Out of Darkness Into Darkness

I've been to the movies twice in the last couple of weeks. It's blockbuster season and this is a year jammed full of some huge sequels and even one or two new stories that look really interesting and could be big sleeper hits (check out Now You See Me and Elysium).

 

In the last fortnight I've been lucky enough to get out to see Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness. If you've seen the trailers for these movies then you'll no doubt have noticed that they seem to have quite a lot in common. Both are sequels, both are big-budget sci-fi spectaculars and both appear to lean towards the darker side of storytelling. In truth there is very little similarity between the two, even to the point of one being excellent and the other not being very good at all.

 

I'm not going to get into the area of spoilers or giving you plot points but what I will say is that in both movies the trailers are extremely misleading. The trailer for Iron Man sees his house destroyed, his suits obliterated and him being dragged to the bottom of the ocean before rising again and dragging his suit through the snow. We hear Tony Stark say that this 'is just plain old-fashioned revenge', we hear him say how 'nothing has been the same since New York' and we see what appears to be him mentally unravelling. We also get glimpses of the Mandarin, Iron Man's most deadly enemy and suggestions of a battle even Iron Man can't win.

 

All of this is designed to lead us to believe that this will be the darkest, most shocking Iron Man yet, possibly even the darkest Marvel movie yet. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth and coming out not only did I feel I'd been misled but I felt I had been deliberately cheated. Iron Man 3 is effectively a comedy, even a children's movie. At times it almost falls into the realms of a Marx Brothers' movie. The darkness that is threatened in the trailers never really comes to pass although it is teased from time to time. The problem is that there are too many make-weight characters (sorry Jon Favreau) and if anything the Tony Stark character is weaker at the end of this movie than he was at the start. While the director (no longer Favreau who should have stayed behind the camera) seemed to want to make a movie about transition and coming from a place of darkness to a place of light what he ended up with was a movie that turned Tony Stark into a simpering weakling who needs a psychiatrist and Iron Man into a lightweight who needs his girlfriend to watch his back. The movie is mildly entertaining but a poor entry in the Marvel canon. As for the dark side, the only darkness I remember coming out was the darkness in my mood that this was such a let-down.

 

So it was that I went to Star Trek Into Darkness with more than a little trepidation that perhaps the trailers had done a similar bait-and-switch and it turns out they had done exactly that. I had seen enough trailers to believe that I had a good idea of what the storyline was, who the bad guy was and what to expect, even in terms of 'surprises'. I could not have been any more wrong. While Star Trek Into Darkness was - like Iron Man 3 - completely different to what I expected, it managed to simultaneously surpass every expectation I had of what a Star Trek movie could be. I was a huge fan of the original re-boot and had looked forward to this since it's announcement. I loved the re-imagined characters and was looking forward to seeing how they would evolve as individuals and as a crew. The results in Star Trek Into Darkness were better than I could have ever hoped for. This is the new crew of the Enterprise, full stop. There is no need to make comparisons to their previous incarnation, no need to refer back to 'the old Kirk' or 'the old Scotty'. These are fully realised characters in their own right, each totally recognisable to long-term fans and yet each with their own personality. The interactions between them are also different and yet somehow familiar much in the same way as the Enterprise herself has evolved into a new yet still beloved icon.

 

In Star Trek Into Darkness the bait-and-switch is extremely clever. Forget everything you think you know (unless you've read spoilers) going into the theatre. The movie manages to be just as dark and foreboding as the trailers and teasers suggest whilst at the same time being completely misleading about the storyline. This, however, is a good thing. The trailers make the movie look a little one-dimensional and it is far from that. This is an honest to God epic, easily the best Star Trek movie ever, finally surpassing the mighty Wrath of Khan, which is rather fitting but I'll say no more on that.

 

Star Trek Into Darkness is one for new and old fans alike. It is shocking, exhilarating, emotional and lighthearted in equal measure. If last year's The Avengers set a new benchmark for superhero movies then this has set one for space adventures. With three new Star Wars movies coming up the bar has been set very high but one can only hope that having J.J Abrams at the helm of at least the first one there is an outside chance of some real life being breathed back into that franchise.

 

Both Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness are playing now in IMAX 3D. While the format adds nothing to Iron Man it is absolutely the way to see Star Trek.

 

On a side note, a few weeks back I went to see Oblivion, the recent Tom Cruise sci-fi effort. It's a decent movie, probably even a good classic sci-fi but if you're looking for an action/adventure movie then you'll be disappointed. Oblivion is more in the vein of movies like 2001 and Sunshine than Star Trek. It's slow-paced, intelligent and though-provoking with a minimal cast and even less in the way of action - although there is a little. I enjoyed it but be warned that it's not for everyone. And yes, Tom Cruise does fit in a run.

