I wasn’t a huge fan of the first two Iron Man movies. A little snarky Robert Downy Jr. goes a long way with me. I like him better when he’s part of an ensemble (like in The Avengers). So while it may be faint praise, I did enjoy this third film in the series most of all.
Mild Spoilers Ahead!
J.J. Abrams (TV’s Lost and Alias) serves up a second, solid entry in the rebooted Star Trek franchise. Into Darkness is equal parts action and character-driven charm, with an emotional climax and a terrific villainous performance from Benedict Cumberbatch. You don’t have to be a Trekkie to enjoy this flick, but it will add immeasurably to your enjoyment if you’re familiar with the original crew’s feature films, particulary Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. If you want to bring it out for inspection, the film does have something to contribute to a discussion on terrorism, but Abrams’ approach is decidedly less didactic than Gene Roddenberry’s. This Star Trek is just for summer movie entertainment.
If you wanted to remake William Lustig’s 1980 slasher cornerstone with an abundance of point-of-view shots, you probably couldn’t do a better a job than Franck Khalfoun did with this remake. Maniac is beautiful and imaginative, photographed almost entirely from the killer’s (Elijah Wood’s) point of view. You really only see him in mirrors and other reflective surfaces. On one hand, the conceit is clever and cool, but on the other hand, it ends up being what I’m paying attention to — not the thin storyline or the operatic depiction of its psychologically scarred central character. I think less would have been more where the back story is concerned, and I’m not sure the perpetual POV tactic is the best way to tell this story.
Neill Blomkamp’s stellar directorial debut is an unpredictable blend of intelligence, emotion, and cinematic whoop-ass that defies convention and leaves you breathless. It begins like a documentary, outlining how a race of stranded aliens (the space kind) came to be ghettoized in South Africa. We follow a character named Wikus, a bumbling government agent who is tasked with herding the aliens to a new camp (the concentration kind) further away from Johannesburg. The aliens aren’t pretty, but you’ll be surprised how emotionally invested you’ll get in a couple of them — a father named Christopher, and his tiny young son, who are desperately trying to find a way back to their home world. When Wikus subjects himself to a dangerous alien chemical, he begins a Kafka-esque transformation into one of the aliens, or “prawns” as they are called derogatorily.
