What film did you watch last night?

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979, 2001 Director's Edition)

Watching the original 10 films again, starting at the beginning. A lot of people rag on this film, and for good reason - there's about an episode runtime of plot stretched out to feature-length (it was, after all, going to be the pilot episode of the Star Trek: Phase II series that got canned), the colour scheme for the starship interiors and costuming is uniformly drab, most of the cast get bugger all to do even by classic Trek standards (to make room for Decker and Ilia), and the story always comes to a shuddering halt just as it seems to be building some kind of momentum.

And yet...

Damn did Doug Trumbull and his team pull out all the stops with the visual effects and the model sequences. The flyby of the refitted Enterprise in the box dock is gorgeous, a love letter to fans who grew up on the minimal (and oft-reused) model shots of TOS. The visuals of the V'Ger cloud are stunning. The additional CGI for the director's cut merely enhances his work rather than updating or replacing it, a lesson that certain filmmakers would do well to take heed of.

The score of the movie is Jerry Goldsmith at his finest, with little bits of Alexander Courage's original TOS theme sprinkled here and there to remind you where this film came from. But a special word for the piece of music that plays when the Enterprise first gets to go to warp speed properly - one of a few bits of music written for the film by Fred Steiner, who IIRC is rather more famous for doing the theme music for Perry Mason! The sound effects for the director's cut are much improved over the original theatrical version, for example the background noise on the bridge and the red alert klaxon which were absent or just crap originally.

Does the film deserve to be panned as much as it is? IMO, no. Is it perfect? Hell no. But judged in context - one of the first times that a TV series had gotten a film adaptation that wasn't B-movie level, dogged by issues (with everything, casting, timetable, script, VFX, studio politics, the whole lot) when filming, rushed to completion such that the film print was still wet at the premiere...I don't think they did so badly in the end. It's easily a better Star Trek film, or indeed a better film full-stop, than "Nemesis" (IMO the worst of the TV-timeline films) or "Into Darkness" (the worst of the JJTreks by some margin).

6/10.
 
Downton Abbey - 7.5/10

In truth I was dreading watching this, as wife's choice - I was always on the laptop or reading a book when she used to watch the TV series. It actually wasn't that bad, done with quite a wry sense of dark humour throughout. It's a nothing much really happened story and I have to say the whole sub plot with the
gay butler/speakeasy and business arising
was out of place and sat uneasily in what was essentially a family film. Last 10 or 15 minutes it started to drag and I was a bit disappointed at the end they didn't take the opportunity to cut to modern day and show the house/household as it might be now.

Not a bad way to while away an evening.
 
Jokester said:
The Gentlemen - 8/10
Guy Ritchie back on form with this. Really enjoyed it, great turns by all involved.
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Having not enjoyed a Guy Ritchie film since Snatch (not even bothered with the last few gash ones) I must say that yes, this was a very enjoyable film and Hugh Grant was excellent in it! Something else I also don't say very often :D

It does seem to show he can only make 1 type of film though, so best stick with that, in the correct setting - not in Arthurian times :p
 
Wow, the trailer for The VelociPastor is awesome...ly bad. :D That's a film that'd need many beers to enjoy. In a MST3K kind of way.
 
Ad Astra - 7/10

Last of this week's big three releases. It was okay but really a simple story padded out with a bit of background that then moved on without any real explanation or denouement. IMHO borrowed heavily from Sunshine with a bit of Event Horizon (nothing good ever comes of travelling to Neptune) and of course 2001. Loads of plot holes, for example in a world where space travel is heavily regulated by a military style organisation, where one wrong answer in a psyche test gets you thrown off a mission, how are there pirates/rebels on the Moon? We can fly from Sol (well the Moon) to Mars in less than 3 weeks, Mars to Neptune in less than 3 months but the ships look like little more than enhanced designs based on current tech - no explanation of how the crew survive the intense acceleration or deceleration. At least The Expanse tries to explain things a bit with the Epstein Drive and the crew having to lay in special couches and pumped full of drugs during high-g burns.

Looked and sounded good on Blu-ray, though.
 
Jay & Silent Bob: Reboot

Whilst I thought J&SB Strike Back was meh, I did enjoy Clerks/Mallrats/Chasing Amy, so thought I'd give this a go. Bad idea.

A bunch of cameos raised a few smirks, but beyond that, this is an objectively bad film, even purely from a fan-service perspective.

3/10 for some of the cameos alone. Snoochie boooooooooo
 
Terminator dark fate 7/10, I actually really enjoyed it as a turn your brain off romp :)

Ford vs ferrari next, looking forward to it.
 
Richard Jewell (2019) - 6 / 10

It’s a good true story of how the FBI and media got it wrong detailing the witch-hunt, their commitment to the lie, the impact on Jewell and his family and the quest to prove his innocence, but the slow pace and undemanding presentation meant none of the film really grabbed or shocked me. Good acting from a strong cast and the ending was quite moving, but the characters felt a bit too black and white.
 
Dolittle (2020) - 3 / 10

A fantasy world filled with wonder, magic and colourful locales, but unfortunately, not a very good story and too much childish humour.

Some of the acting is hit and miss, but most of the characters are good - Dolittle’s eccentricity is a committed performance and the animals look and perform well, each with their own unique personalities.

The slapstick humour sometimes works, but there’s a lot of style over substance. The simple story doesn’t really flow as it should, and the anachronistic language is unsettling.
 
In the Heart of the Sea

The tale of a heroic whale fighting 19th century whalers that threaten the very existence of his species. The makers took the curious choice to follow the perspective not of our hero but of the antagonists and it results in a pretty interesting film. Overly long in places and the framing device of a survivor telling the story to the writer of Moby Dick drains tension from the action.

A watchable 7/10
 
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Zombieland 2 - 4/10 and most of that was for the Bill Murray parts.

It felt like it was trying to be hard to be funny and the doppleganger and Babylon parts were ridiculous. Shame as i really enjoyed the first one.
 
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