The Five Feature Length: Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Alright you guys let's put this Into The Wrath of Khan's Darkness rubbish to bed once and for all...*

Did you know they've released a new Star Trek film?  No?  I mean, I didn't until I heard a rumour about a trailer, mere months, only moments before the release ("Hey this trailer looks great, when is this out... July?!").  Here's the thing: It's quite good.  After 2013's author-enraging mess that was Star Trek Into Darkness (the tactic of losing the colon after the franchise name is novel but worthwhile), a nostalgia grab that borders on shameless parody and certainly not my Khan, this theatre-length episode of Season Four of the original characters, initially portrayed by Shatner, Nimoy et al., is quietly brilliant and definitely one of the better films of the franchise as a whole.  You could even think of this as the Star Trek we need right now.  Spoilers throughout, yo.

Okay, maybe I'm a little too invested in all of this.  Right?  This film is a much more able successor to 1982's seminal Wrath of Khan both tonally and in its plot.  Let's get to our modern action blockbuster checklist though... Hey!  The deadly weapon at the end which hangs above everyone's heads in the final moments... DOESN'T GLOW!  Anyway, this film is a sunny day compared to its eternally damned prequel, and suspiciously free of universe breaking plot-holes.  The premise is simple - after the destruction of the Enterprise, the crew must work together to defeat the seemingly unstoppable alien menace of Krall, who hates all that the United Federation of Planets stands for, and wants only to see its destruction.  Right?  Pretty easy, sorta villain-of-the-week format, right?  Right?!?!

I've read in countless 'tipz 4 writers' that if you get stuck in your novel, take drastic action and kill someone.  Kill the main character!  And so does this film.  In the opening moments, Kirk's monologue includes the term "episodic", riffing on the fact there's a new franchise supporting tentpole block buster film out every two months at a minimum, or that there are so many episodes of Star Trek (this year is the 50th anniversary after all) or just blah blah isn't everything safe and normal for us now.  The following crash-landing of escape pods and one proton torpedo (The Search for Scotty?) on the alien planet also gives us an epic saucer section crash money shot.  The crew get split up and this basically turns into a buddy episode, with the nameless and faceless army of extras posing as the starship crew captured pretty much straight away, and the main characters pair off in "unexpected" ways - Spock and McCoy are the breakout couple in the film... Unless you've seen any other, older Star Trek films that is, anyway.

Actually, a word about Spock: A week before seeing this film, I had started and finished William Shatner's latest book, Leonard.  This is neither the time or place to debate the what really stopped them from talking and whether Shatner's account really is the truth, but it brings the incredible life and talent of Leonard Nimoy into sharp focus.  He died from complications due to COPD, after a career as an actor, writer and photographer that spanned 60 years in 2015, while this film was starting pre-production.  After cameo appearances as "Spock Prime" in the last two films, it wouldn't be too much of a leap to suggest that he would do so again, but, alas.  Early on in the film, Quinto's Spock is taken quietly aside by Vulcan Ambassadors and told the news, which initially causes him to decide to leave Starfleet at the conclusion of this mission - but don't worry folks, he doesn't!  At the end of the film though, he is handed some of old Spock's most important belongings - including a photo of the original cast in their red uniforms with the fold down panel, probably from Star Trek IV or V.

As the film goes on we learn scraps about our mystery villain, Krall.  There's no fakeout here (thinking about it the John Harrison/Khan flip is as obvious and bad as Arkham Knight/Jason Todd), as Krall is an original character with an interesting past, which lines him up better with a Khan figure (especially the character of Ricardo Montalban's Khan) - the former military commander Balthazar Edison, from before the Federation federated, who was given a starship to captain after the end of galactic conflict, is lost through a wormhole, crashes on the planet and then uses the life-preserving technology of the previous inhabitants to become the monstrous enemy.  This references (and goes on to further homage) the ill-fated Enterprise, the only (so far and hopefully ever) part of the franchise to have a song as the opening title music.  In making him a new character rather than "borrowing" him from the Prime timeline, the film succeeds in the same way that the original series did - taking contemporary issues and throwing them far into the future.  Rather than the generic Nero of the first film of the rebooted series, Krall is on a mission to destroy the Federation, not just Kirk or Spock or some other revenge plot, no, he's out for the whole thing, ideology and all.  A war veteran who feels deserted by the very establishment he fought to establish, he feels that the diversity and peace has weakened the resolve of the once-great civilization he fought for, and it must be stopped.  As the final act tears on, his appearance gradually changes back to a more human visage, revealing him to be DUN DUN DUNN none other than fan-favourite Idris Elba, who ends up losing the climactic Zero-G tussle with Chris Pine for the deadly disintegrating weapon.  

There are some really smart homages as well, and I couldn't let this feature length write up of a feature length episode go without mentioning at least some...

• Much like the Wrath of Khan, the opening act includes Kirk's birthday; instead of just getting old though, this timeline's Kirk is now older than his father was at his death (at the start of the first rebooted film).
• The climactic battle involves a space station at the edge of a nebula, in which hilariously The Beastie Boys are referred to as "classical music" (best gag that people didn't get).
• The station is named after the first draft name for the Enterprise, instead named Yorktown.
• The poster that I've used for the post image is a direct homage to a poster used for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (see here).
• The USS Franklin, dug out of the cliff is an NX class, same as NX-01 from Enterprise, which holds the uniforms with the coloured shoulders and flipped Red/Blue rank indicators.
• The MACO military organization that Edison was part of is also from Enterprise
• Kirk refuses a promotion to Admiral, to which the commanding officer or the Yorktown agrees, saying that it is his "First, best destiny" to captain the Enterprise (more Wrath of Khan)
• After the destruction of the Enterprise and the "borrowing" of the Franklin, the film ends with the crew departing on the newly minted NCC-1701-A, mirroring the construction of the new Enterprise at the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

I give this film lots of thumbs up, or whatever.  In the great and unquestionable order of all things, I place this as my third favourite Trek film, behind Star Trek IV in second and The Wrath of Khan as the undisputed champion.

