xGary Xx (garyX)

The classic 60s TV series gets a big budget re-boot and sees the original crew of the starship Enterprise come together for the first time. I was actually looking forward to this film as I grew up with Shatner and co and thought the time was right, especially considering the success of the BBCs recent re-boot of the British equivalent, Doctor Who. In fact a few years previously, Doctor Who went through a similar process starring Paul McGann, but this project was in retrospect a total misfire; although McGann made a perfectly adequate Doctor, the whole approach was wrong. Instead of trying to capture the essence of the show, it uneasily combined a load of hardcore fan-pleasing yet irrelevant continuity and dumbed down kiddie-pleasing action and special effects and it just didn't work. Star Trek makes EXACTLY the same mistakes. The first half is a constant stream of in jokes and references to the original series in a similar but more witless way to Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, just for the film to come up with an excuse to throw all of it out! The last half is a load of explosions and running around, linked by absurd coincidences and contrived situations. Pine plays Kirk like an oafish frat boy, Uhuru is just an R'nB ornament and the crew barely speak to each other to make way for Abrams pointless swirling camera work and breathless fast cuts. It's not all bad news; Zachary Quinto makes a fine Spock and provides all of the best moments, Karl Urban makes a surprisingly good McCoy and the opening sequence (which is by far the best part of the film) "feels" like Star Trek. But as a whole it pales compared to both Wrath Of Khan and First Contact. The nett result is something akin to a Saturday morning cartoon and frankly I don't think history will look kindly on this effort.

I caught some of this on late night TV. Why on Earth would anyone want to sit through 90 minutes of the worst acting, worst direction and worst dialogue you have EVER seen to be rewarded by the sight of unconvincing rubber internal organs covered in scarlet poster paint...? Utter, utter garbage.

The best movie ever made. End of.

Daesu Oh is a drunk and a philanderer, but otherwise a fairly typical husband and father. That is until one day he is kidnapped and imprisoned in a cell for 15 years with only a TV set for company and no word of explanation. One day he wakes up on the outside with only a wallet and a phone, and he sets out on a single-minded quest to find out why he was imprisoned and extract bloody vengeance on those responsible. The second part of the Vengeance Trilogy by Chan-wook Park, Oldboy is a bizarre and brilliant film. It constantly wrong foots you and messes with your perceptions, and contains the kind of revelation that makes the kind of so-called plot "twists" of most films look gimmicky and inane. This is the kind of film that blows you away and makes you realise you've been watching the WHOLE THING from the wrong standpoint. As for Min-sik Choi's performance, astonishing is the only word for it...the way such intense emotions and motivations are constantly shifting without ever feeling contrived or forced is just spellbinding. It combines art and extreme violence in a way that reminded me of A Clockwork Orange, but BETTER. It's also stylistically on the same level as Fight Club and is absolutely riveting from beginning to end. A totally flawless modern masterpiece.