May Movies 2009

Movies seen that Need to Be StoryBlazed: Until then check out what some great critics are saying about these films that the Story Blazers have traveled to the Box Office for.

Star Trek:

For too many years, the continuity of that one particularly well-documented universe that has hosted six “Trek” TV series and ten feature films has been so exhaustively explored and mapped out that there was essentially nowhere else to go with it. It had become so mythology-bound that it was all but incapable of surprising us.
Which raises the head-smackingly obvious yet revolutionary question: Why stick to that universe?

And so, for the first time in forever, we have Star Trek really and truly boldly going where we haven’t been before — taking Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu and Checkov on a brand-new adventure for the very first time. Before you know it, you’re getting to know old friends in an entirely new light. It’s like what Alan Moore said about Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns: “Everything is exactly the same, except for the fact that it’s all completely different.” Steven D. Greydanus http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/reviews/startrek2009.html

Don’t get me wrong. This is fun. And when Leonard Nimoy himself returns as the aged Spock, encountering another Spock (Zachary Quinto) as a young man, I was kind of delighted, although as is customary in many sci-fi films, nobody is as astonished as they should be. Holy moly! Time travel exists, and this may be me! It’s more like a little ambiguous dialogue is exchanged, and they’re off to battle the evil Romulan Capt. Nero (Eric Bana). Roger Ebert-

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090506/REVIEWS/905069997

The action is filmed in extreme close-up a la The Bourne Identity, and although I wish Abrams would pull back and let us take in the scene more often, there are some wonderfully clever twists in the midst of frenzied adventure scenes. Otherwise, the film is non-stop eye candy. Jeffrey Overstreet
http://lookingcloser.org/2009/05/star-trek-2009/

Angels and Demons: I did not see and these reviews say why.

The bottom line, for those who care about such things, is this. Once you’ve established that your story is set in a world in which Jesus Christ is explicitly not God, and the Catholic religion is a known fraud perpetuated by murder and cover-ups, it sort of sucks the wind out of whatever story it was you were going to tell us next. Langdon could be ironing his chinos and helping little old ladies across the street, and it would still be set in that world, and those who care about such things will find it hard to bracket that and just go along with the thrill machine.

Which, I think, is what the filmmakers would like you to do. Reviewing The Da Vinci Code three years ago, I wrote that if that movie isn’t anti-Catholic, no movie is. Angels & Demons is not that movie. Partly that’s because the novel is less virulent than The Da Vinci Code, which Brown was still ramping up to. Also, where The Da Vinci Code movie followed the book as reverentially as possible, the new movie not only seeks to jettison as much baggage as possible, it even makes a few additions and changes expressing a more sympathetic disposition toward the Church.
Steven D. Greydanus

http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/reviews/angelsanddemons.html

As I was coming to the end of Ron Howard’s latest movie, “Angels and Demons,” I felt like shouting out to the screen, “no, no, you’ve got it precisely backward!” The central theme of the film, based on Dan Brown’s thriller of the same name, is the battle between “science” and Catholicism. Go see “Angels and Demons” if you like a thriller or you enjoy computer-generated images of the Vatican; but please don’t be taken in by its underlying philosophy.– Fr. Robert Barron

http://www.wordonfire.org/Written-Word/articles-commentaries/May-2009/Angels,-Demons,-and-Modern-Fantasies-about-Catholi.aspx

Audio Review by Father Robert Barron
http://www.wordonfire.org/WOF-TV/Commentaries.aspx#yt_video

A Night at the Museum 2 : Battle of the Smithsonian.

An exhilarating, imaginative sequel filled with humor, excitement, wit and a lively cast. It's genuinely delightful and fun for everyone young and old. Avi Offer NYC Movie Guru

Along with the addition of Amy Adams as a spunky Amelia Earhart, moving the action to the Smithsonian (and ignoring any concerns about believability) brings this goofy sequel to life like a wax sculpture of Teddy Roosevelt.- Joe Lozito Big Picture Big Sound

Upstaging its predecessor with colorful new characters and energy the kids will love. Jolene Mendez Entertainment Spectrum

... more of the same while being slightly different and raising the stakes. It's a formulaic sequel, but it works every bit as well as the original did. Kevin A. Ranson MovieCrypt.com

Night at the Museum 2 is a fistful of family fun... brimming with amusing lines, great effects and a series of smart cameo performances. Mark Adams Sunday Mirror [UK]

When this excessive and silly farce works -- roughly half the time -- it's thanks to the comic dynamic created by funny folk who can go riff-to-riff with Stiller. Roger Moore Orlando Sentinel



Terminator Salvation: Haven’t gotten a chance to see this one yet.

