After reading several reviews across the interwebs about Michael Bay’s summer movie juggernaut, Transformers, I discovered that I was feeling the same things they were. As a child, I had owned dozens of Tranformers toys; Optimus, Starscream, Megatron.. All the biggies. The cartoon was a staple of my Saturday Morning Regimen and to this day I still remember the death of Optimus Prime with a twinge in my heart. Basically, Bay had a lot to live up to and oh-so-much he could screw up. He had to know that desecrating our memories would have painted him in infamy forever. Thus, when several other bloggers plead their case I found myself joining the cry;

I decided to through caution into traffic and went to see Transformers on Tuesday right after work. I was hoping that, while it was opening day, working parents would be unwilling to cart their rug-rats to the movies so quickly after work had ended. Thankfully, I was mostly right. With only a smattering of folks in the theater I was pleased though I was also quick to note that aside from parents I was the oldest person in the room. Average child’s age? No older than 12. Excellent, I thought, this is Michael Bay remakes the Tele Tubbies.

If you want details on action scenes, dialog, plot-line, etc go look elsewhere. That stuff has been covered in nauseating detail by everyone from Time Magazine to, well, blogs as inconsequential as this one. In truth, none of it’s that important. This is a Michael Bay film and while he has, previously, attempted to have a bit more plot in some of his films - this isn’t one of them. And that’s OK. Trying to sell me a serious plot that revolves around cartoon characters is an iffy proposition to begin with and it’s pretty obvious that Bay was having none of it.

The bottom line is that he didn’t take a steamer on my childhood fun. As a child of the 80’s this film will bring your childhood favorites back to the screen in an exciting and gorgeous way. You won’t be disappointed if you don’t expect anything more than a CGI/Live action adaptation of a half-hour cartoon. Bay sticks to the formula of action that has made him what he is and he doesn’t divert. Remember, you will not find an interesting plot here. You will not find witty exposition. You will absolutely not find anyone with a displayed IQ above 90 or so. Basically, it’s a movie made for the audience of TRL starring giant, killer robots that has more gunfire, military weaponry, badass explosions and general action than we’ve seen on the silver screen for quite a while now.

But it IS the Transformers.

Oh, and one other thing… Bay threw us a bone.
Or boner.

The female sidekick to Shia LeBeouf’s main character human is played by Megan Fox and from the first scene with her in it it’s obvious Bay had a boner for her and wanted all the rest of us to as well. Kids may love the transforming robots and the ginormous explosions but Dad will gladly take the whole family back to see it again tomorrow night just for another glimpse of this little darling. Some shots it is just so screamingly obvious what Bay is doing and I gotta say… Bless you, my man. Bless you.

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

You’ve all seen Die Hard. I know you have. Maybe you saw it in the theater, a long long time ago. Or probably on VHS or DVD at some point in the last ten years. Possibly even on *gasp* television. TBS likes to run dumbed down versions of the film on Sunday afternoons to keep Dad happy after golf ends. Whatever the case, you’ve seen it. Likely enough you’ve enjoyed it. For fans of the series, the second installment is often seen as a major let-down and the third… well… It’s just awesome. Jeremy Irons makes it so.

Now we have the fourth volume of this never-ending cycle of bad luck for our protagonist, John McClane, and, like most things being released these days, it’s a mish-mash of inane stupidity, incredible action and impossibly over-the-top situations. Hollywood at it’s least effective as it tries to please everyone in the room while offending no one in particular. *sigh* I mean, c’mon, all action (like humor) offends someone.

This time ’round John finds himself battling the evil forces of cyberterrorists, bent on bringing down our national infrastructure for (of course) a nefarious uber-purpose. No Middle Easterners here, though. Keep moving. Move along. This time our terrorists are home-grown white boys who obviously didn’t get enough attention from Mommy and Daddy. Plus Maggie Q. You just cannot forget her. Yum.

Anyway, this film was graced with a PG13 rating (the holy grail of summer blockbuster ratings) which ensured that every human over the age of 9 and under the age of, well, dead, should in theory want to go see it. While there is some decent fighting and more than a few moderately OK gunfights, the action tends to quickly jump the rails of believability and gallop the white stallion that is my shattered suspension of disbelief right into the hazy, day-glo orange sunset of moronic American enjoyment. Honestly, watching Willis in a tractor trailer avoid being decimated by what was probably a $40 billion fighter jet for five straight minutes while on a ramped highway was just about more than I could stand. Hearing the guy in the seat behind me titter, “That is SO cool!” made me want to ram a handful of his popcorn up his fat, stupid ass. Bad man. BAD. That is NOT cool. It’s stupid.

