siderite

Both Clooney and Pitt are amazingly funny and charismatic actors. Plus, they are old friends. This film rides on their chemistry, but alas, not much more. I mean, Austin Abrams was good, too, it's not about the acting, but about the story. It has some really funny moments, but overall it's like someone is trying to rip off the original Ocean's Eleven vibes and not make their own movie. I felt like the film could have been an instant classic if only someone would have refined the story a little. As it stands, though, it's mediocre.

Two "fixers" are forced to work together. After half an hour of making fun of how similar they are, the movie switches to how old they are, with some bits that Austin Abrams does. He has great physicality, I would say, and is very expressive. I await great things from him in the future. Getting back to the movie, its heavyweights just... go through the motions. It's clear they had fun, but they had such a bland material to work with that they couldn't make it shine. Best bit by far was the pager and glasses gag. When it takes over an hour and a half to get a laugh, that's not such a brilliant comedy.

Anyway, the bottom line is that it was a funny film, but most of the stuff was predictable and the story dragged on too long without bringing something fresh. I mean, I had so much more fun with Pitt in that short cameo in Lost City than his entire performance in this.

This film is a metaphor throughout, or perhaps an allegory, one of those.

With just six characters that act in any significant way, it feels almost like a play. You've got the beautiful shots, the good acting and the prevailing mystery and gloom that build the idea slowly, very slowly, to a crescendo that leads to... nothing. All you get is the realization that you will not get closure, that everything you've seen is all you're going to see, there is no Last One, it's something that is still happening, everywhere, including with you, and just sitting passively on the couch will not provide the answer. I suspect this will piss off a lot of people.

But once you think about the film a little, you realize that all of the elements in it were really well thought out, executed almost flawlessly by the direction and acting and sound design and saying exactly what needed to be said. Oh, you didn't like that character or the other? That only says something about you. In fact, it would have been nice if people would recognize that any reaction or feeling they have only says something about themselves, not objective reality, but I digress... You think something was not realistic? Well, that probably is true, but the perspective of the film is that of the characters. You may know something they don't, but the film is seen through their eyes. It's all just an allegory of human society, the American one in particular, distilled into just 6 people.

Don't worry, I fell into the same trap, shouting at the screen that it was microwaves and not ultrasound and the you can't do an ultrasound bomb, they need to be directed and that Tesla's obstacle detection is not something someone can change or disable through the network and so many other things. But you just have to suspend your disbelief. Nothing in this film is technical, other than the way the movie was crafted. It's not a problem to be solved, just an experience to live through and then make the comparison to your own life and what happens around you. The fact that the six exponents of humanity really are annoying - to the point that I would have beaten a particular little kid within an inch of her life - also says something, especially if they were well chosen.

Bottom line: this is a very beautiful film, well crafted, with a rather bleak and snarky message that most people will find reasons to ignore and hate. I get it. But it's a good film.

So I watched everything that had the word Trek in it and until recently I could find something worthwhile in any of it, even the fan made YouTube series starring random fat people with glasses or the Kelvin timeline stuff or Kirk riding motorcycles. This film, though, is iredeemable. Believe me when I tell you that I don't say this lightly. This is a crime against cinema in general and Star Trek in particular. I still can't fully believe it wasn't just a bad dream.

I am not talking now of the lack of Trekness in the movie, but absolutely everything: the acting, the editing, the special effects, the story, the direction, the action scenes, the damn explosions, everything was absolutely bad. I've seen 14 year kids trying to make their own movies in Blender and Unreal Tournament engine doing a better job. It all felt small, ridiculously small. There was no scope to anything. If you thought STD was bad, it's a masterpiece compared to this.

I can't understand how someone thought releasing it was a good idea. Was it some internal stuff to force the studio to get rid of Alex Kurtzman? Is it some stock manipulation thing? I mean, maybe, just maybe, Stargate: Origins is worse than this, but I can't tell.

And then let's get back to the story: this was not Star Trek in even the tiniest of scenes. It was a space heist movie in a universe that looked and felt like a cheap knock-off of the cheap knock-off that is the Star Wars universe, complete with fancy bars with alien singers and people trying to out-cool each other with words. It felt like Ocean's Eleven in space, with no budget. I really hope they paid Michelle Yeoh the millions of dollars rumors have it she got, because being in this film negatively offsets her Oscar win!

Remember when Star Trek was about a whole universe to be explored with hope and dignity? When the search was for new life and new civilizations? No, now it's all about finding McGuffins in small stories happening in small sets with petty people. I had heard that this was bad, but it was Star Trek, how could it possibly be bad? It should be better than nothing at least, right? No. This is worse than nothing. This should be a 10 star in the negative. It stains consciences and the legacy of Star Trek. Heck, it's an offense to any movie made from any artistic desire whatsoever.

Bottom line: we're there. This is the bottom.