The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The Riders of Rohan are the best. Loved’em in the book. Love’em in the movies. I think they nailed the melodrama in this one. And the build-up to the spider set-piece is pretty great. I still think the song during the closing credits is a huge misfire. Should have gone instrumental!
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. You can see the move ripping at the seams. There’s a lot of story to pack in here. Lots of it feels clipped, rushed, off-kilter. Romances are un-earned. Jarring shifts in tone. Gimli has a lot more to say. Legolas slides on a shield? It’s a mess, but may have the best landscapes of the trilogy.
Star Trek: Beyond. These movies are getting worse. :( Hope they don’t keep going this route, where they turn into basically superhero films. I fear it’s too late. Filed under: Star Trek.
Star Trek Into Darkness. This one does not compare well to the other Star Trek movies. Fun, maybe, kinda, but there’s all kinds of narrative whiplash, and the non-Kirk, non-Spock characters aren’t quite there for me. Slapdash effort. Oh, well. I’ve still got my top 5 or 6 in the series to fall back on:
Star Trek. This is more space opera than intellectual scifi salon, for better or worse. The best comparison I can think of is Rise of the Planet of the Apes: It’s not an all-time great movie, not really even close, but it’s great at what it does. Silly adventure that’s nice to look at. The cameo is dopey. But I do hope that movies following this reboot are a little more nerdy.
Mark Larson 