Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Should all the varying factions of nerd and geek culture ever go to war, the final battle would be waged by two groups: Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans. And in the event of this ultimate confrontation, I'm going to side with Star Trek. I've never been one of those "dress in a Starfleet uniform and learn Klingon" type of hardcore Trekkers, but I've proudly enjoyed Star Trek since I was a kid. It started with Star Trek: The Next Generation when I was five years old and it's stuck with me ever since.

But long before any of the TV spinoffs and J.J. Abrams's blockbusters, there were only the original adventures of Captain Kirk and the USS Enterprise. Despite the pop culture impact it's had over the last several decades, the classic series aired on CBS for a mere three seasons between 1966 and 1969. Despite its short life span, it developed a devoted following even back then. It found new life in syndication, and inspired a similarly short-lived Saturday morning cartoon that ran for only 22 episodes during the early '70s. But it didn't come back in a truly big way until the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. The Star Trek franchise would grow by leaps and bounds in the years afterwards, but its initial foray into the cinematic realm would be more of a stumble on the road of bigger and better things. If I may be frank, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is just plain dull.

A massive cloud of energy is heading directly for Earth, destroying everything in its path. The Enterprise is tasked with intercepting and investigating this cloud, despite its crew not having worked out all the kinks from its recent refitting. Seeing the opportunity to break away from his boring desk job, Admiral James Kirk (William Shatner) asserts his authority and takes command of the vessel, forcing the Enterprise's new captain, William Decker (Stephen Collins), into the secondary role of "executive officer." Reunited with his ship and much of his old crew, Admiral Kirk sets out to determine just what the hell this cloud is. But the crew of the Enterprise finds itself unprepared when it encounters the being controlling the cloud, a mysterious entity calling itself "V'Ger."

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is one of those movies that, on paper, look like it could turn out very well. And there are some elements of it that I enjoyed quite a bit. But on the whole, the movie could have been a lot better. You know that whole stigma about the odd-numbered Star Trek movies being lame? That all starts right here. While it's not outright terrible, it suffers from a potential for greatness that simply went untapped.

Helming this initial cinematic voyage of the Enterprise is the late Robert Wise, directing one of the last movies of his long and storied career. Wise's direction is solid, but the movie suffers from having spent too little time in the editing room. No matter whether you watch the original theatrical version or the extended "director's cut," Star Trek: The Motion Picture is an overlong chore of a movie that spends more time spinning its wheels than anything else. It desperately wants to be some kind of bold, almost operatic epic. But it just lurches along with not a lot of excitement or reason to care. The problem is that a lot of the movie is boring. You could honestly cut ten or fifteen minutes out of the movie and absolutely nothing would be lost. I know this movie has its fans and defenders, but I honestly don't get it. There are some honestly cool, intriguing moments, don't get me wrong, but they're so few and far between that I often found myself losing interest.

The movie's script doesn't help anything either, but there's a heck of a story behind that. It was announced in 1977 that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry began developing Star Trek: Phase II, a continuation of the original series that would have aired on a new network called the Paramount Television Service. Neither Phase II nor the Paramount Television Service ever saw the light of day, but after the success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the script that Alan Dean Foster had written for Phase II's pilot was rewritten by Harold Livingston and became the script for the movie. And you can definitely tell this is a TV script that had been extended to feature length, because there's what feels like an awful lot of padding.

The movie has some plot threads that are either underdeveloped or simply go nowhere. For example, the Kirk/Deckard rivalry and Deckard's relationship with Ilia could have both been further elaborated upon. The script doesn't do much with either and until the movie's climax, they aren't even wholly relevant to the plot. It honestly feels like something that could have covered over several episodes or even an entire season of a TV show. But we end up with this hot mess instead.

Even the cast isn't given a whole lot to do. Most of the actors remain in the background and are unimportant, while Stephen Collins is just kinda there. Meanwhile, Persis Khambatta is boring and lifeless. Her character is transformed from a flesh-and-blood person into an emotionless synthetic duplicate halfway through the movie, and there's absolutely no change in her acting style. They could have swapped her out with a mannequin and nobody would have noticed.

