When did they stop going boldly?

Anton Yelchin, Christopher Pine & John Cho (l-r)

The first question that occurs with Star Trek Beyond is ‘beyond what exactly’? It’s one of those meaningless box-ticky titles that doubtless survived the rigours of the marketing focus group better than the others. But it is indicative of a certain generic quality to this film; it’s entertaining enough but it is also instantly forgettable.

This is the third outing in the rebooted Star Trek film franchise following on from the ten films in the first two franchises. It’s inevitable that there is a certain same-ishness about them by now which is why this looks more like a more expensive TV episode than anything else.

This time Christopher Pine’s Kirk and Zachary Quinto’s Spock are pondering big questions. Before they can reach any answers there is the inevitable crisis that only the Enterprise can deal with – of which more later. They set sail to encounter yet another wannabe galactic conqueror, Krall who takes the crew prisoner which means Kirk and his away team have to rescue them.

Star Trek is often described as ‘Wagon Train in Space’ but I’ve always seen it as ‘Hornblower in Space’ and this plot could be lifted wholesale and dropped into the Napoleonic Wars without missing a beat.

Everything that Star Trek fans would expect to find is here although happily without the rampant sexism of Into Darkness. But as I said earlier it is all a little formulaic, there is very little imagination in a franchise whose mission statement is ‘to boldly go’. They have taken science fiction and turned it into adventure fiction; entertaining but unremarkable.

The film looks spectacular, up to a point. The Starfleet base is a wonder of CGI design, like an Escher drawing in zero gravity. But since you can’t actually imagine it functioning successfully, or anyone living on it, it is something of an empty spectacle.

The same applies to the action sequences. Fast and Furious director Justin Lin is a smart choice to reboot things here and he knows his way around a chase scene. The sequence with Kirk on a motorbike – don’t ask! – saving the day on a far off planet is excellent.

However unlike Fast and Furious where, for the most part, it’s real drivers in real vehicles, the big battles here are CGI-fests which again makes it uninvolving. The simple fact of the matter is that you don’t really care because you know how it will turn out.

Wrath of Khan is probably the best of the Star Trek films largely because Khan was a terrific villain, one you feared might actually win and did achieve a victory of sorts. Krall, like all the others, is just a plot device to allow the Enterprise to save the day.

Incidentally, as I hinted earlier, if the Enterprise is the only ship that can navigate an impassable nebula to save the day, how come everyone who wants – including a reconstituted heap of junk – can navigate the nebula at the end of the film.

It’s an issue but one which, like the rest of the movie, won’t give you more than a moment’s thought.

Who you gonna call?

Jones, McCarthy, Wiig & McKinnon in Ghostbusters

I’m generally pretty agnostic about remakes of classic movies. Generally, they don’t do well and I can think of only a couple of examples where the remake is better than the original; maybe the Judy Garland version of A Star is Born, David Cronenberg’s version of The Fly, and John Carpenter’s take on The Thing come quickly to mind but not many more.

That’s okay though. If the remake turns out to be a stinker then the reputation of the original is burnished a little more, if it turns out to be okay – and John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven is a good example - then the world is all the better for having another good movie out there.

For me, that’s where we are with the new version of Ghostbusters which has gained all sorts of notoriety for its gender reversal casting. That’s not as much of a problem for me as for some, because I’m not a huge fan of the original.

I saw it at a press screening before it was released in 1984. In those pre-internet days, it was all fields round here and you had to make your own hype; you were relying on a trailer and a poster and – incredible as it may seem – you had to form your own opinion.

How did we ever manage without a platoon of infantilised 40-year-olds sitting in their mothers’ basements telling us what to think? Hard as it may seem, we got by. I liked Ghostbusters, it made me laugh at all the right places, I left feeling happy, and gave it a decent review.

For me it was never a classic, just a good film. Recasting it with women doesn’t bother me in the slightest, least of all when they are four of the funniest actors around. I yield to no one in my admiration of Melissa McCarthy, Kirsten Wiig is as smart as a whip, and Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones have been killing it on Saturday Night Live for years. This is a no-brainer for me, in fact it’s pretty much a dream team.

The new version is not exactly a remake but the story moves along similar lines. Manhattan is threatened by a ghostly invasion from occult dimensions and it falls to four paranormal investigators in slate-grey boiler suits with unfathomable technology to save the day. And of course they do.