*No, I will never leave it alone.  Bite me.
(Update: The photo Spock is given is a cast photo from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier)

The Five Feature Length Showings - Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters (2016)

Another release, another reboot.  Or is it?  The weird chronology of the film seems to suggest both; to quote the director, Paul Feig: ' “30 years ago, four scientists saved New York,” it declares. “This summer, a new team will answer the call.”'... So that clears that one up.  The controversy that surrounded the development and release of this film is proof that we can't have nice things - if it wasn't enough people swearing this would ruin everything forever (a phrase more commonly associated with the Transformers franchise), there's been a slew of online attacks against one of the stars of the piece, Leslie Jones.  How does this happen?  What is people's problem?  Jeez... Anyway, who's seen the original Ghostbusters?  The 1984 classic that introduced the phrase "this man has no dick" to the world?  Here's the spoiler "du jour" - they might as well be the same film.  32 years is a long time in pop culture, true, but there are also video media that last for that time too, just ask anyone buying Disney VHS tapes on eBay, or trying to find a LaserDisc player to watch those huge discs on.  I'm not trying to criticise the film directly for it (maybe a little), but they could have done something original with the premise.  Three white people with science and engineering based skills team up with a black person who has "street smarts" (or whatever you're calling it these days) set up a ghost hunting agency with a secretary of the opposite gender to them, have some success, the Mayor's office try to shut them down, and the finale is a battle against a gigantic antagonist who wreaks a swathe of destruction through New York City.  Oh yeah, sure, you say, but this time they have the regulation massive glowing portal!  Ho ho!  It's in the ground here rather than in the sky, and something in the back of my mind says there's a reference to the rescue at the end of Pacific Rim in there.

The stand-out performance that rescues this from pleasant mediocrity is Kate McKinnon as Jillian Holtzmann.  McKinnon is a treasure and her hilarious and rightfully unapologetic performance is a shining beacon in every scene she's in.  Chris Hemsworth is another surprise standout playing the dumb blonde receptionist trope to breaking point, at one point trying to answer the phone in an empty fish tank, another showing of topless modelling pictures of himself with non-sequitur props.  It looks like Hemsworth is having the time of his life chewing through scenery left right and centre, including the inevitable possession by the big bad near the end.  Some of the original cast make cameo appearances, including Dan Aykroyd who might as well be an old Ray Stantz, retired to cab driving.  I feel cruel in boiling it down, but this film sometimes feels like the answer to the question "What would happen if we crossed Bridesmaids with Ghostbusters?"  The stars align: Female SNL alumni in a team film vs the regulation portal that dominates the finale of action/comic book movies.  There are some truly hilarious, laugh out loud moments, granted, but in a world with no Dana, how could there be Zuul?

The Five Feature Length Showings of Darkness (part 1) - Central Intelligence

Once upon a time (a time, a time, a time, once upon a time when the world was round) when I actually wrote regularly and wasn't afraid of either the blank page or actually saying anything that might be considered ever so slightly controversial (look how far I've gone backwards... But more on that another time), I gave an honest stab at trying to write film reviews.  As I slowly remember how to type 1000 words plus without suddenly having an existential crisis and leaving it forever to rot in my ever growing store of unpublished drafts, here's an account of the last five films I've been to see this summer...

Central Intelligence (2016)

Beneath the surface of this lighthearted vehicle for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, so-called the most bankable star in Hollywood, now a whole human being rather than half a special effect, lies the shadow of what might be.  The plot follows Hart's character, formerly beloved top of the class High School valedictorian turned small time accountant going through the beginnings of a mid-life crisis.  Suddenly, a facebook message from Johnson, playing a CIA agent who may or may not have gone rogue changes everything as they go on a madcap hour and a half to save the world.  While this is no great cinematic epic, there are some neat touches sprinkled throughout that raise this from a mere by-the-numbers action comedy.  The first we see of Johnson is through the magic of a CG fat suit, at the High School senior assembly where he is thrown naked into the school gym in front of the graduating year.  The image of this fat Rock is reflected back at us in a glass office door when the dynamic duo go and see the bully who was behind the original naked humiliation, played by Jason Bateman, who after pretending to be born again Christian turns out to be the same old bully he ever was.  At the end of the film, however, when Hart manages to persuade The Rock to come to the High School reunion (after saving the world, of course), where in a fit of acceptance of what he was (a fat special effect) to what he is (a huge body builder), he strips off naked.  To the side of the stage stands a mirror, which now just reflects the actual man mountain.  The emotional messages come in pretty heavy handed - bullies are bad, good people can change but bad people stay bad, accepting yourself &c &c... A dark heart beats underneath this "zany" romp though - Johnson's character has been out of contact with Hart's for 20 years; as the film progresses, we find that he has not only kept Hart's Senior Jacket all this time, but rides the exact same motorbike he had, constantly brings up stories of Hart's achievements at school - 20 years of body building and CIA training... to find his worshipped school hero?  20 years spent modelling himself on the memory of an idol.  Really?  Things get brushed under the carpet as part of a little throwaway joke but... The seeds are there (and have found a more fertile ground in my nihilist ways than this film ever could be).  Perhaps The Rock is this generation's Schwarzenegger?  This excellent article makes a case for a career trajectory that Johnson seems to be matching in terms of media presence and sheer identity.  He'll be starring in Disney's Moana soon enough, lending his voice to, well, a big Samoan Demi-God covered in tattoos.  Seems legit.  Oh, yeah; an inflatable gorilla makes for the best Chekov's gun I've ever seen.

The Human Torch was denied a bank loan

Ok, hands up everyone - who exactly went to see the new Fantastic Four movie?  There has to be more than just me?  I went on the 8th of August, and at the Truro Plaza's screen 1 there must have been oh no more than could be counted on the fingers of two hands.

Is this the first sign of the Superhero film business bubble bursting?  That at last, after Hugh Jackman's rise to fame and fortune as the immortal Wolverine, a character so unkillable that in order to finish him off in print they had to encase him in the same unbreakable metal bonded to his very bones (blah blah) (but for how long?) the dream is over?  To be honest... Probably not.  It might be the end to anything not produced by either Warner Brothers or Disney though, except perhaps for the ever-rolling tide of X-Men sequels and spin-offs.  Let's get things straight, I don't actually think this film is as bad as a lot of other reviews have suggested; I didn't at any point consider walking out and asking for a refund, for example... But I wouldn't blame anybody else if they chose to.

