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"Star Trek: First Contact" is one of the great Star Trek movies, and along with "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" is a film that doesn't require much prior context in the universe. That "First Contact" is a delight for long-time fans, providing the backstory to one of Trek's pivotal moments, is sort of a wonder as a piece of screenwriting. I view it as the capstone of writer Ronald D. Moore's career in the Trek universe. Star Trek movies are so difficult because their ensemble casts are hard to navigate in just two hours. It's hard to craft a story around the whole group, and harder still when they're all together on the Enterprise. The better movies like "First Contact" know this, and focus their A-story around the captain someplace else, and the B-story around the crew on the ship. Like the excellent "The Undiscovered Country", this split approach provides the focus time needed to really define the Captain (in this case our Ahab), and show a supportive crew focused on the mission around him. "First Contact" is so excellent because it shows off Picard's trauma from the Borg, and how his crew recognizes that pain. Mostly though, it's just a fun adventure. Time travel plots usually don't go well, but this film breezes right into the premise with aplomb. The Borg were always a fun villain, but their zombie-like nature made for a repetitive foil. The introduction of the Borg Queen takes a big risk to give that mob a voice and Alice Krige provides one of the most memorable guest starring roles, in a series somewhat noted for them. James Cromwell's Cochram is equally well cast, and he provides the right notes for a historical hero that hadn't yet found his grace. This is a dense script with a lot going on, but it never drags. Every time I watch this movie I marvel at everything it does. There's action, quotable one-liners, multiple non-Trek characters absolutely crushing it, and a lot of canon creation that fans can hang their hat on. The closing scene with the actual "First Contact" is so well done I get chills every time I see it. You get to witness the origin of the Federation, and the shift of humanity from darkness and war to optimism and hope through friendship. It's everything I love about Trek and a great little puzzle box of genre writing.

"Knowing" is an underappreciated disaster movie that holds its cards close to its chest for most of its run time. That it starts as a movie of one genre, and then pivots to a different one more than half way through didn't sit well with critics and audiences of the time, and these days it's one of many forgotten Nic Cage movies. If you are able to go into it fresh, with little knowledge, I find it utterly captivating. The comparisons to Shyamalan are tempting, but the roots of this movie are closer to Spielberg and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" than "The Sixth Sense". There's a great mystery, a couple quirky kids, and a Dad who is just trying to do the best he can to make sure everyone is OK. Actual Shyamalan's "The Lady in the Water" is a good comparison, and like that movie, "Knowing" is overly maligned for being pretty fantastical at times. The action scenes in this movie are true surprises, and use clever misdirection tricks (in both direction and plot) that will force the audience to anticipate one thing to happen, when really it's going to be something completely different. This fits the vibe of the entire film, and the ending goes in territory that most don't see coming. There's Beethoven's standby "7th Symphony" to score all the unsettling parts. Its faults are in its child actors, who aren't Spielberg caliber and deliver pretty serious, important lines in the wooden way that that child actors often do. You have to sort of drop everything and believe in the world director Alex Proyas created, much like his previous, excellent film "Dark City". There's also a decent amount of sappiness and forced religious meaning in the film that's hard to avoid. These flaws are minor though, and overall it's a great movie that is a fun watch once a decade or so. I hadn't seen it in awhile, having forgotten most of the core twists, and came away just as gripped to my seat as I was in the theater.

Jumbled. “The Bank Job” is jumbled, both literally in the movie by the robbers, and in the script by the writers. This is a movie that rides the wave of better Guy Ritchie films and looks the part, but feels cheaper and worse made. Even the normally kinetic Jason Strahan is muted. It’s a shame, because you can feel that there’s a good movie in there somewhere, but there’s too much going on and it gets… well, jumbled. “The Bank Job” has lots of twists, and the title event happens early enough in the movie that you wonder what the back hour of the movie will be about. Well, there’s a lot in that bank, and that drives a cascading tumble of events that leads to said twists. This is apparently inspired by a true story, and there’s some end cards before the credits roll to let us know some of the side characters were real people, but the robbery itself is a pretty boring affair. Nearly every scene in “The Bank Job” feels like a worse version of something you’ve already seen. The heist recalls “Sexy Beast”, the twists between the cops and robbers feels similar to “The Departed” and Jason Strahan reminds me of similar favorite actor Jason Strahan (sic) in similar, better movies. It could be worse, and it has its moments, but “The Bank Job” drops the bag pretty early on. One last comment. If you’re a fan of random, unnecessary nudity scenes, this movie seems to find a reason to add them.