But the actors returning from the TV show all provide fun performances. Nobody has or ever will accuse William Shatner of being a master thespian, but I've always enjoyed his portrayals of Captain Kirk. He doesn't have the best material to work with here, but he still does a damn good job. The same can be said for Leonard Nimoy as Spock, while DeForest Kelley is fun as always as the irascible Bones McCoy.

There's a great Star Trek story lying beneath the surface of this movie. It's just handled in a way that makes the movie ungodly boring. As much as I like Star Trek, I spent the entire movie wondering if there was anything else I could be doing instead. It does have the occasional flash brilliance, and you can see that there's something deep in here. But it's not approached in the best way. I'm no sci-fi expect and I'm not the guy to ask how to improve it. And besides, after thirty-four years, what can you do? I mean, at least the Star Trek movies would get better from here, right?

Final Rating: **

Iron Man 3 (2013)

It was around this time one year ago that we saw the release of The Avengers. The climax of "Phase One" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers brought together characters from five different movies to create a comic book geek's dream movie. But if all of those movies were building for one billion-dollar epic, where do they go after that? There's only one thing you can do: go forward with "Phase Two" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And it begins the same way that Phase One began, with a new movie starring Iron Man. And like the previous movies starring the character, Iron Man 3 is a fun watch.

Some time has passed since the Avengers repelled the alien invasion instigated by Loki, but his near-death experience during the battle has left Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) suffering from severe post-traumatic stress. Unable to sleep and plagued by panic attacks, Stark spends every moment he can obsessively building new Iron Man armor, his suits now numbering in the dozens. His behavior is such that he's started alienating his girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is left confused and agitated by Stark's emotional distance.

But life is about to get much more complicated for our armored superhero. A terrorist known as "the Mandarin" (Ben Kingsley) has been orchestrating a series of bombings around the United States, one of which leaves Stark's friend Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) in a coma. Stark publicly swears revenge, an act that leads the Mandarin to destroy his house and seemingly kill him.

While Jim Rhodes (Don Cheadle), in his own suit of armor as "the Iron Patriot," scours the globe in search of the Mandarin, an off-the-grid Stark follows a trail of clues that connects the Mandarin to Aldritch Killian (Guy Pearce), a bitter scientist whose ideas were rebuffed by a more egotistical Stark a decade earlier. Utilizing the research of Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), one of Stark's past one-night-stands, Killian has developed Extremis, an experimental treatment designed to assist with the healing of devastating injuries. As he follows the trail of clues further, Stark discovers that not only are the Mandarin's bombings are tied to Extremis, but that both the U.S. President (William Sadler) and Pepper are in great danger.

After the pure, unbridled spectacle that was The Avengers, Marvel Studios would have been out of their minds to try topping it so soon. I guess they had the same idea, because Iron Man 3 doesn't try to top or even match The Avengers. Instead, it's a more intimate affair. Yes, it still has the same action and humor one would expect from Tony Stark's solo adventures, but it's more about how the character is affected by his exploits than the exploits themselves. This shift in focus allows Iron Man 3 to be a more intriguing movie than it might have been otherwise.

Jon Favreau doesn't return to direct this third leg of the Iron Man trilogy, instead handing the reins over to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang director Shane Black. Black does an admirable job with the movie as he goes his own way rather than ride Favreau's coattails. The movie still boasts some tremendously fun action sequences, but Black instead brings the movie closer to the characters. Things are paced and composed in such a way that the movie feels more like a standard action movie than a grand superhero blockbuster. I honestly don't think that's a bad thing, however. It's actually refreshing to see a superhero movie where the human side of heroism takes center stage. Black throws everything into making the movie about Tony Stark and the world he occupies rather than Iron Man, and it really pays off.

I don't know if can say the same for the screenplay, though. Written by Black and Drew Pearce, the script takes the finale of The Avengers and uses it as the basis for what one could call Tony Stark's midlife crisis. Getting a glimpse of his own mortality really messed with Tony, and now he's not sure if he's building the armor or if the armor's building him. Black and Pearce don't delve into this quite as deeply as they could have; they could have turned the whole movie into a deep, dramatic character study, but were seemingly obligated to deliver a standard superhero movie.

That's where I felt Iron Man 3 stumbled. Black and Pearce come up with a number of really cool ideas, but don't quite build them together into something awesome. I understand that they probably wanted to write a movie that was a bit more low-key so the franchise could catch their breath after The Avengers, but they could have developed their ideas beyond something simple. Their script also suffers from being a little overlong and probably could have used a bit of trimming. I mean, did we need that subplot where Tony makes friends with some precocious kid? Did that kid contribute anything to the story that couldn't have been handled by another character?

