Whats hot, week begining 4th of May (revised)

Saw the new Star Trek film yesterday. It really was superb. I don’t just mean that from a Star Trek fan perspective, I mean it was 2 hours of action, entertaining plot, and enough science fiction, without going over the top.

The bench mark for me, is similar to the James Bond film Casino Royale. I have always loved Bond films, but I have never seen one that, if it didn’t have someone in it called James Bond and all the usual trappings, would work as a good action thriller in its own right. Casino Royale was the first one to do that.

The new Star Trek, does, I believe achieve the same thing for the Star Trek franchise. JJ Abrahams work in Lost (and before that Alias) along with Mission Impossible III displays his credentials for making exciting action films.

The story shows the original characters growing up and how they develop. There are some cool moments,  for example we find that Sulu is an expert with some kind of Samurai sword. The stuff about Spock being a man constantly in conflict with himself (eluded to in the series and films, but never really gone into in any detail) is finally explained.

A drunken Kirk fighting in bar and saying “you can whistle really loud” to Captain Pike, is one of the many genuinely hilarious moments.

If your reading this now, make some time this evening or over the weekend to go and see this film and watch it as it was meant to be viewed.  Don’t wait for Sky,  wait for the DVD or download it, you owe it to yourself to enjoy this properly.

Main things happening on the media front:

Wolverine, to be honest was disappointing. I remember several years ago, watching film 93. I remember that whoever was hosting it at the time, mentioned 3 things, which were critical to a good film. In the years since, I’ve forgotten 2 of them, but have always remembered the 3rd.

A film must create characters that are believable. If this isn’t possible, then the audience must at least be able to identify with the characters they are watching. The reason this is important, stated the host, was that otherwise, when you put those characters in danger in the film, nobody actually cares.

That’s a lot like Wolverine. There are some great action sequences (I find it funny, that the film makers were complaining about the film being distributed unfinished on the Internet. In reality, every action sequence is featured on the TV advert anyway) but the story never seems to gel, is overly long, and there are some strange moments with his father, brother and Stryker.

Having read up on the film, on the Internet, it seems like the original story, contains loads of other stuff, that would have made it a lot more interesting (you see Colonel Stryker looking at a young male mutant, who has been frozen , no point is made, that the boy is actually his son).

On the other hand, there is some pretty cool dialogue, which I am sure is unintended. When told in that thoroughly military voice “your country needs you”, he replies “I’m Canadian !”.

On TV front, Special Victims Unit, gets better and better. I have also taken to watching every episode of Red Dwarf since hearing about the remake on the Sky channel Dave. Red Dwarf, really is one of the most imaginative TV programs I think I’ve ever seen and I thought the last seen of the last episode of season 8 with the Grim Reaper, was fantastic.

A film I saw last week, 17 again, was far better than I expected. It wasn’t the teenage girl film I had expected, it had much bigger things to say about life. I really enjoyed it, and I would recommend watching it.

Just finished reading Wilbur Smiths new book, Assaigi. It really is terrible. The first half is okay (and considering he only brings out a book every 2 years, that’s far from acceptable) and the second half turns into some kind of Mills & Boon nonsense. Finally, the ending is a complete anti-climax.

If his next book is as bad as this, I’ll stop buying them, and get it from the Library.