Transformers Revenge of the Fallen WTH?

I will start this with compliments. Michael Bay is a gift for all of us action loving movie goers. I pray that he’ll one day work with me! What a team we’ll be! It’s a shame that the writers (Ehren Kruger, Roberto orci, Alex Kurtzman) of the film are perhaps what made this film be about 8-10 scenes away from awesome. I occasionally furrowed my brow thinking what the hell? or oh my god with a little eye roll.

I am not sure the name of this critic I stumbled upon on the News on ABC, but I recall him saying he felt he was being hit over the head with a  baseball bat while he was watching the movie. At first I went how is that possible? It’s Transformers,..  But once I sat down and about an hour and ten minutes into it I went wow, I get what he was saying. I wasn’t sure if I was watching Superbad or some Adam Sandler flick or if I was watching Transformers. I forgot. I didn’t see very many Transformers it was humans acting as a ‘primitive race’ just as Optimus Prime had mentioned in the last film.  Don’t freak out, i’m a young one and I’m aware that the reason they used an actor like Shia Lebouf and wrote the character the way that had is because he represents the guy with the greatest fears about themselves. and that the everyday classified dork or loser can be a hero. Shia Lebouf…I will return to him soon. But the movie was long and I wouldn’t complain if for the first hour and a ten or so minutes hadn’t felt wasted.  There was way to much screen time for humans and it consisted of mainly ridiculous humor, bad-acting and a few overexposed humans, a bunch of sexy close ups topped with a bunch of irritating cliche’s .

The good news for the humans is Shia Lebouf is a fine actor, gifted. I truly feel he’s now grown past this Transformer’s franchise. As it didn’t live up to the first.  They tossed in this Leo character played by Ramon Rodriguez. However, this character got on my nerves. It felt as though they were trying to write in another guy to try to compliment Shia Lebouf’s laid back humor that so many have grown to love. Although Leo had one or two moments I laughed lightly I honestly wished he wasn’t on screen most of the time.  Truly complimenting Shia Lebouf were Josh Duhman, Tyrese Gibson along with the other group of soldiers and government operatives. I think those were my favorite scenes, I was tossed into the chaos of war. I felt those few scenes. It’s a shame there wasn’t more of them.

If it was not for Michael Bay’s brilliant shots and incredible layouts of explosions and keeping all of the action shots, 100% action in every corner of the screen. I would have walked out after I had felt my hour and a half of life was wasted as well as my ten dollars. (I should have waited to rent it)  I dream of Michael Bay teaming up with a screenwriter that’s as brilliant as he is. We’ll see what happens… a strong story line, some comedy and some incredible action sequences.

Sean Gandert quote: “…a bad teen comedy played up for cheap laughs that seems to drag on and on due to its formulaic nature. Will the geeky yet likable teen guy end up with the troubled yet gorgeous teen girl? Yes, yes he will. There’s also a magical sentient car that helps the couple get together. Now you can grab the opening action sequence and then skip out for a 30-minute coffee break without missing anything.”

He is right. You could walk out of the movie come back and not feel like you were lost as the first hour and a half was a long long long bad teen comedy. And I can’t figure out why the movie was called Transformers. As they were in 15% of the movie and the whole war going on seemed somewhere lost in the background appearing occasionally in between our traveling through a teen comedy. How’s that work? The movie could have been amazing with Michael Bays genius camera movements and cutting, but it becomes nothing to me as the movie had way to many flaws for me to walk away in complete awe. There were a few brilliant performances that were completely overshadowed as the movies crap covered right over it.

Mike Abundo quote “Humans get more screen time in this movie than they do in the entire original series — and their acting consists mostly of making hero faces and sexy poses for gratuitous closeups.” Wow, how right is he!!  Hell, look at the poster, you see Transformers! But the movie starts and they’re no where to be found. Who knows what they’re doing. However, Mikayla is outside of Sam’s garage undressing with flowers for him as he heads of to college. Sam’s soon stalked by some hot terminator wannabe who’s wearing some expensive panties (as I got a clear view),  some irritating geek is Sam’s roommate and of course get’s caught up in the

storm. Now for all those great autobots, and the war coming…who knows what’s going on with that.

Links:

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2007/07/transformers.html

<—Now this poster gets it right. A whole lot of ‘ass,’  cheap comedy, loads of cliches and good cg.

