Need For Speed

Need For Speed - Dir. Scott Waugh (2014)

The Need For Speed series is one of Electronic Arts' longest running franchises and the most successful racing games in the video game industry. For the most part, the games have no narrative structure so the idea of using them as the basis for a film is akin to producing Madden Football: The Movie. On the other hand, it's a shrewd marketing ploy by Dreamworks, who are clearly angling to cash in on the wildly lucrative Fast and Furious franchise. Now they have brand recognition. The video games are incidental as they might as well have called it Hot Wheels or Tonka Trucks, both of which are actually in development.

Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame stars as Tobey Marshall, an amateur street racer living in Mount Kisco, New York. He has inherited his father's auto shop after old man's death, but the place is on its last legs. That's when Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) swoops back into town. The wealthy hometown boy has gone on to the professional leagues, runs a big-time dealership, and even stole Tobey's former flame, Anita (Dakota Johnson). Dino offers Tobey the chance to restore a one-of-a-kind Ford Mustang that belonged to the famed Carroll Shelby. They'll flip it for millions of dollars and a cut of which will save the Marshall family's shop. However, their rivalry boils over and the two challenge each other to a winner takes all race with Anita's younger brother, Pete (Harrison Gilbertson), caught in the middle. Dino causes a fiery wreck when he rams Pete's car from behind, then flees the scene and leaves Tobey to take the fall.

After a two-year stint in prison, Tobey vows revenge by defeating Dino in the De Leon, a clandestine street race put on by the eccentric and mysterious Monarch (Michael Keaton). In order to do so, Tobey borrows the Mustang from its new owner who sends his assistant Julia (Imogen Poots) to tag along as his minder. Tobey and Julia must travel coast to coast within 45 hours in order to join the race. At their side are Tobey's mechanics Joe (Ramon Rodriguez) and Finn (Rami Malek) as well as eyes in the sky Maverick (Scott Mescudi), against them are hordes of police officers and opportunists looking to collect a bounty issued by Dino.

Need For Speed attempts to hearken back to the classic car movies of Hollywood's past. All the cool kids in Mt. Kisco watch Bullitt at a neon-lit drive-in theater ala American Graffiti. Tobey's cross-country sojourn and Michael Keaton's omnipresent commentator are reminiscent of Vanishing Point while Tobey and Julia's flirtatious relationship was clearly inspired by Burt Reynolds and Sally Field in Smokey and the Bandit. Not surprising that Need's director Scott Waugh began his career as a stuntman much like Smokey director Hal Needham and H.B. Halicki, who starred, produced, and directed the original Gone in 60 Seconds. Unfortunately, Need For Speed is a poor substitute.

For his part, Waugh is a stylish director and the film's engines fire on all cylinders when it focuses on vehicular mayhem. We watch Tobey run amok in the streets of Detroit with dozens of cop cars on his tail and kicking up dust in the Utah desert, the latter of which is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Shane Hurlbut. Waugh proudly touts that he relied heavily on practical effects rather than CGI. This will surely please gearheads as they get to see American muscle like the Gran Torino and Camaro along with sleek European models such as the Lamborghini and Koenigsegg.

The movie quickly loses momentum once it moves away from the car chases and you realize how thin the characters are and how inane the dialogue is. Screenwriters George & John Gatins are unable to muster an ounce of wit for what passes as snappy banter between our protagonists. The plot is riddled with holes large enough to…well…drive a car straight through them. The winner of the De Leon gets all the other competing cars, but what's the point when those vehicles are either totaled or impounded by the police? Monarch provides play-by-play of the race for his internet broadcast, yet how does he see what's happening when there are no cameras present? There's some queasy morality to the picture as the protagonists callously race through crowded streets and laugh at nearly killing a homeless man. Tobey also doesn't seem to mind that he's caused numerous traffic accidents and grievous injuries to the police officers pursuing him. Some viewers might be sensitive to images of crashed cars bursting into flames following the tragic death of Paul Walker.

At two hours and ten minutes, Need is way too long and laborious to be a mindless quickie. Skip it unless you have a passion for cars and a high tolerance for cringe-worthy dialogue.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Battle: Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles - Dir. Jonathan Liebesman (2011)

Battle: Los Angeles takes the sci-fi spectacle of alien invasion movies like Independence Day and War of the Worlds and combines it with the gritty realism of combat films like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down.

