For the last seven years fans have been wondering how we’d recover from the disappointment that was Star Trek: Nemesis, the film that broke the even/odd scheme we’d come to rely on. For everything that J.J. Abrams has done right in Hollywood, had he done enough to take over one of the oldest and most beloved franchises in the industry? Could the writers, actors, director, and studio withstand the undying fanatical cries from the devoted fanbase? Could Star Trek actually become relevant again after a prematurely canceled prequel series and two straight disappointing Next Generation-headlining films? The answer to all of these questions is, of course, a resounding “Yes” as the forty-plus year old franchise is reborn and revitalized under the direction of a capable director, excellent casting, and an excellent story.

All the gushing aside, Star Trek isn’t a perfect film, but its many hits almost completely negate its misses. For every gaping plot hole we get a shout out to the original series or a great line of dialog. For every canon-bucking event, we get pitch-perfect casting and an excellent rapport between characters we’ve known and loved.

The most daunting aspect of the new film would be how to fill the shoe’s of some of sci-fi’s most iconic characters including, but not limited to, Captain James Tiberius Kirk, Mr. Spock, Bones, Scotty, etc. The entire cast is fleshed out well with even smaller supporting rolls like Chekov (Anton Yelchin) getting enough meat and potatoes for the audience to fully understand the character. Enough can’t be said for Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, he isn’t trying to fully emulate the late DeForest Kelly, but his perfect delivery of classic lines, demeanor, hatred for the “green-blooded hobgoblin” all sink in so well with the audience.

A lot has been said about Zachary Quinto as Spock and Chris Pine as Kirk, Quinto’s performance as the emotionally troubled, younger Spock works so well in the middle-stages of the film as a dramatic event really tests the half human/half Vulcan. Pine’s performance as the womanizing, eff-authority Kirk is just what you would imagine. We already know Kirk has a history of disregarding orders from a superior (as seen in Star Trek III), and it becomes fully realized how very good he is when we finally see his solution to the Kobayashi Maru test.

The rest of the cast is filled out nicely with Simon Pegg as Scotty, John Cho as Sulu, and the stunning Zoe Saldana as Uhura. A welcome addition to the cast is Bruce Greenwood as Captain Christopher Pike who’s character is fleshed out nicely compared to what we knew of him from the original, unaired Pilot, and subsequent TOS episode “The Menagerie”.

The aforementioned script issues and underwhelming menace don’t detract too much from the overall picture, however keen observers will blow open the fallacies and breakdown of basic logical thinking, but, honestly, you’re having too much fun to care. Even after repeated viewings you’re more than willing to let a few things slide as you gear up for the next set-piece, the next joke, the next overwhelmingly cool CGI shot that modernizes and energizes the film.

The thing about Star Trek is its exciting, from the moment it begins with Nero’s (Eric Bana) attack on the USS Kelvin, to the closing scene of the Enterprise warping away, its never tedius, the two hour runtime flows along, never ebbing, always keeping your eyes glued to the lens-flared screen and still provoking you like no Star Trek film has since The Undiscovered Country, or possibly First Contact.

It seems almost generic these days to call Star Trek a hip reboot of a successful franchise, and if there’s a less cliché term, please use it, but Abrams Star Trek adventure is just that, an adventure, a continuing voyage of the wagon train to the stars where heroes do exist, enemies lurk, and the faithful crew of the Federation flagship keeps us protected, even 40 years later.

With both Paul Walker and Vin Diesel’s careers in somewhat of a freefall after ill-advised projects like Running Scared (which wasn’t half bad) and Babylon A.D. respectively, they both needed a return to the franchise that made them famous. In swoops Universal with a fourth entry in The Fast & The Furious series, stripping out the new cast employed in the third installment, shaving off the “The’s” off the title and reinstalling the original core cast members.

The results are marginally better than you would expect. The storyline isn’t anything special, but is a solid narrative when compared to the rest of the series. The motivation and happenstance to bring Walker’s FBI agent Brian back to face off with Diesel’s Dom seems a bit contrived from the get go, but once the fast cars and scantily clothed women begin to grace the screen once more, the story just falls by the wayside.

Walker has seemed to tone down the surfer-dude persona employed in the series’ first two installments, turning O’Conner into a more serious FBI agent who goes against the grain when necessary and has a boss who allows it, to a point. Basically the typically movie-screen agent, mulling around L.A. with a map, looking for bad guys in a non-discrete car. Dom is still the quiet type, although the script attempts to paint him as more of a quiet romantic, leaving his Mexican heist lifestyle to protect those that he loves. Dom eventually runs afoul of a big time Mexican drug dealer who is also wanted by the FBI (how quaint).

