The Cabin in the Woods

I was interested in The Cabin in the Woods from the moment I saw the poster at the movie theater.  I've always wanted to see a Joss Whedon horror movie, and his co-writer/producer credit here is as close as he's gotten to a classic horror film (unless you count Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I don't).  After a strong recommendation from Judas Pato, I had planned to catch it in theaters, but life got in the way and I waited until it was on Blu Ray.  The only reason I was simply "interested" in this movie and not "pee-my-pants excited" was because co-writer/director Drew Goddard had never actually directed anything before.  Like, at all.  On the one hand, it's not like you have to be a veteran director to make a good horror movie, but a little experience never hurts, right?

Cabin in the Woods starts out the way you might think it should.  A group of college coeds are heading off to a remote cabin to enjoy a weekend of drugs, alcohol and sex.  There is the jock (Chris Hemsworth), the slutty vixen (Anna Hutchinson), the stoner (Marty, played by Fran Kranz), the smart guy (Jesse Williams), and the virgin, Dana (Kristen Connolly).

You know, your average group of twentysomethings that are actually probably thirtysomething

Only...none of them actually fit those cookie-cutter molds.  Except Marty, because he is high as a muthafucka, or (as I like to call it) "awful roommate high."  These kids start out as well-rounded characters, but something just seems to change when they get out of their RV and spend some time in the cabin.  Granted, it's a creepy old cabin.  It's a little scary from the outside, but it has all sorts of mounted animal heads on the wall, and this picture in one of the bedrooms:

This is what you hang in the bathroom to subtly discourage guests

Things get even stranger after the group pokes around in the basement.  There, they find a number of curious objects, including a diary.  When Dana reads an inscription from the diary aloud, it awakens a family of hillbilly zombies from the grave.  Will these innocent coeds be able to fight off this undead terror?  Actually, surprisingly, that's not a big issue.  The better question is why are office workers monitoring everything going on in and around the cabin?  And what kind of a monster is Kevin?

"I'd rank him above the angry molesting tree, but beneath the dismemberment goblins"

In case the whole office-drones thing didn't clue you in, The Cabin in the Woods is not your typical horror movie.  It is, however, extremely aware of typical horror movies.  Specifically, horror movie tropes.  I'll get more into that in a bit, but it should be pointed out to the curious that this is a love letter to the horror movie genre.

If this image doesn't whet your appetite, you may want to try Saw XIII

The acting in The Cabin in the Woods is pretty solid.  The hottest actor in this cast is probably Chris Hemsworth, and it was nice to see him play an everyday sort of guy.  It was odd that his character never seemed to let go of his football (Remember, he's the jock!), but Hemsworth played his part well and showed that he can deliver witty dialogue.  He wasn't the main character, though.  That responsibility falls on Kristen Connolly, who was simply likable.  She didn't really stand out to me, but I never disliked her character and I thought the part was played well.  The standout in the cast was Fran Kranz, and he turned in one of the best stoner performances in cinema history.  He looks and talks kinda like Shaggy, but he had the best lines and delivery in the entire film.

"Like, zoinks!"

Speaking of actors who know a good line when they read it, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford brought the B-plot to life.  It should be no surprise that these guys work well with witty dialogue, but it never hurts to say it out loud.  One of the nice things about this cast, though, is that they all had the benefit of a pretty clever script, which made otherwise dull roles a bit more fun to watch.  Amy Acker definitely benefited from that, as did Anna Hutchinson and Jesse Williams.  And, hey, Sigourney Weaver had a solid cameo, too.  Really, it didn't matter how many dumb things they were required to do as part of the script; they all knew what to do with the lines they were given.

Although not having Hutchinson sing "Oh, Wolfie" was a missed opportunity

I gave the script a lot of credit for how enjoyable the actors were in The Cabin in the Woods, and I don't think that can be overstated.  I am a big fan of Joss Whedon's quip- and pop-culture-heavy dialogue, and Drew Goddard has a history of working on Whedon's TV shows; when you factor that into my love of horror movies, it's pretty obvious that I am the target audience for The Cabin in the Woods.

I would rent the hell out of that cabin

It's not just the dialogue, though.  There are a ton of references and homages to horror movie cliches, and they're all funny --- the "let's stay together/let's split up" bit was priceless.  And those weren't even the funniest parts!  I almost fell off the couch when the Japanese subplot was resolved with a happy frog.  And the list of names on the betting board...!  There are so many instances of pure gold in this movie that I wanted to do an old-timey prospector jig!

Even better than those little tributes was the way that the script justified the actions of your typical dumb horror movie.  That.  Was.  Brilliant.  There was one notable omission, but I'll touch on that shortly...

Okay, so I liked the acting and writing of The Cabin in the Woods.  How about Drew Goddard's direction?  He did almost everything right.  The production values were excellent.  This movie felt like the same amount of attention went into a detail that was on-screen for a split-second as went into the main characters.

Meet Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain, and star of maybe 3 seconds of this film

The action in this movie looked good, the editing was spot-on in terms of maximizing comedic potential.  The cinematography was...well, it was fairly standard, but I won't hold that against him.  The important thing is that he was able to tell a story, a surprisingly complicated story, in a way that made sense.  I'm sure that the story falls apart a little if you watch with a more critical eye, but there was more than enough polish for me to not notice.  My main gripe with Goddard's direction is that there were no scares in this homage to horror movies.

Cool monsters, yes.  Scares, no.

It felt like the entire focus was on being clever --- which was done quite well, admittedly --- which left the true scares no room to grow.  Even when there was a kill that was well-done, the frequent cutting to the office drones commenting on the next trope robbed The Cabin in the Woods of any sense of suspense or drama.  I actually liked the main characters of this movie.  That never happens in horror flicks!  If you are going to develop these characters, I don't see how you can choose not to make their fates dramatic.

How does this scene not lead to horror gold?!?

That's really the only negative feedback I have for The Cabin in the Woods.  This isn't supposed to be as comedic as Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, but it also has fewer legitimate scares than Club Dread.  These three films have a lot in common (good scripts and gore, for instance), but The Cabin in the Woods is waaay smarter and is technically better in almost every way, except slapstick humor.  And yet the movie seems to outsmart itself at times.  I would have loved to jump in my seat at any point instead of laughing very hard when Thor rides his motorcycle.  For as much as I enjoy this movie --- and rest assured, I will be buying it and re-watching it many times --- I was left a little disappointed by the complete lack of horror.  Maybe I won't mind that lack the next time I watch this, now that I know what's in store, but for now I can only say that it's a lot of fun to watch.

The Avengers (2012)

Over the past decade, I (well, okay, we) have been blessed and cursed with the success of the comic book movie.  A sub-genre that was once scorned and ridiculed --- and rightly so, for the most part --- was given new life with the successful launches of the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises.  Since those days, we have seen some great comic book movies (The Dark Knight) and some truly awful ones (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), along with a scattering of less traditional/costume-free entries (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World).  The true test of comic book movies, though, comes from how true they can stay to their roots.  I'm not arguing that movies should adhere to the ridiculous continuity of their pulped roots; I'm saying that the logic and tone of the source material is essential to a good adaptation.  One of the most common occurrences in comics is the cross-over; characters from one comic make a guest appearance in another, hopefully impressing new readers and gaining new fans.  Until recently, each comic book movie series took place on its own, in an isolated bubble.  Starting in 2008, though, Marvel Studios began to plan for a Marvel Movie Universe, where their superhero films would all occur in the same general time and place, eventually leading up to a huge team-up movie, The Avengers.  It's a simple idea, but it was also pretty damn risky.  It meant launching multiple movie franchises and having them all be successful enough to encourage the development of The Avengers, where characters require no origin stories and the film can focus on huge special effects.  Is comic book publishing logic enough to make an entertaining movie?  In a word, "yes."

In two words, "Hell, yes"

I don't feel like explaining the plot of The Avengers in detail.  It's not a bad story, but I'm going to go with a "simpler is better" attitude here.  A desperate and petty demigod, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has stolen a tesseract.  What the hell is a tesseract?  Well, here, it looks like a glowing cube, but can apparently do all sorts of things. 

Like make Loki give nasty grins

Loki manages to use this cube to open a doorway in space, allowing aliens to invade Earth because...well, I mentioned the desperation and pettiness, right?  Well, Earth has been through quite a lot over the past few summers, as chronicled in the documentaries Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger; in other words, Earth has some heroes available to defend it. 

Namely, Triangle Man and Person Man

And that's pretty much the plot.

