Lawless

Lawless - Dir. John Hillcoat (2012)

One of my most anticipated films of 2012 was Lawless, based solely on the strength of director John Hillcoat's last two pictures, The Proposition and The Road. Closest in spirit to the former, Lawless is a Prohibition-era Western adapted from The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant, a descendent of the protagonists. The script was adapted by rock star and screenwriter Nick Cave.

The story is set in Franklin County, Virginia, where the hills are alive with the sound of moonshine stills. Bootleg liquor has become a lucrative business, especially for the Bondurant Brothers, who run booze out of their diner/gas station. Forrest (Tom Hardy) is nominally the leader, feared and respected for his legendary toughness. Howard (Jason Clarke) is a volatile war veteran. Then, there's the runt of the litter, Jack (Shia LaBeouf). The youngest of the Bondurant clan, Jack wants to become a bigger part of the operation, but is relegated to being a glorified delivery boy. He impresses his brothers when he lands a deal with feared Chicago gangster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman). The Bondurants are flush with cash. Jack finds himself in fancy new duds, fast cars, and romancing the town preacher's chaste daughter Bertha (Mia Wasikowska).

The good times come to an end with the arrival of a big city prosecutor, who is more interested in getting a cut of the profits than throwing criminals in jail. Anyone who doesn't fall in line answers to his enforcer, a brutal special deputy named Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce).

The story of Lawless unfolds through wildly divergent tones, which may be disconcerting to some, but plays into the dichotomy of the characters. Despite a frightening capacity for brutality, it is an absolute last resort for Forrest, who believes the bonds of family are most important. His credo, "It’s not the violence that sets a man apart, it's the distance he's prepared to go." There are scenes of extreme violence, such as a character getting his throat slit and a castration. In between there are tender moments in Jack's sweet courting of Bertha and surprisingly funny scenes. At one point, Jack and his sidekick, Cricket (Dane DeHaan) refuel their rundown truck with a jar of moonshine.

Forrest Bondurant isn't too dissimilar from Bane as both see Tom Hardy cut an imposing figure with a barely discernible voice. He speaks with a deep mumble and commands attention in each of his scenes. Shia LaBeouf stars in his usual plucky underdog role while Jason Clarke's Howard is hardly given any screen time to develop. The same goes for Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain as a former big city girl with an eye for Forrest. Both are great actresses and the make the most out of roles that are sadly underwritten.  Meanwhile, Gary Oldman's part amounts to a cameo though he's excellent for the little time he's around. The spotlight of Lawless belongs to Guy Pearce in an eccentric and chilling turn as a dastardly dandy, bordering on Dick Tracy villain. Clad in a dandy suit with slicked hair parted in the middle and dress gloves, Rakes stands as a stark contrast to the earthy country folk. And, for some reason, he has no eyebrows.

Adding to the atmosphere is an O Brother, Where Art Thou-esque soundtrack of bluegrass tunes put together by Cave and composer Warren Ellis with vocals by Ralph Stanley and Emmylou Harris. Rather than choosing 1930's standards, they go anachronistic with an original tune, "Midnight Run," by Willie Nelson and a montage set to a cover of Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat."

Lawless might not match up to The Proposition, but it is a solid period piece with delicious mix of action and drama.

Rating; *** (*****)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Dir. Michael Bay (2011)

"Years from now they're gonna ask…where were you when they took over the planet?"

The summer blockbuster season reaches its nadir with the third installment of Transformers, based on the popular toy line from Hasbro, and directed by Michael Bay, purveyor of overblown schlock. Bay’s first Transformers film was lifted above its leaden coming-of-age narrative by a Spielbergian sense of wonder as an unassuming suburban boy meets a race of giant robots from outer space. The sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, was an atrocity of epic proportions that was hastily slapped together before the Writer’s Strike of late 2007 to early 2008. Even Bay and star Shia LaBeouf apologized for the rancid turd they unleashed from their bowels. Not that it matters, audiences ate it up as if the manure pile were a tasty bowl of ice cream. Thanks to them Revenge made over $800 million worldwide. Dark of the Moon has already grossed half that in its opening week. In financial terms, it's a rousing success, but what about the actual movie?

I can honestly say that Dark of the Moon is better than Revenge of the Fallen. However, that's the equivalent of saying being smashed in the face with a pipe wrench is better than having your genitals hooked to Bumblebee's car battery.

Much like X-Men: First Class, Transformers plays with revisionist history by planting the idea that the entire space race was predicated on the discovery of an ancient Autobot ship that crashed on the moon. The prologue is peppered with archival footage and actors who look nothing like their real-life counterparts. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (who makes a cameo appearance) explore the massive spacecraft and sworn to secrecy about what they've seen. And just when you think the story is building momentum, it all comes crashing back to modern-day Earth as we follow the plight of Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) in the current economic crisis.

