Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning

More Implausible Than Impossible

or

Deciding Not To Accept It

Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning may well be the last of the "Mission: Impossible" movies, the series based on the espionage TV show that featured a crack-team of specialists engaged in "heist-movie" scenarios for the government.* The films had some of the tropes, the "fuse" logo, the late Lalo Schifrin's pulsating, propulsive theme, the clandestine mission briefing (that then self-destructed leaving no trace). But, in the movies it spawned,  the "team aspect" always played second-fiddle to its star and champion, Tom Cruise, who increasingly dominated the films, while his character, Ethan Hunt, still remained a bit of a cypher as a character. Other than doing the hardest stuff, of course.

 

But this latest, maybe last, entry, given the evidence on display, indicates the series is past its self-destruct status. At nearly 3 hours in length, what could have been a lean and mean entry feels bloated with a first act crammed with flash-backs (ill-advised as they'd never connected story-lines before and even dropped connections with past movies at the drop of an un-negotiated contract) and a star who, at 62, is looking a little too doughy—in a Brad Pitt/Jerry O'Connell kind of way—to be romping around doing his own crazy stunts and skittering the world in his signature tin-soldier full-tilt run. 

All the worse, because this one really leans (and leans hard) in to Ethan Hunt being the end-all, be-all "only one" whose destiny it is to save the human race from Mutually Assured Destruction at the hands of an AI "anti-god" called The Entity...which featured in the last one and, it turns out, was the undefinable McGuffin dubbed the "Rabbit's Foot" from Mission: Impossible 3.** As The Church Lady would say "Isn't that convenient"***

At the time it came out, I thought it was a nice joke that the "secret thing that everybody wants" (and spends so much time obsessing over) in M:I 3 was so much vapor-ware in the story-line. Nobody knew what it was or what it could do, but it was important enough that everybody wanted it, whatever it was. Turns out, in reality (or film-reality, anyway), it was merely the plot-line of Colossus:The Forbin Project.

"Oh, yeah, there are other people in the movie..."

And Ethan Hunt turns out to be as mythic a lynch-pin to world affairs as Luke Skywalker or Paul Atreides.

 

It appears original, but it's merely a re-gift, just put in a new wrapper.

They also serve—briefly—watching Tom do the hard stuff...

So, anyway, the mission should you decide to accept (and I didn't) is that after the events of Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part 1, Ethan Hunt was in possession of The Cruciform Key, which would allow him to somehow destroy The Entity which is embedded in the Interwebs and is slowly but surely filling it with misinformation, turning the World Wide Web into a cesspool that has man turning against himself (as if it needed any help!) with the eventual end of taking over the nuclear capabilities of all the world's powers. What it would do then is anybody's guess, but even a digital anti-god would know that anything actually using those weapons would create a nuclear pulse and wouldn't do it any good at all, disabling any electronics throughout the world. If it's aim is murder-suicide then you need some other term than "artificial intelligence". Artificial psychosis", maybe? The Entity sounds like it's related to Monty Python's "Black Knight" ("You're a loony!")

They also serve who sit in boardrooms and clutch pearls...

Anyway, getting the thing to destroy The Entity involves two impossible missions: get to the Russian submarine Sebastopol (scuttled in arctic waters in the last movie) to use his Cruciform Key to obtain the Entity's "Podkova module" (containg its source code); then, using a "Poison Pill" developed by IMF whiz Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), get that module to the world's "Doomsday Vault" located in South Africa—a huge mainframe designed to withstand said nuclear pulse even in a planet-wide armageddon—and plug the "Pill" into the "Podkova" thus isolating the Entity and somehow managing to contain the thing.