Do you really need more than that in your action movie?  The Avengers does what it sets out to do; it combines a bunch of superheroes in a movie and gives them a suitably intimidating enemy to fight.  The acting in the film is not terribly dramatic, but it's pretty good for what it is.  Robert Downey, Jr is still great as the egotistical and charming Tony Stark (AKA Iron Man).  If this film leaned on any one character in particular, it was Iron Man.  Luckily, Downey is still enormously entertaining in this role.  Chris Evans showed a little bit more range as Captain America this time around, thanks to larger doses of humor and smaller doses of melodrama than in his own movie. 

...and lots and lots of posing

Chris Hemsworth is still fine as Thor, but he spent most of his time here fighting or standing in the background.  The big surprise in The Avengers was how awesome Mark Ruffalo was as the Hulk.  Ruffalo was less tragic than his Hulk movie predecessors, and that went a long way toward making him more fun to watch.  Of course, the most awesome Hulk stuff happened thanks to CGI, but Ruffalo set the stage for it well by making his character seem downright reasonable.

Above: realizing how much better 13 Going on 30 would be with a Hulk

But The Avengers are not made up solely of characters who have headlined their own films.  The group also includes the marksman archer Hawkeye (Jeremey Renner) and the super-spy Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).  Renner is okay --- it's hard to justify an archer on a team with Thor --- but this role doesn't have enough meat for him to really do much with.  Johansson was considerably less impressive.  Granted, her character was utilized decently, even if she seems way out of her class in the battle scenes; still, the character was boring.  She doesn't carry a lot of scenes on her own, though, so that and her tight pleather outfit more or less balances the defects in her character.

ScarJo, in her biggest action scene.  Even she doesn't buy it.

What about the rest of the cast of thousands?   Samuel L. Jackson finally got to be onscreen for more than a few minutes as Nick Fury and...honestly, I wanted to see him be a bigger bad-ass.  It's not a big deal, but I was hoping for at least one scene where he does something that made my jaw drop; he wasn't bad, but he wasn't jaw-droppingly good, either.  I enjoyed Tom Hiddleston as Loki, even if he was a touch whiny.  Clark Gregg had his most important part and surprisingly wound up being the heart of The Avengers.  It was a little melodramatic as a plot device, but Gregg very likable here.  The rest of the recognizable cast was fine, but contributed little.  Colbie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgard, and Gwyneth Paltrow had the most to do, although only Paltrow was particularly likable.  And if you like playing "spot the actor," you will enjoy looking for Powers Boothe, Harry Dean Stanton, and Alexis Denisof.

The key to the success of The Avengers came from screenwriter/director Joss Whedon.  Whedon has been able to deliver some great lines for many years, but this is easily the best script he has produced to date (that landed on the big screen, anyway).  It might be a little light on emotion, but what little heart it has is taken advantage of fully.  This is a very well-paced action movie, with enough downtime to allow for humor, but enough seriousness to not wind up a Last Boyscout clone.  The secret appears to be how well he times his beats; Whedon did a great job playing with audience expectations, even when it was only slightly.  I have never really thought of him as an actor's director --- I suppose I thought of him as a story-first sort of guy --- but I loved how he had all these heroes portrayed.  The characters butted heads in a believable way and worked together in a way that made sense, too.  Surprisingly, the least likable hero in the film (Black Widow) fell into Whedon's historical comfort zone (strong female leads), but that was a small price to pay for how well he handled the movie's headliners.  I was also impressed with some of the action scenes.  There is one in particular, which shows each Avenger doing their thing in turn, as the camera pans from one hero to the next, that was just awesome to watch on the big screen.

First and foremost, though, The Avengers is an action movie.  And that is an understatement.  Free of boring origin stories or emotional investment, this film was able to provide action scene after action scene, many of which could have been the cool climax to a lesser movie.

 Each scene wowed, but the final battle, which took up a substantial portion of the movie, was thoroughly awesome.  This didn't have to be the case; wanton destruction does not necessarily make a movie fun or exciting (Transformers: Dark of the Moon, I'm looking at you).  But The Avengers was both.  I think it is because each hero had multiple occasions to do something cool; with so many characters swaggering onscreen without interfering with each other, the audience gets scene after scene of characters taking turns at awesomeness.  I should also point out how fantastic the Hulk looked in this movie.  This isn't the first time somebody has created a CGI Hulk, but this was the first time that they used full motion capture; I don't know how much of a difference it made, but his face did look pretty Ruffalo-like.

Remember that time Mark Ruffalo was shot with lasers?