Poor Sam has helped the Autobots save the world twice, but he can't find a job and mopes a lot. You'd think he would be way happier considering he has yet another insanely gorgeous girlfriend. Following the acrimonious departure of Megan Fox, Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley replaces her as the pouty lipped, hot chick that runs away from the robots. She plays Carly Spencer, a former British attaché now working for millionaire playboy Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey). The film spends an interminable amount of time introducing us to a cavalcade of new characters like John Malkovich as Sam's orange-skinned boss, Frances McDormand as a director of intelligence, and Ken Jeong doing his usual Ken Jeong schtick. We are also reunited with several returning characters such as soldiers Lt. Col. Lennix (Josh Duhamel) and Robert Epps (Tyrese Gibson), Sam's parents (Kevin Dunn & Julie White), and the eccentric Agent Simmons (John Turturro). It goes on and on until finally scenes of actual importance occur in rapid succession as Decepticons murder human beings and Optimus (voiced once again by Peter Cullen) revives his long-lost predecessor Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy). It all builds to 45 minutes of pure, unadulterated Bay-hem as a full-scale Decepticon invasion force lays waste to downtown Chicago.

Dark is just as loud, obnoxious, and over long as the previous pictures and filled with plot holes big enough for Optimus Prime to drive through. On the positive side, Bay has toned down the puerile humor as well as the blatant misogyny and racism. The ridiculous, buck-toothed Twins from Revenge are thankfully gone though the Joe Pesci-esque Wheelie (Tom Kenny) is still around to provide a poor excuse for comic relief. Still, Michael Bay cannot help being Michael Bay and there is underlying sexism throughout the narrative. Dark of the Moon has no strong female character whatsoever. Women in Bay movies are generally nattering twits (Sam's mother), shrewish harpies (McDormand's Charlotte Mearing) or blatant sex objects (everyone else). This is never more apparent than the replacing of Megan Fox with a lingerie model, who can serve as each one of those archetypes. At least, Bay had no pretensions at all to the role. Why hire an actual actress when all you need is someone to walk around in their underwear. Bay's sensibilities for fast cars and beautiful women are comparable to a hormonal adolescent boy getting aroused by covers of Lowrider displayed at the local supermarket magazine rack.

The first shot of the film following the prologue is a gratuitous butt shot of Huntington-Whiteley as she pads up a staircase barefoot and clad in skimpy panties and a man's dress shirt. Fox may not be an incredibly nuanced actress, but at least she displayed some semblance of personality and got involved in the action scenes. Huntington-Whitely is a complete cipher whose only talents are squeezing into form-fitting dresses and staring blankly into the distance as objects explode behind her in slow motion. Her romance with LaBeouf's Sam arbitrarily runs hot and cold according to narrative conventions.

The main problem with Bay's Transformers films has always been the inordinate amount of screen time wasted on human characters that nobody cares about. You would think a Transformers movie would be about the Transformers. Not that the machines are depicted as multi-dimensional beings. Giving them funny accents are about as deep into characterization as the writers go. There is just something about giant death metal robots clashing and causing massive amounts of property damage which appeals to simple-minded pleasures. Bay provides that in spades with an extended battle in the Windy City as skyscrapers topple and Transformers perform Mortal Kombat-style fatalities on each other. It's certainly the most ambitious action Bay has ever directed. It feels like he watched Independence Day, Cloverfield, Inception, and Spielberg's War of the Worlds and said, "I can do better." However, the climax is lacking in any kind of coherent flow. There's never a sense of where everyone is located in relation to each other and how each section connects with the other. It's more like a jumble of incomplete sequences strung together. Bay appears to be afflicted with the worse case of ADD as scenes and subplots abruptly end as if he walked away halfway through and moved on to the next thing.

Bay also has a habit of recycling the same action sequences over and over. How many times have we seen a highway chase where cars attempt to dodge heavy objects hurtling at them? There's one in every Transformers movie. It's gotten to the point where Bay has lifted entire shots from The Island and reused them for Dark of the Moon. Granted, he was unable to complete the sequence due to the horrific accident to an extra. Nevertheless, the fact that Bay so easily integrated old footage from an entirely different picture speaks volumes to his unoriginality.

