The Brand New Testament (orig. Le tout nouveau testament) [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Allocine.fr listing*

aVoir-aLire.com (A. Champilou) review*
LaCroix.fr (A. Schwartz) review*
APUM.com (E. Martín Luna) review*
CervenyKoberec.cz (V. Staňková) review*
EyeForFilm.co.uk (L. Shaw) review


The Brand New Testament (orig. Le tout nouveau testament) [2015] [IMdb] [AC.fr]*(directed and cowritten by Jaco Van Dormael [IMdb] [AC.fr]* along with Thomas Gunzig [IMdb] [AC.fr]*), while certainly _not_ "for everybody" is a quite imaginative BELGIAN, FRENCH and LUXEMBOURGER religious themed comedy that helped open the 2016 Chicago French Film Festival organized annually by the French Diplomatic Mission to the United States and held since its beginning at the Music Box Theater on Chicago's North Side.  The film also earned a 2016 U.S. Golden Globes nomination for Best Foreign Language Motion Picture.

Basically, the film takes as its starting point the verses in the first chapter of Genesis: "Then let us make human beings in our likeness ... God created man in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them" [Gen 1:26-27] and then continues to imagine that God _and his family_  live "up in the sky" _as a typical Belgian family_ in a random apartment in one of the upper floors of a nondescript (and not particularly attractive) 20+ story tenement building somewhere at the outskirts of Brussels.

"God and his Family...", what pray-tell do you mean?   Oh yes, there's a family. There's the Father (played by Benoît Poelvoorde [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) a typical, and starting to bald, Belgian male in his perhaps early 50s.  He has a Wife (played by Yolande Moreau [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) who we "down on earth" _don't really know_ as she's "up there" in the Family of God's random tenement apartment mostly "tending/cleaning house" ;-).   Of course, there's The Son, J.C., (we _know Jesus_, played here quite sympathetically by David Murgia [IMDb]).  And finally there's God's 12-year old Daughter named Ea (played by Pili Groyne [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) who we, again, _don't really know_ 'cause as a typical Belgian family "all the attention's been given to the Son" ;-).   Ea's the one telling this story ... ;-)

We're told that God the Father created the world that we know over the course of seven evenings, when, "each night, after dinner" (cooked of course by Ma') "would tinker with such things" (as "Creating the World") on his computer, with a few (Belgian) beers at his side.  The "beers at his side" actually kinda help explain the creation of animals like Ostriches, Giraffes and Hippopotamuses which aesthetically do seem to make more sense "after a beer or two" ;-). 

But God the Father's drinking and general "Belgian style crankiness" helps explain a lot of the problems in the world, and so, "eyes rolling" almost-teenage Ea decides finally to "go down to earth" and fix some of the messes that Dad "drinking beers at his computer" seems to be causing. 

Here nice, smiling if somewhat clueless brother J.C. has some advice for Ea: "You know, when you go down to Earth, don't go as I did to recruit twelve Apostles.  I thought twelve would be a good number.  But most of them didn't really do much anyway.  You could probably get by with six. ;-) ... Then, when you ask them to write your Gospels, don't have them focus much on you or us.  Focusing on us is kinda pointless, they won't listen / learn from our example anyway.  Have them focus on their own stories and find what they need to do to get by."  

So Ea finds her way down to earth, finds her six, quite random (and often quite problematic) Apostles certainly with their own "demons" / "stories" and the rest of the story ensues ...

Again Dear Readers from the description above, it should be pretty clear that this film would _not_ be "for everybody."  But it _does_ have its moments.  I did find it amusing that God would have created "Giraffes" over a couple of beers ;-) or that Jesus would be telling "his sister" to not bother with looking for 12 Apostles as "most of them didn't do much anyway" ;-) that she could "get by with six" ;-)  

So ... while not necessarily a "must see," the film would certainly "amuse a few" ;-).  I got a kick out of it, but then, of course, I'm _not_ taking it "as Gospel."  I just liked some of the little jokes / "insights" ;-).   


 * Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

** To load Websites from South, East and Eurasia in a timely fashion, installation of ad-blocking software is often required.

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Bad Moms [2016]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  

Bad Moms [2016] (cowritten and codirected by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore) is an often crude film though not nearly as crude as say the Hangover [2009-] movies.  Still the film certainly deserves its R-rating and the target audience really are ... moms ... often overworked and often underappreciated.

The opening voice-over by Mila Kunis, who plays Amy the eventual ring-leader of the "Bad Moms club" at a random suburban school nominally located somewhere in the Chicago area, could make you cry:  A harried working mother of two, Dylan (played by Emjay Anthony) and Jane (played by Oona Laurence) both somewhere between 10 and 12, married to a quite clueless, entitled-feeling dolt of a  husband, Mike (played by David Walton) who's definitely _not_ pulling his weight, certainly not with domestic chores at home (and again, "doesn't have a clue"...), Amy confesses that "the only thing that I've become good at is ... being late" and "at least once a day, I become convinced that I've somehow become the worst mother in the world."  

Sigh ... I do believe that A LOT OF MOTHERS feel that way though I do hope that the clueless, entitled-feeling dolt of a husband is above all a device invented by the scriptwriters to give their heroine Amy permission to enter into a (let's face it, morally unjustifiable but "wouldn't it be nice") inappropriate relationship with the school's "hot widower" (As he walks by with his cute-as-a-button eight year old daughter, one of the ogling moms, distracted by his studliness, says: "I'm sooo happy that he _lost his wife_ ... he's sooo hot" ;-).  Yes, it's that kind of movie with things that are _just unbelievably inappropriate_ being said in rapid fire every couple of minutes or so ;-).    Another memorable line was that of Carla (played by Kathryn Hahn) another "charter member of the Bad Moms club" fondly recalling in almost "sharknado fashion" her twenties (after Amy confesses that part of her life's difficulties was that she married early - at 20 when she got pregnant by Mike) saying: "Yup, you missed out.  It was just raining d..ks, in my twenties, just a deluge, falling from the sky, left, right, everywhere, nothing, nothing, nothing but d..ks." 

So dear Readers, you get an idea of what this movie is like.  There's also some creepy "Hollywood messaging" in the film in which the good old "Bad Girl" of the Bad Moms club Carla apparently goes on a same-sex kissing binge of a whole bunch of previously "uptight PTA moms" at a party thrown by the Bad Moms.  Imagine if a guy went around randomly kissing those previously "uptight PTA moms."  It'd be denounced by many as sexist and creepy, making light of unwanted sexual advances.  Here same sex creepiness is portrayed as "hey, okay."  Anyway, it's a small point, but it's there.

So is this a "great movie?"  No.  But I do think a lot of moms today would get a kick out of it.  It does say things that are wildly inappropriate, but precisely because they shock the ears, they're often LOL funny.

In any case, moms please don't take your little kids to this and (obviously) don't make this film "your Bible."  But ... enjoy the laughs ;-)
 

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Jason Bourne [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (K. Rife) review  

Call Jason Bourne [2016] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Paul Greengrass along with Christopher Rouse based on characters from the Bourne Novels by Robert Ludlum [wikip] [GR] [IMDb]) "The Bourne Replacement(s): The Rise of the Millennials" ;-).

Heck, even one of those pesky computer savvy Millennials, CIA Cyber-Ops head Heather Lee (played quite convincingly by Alicia Vikaner) shares with Jason Bourne (played again as from the film franchise's beginning by Matt Damon), right there behind his shoulder, some of the film's promotional posters ;-).  (The other significant Millennial in the story is a very well (even _bravely_) crafted character named Aaron Kalloor (played by Riz Ahmed) the founder / CEO of a 1.5 billion user-strong Facebook-like social media platform called Deep Dream). 