Just as McDonald’s burgers never look like what you see in McDonald’s commercials, this movie is a betrayal. T4 tastes like it was thrown together in a greasy kitchen by folks who ignore instructions for good hygiene, press heavily processed ingredients together into cardboard containers, and hand it to us with a scowl.
Terminator Salvation director McG has constructed what may as well be the first cut-and-paste feature film. It’s a flashback-inducing fever dream in which familiar ideas come so fast and furious that you have no room to think about the plot’s confounding time-travel convolutions. “A person can go crazy thinking about this,” groans the voice of Sarah Connor through a voice recorder. Viewers may conclude that’s exactly what happened to these storytellers.
Jeffrey Overstreet http://lookingcloser.org/2009/05/terminator-salvation-2009/

One of Hollywood's oldest axioms teaches us: The story comes first. Watching "Terminator Salvation," it occurred to me that in the new Hollywood, the storyboard comes first. After scrutinizing the film, I offer you my summary of the story: Guy dies, finds himself resurrected, meets others, fights. That lasts for almost two hours.

Anyway, most of the running time is occupied by action sequences, chase sequences, motorcycle sequences, plow-truck sequences, helicopter sequences, fighter-plane sequences, towering android sequences and fistfights. It gives you all the pleasure of a video game without the bother of having to play it.- Roger Ebert

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090519/REVIEWS/905199991

I will not apologize for giving this movie a strong Matinee with Snacks rating. I came out of it all pumped and gleeful and satisfied, and if anyone wants much more than that from a Terminator movie, well, it also has some freaking great sequences and ef Karina Montgomery Cinerina

Bale is a leader of the resistance fighters, who are mostly resistant to ugliness, facial blemishes, a few extra pounds, roomy flight suits, and old age. Mark Ramsey MovieJuice!

"Terminator Salvation" promised moviegoers a war between the human heart and the cold, cruel efficiency of machines. So why then is it so mechanical itself, so good at repetition, so preprogrammed and clunky? James Rocchi MSN Movies

Up:

What is Up? It is a love story. A tragedy. A soaring fantasy. A surreal animated comedy. A three-hankie weepie. A cliffhanging thriller. A cross-generational odd-couple buddy movie. A tale of sharply observed melancholy truths and whimsically unfettered nonsense. - Steven D. Greydanus

http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/reviews/up.html

"Up" is a wonderful film, with characters who are as believable as any characters can be who spend much of their time floating above the rain forests of Venezuela. Two of the three central characters are cranky old men, which is a wonder in this youth-obsessed era. "Up" doesn't think all heroes must be young or sweet, although the third important character is a nervy kid.

This is another masterwork from Pixar, which is leading the charge in modern animation.

"Up" tells a story as tickling to the imagination as the magical animated films of my childhood, when I naively thought that because their colors were brighter, their character outlines more defined and their plots simpler, they were actually more realistic than regular films. Roger Ebert

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090527/REVIEWS/90527999

Up may not quite rank as Pixar's finest film, but it is certainly the animation studio's oddest and bravest picture, and possibly its most beautiful. "Up" falls just short of Pixar's echelon, but it still offers more wonders, delights and undisputed artistry than anything else to hit theaters this year.Jeffrey Westhoff Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

Its PG rating hints that this is one of those toon tales that will resonate more powerfully with adults than with kids, and never more so than in the sequences between Carl and his wife (did we really just witness a miscarriage in an animated film?). Matt Brunson Creative Loafing

Is Up top-shelf Pixar? No. But is it quality summer movie entertainment? Absolutely. Even when the folks at Pixar aim to keep their feet solidly on the ground, they can't help but soar.
Shawn Levy Oregonian