The one shining light in Dark of the Moon is Leonard Nimoy, who is related to Bay by marriage, proving you can pick your friends, but not your family. Nimoy previously voiced Galvatron in the animated Transformers: The Movie and imbues a gravelly gravitas to the inane dialogue he's forced to spout. There are also a couple Star Trek references thrown in, a call back to Wrath of Khan and another that cleverly foreshadows a crucial plot twist.

Michael Bay has lashed out at his critics by claiming his movies are meant to be fun summer films, which means his films aren't supposed to have highbrow nonsense like logic, great acting, and a coherent storyline. There's no reason for these things to be mutually exclusive. Iron Man and The Dark Knight are proven examples that big-budget blockbusters don't have to be mind-numbing special effects extravaganzas. Unfortunately, Bay seems more than content to wallow in soulless spectacle and audiences are happy to line up around the block. The two highest grossing movies in 2011 are The Hangover Part II and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Transformers: Dark of the Moon has taken the fourth spot less than a week after release. I admit Dark of the Moon provides a visceral gratification to our base desires of seeing things get blown up, but I crave something with more substance.

Final Thoughts: I caught Dark of the Moon in IMAX 3D and if you are going to see the most excessive movie of the year, see it in the most excessive way possible. The 3D effects are surprisingly effective. The opening sequence, in particular, has a very noticeable depth of field. It's one of the most pleasant 3D experiences I've had and I'm no advocate for the process. There's no feeling of flatness and very little dimming since Bay implored theater owners to burn out their projection bulbs to display the film at the proper brightness levels. The 3D also forces Bay to rethink how he directs action sequences since rapid editing, tight close-ups, and jarring camera movement do not work with 3D cameras.

Rating: ** (*****)

Transformers

Transformers - Dir. Michael Bay (2007)

Any child of the 80's will remember how their Saturday mornings and after-school afternoons were spent watching mind numbing cartoons based around toylines. For girls, there was My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, and Rainbow Brite. For the lads, there was G.I. Joe, Thundercats, He-Man, and Voltron. Without a doubt, one of the most popular franchises was Transformers. The concept was pretty simple. Boys love playing with cars and robots. What if they had a toy that was both? Hasbro bought the rights to several toylines in Japan and merged them into one brand for distribution in the States. They created an entire world of colorful characters with assistance from Marvel Comics and tasked Sunbow Productions with animating the TV show. Hasbro, Marvel, and Sunbow were also the Holy Trinity behind the G.I. Joe series. Over the next three decades, the original Transformers (dubbed by fans as G1 or Generation 1) would return in various incarnations like Beast Wars, Transformers: Armada, Robots in Disguise, and numerous shows that aired only in Japan. The original series was also spun-off into Transformers: The Movie, a feature film version that traumatized countless children due to the death of the heroic Optimus Prime.

Fans have clamored for a live-action adaptation and they finally got it thanks to Michael Bay, master of mayhem and entrepreneur of explosions. Bay knows how to construct spectacular action sequences (or at least he thinks he does) and screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman have become Hollywood's go-to guys, but it was executive producer Steven Spielberg who knew how to crack the story. It was his idea to inject a little E.T. flavor to the film by making the movie revolve around the story of a boy and his car.

In this case, the boy is Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), a dorky high schooler who has the hots for the insanely gorgeous Mikaela (Megan Fox). Hoping to make some extra cash to get a car, Sam sells paraphernalia belonging to his great-grandfather, a famous explorer. Among those items include a pair of glasses with a map etched into them that leads to a powerful source of energy known as the Cube. Two tribes of alien robots from outer space are after the Cube. The benevolent Autobots wish to use the Cube to restore their dying homeworld, Cybertron. The evil Decepticons want to use it to conquer the universe.

Transformers weaves together several plot threads with the central story being Sam and Mikaela making first contact with the Autobots. We also follow a detachment of American soldiers in the Middle East as they are being pursued by Decepticons. Finally, there's a subplot involving government officials investigating the possibilities of an alien invasion.

The cast also includes Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as two of the lead soldiers. Jon Voight co-stars as the Secretary of Defense with John Turturro as an eccentric man in black, and Aussie actress Rachael Taylor as the world's hottest computer analyst. Fans of the original cartoon will be pleased to hear Peter Cullen once again provide the voice for Optimus Prime. The late-Bernie Mac appears in a bit role as a car salesman while Hugo Weaving is the voice of Decepticon leader, Megatron.

As the director of shlock like Bad Boys and The Rock, Michael Bay was probably as good a choice as any to helm a movie about giant robots. The action sequences are chaotic and loud enough to make the toughest ears bleed. The special effects by ILM are impeccable and there's never a moment when the Transformers looked phony. The transformation sequences are incredibly detailed with shifting panels and whirling cogs. While the visuals are amazing, the story leaves much to be desired.