Vox's incredible assault on the film is a worthwhile and illuminating read, alongside Wired's short list that reads like a first draft for one of my favourite YouTube channels, Cinema Sins (and I seriously can't wait for his assessment of this sad waste of opportunity).  A common thread through even the most damning of pieces is that it shouldn't have been this bad.  Opening reports were terrible enough, with people somehow flipping their lids over the fact that Johnny Storm is NOW A BLACK MAN I mean come on guys how many of you cared that the only evidence I could see in the film for Ben Grimm's Jewishness is a single menorah on a bookcase in his family home (the self animated Golem?), and the strange reports that their infamous antagonist would start his fictional life out as a hacker... Right.  So this is going to be different off the bat (naturally, everything is ruined forever), but fingers crossed, yeah?  No.

It's unfair to call this film a trainwreck, but only because it doesn't actually build any momentum.  Like an ancient train engine struggling up the side of a mountain, it stuggles inch by inch before at last the traction fails and it slips, leaving us thankful that it hadn't got high enough to cause any damage.  The opening sequences show some muted promise, and the first of several bad Star Wars references rears its ugly and impossible-to-tell-if-intentional head, with the young Luke Skywalker finally getting to Tosche Station for that power converter, uhhhh, I mean Reed Richards at the Grimm family junkyard looking for a... Oh.  A power converter.  By this point, we have already met our first major villain - the class teacher, whose disbelief in the accomplishments of Richards (and subsequently Grimm) border on cartoonish, decrying their device at a School Science Fair as nothing more or less than a cheap magic trick.  Victory by demoralisation!  Hurrah!  We eventually meet the rest of the main players, Franklin and Susan Storm, the latter this time adopted and toting the now-ubiquitous Samsung cell phone.  There's plenty of hefty stereotyping being thrown about: Richards is the nerd, Grimm the silent but strong type, Johnny as the hot headed rebel (foreshadowing!), and Sue as the girl... I want to say something clever about her being quiet enough to go unnoticed here (more foreshadowing lololol), but can't seem to work up the required effort (much like the film itself).  Then we meet Victor von Doom (von dooooooooooom), a bearded loner who has some kind of shady past including sabotaging data servers, a stalker-esque attraction to Sue, who lives in an orgy of evidence that he is in fact a computer genius, and seems to be controlling everything with his eye.  Skip!

Amazingly, this is all still the 'good bit', and we gradually uncover that the government want to use the dimesion hopping research to find new energy sources blah blah blah some kind of soft environmental message is shoehorned in here.  When the suits come down and tell the gang that their taking over after sending the worst CGI chimpanzee test subject I have ever seen (seriously, they could have just filmed a fucking chimp's face for the screen, and then have like a hairy cushion or something for the two seconds we see them carry it back and forth to the pod HONESTLY) as an "organic matter test", the male main characters get drunk and decide to automate a run so they can be first, following an interesting little speech from Doom (doooooooom) about how we all know Neil Armstrong's name, but not the names of the people that actually were responsible in getting him to the Moon.  Spoiler alert, everything starts out okay and then it all goes wrong, as Doom (doooooooooooooooom) dips his hand into glowing green goop on the alien planet/dimension and ultimately gets sucked in (by like, a thing?  Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within has much to answer for), and bizarrely specific accidents happen to the others, and a wave passes through Sue upon the capsule's return (who saw that coming?).  The aftermath of this crash is possibly the best part of the film, with some deftly handled body horror: Terrifying limbs, a pile of rocks mewling for help and a man on fire.

Rather than spend time exploring this in any detail, the film serves us a "1 year later" placeholder, where we fast forward to a few training montages, and the unsurprising sight that Ben Grimm has become the darling of the US Armed Forces. Notably one of these scenes from the trailer is missing, alongside several more no doubt, that one where the air-drop The Thing ("How long until he's in?"), but I digress.  They obviously cut that one because Reed and Sue are smiling, and SMILING IS NOT ALLOWED IN THIS MOVIE.  Another classic example of the film being dark and brooding merely through being shot in low light (Batman I'm looking at you).  I honestly found it difficult to pay attention to the rest of the film, really.  There was a cool moment when Reed used his rubber powers to change his face, but then there's a hilariously terrible bit with stretchy limbs after - I mean, just how practical are these powers in reality?  Being a rock monster is pretty obvious, as is being able to set yourself on fire and fly, and be invisible... But stretching?  Whatever.  Some badly artificed drama about Ben not forgiving Reed for leaving is stuffed in but then completely forgotten by the end "battle" and final scenes.

At some point they bring Doom (doooooooooooooooom) back for the seemingly pre-requisite final battle, and Jesus Christ the effects are dreadful.  Having fused to his spaceman-container suit, he also glows with green energy, and glowing green eyes (which barely ever match up to where his eyes should be, looking vaguely disturbing but mostly crap), he goes on a murder rampage blowing up heads like Tetsuo Shima (Tetsuooooo!  Kanedaaaaa!), eventually causing the death of old Franklin Richards, whose last words might as well be "There is... another... Skywalker" (jeez seriously), and then they troll off for the showdown on 'Planet Zero', against a Doom (dooooooooooooooooooooooom) who looks more like a cheap knock-off Stormtrooper figure than ever (you know those really big ones made out of shitey plastic at Pound shops), throwing out cliched dialogue and random phrases.  Even Ben's "It's clobberin' time!" is robbed of any power due to the zero character development (we hear his bullying older brother use it at the start of the film once.  That's it), as the assembled heroes win the day and save Baton Rouge errrrr the World from further destruction.  Poor Louisiana.  Roll credits.

{~"~}

I think I've enjoyed recalling the plot to kick it about more than actually having watched it.  The film's greatest sin is that it's actually just simply very boring.  Thick with cliche, badly paced and lacklustre effects, almost zero excitement past a few opening flourishes, where characters showed chance of becoming fully formed... But no.  No, no, no.  We may never know what weird horror-character piece the director had in mind initially, as it seems obvious there's been more hands to this than perhaps there should be (reshoots by different directors is a persistent rumour), missing scenes from trailers, and also the fact that it's only 92 minutes lending credence to the idea that an entire act's worth of material is missing from somewhere... Oh I don't know.  

However, the most memorable episode of my entire visit was... this.  I missed the first twenty or so seconds of it, so just sat down thinking this was a car becoming a bigger car... But no.  No.  No no no no no.  If you've ever wondered where Transformers come from, well, this isn't a good start.  The advert left me feeling strange, a state of total unease that doubtless coloured my interpretation of the film... Or something.  But seriously guys... *shudder*

Now Showing: Mad Max: Fury Road

To put it bluntly, Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the loudest, unrelentingly violent, extreme and simply one of the oddest films I have seen for a long time.  I also think it's totally brilliant.

