RIFFTRAX LIVE: STAR RAIDERS

"You know, the special effects for this movie aren't bad considering it came out in 1992."
"Um, this movie was released 18 months ago."
"WHAAAAAATTTT???"

Welcome to Rifftrax Live: Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine.  This is the sort of movie that's pretty much designed for much mockery from Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy: a former "star," amazingly bad special effects, and a nonsensical plot.

 For thos who want a plot to try and follow, here goes: Following a less-than-epic space battle, an obligatory hot female (with glowing red eyes) and her two followers (each of whom is wearing what looks like half a pair of sunglasses) land on a planet to rescue a prince and princess from an evil would-be ruler whose henchmen are immortal (sometimes) and whose head looks skinned from the top half up.  There's also a lizard-woman whose makeup doesn't cover her lower jaw.  ("She has two mouths.")  And then there's Saber Raine, the heroic rogue played by Casper Van Dien, whose only real claim to fame is having appeared in Starship Troopers.

Want more?  There's an obligatory traitor, parts of the planet don't let technology work, as the plot dictates, a sword-fighting scene is completely gratuitous, and the dialogue fails as consistently as the special effects.

Fortunately, the worse the movie is, the more of a source for comedy it provides for Mike, Bill, and Kevin.  They work hard mining humor from this awful movie (plus an old short about honesty and values that begins the evening) and the laughs come pretty consistently from start to finish.  While one may wonder how this movie got made so recently or mourn the career of Casper Van Diem, you'll also be laughing a lot during Rifftrax Live: Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Rain.  And if you figure out who or what the Star Raiders are, please let me know; the movie sure didn't.

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

THE CAPTAIN IS DEAD

Cooperative games have the players working together towards a common goal -- while other events distract them and can cost them the game.  The Captain Is Dead from Alderac Entertainment Games uses this mechanic well, as 2-7 players encounter all sorts of obstacles on their spaceship while trying to win by repairing the Jump Drive.

Each player has a character, which has several traits: rank, which determines who goes first; number of actions to spend per round; often, skill discounts to use or repair the rooms aboard the ship; a hand size, for keeping skill cards, tools, and battle plans; and a special ability.  Characters roam the ship, collecting skills (Command, Engineering, Tactical, Science) from the Computers or Internal Sensors, using the Teleporter to beam from room to room (or walking when it's Offline or Destroyed), launching torpedoes at hovering alien ships, and spending lots of Engineering skills to fix the Jump Drive by one space.  The game's difficulty is based on how many spaces on the Jump Drive need to be repaired.

Unfortunately for the players, the end of each turn has an alert happening.  Yellow alerts are harmful: Systems can be knocked offline, making them inactive until repaired; aliens can board the ship, injuring any players in the room they beam into, and players can only do certain actions if injured or in the same room as aliens, and an injured player has to go to the Trauma Center to heal.  If an alien would need to be places on the ship and there are no available aliens, the players lose.  Systems can take damage, and the Shields also take 10% damage; if the Shields reach zero and then take more damage, the players lose.  Alien ships can appear on the side of your ship, doing more damage to the Shields.  And anomalies affect the whole crew until solved with several science skills.

Not surprisingly, further alerts are worse.  Orange alerts add more aliens to the invasions, do more damage to the Shields, have worse anomalies, and destroy systems so they need a lot more skills to repair.  And red alters are far more disastrous, doing everything from reducing the Shields by 50% to destroying the Jump Core, ending the game.  Players can skip an alert by spending three Command skills at the end of their turn.

The Captain Is Dead is a very fun game.  The characters are all familiar characters to anyone who enjoys science fiction, and they all have different uses in the game -- even the Janitor, who's great at repairing destroyed systems.  The more players take part, the more alerts hit them, and even at the easiest level (Coward) the game can seize defeat from the jaws of victory.  There's a nice angular feel to the artwork, and players have to balance fixing the Jump Core to win with dealing with the other assorted crises that keep popping up.  The result is very challenging and very enjoyable.

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch

RIFFTRAX LIVE: SPACE MUTINY

One of the most beloved episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 was their making of the 1980s sci-fi disaster Space Mutiny.  So it's no surprise that the movie got a redoing with Rifftrax Live: Space Mutiny.  This comedy feature had all-new jokes, several scenes not shown in the MST3K episode, and lots and lots of humor.

Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy (the latter dressed as Alex Jansen) began by riffing "The Magic Shop," a short feature based on a story by H.G. Wells.  Next came a preview of their next Rifftrax Live feature, Krull.  And from there, it was on to Space Mutiny!