First of all, the film is called Transformers, not 'Lame Humans We Don't Care About.' The picture spends far too much time with bland cardboard characters, despite the fact that the Transformers are far more interesting. Many of the scenes involving different government departments could have been cut and the less said about Anthony Anderson's annoying hacker, the better. Speaking of which, what is it with Michael Bay and juvenile humor? Black people always seem to be wacky comic relief in his films. If I go to see a movie about giant robots, I want to see them smashing stuff, I don't want to see them spend ten minutes playing hide and seek while a dog pees on one of them. Finally, who came up with the brilliant strategy of leading the death metal robots into a heavily crowded city in the middle of the day?

MICHAEL BAY RAPED MY CHILDHOOD!!! That was the rallying cry for Transfans the world over after Transformers hit theaters. It can still be heard to this day. Optimus Prime has flame decals. Michael Bay raped my childhood! Bumblebee is a Camaro. Michael Bay raped my childhood! While I wouldn't break out the torches and pitchforks, I will say Bay's Transformers is all sound and fury with a distinct lack of substance.

Rating: ** ½

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - Dir. Oliver Stone (2010)

"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works."

Michael Douglas famously uttered those words in Oliver Stone's 1987 picture, Wall Street. The film served as an indictment of the excess that came to mark the era of Reagan and New Coke. Douglas earned an Oscar for his portrayal of corporate raider, Gordon Gekko, who became the epitome of yuppy capitalist culture gone wrong. The Faustian tale saw Gekko as the devil on the shoulder of young Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) as he's seduced by the dark side. Released two months after the stock market crash of '87, Wall Street was eerily prophetic and, over twenty years later, remains so. Unfortunately, they either didn't listen or got the message wrong.

"Greed is good," was meant to be a warning. Instead, it became a rallying call. Aspiring stock brokers cited Gordon Gekko as their inspiration. In Boiler Room, a group of hotshot traders recite whole lines of dialogue from Wall Street as if they were holy scripture. Now, the economy is in the worst shape it's been since the Great Depression. What better time for the return of Gordon Gekko?

The long-gestating sequel, Money Never Sleeps, opens in 2001 as Gekko is released from prison after an eight year sentence for securities fraud. The scene in which Gekko is given his paraphernalia is played as both comical and poetically fitting. He's handed a "gold money clip with no money in it" and a ridiculously oversized mobile phone. The penthouse predator who once spouted, "Lunch is for wimps," is reduced to a joke without a pot to piss in or a ride.

Flash forward to 2008 and we are at the nascent of the current economic collapse. Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is a stock trader with an interest in alternative energy. He also happens to be engaged to Gekko's estranged daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan), a blogger for a liberal news website. Winnie hasn't spoken to her father in years and blames him for the suicide of her brother. The destinies of Gekko and the younger generation are intertwined following the suicide of Jacob's boss, Louis Zabel (Frank Langella).

A mentor and father figure to Jacob, Zabel saw his company (a composite of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers) ruined due to false rumors of insolvency spread by Bretton James (Josh Brolin) of the rival Churchill Schwartz. He's a new breed of boardroom bastard, the kind who proudly displays a copy of Goya's gruesome "Saturn Devouring His Children" in his office. Zabel is forced to sell out for pennies on the dime then steps in front of a subway train. In a classic character moment, Gekko responds with quiet respect. At least, Zabel had the "balls to commit suicide." Gekko offers a trade. He will assist in Jacob's revenge scheme against Bretton James in exchange for reuniting him with Winnie.

Money Never Sleeps is a slickly made film thanks to cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (21 Grams, Brokeback Mountain) who makes New York City and Manhattan come alive. Stone (the son of a stockbroker) and screenwriters Allan Loeb (who once worked at the Chicago Board of Trade) and Stephen Schiff haven't created an in-depth expose of economic collapse. It is merely the backdrop for a more intimate story. However, the filmmakers can't help but diverge from the central plot to lecture the audience and utilize the sledgehammer of plot.

The movie really drags when breaks out a large chunks of exposition as LaBeouf explains fusion, complete with an animated graphics to really drive it home. Later, Stone matches a Dow Jones line chart with the New York City skyline, threatening to turn his film into a glorified Powerpoint presentation. The symbolism is heavy handed with talks about bubbles bursting and a child blowing bubbles in Central Park. Susan Sarandon is cast as Jacob's mother, a real estate agent who looks like a castaway from The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Her subplot feels shoehorned in simply for Stone to comment on the crash of the housing market.

