Every Friday night, Movies.com sends cinephiles (and newlyweds) Sarah and Joe Piccirillo to see a film. Afterwards, they answer a few questions about it. Below is their discussion.
Synopsis: The Starship Enterprise and its crew embark on yet another journey into space in this sequel to the 2009 reboot of the franchise.
Was this a good date movie?
Joe: This movie is exactly the kind of geek-out experience that makes casual sci-fi fans cringe. Unless both parties are Trekkies, the answer is a firm no.
Sarah: And I think two non-fans wouldn’t like it. But a fan/nonfan combo would be the worst date ever.
Joe: A fanboy would be too busy laughing at the inside jokes to pay attention to his date.
Sarah: And some poor non-Trekkie girl would get murdered for asking questions about what the hell is going on.
Joe: Worst of all, she’d realize she was dating someone who speaks Klingon before being murdered.
Sarah: It works out because if someone spoke Klingon to me, I think I’d want to die afterward.
Do you have to be a Star Trek fan to enjoy it?
Joe: Yep.
Sarah: I think so, too. I know the characters and things like tribbles and transporters because I don’t live under a rock, but they don’t trigger nostalgia for me, just vague recognition.
Joe: That’s why I liked J.J. Abrams’s first Star Trek movie. It felt like a good action flick with character names that just happened to match the Star Trek cast. This one goes full dork, though. There was a ton of stuff that, if I hadn’t remembered the first movie, would be lost on me.
Sarah: You’re right. There were things like Future Spock that I totally didn’t understand but went along with because, by that point, I didn’t care.
Joe: I wonder if it’s a sequel problem.
Sarah: But we just saw Iron Man 3 and that was great even though I hadn’t seen the first two films.
Joe: Oh, then the movie just stinks.
What Drove You Nuts?
Sarah: Seemingly endless footage of the bowels of the Enterprise.
Joe: The futuristic devices suck. A floating bed? What happens when it breaks down?
Sarah: It takes more energy to beam up than to beam down. It’s kind of lame that transporting works like stair-climbing.
Joe: Kirk sleeps with animals.
Sara
h: The over-the-top acting. Benedict Cumberbatch is a dead ringer for the dramatic chipmunk in that viral video.
Joe: You mean Eggs Benedict? Or Marty Cumberbund? Or any other of the fifty names you said before getting Cumberbatch’s name right?
Sarah: Whenever you correct me, I still think it’s a made-up name. Wait, Kirk sleeps with animals?
What will you be thinking about tomorrow?
Sarah: I liked the first 10 minutes of the movie when the crew encounters the toilet-papered people. It was kind of a monster-of-the-week deal, like the original TV series, and I was hoping the rest of the movie would be like that.
Joe: I’ve never seen a movie where everyone, in all galaxies, would be better off if the main characters took absolutely no action after the initial attack.
Sarah: The crew could have just gone to a beach to drink mai tais and the collateral damage would have maxed out at 20 people.
Joe: And a really nice conference room. Instead, Kirk goes rogue and gets everyone sucked into space. If thousands of innocent people are murdered but the principal actors are okay, is it really a happy ending?
Verdict
Sarah: I would like a movie to either keep me in suspense or make the journey enjoyable. This film did neither. Skip it.
Joe: Skip it.
Sarah and Joe are writers/editors who live in Boston. They met in a bar and married within a year. They love to argue about early Woody Allen films and old romantic comedies. They both agree to hate musicals.