"No Time to Die" starts off great, returning to the stunt work that separates the series from other modern action films. It's got a "Part 2" feeling that continues the story from "Spectre" in meaningful ways and even returns the villain and romantic partner. It's a step up from that last movie, but still doesn't hit the heights of "Casino Royale" or "Skyfall" in oomph. The first half of the movie has excellent action in Greece and Cuba. The motorcyle chase reminded me of the great parkour stunt work from "Casino Royale" and the narrow pathways lead to a thrilling car chase that shows the full load out of that Aston Martin Bond has been dragging around for five movies. In Cuba, Anna de Armas is a bit of scene stealer and it's a shame she only appears for about fifteen minutes of screen time. She's the best Bond girl this side of Eva Green. It's the back half of the movie that drags, and it's a common problem in these later Bond flicks. Eventually we find out who the villain is and need to spend too much time learning their motivations. I've said it before, but these movies are only as good as their villain and Rami Malek is a little too subdued for his comic book antics. The mcguffin this time is nanobots (they last forever!), and apparently blowing up a factory of them with missiles is enough to keep them from spreading. There's a poignant epilogue, but at that point the movie already felt too long and I was happy to see the credits roll. It's a shame this is the last Daniel Craig Bond movie. His portrayal is my favorite in the series, but the movie plots of his later movies fell back to the tropes of previous decades. It was nice seeing Bond punch his way out of a fight, or make jokes while winning at a game of Poker in "Casino Royale". "No TIme to Die" and the later films retreated to spy planes that turn into submarines and gimmicks with watches that can destroy bionic eyes. It's understandable, this is Bond after all and gizmos are fun, but part of me wishes the series stuck to the grounded reality and parkour of "Casino Royale" rather than adding so much noise. Overall "No Time to Die" feels like a missed opportunity.

Knives out is a fun, ensemble murder mystery that didn't excite me as much on a second watch, despite having forgotten the entirety of the twist since its release. The ensemble acting is fantastic, and you can't ask for a better cast, but as a mystery, I feel this is a riddle you mostly watch unfold instead of be hinted towards. That works fine as a movie, but as a mystery, feels a bit like cheating the audience. There's nothing really to lead you to the conclusions Benoit Blanc makes at the end, he instead monologues them to you. The journey towards that conclusion is colorful and zany. The use of multiple unreliable narrators in the beginning of the film is very fun and rewards anyone paying attention to the details. I especially appreciate the subtle social commentary and politics on the way. The film also looks great. The mansion the cast tromp about in veers towards Wes Anderson territory in its collection of oddities, placed just so, and the cinematography is fabulous. Every room feels packed, and it gives the feeling that just about anything could be hidden behind one of the many hidden doors. Two hounds rumble through occasionally to nod us towards the Sherlock roots of the genre. I remember not liking the sequel because the mystery was revealed so early, and then you sort of had to sit through the rest of the movie's larger commentary on social dynamics. Re-watching this first one, I noted this movie has those problems too, and although it focuses more on the actual mechanics of the mystery in its climax, it didn't feel as satisfying as better movies in the genre, where a re-watch brings more clarity.

"Spectre" definitely feels like a setup towards a conclusion, and for that purpose it's a fine continuation of this era of Bond. It treads a familiar path and reminds you that Bond is a loner that carries a lot of baggage from his past. The problem is that the past isn't fully fleshed out enough to be meaningful. It's a fine conceit that Bond was adopted into a family and lost them as a child, but all we're given is the conceit and there's no emotion or bond between James and our villain. In a movie with a lot of dead space for dialog, very little of it explains why we should care. This is also another movie in the franchise that pushes the "double-00 program is irrelevant in the modern era" plot line as reasoning for Bond to go rogue. The main villain's plot is actually fairly prescient: that mass surveillance is a new reality and that its control will be wielded by shadow groups rather than governments. It's the execution that falls flat. After all, Bond sort of shrugs at being tracked himself, asking only for a two day window to run around on his own. Bond sure does go out on his own a bunch, which is fine, but it's silly that his own organization doesn't trust him at this point. He's proven enough times his loose-cannon movements tend to pan out in the end. On a positive, the love story here at least makes more sense, even if it's a little less passionate than the relationships we've had in previous movies. Dave Bautista provides us an old-school henchman that never talks. He's always fun to watch, and the fight scenes here work well enough, but they lose the kinetic movement of the parkour scenes in the previous movements. More than any film in the serious, this Bond feels closest to the "Bourne" series. It's a straight action film.