The second installment of sci-fi king J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot hits the ground running and doesn’t stop until the credits roll.  It achieves what few sequels do: it is better than its predecessor.  Into Darkness picks up shortly after the events of 2009’s Star Trek, following on-again-off-again-captain Kirk (Chris Pine), calm, cool commander Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest of the crew of the USS Enterprise as they travel to distant worlds both known and unknown, seeking the truth and fodder for some really great-looking explosions.

Design and artistry aside, the story does support itself without relying on the visual spectacle of deep space and futuristic sets to distract its viewers.  At its core, the film is the logical progression from where Star Trek left off.  Where the former set the scene, throwing our characters together and getting them acquainted, Into Darkness tells the story of how the Enterprise, with Kirk at the helm, establishes itself as one of Starfleet’s best: a strong, capable family that is damn near undefeatable.

With this film, we learn more about the politics, both domestic and interstellar, that shape the world we’ve been transported to. We are introduced to these new complexities by the film’s villain, John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch).  He’s not the first terrorist-with-a-heart-of-gold to grace our screens of late (take note of Loki – The Avengers, and Raoul Silva –Skyfall), but he is perhaps the most interesting and well-developed of his type.  Breaking from his usual posh, academic typecast, Benedict Cumberbatch (of the BBC’s Sherlock, and Spielberg’s War Horse) steps into his first true action role flawlessly: action and villain both work on him.  Kirk and Spock work hard to smooth out their bumpy start in the first film and finally become the dynamic duo Trekkies know and love.  Pine and Quinto’s wit and chemistry is electric and paced perfectly, qualities echoed by the entire supporting cast’s performances.

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Three years ago, Marc Webb directed every hipster’s favorite love story, (500) Days of Summer, for around $7.5 million. So, give him around $213 million more to direct another movie, and there’s no way he messes up, right? Well, in the case of The Amazing Spider-Man, right.

Originally, Sam Raimi, the director of the Spider-Man trilogy, was briefly developing a fourth iteration of the series. Shortly after these plans fell through, however, Sony got started on a complete reboot of the series, fresh with a revamped script and lead actor Andrew Garfield (character named Eduardo in Social Network).

In the process, screenwriter James Vanderbilt takes Stan Lee’s original comic and downright mutilates it, combining different characters from entirely different segments of the series while concurrently altering some classic scenes, which the original movie portrayed correctly. The funny thing is that these alterations simply do not matter, because Webb is able to fuse these changes into a well-flowing plot.

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Unfortunately for our 16^th president, it seems Edward Everett rose from the dead to pen the meandering script of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Yet judged by its base-heavy, slow-motion, blood-splattered trailer, Tim Burton’s newest movie looked just as epic as its title.

Stretch that minute and a half into an hour and a half, however, and the movie commits an error that Lincoln never would have. The president gave his Gettysburg Address in just two minutes, and director Timur Bekmambetov could take a lesson from him in brevity.

For what it delivers, Vampire Hunter is simply too long. Bekmambetov takes105 minutes to drag through a story that slashes historical accuracy as often as it does dead corpses—although neither of those two actions are unwelcome. If you expected Bekmambetov to stick to the historical record, I would refer you back to the movie’s title. And if you were looking for something other than silver-tipped shotgun/axe hybrids and fountains of scarlet blood, I would suggest someone other than Burton. But for the most part, that’s not what Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter presents.

Instead of an action-packed awesomefest of vampire slaying, the film takes us on Lincoln’s untold monomyth and bizarre coming-of-age story. Played by Benjamin Walker of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, a strapping young Abe witnesses the horrors of American vampires from his first years growing up in the log cabin.

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Judging a Wes Anderson movie after a single viewing is no easy task.  First of all, Anderson fills his movies with visual and dramatic subtleties.  This means after the third or fourth viewing (if you, like many Wes fans, can put up with 372 minutes of Rushmore), his films form an entirely new image in the audience’s mind.  As a Moonrise Kingdom virgin, then, I was apprehensive about judging the film upon my first sight of the closing credits.  That said, my mind eventually settled on a fact that I will not find myself disputing on my fifth Moonrise screening: it was weird, but weird in a good way.  Am I making any sense? No?  Let me explain.

The hero of Moonrise Kingdom is Sam, a precocious orphan on the run from his “Khaki Scout” troop.  Carrying nothing but his thick-framed glasses and a backpack full of camping equipment, this escapee sets out to meet his childhood sweetheart, Suzy, an ill-tempered loner who eagerly accepts Sam’s invitation to run away.  As the pair evades the scoutmaster (Ed Norton) and local law enforcement (Bruce Willis), they pick up a few life lessons.  Yes, that includes pondering about their nascent sexuality, and yes, it is as awkward as it sounds.    To round off the cast, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand play Suzy’s quarreling parents whose dwindling marriage serves as the bane of Suzy’s childhood.

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This was the movie everyone was talking about.  What we were all waiting for.  The summer blockbuster that would bring back our favorite super heroes we know and love from comic books, cartoons, movies and of course music.  That’s right, Men in Black 3.

We all grew up loving Men in Black and not being quite old enough to realize how bad Men in Black 2 was.  But it’s been ten years since the second movie came out, and you can’t sell tickets by dumb gimmicks, like having the title be MIIIB. You need 3D now.

So how has the interracial, inter-age group, inter-species buddy cop formula aged? Not well.

The first thing I noticed is how much of a toll time has taken on Will Smith.  At first glance I mistook him for one of the alien characters.  Then I realized I was still in the previews for Madea’s Witness Protection.

Previous Men in Black media left us with some big questions that needed clarification.  For example, the implications that our galaxy is a marble, our universe is the inside of a locker, Tommy Lee Jones has a half-alien daughter and that the movies themselves are based on real events using more illegal aliens working as actors than Chipotle has rolling burritos.

So does this movie wrap up all these loose ends into another shining masterpiece bringing the series back to its glory days?

Of course not.  Instead it introduces a whole slew (possibly even two to two and a half slews) of new questions to answer.  Now we have time travel paradoxes to deal with.  And not even the kind which are on purpose and make you try to least wrap your brain around until you claw out your eyes, like in Primer. Not even the ridiculous, stupid but fun kind of paradox like in Timesplitters.  They are mostly just holes in the plot left by lazy writers and largely ignored by the characters. The audience is then forced either to follow suit and not pay much attention to the movie or walk out.  And when a movie’s goal is to not have your attention, it isn’t a good sign.

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Welcome back to D.C., y’all. While you wait with visible anticipation (yep, we see you sweating) for the first Voice of 2008 (January 17: mark your calendar!), here’s a review of There Will Be Blood by Michael Evans to keep the hunger from taking you over and help with the weekend plans (as if you’re not treating it like the weekend already). Check back for more frequent blog updates and see ya in Red Square or wherever.

-Mike Stewart, Editor-in-Chief

Headed to the cinema over break? Thinking about seeing the dreamy Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd while you’re there? Well, how about it? Joshua Speiser tries to help you out with a review over on the main site. Decide whether or not that’s how you’re going to spend $6-15, depending on where you go home to.

-Mike Stewart, Editor-in-Chief