For better or worse, seeing extra scenes of Space Mutiny doesn't improve that movie in the slightest.  However, that just gave the three hosts even more material to make fun of.  There are lots of new nicknames for the muscular, dim hero Dave Ryder.  (Max Roidrage!  Bacon von Meatwich!)  There's the heroine who seems as old as her father, the dead character who shows up alive back at her post, and the scenery-chewing villain Calgon.  There also the "spaceship" full of brick walls and pipes, footage shamelessly taken from Battlestar Galactica, and lots of propane tanks lying around.  None of it is spared by the comedy trio.

Rifftrax Live: Space Mutiny is a very funny take on a very bad "classic" movie.  We get everything from jokes about the awful combat ("Why'd you have to kick and shoot me in the crotch?") to how Bill will cover up some nudity without a gorilla-gram.  The humor is consistent from start to finish, and the new jokes made it fresh even for those of us very familiar with the original MST3K episode.  This was a lot of fun!

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

The war between good and evil continues, between outer-space ships and persuasion and temptation, in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.  This movie has its share of strengths, weaknesses, and some pretty substantial plot holes.

Following almost immediately from The Force Awakens, Rey (Daisy Ridley) meets up with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to be trained as a Jedi.  He wants nothing to do with training, wishing that the whole Jedi tradition would just vanish.  He agrees to teach her three lessons, though.

Meanwhile, it looks like the entire Rebellion has been reduced to three large ships, which are slowly being pursued and attacked by several Imperial Destroyers.  Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) scored a victory against them almost solo, but his free-wheeling ways earn him the ire of both General Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern).  Somehow the First Order has found a way to track the Rebellion ships through hyperspace, when those ships are running out of fuel.  So Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) head off on a secret mission to get a codebreaker so the Rebellion fleet can sneak away.

And what about Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)?  He's still being humiliated by Snoke (Andy Serkis) and prone to fits of rage.  He's also in telepathic connection with Rey, and each of them are trying to bring the other over to their way of thinking.

If it sounds like there's a lot going in The Last Jedi, there is -- and the movie spends 2 1/2 hours going over it all.  We have plenty of space battles, lightsaber battles, and alien races (including the Ewok-replacing cute Porgs).  And yet, the movie didn't seem to capture the magic of the original films like The Force Awakens did.  We get one spaceship able to destroy the enemy almost single-handed, a ship able to depart from and return to a fleet under siege with no problem, and Luke wanting nothing to do with the Jedi yet teaching and training his successor.  Some of the action scenes are good, and there are even some emotional moments, but there were numerous times later in the movie when I was very ready for things to wrap up, and they kept going and going...  The Last Jedi isn't a bad movie, but it's certainly flawed.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

ROLL FOR THE GALAXY

Who would have guessed that building a galactic empire would revolve around rolling six-sided dice?  In Roll for the Galaxy, from Rio Grande Games, players vie for victory through developments, planets, and lots and lots of dice rolling.

The object of Roll for the Galaxy is to have the most victory points when the game ends.  Players begin the game with: a cup for rolling dice; a starting tableau of a faction tile (two developments) and a home planet; a construction zone mat with the Citizenry and spots for development and planet tiles; a phase strip, with all the possible roles; a screen which also has all the rules inside; three Home (white) dice in the cup, and two Home dice on the Citizenry, plus any dice given from the home planet.  And a number of victory point chips, based on the number of players, are placed in the middle of the table.

At the start of each turn, players roll the dice in their cup behind their screen, assign the dice on their phase strip to one phase, and all lift their screen together to enact the phases.  Dice normally go under the phase matching the symbol on the dice.  In addition, players can assign any one die to the phase regardless of the die's facing; players can also use the Dictate power to set one die to the side and then assign any other die to any phase.

There are five phases.  Explorer gives players two choices per die.  They can Scout, discarding any number of development or world tiles from their Construction zone mat, drawing a number of tiles equal to the number of discarded tiles plus one, choosing which side to use (one side has a development, the other side has a planet), and putting the new tiles under the tiles already on the mat; or they can Stock, gaining two galactic credits.  Developer puts the dice on the top development tile.  If the dice equal the cost of the development, the development goes into the tableau and its powers start immediately.  If there are fewer dice than the cost, the dice stay on the development; if there are more dice than the cost, dice above the cost go on the next development in the stack.  Settler works exactly like Developer, but for planets on the mat.  Producer puts each die used as a good on available planets, one die per planet unless a development allows more than one.  And Shipper gives two choices per die.  A player can trade goods, for three to six galactic credits, based on the color of the planet.  Or a player can consume goods, getting victory point chips: Always one victory point, a bonus victory point if the die matches the color of the planet, and a bonus victory point if the Shipper die matches the color of the planet.  And the Consumption (purple) die matches all colors and gains a bonus victory point.

