A Tale of Two Movies By: Joe Alfano Posted on: 5/11/2009

I know, I have been lacking in my duties as a geek lately.  Both the Wolverine movie and Star Trek have come out, and there has been nothing heard on the Geek Like Me Front.  Part of that is a life that is extremely busy, and part of that is behind-the-scenes Geek Like Me changes.  There are some exciting things coming down the line, so keep an eye out.

I did manage to make it out to see both of these geek related movies their opening weekends, and as punishment for being so lack in my duties, I have gone back to titling after classic literature again.  As a method of warning to you all though, let me add that there will indeed be spoilers all over this review.  Truth be told, the spoilers are going to have spoilers.  We may even break the time/space continuum and bring you spoilers to their sequels.

Fine, maybe not that far – that is a bit much and I am running low on plutonium right now.  Hey, Geek Like Me is run on a pretty tight budget and that plutonium is expensive stuff.

Part of the reason that I have chosen to review both of these movies together is that there are a number of aspects to the movies that are very similar.  Most of the “big picture” behind both movies is the most direct of these parallels.  Some of you may not agree with me, but I feel that both of these movies are – excuse the term – reboots of the franchise.

To say that Star Trek is a reboot is really as obvious as it gets.  These are all of the same characters from the original show, launching into their early careers, and coming together on the Enterprise.  As a credit to the creators of this movie, they did a fantastic job setting up that this is not your father’s Star Trek, and establishing that nearly everything that has come before this will not necessarily happen in this arc of the franchise.

Remember how I said there would be spoilers above?  I wasn’t kidding.  You hear that buzzing sound?  That is the spoiler proximity alert.

This movie opens up with a Romulan ship attacking the ship that James T Kirk’s father and mother are serving on.  His father sacrifices himself to save as many of the crew as he can, including his wife and his newly born son.  This single issue would have been enough to mess up the timeline, but by the time they identify that the disruption has happened, even more disruption occurs.  So this story is an entirely different reality from the one the show gave us.

Wolverine – in comparison – gave us a similar version of this as we saw in the X-Men movies.  The characters from the comic books were shifted around to fit in, and were reimagined in their origins.  The difference here is that this reimagining of the characters didn’t even stay in line with the X-Men line.  Those of you who have not seen the movie and right now scratching your heads as much over this, as the concept of time travel rebooting a franchise – allow me to explain.

In the first X-Men movie, Sabertooth is an enormous, feral mutant with claws and a healing factor similar to Wolverine’s, although never really shown.  You never get more than a hint of the link between Sabertooth and Wolverine in that movie.  In the origins movie, you have Victor Creed being Wolverine’s half brother.  And while he is more feral than Wolverine, he is more creepy scary than just being a huge, imposing brute.  A fine example of that is the four legged gallop he does while chasing down a young Cyclops in the halls of his high school.

Fredrick J Dukes, better known as The Blob, begins the movie as being much older than he is in the comics (as he is with the Team X in the Vietnam Era), and his powers are not directly linked to his size.  He is still strong, but the majority of his abilities are being invulnerable and immovable.  He was also never a member of Team X, but is more recognizable than the "tank" who is.

Yes, I know you hear the spoiler proximity alert going off again.  Being that you have been reading the spoilers already, you know this one has to be a doozy.

In addition to the other reimaginings, as of the end of this origins movie, not only is Wade Wilson (Deadpool) a mutant, but he is in possession of a variety of powers that were implanted into him by the Weapon X program – making him Weapon XI.  Teleportation was something he had tech for, but is now built into him.  Swords too, have become more internal for him.  He reminds me a lot of what Rogue did back in the late 80’s when she borrowed the powers from all of the X-Men to fight Nimrod – he was a little bit of almost all of the super powered people in the movie.

Even with the mess they made of Deadpool, I am still on board with them, and the new characters that are likely to be featured in spin-offs.  Although not as efficient (or as explained) as the change-up in the Star Trek line, I am still excited to see where these characters go.  I am all for seeing Wolverine in Japan or Madripoor as the next installment – especially if it means eventually seeing Kitty Pryde being taught to be a ninja down the line.

The next parallels we face between these two movies are the special effects.  There is no way that either of these two movies could have been made without a heavy special effects budget.  From flying in space, to claws sliding out from a person’s hands, pointy ears, or lasers (whether from a spaceship, or from the eyes) – special effects are a key element for any science fiction movie.

That said, I feel like Star Trek again did this with flying colors.  Although the initial Romulan ship looked like one of the baddies out of the end of the original Hellboy movie, the overall effect was solid.  Also, the sheer amount of phasers and torpedoes going all over in the opening scene was more than enough to seal the deal for me.  While not a Trekkie, the one part of the Star Trek Universe that I was all over was Starfleet Battles.

Although the monsters chasing Kirk scene did not seem to mesh well for me, the variety of the effects more than balanced out any negatives in my mind.  From the major battles, to the fight on the drill bit, to the transporter scenes – I think that the visual effects of the movie delivered.

Wolverine, although with visual effects of its own, was also a series of stunts and wire work to contend with.  And while the visual effects and CGI gave out in a few spots of the movie (Wolverine’s claws reflect nothing on their surface?), I think the fight scenes as a whole were incredible.

Yes, there is that spoiler warning buzzing at you again.  There is another doozy on the horizon!

The end scene at Three Mile Island where Wolverine – not to mention Sabertooth – fight Deadpool was fast paced, action packed, and had all of the 4 color crunchiness that I wanted to see in the fight.  It also reminded me a bit of the battle against Darth Maul in Phantom Menace.  The effort in pointing out fighting back-to-back in the opening credits alerted me to the fact that this would be coming out towards the end.

So overall, I think the stuntwork and fight scenes surpassed the visual effects.  While not a complete loss, I do think that the CGI sections could have used more work for the scope of the movie they were going for – even something as small as a little better look to Emma’s skin when she shifted to diamond-form.

For a final grade in the movies, I cannot in good conscience give Star Trek anything less than an A.  The movie was solid in its plot, stellar in the performances, and even down to the visual effects and editing.  When the truly weakest part of the movie is the character development in your villain – something Star Trek rarely does that well – then I think you have a winner.

Conversely – even though I really want to be able and go higher – Wolverine has to sit at a B.  The story was good (even with the modifications they did to it), the acting was better than I have seen in other comic book movies, and the fight scenes were well beyond value.  Even considering any negatives, this is still a movie I would have gone to see, and will go see again.  My son and his girlfriend have not gone yet, so I agreed to go with them again – assuming they do not manage it some weekend when Mrs. Zombie and I are busy.

Both movies are a true testament to the summer line-up that is hitting the theaters this blockbuster season.  If you have not gone to see them yet, even though I dropped some spoilers here, if you are still reading get yourself out to a theater and check them out.