Anyone remember True Lies? Great movie. True Lies was fun because from start to finish it was meant to be an over-the-top, completely unrealistic, poking fun at traditional action movies movie. Well, DH4 runs right into True Lies territory a couple times and never once says it’s sorry. Combine that with a logic flaw so gaping, so enormously, glaringly ridiculous that when the credits rolled I stalked out of the theater in disgust.

Live Free of Die Hard is the perfect movie for a 15 year old. Lots of “shit” and “dick” but no “fuck” and action sequences that are so impossible as to border on stupid. In other words, perfect for the current MTV generation. Walk into this film knowing what to expect and you just might enjoy yourself a little. Walk in hoping for a worthy successor to the Die Hard lineage and you will be sorely disappointed.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

Michael Bay, director of the upcoming Transformers flick, has posted some high-ish resolution pictures of the metallic monstrosities on his blog. While I’m not one of those blubbering, wailing, fan-boys standing on street corners late at night gesticulating at the heavens, rending my clothes and gnashing my teeth in unbridled rage at the prospect of a Bay-sian handling of the franchise, I am properly nervous. Honestly, look at those characters. Look, damn you. I’m sorry but Megatron looks like Magneto walked through a junkyard and pulled together the makings of a monster from the remnants of old Maytags and Whirlpools. ScrapMetal Man! *sigh* Bumblebee looks the best of the group, aside from his license plate codpiece.

Michael Bay has a great eye for action. I will not take that away from the man. While many film critics deride his films as tripe, I have to disagree on a fundamental level. Without actually knowing the man or his mission in film, I think I can safely say that he’s not setting out to remake ‘Of Mice & Men’ here. This is no Nabokov adaptation. Bay makes action films. He has a great sense of fun and imagination and, like all honest men, like to blow shit up. This is what he brings to his films. If you’re looking for dialog and drama, boy, you’re in the wrong neighborhood.

That said, these Transformers are somewhat of a travesty. Seriously. I used to play with the toys as a young’n and this is not at all, AT ALL, how I ever expected them to evolve. I’ll give Bay the benefit of the doubt because I have so enjoyed his films. I mean, come on.. Bad Boys. The Rock. Armageddon. Bad Boys 2. This is a pedigree that you cannot, as an action-film loving fan, ignore, but I am highly skeptical - more so after seeing these images.

I’ve spent the better part of today trying to wrap my brain around the experience I had last night. Certainly, I enjoyed this films predecessor “28 Days Later” a great deal. The concept was interesting and robust, the acting was spot-on and the cinematography was compelling, to say the least. I was looking forward to this new chapter figuring it’d be an exciting action-romp, zombie-fest of good fun. Instead a found myself unceremoniously hauled into depths of darkness and depravity, an examination, however cursory, of the human condition under the most heinous of stressors and an unflinching, bloody-eyed stare into the face of a monster we have no defense against.

Fear not, I won’t cover all those points I bring up above. No no, I think it’s best if you see the film yourself and decide on your own if what I saw is what was truly there. Instead I’d only like to offer my own experience at the hands of this film. Rarely am I shaken, disturbed or surprised in a film. Often I’ll see twists or jump-moments ahead of time and I can control my own reactions. This time, however, I found myself leaning forward, fists clenched, legs drawn in and breath bated as someone was being torn apart on screen. It wasn’t just the violence - I’ve seen violence. It was the sheer unbridled brutality of it. The only comparison I can draw is this; a friend of mine spoke truly when he referred to “300″ as “pornographic in it’s violence”. He’s exactly right. Porno’s are fun, damnit. There’s a sense of giddy unreality to the whole affair that not only makes everything OK, it makes it exciting and fun. It’s an enjoyable experience. This… This is no Jenna Jameson booty-romp… This is a grainy 1970’s German snuff film and when your TV flickers to life you just sit, mouth agape, staring at the screen, knowing you should look away but you just just just can’t. It’s so… wrong. Now, you have some idea of what “28 Weeks Later” brings to the screen. It’s not a snuff film but it’s movie-violence has the itching sensation of the unclean. It is, in it’s still-Hollywood way, disturbing.

