Saturday, July 23, 2016

MOVIE REVIEW: STAR TREK BEYOND


I have to begin by quoting the opening of Janet Maslin’s June 4, 1982, New York Times review of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: “Now this is more like it.”

Star Trek Beyond is the movie that we should have gotten three years ago, instead of the sloppy, ill-conceived, and overall frustrating Star Trek Into Darkness. After seeing Into Darkness, I wasn’t sure I would ever find myself looking forward to any further installments of the rebooted series, which began in 2009—especially if they were made by the same creative team. Well, that particular aspect is no longer a factor: director J.J. Abrams is gone, now functioning solely as a producer and replaced by Justin Lin, who has directed the most recent Fast and Furious movies. Screenwriters Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci (who was originally supposed to direct this new movie before a creative falling-out with Paramount), and the notorious Damon Lindelof are also absent this time out, with Simon Pegg (who plays Scotty) and Doug Jung taking on responsibility for the script. The end result is something that places Lin, Pegg, and Jung among the ranks of Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer—namely, people who came in and saved Star Trek when the franchise really needed it.    

Star Trek Beyond is a love letter to Star Trek, its characters, its history, and its legacy—which is only appropriate, since the series is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The film embraces all aspects of Star Trek’s vast canon, and is sprinkled with references, in-jokes, and Easter eggs that should delight longtime fans without leaving newcomers in the dark. It’s also got a lot of heart, presenting the characters in the best possible light, giving them room to breathe and to function as people—and very likable ones, at that. The film sets out to capture the spirit of the original television series, and succeeds. One imagines what Gene Roddenberry and his team could have accomplished if they had a comparable budget and special-effects arsenal back in the 1960s.

Without giving too much away, the story finds the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise about halfway through their five-year mission of exploring the galaxy. Some of the senior officers are facing major personal and professional turning points, but these considerations are put on hold when the ship is assigned to a rescue mission that takes them into unexplored territory. After venturing through a perilous nebula, they find themselves totally unprepared for what they encounter on the other side—in particular, a hostile combatant named Krall (played by Idris Elba) and his loyal minions.

The film fixes some of the key problems I had with Into Darkness. Namely, Chris Pine is finally getting the chance to play Captain James T. Kirk, instead of a second-rate Han Solo wannabe. Pine’s Kirk is no longer a thickheaded fratboy horndog who thinks with his fists and whose top priority seems to be getting laid by multiple alien women at the same time. Kirk is now more contemplative, more insightful. He’s smarter, more clever, more sly, and more forward-thinking than in either of the previous films, and therefore far more deserving of his post as the captain of Starfleet’s flagship. Pine demonstrates that he really is up to the task of filling William Shatner’s boots.


I was happy to see the film acknowledge, at least to some extent, the emotional connection that Kirk has to the Enterprise. I do wish they emphasized it a bit more—the Kirk of the original series was borderline obsessed with the ship, feeling more love for it than he ever would for a flesh-and-blood woman—but it’s certainly touched upon, at long last.   

I also appreciated how Dr. McCoy’s importance has been restored. In the previous two movies, Karl Urban’s McCoy was sidelined to a certain extent, a result of Zoe Saldana’s Uhura being elevated to a level of prominence that was unprecedented in the history of the series. It is McCoy, not Uhura, who is the third point of Star Trek’s Trinity, serving as Kirk’s emotional conscience just as much as Spock serves as his guide in logic. I particularly enjoyed a scene early in the film, between Kirk and McCoy, that follows a Star Trek tradition dating all the way back to the original 1964 pilot episode “The Cage”: The captain confiding in his chief medical officer over drinks, expressing what’s really going on in his mind and in his heart.

The relationship between McCoy and Spock is also addressed in this film, after having been neglected, for the most part, up till now. Urban and Zachary Quinto are wonderful together, and you’re tempted to ask aloud, “What took so long to make this happen?”


I still think Quinto’s Spock is way too emotional, but at this point, that doesn’t seem likely to change. The bottom line is, Quinto is not playing Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, he’s making the character his own. It still takes some getting used to.

The rest of the cast is in fine form. All the hubbub about John Cho’s Sulu turning out to be gay is really much ado about nothing. It doesn’t play into the story in a big way, it doesn’t really change Sulu or the way Cho portrays him, it’s just something that’s thrown in, pretty much as an aside, to add an extra layer to his character and to be inclusive of all facets of our society. If you’re still bothered by it after seeing it, then, no offense, but the problem lies with you.

There is an unavoidable sense of loss and sadness throughout the film, what with the passing of both Nimoy and Anton Yelchin, who played the rebooted Pavel Chekov. Suffice to say that both men are honored beautifully by the filmmakers.     

Of the new characters, the most impressive is Jaylah, an alien woman played by Sofia Boutella. She adds the same kind of breath-of-fresh-air, rogue quality that Kirstie Alley’s Saavik brought to The Wrath of Khan, and that Michelle Forbes’s Ensign Ro brought to Star Trek: The Next Generation.