Even better than the motion capture was the general attitude of the Hulk in this movie.  I don't want to spoil it for anyone by over-explaining it, but the Hulk almost stole the show.  To put it another way, The Avengers does such a good job rehabilitating the Hulk character that I can't wait for another Hulk movie.

The Avengers is, of course, not blemish-free.  It is a big, dumb action movie, after all.  The general plot of the first half was a little weak; "get captured" is rarely a step in an excellent scheme.  The aliens were a little generic.  I would have liked to see more types of alien attackers, but I suppose they were all essentially faceless henchmen.

Literally faceless

Hawkeye and Black Widow never really justified their inclusion in this story.  I don't think either character was far off from fitting in, but neither really clicked, either with each other or the rest of the cast.  The post-credits reveal of the behind-the-scenes villain might have made a handful of comic fans titter, but it was nowhere near enough to get the average moviegoer excited.  Are any of these problems enough to seriously dent the fun factor of this movie?  Not really.  Of course, an action movie is only as good as its villain, and Loki wasn't quite dastardly enough for my tastes.  Still, Hiddleston played the part well and made him evil to a satisfying degree.

Another flaw: when was Hawkeye in Inception?

How good is The Avengers?  I would argue that it is the best pure action movie to come out in at least a decade.  Please feel free to disagree with that statement; I have put some serious thought into it already and am primed for a fight.  Chances are, you already know how much you will enjoy The Avengers.  Fans of action movies and comic book flicks will be in love.  No matter how good you think it will be, you're underestimating it.  If you're on the fence, this is one of the most pleasurable summer popcorn flicks ever.  If you are tired of soulless comic book movie adaptations, then this Frankenstein's monster made of the wet dreams of every marketing team everywhere will not change your mind.  It is what it is, and it's possibly the best of what it is.  I normally have to take a few grains of salt when sitting down to enjoy a comic book flick, but The Avengers is so much fun that I fully expect it to join the illustrious ranks of Die Hard and Predator in my action movie library.  In other words, I'm planning to watch this a few dozen more times and expect to love it every time.

Thor

I'm a pretty big fan of Norse mythology.  Part of it is due to my Swedish ancestry and part of it is because Norse myths are basically set up like The Dirty Dozen; yes, the gods are all pretty bad-ass, but they all know that they're on a suicide mission called Ragnarok.   When I heard that Marvel Studios was going to be making a Thor movie as part of their announced Avengers franchise, I was a bit skeptical.  Sure, I've enjoyed the movies the studio has made so far (the Iron Man films and The Incredible Hulk), but Thor is a different type of character entirely.  This wouldn't be about making a fantastic character down to Earth, it would be about telling a story about a foreign god that most Americans are fairly unfamiliar with and turning it into a superhero movie.  There are a LOT of ways to do this story wrong.  Hell, even the comics only get it right every five years or so.  Now, I will admit that I read comics and have a decent collection of classic Thor issues, so I am definitely approaching this movie as a bit of a fanboy.

This issue was, in all seriousness, awesome.

That said, I entered Thor with high hopes and dreadful fears.  Would this join the ranks of awesome Marvel Comics movies, like X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, and Iron Man 2, or would it be an incomprehensible mess, like X-Men 3, Spider-Man 3, and Daredevil?

Right off the bat, the film makes a wise choice by (more or less) starting the film in Asgard, home of the Norse gods.  The King of Asgard, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is preparing to pass on the mantle of king to one of his sons, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), when there is a security breach within their castle.  Some Frost Giants, the immortal enemies of Asgard, managed to sneak in unseen and almost stole a weapon of great power before they were terminated with extreme prejudice by Odin's deadly sentry, the Destroyer.  Thor's immediate impulse is to take the fight to the Frost Giants, but Odin forbids any acts of war; he reasoned that this was an act made by a few, and they have been appropriately punished.  Thor seethes, but does nothing.  That is, he does nothing until he is baited by his brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston).  Thor decides to go to Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants, with his partners in crime, Loki, Sif (Jaime Alexander), and the Warriors Three (Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg).  Why does he go?  Ostensibly, to get an apology from the Frost Giant king, but he's really there to fight.  And fight they do.  The Asgardians beat the living hell out of several dozen Frost Giants, but they are outnumbered and do not have any back-up.  A royally pissed-off Odin arrives and manages to keep the peace, but he punishes Thor by banishing him to Earth, without his godly powers.  Odin also takes away Thor's signature hammer, whispering an enchantment to it that more or less states that whoever can lift the hammer will have the power of Thor.