The series action is intact from the pre-credits get-go with the scene we’ve all seen in the trailers as Dom and his new crew steal gasoline trailers from a ridiculously long tractor-trailer. Eventually things blow up, cars can still fit under things, and we’re back in L.A. for more action. The film is a literal balls-to-the-walls pace with street races through the City of Angels with some of the new technology that’s come on the scene since the original’s release. There’s nods to the original ¼ race between Brian and Dom about using nitrous at the right time, but there’s very little exposition on what happened to all the supporting characters like Leon and Vince.

Fast & Furious is easily the best entry in the series and it isn’t expected to be the last after its monster opening weekend. Where the story goes from here is unknown, those who have seen Tokyo Drift (which actually happens after this film) will know Dom’s eventual fate, so will we see a sequel in a year or two? Let’s hope so, although there’s dangerously few words left in the title, hopefully Universal thinks to either add a few back in, rather than take more out.

As the first ever direct sequel in the 22 film James Bond franchise, and the second film in the reboot series that started with Daniel Craig’s debut as 007 in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace both impresses and disappoints. The impressive parts far outweigh the disappointments, however both sides of the coin need to be examined to fully see the film for what it is.

On the base level QoS is a direct sequel, heavy in the continuing story of Bond’s revenge crusade against the organization that plotted against him and turned his true love, Vesper Lynd, against him in the closing moments of Royale. The film picks up in a high chase sequence through the Italian countryside with Bond escorting Mr. White (whom he shot in the final moment of CR) to a meeting with M (Judi Dench) where things don’t go as planned. The organization’s reach is far beyond anything MI6 had envisioned and as the swift one hour-forty-five-minute film concludes the audience is left with a satisfied feeling.

Quantum is one long action sequence as director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland) never lets up from the gas peddle from the teaser sequence until the fiery ending in the Bolivian desert. They are chases on land, sea, and in the air, shoot outs, more free-style running with nary a moment for Bond to catch his breath before he’s on a plane to another country and involved in another shoot-out. The rapid pace of the film makes its already abbreviated running time feel even shorter. This could also be one of the film’s biggest weaknesses as the runtime doesn’t provide a lot of time for the character to be explored anymore than what we saw in Casino Royale. Here Bond is vengeful, hell-bent on destroying the organization that claimed his glimmer of happiness and in a borrowing of plot lines from both Die Another Day and License to Kill, he goes semi-rogue, even though M knows what he is doing at all times.

Still without anytime for Bond’s development, he falls into a 2D character that constantly milking the franchise over the past 40 years has produced on occasion. Even worse off is the film’s supposed big baddie in Mr. Greene (Mathieu Amalric) who is even less developed and never imposing enough to be seen as a threat. Greene plays the political game and is very hand’s off, much like CR‘s Le Chiffre, however where the dearly departed villain could stand toe to toe with Bond, even going so far as to torture him, Greene looks like a school boy and never oozes the confidence we’d like to see in a Bond villain.

Aside from the never ending comparisons to the franchise reboot predecessor, to which this film doesn’t quite approach in quality, Quantum is a great entry into the franchise and as an extension of Casino Royale rather than a separate film, its unparalleled in its quality with a satisfying ending and the door open to continue along the development of Quantum (the organization) and its dealings in the world as MI6 is no where closer to unraveling what makes them work at the conclusion of this film.

Quantum of Solace is a must for any Bond, Bourne, or action-movie fan, and while die hard franchise skeptics who won’t watch anything sans-Connery will be keen to spout off against the film and its declining quality in comparison to other films in the series, after the spectacular show that was Casino Royale, it was going to take a miracle to really top that masterpiece.

More so than its predecessor, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is an arresting visual experience with a loose story centered on the titular character and the army of paranormal investigators at the BRPD. The influence of Guillermo del Toro on the franchise, lifted from the pages of Dark Horse comics, has brought it to a more mainstream audience and amplified what it is to be different. The original film was a modest success for Sony and the ailing Revolution Studios, after passing on the sequel, Universal picked up the rights and brings us one of the top comic book movies of the year, so far.

Hellboy II manages to surpass its original installment, something that’s not easy to do, but becoming more common recently, in nearly all aspects. While the plot is still a prime excuse to link together fight scenes, the background story still has some muster and a mythological base treats fans of two different genres.

Long ago an elf king commissioned goblins to create an indestructible army commanded by a crown. The Golden Army was so destructive and indestructible that it nearly annihilated all of mankind and led to a truce between the two parties, the humans taking the cities, the elves taking the forests. While most of the elf population took this truce to heart for each generation, the king’s son Price Nuada (Luke Goss) drifted into exile only to turn up in the present day with the urge to command the army for himself and destroy the humans.