I was also disappointed by the movie's 3D effects too. The movie was converted into 3D during post-production, and it really feels like it was done just because the Marvel Cinematic Universe's movies pretty much have to be in 3D now. There's no real need for it, and the movie is plagued by the same troubles that have plagued most movies that are converted into 3D. Not much depth is added to the visuals, with only a handful of scenes really benefiting from it. You honestly won't be missing much if you choose to see Iron Man 3 in 2D, to tell you the truth.

But as less-than-impressive as I thought the script and 3D conversion were, I thoroughly enjoyed the cast. Ben Kingsley is a lot of fun as the Mandarin, but I felt Guy Pearce's villainous turn outshined him. Pearce's character is such a snake, and he embraces the role and runs with it. While I think the movie could have benefited more from simply adapting the "Five Nightmares" comic book story written by Matt Fraction in 2008 and had Pearce play Ezekiel Stane, Pearce is still a damn fine bad guy.

I also thought Don Cheadle was really good as Rhodey. He plays the part like he was built for it and makes an amusing foil for our leading man. I don't know if they'd ever do an Iron Patriot/War Machine solo spinoff or include the character in one of the Avengers sequels, but if it means I get to see Cheadle play the character again, I'd be all for it. The same can be said for Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts. She plays Pepper as smart and strong, and you really believe that Tony Stark would fall in love with her. Paltrow provides some of the sweetest, most heartwarming moments of the movie, and the movie is better for having her here.

But once again, the movie belongs to Robert Downey Jr. For the fourth time, Downey contributes an absolutely excellent performance and once again steals the whole movie. He not only brings the charming irreverence he always approaches the character with, but also a vulnerability that makes him sympathetic. All you want to do is reach into the movie and give him a big hug. I honestly cannot imagine anyone being able to equal Downey were he to ever bow out of playing the role.

Rumor has it that this might be the last solo movie for Iron Man. A tag at the end of the movie's credits promises that "Tony Stark will return," but beyond Avengers sequels and cameos in other movies, the character's future seems uncertain. And while I will not call Iron Man 3 the best of the trilogy, it's a great way to end the story should this actually be the final Iron Man movie. It has its flaws, sure, but it's still an entertaining movie that I actually enjoyed a lot. It gets the Marvel Cinematic Universe's "Phase Two" off to a great start, and is certainly worth seeing. And between you and me, I can't wait to see where this franchise goes from here.

Final Rating: ***

The Lords of Salem (2013)

When musician Rob Zombie branched out into making horror movies, he brought with him his heavy metal sensibilities and affection for cult and exploitation movies from the 1970s. This has allowed him to develop his own style and approach to the horror genre that worked to his favor in House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects and to his detriment in his two entries into the Halloween franchise.

When Zombie approached his fifth movie, he once more looked to the '70s for inspiration. But instead of grindhouse movies like usual, he culled influence from European filmmakers like Ken Russell and Mario Bava, and neo-pagan horror movies like Rosemary's Baby and The Wicker Man. A truly odd amalgam of trippy visuals, strange moments that come seemingly out of nowhere and for no reason, Zombie's The Lords of Salem is without a doubt his most unique and ambitious movie. It's also his most bizarre movie to date.

The story centers around Heidi LeRoq (Sheri Moon Zombie), a recovering drug addict who co-hosts a late-night radio show in Salem, Massachusetts. She lives a happy enough life, but that all changes when a strange package addressed to her arrives at her radio station. Said package, a wooden box containing a vinyl record by a band called "The Lords," draws the curiosity of Heidi and the co-hosts of her show, Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Herman (Ken Foree). While interviewing local author Francis Matthias (Bruce Davison) about his book covering the Salem witch trials, the trio plays the record on the air.

But what they do not know is that playing the ominous music on that record has triggered something evil. Heidi is soon plagued by terrifying hallucinations and nightmares that push her sanity to the breaking point. Intrigued by the music and the name of the so-called band, Matthias does some digging and discovers that one of Heidi's ancestors, famed witch hunter Reverend Johnathan Hawthorne (Andrew Prine), led a mob that executed a coven of witches known as "the Lords of Salem." With their dying breaths, the Lords of Salem placed a curse on the Hawthorne family tree and Salem's female population, a curse that has been awakened by the playing of that music. The spirits of Lords of Salem have arisen, intent on sacrificing Heidi to Satan himself.

