Reviews

Ironically, Nicholas Meyer also directed the best of the *Trek* movies, and the only one which I think works as a real movie (as opposed to a device for vacuuming dollars out of Trekkies' wallets), *The Wrath of Khan*. I guess he just got lucky with that one. Nevertheless, bringing him back to rescue the series from the clutches of the Shatnermonster was clearly a good decision. Everyone seems to have been so relieved that they are willing to ignore this movie's many and massive flaws.

The core problem here is that the smug self-righteousness which was always the most obnoxious thing about *Star Trek* serves as the very basis of the film, and is handled in an even more ham-handed manner than it usually is. (Funny how no one ever behaves like a racist jerk until a Point needs to be made, and then suddenly Starfleet's full of 'em!)

But that is exacerbated by a constant stream of little idiocies and absurdities:

Chekov asks if he should raise shields when the *Enterprise* meets the ship they were expecting to meet. So, complete idiots can become officers on the Federation flagship, then?

The idea of Klingons and humans dining together is treated as a shocking and unprecedented thing, even though the end of the previous movie, they were shown partying together (though it is understandable why everyone wanted to forget that the execrable *ST5* existed).

Spock just happens to have a sticky-backed homing device which he can place on Kirk's shirt when he needs one, even though there is no reason at the time for him to be carrying one around.

This marvel of 23rd-century miniaturization is an inch long and half an inch wide and remains clearly visible on the shoulder of Kirk's uniform throughout the entire process of his arrest and trial, but the Klingons never notice it.

Neither the *Enterprise*'s crew, nor even the computer, can easily tell from the trajectory of a torpedo whether it came from *Enterprise*'s launchers or a point under her keel? And the "neutron surge" which "could only have come from another ship" didn't alert anyone to the presence of another ship until after Kirk and McCoy had been sentenced? I think I see how Chekov kept getting promoted.

Apparently, gravity boots are not standard equipment on Starfleet vessels with artificial gravity, since only the killers will have them. Gee, you'd think having a few pairs around would be kind of useful, just in case.

Valeris demonstrates the *Enterprise*'s alarm system by actually firing a phaser at a pot of food in the galley, instead of just explaining it.

The guy she's explaining it to is Chekov. That's right, the brand-new helm officer is explaining ship operations to an officer who has served on this ship and its predecessor for a quarter-century. Worse, she says, "As you know" before explaining it. So what was that idiotic demonstration in aid of, exactly? Why not just say, "The alarms would have gone off"?

The pot disappears, while the food inside it remains, even though no *Star Trek* phaser has ever worked that way before or since. Apparently Meyer thought this would be cool.

Uhura comes to investigate the alarm at the head of the security team. That's right, the communications officer! And no, she doesn't bother calling on the comm system to find out what happened, she actually runs down to check it out in person, because...uh, because they needed an excuse to get Nichelle Nichols into the scene, I guess. Then Scotty runs in for the same reason. Apparently only the main guys care about stuff like that and don't have jobs to do.

Even though the comm officer is standing right there, Spock orders the helm officer to send a false message to Starfleet. Why? Because the helm officer is a Vulcan, and it allows them to remind us that Vulcans don't lie unless it's *absolutely* necessary to the plot.

It took *that long* for someone to notice the bright purple blood on the transporter pad? Can the transporters be accessed by just anyone? And aren't there records? Haven't any number of episode plots turned on transporter records?

So Kirk *knew* about the homing device, and didn't even bother moving it to a less conspicuous location? Lucky Klingons are as dumb as humans.

I'm not even going to go into the manifest imbecility of the "Klingon dictionary" scene, except to say, "Books? Printed books?!"

Why would Spock ask McCoy to help him reprogram a torpedo? Dammit, he's a doctor, not an engineer!

Why can a bunch of people just beam into a secret summit conference with phasers drawn, a short time after the Klingon Chancellor was assassinated? You'd think Starfleet and Klingon security would be pretty keen on stopping things like that.

Apparently phasers have a rarely-used "defenestration" setting.

(I won't mention "Colonel [!] West," since Meyer apparently retained enough sense to cut him from the original release.)

Stupid movie.

Everybody's mentioned the *High Noon* ripoff, but the silly ending is even worse.

Once he has the bad guys disarmed, why doesn't he just toss them in jail? They've committed multiple felonies, including assaulting a federal judge. Letting them go is a ludicrous decision which makes sense only as a movie contrivance.