Having only a vague cultural awareness of the Mad Max franchise and watched one trailer for this new iteration, I had very little knowledge in advance - all I really knew was that it was post-apocalyptic, Australian, and featured immense car chases - but I knew enough.  What I wasn't prepared for was the brute force of the film's delivery, which is broken up into a series of vignettes that split the film into little discrete chapters, as if Wes Anderson survived nuclear holocaust.  Our main players, Tom Hardy as "Mad" Max Rockatansky and Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa, are name checked before the the title - there are no further opening credits as we open on our first episode, where after an opening monologue from Max progresses to a car chase (naturally) and capture by a bunch of whitewashed nutters, leading to capture and a violent and juddering escape attempt, including hallucinations and a very literal cliffhanger.

The film carries on like this for its two hour runtime - anything approaching an explanation of what unfolds on screen isn't given by any of the characters until at least an hour in.  You're forced to accept what happens through it happening, rather than having any set up to hold on to and try and reason your way round... And after a while it all makes sense.  Of course there are insane car battles in an irradiated Australian outback following the downfall of society after nuclear war; how can there not be?  Survivors have become gangs who have then become cults centred around definite territory - we only really meet one of these great cabals, the Warboys led by the main villain of the piece, Hugh Keays-Byrne's Immortan Joe, promising his followers entrance to Valhalla in exchange for their lives.  It's easy to grasp, especially when we learn he has sole access to the water in "the Citadel" (the Warboy HQ).  Over the course of the film, we meet the gangs from "Bullet Town" and "Gas Town"and their respective leaders (who may or may not be related to Joe?!), the biker gang and the Vuvalini, although we only learn their name during the credits.  There's an air of hand waving going on here, almost as if George Miller just wants to get on with his film and let the audience catch up.

The rumours are true: it's a very woman-centric film.  While Max is the eponymous protagonist, he's not the only one, and in fact he isn't the one driving the plot, or indeed the War Rig.  That role falls on the shoulders of Theron's Furiosa, all woman and part prosthetic arm, hell-bent on rescuing Joe's 'breeders', the Five Wives, women imprisoned, chosen for their ability to bear healthy children and played by a gaggle of model actresses (actress models?), including that girl off the Victoria's Secret commercials and Elvis Presley's granddaughter.  From their first appearance in the film as nominal damsels in distress, meeting them more formally moments later in a scene where they hose each other down and use bolt cutters to remove chastity belts, they undergo a kind of humanisation largely missing from the stoic Max, becoming a little gang of character archetypes in their own right, whereas Max becomes the 'token' man of the outfit.  This rescue plot is already happening by the time Max becomes an asset in the film, after being strapped to the front of an insane car, being used as a mobile bloodbank for Nux, the Warboy with a heart of gold.  Nux goes on a greater journey than Max, although Mad Nux doesn't quite have the same ring to it.  The ultimate goal of Furiosa's escape attempt is to take the Five Wives to the "Green Place", an easy short cut to something better than the eternal desert that surrounds them.  This plays out in a pretty unexpected way but proves the old adage "the world won't change, all it does is turn.".  Furiosa's quest has a primal element, helping the women to escape biological slavery and find a safe haven, the utopian aspect blatantly obvious... Or perhaps they seek eutopia?

So!  You're not here for the plot presumably, I know I certainly wasn't.  Like I said at the top, this film is just insane.  All of the crazy rigs are real, built from the ground up especially and some of the stuff is just mental.  The War Rig that sits at the centre of the picture is probably the most normal looking out of the bunch (or is it just because we see it so much that we get used to it?), pretty standard Mack Truck... Except for the massive turbochargers and extended passenger cab, obviously.  The big bad Immortan Joe starts out in something that looks like one Cadillac stuck on top of another with bubble canopies and exhaust out of a hot rod's dreams, then moves to a ridiculous monster truck wheeled car.  There's an old Chevy chassis sat on top of tank treads, and countless other random genetic modifications on show.  Incredibly, most of the action on screen is real, with a few standout moments of CGI here and there (sadly some of the flame plumes are the least believable effects).  The scenes are crazy busy, yes, but it isn't messy.  A lot of deaths occur out of shot, cut away deftly after wince-inducing crashes, explosions and sniper shots, all accentuated by the mad kineticism of Miller's direction, coupled with the ever-changing frame rate provided the jerky motion we see from time to time.  Unlike say, anything by Zack Snyder, the use of chroma key filters and slow motion (or indeed fast motion in this film) is never too much.

The actual character of Max himself is... well, he's kind of a silent protagonist, or more likely a silent supporting character.  Hardy's use of non-verbal, be that grunting or through his actions, rather than reliance on spoken exposition remind me of countless video game protagonists, The Legend of Zelda's Link in particular, giving the audience a blank slate for the other characters to reflect on.  Although I haven't seen any of Mel Gibson's performances, this Max is particularly mad, what with his hallucinations and night terrors, juxtaposed with his expertise in combat and field medicine.  Like a Silent Bob who survived the end of the world though, the effect of his short speeches are magnified by their rarity.  Even a line as simple as "Max.  That's my name.", delivered towards the very end of the film carries more weight than had he been yapping all through the film.

Go and see this film.  Go and see how crazy it all gets.  Go and be overwhelmed by the sheer force of it all.  Go see men swing from 50 foot poles.  Go see lethal sniper grannies.  Go and sit, mystified by albino slapheads and mutant wildlife.  This even shows potential for what a great Tank Girl movie could look like, given half a chance - if a film this weird can succeed then there's plenty of room for TG and Booga.  The ending's all a little bit tidy: the outback is saved (for now), and everyone we like has survived (well, almost) - door's open for whatever comes next but there's not exactly any definite threads.  The good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad - no real heavy intellectual lifting here.  Go and see it and enjoy it, commit to being totally confused and weirded out.  And remember: "One man, one bullet."

...Khan? : Retrospective

Due to both ill health and a rapidly approaching deadline, I am somewhat behind on my Week B schedule.  However, I offer this as a stop gap post for now, written originally in one sitting which is another transposed post from my former blog, which has been updated appropriately... First published 10th June, 2013.