Prepare yourself when you go see this film as, truly, see it you should. My friend and I walked out rather stunned. We got a drink directly afterwards and really had very few words to describe the experience. It was just sort of… sinking in. This film will make you think about what humans do to other humans when we’re at the height of fear. I wonder if I’m giving the film too much credit when I think back and feel it’s an accurate, if thoroughly disturbing, mirror held up the eyes of a society hell-bent on scaring itself stupid. This is what real fear does to us. This is what real fear makes us do to one another.

Enjoy.

Final Rating: 8.5/10

It appears the Terminator series is to be revived by a half-company attempting to anchor their future on the franchise. As if this mofo’ hadn’t already been beaten beyond death into some completely unrecognizable and foul smelling pile of dung-like material. Nice job, fellas.
Way to go.

According to the article, the first of the new films will depict John Connor in his 30’s going mano-a-mano with the machines in the not-too-distant future. Sounds… Just as bad as Terminator 3. Oh Wait. That’s right.. It’s being written by the same guy. *sigh*

I know, I know, I post nothing for a month and suddenly I’m friggin prolific. Shut the fuck up. Anyway, I’ve been anticipating the release of Michael Mann’s newest film, Miami Vice, for quite a while now. However, when the film debuted not too long ago it happened to be at a point where my weekend movie-watching free time was greatly diminished. Last week I go to check out listings to catch an evening run and I discover that the damn thing’s already gone from local theaters. Now, I know I qualifyingly live in an area that can be appropriated described as ‘the boondocks’ but fuck. Thus, I was forced to download a cam of the film from the very nice internet people. (Thanks, you filthy pirates.) The quality of this particular encoding was, shall we say, diminished. I’d say the equivalant of watching the film after stabbing yourself in the eye. Despite that, however, I have to tell you… It was a good goddamn movie.

This film had so many things against it in my book, even I was surprised I wanted to see it. I absolutely loathe Jamie Foxx. He’s an arrogant fucker whom I think let his fame go to his head. I just don’t like him. Colin Farrell, on the other hand, while still overly macho in every conceivable way, managed to make himself look slightly retarded with that obscene handlebar mustache. But the thing is, I love Michael Mann films. People pan them all the time for being too long, too dramatic, too whatever but I enjoy the drama he builds and the characters who often feel more real to me than any other semi-action film. All these factors considered and in the end I still wanted to see it. Go figure.

*sigh*
Foxx was good. Oh, shit, all right.. Foxx was great. It was no Ray but for gods sake he was playing Ricardo Tubbs - you’re asking too much if you think there should be more depth. And damnit, I admit it, the goddamn handlebar mustache actually worked. I’m considering dipping my fingers in acid for typing that but *grumble* it’s true. Both actors found warm-fuzzy places for themselves in these roles and it honestly looked to me like they were enjoying it. The film manages to build a semi-plausible world populated by two undercover cops who are damn good at what they do. They get recruited into a situation waaaaay out of their league and tackle it with (rather hard to believe) aplomb - but somewhere along the way I found myself actually enjoying the ride. Bingo.

The film is slow at points and the dialogue can be a bit tacky from place to place but it’s all forgivable in the end. The cinematography is absolutely beautiful (what I could see through the compression) and the music - OH the music. Jesus. Mann has such an ear for the right music at the right time to produce power and emotion. He uses modern tracks and minimal orchestrals relying on the echoing piano chords of a Moby power-ballad to move you in the right direction.

Overall I enjoyed this film. Make no mistake - this is a drama. Say it with me; ddddrrrrraaaaaammmmmaaaa. Yeah, thats good. If you’re going just to see dozens of explosions and gunfire every few minutes you’re going to be disappointed. What you’ll get is a well acted, very well shot and exceptionally scored film about drug trafficking, police impotency and, well, love. While this film won’t make it into my top 10 listing it’ll most certainly make it onto my DVD shelf.

Score one for the pirates.
Thank them, Universal Pictures, you just made a DVD sale.

Final Rating: 8/10