Most of the rest of the film follows Thor on Earth as he adjusts to not being a god.  Naturally, a brawny blonde that claims to be the god of thunder showing up right around the time and place that an unmovable hammer arrives garners some attention from all sorts of people, including scientists and the military.  However, the humbling of a god does not answer one key question.  How did those Frost Giants sneak into the supposedly impenetrable Asgard and set these events in motion?

One of the more interesting aspects of this film's production process was the decision to hire Shakespearean expert Kenneth Branagh to direct the movie.  As far as his Shakespeare films go, Branagh is one of the best in the business, both as an actor and as a director.  As for his other movies, well...Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was pretty godawful.  The man definitely has a good touch with his actors, though, as anyone working with (mostly) plays must have.  I thought he did a pretty solid job with Thor.  The action scenes (which he hasn't directed before) looked good and, in some cases, were pretty awesome.  The characters that had more than a few lines were all acted quite well by the cast, and I was particularly impressed by the lead performances of Thor and Loki by two unknown actors.  Branagh does not have the lightest touch when it comes to cinematography (I hope you like lopsided camera angles), but his choices all make sense.  All in all, I think Branagh did an adequate job with making the film look good and a very good job with the cast.

Speaking of the cast, I was alternately very impressed and depressed by Thor.  Chris Hemsworth was great in the lead role, capturing the arrogance of the character wonderfully.  His character could have been a little deeper, but Hemsworth more than delivered with what was given to him.  I was also impressed by Tom Hiddleston's Loki; Loki is a great character in mythology (and Neil Gaiman's fiction), and Hiddleston took a character that could easily just be evil and made him mischievous, cunning, and emotionally desperate.  This is definitely my favorite performance of a Marvel villain since Ian McKellan's Magneto.  I was surprised to see Anthony Hopkins giving a solid performance as Odin, since he has been mostly just mailing in his work for the past decade.  He wasn't spectacular, but he seemed regal and cold, which fits the part well.  I was far less impressed by Natalie Portman's role as Jane Foster, an astrophysicist that develops a romance with the thunder god.  She should be a pretty important part of the story, but aside from being a decently strong female character (read: she argues with the men-folk), she doesn't do much.  I'll give her credit for being more than just another damsel in distress, but that's not enough to stack up against the gods.

The rest of the supporting cast is similarly underwhelming.  Jane Foster's friends, played by Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings, are likable enough, but never get past generic stereotypes.  Thor's Asgardian buddies have a similar problem, although they are less endearing.  Ray Stevenson (Volstagg), Tadanobu Asano (Hogun), Josh Dallas (Fandral) and Jaime Alexander all seem like they should have more depth, but they are surprisingly bland.  Aside from Volstagg's appetite and their general appearances, these four warriors are interchangeable in the story.  Colm Feore, who seems to get cast in big budget movies more for a willingness to wear extensive makeup than anything else, was mediocre as the king of the Frost Giants.  You would think his character would have a little more depth, or at least a few wicked moments, but I guess it's okay, since he's essentially a red herring.  Clark Gregg was okay as the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but he is certainly no Samuel L. Jackson.  You might be surprised to see Rene Russo in a small part, since her last role was six years ago.  You might not be surprised to hear that she doesn't do much of anything in the movie.  On the other hand, the requisite Stan Lee cameo was handled pretty well.

There was a minor controversy when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall, the gatekeeper.  Personally, I don't have a problem with casting against type, and I think Elba has some serious potential as an actor.  He did good work in a small part here, and that should be where the controversy begins and ends.

What, he doesn't look Swedish?

This is a superhero movie, though --- the acting can only take it so far.  The action is, in parts, pretty entertaining.  I thought that most of the fight scenes were great, especially the ones on Earth.  I would have preferred the battle to be in a place where more stuff could be destroyed, but whatever.  The battle that opens the film had some inconsistent special effects, which distracted me, but the rest of the movie looked very good.  Actually, this movie is fairly action-packed, with far less time devoted to character development; that is a sharp change from the recent Marvel movies (aside from the horribad Wolverine flick), and not necessarily a bad one.  The story slows down significantly and takes on a more humorous tone when Thor is on Earth, so the movie feels a bit uneven at times.  And how much time passes in this movie?  The events in Asgard seem to take place at one pace, while the Earth storyline might have only covered about two or three days, which seems like a pretty compact amount of time for a character to learn a life lesson.  Still, the fight scenes were pretty sweet and I thought the off-Earth scenes were handled quite well, on the whole.