The antagonist is a bit weak, although its hard to top the terrorizing effects of undead Nazi’s from the first film. What really shines here is the character development of Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and Liz (Selma Blair) and their struggling relationship. The writing has been tightened significantly with Perlman delivering one-liners like any leading man and making them count. Both Liz and Abe (Doug Jones) receive expanded parts in relation to the original, new character Johann Kraus (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) really brings a bit of freshness to the film.

The film also maintains aspects of the comic book’s back-story and mythology including more and more allusions that Hellboy will be the destructor of our world, and when the pregnant Liz hears this as a choice between Hellboy living and dying she understandably choices his life over, what may be, everyone else’s. While a common theme of the character, del Toro again tries to play up the fact that the world will never accept Hellboy, even when he, Abe, and the BRPD are ousted into the public eye. The red-skinned one once again contemplates his position within human society and if he can ever survive and be accepted.

Perlman loses himself in the role and makes the doubters who initially opposed him for the role eat a good sized helping of crow as he further evolves the character down new paths. He’s able to make a giant red demon into a humanized character, naïve in relationships, and sticking it to authority figures much to the dismay of his overseer Manning (Jeffrey Tambor).

As mentioned previously, the visual imagery of the film is stunning with some major holdovers from del Toro’s Oscar-nominated Pan’s Labyrinth including the creepy, yet enticing Angel of Death near the climax of the film. The battle between our heroes and the Golden Army is also very well choreographed and a visual masterpiece.

When it’s all said and done, the Hellboy series continues on its high road (as long as we don’t count videogames) and manages to outdo the original film in a planned trilogy in nearly every category from writing to action to character development. One can only hope that the next film capitalizes on this one’s success and high points and continues to climb upwards.

Nineteen years of waiting, waiting for all the stars to align, waiting for a script to get approved, waiting for what seems like forever, and this is what we get: a huge resounding relief that the movie has finally been released followed by unbridled disappointment in the finished product. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will no doubt go down as the biggest disappointment of the summer for many, this reviewer included, as the film loses most of, if not all, the fun of the original trilogy and what we are left with is a CGI mess with a weak story, weaker acting, no resounding villain, and the feeling that maybe we shouldn’t have hoped over the years for a fourth film, just like Star Wars fans today wish the prequel trilogy had never materialized.

The film was supposed to be foolproof, a script by David Koepp, approved by George Lucas (as much credit as that really is), directed by Steven Spielberg, and starring Indy himself, Harrison Ford. Unfortunately no matter of critical pedigree and talent was going to be able to save this film from the aspects which doomed it.

The setup is interesting, although drastically misleading as Indy and a group of communist era Soviets visit a very familiar looking warehouse with a giant “51” painted on the door. Here we think they are going for the Ark, only then do we find out what they are really after, and that’s where the wheels begin to fall off as the MacGuffin here just isn’t that interesting with so many more choices on the table. Everything from Atlantis to the Spear of Destiny was suggested by the review party who attended the screening only to be left with, well, to keep this as spoiler free as possible I won’t say, but you can put two and two together.

From here we are subjected to one outlandish display after another until the movie concludes with the biggest one of all. The origins of Indy are based in the radio and early TV serial dramas like Buck Rogers, so the outlandish has to be expected, but the suspension of disbelief only goes so far. One can explain away Indy hanging from a tank or being dragged behind a truck in the original trilogy, but we’ve now devolved into being propelled miles in a refrigerator (lined with lead) after a nuclear blast, or the ability for a teenager to swing like Tarzan to catch up to cars going 50 mph or faster? You almost have to laugh because it’s so bad at times.

The only thing that saves Kingdom is those involved and some okay scenes between the aging Indy (Harrison Ford) and Mutt (Shia LaBeouf). The inclusion of Karen Allen as Marion seems almost forced as she isn’t present in the first half of the movie and has little to do in the latter besides forcing some really bad dialog and giving us a groan inducing ending.

George Lucas’ CGI stained hands are all over this film, whereas traditionalists, and even just fans of the franchise would have liked to see the live action stunts, here a lot of the film is handled by computers, taking away some of the awe and fun of the original trilogy, when you knew that was a real person being dragged, or a real person fighting those battles.

In the end, everything combines into a merely mediocre package that is sure to disappoint anyone who holds a fond place in their heart for any of the original films. You can see sparks of enchantment once again throughout the two hour running time, but in the end, you really wish things had been much different, and maybe we shouldn’t have clamored as much, or as loud, for a new entry in the series.

