Fresh Perspectives: Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home

The second in a series of film reviews originally published in the Genesis Sci-Fi club magazine. I write a column reviewing older movies as well as recent releases in a semi-coherent fashion. This is Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The rating system is plutos, a gold standard our book group made up because a Pluto is neither one thing nor the other, as were a lot of the books were were reading. Enjoy.

What does it mean, ‘exact change’? – Spock

The title to this excellent slice of the Star Trek pie is a little misleading. The crew, still effectively renegade at the end of The Search for Spock, take a detour in time to save Earth from a sinister probe ionising the atmosphere in the 23rd century, and end up in the 20th century – very conveniently in the time at which the film was made! – searching for the solution. Which is…

…whales. Humpback whales. Whose song is the only thing that can reassure the probe and get it to leave Earth alone (yeah, it’s the sort of story that sounds like it really ought to be about sharks, as in jumping sharks, but let me finish). And nuclear wessels, courtesy of Chekov. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. The problem for Earth is that these whales are extinct and so the gang must find a way of getting a specimen to the 23rd century.

This is a hilarious film, quite far removed from the erudite seriousness of much of the Trek franchise, and I enjoyed the way it played out without a major battle for ascendancy, even at the climax of the film. Instead, Kirk takes a genuinely peaceful approach to researching acquiring his maguffins, and there are opportunities for some excellent misunderstandings as the crew make their madcap way through San Francisco in 1986. Some of it is utterly predictable – the marine biologists are running out of money and George and Gracie, the humpback whales, are to be released into the wild just at the start of the whaling season.

The wild-eyed biologist, Gillian Taylor, is up against the evil bean-counters, and Kirk has to convince her to trust him as to his intentions, largely through schmoozing her at a nice restaurant. But there are a lot of light touches that stops the film being Star Trek: Free Willy. Spock’s swimming with the whales is a neat touch; his communion with them through telepathy is heartwarming; despite his often cold demeanour, he really cares about the future – in his first scene, we see him doing some idle research, possibly on the 23rd century’s version of Wikipedia, and he drops the hint that ‘humpback whales are extinct’, showing us that the law of conservation of detail is alive and kicking. (Anton Chekhov – the Russian playwright – once said: ‘If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.’) I guess this is when ‘Save the Whales’ could be played unironically, but obviously the deeper message of the film continues to be one of grave importance.

The film progresses in a haze of bon mots, cheesy subplots such as the adventures of Chekov looking for a new power source for their vessel, and other mayhem caused directly by the clash of cultures. The point at which one expects Chekov to be booked as a spy is brushed aside with a laugh – even they think he’s somewhat … mentally deficient. I get the impression they wanted to make something cheaply and cheerfully, and it certainly works well to keep the viewer’s attention.

I’m going to give it four out of five plutos; it is a little cheesy and contrived, but it doesn’t suffer overly much for it and it delivers a few moments of classic comedy to keep it from becoming far too ponderous a story. The really nice thing is that, like when Marty McFly in Back to the Future was quite happy to swap his initially crappy existence in the wastelands of small-town America for a better life where his father was a famous sci-fi author, so is Gillian Taylor not overly bothered about going forward to the future with Kirk. The thing that had me thinking was ‘did they violate the Prime Directive by interfering with a culture without FTL travel?’, but that’s a bit pedantic of me.

Go watch this film again. I doubt we will get a remake of it, so it’s a moment of Trek history that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is all the better for it.

But don’t forget — exact change only.

Fresh Perspectives: Iron Man 3

The first in a series of film reviews originally published in the Genesis Sci-Fi club magazine. I write a column reviewing older movies as well as recent releases in a semi-coherent fashion. This is Iron Man 3. The rating system is plutos, a gold standard our book group made up because a Pluto is neither one thing nor the other, as were a lot of the books were were reading. Enjoy.

Iron Man 3

Tony Stark (the indefatigable Robert Downey Jr) is just perfecting his latest way of getting into his suit, when an evil terrorist smashes through his house with tracer missiles and wrecks a rendezvous with an ex-girlfriend and her mutant plant genetic code. Meanwhile, the evil Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) is waging a campaign of destruction throughout America and beyond. In other words, it’s a big, dumb movie from the people who brought you …other big dumb movies.

Except it’s not quite so dumb, though it is big and loud. I saw Iron Man a couple of years ago when it was just on at a friend’s house and no-one could be bothered to change the channel, so thanks to that little moment of glorious madness, I knew I’d enjoy this before I went in. I’m not really into the genre: I just love big dumb movies with big dumb heroes who get the girl at the end and have a cute black sidekick in order to cross all the i’s and dot all the t’s. (Pepper Potts and Warmachine do play a bigger role in this one; I get the feeling I need to see Iron Man 2, because Warmachine is a new character to me, working closer with the US Government than Stark/Iron Man does.) Unless they seriously messed with the superhero formula, and made this all about the terrible angst of being an internationally renowned, sexy, rich guy with a basement full of toys that you can use to shoot and blow up terrorists (actually, wait…ALL superheroes have to feel this way now, it’s a legal requirement – see also the upcoming Superman Man of Steel film), it was going to have an easy ride, because although I’m not really into the Avengers metaplot, it’s an entertaining way to spend a bank holiday afternoon.

The good thing about the film is it doesn’t take itself terribly seriously: there is serious action, and yes, a bit of angst over what Tony Stark saw in New York during the Avengers Assemble movie, but it’s all mixed in with some hilarious moments. Sadly describing one of the best would also be a humungous spoiler, as would speculating on whether there will be an Iron Man 4. Much of the comedy is all in the timing, but Iron Man’s crazy manoeuvre to get all thirteen survivors of an air crash to safety is enjoyably cheesy, and the way Stark fumbles around with his suit is typical of the crazy inventor. There’s the creepy Bond Villain action from Guy Pearce (or, as I’m informed, Mike Young from Neighbours), Tony’s attempts not to get punched in the face by his own codpiece, and the will-they-won’t-they romp at the end across a disused oil tanker to rescue the President, with a dramatic role for both Pepper and Warmachine that makes strides forward as regards the place of women and ethnic minorities in action films. The villain is also an equal opportunities employer too.

It’s both exciting and hilarious in equal measure. Superman and Batman might be played absolutely straight but I do get the impression Iron Man is meant to be a little bit more tongue-in-cheek. I’m not saying that I instantly want to jump into the whole series of Avengers films and watch them start to finish, but I would like to see Iron Man 2 at some point and fill in some of the blanks.

I’ll give it 4 and a half Plutos. The half mark is really lost because the film is a bit too tongue-in-cheek in some places, and the role of the Vice President is never fully explained (I suspect there was more but it got left on the cutting-room floor). But it’s an enjoyable romp – so definitely worth watching. If you haven’t caught it at the cinema, then I would advise giving it a look on DVD.