Movie Review: Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Copyright: Paramount Pictures

This film has the drive, the familiarity and it has just enough unique charm to make it a great family adventure set in the Star Trek universe. Jason Lin, its director, must have a very in-depth knowledge of the popcorn genre and how the same can be rehashed to seem new and exciting.

But, Lin is not a snake oil salesman and there are no cheap gimmicks in the film. Simon Pegg and Doug Jung wrote the film as if they made a very long episode of the original TV show, making the plot simple and self-contained. Star Trek Beyond begins when a lonely shuttle reaches the Federation’s newest and biggest space station Yorktown. Its single crew member pleads with the authorities to come to the rescue of the stranded ship and the captain and the crew of the Enterprise takes up this challenge.

Coming (Not So) Soon: Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island is not going to be hitting the movie theaters anytime soon (the release date is in 2017), but the film does look both impressive and kind of idiotic at the same time. So far, it looks like the producers decided to combine the notion of King Kong with the first part of the Predator series and then put in a big chunk of Aliens from 1986, mainly with the current military aspect of the film. This will make the film either pretty fun or intensely bad.

Check out Kong: Skull Island trailer below.

Film Review: High-Rise (2015)

Copyright: StudioCanal

Ben Wheatley knows films. His Hit List is a marvelous noir movie, developed and executed in a manner that should have made Wheatley rich and famous in a more just world. After it came out in 2011, this relatively young writer, director, and producer continued working on edgy films that only rare individuals thought they completely understood.

Now, he has branched out to the domain of big budgets and celebrity actors, while at the same time hooking a chain tied to a great literary name to his film. High-Rise is to Wheatley what The Brothers Bloom was for Rian Johnson and Godzilla was for Gareth Edwards. All of these directors showed immense talent and ability to make small films where they attained a huge level of control. Their first film on an AAA budget, however, ended up as something not exactly spectacular. 

Coming Soon: Incarnation

An independent film from Serbia, incarnation looks like an interesting psychological thriller, mixed with some lo-fi science fiction. The plot sees a young man who he is somehow forced to revisit the same moment in time in a city he does not recognize. Here, he is chased by four men in masks who are determined to kill him every time, while on the other side of reality, he finds himself in a hospital as a patient with no memory about who he is. 

The film was directed by Filip Kovacevic as his first film and hopefully, Incarnation will get some kind of a distribution deal. Check out its trailer below. 

Crowdfunding Push: Custodian

The domain of crowdfunding provides incredible opportunities for artists, but also, sometimes, nightmare scenarios. Scott Storm, a US-based writer, director, and animator recently experienced something similar when a funded project of his got a sum of $10,000 pulled out by on of the investors. Fortunately for him, the Seed&Spark service decided to cover 50% of that sum and now Scott is looking to attain the other half through an additional crowdfunding process. But, what is his film all about? Here’s what the page on Seed&Spark states: