Star Trek Into Darkness

It's Ongoing Mission:
To Explore Strange New Worlds, 
To Seek Out New Life and New Civilizations, 
And to Shamelessly Retread Where the Old Series Has Already Gone Before.
(Oh, and Lens Flares.  Lots of Lens Flares)

I'm disappointed.

The first Star Trek (Beta Two) did a great job of re-imagining the '60's sci-fi mythos of a 23rd century, and dragging it, shouting and flaring and shaking the camera, into the 21st Century.  It shook the faithful, too, reinforced what was great about the series (the characters, frankly) and what wasn't (a little too Hornblower and "Wagon Train to the Stars," too-vintage TV concepts, and the Enterprise corridors always seemed like a circular Ramada Inn). 

The 2009 Star Trek of J.J. Abrams was a game-changer.  It completely exploded (and sometimes imploded) the Star Trek Universe that was starting to harden (the way it did with the Star Wars Universe) with continuity.  That's the way it goes with science fiction series: everything that seemed fresh in the first go-'round, becomes rote and repeatable and formulaic, given a timeline and a structure, and the creativity becomes more about stretching the budget as opposed to stretching the possibilities, or the minds of the audience.  It was ever thus, with "Star Trek."  After its first season and a half, that saw scripts by some of science-fiction's best and brightest, "Star Trek" (the original series) was becoming rote, concentrating on relationships (there was a rotating "crewman-in-love" every week with the exceptions, significantly, of Sulu and Lt. Uhura) and planets that had remarkable resemblances to Earth.  When the movies came along, all of them (including the "Next Generation" movies, which had strictly prohibited the habit in its TV run) settled into the "Khan" pattern of having a central antagonist, rather than dealing with a cosmic crisis or ethical problem dictated by a planet's sociological peculiarities.*

But the Star Trek retro-fit changed the rules.  By altering the Trek timeline, the series could literally "go" anywhere to the "strange new worlds"—or old ones—of the mission statement from the "series bible."  So, for me, it's something of a lost opportunity that the first adventure out of the space-dock is a re-visit, tinkering with a too-obvious choice of what to "fix" and particularly re-writing one of the films to mixed results.

Not that Star Trek Into Darkness isn't fun—let's say that upfront—and never short of entertaining, taking full advantage of the shifted relationships of the Enterprise's new-old complement, but never straying from them that much to incorporate anyone new.  

This crew is more squabbly than the one from the Shatner-Nimoy-Kelley days. Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) have an uneasy truce, still getting to know each other, and wondering why they should take a mutual mentor's advice that their alliance is mutually beneficial.  Kirk and Scotty (Simon Pegg, still delightful) are at odds over Kirk's motivations for a trip into Klingon territory and Mr. Scott takes a leave of absence from the crew, briefly, to be replaced by Mr. Chekhov (Anton Yelchin, who is underutilized, and frankly needed the job) as Chief Engineer.  And the unlikely romance between Lt. Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Spock is going through some warp-turbulence**—seems she thinks Spock is a little too aggressive in doing his duty and passive in accepting death, a nice little argument against the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which is further touched on throughout the movie.

Oh, that mission across the Klingon Neutral Zone mentioned earlier is to take out a terrorist, John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, quite brilliant in this), who seems to be on a personal revenge campaign against Star Fleet, blowing up a London facility, and seeking asylum among the newly imagined bumpy-headed warriors on Kronos.  Kirk is charged by the hawkish Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) to find Harrison and fire some specially designed photon torpedoes at him with extreme prejudice.  To say anything more in the way of plot would be to spoil all sorts of little surprises and one big surprise in the film, which would be some sort of violation of the Movie Prime Directive.  I say that with some irony as once things start being revealed, the movie doesn't go off the rails, but rather travels a little too closely on them.  Oh, it has its own spin, and one that makes a shade more sense than ... Damn.  I can't even say that.  Let's merely say that for an alternate universe, this one sure provokes a sense of deja vu.***  For me, it seems a bit like the franchise is playing it very, very safe, which is particularly sad after its terrific (and risky) relaunch.  Not a good sign, especially as Abrams is moving on (to helm the first Disney "Star Wars" film).  

We need to go a bit more boldly next time.

Star Trek Into Darkness is a Matinee.  Dammit, Jim!

* Even Star Trek: First Contact took the brilliant conceit of a collective-mind tribe like the Borg, and created a never-before-seen "Borg Queen" as its antagonist.

** Small trekkie annoyance: Throughout the movie, she calls him "Spock."  Aren't they intimate enough that she can use his first name?  He has one, and the joke in the series was "You couldn't pronounce it."  Okay.  But she's an alien linguist.  So, if anyone could... Oh!  And another thing—at one point Kirk accuses Spock of "throwing me under the bus."   How archaic a reference is that?  Especially considering that seemingly everything floats in this universe.  Go ahead, throw him under a bus, it's going to sail right over him!  Now, if he'd said, "throw me into the warp-core"...heh, that would have been more appropriate. 

 *** Unrelated to those thoughts, but along the same lines: Cumberbatch's villain is the latest in a recent line of what should now be considered a new movie trope—the villain who lets himself be captured, following in the heels of The Joker in The Dark Knight, Loki in The Avengers, and Silva in Skyfall.   Okay, screen-writers, "you just don't get it, do you?"