It's been a few days since I saw The Lords of Salem, and I'm still not one hundred percent sure just what in the blue hell I actually watched. It's a strange mind-screw of a movie that is equal parts captivating and frustrating. The movie is so weird that you can't look away yet you might find yourself upset that so little of it actually makes sense. I find it hard to describe The Lords of Salem in words that will do it justice, because it is a movie that you won't truly "get" until you see it for yourself. And if you're anything like me, you still won't completely get it even after you see it.

I don't know if I could call this movie Rob Zombie's best, but as far as his direction goes, his work is amazing. It's probably his best technical effort at making a movie, at the very least. The movie boasts some gorgeous cinematography that looks like it was pulled from The Shining, and is orchestrated in such a way that nearly everything will give you the creeps or just plain freak you out. Say what you will about this movie, but it's evident that Zombie knew exactly what kind of movie he wanted to make. There are some scenes that Zombie draws out and makes unbearably tense, and other scenes that are so bizarre that they defy words. It's like watching a weird mashup of The Shining and Requiem for a Dream, with some Rosemary's Baby thrown in for flavor. It's unsettling, uncomfortable, and just plain weird, and I doubt that Zombie would have wanted it any other way.

It's unfortunate, though, that Zombie's script isn't as strong as his direction. One gets the impression he got so focused on making the movie seem like a nightmare that he forgot to include things like worthwhile characters. The movie's biggest flaw is that you simply do not care about what's happening to anybody, and it's wholly the fault of the script.

Zombie stepped out of his comfort zone in writing The Lords of Salem, since none of the characters are ultra-repellent white trash or over-exaggerated hillbillies like in his other movies. But it seems like that's what he's best at because he really hit a dead end here. It's especially evident with the character of Heidi, who, despite being the lead character and the movie's emotional center, is given practically nothing of value to do for the entire movie. Even as she descends into madness, the character coasts along on autopilot, contributing the absolute bare minimum to the story. Everyone else is more intriguing, which is a damn shame because none of them are given as much focus as the blank slate that is Heidi.

At least the movie boasts a strong cast to make up for a lot of the script's inadequacies. Among the supporting cast, I enjoyed Ken Foree and Jeff Daniel Phillips quite a bit. Foree brings a lot of humor to his role, while Phillips did a respectable job playing the "guy with an unrequited crush on the lead character" you've seen in various movies before. (And it's a shame that Zombie didn't do more with that trope, either.) Judy Gleeson, Patricia Quinn, and Dee Wallace also provide both some funny and genuinely creepy moments as a trio of witches with nefarious intent. Meg Foster also appears as the leader of the Lords of Salem, her character frequently appearing in Heidi's hallucinations. Foster is actually really scary here, playing the role with a ton of otherworldly menace. And although his screen time is sadly limited to a handful of scenes, Bruce Davison contributes a likable performance.

And then there's the movie's star, Sheri Moon Zombie. Most people accuse her presence here as being a little nepotistic, considering she's married to the movie's director. And really, the movie probably could have benefited from having Moon in a supporting role and another actress in the lead. That's not to say Moon is a bad actress; I've actually found her to be quite strong in every other movie I've seen her in. But the characters she's played in the past have never been as ill-defined and poorly written as this one. Moon does the best she can, but there's only so much she can do when the character has to spend the whole movie walking around in a haze. There are a couple of moments where it feels like Moon could have something awesome to do, but they never really get off the ground. All that's required of Moon is to stare off into space and let everything else happen around her. The character shows absolutely zero proactivity or initiative, and is just a terrible excuse for a main character. And no matter how strong Moon's performance might be, she unfortunately doesn't have a whole lot to work with and that lack of material drags her down into the muck.