Poor previously brain-washed ("for the sake of the country") late baby-boomer / genX-er Jason Bourne is still trying to figure out who he really is / was.  He gets some help early-on in the story from his similarly-aged former handler Nicky Parsons (played by Julia Stiles) who with help of an Anonymous-like hackers' collective operating out of Reykjavik, Iceland hacks the CIA's files about the super-secret super-Assassin program Operation Treadstone (which "created" poor Jason) as well as its successor programs right up to its most recent incarnation called Iron Hand.  Nicky then seeks to meet him in Athens, Greece (which proves to be in the midst of Benghazi-like chaos), while "late greatest generation" /  "early baby-boomer" aged CIA director Robert Dewey (played by Tommy Lee Jones) on advice of young sprightly (millennial aged) CIA Cyber-Ops head Heather Lee sends another "Bourne aged" Agency "Asset" super-assassin (played by Vincent Cassell) to intercept them.  And so it's "game on" from there... with the story passing through Berlin, Washington and finally ending with chase sequence in Las Vegas that would be _very hard_ to "stay" in Las Vegas ;-)

As has been the case already in the previous Bourne films, the Viewer is starkly presented with at least THE POTENTIAL of the intelligence agencies of our time, from creating super-assassins like Jason Bourne or "the Asset" hunting him, to a surveillance state which allows the feeds from  EVERY random "traffic cam" / "surveillance cam" installed across the _entire_ "free world" to be called-up and viewed by CIA HQ at Langley at will.

But what really fascinated me in this film was the "multi-generational battle" that was taking place with the "Old Guard" represented by TLJ's aging CIA director Robert Dewey willing to use / dispose of Matt Damon's Jason Bourne and even the Bourne aged "Asset" that Dewey sends out to kill him, preferring to work-with / hand-over the reins of power to the Millennials represented by Vikaner's spritely CIA Cyber Ops head Heather Lee and Riz Ahmed's private sector tech-guru Aaron Kalloor.

THIS IS NOT THE FIRST MOVIE that has suggested this dynamic with the "Greatest Generation / Early Babyboomer" generation preferring _their grandchildren_ (the Millennials) to their children (the late Babyboomers / GenXers).   The Noah Baumbach directed, Ben Stiller / Naomi Watts vs. Adam Driver / Amanda Seyfried starring dramedy While We're Still Young [2014] made a similar point.

Anyway, the "even _now_ trying to figure out who he actually is" Jason Bourne becomes an interesting symbol for that late-boomer / GenX generation (of which, I'm actually part ;-)

Good to great and certainly though-provoking job!


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Café Society [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  


Café Society [2016] (written and directed by Woody Allen [wikip] [IMDb]) is ... "this year's Woody Allen movie."  That said, one does wonder, he being 81 years of age, how many more he'll be able to make.

Indeed, on numerous levels there was a swansong quality to this film: 

First, this was a nostalgia / period piece set in both New York / Hollywood of yesteryear (more or less of the 1930s): A young Jewish kid named "Bobby" (played by Jesse Eisenberg) from The Bronx sets out to L.A. in hopes that his "made it there" rich "Hollywood producer" uncle Phil Stern (played by Steve Carell) could find him a job / some job "in the business." 

Well, wide eyed Bobby got an education in disappointment and not just in employment but above all in human frailty.  While there, he watches his uncle leave his wife of 25 years for a 25 year old.  And Bobby hears his uncle confess to him "My wife did nothing wrong.  She's a good woman and has been a good wife."  So why did he leave her?  He simply fell, completely fell for the other (much) younger woman.  On the flip side, Bobby learned (to his disappointment) that he really wasn't yet ready for the seemingly age appropriate woman that he had fallen for, Vonnie (played by Kristen Stewart).  There some things being said there that Allen would have experience with.

Bobby returns, disappointed, to New York and gets a job working at a club for another uncle of his, Ben Dorfman (played by Corey Stoll) who, having not exactly lived an honest life and staring death in the face, despite having been born and raised Jewish, has something of a last-gasp conversion to ... CATHOLICISM ;-).  Why?  The possibility of both forgiveness and an afterlife.  "I'd want something of me to go on after I die."  And even one of his sisters admits: "If we Jews believed in an afterlife, we'd probably have more followers."  On one hand, it all seems rather flippant.  On the other hand, even with a smile, Allen makes some of the most penetratingly serious movies around (witness last year's Irrational Man [2015]) and at 81 ... Allen today is facing (approaching) death as well.  Again, there's a lot being suggested in this rather surprising subplot.

Finally, Allen himself does the voice over / narration parts in this film and it is clear that he was struggling with his own lines, especially at the beginning.

So yes, as much as I've enjoyed so many of Woody Allen's movies over the years, it's pretty clear to me that there aren't going to be many more.  And if there's been a "Confessional" quality to a number of his most recent films, I'm neither surprised and actually somewhat relieved for him.  For I do belong to the Catholic Church, and I do believe therefore that we will meet our Maker at the end.  And what certainly coming to terms with what we've done in this life (both the Good and not so Good) certainly would make that encounter easier.

In any case, Allen leaves his viewers (again) with a quite a lot to think about.


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Paris, Love, Cut (orig. Arnaud fait son 2e film ) [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Allocine.fr listing*

aVoir-aLire.fr (A. Champilou) review*
Critikat.com (A.  Hée) review*
Le Parisien (P. Vavasseur) review*


Paris, Love, Cut (orig. Arnaud fait son 2e film ) [2015] [IMDb] [AC.fr]* (written and directed by Arnaud Viard [IMDb] [AC.fr]* [fr.wikip]*) is a Seinfeld / Woody Allen-ish film about the late 40-something y.o. writer/directer, well, "making his second film" (which is the movie's French title). 

It's a simple, charming enough story, inspired by the writer / director's experiences, no doubt somewhat fictionalized, and it closed the opening night of the 2016 Chicago French Film Festival (organized annually by the French Diplomatic Mission to the United States and held each year at the Music Box Theater on Chicago's North Side).

In the film "Arnaud" (played by Arnaud Viard [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[fr.wikip]* himself) who had made a successful indie-like film some years back (in reality, the writter/directer had made exactly such a film Clara et Moi [2004] IMDb] [AC.fr]*) before making a somewhat successful career of being an actor on TV.

But in the film "Arnaud" was not _super successful_ as said "actor on TV" ... Yes people "on the street" do occasionally recognize him, but he's _not_ particularly rich.  Indeed, a good part of the film is about him trying to get financing for said "second film" as _small_ in scope as it was.   And, partly to give him something to do, as he's between gigs on TV and trying to get his film off the ground, and partly _to simply pay his bills_ he teaches at a Parisian drama school.

Then "Arnaud's" personal life is something of a mess.  In the film, he's not really with anyone.  He's trying to help is 40-something _ex-girlfriend_ Chloe (played by Irène Jacob [IMDb] [AC.fr.]*) get pregnant (by IVF).  It's proving to be not particularly easy.  They had put this off (until actually after their break-up ...) and while not impossible, not easy either.  In his late 40s, "Arnaud" himself discovers that it's getting harder for him to get, well ... you know.

His drama class goes well.  Naturally, there's a love interest, Gabrielle (played by Louise Coldefy [IMDb] [AC.fr.]*) to be found there as well (after all, Arnaud Viard [IMDb] [AC.fr]* himself wrote the film's script ;-).  However, he also discovers, somewhat painfully, that to most of his students, including Gabrielle... the best that he can hope for is to be "the cool OLD teacher" ;-) who may perhaps help his students with "a connection" in the business or two.

He also has an aging mom (played by Nadine Alari [IMDb] [AC.fr.]*) who is no longer well, indeed, slowly dying.

Out of these elements a nice, somewhat bitter-sweet -- often quite funny and at other times quite poignant -- again Seinfeld / Woody Allen-ish film plays out.

It's a nice film, and served well to help kick-off this year's French Film Festival in Chicago.

Good job! ;-)


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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Lights Out [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (1 Star)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (P. Sobczynski) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

Lights Out [2016] (directed by David F. Sandberg, screenplay by Eric Heisserer) is based on the director's  3 minute "short" (by the same name) that caught a lot of people's attention a few years back.

The story's built around a monster that would only appear when the lights went out.  As soon as one turned the lights back on again, it would disappear (somehow).  But when you turned off the lights once more it would appear again... closer ;-).  It made for one heck of an interesting concept and so Eric Heisserer was then hired to "flesh the concept out" into a feature length screenplay.

Does he / do the film-makers "succeed"?   Partly ... almost ... until the end.  Then I agree with the Jack McAleer of the Catholic News Service that the film, at minimum enters into (needlessly shocking / violent) R-rated territory and becomes unjustifiable morally to all.

The story developed for the film around this rather strange if intriguing monster centers on a family with a troubled mother named Sophie (played by Maria Bello).  As a child she had been institutionalized for (manic) depression but later "as long as she stayed on her meds," she had proven functional enough to lead a quite normal life, even getting married, twice, and having two children -- Rebecca (played by Teresa Palmer) in her late teens by her first husband, and 8-10 y.o. Martin (played by Gabriel Bateman) by her second.  The problems, of course, arose when she went off said meds.

Sophie's first husband (Rebecca's dad) had apparently "just upped and left" one day after a(n extended?) period in which she was apparently off her meds.  And the current film began with Martin skyping his dad Paul (played by Billy Burke) at work, telling him that he was worried about ma' because she was acting strangely again (was off her vitamins ...), closing-up all the curtains in the house and talking again to her "invisible friend" Diana ...

Well, that couldn't be good ... and it wasn't...

Who exactly was this invisible friend?  Was she real?  Was she simply in Sophie, the mother's, head?   Somehow both?  Much, often quite scary (still in PG-13 territory) ensues, even if there are aspects of the life of the late-teen daughter Rebecca (already moved out of home, for reasons, well, guess ...) that are already morally problematic (even if she does apparently still keep her boyfriend Bret (played by Alexander DePersia) at "a distance."

It's just the ending that becomes A REAL PROBLEM.  Late teens and above who'd want to see the movie may want to STOP READING HERE but PARENTS, PLEASE, DO NOT ...

BIG SPOILER ALERT

Near the end of the movie, as Sophie comes to realize / believe that she's somehow responsible for the chaos that's occurring in the family (as a result of this strange monster that only exists and attacks people, Sophie's family members, in the dark) DECIDES TO TAKE A GUN AND BLOW HER BRAINS OUT.

Like the CNS's reviewer Jack McAleer, I SIMPLY DON'T BELIEVE THAT SUCH A GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF A SUICIDE belongs in PG-13 movie territory !!

And even adults should be shaken by the suggestion of this movie.  Yes, troubled people can be problematic, but the solution is certainly _not_ suicide (or even worse ... doctor / state ordered murder / euthanasia). 

As such, this film at minimum should have been rated "R" to allow parents greater control over whether they wanted their kids to have access to the film.  But truthfully, it should have been written better to avoid thrusting onto the audience this unexpected moral problem. 

As troubled as ma', Sophie, may have been ... she _did not_ deserve to die.

"Lights Out" indeed ...


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Star Trek Beyond [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review 
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

Star Trek Beyond [2016] (directed by Justin Lin, screenplay by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, based on the Star Trek television series [wikip] [IMDb] by Gene Roddenberry [wikip] [IMDb]) is IMHO the film in this "Star Trek reboot" series that finally "catches its stride" ;-)

Amusingly, in the opening voice-over, Chris Pine's Capt. James T. Kirk complains three years (or three films) into his five year mission commanding the venerable Federation Starship Enterprise his life has become "episodic" ;-). However, for those of us watching, we're given a chance in this film to better appreciate the direction in which this rebooted series is heading and the changes from the original that it has made.