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Since first seeing it some... Oh I dunno, thee weeks ago, I've gradually been coming to terms with Star Trek Into Darkness.  Of course, this amazing summer movie has been nothing short of an event, whether you liked it or not.  The thing is, I absolutely fucking loved it.  Went to the cinema, saw it in 3D, waved my arms about, probably shouted out loud a few times, and cried at the appropriate moments.  I did say I was going to see it again and take notes on all the 'Old Trek' universe references, but the time has been and gone and it's now no longer on at The Plaza on the cheap night.  What I did do however, was track down the classic 1967 episode of The Original Series Space Seed.  I don't really need to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan again (it's not a necessity at least), because various parts of that film are BURNED INTO MY MIND AND WILL NEVER GO AWAY.  Because of being steeped in Trek history, I basically have three major problems with the film:

• The emotional crux of the film is essentially empty
• Not only is it empty, but it becomes a race for the McGuffin
• It is one reference after another and cherry picks elements from the above mentioned Khan stories
  

 Also a really funny thing I came across in one of trawls through the internet is that this film is like the John Harrison Ford action movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the film opens with the protagonist being chased by angry natives, and closes with the super-weapon being safely locked away... Who says Hollywood has run out of plots?  Anyway.

Are you sitting comfortably?  Are you ready to hate me, possibly yourself and maybe everything you know already?  Let's go then.  Don't worry though!  Because I hate absolutely everything already, so I am way ahead of you.  DID I MENTION I WILL SPOIL LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THE FILM JESUS CHRIST YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE EVEN READ THE TITLE.

 We open to a brilliantly shot set-piece with Bones and Kirk pegging it through a jungle away from spear-toting natives, cut with Sulu and Uhura in a shuttle, about to dangle Spock (dressed as a disco ball) into a Volcano.  Turns out the Enterprise has been sat in the sea for the best part of two days, on a self-ordained mission to rescue the planet (without disturbing the natives) from the cataclysmic eruption of said volcano, by dropping a cold fusion bomb that freezes the eruption.  The one important moment in this section is where we end up with Spock stranded in the volcano READYING HIMSELF TO DIE after the immortal line 

• "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... Or the one."
  

FORESHADOWING.  No?  Anyway, it wouldn't be much of a film (seeing as this is an impersonation of Wrath of Khan rather than The Search for Spock) if they killed Spock off before the opening titles, so of course, they raise the leviathan from the waves and rescue the green blooded son of a bitch.  We know that this isn't the only Star Trek sequel that does the old bait-and-switch on Spock dying.  For once we get to see the great and mighty ship in the atmosphere, which is something I really liked!  I remember that they put landing gear on the crate in Voyager, but I only saw the one episode where they landed the big ship?  There may be more, I didn't see every single one.


Okay.  We get introduced to 'John Harrison', the man with the magic blood (remember that).  The ultimate expression of Sherlock Holmes - cold, calculating, intellectually superior, misanthrophic, a gifted tactician and a talented combatant.  Just say if you know any old Star Trek, just say, who else do you know fits all those categories?  No... It can't be him?  Anyway.  He orchestrates the explosion of some super-secret research facility in the basement of London, not a stone's throw from Wren's St. Paul's OF COURSE IT'S STILL THERE Seriously guys they still have red buses.  Sherlock also performs a daring assault on Starfleet high command (only seconds after the comedy block-head Kirk works out why they've all been gathered there on that day ahead of everyone else in Starfleet including Spock) before beaming off to the Klingon Homeworld when Captain First Officer Kirk knackers up his snub-nose starfighter (transworld beaming because Starfleet pinched the transwarp equation without crediting Scotty - some sort of satire on Intellectual Property rights I think?), only moments before Kirk swears ADMIRALS' REVENGE.  The Wrath of Kirk!  After a tense meeting with Admiral Marcus, as portrayed by Robocop (check the desk out for yet more classic references), Kirk gets his Captaincy restored, his Spock returned, the Enterprise given back... and orders to kill 'John Harrison'.  Further to this, the Enterprise is armed with 72 super-secret long range proton photon torpedoes (does that number mean anything?).  When this magic missile payload appears in the engineering section, Scotty won't sign for them!  Not at this address mate!  He's not happy because they won't let him look at the secret ingredients.  The upshot of this is that Scotty gets kicked off the Enterprise, complete with his little wee Ugnaut man.  This frees him up to advance the plot later on after being absent for at least an... hour?  In his place, Eastern European stereotype Chekov stands in.  Alongside the torpedoes arrives Carol Wallace, who occupies the 'fit bird eyecandy' character archetype, that all Sci-Fi must have.  When they reach Qo'noS, holding position miles out with the magic missiles pointing at 'Harrison' Ford, while Kirk, Spock and Uhura (with two redshirts) dress up as smugglers and fly the Kessel Run in a prototype for the Millennium Falcon.  Spock and Uhura have a full on domestic in the Flying Hamburger. While all this is happening, Sulu is sat in the captain's chair (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, anybody?  Sure, it's no Excelsior...)


Another high-speed fight scene gets cut, with the mirror universe Klingons... who look just like their Prime Universe (thankfully.  Right?) counterparts, which starts to get pretty hairy...until Sherlock appears and literally just kills the shit out of everybody who isn't in the principal cast.  He surrenders instantly after a grueling battle once he learns the exact number of torpedoes pointed at him.  Why?  Why would such a furious badass simply yield in a heartbeat like that?  What importance does the number 72 have?  And then Kirk punches him alllllllllllllllllllll day without Holmes even flinching.  They drag him back to the Enterprise where it is finally revealed that yes, Sherlock Holmes IS Peter Guillam!  Ho ho!  Of course, he is Khan Noonien Singh, the most dangerous of all the despotic genetically modified human beings from the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s in the Star Trek Universe (multiverse?).  Remember, the timeline only split when the Kelvin was destroyed at the start of the first film of this franchise.  Literally everything else up until that point was exactly the same -  Enterprise is still canon at this point, technically.  Where does that leave First Contact though?  I hope you remember the models on the desk - not just another nod, for once. After the underplayed reveal, he soothingly rumbles about the torpedoes, what's inside them?  What's inside is a game changer, and explains why the SS Botany Bay  isn't in the film, because we discover that as well as a highly explosive payload, they each contain a cryo-stasis pod with Khan's crew safely tucked away.  Before this we see Carol Marcus Wallace in her underwear.  Phwoar: It serves no narrative purpose.  Around this time, Khan gives Kirk a space postcode (spacecode?), which moves James Tiberius to call his friend and now free agent... Montgomery Scott!  Who is drinking whisky in a club.  He drives a shuttle craft over and discover a huge shipyard and manages to infiltrate... Dr. McCoy also takes a sample of Khan's blood.  Keep hold of that.

