Tag Archive: movie review
Eric San Juan
April 22, 2016
There is something compelling about the idea of a franchise that has always been about exploring new frontiers ending its run by exploring a truly undiscovered frontier: peace in our time. It would have been easy (and obvious) to end things with a grand space adventure, with a galactic war or massive alien threat that puts Vygr to shame or with the Enterprise in some far-flung corner of the universe seeing sights we’ve never seen before. Instead, The Undiscovered Country centers around diplomatic missions, peace talks, and political negotiations. When talks go astray, it becomes equal parts prison story and police procedural, with a heaping helping of Hitchcockian spy-movie intrigue to keep the audience guessing until the big climax. This being Star Trek, that sounds…
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Eric San Juan
April 20, 2016
The rule of thumb on Trek films is said to be that even numbered films are good, odd numbered films are not. I’m of the view that The Motion Picture is a fine and enjoyable (albeit slow) bit of filmmaking, but if I concede that my view on that movie is an outlier, then I also have to concede that the even/odd theory works pretty well, because The Final Frontier is kind of a terrible. From the groan-worthy Kirk rock climbing sequence to the vague nature of what the crew are facing to the Klingons inserted into the movie solely to give Kirk a deus ex machina rescue in the end, very little about this movie works. Even the humor feels forced and out of…
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Eric San Juan
April 15, 2016
On the surface, it may seem like a bad idea to devote a feature-length film to a slightly convoluted, comic booky story about bringing a popular character back from the dead, but the truth is … Who am I kidding? It IS a bad idea. The stakes have gotten more personal with each consecutive Star Trek movie, first with a threat that could destroy Earth and potentially endanger the entire galaxy, then a tale of personal revenge that also includes a device that could destroy a planet, and finally this story about a man’s sacrifice for a dear friend. That shouldn’t be a bad thing. People love Star Trek for the characters, after all, so a movie exploring the more intimate side of this crew’s…
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