable to the end. The weakest parts of the cast were probably the film's sub-villains, most notable Bill Heder and Joe Lo Trugilo as Zoil's subordinates, who don't even come off as half-competent as government agents. Blythe Danner and Jane Lynch even make for nice scenes as colorful characters on the path the film takes. But it's Seth Rogen as the titular hero who's the true surprise. Rogen, who I pretty much dislike in everything I've seen, manages to be the PERFECT voice for the foul-mouthed alien, and I was genuinely pleased with the character's range and Rogen's ability to carry the load.

E.T. phone HOME! Big time.

The reason I didn't love Shaun of the Dead became clear to me as I watched Paul's closing credits: for all the good Shaun presented, I just wasn't really a fan of zombie movies at the time, and so much of of what was so innovative about the film went over my head. With Paul's much more appealing medium, I now realize that Pegg and Frost are, like me and so many others, just fans who make films about what they love. While I didn't connect with Shaun's zombie comedy (and with my respect for Zombieland, I wonder if that would change should I try again?), Paul's love letter to fandom was much better received.. With the slow opening going against it's otherwise perfect narrative, it comes in trailing only The Adjustment Bureau at #2 for 2011. A well-written, funny as hell celebration of Sci-fi and fantasy, I would recommend it to anyone out there, though it'll be the real, unashamed nerds who get the best experience out of it.