But it seems that this Khan is not a bad Khan?  It transpires that the Botany Bay was found in space, just like it was in the 'real' universe, but this time by Admiral "Robocop" Marcus.  Khan was awoken and used, used I say, to create weapons of mass destruction for space war (this is most unlike Khan Prime) with the Klingons.  Khan's crew are used as leverage by Marcus, and are included in the payload of each and every torpedo that was supplied to the Enterprise.  All of a sudden, loyalties are compromised.  A new ship appears, the USS Vengeance.  The captain is none other than Admiral Marcus, who is hunting down Khan as well.  Marcus orders that Khan be transferred aboard the Vengeance, as he is a war criminal and must be executed.  I've missed out part of the debate here (most of which happened before the torpedoes' cargo was discovered) but basically Kirk, rather than follow the orders of his Admiral, follows Spock's suggestion of bringing Khan to trial on Earth, a deeply legalistically ethical suggestion.  It's what Kant would have done.  Marcus, of course, doesn't like this one bit.  The Enterprise escapes at warp speed... But is chased down and fired upon!  This is a real surprise to see one ship not only caught up on but attacked while in hyperspace at warp.  It's really amazing on screen, make no mistake.  The Vengeance makes a fearsome noise.  Still, it adds up to make this Khan almost a sympathetic enemy at the least - yes, he may be the Khan of the Eugenics Wars, but so far he hasn't seemed to be trying to take control of the Enterprise and his crew are in danger and he has been kept prisoner and taken advantage of.  All things that can be sympathised with. 

Okay, let's relax on the whole plot synopsis here.  There's one point I haven't yet addressed which I'll get to, but I'm sure if you've seen it already you know what's happening, if you haven't seen it but don't mind finding out there are several, less cynical and more detailed synopses, and if you want to see it but haven't WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU GOT THIS FAR.  Let's get to the cut and thrust of this...review?  I dunno, but the climactic death scene.  As I said earlier, this film oscillates between Space Seed and Wrath of Khan, and by now it's definitely swung into the latter.  However, this is the mirror universe so it's not going to play out quite as you expect.  Or quite as you remember.  The Enterprise is wrecked, barely holding together in Earth's upper atmosphere.  The power's out, because the warp core is misaligned due to the preceding battle, and time is running out before the ship crashes and the crew liquidised by the force.  Thing is, Bones is in the Medical Bay, and Spock is strapped into the Captain's chair as per the space jump that Khan and Kirk did in order to infiltrate the USS Vengeance.  Scotty and Kirk are in Engineering.  So the usual "you can't go in it'll kill you!" happens, and Kirk... Punches Scotty out.  That's it.  Sits him in a chair, and puts his seatbelt on... and goes in the reactor chamber.  What.  Seriously.  Kirk goes off to his death.  Let's cut here.



Now, there are three critical things that raise Wrath of Khan above other Star Trek films primarily, and these are as follows:

• Ricardo Montalban straight up OWNING every line (the performance of a God)
• The Enterprise and the Reliant playing Battleships in 3 dimensions
• The death of Spock

Aside from this, the scenario where the crew are beginning to age (Kirk gets reading glasses for his birthday!) and the stirring faux-naval score really help the sort of campy atmosphere.  You will notice that Into Darkness has none of these things.  The 18 year gap between Space Seed and Wrath of Khan is almost exactly mirrored in real time, the episode coming from 1967 and the film from 1982. 

As noted earlier, this Khan does not think in three dimensions.  The superbly played and brilliantly tense final shootout between the Reliant and the Enterprise is at a stalemate...until Kirk remembers that unlike the sea, space operates in three dimensions (with which Khan is not experienced), and uses this to his advantage.  As a final act of bitterness, Khan, shattered and dying, makes one last-ditch attempt to vanquish his enemy by setting off the Genesis device before expiring.  The Enterprise limps away, but can't break into the run that Warp speed is because the warp core is misaligned.  Engineering is cut off due to the inhuman amounts of radiation pouring out of the warp core, and there's no way to get in... Or is there?  Not all of the crew are human, remember.  It is at this point that I start weeping with no sense of regret.  The only crew member who could biologically withstand the radiation is... Mr. Spock. 

Spock's self-sacrifice is the emotional climax of the movie.  It is Spock's Kobayashi Maru test - by his own admission.  He slips off quietly while everyone else is panicking, and gets it done.  Bones tries to stop him, but Spock nerve pinches him and then mind melds.  "Remember".  Of course, he manages to fix the vital component of the reactor in time for the Enterprise to escape, but fatally irradiates himself in the process.  His final breath is so touching not because it's Spock and Kirk, or the fact that they're in space or anything... It's seeing a man watch his best friend of almost twenty years die in front of him, totally unreachable.  The one person he needs, he can rely on is... just slipping away behind the glass.  Just give me a minute you guys.  I'll be okay.

This is where Wrath of Khan pulls ahead, because it's also about the way that their lives have changed through time.  This theme continues through all the original cast films, as the surviving cast of Star Trek TOS have a combined age that is greater than the Rolling Stones.  These guys in the mirror universe haven't even gone on their 5 year mission, they've known each other for all of 5 minutes, so the death of Kirk is deeply unfortunate and still pretty sad - rather than deliberately choose himself, he is the one man who makes the choice.  The emotional hook in this is remembering Spock's death, and, rather than the Captain being trapped inside the planet, it is in fact the mirror Spock who utters the famous scream before chasing Khan down on foot, so that famous Vulcan physiology gets referenced after all... After a fraught punch-up on aerial platform vehicles, Uhura gets beamed down and stuns the living shit out of Khan with a phaser.  They need him alive for (drum roll yes that's right it's McGuffin time) his magic blood!  If it can resurrect a tribble, it can resurrect a Kirk!  I have another problem with this, that I realised even in the cinema was there are 72 frozen supermen on board in Medical who have the same genetically superior blood.  They even turf one of the Botany Bay crew out of their cryo-pod in order to preserve the gradually decaying body of Kirk, so they can pump him full of Khan's blood... Whaaaaaat?  Why can't they use that one?  IT ALWAYS HAS TO BE KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.

