Rio Grande Herald Movie Critic:
Gerald S. Salinas

Earth date: 05-08-2009, the summer blockbuster movie season has officially begun. I didn't consider Star Trek my ideal summer movie, but I was sadly mistaken. The fast pace action, emotional ride, that is Star Trek proves it's not only for Trekkies, but also for the future fans of Star Trek.

Star Trek goes ages back(back to the future) to the beginning of the original series, known as: Star Trek. Setting the stage for the origins of Capt. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto).

The opening sequence of the movie pretty much sets the pace for the entire movie, I couldn't help but be captured by it's fast pace, visually beautiful story telling (and that's just the first 5 minutes of the movie), as we see the birth of young James T. Kirk. "Your father was captain of the ship for 12 minutes, he saved 800 lives including yours" one of my favorite lines in the film, had to throw it in there.

The movie also focuses-in on young Spock, a Vulcan, well... half Vulcan and half human. Spock rejects the offer to join the Vulcan academy and decides to join Star fleet. As we see in the early scenes of the movie, Spock had a conflicted childhood due to his father being Vulcan and mother being human, but he is also a brilliant young man, which means star fleet has no reluctance accepting him.

Of course it was just a matter of time, before Kirk and Spock bump heads, and of course both men being hard headed, brilliant, and cocky in their own right, despise each other. Hey, no complaints here cause it was fun to watch both guys go at it. After their captain is captured, both men slowly come to the realization that they cannot rescue him alone, and so the first mission for Capt. Kirk and Spock begins, in a wild and entertaining fashion.

Let me start off by giving credit to J.J. Abrams, the director of this film, who did an incredible job revamping the franchise. I think the only person I see fit and able to put together a well told Star Trek movie, was Josh Whedon, so I was excited to hear J.J. Abrams was taking helm over Star Trek, and he didn't disappoint. To see him take a giant scale like Star Trek, with everything needed to be in place due to it's origin on the story, he manages not only to make sense of everything but to also tell it in a fast pace, yet understandable. In other words the movie is easy to follow.

Also, I have to give credit to Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, for bringing back to life the young characters of Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock. The two play the characters to the core of the bone, they both fit the roles perfectly, which in my opinion makes a great movie. The film focuses on the story yes, but the true story of the movie is the relationship of both men, again due to great acting, both actors take control of this film, and demand the attention.

Like all the great movies I review, I can't say enough about this one as well. Some may argue the point that this film takes away from the true story of the original Star Trek series, some say Star Trek relies on the drama now instead of the sci-fi. I have to disagree with what people say, I mean this movie takes place in space, how more sci-fi can you get. This movie was intended to revamp the franchise, which it did because I see more Star Trek movies in the works.

Star Trek has emotion, drama, action, adventure, explosions, character driven performances, beautiful visuals, great story telling. Star Trek fan or no Star Trek fan, this movie is a great movie that shouldn't be missed. It sucks you in since the beginning and takes you for a wild ride all the way to the finish.

Note: for the true Star Trek fan who have watched the original series, there is a great surprise for you to enjoy. Also I didn't give away too much of the story like I often do, fearing I would give away a lot of fun things from the movie.

I'll admit, I'm not the biggest Star Trek fan in the world, but I am a fan nonetheless. Since I was born in the mid 80's, I was born a little too late for the original series, but as a young preteen I rarely missed an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation (TNG), and after it went off the air, I contained following the only spin-off at the time: Star Trek Deep Space Nine (DS9).

However, after DS9 went off the air, I stopped watching Star Trek all together. If I remember correctly I think there were two spin-offs still running, but I can't be sure.

I really liked both TNG and DS9, not so much because I'm a huge Sci-Fi fan, but because Star Trek, (at least my two favorite spin-offs) where about something much greater than exploring the universe, they were about family.

The best thing about these series is the characters, and the bonds they formed with one another. Season after season, I became more and more attached to each character and really cared about what happened to them.

And in my opinion, great characters you can love and hate are an essential part of great television, and great movies.

Like I said, I was never a fan of Star Trek's original series, but I did enjoy the films, and from watching said movies I can easily come to the conclusion that the USS Enterprise has a crew full of awesome (some might say Legendary) characters.

For this reason alone, not including what are sure to be awesome visuals, I must say Star Trek should definitely be worth checking out.

Rio Grande Herald Movie Critic:
Gerald S. Salinas

So let me be honest, I mildly enjoyed the X-Men trilogy (thanks Bryan Singer, Brett Ratner; you did better), and I was hoping that one day they would just focus on the man who we all love to see; "Wolverine". Lucky for us, they made that movie, but not so lucky for the hardcore fans.

Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is one of the most mysterious, dark, troubled, and fun characters of all time. As shown in the beginning of the movie, as a child Wolverine, or known by his real name at first, Logan.

Wolverine, whose real name is Logan (I think) experienced his mutation from an unfortunate event, and has to run away from his home with his brother Victor (Liev Schreiber).

The opening sequence does a great job, showing Logan and Victor in the battles of the Civil war, WW1, WW2, and Vietnam. Of course one can't help but wonder why they both grew up and stop aging at that age.

Logan and Victor are eventually kicked-out of Vietnam and join a secret ops unit, formed by Gen. William Stryker (Danny Huston). But nothing changes for Logan with his new team, Logan has grown tired of killings and battles, he abandons his team in Niegeria to start over.

But with a past like Logan's, it's not that easy just to walk away. His new life as a lumber man and as a boyfriend is interrupted when Gen. Stryker informs him that Victor is on a rampage killing all of his former team. Logan accepts Gen. Stryker offer to participate in his super secret plan to make a mutant of mutants, thus making him the man we all know him by: Wolverine. Now Wolverine has the ability, and power, to stop Victor, but on his way to Victor comes all the explosions, fighting, and claw slashing...

Yes, there was never a boring moment in the movie, but that does not mean it was a good movie. The dialog was short, no acting was heavily involved, (guess we can blame the script writers for that). Gavin Hood the director of the movie is a well respected film maker, but falls very short in his first big budget blockbuster picture. Some scenes were fun, yet cheesy, almost laughable (like the boxing scenes), and some scenes didn't make any sense (like all the fighting scenes).

The movie focuses more on the action rather than the story, as mentioned,there is one fight scene right after another with no point, no build up, no need. We're left forgetting about the movie and just want to see action with no emotions.

The movie is called X-Men Origins: Wolverine, origins means the beginning, yes this movie tells the story of how Logan got his claws and the name Wolverine but that's it, and forgets that he is a mutant. Wolverine, in this movie felt hollow, and never really felt like an outcast, which is what the whole X-Men story line is all about. This movie also felt soft, yes I know this movie takes place before the X-Men trilogy, and this movie builds Wolverine, becoming the hard headed man we all know him to be, but that doesn't mean he should be as soft as he comes out to be in this movie.

This movie fails in so many ways, but there is some good to it as well. It's entertaining. Seeing Hugh Jackman play Wolverine, is like a dream come true. In my mind he was born to play Wolverine. This movie should have been darker, deeper, and should have focused more on Wolverine, instead of the action and showing Hugh Jackman without a shirt of just wearing a white tank top, but because of his intense training, (which did pay off, cause he is ripped) I guess I can't blame the director for having him flexing his guns every now and then. This will bring up big numbers in the box office, but it really ain't worth the price of admission. If you're into loud noise, and meaningless action than this is perfect for you, but not perfect for a good movie.