1.5 Razors

Star Trek: Episode II – Wrath of the Raiders Into Darkness

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Star Trek Into Darkness
  • IMDB: link

Star Trek Into DarknessThe follow-up to director J.J. Abrams‘ 2009 relaunching of the Star Trek franchise is a mostly disappointing affair that cribs heavily off other films, including one of the franchise’s own, in an attempt to offer a sophomoric version of what is generally considered the best of the original franchise. It’s nearly impossible to discuss the film in any length, or its myriad of problems, without giving away a few of its secrets. So after a few broad points about Star Trek Into Darkness you’ll forgive me I move dangerously into spoiler territory.

One of the real disappointments with the first film was the numerous logic holes that plagued the story. This film has to build on that shaky foundation while introducing a host of new questionable story elements. You have to look no further than the movie’s opening sequence which involves the U.S.S. Enterprise hiding underwater on a planet where the natives have no knowledge of extraterrestrial life while performing a mission whose sole purpose seems to be to get Kirk in hot water with Starfleet Command (and give us an incredibly unsubtle nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark in the process).

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The Dull Gatsby

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Great Gatsby
  • IMDB: link

The Great GatsbyIt took five years after the disaster which was Australia for writer/director Baz Luhrmann to be allowed to make a feature film again. Sadly, it was this film. I kid, but the sad truth is Australia was an amazingly bad trainwreck that deserved every bit of scorn it earned from critics and audiences alike. Even sadder is the fact that Australia might actually be a better film than the writer/director’s current adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel which takes literary classic and grinds it down into dime store romance novel full of the director’s trademark spectacle, garish production design, and style (complete with inappropriate time-period music), resulting in dreadful boring film.

The Great Gatsby isn’t horrifically bad. It’s not the kind of truly wretched film that would rise my ire and pitchfork for a march on the director’s metaphorical castle. Almost as troubling, Luhrmann’s version of The Great Gatsby is an emotionally stunted and empty experience that often tells us, but never shows us, why we should care for these characters or the tragic events in which they find themselves trapped.

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The Numbers Station

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Numbers Station
  • IMDB: link

The Numbers StationDirected by Kasper Barfoed, The Numbers Station looks and feels every bit the low-budget thriller that it is. Set almost entirely in an underground bunker, the thriller somehow finds a way to make the setting feel empty and endless rather than claustrophobic. Mixed with what appears to be an extremely low budget and a circumspect screenplay that can’t find a way to make the idea of numbers stations exciting in 2013, The Numbers Station is the kind of straight-to-DVD B-movie that fizzles more than it entertains.

Our protagonist is Emerson (John Cusack), a government assassin with an acute case of conscience sent to Suffolk, England, after failing to murder a young woman (Hannah Murray) who was witness to his latest kill. Emerson’s new assignment is to protect Katherine (Malin Akerman), a cryptographer at a small numbers station used to relay encrypted codes across Western Europe. Haunted by his failure, and the death of the witness, Emerson tries to put the situation behind him, at least until the facility comes under attack by an organized group of terrorists.

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WWE Superstar is one of Canada’s fiercest Bounty Hunters

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Bounty Hunters
  • IMDB: link

bounty-hunters-dvdOriginally entitled Bail Enforcers, the low budget Canadian action film stars former WWE wrestler Trish Stratus as Jules, a bounty hunter who works part-time at a strip club (I swear I’m not making this up). We meet Jules dressed in a school girl costume in the middle of a Mexican stand-off as the movie opens.

Things go downhill from there as we flashback to the events that led Jules, her partner (Boomer Phillips), and her boss (Frank J. Zupancic) to let one bounty (Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll) go free in order to stare down a gangster (Joe Rafla) who offers the team $1,000,000 to buy the group’s latest prisoner, a mob informant (Enrico DiFede) with a $100,000 bounty on his head.

The film’s story hinges on a dilemma that isn’t really even made as the group has a falling out during the hand-off and spends most of the movie trying to figure out what to do after pissing off a mobster with psychotic killers (Andrea James Lui, Christian Bako, Richard Ha) in his employ.

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Deadfall

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Deadfall
  • IMDB: link

deadfall-blu-rayAfter the robbery of an Indian casino a car wreck in the wilderness leaves one member of the crew dead and a brother and sister (Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde) on the run from the law as the snow continues to fall. Deciding to split up after killing a State Trooper who had the bad luck to find their car wreck, each make their own way in the storm.

The other major thread of the story involves a recently released convict (Charlie Hunnam) hiding from the law after killing his former boxing promoter only hours after being released. On his way to his childhood home, Jay (Hunnam) runs across a nearly frozen Liza (Wilde) and, despite not needing any other complications, saves her from the blizzard. Using her feminine wiles Liza soon has the man wrapped around her finger, but she after developing feelings for Jay has second thoughts about using him to make it to his parents’ (Kris Kristofferson, Sissy Spacek) farm near the Candian border and her eventual freedom.

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