Bring on the Xbox One

What's with all the negativity surrounding the Xbox One reveal? To be honest, I'm happy just to know now what to call it.

To be honest I'm not entirely sure where people expected Microsoft to go with the new console other than updated specs and integration with the rest of the living room. Games have gone pretty much as far as they can. With lifelike graphics, you as the controller and movie-style stories already a staple of the gaming world I for one don't know what was gamers and critics thought Microsoft was going to come up with. The criticism levelled at the reveal centres around the lack of surprises and 'real innovation' but that's the core of the problem with the next generation in a nutshell. There's nothing left to do.

Don't get me wrong, it'll be nice to see some new IPs at E3 but I didn't really expect to see any yesterday. I for one - as a professional tech - am impressed with the internals and the technologies in use, particularly the three interlinked OSs. It's a novel idea and should work nicely for instant switching between channels and applications.

The one thing that wasn't addressed that I'm interested in is how Xbox One will deal with my media library. I have a huge collection of music, movies and photos on my media centre, as most people do these days, and while Xbox 360 had media center that allow me, however buggily (is that a word?) to use my console as a media center connected to my network I would have expected the new one to have this as a fully realised feature and Microsoft to trumpet it at launch.

So here's my wish list for E3 -

1. Tell us who Microsoft are partnering with in each country for TV and how it will work.
2. Tell us how Xbox One will connect to our saved digital media.
3. Tell us exactly how DRM and pre-owned game support will work
4. Show us the new IPs they have promised.

I didn't really expect any of these answers at an hour-long reveal but I will expect them at E3. Until then I'm happy to wait and salivate some more.

One final note. The Xbox One is already better than the PS4. The reason? Kinect. I'm sorry Sony and Nintendo but for proper motion control you can't just wave a controller around. I want to kick and head a football, slalom on skis and throw a baseball. I don't want to be able to sit and do it from the sofa when I get tired. Kinect won and will continue to win until you come up with something better. How about 3D motion control with cameras around the room? Come up with something new, until then I'll stick with Microsoft.

Opinions Are Like Backsides.....

Anyone who knows me or who has ever spent any time in my company knows I'm opinionated. There are often other words used with less syllables but as I'm the one writing this I'll choose the adjectives, thank you very much. I'm opinionated, often aggressively. My opinions are usually - but not always - educated and they are usually - but not always - open to alteration given conflicting facts or insights.

 

The one thing you could never say is that I keep my opinions to myself but I don't consider this my biggest failing. My biggest failing - in my not so humble opinion - is my inability to find anybody outside of my long-suffering wife whose opinion I respect enough to share my opinions with and actually value their input.

 

So I have reached my nadir. I always considered blogging the final recourse of the failed journalist or basement-bound trolls with nothing to do all day but complain about things they know nothing about or to try and create an argument just to see what happens.

 

I have tried commenting on sporting sites, writing to newspapers, ringing in to radios. My efforts have even landed me on TV and referenced in print on occasion but even these all-too-infrequent interludes left me with no more than a fleeting sense of achievement, all too easily squashed under the avalanche of ineptitude and ignorance that flows forth from the paid media on a daily basis. Perhaps I have a super-hero complex. I dream of the day when editors will rise up and take back control of the media from the accountants - a day when the phrase 'journalistic integrity' is no longer an oxymoron. I dream of a day when a story appears in the media because it is either newsworthy or insightful and not just to generate newsprint, ad space or 'clicks'. Am I delusional? You're the one reading a blog written by a nobody expecting - what? - and you ask if I'm delusional? Buy a mirror.

 

But right there is the problem. We live in a world that is buried under newspapers, news sites, news apps, news channels and news radio. We live in a world where the number of sources dedicated to the dissemination of the news outweighs the amount of news stories actually being generated on a day to day basis. We now have journalists - and I use the term very loosely - creating the news in an effort to make themselves relevant. Muck-racking, phone tapping and outright invention of stories is now so commonplace that the more sensible among us (not me) simply avoid the news altogether and have regressed into the realm of cartoons and the antique roadshow in an effort to maintain their sanity.

 

So, here I am. The saviour of truth and justice. From this moment on I will be blogging. I will be giving my not-so-valued opinion on a range of subjects from fat mayors to fat referees, from corrupt politicians to corrupt organisations and from real beer to real food. I don't care if nobody reads it. I don't care if nobody cares. I simply want to write at least one story a day (a week? Let's see!) that is the truth. A single story that I would actually read, that might stimulate intelligent debate or - God forbid - actually bring about some sort of change for the good.

 

I admit I am opinionated. I admit I will often be wrong. I admit that I may regularly not be entirely sober writing my diatribes. The one thing I can promise though is that I will always be honest.

 

Am I delusional? You're just going to have to come back to find out.