Lawrence Journal-World 05-19-13

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2C | LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD | SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2013

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Jon Ralston, features editor, 832-7189, @jonralston, jralston@ljworld.com

‘Star Trek’ sequel sets phasers to fun

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‘Trek’ role primes Cumberbatch for stardom By Julie Hinds Detroit Free Press

ZACHARY QUINTO, LEFT, AS SPOCK AND CHRIS PINE AS KIRK are pictured in a scene from “Star Trek Into Darkness,� now playing. appropriate� weather with the Bike-In Theater. People are encouraged not to meet at the water tower, but instead to ride on up to the Replay’s outdoor patio and see a retro movie of another kind — one that has become a bona fide cult classic. Grab a cheap can of PBR and enjoy Richard Linklater’s funny and wistful “Dazed and Confused,� where Texas teenagers from the ’70s grapple with life and stuff, eric@scene-stealers.com showing at 9 p.m. out back. And if you didn’t get enough of your required dose of Foghat and serial-like action, while Kiss during the movie, keeping a healthy dash of DJ Modrey Hepburn humor front and center. will be spinning vintage He also has composer vinyl afterward. I’m not Michael Giacchino doing sure whether her set will an effective job of making All right, all right, all right be ’70s themed or not, John Williams cry. This coming Tuesday though, because Hepburn Impressive CGI art diusually specializes in ‘50s rection, a truly menacing the Replay Lounge celevillain (the great Benedict brates what will hopefully rock n’ roll and the British Invasion ... and I’m pretty Cumberbatch), and a keen continue to be “outdoor

SCENE STEALERS

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sure threatening her with Ben Affleck’s freshman paddle is a not good idea. Also this week, Liberty Hall is opening “Mud,� a movie I’m very excited to see, given that it is director Jeff Nichols’ follow-up to “Take Shelter,� one of the best movies of 2011. — Eric is a longtime Lawrence.com/Journal-World entertainment writer. He’s also the editor-in-chief of Scene-Stealers and on-air film critic for Kansas First News. He’s a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, vice president of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle.

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sense of pacing make “Star Trek Into Darkness� an easy movie to get swept up in. Abrams is counting on that, because he is treading familiar waters, plotwise. Because it still revolves around the fundamental difference in philosophy of Kirk and Spock, however, “Star Trek Into Darkness� feels like a “Star Trek� movie. It’s almost as if Abrams and company knew this would probably be their last outing in the series, so they threw in everything they could think of. It makes for one hell of a ride, and I wouldn’t want to be the guy who has to follow it up.

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Benedict Cumberbatch’s mission at the moment is to boldly go into a conversation by phone from London about “Star Trek Into Darkness.� “They’ve let me off for a few days to have some fun with my ‘Trek’ family and say hello to the world awaiting the film and talk about it,� says the 36-yearold British actor, who’s in the midst of shooting the third season of “Sherlock,� the popular “Masterpiece Mystery!� series on PBS. “Then I’m back to sleuthing tomorrow in Cardiff.� The man with the deep, melodious voice has been the subject of a thousand jokes about his name, mostly from Americans. There was a viral moment last year when the Web wrongly assumed the Washington Post had called him Bandersnatch Cummerbund by accident. Starting this weekend, he’ll likely have a new moniker: blockbuster star. In “Star Trek Into Darkness,� he plays John Harrison, a man of mysterious motivations and an imposing combination of imperturbable calm and destructive capability. The Web has been burning up with speculation about John Harrison that equals the overall anticipation for the movie, the second installment from director J.J. Abrams, who rejuvenated the franchise with 2009’s origin story “Star Trek.� This one is shot in 3-D and bursting with summer popcorn goodness like breathtaking action scenes, fun asides and the ominous threat posed by Cumberbatch’s character, an intergalactic terrorist. “The phrase I’ve been using is that he’s a oneman weapon of mass destruction. He both uses mind and body to great devastating effect, with an incredibly empathizable cause and reasoning behind his devastating, terrifying actions,� says Cumberbatch. “I think that was the great complexity that I just loved playing, whether it was in psychologically trying to manipulate Spock and Kirk to my point of view and to help me achieve my ends, or whether it was the amount of physical working out and muscle gain I had to get literally overnight.�

AP Photo/Paramount Pictures

AP Photo/Paramount Pictures

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH plays John Harrison in “Star Trek Into Darkness.�

n 2009, director J.J. Abrams breathed new life in to “Star Trek,� a reboot of a film series which, after the disastrous Next Generation movie “Star Trek: Nemesis� seven years earlier, had become a stale and bloated parody of itself. It’s always easier to try new things when you are reinventing an origin story, so Abrams’ “Star Trek� gave Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) a snotty modern makeover and added way more action than “Trek� movies usually get. The voyages of the Starship Enterprise were successfully relaunched and a familiar crew (including Zachary Quinto’s Spock) was installed on the ship. The question before Abrams and his loyal band of writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof then became: Do we boldly go where no man has gone before? From a plot standpoint, the answer is a resounding no, but that doesn’t mean that “Star Trek Into Darkness� is a boring retread of past storylines. It’s a tremendously energetic, thrilling mash-up of past storylines. Yes, there are the same winks and nods to iconic “Star Trek� moments that Abrams’ first outing at the helm of this ship had, and, yes, there are plenty of flashy lens flares and jokey one-liners from Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban). But Abrams has grown into a confident cinematic storyteller, capable of setting high stakes, staging impossible situations and having his characters get out of them, one after another, with a combination of exciting action and just enough of their intellect. If anything, “Star Trek Into Darkness� is Abrams doing his version of an Indiana Jones movie. An acolyte of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg (and who has recently landed the most thankless job in all of Hollywood: taking over Disney’s first “Star Wars� movie), Abrams knows how to wrench pure entertainment from

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