How do you continue on a successful horror series when your antagonist is very, very much dead? Unlike your Friday the 13ths and Halloween movies, Saw‘s lead baddie is down for the count, for good, no crazy reincarnation, no sudden body disappearance, Jigsaw’s body is autopsied in the first scene of the latest sequel in the franchise in gruesome detail, and there’s no body coming back from that.

Still, a little problem like being worm food will not stop Jigsaw’s work, and that’s what Saw IV sets out to do for the audience, show them that even though the frail man we’ve seen deteriorate in the past three movies has finally died, his work is just beginning and the franchise lives on.

The film works as sort of a prequel and sequel to the first Saw and Saw III, respectively. We learn how John Kramer (Tobin Bell) came to be Jigsaw after a traumatic event in his life sent him over the edge, forcing those who have wasted their lives to save themselves or be flushed from society.

Saw IV‘s timeline is a big part of the movie so we’ll avoid that spoiler here, but part of the film responds to the aftermath of the previous films in the series. After Rigg (Lyriq Bent) sees the dismembered body of his former partner Kerry (Dina Meyer), who was killed in Saw III’s rip-splitting “angel trap,” he begins to question his life.

Jigsaw sets him up to perform a series of tests, to see what he sees, feel what he feels, and do what he does in order to allow people to save themselves. Throughout the film Rigg is tasked with making the choice of saving criminals or leaving them to save themselves, he has 90 minutes to pass all of his tests before several of his colleagues will die. This is the standard part of any Saw film, a person being put in an impossible situation, testing what we come out to see as a weak point in their personality and Jigsaw giving them a choice.

The second storyline in the film deals with the aforementioned flashbacks to John Kramer and his wife, Jill (Betsy Russell), and how their relationship rapidly falls apart as John begins his work as Jigsaw. We are even treated to Jigsaw’s first trap which even falls apart and fails as his subject attempts to solve it. Luckily the killer who never kills has a contingency plan, but it’s nice to see Kramer as a normal human being for a while. In fact, as the revelation of the event that caused Jigsaw to emerge is played out, you honestly feel bad for the guy, making him the most likable character in the film and the one the audience is likely to be the most sympathetic towards.

The film’s big reveal (as with the three previous entries in the series) gives the audience a lot of information to process at once. After first viewing the movie, especially with this entry, you’re likely to be more confused than anything. However, as you digest everything that happens in the final minutes, put the pieces together, you then realize that the writers have outdone themselves once again in creating a memorable way to end yet another volume in the franchise.

After it’s all said and done, Jigsaw’s taped message for Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is very true, this was only the beginning and we’re less than a year away from finding how it all starts again.

Another second sequel, but this time the third, and reportedly last, outing of the Ocean’s crew comes out better than expected, securing itself as the best sequel of the summer (so far). There are still some problems here, but after the lame outing that was Ocean’s 12, 13 is the magical number for the series bringing it almost up to par with the unbelievable first outing.

The crime this time is revenge, and not so much for the benefit of the crew, but for the destruction of Willie Bank (Al Pacino) who backed out of a deal with Reuben (Elliot Gould) causing him to have a breakdown into a near coma. Danny Ocean (George Clooney) gathers the crew for a big score, rigging all the games in Bank’s casino to pay out to nearly everyone on the floor causing him to lose more money than they ever stole from Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), who also shows up.

The story isn’t so much important as the caper, and the unbelievable nature of how everything seems to be thought of before it happens for Ocean and his crew. Every time it looks like something is going to go wrong, the film throws in that traditional Ocean’s twist to show you, and it was planned all along. The double crossing was seen before it happen, the endgame devised before it may have been thought of. The audience is clearly on to most of these twists, but even without the surprises and suspense that kept us in our seats during the first film in the series, there’s a great popcorn film here that keeps you interested and makes up for the other trite the common consumer has had to endure over the last six weeks.

Series newcomer Al Pacino puts in a convincing, although subdued, role as Willie Bank, a Las Vegas real estate tycoon who are just convinced to hate by the film’s opening where he nearly kills Reuben after backing out on a deal for the target hotel. The rest of the cast clearly shows how working together two times previously has put them into a sort of gel-state where they play off of each other very well, although with a cast as huge as this, no one really gets any remarkable screen time, even headlines like Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon. The absence of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts is actually played for laughs as both Pitt and Clooney comment on how their respective women throughout the film as a running gag.

There’s a lot to like about Ocean’s 13, just nothing to get overly excited about. These movies may be expensive to make, but it’s an easy cash crop for Warner Bros. as the sheer star power of the leads combined with the marketability of a Vegas heist and the comedy aspect make it a certain hit amongst fans and casual movie-goers. You aren’t getting the same fresh feeling that you got in the 2001 original, but even without it, it’s a good two hours at the movies.