What strengthens Money Never Sleeps is the sparkling dialogue by Loeb and Schiff and an incredibly game cast. Michael Douglas slips right into the skin of Gordon Gekko and is absolutely magnetic from the get-go. His teeth have been dulled, but he remains just as sharp. Even a slightly domesticated Gekko is still cooler than anybody else. It's easy to see why he became an inspiration rather than a cautionary figure. Gekko is at his most vulnerable when delivering a heartfelt speech about his wayward boy. The moment bleeds into real life as it mirrors Douglas and the drug problems of his own son, Cameron.

As Winnie Gekko, Carey Mulligan is the heart of the film and she's the second best actor in it. LaBeouf could have been the weak link, but surrounded by actors like Douglas, Mulligan, Frank Langella, and Josh Brolin, he manages to step it up. Special notice should be given to the 94-year old Eli Wallach as a grizzled partner at Churchill who was old enough to have lived through the Depression.

Charlie Sheen makes a quick cameo as Bud Fox who has become extremely Charlie Sheen-like over the years.

Rating: ** ½

New York, I Love You

New York, I Love You - Dirs. Various (2009)


Anthology films are always a mixed bag filled with hits and misses. New York, I Love You is the follow-up to Paris, je t’aime and the second in the “Cities of Love” franchise. Films set in Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, and Jerusalem are coming.

Paris featured a series of short films set in the City of Lights and directed by a talented assortment of filmmakers such as Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men), Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep), Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven, and the Coen Brothers. Its successor is comprised of several shorts about romance in the Big Apple. Though the directors aren’t of the same pedigree as Paris, New York has assembled an A-list ensemble of actors. Unlike Paris, New York attempts to connect each story with interstitials of the various characters bumping into each other.

The film begins with a segment by actor/director Jiang Wen (Devils on the Doorstep) with Hayden Christensen as a pickpocket who runs into Rachel Bilson and a more experienced thief in Andy Garcia. Mira Nair directs the next short starring Natalie Portman as a Hasidic Jew negotiating a sale of jewelry with a Hindu man. They bond over their respective relationships and religions. Portman also makes her directorial debut with a later vignette involving a male nanny (Carlos Acosta) and his young charge.

Scarlett Johansson also made her directorial debut with a black & white segment starring Kevin Bacon. Titled “These Vagabond Shoes,” it was cut from the theatrical release, but is available on the DVD.

It says a lot about New York, I Love You when the strongest episode is the one directed by freakin’ Brett Ratner. His segment features Anton Yelchin taking a blind date to the prom. The date (Olivia Thirlby) arrives at the door in a wheelchair. It’s a cute short that doesn’t end quite as you’d expect. Joshua Marston (Maria Full of Grace) helms the second best segment with Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman as an elderly couple bickering along the streets of NY.

The movie makes its audience feel like a passive viewer floating through the lives of the city’s inhabitants. Unfortunately, these lives are just plain dull. Everything is so innocuous. None of the directors have anything interesting to say about love, relationships, or the city. Except for a scene in Central Park, there’s nothing distinctly New York about the film. It could have been called Toronto, I Love You without much difference.

All the shorts look exactly the same with the sequence by Shekhar Kepur who took over from the late Anthony Minghella. Kepur gives his piece an ethereal quality grounded by the wonderful presence of Julie Christie as a blind opera singer. However, everything is so confoundingly pretentious (or pretentiously confounding, if you prefer) coupled with Shia LaBeouf laughingly playing a crippled bellhop with some indiscernible accent. Mutt Williams as Igor.

New York, I Love You may be a slick and polished affair, but it has all the substance of a bad student film festival.

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

Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye - Dir. D.J. Caruso (2008)


Shia LeBeouf is pegged as a terrorist and forced to jump through elaborate hoops by a mysterious Big Brother…er…Sister?

Eagle Eye is Hitchcock by way of Michael Bay. It’s a loud, overproduced, and movies a million miles a minute only stopping at brief, preordained moments to let out arbitrary scenes of emotion. A preposterous film that hopes you’ll buy into it with just enough technobabble and political preaching.

You know what? I did buy into it just a little. As a brainless popcorn movie, Eagle Eye works for its first two acts right up until an I, Robot-esque revelation in the villainous mastermind. I picked the Will Smith vehicle because I wouldn’t deign to write Eagle Eye in the same sentence as 2001.

Rating: ** 1/2

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Dir. Steven Spielberg (2008)

Harrison Ford dusts off the old fedora and whip as he plunks Indy right into the middle of a 1950's B-movie.

Descends into one long, CGI-fueled carnival ride with plenty of missed potential. Yet, still a fun popcorn film.

Don't go in with high expectations.