Thor is different from every other superhero movie that has come out because it is more than a superhero tale --- it has to be mythic.  While it doesn't get everything exactly right, I think this is a pretty entertaining action movie with some impressive fantasy elements in it.  The well thought-out work that was done to bring Asgard and Jotunheim to life helps elevate this movie above some of the more mediocre elements in its makeup.

What would have made this movie better?  A more well-defined Frost Giant king, either differentiating between Thor's war buddies or cutting some of them from the script, and a love interest that could go more than two minutes without mentioning the possibility of Thor being crazy.  More epic special effects in the flashback battle would have helped, too --- or, since it was a story, maybe animating it like an old story.  Thor is still pretty entertaining, and the lead actors were fun to watch.  It's just not up to the level of, say, an Iron Man.

Star Trek (2009)

As the eleventh Star Trek movie, the plainly titled Star Trek (2009) had a lot to live up to.  The Star Trek universe is a rich tapestry of science fiction, with more races, worlds and continuity from the television shows and previous films than any other major Hollywood franchise.  Even the James Bond series, which has many more movies, is not even close to the depth of Star Trek.  It's too bad so many Star Trek movies suck.  To reboot the franchise, television producer/creator J.J. Abrams was recruited to direct.  Abrams isn't a trekkie, so he was up for anything, as long as it looked cool and had Kirk and Spock in it.  If I was a trekkie, I would have gotten a little nervous after hearing that.

If you're not familiar with the Star Trek series, don't worry.  There's plenty to learn, but very few important people actually care if you know it.  So, here are the basics.  In the future, humans have gone into space and met other intelligent species.  These friendly planets have formed a union, called the Federation.  The Federation's version of the Army is the Starfleet Academy; Starfleet protects Federation planets and explores the universe peacefully, seeking knowledge.  Aside from Humans, the most important Federation species are the Vulcans, a race of pointy-eared (but otherwise human-looking), emotionless, logical killjoys.  The opposite of the Vulcans are the Romulans (not part of the Federation), who look pretty much like Vulcans, but are mean, devious, and emotional.  Technically, you don't even need to know that much, but it helps a little when some good guys and bad guys both have pointy ears.

Fans in Romulan costumes: Can you smell the sex in the air?

The movie begins not with a familiar cast of characters, but a blast from the past.  While investigating some sort of electrical space storm, a Federation ship, the Kelvin (what, was Celcius taken?), is attacked by a Romulan ship, the Narada.  After his first mate (Clifton Collins Jr.) convinces the Starfleet commander (Faran Tahir) to visit the Romulan ship, the Romulan captain, Nero (Eric Bana) kills the Starfleet man.  Or, in other words, mean alien kills gullible human.  Back on the Kelvin, George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth) realizes how serious the situation is, and orders an evacuation of the ship, which includes his pregnant wife (Jennifer Morrison).  George knows that the Narada will pick off the evacuation shuttles without something to distract it, so he opts for a suicide mission and steers his ship into the Narada.  The rest of the crew survives, including little James Tiberius Kirk, who was born amidst all the trouble.  The Narada was never seen again.

Fast forward a couple decades, and James Kirk (Chris Pine) is now a headstrong cadet of the Starfleet Academy.  When he's not busy getting it on with green-skinned women, Kirk seems to fill his time by flirting/frustrating language specialist Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and doing his absolute best to royally irritate Starfleet's resident Vulcan, Spock (Zachary Quinto).  When a mysterious electrical space storm appears nearby the planet Vulcan, several Starfleet ships investigate; recognizing the electrical storm as being eerily similar to the one from his birthday, cadet Kirk convinces his ship's captain, Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), to hold back a bit.  Smart boy.  The Narada appears and destroys all the ships it encounters, and appears intent on turning the planet Vulcan into a black hole.  What is the deal with the mysterious Narada?  Why is it attacking the Federation in such a strange manner?  How long until it changes its focus to a planet that actually matters, like Earth?  Did I say "turn the planet...into a black hole?"  How do you do that?  The answer to all those questions is "You'll see."

