Star Trek and Wolverine: Origins

Let's start with Star Trek. Honestly, I haven't been a fan of the Star Trek franchise since I was in high school. The constant utopianism is grating, and since Scientology (in The Undiscovered Country) and Communism (in First Contact) were officially adopted into the Utopia of the Federation, well... I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. Nor, in fact, am I a huge fan of J.J. Abrams. So, I went into this movie with fairly low expectations.
And wound up enjoying it. There are weaknesses--the Vulcan dialogue was obviously written by someone trying to write dialogue above his own IQ level by simply using a thesaurus on every other word (never a good idea), and the actor playing Spock couldn't pull of Spock with Spock there to coach him. Plus, Abrams does a really hoaky homage to his own work with the "red matter." Those things being said, I really liked the direction that the series went: there were homages to Star Trek as well (don't be the guy in the red suit... and don't let Kirk near a green woman), there are alien monsters that really LOOK like alien monsters, and some other things that there are more qualified Trekophiles than myself to comment on. Personally, I hope to see this cast grow into its own through several more movies.

Now, for Wolverine. I called this one as soon as the first trailer came out, and no one believed me. An entire movie with the U. S. Army as the bad guy, doing NOTHING EXCEPT kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. Don't watch it, don't take your kids to it.
The only worthwhile thing about this movie, for me, is the opportunity for movie reviewers like Roger Ebert to show what true morons they are. All of these psuedo-intellectual critics like to pick apart superhero movies--as if they are somehow "beneath" any other form of cinematic drivel--so they harp on the fact that the movie begins in "Northwest Territories, Canada, 1845." It didn't exist, and I'm fairly certain that only one film critic actually knew that. The rest are just parroting it so as not to look less intelligent than all of their colleagues. None of them, however--NOT ONE--noticed that the U. S. Army was using M-4 carbines in Viet Nam. But then, what do you expect from a group of people who thought that "Rendition" was a really intelligent movie, and it just didn't do well because the "common folk" weren't ready for it?