Battle: LA opens promisingly enough as the invasion is in full force and Earth's armies are in disarray. Cities have fallen and casualties are numerous. Then, the rug gets pulled out from under the audience. Yes, this is one of those movies that starts in the middle of the story, and then takes you back to the beginning in order to slowly introduce the main characters. Not the best example, but Predators knew how to do it right. Don't bother with a lengthy prologue; just drop the characters (and the audience) right into the thick of things. Flesh the characters (however thin) out through their actions while moving the story forward, rather than stopping it dead for extended dialogue scenes. But, I digress.

Aaron Eckhart is SSgt. Michael Nantz, who is putting in for retirement following a disastrous tour in the Middle East when he lost all the Marines under his command. That retirement is nixed when meteorites begin raining down on Earth. Nantz is assigned to a platoon out of Camp Pendleton and headed up by Lt. Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez), a fresh face straight out of officer school. The Marines initially believe they are to assist with emergency efforts. They are horrified when news footage shows alien forces laying waste to the beaches of Santa Monica.

The platoon are dropped into L.A. and tasked with rescuing any civilians taking shelter inside a nearby police precinct house. Their group takes heavy losses during an alien ambush and barely makes it to the police station. Along the way, they join up with a ragtag group of survivors from other military branches, including Air Force Tech Sgt. Elena Santos (Michelle Rodriguez). Inside the building, they find only two orphaned children, Joe Rincon (Michael Pena) and his son Hector (Bryce Cass), and a veterinarian (Bridget Moynahan).

I'd describe the Marines in greater detail, but I honestly couldn't remember anything specific about most of them. The platoon is a diverse mix of soldiers from many backgrounds, including a Nigerian medic and another Marine (played by pop singer Ne-Yo) nicknamed Specs because of his thick black-rimmed glasses. There's a fellow from Jersey, a confident sharpshooter, a rookie who has yet to see combat, and Michelle Rodriguez in the Michelle Rodriguez role. I'm surprised they didn't trot out the guy who dies five minutes after showing everyone a picture of his girl back home. One soldier suffers from post-traumatic stress, but aside from an early scene in his psychiatrist's office, it never comes up again probably because it was redundant of Nantz's subplot.

Making the characters further indistinguishable is the fact they are dressed in full combat gear along with the heavy use of handheld cameras. Luckily, the battle scenes aren't as nauseating as some of Paul Greengrass's work. I've gotten use to seeing shaky camera work for action sequences, but not for ordinary dialogue scenes. When Nantz speaks to his CO, the camera bobs and weaves to dizzying effect.

Unable to generate any genuine emotion, the filmmakers go for cheap tactics such as throwing children off bridges and cutting to close-ups of their crying faces whenever possible. The clichéd characters speak in a continuous stream of clichés along the lines of, "Don't die on me now, man," "Give this to my wife…," "Nobody gets left behind," "America, f**k yeah!" In the end, Eckhart delivers a stirring speech to rally the men and it's a credit to the actor he was able to lift it above the inherent pandering jingoism. With his good looks and cleft chin, Eckhart is suitably cast as the all-American G.I. Joe.

Battle: Los Angeles is on par with watching someone play Call of Duty for two hours with the volume on full blast. If you're the forgiving sort who is only in it for cool special effects and lots of explosions, Battle: Los Angeles will offer you the thrills of a summer blockbuster three months early.

Rating: ** (*****)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Dir. Michael Bay (2009)

I previously thought Transformers was the most Michael Bay that Michael Bay ever Michael Bay-ed. But, the Bay actually out-Bays himself with the sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The second film based on the popular Hasbro toyline is bigger, louder and longer than every previous version of the property combined. It’s a two and a half hour assault on the senses. Notice I haven’t said anything about it being a great movie?

Like most sequels, Revenge of the Fallen has more of everything, more robots, more action, more characters, more explosions (including one that took seven months to set up) and more glamour shots of Megan Fox, etc. It actually has more story. Not a better story, just more half-ass subplots strung together into a semi-coherent narrative.

