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We went to see the new Star Trek movie last night, and as per request I’ll post my thoughts about it here (spoiler alert!).

It started a little dubiously, with an action sequence that while impressive, was so saturated with excessive horizontal lens flare, shaky cam and fast pans that my first thought was “Oh no, it’s going to be another Transformers headache-a-thon”. Luckily the director apparantly laid off the amphetemines shortly afterwards and it became more manageable.

Let’s get right to it: the best thing about this film is the characters. That’s entirely appropriate, since that’s exactly what was good about the original series anyway, and clearly the creators realised that and focussed heavily on it. All of the major characters are nigh-on perfect for their roles; Kirk is appropriately swaggering, arrogant, womanising and reckless, and yet somehow still likeable, Spock is infuriating because you know underneath that forced exterior there’s a party animal bursting to get out, Bones is gruff and to the point with a healthy dose of acerbic humour. Simon Pegg does far better as Scotty than I could have imagined, managing to be even more likeable than James Doohan and having by far the best lines. The other characters don’t really get much screen time so apart from looking right and having the right kinds of accents (although Chekov seems a little overdone – but it’s funny anyway) there’s not much to say there, but I guess that’s all they really needed to be, and they’ll be looking for more in future sequels.

The plot – well, I read about how J.J. Abrams had introduced his Lost experience to the franchise with some good twists, but by the end of the film I was still waiting for them. The core twist is that because of the events at the start of the film, this is an alternate timeline and therefore things are similar, but different to the original series and films. This is a very smart move, since it totally frees them up creatively to do whatever they want, and again concentrate on just the core characters and inventing whatever new history they want around them. It’s also a wonderful silver bullet for silencing the more obsessive fans when they do something inconsistent. So, top marks for taking that route. However, the rest of the plot seems entirely contrived around that core premise, and to include Leonard Nimoy’s cameo part, and the need to get the characters ‘in place’ for future sequels. Little of it makes very much sense – so a rogue mining ship captain decides to follow obsessively Spock through time to destroy his entire planet (and Earth), just because he didn’t get there in time to save Romulus from a natural disaster? Okaaay – sounds pretty psychotic and illogical even for a grief-stricken Romulan.

But, it doesn’t matter that much. The characters and the incidental events nestled in this fairly ludicrous overall arc are entirely satisfying in their own right, so you can forgive them that. Barring the occasional misfire – such as a Scotty’s ‘tube ride’ and his weird familiar-like friend – the scenes are in themselves entertaining to watch and I would definitely be up for seeing more of this crew in the future. Definitely recommended.

As a gamer, I pay a lot of attention to what game critics say – I might not agree with all of them, but in the main my views tend to fall into line with average, relative opinion of what are the games to look out for within a genre. However, I was struck recently by how much this really doesn’t work for me with films in a lot of cases.

For example, we recently watched Hancock, which was in general panned by the critics (RottenTomatoes score 39%), but my wife and I really enjoyed it. It’s not the deepest of films, but it brings its own unique elements (what if a superhero was a drunken bum?) and I thought it was totally worth my time. It’s not the only film that’s had average or lower reviews that I actually quite liked.

It got me wondering – obviously lots of ‘average’ games get bought by the truckload and people presumably enjoy most of them (unless they’re unlucky enough to get a real stinker), despite the critics and ’savvy’ gamers shaking their heads in dispair – and I often join them. It occurred to me that when it comes to films, I’m in the opposite camp, one of the ‘regular Joes’ – that is to say a little more relaxed about my selection criteria. I don’t seek out Oscar winners, lauded art-house films etc particularly, unless they’re also appealing to me in other ways. No doubt film critics look at me and shake their heads in dispair that I watched Hancock instead of something like Revolutionary Road.

So it’s all about perception – next time I have the urge to deride someone for buying averagely-rated games, I’ll remember the fact that I liked Hancock and think twice about it. As experienced critics and officionados of a particular medium we sometimes get a little too snobby about these things.

I experienced my first Uwe Boll film last night, and I have to say, despite the guy behaving like a complete tool on the Internet, if In The Name of the King is anything to go by, critics are a bit too hard on him. One thing he does seem to deliver is entertainment, although perhaps not of the kind he intended.

Now, time for a disclaimer here – I love trashy fantasy films. I like good ones too – Excalibur and The Lord of the Rings have a very prominent place in my relatively small DVD collection. At the same time however, I adore the belly laughs that the likes of Deathstalker and Hawk the Slayer can provoke. For me, there’s a dangerous middle ground between classy high-fantasy films, and trashy fantasy films – it’s ok to be great, but if you can’t manage that, don’t hold back – go nuts and aim for the completely ridiculous. Anyone who didn’t burst into fits of giggles when the Hawk the Slayer ‘magic effects’ start kicking in (involving silly string, glowing rubber balls and other classics) has no soul.

In The Name of the King doesn’t quite reach those heights, mostly because it actually has a budget, and the CG effects are actually pretty good in places, which is in danger of distracting you from the rest of the silliness. Luckily their budget didn’t go that far, and they had to rely on guys in rubber suits for the main enemies, which Uwe inexplicably chose to shoot in broad daylight for much of the film, thereby reducing the effect to something out of Power Rangers – on the entertainment scale, this is a plus point. I also loved how despite needing to do battle scenes, they didn’t have that many extras, so did wide-angle shots with obviously CG duplicated ranks of soldiers interspersed with close ups transparently chosen so you couldn’t see more than 10 people at a time.

Somehow the film contains a large number of recognisable faces, like Ron Perlman, John Rhys Davies, Ray Liotta and Burt Reynolds, but the plot they’re given is laughable and full of holes, which is of course half the fun. Throw in a few random elements like ‘forest women’ swinging madly about on magic vines, and the king’s personal guard who appear to have been lifted with no explanation directly from the extras of Crouching Tiger, and some thoroughly absurd stunts that make Legolas’ Oliphant surfing look frankly plausible, there’s plenty to chuckle at.

It’s not a ‘good’ film, but a film doesn’t have to be good to be entertaining. Quite the opposite in fact – overreaching tat can deliver some damn good fun sometimes. I say stuck-up critics should get off their high horses and stop giving Boll such a hard time, we need more trashy game/fantasy films to laugh at.

Oh…..my……God.

I stumbled across this for the first time ever today, and I’m left completely horrified. I thought it was only relatively recently that George Lucas had jettisonned his quality filter into deep space – sure, I could see the beginnings of his lunacy in Return of the Jedi’s Ewoks, but it was forgiveable (just). Then, I saw this TV monstrosity created in 1978 of all times, between Star Wars and the pinnacle that is the Empire Strikes Back and starring all of the major characters. Warning: this is a truly horrifying experience for any fan of the original movies, so brace yourself!

I’m not surprised Lucas tried to bury this, but now it’s back thanks to the magic of the Internet. It allegedly aired only once on US TV and once in Australia, which might explain why I’ve never seen it (I’m just not hardcore enough to be on the bootleg circulation list). This is only the first and last parts (out of a total 10); I couldn’t even bring myself to watch these 2 in their entirety. If you make it through them, congratulations, but I’d advise seeking professional help.