I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy Star Trek.  I've seen a couple of movies, mostly when I was younger, but the series has never captured my attention for long, aside from the excellent Wrath of Khan.  I'm not a big fan of J.J. Abrams' previous film work and was never a Lost fan, so the idea of rebooting the series with young, sexy actors seemed kind of like a creative last gasp to me.  In my defense, I'm not wrong.  The path the filmmakers took to do this, though, was interesting, entertaining, and surprisingly fun.

This Star Trek, unlike its predecessors, assumes you know only the basics about Star Trek, like the fact that it takes place in space.  Actually, this is a science fiction movie that assumes that you hate science fiction, and goes around that problem.  Gone are any highbrow parallels to modern society's excesses, or commentary on political ideas (for better or worse).  This isn't a movie where the plot is all that important; this is an action movie set in space, with all the explosions and punching that implies.  There's a few things for the core sci-fi fanatics out there, but this movie was made to entertain, pure and simple.

The key to this was the cast.  Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto were awesome as Kirk and Spock, respectively.  Since this movie is more or less centered around the two of them learning to work together, that is very important.  Pine comes across as brash, headstrong, and intelligent, someone just as likely to beat you in school as he is to get in a fight with you at a bar.  Quinto was surprisingly effective as the typically emotionless Spock, and his performance stands up against that of the original Spock, Leonard Nimoy (who has a small part in the film).  It's hard to play what is, essentially, a straight man to the rollicking man slut that is James Kirk and make it seem cool, but Quinto did it.  The rest of the supporting cast, while noteworthy, were basically bit parts.  Zoe Saldana probably had the meatiest supporting role, but her performance seemed a little forced; I just felt like her character wanted to end each line with "Man, I am a cool lady!" in an attempt to draw in more female viewers.  I have nothing against changing up the sausage fest that is your typical Star Trek movie, but I don't know if I Saldana has the acting chops to back that up.  Karl Urban assumed the mantle of Leonard "Bones" McCoy, doctor and second-guesser of Kirk and Spock; he was fine, but I thought he was imitating his predecessor too much.  Other recognizable actors filling established Star Trek roles include Simon Pegg (as Scottie), John Cho (Sulu), and Anton Yelchin (Chekov).  Pegg and Yelchin were kind of funny and cute, and Cho was inexplicably in a fight sequence where he didn't really do anything cool.  As for the bad guys, I can honestly say that I didn't recognize either Eric Bana or Clifton Collins Jr. in their makeup.  They weren't particularly stunning, but they were suitably evil.  There are more bit parts with name actors, like Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Morrison, Winona Ryder, Rachel Nichols, Deep Roy, Victor Garber, and Tyler Perry, but the important thing amidst all these famous faces is that Kirk and Spock, played by two relatively unknown actors, were pretty great.

"If they're so awesome, how come they didn't inspire this fan art?" - William Shatner

That was the top-ranked Google image for the search terms "kirk and spock."  Fact.

J.J. Abrams direction was decent with the actors, but I was really impressed with how involved I was in the movie; when I saw Mission: Impossible III (also directed by Abrams), I was impressed with how frequently Tom Cruise has to sprint in his movies.  That's a nice step up for Abrams.  He's not a great storyteller, but he's smart enough to know that, if you speed by them, it is easy to ignore plot flaws.

When I was first watching this movie, a little question kept popping up in the back of my head: "How is this going to tie in with the rest of the movies?"  Yes, this movie is supposed to be a reboot, but it has all the same characters as the original series and they all act basically the same.  By making this into a "Star Trek: Year One," wasn't this movie effectively rebooting itself as the beginning of a prequel franchise?  As it turns out, none of that really mattered.  When it became apparent that time travel and alternate realities played a part in this movie, all my questions were answered with Leonard Nimoy smiling and saying, "Don't think about it.  You'll just end up with a nosebleed."  I usually don't have a problem with pseudo-science in sci-fi movies, but when it is actually the crux of the entire plot, I want it to make a little more sense.

That said, I still enjoyed this movie.  It was fun.  It broke the rule of every odd-numbered Star Trek being terrible.  And, most importantly, it brought back big-budget bombast to science fiction movies.  I think the last truly great sci-fi-action hybrid was the original Matrix, and this was a refreshing change from all the high-profile sci-fi flops in recent years.  And you know what?  I think the sequel to this movie should be pretty awesome, too.  I give this Star Trek reboot high praise, or as trekkies might say: to infinity and beyond!