It’s been two years since the Transformers arrived on Earth. The Autobots led by Optimus Prime (voiced again by Peter Cullen) battle alongside an international taskforce led by Maj. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson) in hunting down any remaining Decepticons still in hiding. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) says goodbye to his Autobot protector Bumblebee and girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox) as he prepares to go to college. I don’t remember what school he enrolled in, but every female student is thin, flawlessly beautiful, lathered in make-up, and horny for advanced theoretical physics. Sam’s new roommate is Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez), a tech head who runs a conspiracy theory website attempting to uncover the truth about the Transformers. Leo replaces Anthony Anderson’s character as the annoying, comedic sidekick computer nerd. Meanwhile, Sam’s long-distance relationship with Mikaela is put to the test by an overly aggressive co-ed (Isabel Lucas).

Sam barely makes it through day one before his hopes of a normal life are dashed. He breaks out into near-epileptic fits after touching a sliver of the Allspark that had been destroyed in the first film. He goes into John Nash mode, seeing ancient Cybertronian hieroglyphs everywhere. The Decepticons want what’s in Sam’s mind as it will lead them to a machine that can destroy the sun and harness it into their fuel source, Energon. The villainous robots resurrect their leader, Megatron (Hugo Weaving), who now takes his orders from the title character, the Fallen (voiced by Candyman Tony Todd). The Fallen was one of the original Transformers who betrayed his mechanical brothers. He’s the Palpatine to Megatron’s Darth Vader.

There’s also a government toady who blames the Autobots for all the death metal destruction and pushes to have them deported off-planet. John Turturro’s Agent Simmons is also back, now working the counter at his mom’s deli.

Where there were about a dozen Transformers in the first film, Bay ups the ante for the sequel with forty-six even including fan-favorites such as Soundwave (once again voiced by Frank Welker who also did Ravage), the Constructicons who merge into the much-larger Devastator, and Arcee, one of the few female Transformers. Many die-hard Transfans will likely be disappointed by their long-awaited appearances. Devastator is reduced to a lumbering quadruped whose main form of attack is to literally suck. There’s also Jetfire, a geriatric Decepticon who defected to the Autobots long ago. He’s nothing more than a plot device to move the characters from point A to point B and drop a huge chunk of exposition in the middle of the film. The biggest problem with the increase in the Transformer population is the fact that you can only tell a handful of them apart. This muddies up the action sequences when you have no idea who is who. Was that an Autobot that got destroyed or a Decepticon? The filmmakers don’t seem to have a clue either as some of the same Constructicons that formed Devastator can also be seen battling the Autobots elsewhere in the desert.

It also doesn’t help when Michael Bay directs the majority of the action with the patience of a ten-year old with ADD on a truckload of methamphetamines. Bay can’t keep the camera still for a second to allow the audience to actually watch the battle, instead choosing to pan the camera around and around in a dizzying pattern. Just because the camera constantly moves doesn’t make the scene more interesting.

With so many new characters, many of the original characters that the audience have known and become attached to are marginalized here. Lennox and Epps barely factor into the film. While Sam and Mikaela were able to get in on some of the action in the first film, they’re relegated here to screaming at the top of their lungs or running away from explosions in slow motion. Ironhide and Ratchet, two of the only Transformers I can actually recognize, hardly do anything either. Even the Fallen, who is supposed to be the big bad, maybe only gets fifteen minutes of screen time and hardly seems anymore menacing than any other Decepticon. No, the Transformers who appear to get the most screen time are the Twins, Mudflap and Skids (one voiced by Reno Wilson, the other by Spongebob Squarepants himself, Tom Kenny), who have garnered a lot of controversy in the press. The pair have big ears, bugged out eyes, buck teeth (one of them gold), and speak in Ebonics. They’re stupid, illiterate and on a level of annoyance that rivals Jar Jar Binks. Remember that annoying, unfunny little robot from the first film? Well, Bay throws in two. There’s an evil version of the microscope Autobot, Perceptor, in The Doctor, a Decepticon microscope that turns into a spider-like robot with glasses that speaks in a German accent. Always one to run a crappy joke into the ground, Michael Bay also throws in Wheelie, an RC 4x4 who looks like Wall-E’s evil cousin and inexplicably speaks like an extra from Goodfellas. He humps Megan Fox’s leg too, not that I blame him.

