Thor: Ragnarok

Year of Release:  2017
Director:  Taika Waititi
Screenplay:  Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, based on the comic-book character Thor created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum. Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins
Running Time:  130 minutes
Genre:  Fantasy, science-fiction, action, adventure, superhero, comedy

Two years after the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), the Asgardian Thunder God Thor (Hemsworth) is hunting, unsuccessfully, for the powerful Infinity Stones, but is tormented by dreams of Ragnarok, the end of Asgard.  Returning home to Asgard, he finds his trickster half-brother Loki (Hiddleston) in charge and his father, Odin (Hopkins), missing.  With Loki's aid, Thor manages to track Odin down to Earth, where he reveals that he is dying and that his death will allow his first-born child, the Death Goddess Hela (Blanchett), to escape her imprisonment and seize control of Asgard. 

This is the third Thor movie, and the seventeenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the shared universe centered on movies based on Marvel Comics characters.  This film is very light in tone, and often very funny, playing more as a comedy than a straightforward action adventure superhero film.  The cast all seem to be enjoying themselves, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston are both very good comic actors and they bounce off each other very well, Cate Blanchett goes full on panto villain as the evil Hela, and Jeff Goldblum is hilarious as the intergalactic warlord, who rules a planet where Thor and Loki find themselves trapped on.  To add to the fun, Mark Ruffalo reprises his rule as the Hulk , and Benedict Cumberbatch has a brief appearance as Doctor Strange.  The film manages to balance the humour with enough drama to give scenes some emotional heft if needed, and sometimes comedy makes drama all the more affecting. The film is definitely too long,and the humour doesn't always land, but this is still a fun and funny comedy adventure.

Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Ragnarok   

Star Trek Beyond

Year of Release:  2016
Director:  Justin Lin
Screenplay:  Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, based on the television series Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry
Starring:  Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella
Running Time:  122 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, action, adventure

This is the thirteenth film in the Star Trek franchise, and the third in the rebooted series that began with Star Trek (2009) and continued with Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).  In this film the Starship Enterprise is almost three years into it's five year mission and the crew are beginning increasingly fed up with life in deep space.  After docking at a space station, the Enterprise is sent off on a rescue mission into a uncharted nebula.  Unfortunately, it turns out to be a trap, when the ship is attacked by a vast horde of mysterious craft, led by the brutal Krall (Elba) who is looking for an ancient alien artifact on board the Enterprise.

This is a hugely entertaining slice of science-fiction action.  The special effects are spectacular, and the action moves along well, but still leaves room for character moments, and humour.  It's more of an ensemble film than some previous Star Trek efforts, rather than focusing on the Kirk (Pine) and Spock (Quinto) relationship, it broadens the canvas by dividing the main crew up for most of the film, thereby meaning that they all have their own subplots to play out.  Chris Pine is good as the square-jawed hero Kirk, while Zachary Quinto is impressive as Spock and has a nice moment which serves as a tribute to the original Spock, Leonard Nimoy, Karl Urban is fun as the wisecracking McCoy and his fraught relationship with Spock is one of the delights of the film.  Simon Pegg is good as Scotty and is given a much bigger role than Scott usually has (which isn't surprising as Pegg co-wrote the script).  Zoe Saldana and John Cho are underused as Uhura and Sulu, although they still have their moments, and there is a nice glimpse of Sulu's family life.  Anton Yelchin is good as Chekhov (of course Yelchin died tragically just a few weeks before the film opened and it is dedicated to his memory).  Idris Elba steals the show as  the evil Krall, and Sofia Boutella is impressive as kick-ass alien fighter Jaylah.

It manages the difficult task of paying homage and staying true to the spirit of the original series, while still being very much it's own thing, and with this film the new Star Trek series really comes into it's own, and the Enterprise crew really start to work together well.  A treat for Trekkers, but with enough humour and action to appeal to non fans as well.

Sofia Boutella and Simon Pegg boldly go to Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Into Darkness

Year:  2013
Director:  J. J. Abrams
Screenplay:  Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof, based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry
Stars:  Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood, John Cho, Anton Yelchin
Running Time:  133 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, action, adventure

This film is the twelfth to be based on the beloved science-fiction television series Star Trek (1966 - 1969) and is the sequel to Star Trek (2009).  After breaking several regulations in order to save the life of Mr. Spock (Quinto), Captain James Kirk (Pine) is demoted to First Officer.  However, Starfleet suddenly comes under attack from renegade Starfleet officer John Harrison (Cumberbatch), who kills Kirk's mentor Admiral Pike (Greenwood).  Harrison promptly flees to the planet Kronos, home of the warlike Klingons.  Consumed with vengeance, Kirk is temporarily reinstated in command of the USS Enterprise and ordered to pursue Harrison to Kronos and dispatch him with the aid of experimental photon torpedoes.  However, if Kirk carries his orders through, tensions between the Federation and the Klingons will inevitably erupt into all-out war.