In the process they acquire a himbo assistant – a nicely self-deprecating Chris Hemsworth turn – and all but one of the original Ghostbusters cast turn up to provide a seal of approval. There are more Easter eggs here than you can shake a stick at but if you haven’t seen the first film they don’t get in the way.

Is it perfect? Of course not. The action scenes are a little lifeless and by the numbers but that’s not what director Paul Feig does. Also, the stuff that we associate with Feig – the sisterly bonding from Bridesmaids and The Heat – is mostly missing here. I could have done with the Ghostbusters having a bit more bonding, especially since the film is co-written by Parks and Recreation writer Katie Dippold.

On the plus side the script is generally sharp, the film is fun, and the performances from all four women are spot on; McKinnon and Jones in particular seize their chance for stardom with both hands. It made me laugh and, occasionally, laugh out loud which is all you can ask for from a comedy.

Those of you who are still holding up the original – you know, the one which starts with pervy thirtysomething Bill Murray hitting on a teenage college student – as some kind of paragon need to get over yourselves. Or start a retrospective campaign against the cartoon version which turned Harold Ramis into a bleached blonde and Slimer into Scrappy Doo.

When it comes to the new version, to paraphrase one of Murray's lines from the first one: “They came, they saw….they kicked its ass!”

He's the king of the swingers, the jungle VIP.....

Samuel L. Jackson and Alexander Skarsgard

The Legend of Tarzan is a wee bit different from your typical 21^st century blockbuster and for that, to be honest, I am quite grateful. It’s an old-fashioned kind of movie that made me nostalgic for the films my 10-year-old self would go and see with my father. A briskly constructed, efficiently told, thud and blunder adventure which does pretty much what it says on the tin.

If I had been sitting in The Princes in Springburn watching this 50 years ago I would have been pretty happy. As it is, half a century on, I’m still reasonably content with an entertaining slice of hokum.

I’m a big Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) fan in general and a Tarzan fan in particular; one of my fondest possessions is a 1920 edition of Tarzan of the Apes, the first novel in the series. I read all the ERB books I could get hold of and even though I enjoyed the Mars and Pellucidar stories, Tarzan was always my favourite.

I’ve also seen all of the Tarzan movies and the TV show and I appreciate the way this version roots itself in ERB’s world. It’s not the traditional origin story – although you can’t not touch on that – instead we are in a tale that owes as much to Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar as it does Tarzan of the Apes.

There are other nods too, such as the presence of the Mangani; these are the great apes who raised the young John Clayton. And there is also the famous Tarzan yell. Sensibly it happens off screen here because I always thought it looked faintly ridiculous.

The story begins with Tarzan and his wife, Jane, having left the jungle and taken up his ancestral home in Greystoke Manor. The British government, in a diplomatic tussle with Belgium over the future of the Congo and its mineral rights, want Tarzan to accept an invitation from the Belgian king to go on a fact-finding mission to the area.

Lord Greystoke is not a diplomat but, in a nice nod to contemporary culture, Tarzan is a celebrity so of course it makes sense that he should go. The whole thing is a trap, naturally, orchestrated by the evil Leon Rom who has agreed to deliver Tarzan into the hands of his sworn enemy in return for the fabulous jewels of the Lost City of Opar. Well d’uh!

The outcome of the film is never in doubt but with stories like this it is the journey rather than the destination which is important. The Legend of Tarzan makes all the right stops; Tarzan himself is built like an athlete not a bodybuilder, Jane is suitably independent, the villain is appropriately dastardly, and Samuel L. Jackson turns up as the film’s post-colonial conscience.

The Legend of Tarzan is also the first film to suggest why Tarzan is Lord of the Jungle. He has a sense of majesty and what the Romans called imperium. He doesn’t talk to the animals but he has a natural authority but more importantly an empathic understanding which encourages them to help.

All of this leads to some very satisfying set pieces, even if the CGI is a little overdone in places. Alexander Skarsgard is a splendid Tarzan and Margot Robbie a Jane who is more than a damsel waiting to be rescued. Few people do dastardly better than Christoph Waltz and it’s nice to see Samuel L. Jackson commit to a character for a change instead of one of his stock collections of characteristics.

At 110 minutes the film is positively sylph-like compared to the modern bloated blockbuster. There is also a very obvious attempt to make this version family-friendly with most of the overt violence removed; the result is a film that at times goes from brisk to choppy thanks to the editing style.

I didn’t mind that too much to be honest. I am reconciled to the fact that this probably won’t kick off a franchise but I am perfectly content with what they have served up here.