what's your state of play? yeah, you've got no game.

I'm currently reading Don DeLillo's Players. Written in 1977 and largely taking place on the 79th Floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower, it reads like a time capsule of sorts. Being a DeLillo novel, it's no surprise that everyone's paranoid. One character wanders the trading floor on Wall St. consumed with the fear that people are reading his thoughts. There are also terrorists everywhere, of course.
Speaking of the 70s, and getting to what this post is really about, ha, Hollywood in the 70s brought us my favorite sub-genre of film, the paranoia thriller. Think The Parallax View, Marathon Man, and The Stepford Wives. The new film State of Play, based on the highly acclaimed British mini-series, seems to be trying to channel these genre standards. Oh, and because it's centered on journalists pursuing the truth, there are shades of All the President's Men throw in for good measure.
Russell Crowe, or rather a puffy, sweaty fleshball somewhat resembling Russell Crowe, stars as a haggard DC reporter who happens to be besties with a dignified-looking, but totally duplicitous Senator (Ben Affleck). When Affleck's pretty, young aide dies a mysterious, accidental death, Crowe investigates and before you can say "Deep Throat" there's talk of a conspiracy. Crowe and the hip/young/stubborn blogger on staff (Rachel McAdams in some terrible outfits) work together and uncover a potential conspiracy involving a Blackwater-esque private mercenary company. The plot contorts into a messy web, characters say things like "this is a conspiracy to the highest levels", and there are some fairly unconvincing chase scenes (one involving a wheezing Crowe ducking behind cars in an underground parking garage). Basically, it makes The Pelican Brief look like art.
It doesn't help that Affleck, he of the Keanu Reeves school of inexpressive acting, stars as the two-faced Senator at the center of the tangled web. An eyebrow raise or pouty lip does not an emotion convey, Mr. Affleck. Other odd casting decisions abound. A surprisingly off-center Jeff Daniels plays a Cheney-like powerbroker, Jason Bateman bizarrely beams down from another planet (or another movie) as a sleazy PR slack, and Robin Wright Penn has nothing to do with the thinly conceived "scorned political wife" role. Thank goodness Helen Mirren stomps around as Crowe's coarse, broadly-conceived editor. She looks fabulous and curses a blue streak (score).

phasers set for stun

I’ll start with an embarrassing confession. When I was a kid, I was a trekkie. I had the action figures. I snuck into the TV room late at night to watch re-runs of the original show. I even had my mother sew me an officer’s uniform for my costume one Halloween. I patrolled the neighborhood that night in full anticipation of a Klingon attack. Few pop culture narratives have achieved such a cult status. It’s the exploration of unusual worlds, the bold vision of the future, and the constant peril that befalls our heroes that has kept scores of fans rabid for every iteration of the popular series.

It’s no surprise, then, in Hollywood’s era of the reboot, that audiences would be given a slick, youthful reinvention of the classic tale. This, after all, the same town that will show us remakes of Friday the 13^th, The Taking of Pelham 123, and Sherlock Holmes in this year alone. There’s even talk of a new Footloose for 2010. Lucky for us, director JJ Abrams, the man who has millions of TV viewers in awe and constant head-scratching with his hit series Lost, manages to pay due homage to the original show while creating one of the most thrilling adventure films I’ve seen in years.

Abrams’ interpretation is an origin story. We first see James Kirk and Spock as two very different children – Kirk as a mischievous rebel and Spock as a brilliant, if tortured young mind. Abrams sidesteps the narrative issues that normally plague exposition-heavy background stories and quickly flashes forward to the two men as students at the Star Fleet Academy and eventually onboard the fabled Starship Enterprise. Along the way we meet the new versions of other members of the original show including Uhura (a knockout Zoe Saldana), Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin). Abrams wisely doesn’t spend too long on the introductions, and the Enterprise is soon locked into heated combat with a rogue Romulan vessel. The action scenes are visually stunning and incredibly well-paced.

Abrams and his actors should be credited for delivering finely etched characterizations while hoping from one elaborate action set piece to the next. As Kirk and Spock, respectively, newcomer Chris Pine and Heroes’ Zachary Quinto ooze matinee idol charisma. The other members of the Enterprise crew do justice to their predecessors, most notably the hilarious Simon Pegg as Scotty.

Much like last summer’s The Dark Knight, Star Trek proves that Hollywood is still capable of raising the bar for summer action epics. And seeing as though Abrams ends this chapter ripe for a more, I fully expect him to somehow top this adventure.