The Lords of Salem is, without an ounce of hyperbole, one of the most surreal movies I've ever seen. The movie feels like an odd experiment, as if Rob Zombie wanted to see if he could successfully make an art house movie that looked like one of his band's music videos. And he wanted to make something that would absolutely freak out everyone who sees it, too. That weird montage that serves as the movie's climax is all the proof you need that this is a truly strange piece of work. And as such, it's not going to satisfy everybody. Even I left the theater unsure of whether or not I actually liked it. And while I'll still argue that The Devil's Rejects remains Zombie's best movie, at least The Lords of Salem is better than his Halloween II. So it has that going for it, I guess.

Final Rating: **½

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

I've written more than a few reviews where I've mentioned my love for the pop culture from my childhood. But for some reason, I never got into G.I. Joe or Transformers. I guess Hasbro toys always escaped me over the years. The closest I ever got to them was seeing the movies when I was an adult. And it's just kinda sad that the live-action movies never turned out all that well. The one that turned out the worst was G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Michael Bay's three movies based on the Transformers were painfully dumb, but at least they were memorable, which is more than I can say for The Rise of Cobra. It's a forgettable, disappointing mess. But it proved financially successful enough that it ended up with a sequel that I'm sure you've seen the advertising for by now. But if you haven't seen it, don't get in any rush. You aren't missing much.

After Pakistan's president is assassinated, the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce) orders the G.I. Joes into duty to retrieve a nuclear warhead before Pakistani rebels can get their hands on it. Their mission is successful, but nearly the entire team is massacred when their extraction team opens fire on their base. Only three Joes ― Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), and Flint (D.J. Cotrona) ― survive this massacre, and are shocked to discover that the President himself made the order to wipe out the Joes.

Things just keep getting worse for the surviving Joes, as the President holds a press conference to claim that the Joes had gone rogue and attempted to steal the warhead for their own purposes. They quickly manage to deduce that the President has actually been replaced by Zartan (Arnold Vosloo), a master of disguise and agent for the terrorist organization Cobra. While Cobra agents Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun) and Firefly (Ray Stevenson) free Cobra Commander (Luke Bracey, with the voice of Robert Baker), from a subterranean prison in Germany, Zartan uses his position to call together a summit of the world's nuclear powers.

Cobra has been secretly assembling their own nuclear weapon they've named "the Zeus Initiative," and Zartan and Cobra Commander intend to use the summit to hold the world hostage with their weapon. But with the help of ninja Snake Eyes (Ray Park), his apprentice Jinx (Elodie Yung), and General Joseph Colton (Bruce Willis), the original G.I. Joe, Roadblock, Lady Jaye, and Flint vow to stop Cobra's plan and avenge their fallen brethren.

Have you ever seen one of those movies that you somehow manage to completely forget about once you leave the theater? That pretty much sums up G.I. Joe: Retaliation. If I hadn't scribbled down some notes in the theater's parking lot, I probably wouldn't have been able to write this review at all. Don't get me wrong, the movie is a lot of fun while you're sitting there watching it, but once it's over, all you have to show for it is that two hours have gone by and your wallet is ten dollars lighter. But I honestly cannot say that I disliked it, because it's still an enjoyable ride.

At the helm of this little adventure is Jon M. Chu, whose only directorial credits of note prior to this were Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D, and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. Because when you're making a blockbuster action movie, you want to hire the guy who most recently made a Justin Bieber documentary and two movies about dance troupes. But Chu's direction on this particular movie is actually pretty good. It's nothing groundbreaking, and Chu's occasional use of that damnable "shaky-cam" action movie cliché is irritating. But he manages to make the movie fun and occasionally really exciting, especially during the one sequence where two groups of ninjas engage in a swordfight while hanging from the side of a mountain. The movie isn't ever going to be accused of being particularly intelligent, but Chu manages to make it watchable.

And you can tell that releasing the movie in 3D was a last-minute decision, because Chu doesn't do much to put it to good use. A lot of the movie looks flat, even though there were some moments ― like that mountainside swordfight I mentioned, for example ― that actually do really cool in 3D. But for the most part, the 3D conversion was otherwise unnecessary.

But while the 3D effects are lackluster, the screenplay is just plain bad. The script is credited to Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and you'd think the guys that wrote Zombieland could have come up with something better than the sack of crap they used as the script for G.I. Joe: Retaliation. I'm not going to say that I expected the movie to have intelligent, thought-provoking writing, but I wasn't expecting it to be so stupid, either. There's practically no real story to speak of, just a collection of scenes put together to look like a movie. The dialogue is banal, the characters are forgettable, and if it weren't for the action sequences, the movie would have been just plain boring. I have to reiterate that I'm honestly surprised that the guys who wrote Zombieland ended up writing this dumb thing.

And it feels like the cast knew the script sucked too, because a lot of the actors are forgettable, and Bruce Willis comes across like he just showed up to collect a paycheck. But there are a few cast members worth mentioning, at least. Channing Tatum makes an appearance in the movie, very briefly reprising his role from The Rise of Cobra, and I thought he did a fine job. He's not given much to do, but Tatum is still really good and quite funny. I also thought Dwayne Johnson was great in his role, but the whole movie was stolen by Jonathan Pryce. He plays the character with a hammy glee, making his scenes very entertaining to watch. I wouldn't say the movie was worth watching just for him, but I'd say Pryce's scenes are worth checking out on YouTube.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation was originally scheduled for a release date of June 29, 2012. It was delayed at the very last minute for a full nine months, however, so the movie could be converted into 3D and scenes with Channing Tatum could be added to capitalize on his surge in popularity following the success of 21 Jump Street and Magic Mike. But you'd think they could have taken that time to actually make the movie good. The movie suffers due to its awful script and mostly dull acting, when it honestly didn't have to be that way. The only thing the movie actually has going for it is the sense of dumb, silly fun that permeates every frame. As bad as G.I. Joe: Retaliation is, it's still a lot of fun to watch. I honestly couldn't bring myself to hate it because it does have some enjoyable moments. I just wish that somebody could make a G.I. Joe movie that's as good as that animated movie from the '80s. Would that be so hard for Hollywood do?

Final Rating: **

Evil Dead (2013)

Most people will probably recognize Sam Raimi as the man behind the Spider-Man movie franchise (before it was rebooted last year, anyway) and as the director of Oz the Great and Powerful. But the horror aficionados among us will forever associate him with the Evil Dead trilogy. The movies not only launched the careers of Raimi and Bruce Campbell, but they've inspired comic books, video games, an off-Broadway musical, and a ton of merchandise.

But beyond all that, fans have been clamoring for Raimi and Campbell to make a fourth movie in the saga. And now, twenty years after Army of Darkness ended the trilogy, a new Evil Dead movie has arrived in theaters. It's not a Raimi-directed Evil Dead 4 as many had hoped, but instead, a remake produced by the original franchise's creators. The remake's been getting great reviews since its world premiere at the South by Southwest festival last month, and for good reason. I'm proud to say that the remake is absolutely fantastic.

There's no Ash to be found this time around. Instead, the movie introduces us to Mia (Jane Levy), a heroin addict struggling with sobriety. Vowing to kick the drugs cold turkey, she's headed out to her family's isolated cabin out in the middle of nowhere so she can detox. Along for the ride are her friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Olivia (Jessica Lucas), her estranged brother David (Shiloh Fernandez), and David's girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore). It's a struggle at first, as Mia's withdrawal symptoms cause her to lash out against her friends and weaken her already strained relationships.

But as they often do in movies like this, things go downhill very quickly. The investigation of a rancid smell leads to the discovery of a multitude of dead, seemingly sacrificed cats in the basement, along with a book bound in human flesh and wrapped in barbed wire. The book and the bizarre incantations inside it quickly capture Eric's interest. Despite the handwritten warnings scribbled on its pages to avoid the book at all costs, Eric reads aloud some of the book's passages. And in doing this, he awakens a horrifying entity from its slumber deep within the woods. It possesses Mia before sparking a night of violence, carnage, and brutality from which it seems none of the five within that cabin will survive.

I don't have the same problem with remakes that some people do. I couldn't care less if a movie is a remake, just whether it's a good movie or a bad movie. But I'll confess that I was a little worried about Evil Dead. Much like the Friday the 13th remake that came out back in 2009, Evil Dead represents a franchise I enjoy a lot being overhauled for a new audience that might not be familiar with what came before. I was leery about it despite Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell being attached as producers, because I've seen one too many bad remakes over the years. But Evil Dead did not let me down in the slightest. It doesn't have the same no-budget, rough around the edges feeling of Raimi's original movie, but it's still some of the most fun I've had watching a horror movie in a long time.

