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‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ is lackluster redundancy

The evil aliens with no personality return to menace Earth in “Independence Day: Resurgence.”

The best thing about Independence Day: Resurgence is its depiction, however limited, of life on Earth in 2016, 20 years after the devastating alien attack of 1996. Like in Star Trek, the realization of life (and grave threats) beyond Earth, coupled with advanced alien technology that has allowed humanity to solve so many technical challenges, has changed who we are as a people and put an end to war among ourselves.

Granted, this is a future much more like our present than Trek, but there’s something to be said for continuing the story and seeing how people picked up the pieces after the credits rolled at the end of an ostensibly feel-good movie that featured the destruction of so many major cities. Despite the (bloodless PG-13) holocaust, humanity has prevailed and apparently figured things out. And they knew that our own challenges must be solved on Earth, because another invasion from above was probably inevitable.

Read the full review and leave comments here.

Star Wars: The Infographic!

Someone sent me a link to this earlier today.

A few thoughts:

1) Wow. Just wow.

2) By nerds, for nerds. Only.

3) As someone who runs a Star Trek review site — even if I don’t spend the kind of time running it as I once did — I am not in a position to question the amount of time (1,000 hours!) spent to create this, even though I really sort of want to.

4) Talk about taking a concept, committing to it, and going as far as you possibly can.

5) One wonders what the creator could possibly get out of this, beyond the just-because of doing a conceptual meta-art piece. Perhaps it’s the most long-view-taken hoped-for viral self-marketing campaign ever conceived. After all, I’d have never heard of the guy had he not made this.

6) LOL!

‘Star Wars’ and the dangers of over-saturation

Rogue One“Rogue One” is the first of many upcoming “Star Wars” movies that could see the franchise overexposing itself.

“I want to go to Star Wars and see Darth Vader.” So said my 3-year-old daughter, unprompted (and verbatim) earlier this evening. She learned everything she knows about Star Wars from her Disney-licensed graham crackers.

Earlier today, the first Rogue One: A Star Wars Story trailer (embedded below) was released. Looks pretty cool. But I figure I would probably say that about any competent-looking feature film bearing the Star Wars name. I’m a fan. The Disney machine guarantees it will be big, high-tech, and marketable. Hopefully it will also be good. I was very much encouraged by The Force Awakens. I only see about four or five movies a year in the theater these days, and I’m about 90 percent sure Rogue One will be one of them for 2016.

But it does makes one wonder: Does the fact that The Force Awakens was the first Star Wars movie in a decade have something to do with fans’ thirst for it? And now, with Disney’s elaborate plans for the franchise — which include not only the sequel trilogy but also three other standalone movies being released on each side of the trilogy releases between now and 2020 — is there a risk of watering down the franchise into a rote, routine series? (Read more…)

Reviews: Star Wars, Episodes I-VII

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” features a lightsaber with a hilt.

A funny thing happened recently. Not long before The Force Awakens came out, my wife and I decided to re-watch all of Star Wars on Blu-ray. Then we went and saw Episode VII in the theater. Not long after that, I was having lunch with a friend and we were talking about all the Star Wars movies, including the most recent.

This particular friend is willing to go in-depth in these sort of geeky film/TV/media conversations whenever we have them (he’s a writer and a critic type, like me), so I went into the sort of detail talking about Star Wars that I might not have normally. And as I was sitting there talking, I realized I had most of the thoughts in my head about what I wanted to say about these movies, which I had just watched. All I needed to do was get them down on paper and expand upon them, because I knew they’d make a natural addition to my website. Besides — I love Star Wars. (Read more…)

A true example of classic sci-fi with ‘Interstellar’

interstellarOver on the mothership, I’ve posted a new review (gasp!) for Christopher Nolan’s new sci-fi film, Interstellar.

This movie reaches deep into your psyche and holds you in its grip for nearly three hours. It is — in turns and sometimes simultaneously — haunting, spellbinding, exhilarating, audacious, introspective, heartbreaking, horrifying, and life-affirming.

Go read the review now.

Discuss ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

stidBecause my review is likely to be delayed a bit, I’ve opened up comments for Star Trek Into Darkness. See more details on that page, and please refrain from posting comments about the movie elsewhere on Jammer’s Reviews and Jammer’s Blog. Thanks.

Farewell, Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

Photo by Eileen Ryan

It’s probably pretty safe to say that Roger Ebert, by a wide margin, has been the most influential figure on my writing. It’s possible, although far from certain, that had I not read Ebert as a teen, I might never have thought to write one review, let alone nearly 1,000. (Of course, that’s pure conjecture. If you pull a thread on one’s life, there’s no telling to what degree it might unravel, but maybe I’d have found another way in the same direction.)

But that’s the thing about Ebert: He was so prolific, so observant and wise, so widely read and well respected — so utterly the gold standard of all critics — that probably every writer in the genre of criticism saw him as the model to aspire to. (Read more…)

Trailer: ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

The teaser trailer for the next J.J. Abrams installment of the Trek franchise, Star Trek Into Darkness has been released. I’ve embedded it here for your viewing, assuming you haven’t already seen it 10 times.

There was a time, back in my college days, around the time that First Contact was released, that I knew a ton about a Trek movie months before it even came out. Those days are long gone, and I haven’t followed Trek XII‘s production much at all, beyond knowing it was being made.

But I was informed today of the release of the teaser trailer for next May’s upcoming Trek film, which based on the title and trailer, seems like it’s going to be pretty, well, dark, I guess. If you’re going into darkness, I guess it’s going to be dark.

Please, no spoilers here. If you know way more about this movie than I do, don’t feel compelled to share. I’m going to go into it as oblivious as possible.

To grandmother’s house we go!

Red Riding Hood
Amanda Seyfried is going to grandmother’s house. (Warner Bros. photo)

You can call this post what it is — a snarky, sight-unseen prejudgment of something that just looks stupid on its face.

I’m talking about the making of “Red Riding Hood” into a Hollywood “thriller” starring Amanda Seyfried in the title role, and I think involving a werewolf.

Yes.

With any luck, the werewolf, if there is one (and I don’t know that there is; I did NOT consult the Google on the Internets for a plot description), will be played by Taylor Whatshisface, in a crossover appearance from the Twilight franchise.

(And speaking of Twilight, why did they have to go and split the last book into two movies which I’ll now have to sit through with my wife? Greedy Hollywood bastards!) (Read more…)

3D cinema? Possibly. 3D television? Please get real.

AvatarAvatar and 3D: The future of cinema? Not so fast.

The film industry has been trying to push 3D on its customers for a while now, but it has just in the past year or so shifted that campaign into high gear. 2009 had a number of notable titles to be released in movie theaters in 3D (most of them CGI-animated productions that easily lend themselves to the 3D process because they are completely digitally created).

Now comes the 3D “game changer” behemoth: Avatar. This is going to be the movie that changes everything, right?

Well, not so fast.

Avatar is the first modern 3D feature film that I’ve seen. By “modern,” I mean the sort of 3D by way of modern techniques like circular polarization, as opposed to those 1950s-style red/blue glasses.

Avatar is a wonderfully entertaining and unsubtle message movie and a visual achievement (and no, I will not be reviewing it), but I am not convinced that it needs to be seen in 3D. Granted, the 3D was pretty damn cool. There were scenes where you could literally focus on foreground objects on the screen as if they were really there, and then switch your focus to objects behind them, and the foreground object would go double, just like in real life. There are some breathtaking shots in 3D, where the experience becomes immersive. And impressive. (Read more…)