Lights Out:
After a number of strange and frightening occurrences, two siblings (one a 20-something punk rock girl and the other her pretty bland younger brother) begin to fear that their mother has slipped off the deep end and there is a paranormal entity hiding in the shadows of their homes, stalking them as prey and puppeting their unstable mother along.
David F. Sandberg, a Swedish director, helms this directorial debut which was inspired by his low-budget but still effective and charmingly simple short of the same name he produced in 2013. I think it shows in this final product which has a paper-thin, predictable plot which was a little too reminiscent of The Ring at times (a film I only recently saw and felt was grossly overrated).
Teresa Palmer was a forgettable and cardboard cutout lead character. I haven't seen much of Palmer's work but I'm sure she's fine in other things, just here she was nothing special. Alexander DiPersia was the standard supportive horror boyfriend character and Gabriel Bateman came across as a low-rent Ty Simpkins from Insidious. Bateman wasn't anything more or less expected from the genre. Maria Bello was probably better than most of the cast as the on-edge mother character though her psychosis came off as more irritating than scary. Alicia Vela-Bailey (who's gorgeous in real life, funny enough) carried a certain presence with her during her screen time as Diana, so she was the highlight of the film. Lotta Losten (the star of the original short and the director's wife) makes a cameo in the opening scene echoing the original short.
The plot felt too brisk and repetitive, and ultimately it was just that: a run-of-the-mill genre piece that will be forgotten within a year just with an added gimmick of the "the villain only exists in the dark" plot point. They do play with that concept pretty cleverly a few times, like the use of black lights, but I felt the movie didn't deliver enough story or substance to make me enjoy those moments as much as I could have.
Now, while I mentioned The Ring was a very overrated movie, I appreciated the visual style of the film and persistent sense of unease and dread that purveyed the film up until the somewhat mediocre climax. For Lights Out, rather than sitting in fear of the next scare, I was bored, awaiting the next cued "Boo!" moment.
Lights Out is not a very promising directorial effort from Sandberg, which is disappointing after the hype of the short film, with bland and run-of-the-mill characters, too many conventions and not enough originality, and a misunderstanding of what made the original short scary. (For a breakdown of that, see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPRppNlfaX8) 4.5/5 stars.
Star Trek, Beyond:
Some time into their five-year mission, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise's boredom with the minutia and repetition of their day-to-day routines is interrupted when they become stranded by a strange alien attack, leading them to become separated on a mostly vacant alien world, only populated by a group of rogue creatures who have a vendetta against Starfleet.
The first of these films to not be helmed by J.J. Abrams (who of course have moved on to Star Wars), it is instead directed by Justin Lin, known for his work on the Fast and the Furious franchise, and written by Doug Jung and cast member Simon Pegg.
Feeling a lot more like an episode of the original show and with enough wink-winks and subtle continuity nods to make even the most hardcore fanboy's head spin, this is probably the most goofy and bland of these new films, and my least favorite, but it is by no means a bad film. It's not the best the summer had to offer, but very far from the worst.
The cast are still very comfortable in their roles, and the bittersweet feeling of seeing Anton Yelchin on screen for the last time made me more partial to the film (one scene near the end feature a framing on Anton in the center of the frame and a line about "absent friends" that's almost chilling
considering the film was in post-production at the time of his tragic death).
Idris Elba played a pretty bland bad guy, which was unfortunate for such a skilled actor, and one with experience in playing cold, calculating baddies (anywhere from Luther on Luther, to Stringer Bell on The Wire, to Charles Miner on The Office). Sofia Boutella has a nice role as the supporting as the scavenger Jaylah. Joe Taslim and Lydia Wilson also appear.
Leonard Nimoy and Yelchin are given heartwarming little tributes on this film, and they will be sorely missed in upcoming adaptations.
The unveiling of Sulu as gay was not supported by George Takei himself and I felt it was an unnecessary PC addage to diversify an already incredibly diverse cast of characters.
The music choices in the film felt appropriate and one final sequence set to a popular song from a previous entry was clever and fun. Ultimately, despite a few clever set-ups, most of the action had little to set it apart from the constant stream of blockbusters recently.
Star Trek Beyond is essentially an average episode of the original series stretched out to feature length, and is a decent summer outing, but nothing more. It felt somewhat empty, so it made me sad it would be the final film of Yelchin's career. 6/10 stars.
(Images: Wikipedia)
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