And look at that.  Ten minutes later, (two weeks in the movie time) and we cut to Kirk in bed.  Laid up with a case of the Khans, he has miraculously recovered from being dead (just like that tribble earlier), and Khan himself is safely locked in his chiller cabinet with the rest of the surviving Botany Bay, who knows how long for this time.  The one thing I said I was going to come back to was when Kirk and Khan do their space jump (in which Khan saves Kirk's life no less!), he calls Spock Prime on Space Skype in order to ask him about Khan.  Khan is a bad man, and was only defeated "at great cost" (although this cost is not elaborated on).  Spock to Spock, we finally hear what we knew about Mr. Noonien Singh all along, "He is brilliant, ruthless, and he will not hesitate to kill every single one of you".  This brutality was seen on Qo'noS, and also in the corridors of the Vengeance, where Khan, Kirk and Scotty work their way up to the bridge where Khan has his showdown with Admiral Marcus.  During the course of this Mexican stand-off, it is finally revealed that Carol Wallace is in fact Carol Marcus, the Admiral's daughter and another classic Trek reference.  That's not terribly exciting, sorry. 

Even though I found the experience of watching Into Darkness deeply enjoyable and very exciting, I ultimately feel a little disappointed.  A plot jammed with elements from two old stories (one of which is a feature length resolution of the first), laced with top of the line special effects and visual set pieces, then mixed in with more references to classic Star Trek than you can shake a stick at to keep it all together.  Lens flare does not replace character development.  Disappointed is the wrong term, too strong perhaps.  Underwhelmed?  Now I've had the time to think about it (and write it all out) especially.  I'll definitely watch it again, buy the DVD you know it, but still...  Having split the timeline in 2233, and planet Vulcan being destroyed in 2258, the alternate universe is different enough already, without comparing how much more emotional this particular Spock is: we see him and Uhura conduct a relationship in public, something that Nimoy's Spock would never do.  Chronologically speaking, there was no need to make Khan the villain of the piece, seeing as the film is set 8 years before the Prime crew discover The Botany Bay (or perhaps this is another repercussion of being on an altered timeline?) anyway.  I feel that it was a hell of a cheap shot using the exact same plot device in the shape of the damaged warp core, even down to the critical use of the word "friend".  By making Khan's blood the only thing that can save Kirk, they make the baddie into the deus ex machina, and also make sure the other augmented humans are left inhuman by leaving them as the cryo-pods, basically.  However, the memorial presided over by Captain Kirk at the end of the film rededicates Starfleet's purpose: rather than prepare for war either in secret or openly, and the famous five year mission is finally launched.

A reboot like this would always be tough.  Imagine if they rebooted Star Wars like this, where perhaps... I dunno, Qui-Gon Jinn survives the lightsaber duel but Anakin Skywalker still becomes Darth Vader in a series of very strange but similar events?  Maybe it was some sort of attempt on the writers' and director's parts to make a statement that these characters are destined to interact in this way, regardless of where we find them.  Or maybe they wanted to put their spin on an established part of Trek history.  Or... I don't know.  Even though Wrath of Khan's no world beater itself, I think Into Darkness can't even dream of touching it.  Sorry, but Montalban beats Cumberbatch any day.

Oh, Khan.  To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell's heart, I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.

Hercules

Thanks to the miracles that are Cardinal Sin and cheap ticket night at The Plaza, Truro, I've managed to see four major films this summer, which easily equals the last three years put together.  Transformers: Age of Extinction, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy, and now most recently Hercules, starring none other than Dwayne Johnson, the world's henchest man.  Some spoilers ahead.

As we drew into the final set piece, popcorn long finished and the ice liquidising in my medium Pepsi, it struck me that Hercules is probably the best Dungeons and Dragons or Fire Emblem film we're gonna get.  Now, before you mobilise with pitchforks and torches, just hear me out, okay?  I mean, think about how well received the actual D&D film was... I remember watching about half an hour of that particular debacle and deciding that perhaps we should leave it for dead, but no, the venerable institution of tabletop has thankfully survived... But the direct-to-DVD sequels have definitely disappeared without a trace.  I'll go out on a limb here and assume that most people are familiar with the typical D&D set-up: character stat sheets, citadel miniatures, the Dungeon Master and of course, the Dice bag.  FE, on the other hand...

Fire Emblem is one of Nintendo's oldest franchises, the first installment of which was released in April, 1990, and saw its most   It's a turn based strategy game with a core cast of characters who stay with you the entire campaign.  One of the abiding concepts in FE is permadeath - if a unit falls, that's it.  Goodbye.  The setting is always in the confines of the usual swords 'n sorcery, so knights, mounted cavalry and mages abound.  You know, spells and shit.  There's an element of emotional investment in these games as well, as even though you can end up with a grand cast, it isn't possible to field a large army.  Instead, you end up with a core team of heavyweights and critical hitters, backed up by healers and perhaps even some kind of bard or dancer, that by the end of the campaign face an enemy force that can be up to four or five times the size.  Instead of a DM, the narrative, following the usual kind of "deposed prince seeks justice for his murdered parents by overturning the corrupt warlord and their armies" thing is delivered by the script and progressed through out of battle dialogue.  While I won't get into the nuts and bolts of the weapon system, suffice to say that each major weapon, spears, axes and swords, are represented in your party, with at least one archer for long range support.

Names for places, characters and items (especially magic tomes and weapons) are taken from legend, with Norse mythology being a particularly rich vein in recent years, but references to the tales of Ancient Greece and Mesopotamian Gods turn up just as much.  The titular Emblem is a McGuffin.  Sometimes it's a shield, upgraded by the addition of certain gems, other times it's a royal heirloom and key to an ancient shrine, and yet still it can even be a medallion that houses the soul of a dread Goddess.  Your main character, a "Lord" is the protagonist of the show, who packs their own unique character model and weaponry, often with special stat bonuses.  Instead of the dice roll, stats and battles are governed by a clever piece of robot brain called the Random Number Generator.  What does all this have to do with Hercules though?