After these actions, all dice used by a player go on the Citizenry, and unused dice go back into the cup.  Players can also take dice used on developments, planets, or as goods and place them in the cup.  Players they use their galactic credits to move dice from the Citizenry to the cup, at one die per galactic credit used; if a player has no credits, they automatically gain one.  Then players roll the dice in their cup, assign them to a phase, and  so on.

The game ends when a player has thirteen or more developments and planets in their tableau (including the three they start with) or the pool of victory point chips is empty.  Players then add up the victory point chips, plus they get victory points equal to the cost of their developments and planets; some 6-cost developments and planets give bonus victory points.  Whoever has the most victory points wins!

I really enjoyed Race for the Galaxy.  There is no combat with or blocking of opponents, letting players focus more on their own strategy than that of opponents.  The game starts slowly, but as players get more dice from planets and more benefits from developments players get a lot more dice to use and options for using them.  Players can work to end the game when most beneficial for them, while checking to see if an opponent is close to ending things.  And since active dice don't go back in the cup, earning enough galactic credits to add dice to the cup can be as important as getting more developments and planets.

The one slight downside is that this game requires a tremendous amount of trust: You have to be sure you and your fellow players aren't illegally changing the facing of dice behind the screens before revealing them.  But as long as the players are trustworthy, Roll for the Galaxy is a nice blend of luck and skill in creating a star-spanning empire.

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch

ALIEN: COVENANT

So, who wants their homicidal, adaptive alien served up with a side of philosophy?  If you do, then you'll like Alien: Covenant a whole lot more than I did.   This entry in the Alien franchise tries for greater depth but proves boring.

After a discussion of creations and creators, we see the starship Covenant on its way to colonize a distant planet.  The trip is scheduled for seven years, with both passengers and crew in suspended animation, with synthetic Walter (Michael Fassbender) minding the systems.  But a cosmic event damages the ship, killing the captain and dozens of the passengers.  While conducting repairs, the crew picks up an automated message (actually a John Denver song), which leads them to a much closer, potentially inhabitable planet.

The new planet seems both perfect and mysterious: The environment is fine, but why is their Earth wheat growing there?  It turns out that this is where the ship from the movie Prometheus landed, and the only survivor is the synthetic David (also played by Michael Fassbender).  And worse, the members of the Covenant can get infected by the xenomorphs by spores, eggs, and other methods.  Who will survive?

The bigger question: Who cares?  All of the characters in Alien: Covenant have virtually no personality or characteristics, making them disposable and forgettable.  The xenomorphs are almost included as an afterthought, the killer ticking clock for the crew on the planet.  As for the issues of who creates life and what its purpose is, this movie spends a lot of time discussing this but won't be remembered for it.  This movie is a very weak entry in a generally strong franchise.

Overall grade: D
Reviewed by James Lynch

PHOENIX FORGOTTEN

The horror movie Phoenix Forgotten is incredibly easy to summarize: The Blair Witch Project with aliens in the desert instead of a witch in the woods.  This found-footage horror movie often copies The Blair Witch Project but doesn't improve or add anything to the genre.

Phoenix Forgotten is shot as two different hand-held camera movies.  In the present, Sophie (Florence Hartigan) returns to her home in Phoenix, Arizona to shoot a documentary.  Back in 1997, at Sophie's sixth birthday party everyone saw a series of lights in a V formation appear and move in the sky.  Sophie's teenage brother Josh (Luke Spencer Roberts) -- who always has a camcorder with him and loves science fiction -- is convinced the lights are aliens.  He recruits friends Ashley (Chelsea Lopez) and Mark (Justin Matthews) to interview people and eventually head into the desert; after the latter, they were never seen again.  Sophie interviews the teens' parents (even hers), police officers, politicians, and even folks in the Air Force to try to figure out what happened to her brother and his friends.

The other "found footage" is from the camcorder recordings John was always making.  Most of it was benign interviews with folks in the town.  This being a horror movie, the "final" tape surfaces, showing what happened to the three teens.

