Star Trek (2009)

[Movie 139 / Day 148]


The original Star Trek series was cheese-laden fluff. Enjoyable, but a bit rubbish. I can remember sitting in the lounge with my grandmother in the mid-80s, watching William Shatner ("Ooh, he's a nice man" in my grandmother's opinion) hamming it up opposite Leonard Nimoy ("I don't like him"). I never really got into the whole Trek thing much beyond that though. Clearly, JJ Abrams did. He's grabbed the original premise, scraped off a decent sized chunk of gorgonzola, polished it up and added lots of whizzy effects. And he's made a decent fist of it.

The casting is very good; in particular, Zachary Quinto's is excellent as Spock. The effects expected in a summer action blockbuster are all present and correct - and as far as I can tell, there are quite a few nods to the original.

So, another Hollywood franchise reboot then. Pretty much, but this one works well - it manages to simultaneously shake off most of the cheese that has been piled onto the series since it started and still remain faithful to Trek's roots. As an introduction to a shiny new franchise, it works well. Would my grandmother like it though? I doubt it; apart from the introduction of some 'modern' language, it also features Leonard Nimoy and not William Shatner which would probably be enough to make her switch it off and do some hoovering instead.

My rating: 8.0 / 10
IMDB rating: 8.4 / 10
Running time: 127 mins
IMDB link

Hulk (2003)

[Movie 99 / Day 63]


When I first saw Ang Lee's Hulk, I thought it was overly long and lacked any really good action sequences. Rewatching it now though, six years later, I really enjoyed it. It's very nearly as good as the recent reboot, which, although far better endowed in the action department, didn't have nearly as in-depth a back story. On the plus side however, Nick Nolte makes a much better slightly crazy bad guy than Tim Roth, and Sam Eliott as General Ross is excellent casting.

Ang Lee seems to have attempted to present this movie like a moving comic book, with 'panels' showing the action from different angles. Unfortunately, sometimes this doesn't quite work. At times, the screen is split into as many as 5 or 6 different views and it gets quite confusing; especially when the action is moving very quickly. Sometimes it works really well - like the death of Josh Lucas' character Talbot (an explosion throws him forwards where he hangs in the air with a keyline around him while the explosion billows out and engulfs him).

Lee also seems to use a LOT of different cuts - he layers shot over shot, shots disappear behind other shots using the scenery to wipe, crash zooms jump in and out of the screen... Again, some work really well, some don't. At all.

I'm actually surprised at just how much I enjoyed it - even the CGI hasn't aged that badly for the most part - the Hulk isn't as nicely textured as the newer movie and looks a bit too smooth at times; he's also almost disturbingly green in some scenes. Oddly, there are some effects that are just plain nasty however, not dated so much, just horrible to look at - like the gamma radiation effect. It really looks like someone's first attempt at a photoshop filter.

So, whilst I prefer last years Incredible Hulk, mainly for the way it ties in with the rest of the new-style Marvel universe, Ang Lee's Hulk is not a bad movie by any means. I'm glad I revisited it.

My rating: 7.1 / 10
IMDB rating: 5.8 / 10
Running time: 138 mins
IMDB link