Office Space 1999

Office space is a hilarious spoof of the minutiae of Tim Burton-style American life. Roy Livingstone, better known for his role as Captain Nixon in Band of Brothers, plays Peter Gibbons, a handsome young man trapped in a cubicle at Initech.














We sympathise with Gibbons, and

They go to a fat, stupid hypnotist with a 'look at me I drink herbal tea' goatee, and he is put under a trance. Other fat couples in tacky plastic clothing look on with naive ignorance, gawping at everything they see. But, the hypnotist has a heart attack part way through the session, and dies immediately, while a woman with curled hair and long plastic fingernails flails about hopelessly. As a result, Gibbons is left in the hypnotic trance, able to speak his mind and do whatever he wants.

Hilarity ensues when he returns to work, and goes about changing his life. Office Space is a small, quiet film about nerds and confusion, but Livingston acts flawlessly, and with great humour. Everyone surrounding him is blinded by their own stupidity, narrow-mindedly thinking of personal gain. Though everyone claims to be working for Initech, they each make their own selfish attempts to destroy the mundane system that traps them all. Jennifer Anniston plays a waitress that Gibbons asks out, who initially struggles to believe that a man would ask a woman out to lunch. But, she faithfully goes along and an odd but warming romance ensues.

Gibbons practically abandons his life, saying "I don't feel like going to work", "but how then are you going to pay the bills?", "I don't like paying bills. I don't think I'll do that any more", and him and two flunkies get involved in a scam of the entire company. Livingston and Anniston deliver a quietly brilliant performance, a film that both of them can look back on. It'll probably be forgotten soon, but retains a cult following, and its innovation and humour is very refreshing, as we are confronted with more films about doom and gloom with big explosions and hoardes of people running from dinosaurs/bombs/planes/transformers/aliens/the catholic church. ★★★★

Star Trek 2009

Shatner to Star Trek fans: "Get a life!". The new Star Trek is an attempt to pay homage to the nostalgia of 716 episodes of Klingons and flashing lights. But, it just can't cut it against the variety of modern films. Much of the film is over-the-top special effects, and lots of unconvincing dialogue.








Having said that, Zachary Quinto is absolutely outstanding as Spock, standing up to his elders, and suppressing the rage at his planet's destruction. But, he's surrounded by a lot of lightweights. Chris Pine plays Kirk, the ship's captain but acts more like Zak Efron than anything else. Chosen for his good looks, he is the handsome rebel who fights with plebs in local bars, drunkenly rejecting the greatness that is owed to him because he doesn't have a father figure.

This already treads ground close to Star Wars, and they end up veering away from any real brooding or character development. A problem with remaking something is you either stick wholeheartedly to the original, or come up with a fresh version that cuts through modern developments. Star Trek isn't bold enough to do either. We see Simon Pegg with an achingly bad Glasgow accent as a dire joke character, and Chris Pine is injected with a virus to make him ill enough to be taken onto the ship (under some beserk intergalactic legislation), comically staggering around, sweating and acting like a fool, but of course in no real danger. It's this halfhearted comedy that is the film's biggest flaw.

The James Bond series had a similar problem in making the new Casino Royale - do we continue making films that are parodies of themselves, with 40-something actors and exploding toupees? Casino Royale stuck its neck out in being entirely serious (except of course the necessary innuendo), but Star Trek attempts to be something sharp, sleek and modern, with Quinto being really quite scary, but these wuvvie characters ruin their attempt. If it was going to be a strong modern film, then it needed the female lead (Uhura) to be considerably more attractive, and present in more scenes. She appears once or twice, rejecting Kirk's inebriated advances, but falling for the allure of Spock's genius. The original Star Trek had fans buying posters of all the characters, but there was no boldness in the characters, all caught in a strange middle ground.

Throughout the film, there was no real sense of danger. When we see the actors get into their ship, it's stressed that it is VERY BIG, then they fly to a VERY VERY BIG station, then the Romulon ship appears like a broken pinecone, and it is VERY VERY BIG. After a certain point, I just stopped caring.

Naturally, everything is alright at the end, and we are introduced to the familiar crew of the ship, lining us up chronologically for a whole set of adventures. Though they have all just avoided the destruction of the universe by a fraction of a second (just like everything else at the cinema...), and the music is playing, the group is nowhere near strong enough to be the characters that gained such a cult following. Star Trek has lived long and prospered, but it existed best in the bedrooms of geeky teenagers. ★★