Then, why does he immediately go back to his house? He has to figure they'll come after him, since he's been so dumb as to let them go. Is he offering himself up as bait, hoping they'll come after him so he can kill them? Well, it's a good thing they don't sneak up and shoot him through the windows at close range. Again, he does it only because it's necessary to set up the final gunfight, not because it makes any kind of sense.

And then they have MacMurray kill Robert Middleton off camera, which is apparently an attempt to gin up suspense (which one will walk out of the house?), but the actual result is an anti-climax, because we know it will be MacMurray. They go to such ridiculous lengths to set up the final showdown and then they don't even show it? Idiocy! In fact, writing this has made me realize just how stupid it was. I'm going to lower my rating from 6 to 5.

*Lawman* is a mediocre post-Leone Western the point of which seems to be that it's OK to murder old men. If you're rich. Or drunk. Or something.

It's a little muddled, because they stop mentioning the murder victim about halfway through the film, apparently hoping that the audience will forget why Lancaster is in Sabbath in the first place and accept the film's contention that Lancaster is really the bad guy. See, he actually wants to put murderers in jail. Which is why he's the bad guy, even though he lives by the Code of the West. Or something.

Like I say, it's muddled.

This could have been done so much better. Just leaving out the murder (perhaps having someone wounded rather than killed) could have achieved the sort of moral ambiguity Winner was fumbling for and made a sensible person ask if enforcing the law was worth the trouble. I mean, shooting up a town without killing anyone is still pretty bad, but compensation is possible. Here, we're talking about a murder. Lancaster was clearly--CLEARLY--right to pursue these killers to the ends of the earth to do justice for that poor old man. Trying to turn this into an ambiguous question says, I think, something very unpleasant about the moral views of the filmmakers, or at least about the moral views they're trying to con their audience into accepting.

But if you think that murdering old men is a neato-keen way to spend a Saturday night, and that unnecessary zoom shots are the height of cinematic artistry, you'll love this film. Otherwise, possibly not so much.

...but when they go into David Bowie's room (oh, that *wasn't* supposed to be David Bowie? k.d. lang, maybe?), I had this vision of a big foot kicking me out of the movie. I never did quite see why it's considered one of Bergman's greatest works, but I was able to stay with it right up the appearance of Ismael, from which point I just wanted it to be over.

Perhaps in the long TV version all the second half's mystical mumbo-jumbo is better-justified and we learn why Bergman (insanely, in my view) cast a woman in drag as Ismael and why little Fanny is a title character when she is utterly superfluous to the story. But at this point I can't imagine spending the five hours necessary to find out.

One of the many good-but-not-great westerns (or would this be a "northern"?) that John Wayne made between *Stagecoach* and *Fort Apache*, *The Spoilers* has top-billed Marlene Dietrich more or less reprising her role from *Destry Rides Again* (they even play an instrumental version of "Little Joe" in the background of one scene).

But the truly inspired bit of casting is Randolph Scott as McNamara, the Mining Commissioner.

McNamara is established immediately as Wayne's rival in love and a little later as a business obstacle. Given the conventions of the genre, we would assume his villainy from the beginning...except, you know, it's *Randolph Scott*. I mean, that would be like...well, like making John Wayne the villain.

So when it turns out that he is the villain, it's a genuine surprise (for the longest time, I kept thinking that he'd have one of those Hollywood conversions right at the end and help Wayne to set things right before dying in a hail of gunfire).

And of course, Randolph Scott couldn't be expected to lose easily to some young whippersnapper named "Marion," so they were almost required to do the excellent brawl which ends the film.

(Another inspired piece of casting which I didn't know about until I looked it up is Robert W. Service playing Robert W. Service.)

The heroine turns out to have jumped out of the car before it went over the cliff? OK, that's pretty standard. But why can we still see her (actually, a dummy representing her) in the car as it careens down the hillside? Even more fun are those chapters where they simply substitute new footage showing something completely different than we saw in the previous chapter. My favorite is the one at the end of Chapter 8/beginning of Chapter 9. They simply filmed two completely different events, showed one at the end of 8 and the other at the beginning of 9.

Also, I want one of those magic masks which not only perfectly simulate someone else's face, but also his voice, height, and build. I'll take the Young John Wayne model.

It's always fun to watch stuff like this (even though it may be the worst thing the Duke ever did) and try to imagine what contemporary audiences would have been thinking. Did any of them realize that this big stiff young guy would one day become not just the biggest star in Hollywood, but a cultural icon? I doubt it.