There's very little to like in Phoenix Forgotten.  The characters are one-dimensional, the movie really copies far too much from The Blair Witch Project (from recurring symbols and hand prints to a finale set in an empty house and the recording device on its side) and delivers few scares beyond mystery sounds in the distance and odd ailments affecting the teens.  And a postscript trying to link the movie to real-life events feels a bit desperate.  This isn't a terrible movie, but it's not far off.  Pass.

Overall grade: D
Reviewed by James Lynch

PASSENGERS

Science fiction often uses futuristic trappings to address current or universal issues.  In the case of Passengers, it comes down to a simple message: It sucks to be alone.

This movie starts with the starship Avalon as the main character.  The ship is taking 5000 passengers and 200-some crew -- all in suspended animation -- on a 120-year mission to colonize the planet Homestead II.   The ship maintains its course, adjusts its systems to changes, and keeps the sleeping people stable.

After the Avalon passes through a heavy meteor storm, passenger Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) is awakened from his sleep -- with 90 years to go on the trip, and with everyone else still asleep.  With his only companionship the android bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen), Jim goes through the expected phases: trying to return to sleep, attempting to find out what's going on (though his engineering skills can't get him to the crew), indulging in on-ship hedonism, and even contemplating suicide.

As Jim looks over the information on his fellow passengers, he becomes interested in Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence).  Jim struggled with the decision whether or not to wake her: He could really use companionship, but waking her would leave her stuck in the same situation as him.  After bouncing back and forth, he wakes her up, helps her with their situation, and begins a relationship with her.  But what will happen if she finds out he woke her up?  Will anyone else awake early?  And what's behind the occasional glitches on the Avalon -- which are becoming more frequent and serious?

Passengers is an okay movie that never tries to do much beyond its basic premise.  While Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are fine actors, they don't have much romantic chemistry or stretching in their roles.  The best part of the movie is the opening, when we get to see a possible future where automation handles everything.  But two people stranded on a ship that seems to supply everything but what they really want -- to sleep until they arrive at their destination -- turns out to be less interesting or compelling that one would think.

Overall grade: C
Reviewed by James Lynch

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY

If there's any group of people that have reason to be wary of prequels, it's Star Wars fans.  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story treads risky grounds: a story where everyone already knows the ending (since it's about the search for the Death Star plans), a director who's neither George Lucas nor J.J. Abrams, and almost entirely new group of characters.  Still, it's a solid movie.

As a little child, Jyn Erso was living happily with her parents -- until tragedy struck.  Imperial general Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) shows up to insist Jyn's father Galen (Mads Mikkelsen) return as an engineer on the Empire's superweapon.  Jyn's mother is killed, Galen is taken away, and Jyn flees, to be rescued by Rebel fighter Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker).

Years later, a grown-up Jyn (Felicity Jones) just wants to be left alone, but the Rebellion rescues her from an Empire prison ship.  Imperial shuttle pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) has defected to the Rebellion, with news about Galen and the planet-killer weapon he's been working on.  Unfortunately he's been taken prisoner by Saw, who's become more extreme and paranoid, so the Rebellion hopes he'll open up to Jyn because of their shared past and turn Galen over to the Senate for testimony.   She's joined by Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), who has secret orders to kill Galen; and K-250 (voiced by Alan Tudyk), a reprogrammed Imperial strategy droid whose snarky honesty is the source for the most of Rogue One's humor.

The trio travels to several locations: a desert planet, a rainy Empire base, and a beach-covered different Empire base, in their quest for first Galen, then the plans for the Death Star.  Along the way, they're joined by new allies: Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen), a blind warrior and possible former Jedi who's skilled with a staff; and Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen), a well-armed mercenary and friend of Chirrut.  Together they sneak, fight, and lie to maneuver around the Empire and risk everything to obtain the plans to and weakness of the Death Star.  Meanwhile, Krennic has been charged with making sure there are surprises or hidden weaknesses in the Death Star, a mission sending him on a collision course with these Rebels.

I liked Rogue One.  There are several cameos from the other movies; some advancing the plot, some gratituous, some for nostalgic reasons.  While the characters are a bit bland -- Jyn as the reluctant hero, Cassian as the defiant soldier, Chirrut and Baze as very different companions -- but there's some very good action in the movie and several surprises (including one that will... limit the merchandising of this movie compared to other Star Wars films).  I don't know if we needed the backstory behind getting the Death Star plans, but I'm glad that story worked as well as Rogue One did.