But, there are complications—there always are—such as the sub Sebastopol starting to roll down a continental shelf when Hunt is inside it (evidently it doesn't have a conning tower or fins or sail planes or...ya know...rudders that might impede the progress), or Hunt having to discard his hi-tech diving suit to get out of a jam and swim...in just trunks...in arctic waters...with no oxygen...and no decompression gear (except on the surface), or—a major one—the bad guy Gabriel (Esai Morales) manages to steal said "Poison Pill" making his escape on a bi-plane (...a bi-plane!), thus forcing Ethan to hijack another one and do a godawful amount of gyrating on wings and struts to get on the bad-guy's plane to get said "Poison Pill."

Now, look...the plot-line is insanely complicated and stupid...way too much so...as well as being openly subject to criticism by what Hitchcock called "The Implausibles" (I can't wait to see the "Goofs" tab on its IMDB page). Such things as Hunt being able to take out two competent goons moments after biting down on a cyanide capsule, or being able to survive "the bends" or the crushing water pressure of a deep-dive while only in his swim-trunks, then being able to do all that dangerous wing-walking the very next day boggles everything that I have left of a mind. The onslaught of implausibles tend to overwhelm such trivial matters as grabbing the barrel of a recently-fired automatic weapon without scorching your hands in the process.

Still, I can appreciate the length and breadths—in IMAX, even!—to which the cast and crew have gone to present such shenanigans. The rolling submarine set that they present is a wonderful little concept design for all sorts of mayhem, and the whole bi-plane sequence is an amazing showcase for what can be done with remote cameras and a star with a death-wish (but one with a goofy absurdist sensibility). As an actor, Tom traditionally dials it to 11, it's in these insane stunts where these proclivities really pay off.

However, the movie is a logical and editorial mess, with sporadic flashbacks that don't quite connect dots or light emotional fuses. It does provide considerable down-time between action set-pieces to make an assault on a snack-bar or sabotage a theater restroom.  

 

If that's your aim I will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck.

*Poof!* hsssssss

Ethan cares, man. He really cares. 

* I'm throwing a lot of stick here, but the TV series, as great as it could be, had elements rolled eyes. For instance: why did every potential, autocratic, generalissimo, and revolutionary look like Martin Landau?

** That was, what, 4 movies ago, the one with Phillip Seymour Hoffman, which, when you see him in the flashbacks, causes actual grief.

 

*** Yeah, okay, M:I fans, I know that the James Bond series just wrapped up an uncharacteristically continuity-obsessive five-film arc, where everything tied together to the point where Bond super-baddie Ernst Stavro Blofeld turned out to be the step-foster-brother (or something) of Bond—in a plot-twist borrowed from (of all things) the "Austin Powers" series. Connecting the dots has a way of diluting the power of a story. In the Craig years, Blofeld wasn't so much an international criminal as a red-headed step-child. Just like in the first Michael Keaton Batman, the criminal who became The Joker was the one to kill Bruce Wayne's parents, rather than just some rando gunman. It waters things down, sometimes to an unpotable degree.

Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Part 1

"Couldn't You Have Told Me This a Little Bit Sooner?"

or

"Is There Anyone Not Chasing Us?"

 

One can't start out a review of Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning (Part 1) without giving props. It is one busy movie, filled with some amazing stunt work and a dedication to craft that one shakes their head in amazement that these things were thought up and brought to some spectacular life. The immediate reaction to one of these things evokes horror and then giggles as they are pain-stakingly realized to convince you that 1) they actually happened and 2) that they actually COULD happen. And a rueful head-nod must go to "Mr. Gung-Ho" Tom Cruise for putting himself "out there" just because he could. One has to say all this, because for the most part this review will trash this entry in the franchise, surely its weakest entry since Mission: Impossible 2.

 

But, wow, those stunts sure are amazing. The trouble is that's what the movie is all about, the stunts and those alone have never made a good movie. What they show is that the characters have an abnormal survival instinct and the tenacity of pit-bulls to pull though whatever obstacle can be thrown, dropped, propelled and fired at them. And that's it for character development. Oh, there's some ret-conning about "how Ethan Hunt became Ethan Hunt" as well as other agents into the IMF, but it's as unsubstantial as...well, as the entire make-up of the IMF apparently is in the spy hierarchy if we're to believe this movie.

The mission this time (should we decide to accept it, and I, frankly, didn't) is to recover the latest "McGuffin" in the series, the two-part "Cruciform Key", which is used to power up "an active learning defense system" which is touted by its Soviet creators as "the state of the art of war." Timely, since we're all worried about AI (and this is where I insert my "written by human hands" disclosure). The Vicious Thingy was last seen on board the Soviet submarine K699, the Sebastopol, which sits at the bottom of the Bering Sea a victim of its own system's ability to present false data to the sub crew causing them to launch a torpedo attack against a ghost target and blowing themselves up. This is one nasty little AI that can wreak havoc on countries and their defenses, but the world's governments don't want to destroy it, so much as control it. World leaders tend to have a lot of hubris; who wants to bet that they learn a lesson in humility in Part 2?

IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise), despite his"habitual rogue tendencies," is enlisted to find the key. Who has it? Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), late colleague, who is not so late and has one-half of the key. Hunt and the team (Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg) decide to go after the other half of the key, where they run into an atomic bomb trap (okay) and a pick-pocket named Grace (Hayley Atwell), who manages to lift the other half of the key from the prospective seller, complicating matters. Hunt also runs into a "face from the past" (Esai Morales), who seems to have the ability to not appear on surveillance systems. But, not the ability to make one of those full-head disguises that Ethan depends on in these movies.

What happens next? Chases. Lots of chases. Ethan and Grace are chased by land, foot, wheels, by the CIA, by Morales' "Gabriel"—along with Pom Klementieff's killing machine, Paris—by the forces of arms dealer The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), by his own IMF Chief Kittridge (welcome back to the series, Henry Czerny!) by the local constabulary, and evidently anyone with a cell-phone or police scanner, until everyone meets on the Orient Express, and everything just goes literally right off the rails. Most of this is played with deadly earnestness, but one can't help but chuckle at the "Perils of Pauline" aspect of it, some of it is right out of silent movies.

But, the plot is a clunker. And the dialog at times is so vaguely inconsequential (and delivered so seriously) that you wonder if people are speaking in spy code. So, this entry in the series—the 7th—is overwhelming in stunts and underwhelming in story—and inventiveness—even though everyone bravely battles on.

I had much the same reaction to the very stunty recent Indiana Jones movie, which was only saved by a particularly risky (and fanciful) last act. This doesn't have something like that, but it does have another fight on a train with subsequent derailment, and another smashing car chase in a vehicle not built for those things.

 

The trailer for M:I7 exposed the weakness of the film by just showing stunts and fights, as that seemed to be all it has because, for the first time, they seemed to be borrowing from the James Bond series: the train fight from Octopussy, the Citroen chase from For Your Eyes Only becomes a Fiat 500e chase here, with Cruise and Atwell handcuffed as a similar situation in Tomorrow Never Dies, the whole "world-spy-network-hijack" idea comes from SPECTRE (notice that when the "Mission: Impossible" series borrows from Bond, it doesn't borrow from very good ones?), then that very hyped motorcycle jump has echoes of The Spy Who Loved Me. Usually, it's the Bond films that borrow from other films—maybe M:I is running out of ideas.

There are other odd little issues, like that director McQuarrie (who has done some inspired work in previous film in the series) seems to have shot some dialog scenes using three cameras, that are edited in such a way that, when edited together, seems to have the actors not addressing each other in conversation. It's odd...and a little off-putting. Given the attention to detail in the action sequences, why would something like that occur?

 

Still, despite the reservations I have about the film, I hope it has a great box-office return. The film industry needs a little help right now, and this Summer's expected blockbusters have been under-achieving. A solid box-office return could reverse that trend, and help movie-makers battle the real-world challenges of AI.

The Sparks Brothers

Ahead of the Curve

or

"I've Never Understood Why Music Has To Be So Stinkin' SERIOUS"

Edgar Wright has been re-writing rules for film-making for a while now, combining fantasy with reality, comedy with action, gangster pics with musical-dance, turning genre on its cliche, combining, mingling, crunching, like splicing the DNA of film to create new life in the medium.

But, what would an Edgar Wright documentary look like?

 

The answer comes with his new film, The Sparks Brothers, which details the career of Ronald and Russell Mael, two brothers who have been blazing a trail in music (while never catching popular fire) for over 50 years as the band Sparks. Starting under the name Halfnelson (and changing the name after an A & R suggestion with the first album), the two have put out 25 albums since 1967, changing their band through various adjustments in style and technique that always seemed to be slightly ahead of trends from glam rock to disco to techno to art pop to house to orchestral to stripped down rock, on through the ages of videos—they were doing them before MTV was established—thanks to their early interest in film, only to see other bands emulate their sound and style and hit the pop charts.*

But, they never had that "break-through" hit. The Mael's were born in San Francisco and started their career in the U.S., but traveled to England in 1973, where they charted with the song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us," and achieved notoriety for their TV appearances—Russell was the "cute one" while Ronald dressed like a 50 year old, sported a Hitler/Chaplin mustache, and gave off the vibe of a 30's creep/gigolo. The contrast has a bizarre ying-yang effect, not unlike Cheap Trick. As the poster for the doc says it's the story of "Your Favorite Band's Favorite Band."

Part of their "never-quite-achieved-the-success-their-reputation-inspired" result may be that Sparks never took themselves too seriously, abandoning the narcissistic singer/songwriter mode of "This is my story/It's sad but true" strategy for third person narratives with a sardonic, satirical—and funny/ironic—sensibility. That trick never works—as the career of Randy Newman attests. When an A & R rep whined "Why don't you write music you can dance to?" they titled their next project "Music You Can Dance To." And when a chance-meeting led to a joint project with the Scottish group Franz Ferdinand, Ron Mael's first song submission to them was titled "Collaborations Never Work."

Music listeners/fans prefer the illusion that songs are "The Truth," and that they relate to them, as they relate to the performer. Sparks was rarely about that. They were more about experimentation and putting on a show. They attracted attention in Europe and England, not so much in America, despite appearing on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" a few times—probably because they were articulate...and funny! They appeared as the band in the 1977 disaster film Rollercoaster, which played in theaters in "Sensurround". I wonder if the Sparks segment used it?

Wright's film has 50 years of clips to use for the film and uses them liberally, as well as a lot of talking head segments with the Brothers and fans/producers/rockers/collaborators and they're all filmed in black and white. There's abundant use of animation in various guises and Wright book-ends the film with "YouTube"-friendly segments "Frequently Asked Questions about Sparks" and—during the credits—a whimsical "Don't Trust This" "Ten Things You Don't Know About Sparks."

I loved it. I remember seeing Sparks albums coming through the radio stations I worked at and the cover art was always weird and gave you no sense of what the album was like inside. I never played them, never listened to them, and I find myself wishing I had. I was missing something and it would have thrown a different light on the music that was to become omnipresent in the years to come. The film evokes an odd sense of nostalgia for something you never experienced—although the trends in music all spring to mind when the next Sparks song is brought up with the resulting thought of "Oooh, THAT's where THAT came from...."

It is smart, ironic, and celebratory. So much so that one is disappointed to see it end. One hopes that, like the group it lionizes, it can go on forever, running just ahead of fame and idolatry, but never losing the energy (in whatever forms it takes) that keeps it running through the decades, as per the Mael Brothers, now in their 70's.

They've just collaborated with Leo Carax (which is perfect) on his first feature film (starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard) since Holy Motors that's coming out this Summer.** What will THAT look/sound like? Can't wait to find out.

* Oh gosh, there are so many comparisons—Queen (they opened for Sparks in one marquee photo), Human League, Pet Shop Boys, Devo, B-52's, Depeche Mode and on and on. Paul McCartney dressed up as Ronald in his "Paul portrays everybody" video of "Coming Up" in 1980.

**  Their interest in film-making and their bizarre outlook led to almost collaborations with Jacques Tati and Tim Burton (on a musical version of "Mai, the Psychic Girl") but neither one came to fruition.

 

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Written at the time of the film's release...

"The Adventures of Tintin in the Uncanny Valley"
or
"Spielberg Straight Up, No Chaser"

Everyone knows how dynamic and visceral a film-maker Steven Spielberg is. At times, he can even approach overkill, bouncing along on his little adventures, then, happily, sailing right over a cliff. Take 1941, for example, or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, both films of such excess that they immediately inspired ridicule. That exuberance tries the patience of many film-goers who want the director who features the Moon in his corporate logos to come back down to Earth. The term "nuking the fridge" was derisively created for the fourth Indy film (as if credulity hadn't already been crossed in the  series before...)

But, imagine (if you will...or even can) Spielberg without any constraints. I'm talking the regular constraints of film-making, the type that keep things down to the possible and even legal. Things like time, budget, light, focal-lengths, physics, natural laws (like gravity), and even the constraints for safety imposed by studio legalities and The Humane Society. Take those away—take them all away—and imagine what sort of film Steven Spielberg would make.

Scary thought, isn't it?

Now, with Peter Jackson producing, Spielberg has made his first "Avatar"-style movie, with mostly motion-capture technology, but virtually all CGI—there's no angle he can't shoot from, no perspective he can't take, no transition he can't achieve...whatever Spielberg can think, he can put on the screen, with no compromises and The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (based on three of the many Hergé books), shows what an unfettered Spielberg is capable of...and it is amazing.

And a bit headache-inducing, which I imagine would happen even without 3-D (the format I saw it in). It even approached the stage where my brain started to shut down (a phenomenon I've noticed in myself with very few movies, except for those directed by Terry Gilliam), a kind of movie-narcolepsy where I have to fight sleep, so intense and detail-filled is the movie-going experience.* Fortunately, Spielberg is so intent on making his 3-D cartoon a movie-movie, that it's quite easy to put oneself in the mode that this is happening through photographic means—only shinier, and with less dust.

So, the story of the Belgy reporter (voiced by Jamie Bell) following clues and bad guys to all points of the world, trying to find the answer to the riddles of a model ship he bought at a street vendor's (and why unscrupulous people like chief villain Rackham—voiced interestingly by Daniel Craig**—might want to acquire it, by any means necessary).

And it's all done in a semi-realistic style (although tribute to Hergé's cartoony style is paid early in the film). Things are made to look real, even if the human forms are semi-cartoony. That's worked better for Pixar, whose human characters have always looked better the further they diverged from realism. Here it's a bit of a problem, especially early on in the proceedings—there's a deadness to the eyes,*** what has been identified as "The Uncanny Valley"—the point at which, when trying to create a human simulation, the human brain (that is, a "real" human brain) rejects it, and even may be horrified by it. Examples that the film industry have taken notice of have been audiences negative reaction to the CGI baby in Pixar's first full short "Tin Toy," and the reaction of test audiences to a first-draft version of the human-looking Princess Fiona in the first Shrek. The learning curve is high in Tintin, and very quickly the issue is side-stepped with squints and off-camera looks, but it's there, initially (and, to be fair, Hergé never gave Tintin or his other characters eyes, but round pools of india ink. Imagine the horror if they did a motion-capture movie of "L'il Orphan Annie?"). But soon, events overtake our heroes, and we no longer have time to look them in the eye—it's tough enough just trying to follow them.

And that is a case of pure, undistilled Spielbergia. Enjoy.

* It's hard for me to explain what is going on (or even admit to it) when this happens. Partially, it might be because I'm not thinking much or analyzing what is happening, but just letting the images wash over me without much interpretation.  When a movie makes me think—for good or ill—I can't fall asleep.  But when there's nothing to really interpret—and there isn't much in Tintin—my mind tends to drift and be lulled.  With Gilliam and Spielberg, it might be because their movies are so full-formed and specific, there's not much for me to do.  It's like TV (which always puts me to sleep), which Marshall McLuhan labeled a "cold" medium, not asking much of its participants (if there's any participation at all), as opposed to a "hot" medium, like radio or books, where the participant's mind is active and fully functioning, filling in gaps, providing pictures and imagineering the story being fed to the brain.

** One of the really keen ideas that Spielberg brings to the table is his independence in creating the characters.  None of the voice-actors resemble their real-life counterparts—stands to reason, animators and Pixar have been doing that for years—but the recent motion-capturers, like Bob Zemeckis and James Cameron have tied their actors' likenesses to their characters, in an attempt to capture the humaness to the pixel-people.  Producer Peter Jackson, though, had no qualms about abandoning any semblance to Andy Serkis when bringing full-life to Gollum in the "Ring" trilogy.

*** One is tempted to recall Quint's soliloquy in Jaws, comparing a shark's eyes to "lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'."

Star Trek (2009)

Written at the film's engagement. Some thoughts follow after.

"I Dare You To Do Better"

I got a call from the Captain about 5 o'clock (that'd be 2000 hours for him) on Friday, and when I saw who it was, I called him back and said "I know what this is about."

The Captain is a life-long Trekker. He knows the arcana of "Star Trek" in its canon, that being the television series—both broadcast and syndicated—and film. Plus, he's a little "inside," having drinks with the late Majel Barrett Roddenberry, introducing Patrick Stewart to "Buzz" Aldrin, and calling up Jonathan Frakes the day show creator Gene Roddenberry died to talk about "what it all meant."

The Captain knows from "Trek." So I was particularly interested in his take on "The New Version" of J.J. Abrams, or "Star Trek Begins" (a version of which producer Harve Bennett had proposed away back in the time-space continuum before Star Trek V—you know, the Shatner-directed one best forgotten). I'd watched the trailers warily, noting the emphasis on disrobing cadets and slam-bang action (not mutually exclusive), but noting a certain underlying devotion, not entirely slavish, to the original. They weren't trying to re-invent the warp-drive, which was a good thing.

"So..." I said, "what'd ya think?"

"This is the way they should have always done it.." he began.

Yeah. It is.

Star Trek is a rollicking world-and-expectations-shattering version of the Gene Roddenberry original, and most niftily, done in a way that fits within its science-fiction-y concepts. The whole movie is its plot-point and one watches in wonder how the deconstruction happens before one's eyes, while simultaneously nodding acquaintance with the tropes, concepts, and characterizations of the original. One gets the feeling of happy ebullience watching a favorite building imploded with the added delight of seeing it rise simultaneously from its own ashes to be sleeker, shinier and un-compromising.

Part of it is due to budget. Abrams was given a fat check to re-launch Paramount's key franchise (which it had nickeled and dimed into the ground the first time around), so the limitations the creators always had to contend with aren't so apparent. The Enterprise corridors no longer look like motel hallways, Engineering isn't a big space with a back-lit perspective painting behind it, and the aliens restricted to stereo-eyed bipeds with varying head-ridges. No, there's a lot of imagineering going on here in the Enterprise's brave new world of industrial-strength space-faring (at one point the new Captain Kirk sprints—of which he does...a lot—through what I swear was a brewery standing in for some section of the Enterprise's inner workings). 

The creatures have evolved differently* with nonhuman proportions, sometimes tossing out the human baggage entirely. It's a messy universe, but a full one with good ideas and concepts tossed amid the dialogue. It's a "Star Trek" Universe so full of potential, that there's no chance of coming across a creatively bankrupt parallel Earth, although the film manages to do exactly that in its own clever way.

That's the big picture. The question is the actors; the franchise will live or die on how "the New Kids" can portray the old characters. Fortunately, it's where this Star Trek shines. Everyone will have their favorites—mine are Karl Urban's note-perfect blustering McCoy and Simon Pegg's hyper-driven Scotty—but Chris Pine is a genuine find for Captain James Tiberius Kirk, employing none of the Shatnerisms (well, there's one deliberate vocal steal that made me laugh), but supplying the one thing that Shatner always brought to the table—energy. John Cho's Sulu is terrific and it's a hoot to see Russian actor Anton Yelchin employing the wretched "wessels" accent of the original Chekov. 

Zoe Saldana is given much more to do as Lt. Uhura, and given that he had Leonard Nimoy on-set for inspiration, Zachary Quinto might have taken the easy way out with a direct imitation, but his Mr. Spock is far less serene, more volatile and haughty, betraying that human half far more subtly than Nimoy did—and I believe saying that might be a court-martial offense in my house.

Where the other "Trek" movies have fallen down have been the secondary characters, but here they're just as important—Ben Cross and Winona Ryder play the star-crossed parents of Spock, while Bruce Greenwood is a superb Captain Christopher Pike. And Eric Bana, who can be on or off depending on the movie, is terrific as the long-suffering, revenge-driven Romulan Nero.

There will be a lot of sniping from the "Trekkies" who want things their way, or no way—that's to be expected with any "Trek" movie. But in the words of the former Captain Kirk: "Get a life."

Star Trek certainly got a new one.

After-thought: My, my. I did a lot of dancing around on this one because it was imperative not to give too much away (although I was doing some "punning" references to it just to amuse myself). What was wonderful about Abrams' re-boot—far better than his "Star Wars" sequels (although they're entertaining)—was his and the writers pushing "Re-set" on the entire franchise and wiping out the whole old Star Trek Universe in an ingenious time-travel story where another alien goes back in time to kill his version of Hitler, who happens to be Leonard Nimoy's Mr. Spock.

That's just clever and daring and enough to put the fear of interfering with time into anybody. But, it also wiped the creative slate clean. The Vulcans, on whom the Star Trek Universe became so dependent, became a Universal diaspora. Time-lines could be cleaned up—like the "Eugenics War"—and a better Star Trek could be rebuilt without having to necessarily wipe out "Next Generation" and its successors. And if anybody gripes about it, it's just a parallel timeline; the other one still exists, Ramada-In hallways and all.

It was thrilling—in fact, I did a couple of "Sunday Scenes" around this movie—about aspects that just made me smile.

But, it didn't last. The next Abrams Trek (Into Darkness) did the "Khan" story-line a little too soon and a little too derivatively. As I said in that review, with a new Universe to play with, it was too soon to go back to the well. And the third "Kelvin Universe" story, Star Trek Beyond, attempted to do something a bit different, along the lines of the Original Series, but its dependence on a "movie-villain" and its subsequent disappointment (even Idris Elba couldn't do anything with it) was a let-down, and the film under-performed, perhaps because it was less an "event" film than an "episodic" one.

That was four years ago and everybody's getting older. A new Trek movie was stalled when Chris Pine—and Chris Hemsworth (who played "Daddy" Kirk in the first one, indicating it was another time-travel story and a dull one at that)—had contract demands (money or credit) and it stalled. There's talk of two Treks in the works: one a new production and Quentin Tarantino production of a "Star Trek" movie, which—because QT can't keep himself from talking—was revealed to be merely be his version of a Trek story about the Eugenics War. More time-travel? Tarantino seems to be no longer interested (and I never was).

Whatever the future of "Star Trek" in the movies, one hopes that it will "go boldly"...which means that a bolder studio should take control of it as Paramount seems to be fresh out of ideas.

* There is a wickedly funny bar scene where Kirk tries to pick up the comely Lt. Uhura, while between them sits an alien seemingly modeled on the "Spitting Image" version of Leonard Nimoy, when it suddenly dawned on me what it was doing there: "Why the long face?"