Star Trek Into Darkness

Dredd (2012)

Directed by Pete Travis.

2012. Rated R, 95 minutes.

Cast:

Karl Urban

Olivia Thirlby

Lena Headey

Wood Harris

Rakie Ayola

Warrick Grier

Domhnall Gleeson

Rachel Wood

Jason Cope

I’m quickly losing hope for the future. Yet again, Earth has become mostly an uninhabitable wasteland. The entire surviving population has been herded into what are called mega cities, large stretches of land that once included several major cities now combined into one. It’s no surprise that crime occurs at a ridiculous rate. We’re told that 17,000 offenses are reported each day. The only form of law enforcement are the judges who not only make the arrests, but carry out the sentencing as well, even if it means putting someone to death. They can only respond to about 6% of those reported crimes. We spend our day in Mega City One with Judge Dredd (Urban). He’s the most feared of all the judges and has no problem with executing baddies. That’s pretty much all we get to know about him. He’s tasked with assessing a rookie, Anderson (Thirlby) on her first day in the streets as she tags along with him. She actually failed her test to become a judge but since her psychic abilities are off the charts she’s being pushed through. The pair go to investigate a triple homicide in a 200 story building known as The Peach Trees. Wouldn't ya know it? The evil wench that runs the whole place, known as Ma Ma (Headey) doesn't take too kindly to this. She locks the whole place down and beckons every lowlife within the sound of her voice to take out the two judges. A futuristic version of The Raid: Redemption breaks out with ten times more building and ten times fewer good guys.

Okay, originality is not the strong suit of Dredd. After all, it is the second attempt at bringing this comic-book hero to the big screen. The first, made in 1995, starred Sylvester Stallone in the title role. This time around we get Karl Urban. Unlike Sly, but in keeping with the source material, we never get to see his full face. He’s meant to be an emotionless, faceless metaphor for the law itself. It works. Then again, it doesn’t. It works because he’s a perfectly stoic action-hero. We like the idea that our hero is only concerned with right and wrong with no middle ground and that is there is no offense too minor for him to prosecute. It doesn’t because it is a challenge for the audience to connect with him. He’s aloof and inaccessible  While we watch and admire his handiwork with a very special firearm, we’re not particularly moved by this guy.

To help us have someone to root for there’s Anderson. She and Ma Ma are the only characters afforded a back story. Anderson’s is much more believable. She grew up an orphan. We like orphans. She wants to become a judge because she thinks she can make a difference. We really like optimistic orphans. Plus, she does some cool things with that psychic ability I mentioned. Because she actually seems like a human being this becomes her movie despite the title. Dredd is quite literally an instrument of death with very little else to distinguish him from the weapon he carries. Anderson is much more rounded with hopes and fears we understand. Thirlby does a nice job conveying these things.

Regardless of our feelings, Dredd is really about highly stylized violence. Like a lot of action flicks, there are a lot of scenes in slow motion. However, this movie has a very good reason for this. The most popular drug in Mega City One is the aptly named slo-mo. It makes your brain feel like time has slowed down to one percent of its normal rate. This gives us cause for slow motion sequences in which we clearly see

bullets going through people’s faces and whatever other body parts get shot. These are mixed nicely with action shown at regular speed that’s no less graphic, only quicker. I was not kidding when I referenced The Raid: Redemption. This movie really does resemble that one, just trading in the martial arts for even more gunplay.

In its own right Dredd is still a solid watch, truer in spirit to its source material than the Stallone flick. The hokeyness is gone as is any hint of sexual tension between the hero and his female partner. However, it may go too far in the other direction removing almost all sense of humor, including the satire the comic is known for, in favor of relentless bloodletting. The storytelling is extremely straight forward with nary a surprise to be found. If a shoot ‘em up is what you’re looking for, a shoot ‘em up is what you’ll get.

Priest

Directed by Scott Charles Stewart.

2011. Rated PG-13, 87 minutes.
Cast:
Paul Bettany
Karl Urban
Cam Gigandet
Maggie Q
Christopher Plummer

Lily Collins
Brad Dourif
Stephen Moyer
Josh Wingate
Alan Dale

Generally speaking, there are two types of vampires. The first type is a tortured soul who hates what he’s become. The idea of feeding on humans disgusts them. He views his immortality as more of curse than a gift. The other type has completely bought in to the Prince of Darkness persona. He’s very charming, yet manipulative, overtly sexual, sadistic and just thoroughly evil. As we’ve seen in nearly a century’s worth of vampire movies and books, there is plenty to be mined in the depths of either type. Unfortunately, Priest tries to reinvent the wheel and fail’s miserably. The vampires here are eyeless, saber toothed greenish monsters that crawl around on all fours. Applause should be given for trying to take the genre in a new direction. However, like in the Wrong Turn movies, it’s not a direction we should’ve went.

As the story goes, man and vampire have been warring since the beginning of time. Vamps were getting the best of it, so much so that humans literally walled themselves into makeshift cities where everything is controlled by the church. Somehow that’s not really explained, a group of super soldiers called Priests rise up and kill most of the creatures of the night, herding the remainders onto reservations. Since they’re no longer needed the Priests have faded into normal society. That’s a bit difficult considering each one of them has a tattoo of a cross splattered on their face.

