I fucking hate this movie.

(Caution: minor spoilers in the next paragraph.)

I am going to tell you a story. A headstrong farmboy with father issues gets into a brawl at a bar frequented by aliens, joins a space fleet, and gets pulled into a war against a bad guy with a planet-destroying weapon. Farmboy gets stranded on an ice planet with a giant predator that attacks him in a cave, then a wise old man from a different time tells him what to do next. His love interest falls for his Rival, who is equally headstrong but has a different belief system, but it’s OK because Farmboy and Rival become best friends and stop the bad guy together. This is, of course, the plot of J. J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie.

In condensing the plot of Star Trek I may have exaggerated the importance of a few details, but where it really apes Star Wars is not in plot details, but in feel: an action-packed, romantic romp through the galaxy, with few pauses for thought.

I love Star Wars, and the approach adopted by the makers of Star Trek worked to create an enjoyable movie. But it had none of the best part of Star Trek, the reason why I’ll take an hour out to watch an episode of The Next Generation when it’s on—the little bits of sci-fi speculation that make you think about some problem in ethics or science. Case in point: the TNG episode “Cause and Effect” which I fired up after seeing Star Trek in theatre to console myself. Sure the production values were lower than I had just seen in the big-budget blockbuster movie, but the conceit was much more interesting. Rather than the usual bad guy blowing up a planet routine, there was a neat little presentation of a problem in causality and free will. Not bad for 45 minutes of my time.

Star Trek, on the other hand, was not interested in raising questions. This surprised me, especially given J. J. Abrams’ history with Lost of doing nothing but raising questions. Usually asinine ones, whose answers are typically either irrelevant or nonsensical. (Sorry, I don’t like Lost.)

So I would say Star Trek was fun, good maybe, but not great. Not everyone seems to agree with me: it currently holds a 95% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes. I can see why: it’s difficult to really dislike the movie, but I would hardly rank this movie in the same class as other movies that have lower scores—like Fargo (93%) or even Raiders of the Lost Ark (94%). Unsurprisingly, the “Average Rating” for Star Trek is lower, but not as much as one might think, than that of both of these superior movies.

Speaking of critical reception, this most recent Star Trek film seems to have cemented the reversal of the so-called “odd-numbered curse”—that even-numbered ST films are generally much better than the odd-numbered ones. I made a little graph to demonstrate this:

I have time on my hands.

I guess the Insurrection-Nemesis double-whammy was bad enough to mess up the whole even-odd system. Of course, two points don’t make a trend, so we’ll have to wait for the upcoming sequels to tell for sure. Like Star Trek itself, I have hope for the future.

The production team has gotten rebooting the franchise out of the way. Now, instead of banking on favourable reactions engendered by the pleasant surprise that this beloved franchise was not totally ruined by a new movie adaptation, I’m sure they can come up with something more interesting the second time around.

At least I hope so, for J. J. Abrams’ sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am.

I have spent the past week in my hometown, visiting with family after my last-ever exams at McMaster University. The university life may be more exciting, but sometimes, you just can’t beat rest and relaxation at home. And Sault Ste. Marie has many worthwhile attractions: beautiful northern landscapes, historic landmarks, and small-town simplicity.

Needless to say, I have been watching a lot of movies on my computer.

Last night I saw JCVD, an action movie that apparently garnered critical acclaim in independent film circles upon its 2008 release. Personally, I’m just a sucker for explosions, so that didn’t matter. All I needed was to check Rotten Tomatoes to ensure the movie was not too terrible. With the venerable film-review aggregator’s seal of approval, and expecting a feast of pyrotechnics, I fired up the 96-minute French-language film, but what I witnessed were explosions of a completely different kind: Jean-Claude Van Damme dropping acting bombs. The man has chops.

JCVD seems to have a fairly conventional storyline for its genre: a muscly hero caught up in a bank heist is mistaken for the evildoing mastermind, and must find a way to save his fellow hostages. Nothing out of the ordinary. All right, there’s a small twist: the man is Jean-Claude Van Damme playing himself. This is unusual, but not too far from, say, Schwartzenegger’s self-parody in Last Action Hero. Yet the twists continue: Jean-Claude Van Damme is shown losing custody of his daughter in flashbacks, paralleling the real-life court battle for his son; he complains bitterly about being snubbed for a movie role in favour of Steven Seagal, among other symptoms of his conceded washed-upness; and at the climax of the movie, he delivers an emotional six-minute, single-take confessional-style monologue dwelling on his past drug abuse, his failed loves, and the human condition. Now we’re in unusual territory.

The movie features a performance from Jean-Claude Van Damme with surprising emotional heft.

JCVD is not a great movie, but it makes up for it by being an interesting one. It’s not quite as action-packed as Jean-Claude’s typical fare, with most of the action taking place in the first scene, an extended take from the set of a fictional upcoming flick which ends with Van Damme butting heads with an insouciant upstart filmmaker (sadly, not literally). Director Mabrouk El Mechri gets a lot of emotional flexing out of the Muscles from Brussels, especially in the previously-mentioned soliloquy, but sub-par acting from some of the supporting cast hurts the overall package. And there are a few odd quirks: some of the English-language dialogue, for example, is oddly ungrammatical, especially in JCVD’s flashbacks, but that could just be a subtle parody of the actor’s own loose grasp on what is probably at least his third language.

The movie also features sweet roundhouse kicks.

Despite its weak points, this movie is worth watching, if not just to see a totally unexpected side of Jean-Claude Van Damme. Kickbox—don’t regular box—your way to the video store: JCVD has my strong recommendation.