Does the idea of a robot humping a woman’s leg not seem funny to you? Michael Bay apparently thought it was so hilarious; he also threw in two scenes of dogs humping each other. Bay’s excesses and lack of originality run deeper than just recycling the same shots in every one of his films. He repeats the same lame jokes that revel in the fact that they target the lowest common denominator. We get the robots with bad teeth as well as a butcher with bad teeth trying to earn money for dental work. There’s dry-humping, Transformer testicles and an exceedingly long gag involving Sam’s mother tripping out on pot brownies. Curse words are liberally dropped into dialogue that’s already as clunky as the Transformers themselves. For a film that’s essentially selling toys to kids, Revenge is hardly family friendly.

There are some positive contributions in Revenge. The special effects are the usual top-notch work from ILM. The Transformers fit seamlessly into their surroundings and there are moments where you believe they are standing side-by-side with their human compatriots. Catching the film in IMAX and seeing Optimus Prime in scale was pretty cool. Starscream (one of my favorite characters) gets a bit more to do in the sequel and his additional dialogue brings him more in line with his G1 incarnation.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the perfect embodiment of every negative aspect of the summer blockbuster. It’s a film that panders to the bases, adolescent desires. It’s loud, obnoxious, and unrelenting. Its junk food and for some that’s more than enough to satisfy their appetites. The thing about junk food is, it gives you a quick fix, but you’re eventually left hungry for a real meal. Films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight proved you can be a big-budget action spectacle with a smart story and genuine emotion. Revenge simply substitutes noise and movement for any type of true emotional connection. The audience isn’t taken along for a journey as much as press ganged into it and yanked along. This is the type of messy sequel that was churned out of the Matrix and Pirates franchises. Whatever weak plot it possesses is only there to service a string of action scenes that are directed either blandly or nonsensically by Michael Bay.

Rating: * ½

The Taking of Pelham 123

The Taking of Pelham 123 - Dir. Tony Scott (2009)

This new version of The Taking of Pelham 123 is nominally a remake of the 1974 film starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. That version itself was originally based on a novel by John Godey and the story was remade previously in 1998 as a made-for-TV film with Edward James Olmos and Vincent D’Onofrio. The basic premise of a thief hijacking a subway train remains the same, but the 2009 version tosses in a lot of flash while incorporating current technology and life in a post-9/11 New York.

Denzel Washington is Walter Garber, a former bigshot with the NYC Municipal Transit Authority, but a fall from grace reduces him to a desk job as a dispatcher. It’s just bad luck that he’s on the line when Ryder (John Travolta) and his gang hijack a subway train and demand $10 million dollars from the Mayor (James Gandolfini). In the original, the gang use color-coordinated code-names like Mr, Blue and Mr. Green which would Tarantino would pay homage to in Reservoir Dogs. Die Hard underground. That’s essentially the entire plot in a nutshell. There aren’t a whole lot of nuances to it.

Even stuck behind a desk, Denzel still possesses a commanding on-screen presence. What works for the film is the fact that his Garber is not a standard action hero. He’s not a cop, just a former white-collar executive. For the most part, Garber’s interactions with Ryder are over the radio as they play mind games with each other while revealing bits and pieces of their past. What doesn’t work is the third act when they turn Garber into the gun-toting action man. While Denzel gives a strong, but restrained performance, Travolta gives an over-the-top, cartoonish performance. Travolta dons a knit skullcap, Fu Manchu-esque mustache, and tattoos in a failed attempt to look menacing. He screams at the top of his lungs and drops F-bombs for every other word because he’s crazy. That’s what crazy people do after all, kill innocent people and call them ‘motherfuckers.’

Any semblance of tension or drama is stripped away by Tony Scott’s predilections for frenetic camera work. His films for the last several years for have been oversaturated with superfluous camera movements, editing tricks, and bleached out colors. Pelham 123 is downright restrained when compared to Domino, but Scott still fails to realize whip pans and MTV trickery can never replace good, solid storytelling.

Rating: **