For me, the only real disappointment was the main villain, Krall. Elba is certainly good in the role—I would expect no less from him. But, much like Eric Bana’s Nero in the 2009 movie, the character is undercooked. I found his motivation to be very run-of-the-mill, nothing we haven’t seen before—too much, actually, as far as I’m concerned. Without going into details, I was hoping he would have more of a philosophical or ideological reason for his actions, rather than what’s ultimately revealed in the film.


Aside from that, Lin, Pegg, and Jung seem to really understand Star Trek and how to make it work on the big screen in a way that appeals to both old-timers and new arrivals. They also know how to bring out its humanity and emphasize the characters, while still delivering plenty of the over-the-top action and pyrotechnics expected from a modern-day blockbuster. There were at least two moments where I actually teared up. That hasn’t happened to me in a Star Trek movie for a long, long time.

Paramount has already announced plans for another film starring this cast, set in this rebooted universe. Unlike the way I felt three years ago after the release of Into Darkness, I’m actually enthusiastic about that prospect.

© All text copyright Glenn Greenberg, 2016.    

Sunday, July 17, 2016

A CHAT WITH ZACK SNYDER



Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice arrives in stores on Blu-ray and DVD on Tuesday in an extended, R-rated Director’s Cut. To put it mildly, I didn’t care for the theatrical version, but I am curious to see how the new edit plays out. To acknowledge its release, I’ve decided to do what I did a few months ago, when Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out on home video. Namely, I’m posting the full transcript of the interview I conducted with the film’s director, Zack Snyder, on March 1, 2016, twenty-four days before the film opened in theaters. A shorter version of this Q&A appeared on the TIME For Kids website. Note that at the time of the interview, I had not yet seen Batman v. Superman, and had not yet formed an opinion on it. 

GLENN GREENBERG:
What would you say is going to set this movie apart from other superhero movies?

ZACK SNYDER:
I think just from its premise, right off the mark, it’s Batman versus Superman. Every kid, me included, has taken their Batman doll and their Superman doll and kind of “had at it” with them. And I think that just that premise, of these two favorite icons trying to come to blows or become friends or whatever that means, I think that’s the fun of the movie and that really, right from the start, is at a scale that I think is really fun.

GREENBERG:
Based on the trailers and TV commercials, it’s clear that the movie picks up on a number of plot elements from Man of Steel, but the studio has been very careful not to call it a sequel to Man of Steel. So how would you describe it?

SNYDER:
I would say this: More than a sequel to Man of Steel, it’s like a prequel to Justice League (scheduled for release in 2017). And that’s the way I’ve thought about it, in the sense that I really wanted to lay the groundwork for Justice League, because I’m excited about the idea of extending the DC Universe and including these other heroes and really just getting to go on these other amazing adventures with these characters who of course we’ll meet a little bit in Batman v. Superman. And then of course, we’ll really get to know them in Justice League. So for me, it’s fun to have that playground to explore. And so I guess that’s my feeling about it, when you think about whether it’s a sequel or a prequel or whatever it is, I felt like by calling it a sequel, it kind of implies that it’s a Superman movie alone. Though Superman plays a really strong role in the movie, of course—he’s one of the main cast—it’s really about a way of using this as a stepping stone to go beyond even that.

GREENBERG:
And Justice League is the next movie you’re directing, correct?

SNYDER:
Correct. 

GREENBERG:
And when does that start shooting?

SNYDER:
April 11—like, tomorrow! (Laughter)

GREENBERG:
Did any of the criticism or feedback that you got on Man of Steel, in terms of the level of destruction, Superman not doing enough to prevent it, and Superman killing Zod—it looks like a lot of that is going to be addressed in this movie in a big way. How much of the feedback that you got from the audience influenced the development of this story?     

SNYDER:
You know, it’s interesting, because I’ve always been a big fan, and sort of an advocate, of the idea that superhero movies need consequences, and that they can’t just be these romps where the reality of the destruction of a city is not addressed. Like, there’s no way—no credible way, anyway—that you evacuate a whole city in 10 minutes. The movie becomes unreal and impossible in that moment. And I personally have always felt that we never shied away from the consequences.

And it’s funny because even, like, Superman killing Zod—Superman’s killed Zod so many times in the comic books that it’s like, not even a thing. It really has a lot to do, I think, with the way people have sort of come to visualize Superman purely from the cinematic point of view, what they learned from the [old] movies. And because I’m a comic-book fan, that’s really, like, a version of the character that’s not consistent with the canon.

But absolutely, the idea of putting Bruce Wayne at the center of the destruction, and sort of having the perspective of the man on the ground seeing these gods battling in the city—the rage he feels, the helplessness, really become a lot of the motivating factors for Batman, and I felt that was a really amazing and organic philosophical jumping-off point for the two of them to begin from.

