Star Trek: the Motion Picture (1979) Review

The first in the original Star Trek film series and it's a very good one indeed.
Here Captain Kirk and his original enterprise crew reunite to investigate a huge strange energy cloud that is making its way towards earth.
It's a rather simple story but it's soaked in intrigue and kept me engaged throughout it's over 2 hour runtime as the mystery of the cloud and whatever lurks inside it are slowly unravelled.
It's almost devoid of any action which I've seen pop-up as a criticism but I really never found it a problem since I found the story compelling enough and helped by the fact that it's well acted by everyone.

There's also some great visual stuff on the go especially when they finally reveal what is hiding in the cloud with some solid set design and effects on the go, Yeah quite a bit of it look dated but it all still retains a certain charm to them and has some really cool bits.
I will admit that they do seem to stretch out a couple of these effects sequences longer than they maybe should have but i never found it much of hindrance.

But that's because it;s all accompanied by Jerry Goldsmiths fantastic score, the exact kind of majestic film score that helps keep you hooked and it's very clear to see why he ended up scoring a load of other Star trek stuff with even a slight variation of main theme from this film being used as the main them for the Next Generation series.

Overall the plot may be too thin and basic for a lot of people to enjoy but I still found it be very well executed and enjoyable making for a really solid bit of sci-fi. ***1/2

Diagnosis: Death (2010) Review

Here's a low budget New Zealand horror comedy featuring Rhys Darby, Jermain Clement and Brett Mckenzie from the  Flight of the Conchords TV Show. however despite being the main selling point they only feature in small roles which make up the best moments of the film.

As for the rest of the movie...well it's very messy but somewhat fun. It is pretty simple kind of mysery/ghost film, the pacing is all over the place and horror elements are very bare and generic but there are couple of good bloody moments in there towards the end.
There's also some awkward sexual stuff and speaking of awkward the acting from the two main characters is pretty clunky and some their interactions sound a bit unnatural.
I did enjoy the performance of the Suze Tye though who plays Nurse Magaret Bates she worked well and was fun in her role.

So yeah overall I think there's enough in there to find enjoyment, it's not that funny but still provides a couple of laughs and it's clunky execution is entertaining in it's own way. Just don't expect much from it. **1/2