Star Trek (2009, USA)

Dude, wow. How I hated to relegate my commentary on "Ip Man" to the second spot below, but dude, wow.

Background/bias: I grew up on "Star Trek", the original series. As a kid I asked my dad (I think, I don't remember ever asking my dad anything but it must have been the case) to record midnight reruns of "Star Trek". I even credit Star Trek for the early development of my awareness of using art to comment on social and political issues. If you watch the original series you can often find a message relevant to the times in the episodes.

I was a snob, so I dismissed initial episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" with disdain. It was a family drama set in space and unworthy of the Star Trek legacy. By my measure it wasn't until the 3rd season where TNG found its Star Trek soul and continued excellence to the end of the series run.

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" didn't do it for me, even though the later seasons got consistently rave reviews. Something about the space station not going anywhere – I want to move and boldly go where no one has gone before, I want to pee on the ceiling, not just sit at the mouth of a bloody, boring wormhole.

"Star Trek: Voyager" was up and down, hit and miss. It had worthy moments but I lost interest and from what I hear it kind of fizzled out in the end. I don't even remember the fate of Voyager even though I do remember asking someone.

I thought "Enterprise" had a lot of potential but TV programming is based on ratings, not integrity, so I thought "Enterprise" got cancelled before it was allowed to mature and develop. And yes, even if it was continued, the success of the series depends on the writing and who knows how that would have gone. It wasn't a sure thing and so it got cancelled.

"Star Trek" is a reboot of the original series. If it's a continuing movie series, it's doing my idea for a new Star Trek series, just in movie form. I agree with the glowing reviews that this is a great Star Trek movie, although I, we, may all be biased. Nostalgia got the better of me at times as my eyes glistened. Anyone familiar with the original series characters will have no problem relating to the reboot. Spock, played by Zachary Quinto is a bit more Skylar (from "Heroes") than Leonard Nimoy, but ultimately lives up to the part. He could've studied Leonard Nimoy's vocal inflections more closely, but that's just me. That could be said about the Kirk character, too, but this is a reboot, not a remake.

By no means is the movie anywhere near perfect and looks like there may be problems all over the place. I say "may be" because some percentage of those problems may actually be plausible given changes in the timeline. There's also a lot of sheer ridiculousness and "gimme a break" moments which is standard fare in action films now. The science is also really questionable. I know it's science fiction, but the Star Trek franchise is known for presenting pretty good science, so in that regard this film is a step away from the Star Trek "soul" I mentioned. It's one of several.

I think the main thing this film brings to the legacy of the original series is that it fleshes out the characters. After watching this film I realized how one-dimensional the characters were in the original series. They were presented and then they basically remained the same through the entire three season run. Of course that was the '60s and what was sophisticated on TV then is different from now. This film gives the characters depth, complexity and histories. Even the bridge characters who don't get in-depth past treatment, we're shown why they're there on the bridge of the Enterprise, the flagship of Starfleet – they are the best of the best. Where they were a bit campy caricature in the original series, they now kick ass in a pinch.

OK, maybe some spoilers now, so stop reading, skip to "Ip Man", good movie. I give "Star Trek" a fresh 8 out of 10 tomatoes.

I did read one review before I saw the movie because I had to for work. The review mentioned that 400 years of Star Trek history gets wiped out and I thought that was snarky hyperbole on some oversight on the part of the writers. It's not hyperbole. This movie wipes out 400 years of parts of Star Trek history. There are episodes in the original TV series that are now impossible. This movie does something radical to the Star Trek legacy! It creates a new timeline! And we find out the fate of Spock in the old timeline! Is that how Spock really ends up? Fascinating. But I guess we had the same reaction when we found out how Kirk ends up in the first TNG movie.



Ip Man (2008, Hong Kong)

This film is about the legendary martial arts Wing Chun master, Ip Man; perhaps more legendary due to one of his legendary disciples, Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee is so overshadowing in popular martial arts media that most people unfamiliar with martial arts (and even those who are) don't know who Ip Man was or the facts regarding his legend. It's hard to know what is fact and what is fiction, except that if he taught one of the most renowned martial artists of all time, he had to have been pretty darn good. This portrayal of Ip Man elevates the man to legendary status, depicting him as an unbeatable Zen-like god of martial arts, who has not only flawless and effortless martial arts, but is a paragon of character and moral judgment.

This is a simple, straight-forward martial arts film, but focusing on its strength – martial arts – it's a great martial arts film. It fictionalizes the details of Ip Man's life as he lives in his legend, defeats challengers and bullies without breaking a sweat, and then endures the humiliation and brutality of the Japanese menace during World War II, and, of course, survives.

It's not a perfect film. The Ip Man character is too one-dimensional, and the effort to complicate issues with the nagging, henpecking wife and petulant child contradicts the efforts to portray The Legend. It's an easy, simple, straight-forward martial arts film, but as such, it's definitely not bad. Donnie Yen in the title character is fantastic, even though I'm biased against Donnie Yen because he kinda looks funny and his name doesn't exactly command respect (think Osmond). Still, in the various Donnie Yen films I've seen, he is more than a worthy martial arts action film star, up with the best. Sammo Hung's action direction is also up to his best work.

I continue to find Asian portrayals of wartime Japan interesting. No one connotes modern Germany with Nazi Germany, but the Imperial Japanese military just can't shake its bad image which is even projected onto modern Japan. You hate the Japanese military from these portrayals, but somehow you get the sense that they're still commenting about Japan today. No doubt a large part of this is the continuance of the Japanese political establishment of honoring Japan's war dead at the Yasukuni shrine and the constant effort at revising history by justifying Japanese aggression and denying the "comfort women" war crime, which I also find to be a continuing source of disgust and outrage.

Germany has owned up to its Nazi past, decried it and has moved on. It's a crime in Germany to make displays of Nazi support. Until Japan has done the equivalent – and making world contributions in cuteness doesn't count – its military past will continue to be battered by Asian cinema. And the more cinema is created bashing Japan's military past, the more it will be documented for as long as film lasts.

8 out of 10 tomatoes.

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