Personally, I thought Hercules was great.  A really solid and entertaining Adventure film, the likes of which hasn't been in fashion for years and years.  Beginning with a montage of a few of 'the' Labours, The Nemean Lion, the Hydra &c, the film opens with a battle against pirates who have been listening to the story as told by a young man trussed up, in certain bodily peril.  The camera cuts to Johnson, stood backlit wearing loincloth and a lion's head, which immediately sets the tone.  Battle ensues, and we see that Herc is part of a well oiled and tactically deployed team, each with their own personalities and fighting styles.  The young storyteller is the ragtag group's bard, and Hercules' nephew, who struggles to find a place for his words in a decidedly physical outfit.  The film continues with a short origin composed of the more well known elements of Hercules' early life, sired by the King of the Gods, and the strangling of snakes, sticking to the 12A classification, of course.  Turns out that Hercules has retired from any kind of public celebrity, and is trolling around with a bunch of mercenaries to escape his troubled past (look, I didn't say it wasn't cliched), working jobs like removing pirates to raise enough to travel to the far side of the Black Sea, and live a life of solitude, away from his Demons.  Classic solitary Hero story.  Before the group can decide what sort of job to look for next, Rebecca Ferguson appears as Ergenia, an emissary from Lord Cotys, the King of Thrace, to employ this happy band.

Let's get this straight, Dwayne Johnson is enormous.  There's no suspension of disbelief needed here.  Thankfully, his ability to sell this kind of material seems to be improving as well, after such shambles as The Scorpion King and Doom.  He was also, in my opinion, the best part of 2009's Race to Witch Mountain remake; if anything he was only half the man then that he is now, merely through muscle mass.  He's a real pleasure on screen in this, almost tricking us in thinking that this is deadly serious, before another tightly choreographed action set piece kicks off  and he gets to bust some heads.  One particular battle is fought against an army of tattooed men painted green with huge beards.  One can only imagine the casting call for that scene; System Of A Down impersonators need only apply.

 The supporting rest of this crack team draw their names straight from the pages of myth too, their names and defining weaponry reading like a Fire Emblem roster even on Wikipedia: A knife wielding thief in Rufus Sewell's Autolycus; a wisecracking spear fighter with a sideline as a prophet of his own certain doom, and arguably the outfit's Jeigan/Oifey in Ian McShane's Amphiaraus; a female archer (arguably Sniper), complete with the dreadful and moulded breastplate from Ingrid Bolsø Berdal's Atalanta; Askel Hennie's Tydeus, the silent axe-wielding berserker; Iolanus the Bard, played by Reece Ritchie... And of course, our eponymous hero, the Lord, complete with his own perfectly ranked Club. Sorry, I'm way off point here.

Hercules is haunted by the spectre of tragedy that he can't quite remember, that resulted in him being banished from Athens on pain of death.  Snippets are revealed to us usually in dreams or in particular an extended flashback scene, normally heralded by the appearance of Cerberus, the subject of the 12th classic Labour.  It isn't until the final battle that we find out the truth, but I won't spoil it as it's part of what little character development Johnson has to deal with, rather than being the brutal giant he is in fights.  Speaking of fights, the one with the green beardy men happens about halfway through, which is a decent 'this is how all of our unique and interesting warriors fight' sequence, complete with a simply hilarious chariot attack.  The aftermath of this particular battle is less than successful for the good guys, which results in what can only be described as a training montage, while John Hurt's Cotys looks around for more scenery to chew as if hamming was going out of fashion (like it ever will).  The training scene does actually work because it's an entire army being trained rather than one man, and at least the thrilling action movie score isn't overwhelming.  Each of the characters leads a specific class though, and once you see the men hold a shield wall you know it's time for the next battle, although I was left wondering just how many soldiers portrayed were actually real.

Moving towards the final act, the tables begin to turn.  No scene is left unmarred by Cotys' dentures here, as the corruption in the Tracian government is finally revealed, and our heroes must make a stand... But not before Autolycus does a runner.  Herc and the gang are imprisoned in a castle dungeon, and the turning point comes when Amphiaraus encourages Hercules to embrace his destiny and destroy the three-headed dog that has haunted him thus far.  I doubt that seeing Johnson tear iron divots out of rock to loose his chains had to be faked in any way.  Freed and armed once more, the reunited band take the fight upwards through the castle, knocking out countless faceless grunts along the way.  Even Iolanus gets a kill here, enjoying victory over an arrogant foe.  Having already simplistically touched on my favourite question, "what is a Nation", the final battle is pitched, marked by heroic sacrifice.  They fight to liberate a people from a corrupt king, hell bent on establishing a huge empire backed by a uniformed army of faceless grunts and titled generals.  Autolycus suddenly reappears in a convincing but ultimately unsurprising reveal, and conveniently, a bottomless pit appears and then returns to nowhere as an easy disposal method; victory is assured for our heroes.  They are our protagonists, after all.  Well... The ones who had spoken lines, that is.  The credits are a stylish rendition in 3D of how the Labours against the Hydra, the Lion and the Erymanthian Boar (all of which we saw conquered alone at the start of the picture) were won by the team working together.  

I'm not sure if there was any real, profound message behind this film.  There probably isn't.  It doesn't matter.  Clear themes of family, brotherhood, only the bad guys torture anyone... Oh, and that you too can be a man mountain, but only if you shut yourself away and train for eight months.  It plays on the fact that actually this Hercules is mortal, and the team dynamic allows the supporting cast to bounce off Johnson's hero, without anything seeming too stodgy or really, forced.  There might not be any great zingers in the script, but it's... It's okay, you know!  Functional without being too workmanlike.  It may be big, but it isn't that clever, and really I think it scores a higher win because of it.  If you actually had to think about a Hercules film seriously, it would more likely sink under its own weight.  In fact, without its lead in The Rock, even this outing may have suffered, but his charisma carries through, just.  There are times when the more senior cast members must have ruined takes with their audible sighing and eye rolling, but the sheer entertainment value of watching Johnson punch a hay cart into three screaming men armed with giant gutting hooks is not to be underestimated.

Like I said though, the fact it doesn't take itself too seriously is the saving grace.  It's what's wrong with major franchises being translated onto screen.  When people hold the subject matter as sacred it starts to get a bit intense (although not even I can forgive the whitewashing of Khan Noonien Singh), making sure every single element is represented (which can simply make a film too busy) and people start getting angry, and it tends to get in the way of actually making an enjoyable and entertaining film, God alone knows how Marvel seem to have cracked it (even if they had to change Bruce Banner) for their fiercely-loved properties.  Maybe this will get a sequel?  Maybe not.  The door for such is left ajar at the end, but it works as a little standalone thing, a summer blockbuster all in one, as they adventure off into the ancient Greek sunset.