For the original Star Trek television series [1966-69] was famously IDEA DRIVEN and surprisingly LOW TECH.  The various episodes in the original (again, _television_...) series, supposedly playing-out largely on the surfaces of presumably quite exotic alien planets, would simply play-out _on a stage_ with a quite randomly hued background (red, blue, purple, black ...) serving as the planet's (exotically hued) "horizon" and perhaps "a palm tree or two" (or even more strangely "a Corinthian column") serving as props onstage in the foreground.  On such a stage er "planet," the characters would then wax eloquently (with almost Shakespearean gravitas) about the nature of freedom, humanity (or half-vulcan character Spock's "vulcanity") as the arriving largely human (if already largely multi-racial) crew of the Starship Enterprise inevitably encountered a culture that "saw things differently."  Over the course of the (television) seasons, relationships between at least some of the (first tier) crew members also developed (Kirk [wikip], Spock [wikip], McCoy [wikip] and Scotty [wikip]) while other characters (Uhura [wikip], Chekov [wikip] and Sulu [wikip]) were left largely undeveloped. 

The Star Trek Next Generation [1987-1994] series (which took place largely aboard a more sophisticated looking Starship Enterprise) developed more (and more diverse) characters beginning with making the captain of the Enterprise a Frenchman named Jean-Luc Picard [wikip].  Women - Counselor Troi [wikip] and Science Officer Dr. Beverly Crusher [wikip] - played much more significant roles.  A (once) physically handicapped Lt. Cmdr Geordi LaForge [wikip] who had been blind functioned now as a pilot of the ship without any hindrance to his performance thanks to a high tech visor that allowed to him to see once more.  Even children/teenagers Wesley [wikip], Dr. Crusher's son were shown present on board.  And a "Klingon," Lt. Worf [wikip], (the Klingons were the Federation's enemies in the Original Series) was now a valued member of the crew, as was an all-but/more than human android named Data [wikip]).  Star Fleet of the Next Generation was thus truly "for everybody."

Subsequent feature-length films featuring the casts of both series consistently improved upon the special effects of the TV series from which they were spawned, and yet focused mostly on the relationships between the characters.

THE REBOOT took the special effects to a new and (initially much criticized) frenetic level.  Whereas the original series was IDEA DRIVEN, the REBOOT felt overwhelmingly ACTION and SPECIAL EFFECTS DRIVEN.

While (1) attention was again given to some of the relationships, notably the friendship between Kirk [wikip] (now played by Chris Pine) and Spock [wikip] (now played by Zachery Quinto), (2) there were some fairly interesting even inspired casting choices, notably of casting Zoe Saldana as the new Uhura [wikip]) and even Simon Pegg as the new Scotty [wikip]) and (3) some of the previously underdeveloped characters were given livelier roles (like Anton Yelchin's Chekov [wikip] who, wow ;-), now steals almost every scene that he's in ;-) and/or back stories (like John Cho's Sulu [wikip] who in a nod to George Takei [IMDb] [wikip] who played Sulu [wikip] in the original series, is now portrayed as being quite calmly / matter-of-factly ... gay, BOTH OF THE of the REBOOT series felt like GIANT SCALE "SMASH-EM-UP" MARVEL-COMICS-LIKE "SUPER-HERO MOVIES."

The current film, though retaining the GIANT SCALE (much of the film plays out around a GIANT new Federation colony/outpost called "the Yorktown" at the edge of a nebula) as well as an OFTEN FRENETIC PACE (the Enterprise gets attacked veritable bee-like "swarm" of alien ships coming from said nebula) ... AT LEAST THE BATTLE (and its after-effects) proceed(s) with BOTH _intelligence_ and surprise: Yes, "the aliens" come at the Enterprise in an unexpected manner and to eventually defeat them _requires_ a lot of (often quite fast) nimble-thinking / improvisation on the part of the Enterprise crew.

As a result, this third (sorry new Kirk ;-) "episode" of the REBOOT feels the most authentic (of the three) thusfar and even advances STAR TREK's story telling in an arguably positive way -- sometimes we all have to "think quickly" and respond to "new challenges" using the tools, gadgets (and "apps") around us in fairly novel / unexpected ways ;-)

So thumbs up here.  And the addition of some _new_ alien characters, notably that of Jaylah (played by Sofia Boutella) a previously marooned and yet quite resourceful alien stuck originally also in that nebula was good / fun as well!  Good / great job!  Finally, this REBOOTED series is "going somewhere" again ;-)


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