The film features spectacular visual effects and plenty of exciting action.  Fans of the original series may enjoy the frequent references to characters and events, but will possibly be annoyed by the fact that the film, despite being set before the events of the television show, plays fast and loose with the series continuity and history (although this is sort of explained by the fact that this and the 2009 Star Trek are set in a parallel universe to that of the original show).  Chris Pine does the necessary heroics well, but lacks the roguish charisma of William Shatner's Kirk, Zachary Quinto makes for a great Spock, and Benedict Cumberbatch is a complex and memorable villain.  It's just a pity that Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg are underused.

The film was made in a 2D IMAX format and was converted to 3D in post-production.  I saw it in 2D IMAX and it looked amazing in that format.  Whichever format you see it in this is an engaging and consistently entertaining space adventure.

Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine in Star Trek Into Darkness

Dredd

Year:  2012
Director: Pete Travis
Screenplay:  Alex Garland, based on the comic book character created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra
Starring:  Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Wood Harris, Lena Heady
Running Tme:  95 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, horror

In a post-apocalyptic world, much of the planet Earth is an irradiated wasteland dubbed "Cursed Earth", the majority of the population live in vast, overcrowded Mega-Cities.  The law is enforced by an urban police force known as "Judges" who have the authority to act as judge, jury and instant executioner.  The largest of the Mega-Cities is Mega-City One which covers most of the eastern part of North America, and the toughest Judge in Mega-City One is Judge Dredd (Urban).  Dredd is assigned to instruct and assess a rookie Judge named Cassandra Anderson (Thirlby) who has powerful psychic abilities.  Their first case involves a gruesome triple homicide at one of the most crime-ridden towerblocks in the city.  Dredd and Anderson quickly connect the murders to the thriving trade in an illegal new drug called "Slo-Mo" which causes it's users to experience time at a fraction of normal speed.  It turns out that the entire towerblock is controlled by the psychotic gang leader Ma-Ma (Heady).  Before long Dredd and Anderson find themselves in a desperate struggle for survival when they become sealed in the towerblock with an entire army of heavily armed criminals set against them.

Judge Dredd first appeared in the pages of British science-fiction comic book 2000 AD in 1977.  The character first appeared on screen in the 1995 in the movie Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone in the title role.  The movie had a fairly mixed reception from critics and fans, with a lot of the criticism being about how the movie deviated from the comics.  For example, one of the distinctive elements of the character in the comics is that he is never shown without his helment on obscuring most of his face.  In the Stallone movie, the helmet is taken off within the first twenty minutes and stays off.  In Dredd, the helmet stays on for the entire movie.  For reasons other than an obscured face, Dredd is a difficult character to translate to film.  In the comics he is fascistic, humourless, dour and completely fixated on enforcing the law.  It's to the film's credit that Dredd is transferred pretty much wholesale from the page to the screen, with no backstory or clever witticisms.  Urban turns in a great performance, having to deliver a performance with only the lower half of his face visible, and a great, growling voice.  As a result most of the character development and emotional heart of the movie is given to the tough yet sympathetic trainee Judge Anderson, and Olivia Thirlby does a great job.  Also memorable is Lena Heady as the brutal ganglord Ma-Ma.  The film was made with a comparatively tiny budget for a comic book movie and so confines most of it's action to the interior of the towerblock, which provides an element of claustrophobia as well as great running gun battles through the corridors.  Mega-City One itself is contemporary Johannesburg with a few CGI additions.  The film includes a number of beautifully surreal slow-motion sequences with heightened colour to represent to effects of the Slo-Mo drug, which work beautifully in 3D.  However nothing gets in the way of the film's bone-crunching, brain-frying violence, and this film is extremely violent.

The film brought to mind the excessive, graphically violent science-fiction action movies of the early 1990s such as the original Total Recall, RoboCop 2 and Predator 2, and that really is no bad thing.    

Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) lays down the law in Dredd