Star Trek - Into Darkness, Byzantium and The Great Gatsby

Three great directors, one outstanding movie. And it wasn't the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. Perhaps I should have seen it in 3D, there were just too many times the special effects got in the way of the story. What story there was ended up a bit of a mess. It's just not good enough to pack it with fantasy action. Even Simon Pegg's Scotty cannot save it from being just another mindless blockbuster. Which is a shame as the special effects are very well done, just not enough when you are watching in 2D.

Byzantium probably had a fraction of budget of the previous film, But Neil Jordan has done a reasonable job with this vampire drama. I thought it had similarities with the well received Let The Right One In as the director concentrates on the drama instead of the gore. The mother and daughter pairing of Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan works very well, these two fine actresses give it all they've got. The visuals are high class, the cinematography first rate. I completely forgot this is a British production.

This was a first, reading the book just before seeing the movie. Unlike most of the critics, I was hugely impressed with Baz Lurman's The Great Gatsby. I was amazed it was so faithful to the novel, and the director's interpretation of this classic I felt was spot on. First of all, I was glad that this time I did see it in 2D. Those times you could feel that the effects were there for 3D were quite limited, and did not detract from the story. And it is the story that this movie does best. OK, the atmosphere of the 1920's decadence is there in the big parties, but it never overshadows the plot. Like the book, we have Nick Carraway as our narrator, and he is as unreliable as the novel portrays him to be. When he tells us at the end that Gatsby has revealed the truth about his life, it is only before his rise to riches. Lurman borrows so much from Fitzgerald's words, and I liked the fact that there were little nuances of the story that I missed reading the book. When Nick speaks the following words, they balance the fact that everything (the mansion, the parties, the cars) was done for one person.

The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption — and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them good-bye.

I thought that the casting was superb, at least for the male characters. Leonardo DiCaprio epitomised the sleazy romantic, Tobey Maguire was suitably pathetic as Nick and Joel Edgerton was a suitably tough and despicable as Tom Buchanan. However I never felt that Carey Mulligan was the right Daisy, nor was Elizabeth Debicki my idea of Jordan Baker.

When Baz Lurman commented that novellas make good movies, I now understand why. You hardly have to leave anything out. The drama of the book's last third was played out exactly so on the screen. My film of the year so far.