The Losers

"Say That Again, But a Lot Slower and Dumber"
or
"Know What the Worst Part of Being a Good Guy is?"

A rag-tag team of combat specialists are assigned to take out a drug-king-pin in Bolivia. They are Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Roque (Idris Elba), Jensen (Chris Evans), Pooch (Columbus Short), and Cougar (Óscar Jaenada); they mark the target for a devastating air-strike, then sit back and wait. Set and forget.

They continue monitoring and notice that a van carrying children—destined to be drug-"mules"—has pulled up at the compound. That changes everything. You can't kill kids. Ignoring orders, Clay makes the decision to go in, take out the kids and get out before the strike in 8 minutes. There'll be collateral damage...and Hell to pay, but they have to do it. There's no damn choice.

"The Losers" was initially a part of the DC Comics line of combat comics set in World War II, then morphed into their odd hybrid line of soldiers versus dinosaurs stories,* and were conceived and illustrated by some of the great comics-scribblers of the 60's including Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert and even Jack Kirby. The concept of a squad of last men standing was too good to go fallow, and the series was updated as a "soldier of fortune" series in 2004 by Andy Diggle and artist Jock (who does a lot of design work for this movie). It retained the spirit of the originals, keeping the concept of fighters who are supposed to be dead, but don't know enough to lay down an die...not without taking a few bad guys out with them, anyway.**

But, as adapted by Peter Berg ("Friday Night Lights") and James Vanderbilt ("Zodiac"), these guys have more in common with "The Magnificent 7" crossed with the Impossible Missions Force; nobody's a GP, they're all specialists—a well-integrated team that complete each other and have each other's back dodging bullets, whether from drug cartels, or their own former bosses in the C.I.A. They're all considered dead from that disastrous Bolivia job, so they double back and decide to kill the masters who set them up for a suicide mission without the decency of telling them. Being dead, they have nothing to lose.

With the help of the beautiful but deadly Aisha (again with the Zoe Saldana), they smuggle themselves back into the country and plan their revenge against the mysterious Max (Jason Patric), whose idea of Homeland Security is a little passive-aggressive.

This is action-piffle, tarted up with Tarantino graphics,*** fights choreographed like dance-moves—director Sylvain White's last film was "Stomp the Yard"— and ramp-edited down to "300"-style freeze-frame-kills. There's even a Michael Bay-parodying slo-mo-perp-walk before a billowing American flag brings down the curtain on it (at least, I HOPE it was a parody!) The good-guys hit their targets at a dead-run, and the bad-guys wear the latest in bullet-magnet suits. There's a bit of sci-fi hokum with "green" weapons of mass disappearance—snukes—sonic de-materializers, that cork-screw a target into oblivion with no clean-up and no background radiation. Neat. Set and forget. The locations zip by, things blow up REAL good, and the good-guys fist-pump with an "Outstanding!"

Standard. Operating. Procedure.

And yet. And yet...

"The Losers" zips along like a freight-train, produces several hi-falutin' set-your-watches set-pieces efficiently and entertainingly, and carries it out with a heavy existentialist air of time-running-out/nothing-to-lose. These guys do what they do because they can't do anything else, but are careful enough to choose non-lethal methods when necessary. They don't kill on a whim and won't die on one, either. They get shot, bicker and fight (and for once, act on their threats), do it under the radar, if possible, but do it anyway if not, and always think about the exit strategy, frequently to the sound of sirens. It's a caper movie with bigger explosions and modest means.

It's what the "Mission: Impossible" films should be if they weren't fronted by a Big Dog with a Bond-fetish.

And for such a "star-less" movie, it still manages to be nicely played by every member of the cast.**** Morgan, who's the missing link between George Clooney and Brad Garrett, has the leading-man confidence needed to pull it off, and Chris Evans proves again that he can be a reliable actor of off-kilter inventiveness. Idris Elba plays his tough-guy with a nice dead-pan humor without minimizing the tough-act. And Jason Patric's arch-villain Max is weirdly out-of-sync with the rest of the movie, like a petulant Joker, but without the theatrics.

In another time, "The Losers" would be revered as a solid B-movie, as good as that strata could achieve given the limitations of budget and cast. But today, when anything except straight-to-video is considered an "A-list" release, it gives off the appearance of being second-tier—appropriate given the reputation of its title characters. But don't be fooled. There's a lot of interesting, solid work being done in this movie, while keeping it anarchic and entertaining. I found it amusing and respectable.

"The Losers" is a really, really cheap Matinee.


* Note to Hollywood: Could you do worse than this for a movie-concept?

** But, then, there are a lot of "anonymous" soldier-of-fortune groups in comics: "The Challengers of the Unknown," "The Sea-Devils," "The Doom Patrol," and the most successful, "The X-Men." Did I mention that "Pooch" was the dog-mascot of "The Losers?"

*** ...which Tarantino appropriated from his own love of four-color adventures, so it's a bit of a Mother-Child reunion, as it is whenever a comics adaptation does it.

**** Well, let me amend that: Holt McCallany, who plays First Henchman, Wade, just sorta stands there with a tight jaw and does nothing much. Can't blame him, really. His priority is to keep a straight face during Jason Patric's camp, but comically precise performance as Chief Villain (sans white cat).