GREENBERG:
Very much so, actually. And how did the idea come about, going into this movie, that you would bring Batman into it and make it this co-starring thing?

SNYDER:
We were just talking about who [Superman] should fight next. And I can remember just bringing up Batman and saying “Batman” out loud, and once you say it out loud the one time, it’s kind of happened. And then you’re like, “What about Brainiac?” and then everybody’s like, “Wait a minute! Did someone just say Batman?” You can’t go, “What about that cooler guy, there’s another guy who’s cooler than Batman.” You’re kind of stuck once you say “Batman.”

Zack Snyder, right, discusses a scene with the new Batman, Ben Affleck.

GREENBERG:
How do you strike a balance between the two characters so that one doesn’t seem cooler or more favored than the other?

SNYDER:
A lot of it is, I love both of the characters. As a comic-book fan and a fan of pop culture, those two guys are pretty much it for me, as characters go. In order to, though, tell the story of their conflict, you really have to flesh them both out all the way. And I think the way you get at it, from a filmmaker’s standpoint, is to really just drill down all the way on each of their points of view, so that when they come to conflict, you’ve explored the “why” completely on both sides, and so then you find them at that centerpoint of the movie, where they’re about to come to blows, and if you’ve done your work, you sort of sympathize with both.

GREENBERG:
So there was not one that you sort of gave an edge to, or one that you like better?

SNYDER:
I don’t think so! I really don’t.

GREENBERG:
You would think that a war between Superman and Batman would be enough for a whole movie. What was behind the decision to bring Wonder Woman into it? It seems like she’s going to have a prominent role in the film.

SNYDER:
It has a lot to do with the fact that once you’ve established a world where Batman and Superman can exist together, a universe, you really have opened the floodgates to the DC Universe in a pretty great way. And for me, Wonder Woman represented in an amazing way the implication that the Justice League characters were out there, and so I put her into the movie.

She’s not one of the main characters, but she definitely has a significant role. I’m such a huge fan of the Trinity (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) as a concept, and I was able to realize that vision and, also, at the same time, give a huge nod towards what’s possible.

Snyder guides the new Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, through some fight moves. 

GREENBERG:
What do you hope that kids will get out of seeing the movie? Is there a particular theme, moral, or message that you hope to get across to them? 

SNYDER:
I hope what kids get out of it is an amazing mythological journey, and the exploration of these two iconic and amazingly complex characters that will surprise them at every turn, but will also seem like reliable old friends that you can count on.

There absolutely is a moral or message or theme, but I don’t want to say it 100% because it would give a little bit away about what the movie is. But suffice it to say that the resolution of their conflict is an important part of the “why” of the movie.     

GREENBERG:
We saw from the incredible success of Deadpool that a superhero movie with a hard-R rating can be a huge hit. When you’re dealing with iconic characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, how far do you think it can go at this point? How far should it go?  

SNYDER:
Honestly, for me, it shouldn’t go that far. I feel like it all goes back to tone and how you treat them. What Deadpool represents, in my mind, is the ability of the audience, now thoroughly educated in the superhero genre, to deconstruct, and have fun with the deconstruction. So you get, certainly, a more complex canvas to paint your painting, as far as the audience’s perception of the movie goes.     

But for me, with Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Justice League—I think you can have fun with them, but I don’t know that making fun of them is a thing that’s possible.

GREENBERG:
Or getting into too mature a realm, I would imagine.

SNYDER:
Yeah, though that really depends on how it’s represented. You want them to have real conflict, and have real struggles in their lives, but at the same time, you don’t want to ground them with that stuff. It’s all in how it’s represented. Like, with a Pixar movie, there can be pretty complex, emotional themes that go on, but it knows how to go between the two worlds in a great way. And like with Star Wars, for instance—it’s pretty intense, and by no means is it making fun. It’s reverent towards the material, and in its reverence, that’s part of the fun of the experience.

GREENBERG:
And certainly you tread mature ground yourself with Watchmen, which, as I recall, was rated “R,” as well.

SNYDER:
Yeah, and that’s a hard R, and that was based on the comic book’s themes, which are really R-rated. And I guess for me, especially at the time, I felt that because that was a comic book that deconstructs the mythology of comics, and that it was themed in that way to begin with, of course an R-rating made sense to me because it was consistent with the material.

GREENBERG:
Absolutely. Finally, I think a lot of people are wondering: When are we going to see another Superman solo movie? And do you have any say over that? (Laughter)

I don’t have 100% say over that, but I do believe that there’s so much material, and so many great stories for Superman, that I wouldn’t be surprised to see him flying off on a solo adventure at some point.

Snyder and Henry Cavill converse during a break from filming on Batman v. Superman

GREENBERG:
Especially since Henry Cavill seems to be embodying the role so fully, just from the little I’ve seen in the trailers and the commercials.

SNYDER:
He’s really hit his stride with it, and it’s amazing. I really feel like he’s zoned in on it in a great way.