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch

ARRIVAL

If there is alien life out there, what will our first encounters with them be like?  How will we communicate with them?  And how will both individuals and nations react to the unknown?  These are some of the issues addressed in Arrival, a very thoughtful science fiction film.

The movie opens with linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) remembering her daughter Hannah, from her birth to sad death as a teenager.  After that, she's teaching a class when it's interrupted by world-shaking news: aliens have landed on Earth, with 1500' oval ships landing at 12 locations on Earth.  And Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) recruits Dr. Banks to communicate with the aliens.

Louise is taken to the Montana location, where an alien ship is hovering above the ground.  Unfortunately, no attempts to decipher the alien sounds have been successful.  Fortunately, every 18 hours a hatch opens, allowing humans to enter the ship.  While physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) tries to figure out the properties of the aliens and their ship, Louise decides to focus not on speaking with them, but rather teaching them our written language.  The aliens -- giant squid-like creatures with seven legs, floating in a white fog behind a barrier -- respond with their own language: a series of circular symbols.

While Loiuse and Ian work on figuring out why the aliens are here, pressure is building around the world.  Some populations riot in wake of the aliens' arrival.  China is leading a push to respond the aliens with military force.  And some of the Montana soldiers are ready to use violence...

Arrival is more measured than much science fiction -- there are no laser beams, aerial battles with spaceships, or creatures wandering among humans -- and that's both a strength and a weakness: This is one of cinema's most realistic approaches to first contact with alien life, but it also means at times watching people work on translations can get boring.  Amy Adams is fine as the professional who has to work on what could be the most important translation in human history while dealing with her personal devastating loss; and the rest of the cast is more or less just there.  The aliens are nicely otherworldly and mysterious, and there's a plot twist and concept that may not be fully satisfying but is unexpected.  Arrival is a solid movie about what happens when life from other world finally reaches us.

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch

DOCTOR WHO: THE POWER OF THE DALEKS

Many of the earliest episodes of Doctor Who have been lost.  I got to see an interesting solution to this problem with Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks.  While the episodes may be lost, possibly forever, the folks at BBC America did put together the audio from the 1966 episode -- and made an animated version of the episode!

The Power of the Daleks is significant because it introduced both the idea of regeneration (that when near death, a Time Lord could regenerate, gaining a new body and personality) and Patrick Troughton as the new Doctor, replacing William Hartnell.  Appropriately, this switch is reflected in the Doctor's companions: Polly (Anneke Wills) is certain he's still the Doctor, while Ben (Michael Craze) is skeptical.  The new Doctor seems silly: constantly playing a recorder, wearing a large floppy hat, and muttering to himself.

The adventure begins quickly, as the trio leave the TARDIS to wander around the planet Vulcan (no relation to Star Trek).  The Doctor meets a human who introduces himself as the Examiner -- who's promptly shot dead, with the Doctor knocked out from behind.  When the Doctor wakes up, he takes the Examiner's badge, posing as him to have full access to the human colony of Vulcan.  The colony has been having episodes of sabotage from unknown rebels.  The biggest discovery, though, is that scientist Lesterson (Robert James) has found a "space capsule" containing two apparently deceased/deactivated Daleks.  Lesterson wants to revive/reactivate them, to use them as servants; but the Doctor warns that doing so would doom the entire colony.  And there's evidence that there was a third Dalek that's gone missing...

The Power of the Daleks is a nice reminder of the clunky charm of the original series.  While the new animation keeps a lot of the original limits of the series (the humans in the "futuristic" colony use guns; the Daleks' beam weapon is shown by briefly showing a negative of the scene), the story is nicelty involved, with several threads -- Who killed the Examiner?  Which characters are rebels?  What is the master plan of the Daleks? -- that all come together.  It's a shame the episodes are gone, but nice that it was "regenerated" this way.

My one complaint with this was the animation: While the black and white matches the original series, the animation feels stiff, with shading rarely changing and usually only body part for one character moving at a time.  It feels artificial, and oddly reminiscent of the series Archer.  While that was distracting, it was a worthwhile sacrifice to get to see Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks.  And afterwards, there were interviews and behind-the-scenes with several folks involved with animating the series, plus Anneke Wills talking about being on the original series!

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

MORGAN

Bad things happen when scientists experiment with nature.  This is a very common trope of several science fiction movies, and now Morgan joins them.

Risk management consultant Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) has been hired to evaluate by an unnamed but slightly sinister company to evaluate and possibly terminate the L-9 project.  This takes her to the middle of nowhere, where outside are beautiful woods and cold, sterile concrete rooms are underground.

A handful of scientists have been working in seclusion on a genetic project.  They seem to have success with Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is five years old but looks like a teenage girl.  Morgan has great intellectual and emotional development; she also may have superhuman abilities, as she seems to know quite a bit about people she just met.  And when one of the scientists tells Morgan she can't go outside anymore, Morgan attacked her and blinded her in one eye.  Is Morgan a danger?  Will Lee end the project and have Morgan killed?  Or will everything spiral out of control?

Morgan is a dreary and surprisingly flat movie.  The story arc is predictable, and the characters are all one-dimensional; even the appearance of Paul Giamatti as a dour psychiatrist doesn't add much to the movie.  There aren't many scares or thoughtful scenes, and the images of the free person and imprisoned person reflected in the glass dividing them gets overdone quickly.  Morgan tries to be suspenseful but is actually boring.

Overall grade: D

Reviewed by James Lynch

STAR TREK BEYOND

Time to head back to space.  Star Trek Beyond is the most original of the rebooted universe, and while it's heavy on action it also gives the characters a chance to shine.

As the movie opens, the Enterprise is three years into its mission of exploration, stopping at the starbase Yorktown, and weariness is overtaking some of the crew.  Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is now older than his father was when he died, and Kirk is considering settling down at the Yorktown and promoting Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto) to captain.  Spock, meanwhile, is upset that his alternate-timeline self has died, and Spock has broken up with Uhura (Zoe Saldana) over helping the Vulcan race.  The rest of the crew is their reliable selves: Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban), Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the movie), Sulu (John Cho) and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin).

The Enterprise gets sent on a rescue mission in an uncharted nebula -- but the Enterprise is attacked by massive swarms of ships led by Krall (Idris Elba), an alien who absorbs the lifeforce of others and seems to have a particular hatred of the Federation.  With the Enterprise literally torn to pieces, the crew winds up in different groups on a nearby planet.  Kirk and Chekhov work on rescuing the remained of the crew in the wreck of the Enterprise.  Bones is assisting the wounded Spock.  Sulu and Uhura interact with Krall.  And Scotty meets Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), a martial artist and engineer who helps him in exchange for his help getting her off the planet.  There's also an ancient starship, a mysterious artifact, a motorcycle, and music from the Beastie Boys.

Director Justin Lin has also directed several movies in the Fast & the Furious series, so it's no surprise that Star Trek Beyond is heavy on action: fast-paced space battles, numerous slugfests on the ground, and that motorcycle turning up in the far future.  But the cast has settled into these near-iconic roles quite nicely, the different groups hearken back to the landing parties of the original series, there are a few surprised with Krall, and Jaylah is a spirited and interesting character.  Star Trek Beyond is another enjoyable movie for the summer.

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: 20th Anniversary Edition

Mystery Science Theater 3000 has been around long enough for several anniversaries.  Naturally, before there was the 25th Anniversary Edition, there was the 20th Anniversary Edition.  While this doesn't have quite as many extras and movies as the later anniversary edition, this is still a quality collection of movies lacking in quality -- with two very nice extras.

As with most MST3K collections, the 20th Anniversary Edition has four episodes of MST3K.  This time around, viewers will join the folks on the Satellite of Love as they watch First Spaceship on Venus (the only episode here with Joel Hodgson), Laserblast (the final MST3K episode on Comedy Central), Werewolf (one of my favorite episodes ever) and Future War (which has forced-perspective dinosaurs, a cheap Jean-Claude Van Damme copy, and an odd amount of theology).  This is a fine collection of episodes, and the jokes are flung at and inspired by these movies with great results.

As for extras, there are two big ones here.  "The Oral History of MST3K" is a series of interviews, spread over three of the DVDs, with most of the actors, writers, and producers from the show.  This covers everything from the very first episodes through the end of the run.  Then there's the 2008 Comic-Con MST3K Reunion Panel, which has most of the actors and some producers and writers discussing the show -- with Patton Oswalt hosting.  "Variations on a Theme Song" is a lesser but nice extra, featuring all the different openings and theme songs from MST3K's entire run.

While the 20th Anniversary Edition doesn't have as many episodes as the 25th Anniversary Edition, it does have four terrific episodes and two very good bonus features.  Mystery Science Theater 3000: 20th Anniversary Edition is another collection that should make any MST3K fan very happy.  (Folks can also shell out more money for a set in a tin box with a toy Crow.)

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch