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Dune (2021)
Bland and forgettable.
The new Dune movie has no real memorable visual identity. Sets are sparse, starships are generic souless CGI blobs, comstumes pale behind every other adaptation (including the Westwood games), and anything that might have once been visually arrested is color-graded into a cold, desaturated oblivion.
The portrayal of Arrakis is a total failure. We're told many times that the desert is punishingly hot, but no scenes communicate this. A lack of sweating, panting, and the weird color grading combine to paint a picture of a cool Arrakis.
The acting is hit-and-miss. Chalamet does a good job with what he has to work with. Skarsgard , Brolin, and Bautista are also standouts. Oscar Isaac's portrayal of Leto as father isn't bad, but he does nothing to convey that the emperor fears this man. He looks the part, but doesn't convey appropriate gravitas. Momoa straddles the line between good and bad. Most everyone else is a shade of wooden.
However, this isn't a terrible film. Just a painfully average one. In aggregate, the writing and acting is nothing to write home about, but it's serviceable. Unlike the 1984 adaptation, which nailed its visual style but nothing else, this one doesn't fall on its face.
Star Trek Continues: Embracing the Winds (2016)
Fails on two huge fronts
ST:C is great, but this episode betrays Gene's legacy and feels out of place.
First, humanity in the 23rd century is supposed to be more evolved than the present day, and that's kind of the point of Star Trek. The federation isn't a foil for modern society, it's an example of what it might someday achieve. Simply transplanting modern issues into that future society feels forced and inauthentic, and whenever Star Trek has flirted with this, it's comes out worse for it. The appropriate foil for modern society, and the one that works and is used all of the time in Star Trek, is found in alien cultures and planets.
The second big fail is the moral lesson itself, because there's an easy answer that is readily ignored: Simply, *the ends don't justify the means*, and it's impossible that Spock wouldn't point this out forthwith. When (at least pre-Kurtzman) Star Trek reverses this dictum it's only thanks to astronomical stakes, and coincides with major self reflection (see: In the Pale Moonlight), as opposed to something petty like a promotion. Gene Roddenberry understood this back in the day, but lately there's an unfortunately illiberal strain of progressive ideology that rejects the notion, as is seen here.
Babylon A.D. (2008)
Bad movie + bad movie = total garbage
Lots of people are saying that corporate interference from Fox ruined this movie... and they would be wrong. Even forgiving the horrible ending -- the dialog is cheesy, the characters are bland, the plot is bordering on idiotic. Let's be honest and admit that no amount of editing after the fact can explain how a seemingly invincible girl who can walk away unscratched after being hit *in the face* with a rocket dies from something as simple and unpretentious as childbirth.
Don't kid yourself Vin Diesel fans, even with the best possible editing this movie would still be somewhere between 1 and 2 stars. As it stands, you'd be better off watching a cheap rip off like "snakes on a train" or "dracula 3000" than this train wreck.