The movie was directed by Fede Alvarez, a filmmaker whose only prior output was a handful of short films (none of which I've heard of, let alone seen) in his native Uruguay. Evil Dead is his feature-length directorial debut, and he does an astounding job. I've seen a few reviews over the last couple of days that have dismissed Evil Dead as being a shallow gorefest akin to Eli Roth's Hostel movies. These people have a point, as the movie jumps into "splatter film" territory wholeheartedly. And although the blood, guts, and severed limbs are the true stars of the movie, I thought Alvarez tried building a bit of tension in there too. The movie inspires simultaneous feelings of dread and disgust; you're scared of what might happen next and shocked and grossed out when it does.

And Alvarez refuses to let up. Even the low-key moments meant to give the audience a breather don't really provide much relaxation. There's always something hiding in the darkness, waiting to pop out and rip one of the characters into itty-bitty pieces. Even as blood literally rains down from every possible angle and the violence threatens to become cacophonous, Alvarez wants us to be afraid of what happens next. And I can't speak for anybody else, but for me, it worked.

The movie stumbles, however, when you take a good long look at the script. Written by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues (with a little uncredited tinkering by Juno writer Diablo Cody), the script is the movie's weakest link. The characters are poorly constructed, and few scenes are milked for any sort of drama. We're told that Mia and David are supposed to have a very strained relationship due largely to David leaving Mia to tend to their dying, mentally-ill mother alone, the stress of which worsened her drug habit. This has also made David unpopular with the others in the cabin, but this all stops being relevant once we hit "the gore, the merrier" territory. They could have, at the very least, played off Mia's possession as her withdrawals having made her psychotic for a bit longer. Yeah, we'd have to get to the demonic stuff sooner or later, but it would have been interesting to see where that angle could have gone.

Maybe I just went in expecting something deeper than what Alvarez and Sayagues were willing to give. But they seemed so willing to go beyond the movie's simple concept and just dropped it. Maybe it all got left out during the editing process and will end up on the DVD in a few months, I don't know. I just would have liked seeing how things could have ended up.

At least we have Alvarez's direction to support the movie, along with some great performances from the cast. Unfortunately, they aren't all good. Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore don't contribute much to the movie in terms of acting ability, with Blackmore being so unremarkable that I actually forgot she was in the movie at all until her big possession scene. (Then again, it doesn't help anything that the character pretty much disappears altogether for twenty minutes in the middle of the movie.) But it does get better, trust me. Shiloh Fernandez provides a solid performance and gets a few moments to really shine, but there are two actors that I wanted to highlight.

One is Lou Taylor Pucci, who I enjoyed a lot. Though his character is the one that caused the whole mess, he remains level-headed enough to realize that something has to be done to ensure the group's survival even if it isn't pretty. Pucci approaches this with an ever-growing sense of panic and worry that I found believable. He essentially plays a voice of reason that's been put through a ringer, and I bought everything he was selling.

He's surpassed, though, by Jane Levy, who I thought was nothing short of fantastic. She's sympathetic enough at the start of the movie, but she really kicks it into high gear once her character gets possessed. Levy is actually pretty frightening as she alternates between mere creepiness and a snarling demeanor similar to an angry, feral animal. One could make the argument that the movie itself isn't all that scary per se, but Levy herself was strong enough to scare the pants off me.

Evil Dead is one of those franchise revivals that makes you feel like you've visiting old friends you haven't seen in many years. There's no Ash, and Sam Raimi's not the director, but I still found the movie to be a very worthy successor to the name. The many shout-outs and subtle (and occasionally not so subtle) references to Raimi's trilogy are a lot of fun and help establish something of a rapport with the die-hard fans, but it goes in its own direction enough that it feels like its own beast as well. And what a beast it is, too.

This new entry in the franchise is not a movie that is simply seen. It is a movie that is endured. It's not for those who are easily grossed out; I'm sure an eventual NC-17 cut of the movie will cause a spike in sales for barf bags. But it doesn't feel as mean or spiteful as other gore-heavy horror movies. It's livelier, energetic, and fast-paced enough that it never grows tiresome to watch even in light of a non-stop gore typhoon. Evil Dead is definitely one of those remakes that can be proudly held up next to the original, and is most certainly worth watching. That is, if you can handle a massive deluge of violence and fake blood.

Final Rating: ****