Star Trek Beyond

**1/2 out of ****

Star Trek has now been around for fifty years! When I was first becoming a fan of the franchise, it had a hit television show through The Next Generation and a profitable movie series featuring the original cast. Today, there hasn’t been a Star Trek show on the air in over a decade (though a new series is in development) and a reboot-style movie series featuring new actors playing the original crew living in an altered timeline has Trekkies on the fence regarding whether it’s smart enough to be worthy of the title.

  

There is a trade-off to the third entry known as Star Trek Beyond. Finally we have a movie with a plot that is not dependent on derivations of famous Star Trek lore. It is its own reframing of the ‘60s TV show. For me, the absence of director J.J. Abrams, who has a talent for making anything seem rich and engaging (regardless of how stupid), left a few desired qualities missing from this movie.

Don’t get me wrong. Justin Lin’s Fast and Furious-style approach captures some sights I hadn’t seen in a Trek film before. There is a wonderful collection of shots in Beyond that frame the Starship Enterprise from angles from which only a vehicle-fetish artist could conceive. There is also a Federation outpost in the form of a space city that is a gorgeous design to behold.

Still, I didn’t feel quite as transported (pun intended) by this Trek movie’s atmosphere. The improvement in the screenwriting can be credited to Doug Jung and Simon Pegg whose contributions to this film help to sell its jargon through some clever explanations and hilarious quips but to describe the plot only reminds me of how many unwelcome movie clichés they indulge.

After the crew of the Enterprise finds itself split up and fending for itself on an alien world they find an ally in a rogue warrior woman (Sofia Boutella) who may be their only chance against a mysterious warlord (Idris Elba) who is trying to attack the Federation by obtaining a secret weapon in the possession of the crew.

Having yet another vengeful antagonist after a McGuffin is nothing new. Star Trek has had its share of bad guys but not all of them have been angry people with personal vendettas. Quite often, they’ve been something very alien with no concept of the threat they pose.

The movie moves a little too fast to clarify this villain's motives or find an emotional sense of pacing. With it also being the first Star Trek movie ever to be shot digitally, the overall gray look doesn't make a good case for the medium-change when compared to the bright colors in the last two movies, which also incorporated their special effects more seamlessly. I know that digital doesn't need to be low-color, but it seems to be a common trend that's infecting a lot of genres that should be utilizing elements like color to generate a fun feeling.

This has been a rocky series so far. I love the 2009 movie, even if it missed the point of the spirit of Star Trek, but it was when Into Darkness came out that I was troubled by such gorgeous production being applied to a dog-shit screenplay. It made me wonder why there was such a lack of inspiration taken from the previous film's resetting of the universe. Then I realized that everyone involved may have liked Star Trek, but maybe not enough.

Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban and the usual players continue to have fun with their characters in the new movie, which rightfully pays its respects to the absent Leonard Nimoy - who passed before having the opportunity to show up as Spock Prime one more time - and Anton Yelchin, who finished his work playing Chekov for the third time, shortly before a tragic, fatal accident.

While I’m not particularly amazed by Star Trek Beyond, it is taking the right steps to bringing back that old Star Trek feeling. It just has so many more steps to take.

Swiss Army Man

**** out of ****

Readers, be warned: My support of this movie should be taken lightly. There is a reason why Swiss Army Man has become infamous for walkouts and pissed-off viewers. Call me a contrarian, but I was incapable of leaving the theater auditorium at any point.

Distributor A24 continues to battle against banality with the ambitiously unconventional movies they’ve acquired. While their recent release of Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster turned me off for trying to find life in lifelessness, Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (credited as “Daniels”) have made an emotional testament to madness in their first feature-length film and I love it.

The story’s main character is a castaway named Hank (Paul Dano) who is marooned on a small island at the beginning. In a state of surrender to his hopeless situation, he attempts suicide before finding a body (Daniel Radcliffe) washing up on the shore. In the beginning stages of decomposition, the body is releasing flatulence and Hank gets the idea that it has enough buoyancy and propulsion emitting from its rear-end to function as a speedboat, which he successfully rides to the shore of a greater landmass.

Still with me?

After dragging the body to the safety of a cave during a rainstorm, Hank realizes that it also has the ability to dispense the fresh water it’s absorbed like a faucet. After Hank engages in enough one-sided conversations, the body begins to talk back with a slow drawl. Assuming the name of Manny, a man with no memories or understanding of the world, the body coaxes Hank, through incessant questions, on the details of life, humanity and existence.

Hank continues dragging his new useful friend Manny along on the search for civilization while feeling forced to reveal his deepest thoughts and feelings, from the motivating glory of John Williams’ Jurassic Park theme, to haunting stories of masturbation.

Now let me put all of this in context. The movie stages interactions between Hank and Manny in a way that is so ludicrous, that the whole experience could be interpreted as the life of a mind that is trying to cope with solitude and survival. Instead of a tiger named Richard Parker or volleyball named Wilson, our hero is projecting all his personal dwellings on life through the unflattering vessel of a corpse he’s named Manny.

The performances show real devotion and the filmmaking manages to capture more rich beauty out of these happenings than one might expect. The gorgeous Northern California locations (including Sequoia National Park) are captured with excellent cinematography and the bizarre acapella score seems to recreate the way one may choose to hear grandness in their own lonesome humming. 

At the beginning I was amused that the movie was willing to commit to its idea. When the movie ended in a state of early-eighties Spielbergian glory without ever having abandoned its premise, I was laughing very hard in a state of disbelief. Someone let this happen.

Swiss Army Man finds a line between earnest human expression and flat-out nihilism as it farts against the waves of normalcy but embraces the beauty of cinema all the same. The movie is a giant life-affirming prank of a film. Thinking of how much it may have angered people makes me like it even more.

You made the right decision in reading more than just the star-rating in this review, so think it over before going to see a movie featuring a rotting magical dead guy who may taint your memory of “the boy who lived.”