We focus on, um, Priest (Bettany). He was once the leader of a squad of Priests and still has nightmares about the one guy he lost. Within a few minutes we find out that the lost guy, Black Hat (Urban) is now leading around a pack of vampires around. Don’t blame me, they didn’t give these guys regular names. And yes, I said a pack of vampires. We’ll get to that later. Anyhoo, Black Hat’s first stop is at Priest’s brothers house. No, this isn’t within the walls of the city. This is on a barren farm way out in the middle of nowhere. The vamps kill the brother and his wife, then kidnap their daughter. Taking none too kindly to having his niece abducted, Priest hooks up with the farm town’s very young sheriff Hicks (Gigandet) and springs into action. By the way, the higher ups in the church forbid this and send four other Priests to bring him back, dead or alive. Actually, the higher ups don’t do anything except get shouted down by Monsignor Orelas (Plummer) who gives the order to track down our hero. Did I mention that he said dead or alive? Just checking.

As a first person shooter or an RPG on your video game console of choice, what follows would probably be fun. The source material seems suited for this. I guess here is where I should mention Priest is based on yet another graphic novel I’m not cool enough to have even heard of. Were the fans of this book railing so loudly that Hollywood had to oblige them with a big screen adaptation? I seriously doubt it.

The problem starts with the vampires. They seem not to be able of intelligent thought, let alone formulating evil plans to conquer the world. This includes the one vampire all of this is attributed to. Spoiler Alert!!!: This vampire barely has a presence and should play a prominent role in a sequel, if one is ever made. As a whole, the vampires don’t impress as a real threat to humanity. Sure, they’re a physical threat, but are every bit as vulnerable to our weapons as any other animal plus they can’t come out during the day. Instead of a race that aspires to world domination, they’re much more a nocturnal pack of rabid dogs roaming the wastelands. I told you we’d get back to the “pack” thing, didn’t I?

Our threat comes in the way of Black Hat, the former Priest. Though they treat it as some big secret, the deal is he’s a “human vampire.” Basically, it just means he’s like Blade, if you’re familiar with that comic book hero. Of course, the difference is that Black Hat is a bad guy. He helps because he’s by far the most interesting character in the movie. Actually, Monsignor Orelas is the most interesting character. That’s mostly because he’s played by Christopher Plummer, but I digress. Our hero is exceedingly bland, his sidekick is a waste of space and the potential for a love interest is telegraphed far in advance, but only given an infantessimal moment of no consequence. Why yes, silly, her name is Priestess. The few almost intimate seconds they share isn’t enough to make these characters three dimensional, just a sad reminder that they could’ve been. Likewise for the movie’s one twist. By the time it happens we don’t care anymore. On top of all this, Priest is also similar in tone and confrontation with the church as Legion. This is no mere coincidence since that movie has the same director and star.

Both the not quite there love affair and thrown in twist make the entire movie feel rushed. Instead of developing anything at all, we’re merely hurried off from one action sequence to the next. The overall effect is we feel like we’ve just watched someone else play a video game for an hour while they us their other controller is broken. To make matters worse, one of their “better” friends comes over and starts using it with no problems. I like playing video games. I don’t like watching other people play them.

MY SCORE: 3/10

RED

Directed by Robert Schwentke.
2010. Rated PG-13, 111 minutes
Cast:
Bruce Willis
Mary-Louise Parker
John Malkovich
Morgan Freeman
Helen Mirren
Karl Urban
Brian Cox
Julian McMahon
Richard Dreyfuss
Ernest Borgnine
Karl Urban

Frank (Willis) is a retired CIA agent who has taken a shine to Sarah (Parker), a telephone customer service rep. Soon enough, he suddenly makes his way to her apartment in Kansas City because the agency is apparently out to kill him for something we don’t yet know and to kill her pretty much just because. Since she doesn’t really know Frank, other than their frequent phone conversations, he has to drag her along, kicking and screaming. Traipsing across the country, narrowly escaping death while getting “the band” back together to help him figure thing thing out ensues.

The band is made up of other former black-ops specialists from various organizations that comprise Frank’s friends. There’s Marvin (Malkovich) who is so paranoid, he lives underground. Joe (Freeman) scopes out nurses at the rest home where he resides. Finally, there’s Victoria (Mirren). She’s a foxy older lady who has a thing for high-caliber firearms.

Red does what it does well enough that we can overlook what it is not so good at. It’s good at letting its cast use their familiar personas to draw laughter. Malkovich is particularly effective here, at his neurotic best. It’s good at keeping us guessing what’s really going on without becoming bogged down with maintaining the suspense. It is also surprisingly good at action, given that most of the cast is well beyond their physical primes. Though longtime action hero Willis does have a number of bright spots, its Mirren who shines brightest in this area. Thankfully, we don’t see her trying to perform any superhuman feats. That would be laughable, in a bad way. Instead, she does things she can be reasonably expected to and makes them infinitely more watchable than they should be. Her irrepressible presence makes her compelling in any role. When that is combined with the affinity most action fans have for gunfire, she’s doubly so. Her character also provides us with an interesting subplot about something from her past that may become her present.

What this movie doesn’t do well is develop its characters. For the most part, it skips that task. It prefers to rely on the fact that we expect certain things from each other and tries its darndest to give it to us. It never feels like we’re watching Frank, Marvin, Joe and Victoria. We’re always watching Bruce Willis from the Die Hard movies, John Malkovich from his Coen brothers flicks, Morgan Freeman the wise old sage and Helen Mirren the regal British lady. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just renders the movie a bit shallow. Then again, I think shallow may be the point.

Recently, there have been a slew of similarly themed movies. Though this doesn’t revel in its own ridiculousness quite the way The A-Team does, I find it just as enjoyable. It finds its own level of plausible absurdity and runs with it. It’s what The Expendables tries to be and what The Losers can only dream of being.

Star Trek (2009)