Christian Bale out shined by Sam Worthington

Although I am a huge fan of Christian Bale. I have him locked in my head as Bruce Wayne so I’m going to be examining his performance. I’ve seen many of his other films which I enjoyed him in.  I’ve learned that it is not just me on this. Christian Bale fell flat, he was out shined by Sam Worthington (Markus Wright), even Anton Yelchin (played Kyle Reese) had not only a slightly better performance but a better role than Christan Bale (John Connor). The character of John didn’t even have the substance that we were looking for, he is supposed to be this messiah yet he’s running around shooting people and blowing up things like some everyday action flick film. The typical alpha male destroy-everything idea meets mr.guns a blazing.  I love my action flicks, but Terminator is expected to have that fantastic story line with John Connor, son of Sarah Connor leading the people to their safety as they fight such a horrible war.  Not to mention while I was watching the film I kept hearing Christian Bale’s ‘outburst’ in my head, “am I going to walk around and rip your f* lights down, in the middle of a scene? Then why the f* are you walking right through ah-da-datta-da like this in the background, what the f* is it with you…” and so on. I kept thinking what scene he was shooting when he had his little outburst. I had time to think about all that because I was bored when he was on screen.  I hated the fact he was married and his wife was pregnant. It didn’t make sense. they always said that he knew he would always be alone because those who he loved would be put in danger killed. So why would he marry and have a child? Not really working for me.

This is a great quote from another review: “As a hero, Connor is really no more distinctive than the gnarly, unshaven outcast ringleader of every retro-future fantasy from Escape From New York on. Yet Terminator Salvation is invested in treating him like a grunge messiah. Bale brings the role his usual stylish, seething edge. He seems ready to blow at any moment, making his infamous on-set tantrum look less like a case of star egomania than like a Method actor’s refusal to break character gone amok.” By Owen Gleiberman – http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20279924,00.html

I’m a fan of the story of Terminator.  The action was good, the art of the movie was well done. I liked the lighting they chose for shooting. I loved the action shot of John Conner going down in a helicopter…action great. But I had zero emotional connection to John Conner when I’ve always loved the character. The characters Kyle Reese seemed stronger than John Conner and he was a teenager. He was more capable of handling the fight and being a messiah a lot better than this John Conner character (which I couldn’t associate with the one in my head).

Worthington…I cannot wait for his next movie. I wonder what will happen for him. He stole the light…ripped it right from over Christian Bales head and took the highlight. I was more interested in the Markus Wright character. I wondered if that just happened on accident, that the actor happened to be better than Bale and it turned out he out-shined him with his brilliant acting skills. Or had they noticed his talent and ended up directing a lot of  the fine lines in his direction.  Now if that’s the case I honestly wish there was more focus and direction aiding the characters uprising.  I think the movie would have been better if he was even more of the focus or at least have John Conner character be up to par to meet Sam Worthington half way. I was with Worthington and his character the whole time. I even fell for him and his lady friend Blair Williams played by Moon Bloodgood. I am a tough one to get pulled into a romance on screen although I giggled at her trying to steal his heat in the night I loved her hot edgy feel running around with a bag full of goods to make things blow up and shoot and kill machines. But I suppose I watched her as I was watching the character Markus Wright.

If only the full script matched the strength of character of Blair Williams, Markus Wright and Kyle Resse, the action sequences. The film would have been fantastic. It was almost fantastic.

My other issue was the stolen seen from Transformers. I know that the best director steals from everyone, but you still have to make it your own. The scene where they had a piece of a terminator limb. they strapped it down on the table and it was looking back at Christian Bale. All he had to do was say ‘This thing is wicked’ like Captian Lennox played by Josh Duhamel and it’d be the same scene just different lighting. I went…what??? And others in the theatre next to me also had the same reaction, knowing it was almost an exact duplicate scene.

Another ‘ick’ moment was a fake Arnold.  I wondered if they really wanted Connor dead why didn’t they just blow him up, instead they sent this look alike Arnold. It wasn’t even him! They mine as well just had some other big guy play the role of kill-connor-now rather than have some CG generated beastly Arnold coming after him.  I mean, really!? And what the heck was with there being like two terminators guarding the center? They can just storm in there and barely be attacked? what the?

What I was completely in love with, was the music! Can’t wait to get the score!! Loved it! The Terminators were crazy scary I was loving them!

Fast and Furious 4

I just saw the Fast and Furious 4. There have been mixed reviews. I heard it’s the number one movie in Canada. The newspaper stated it received a 1.5 stars out of 5. However, the movie theater I went to said it received an 8.7 out of 10.  What does everyone else think? However, what a true sequel following the first and second!! The third one I was dissatisfied with..they should have just titled it Tokyo Drift, without a connection to FnF.  However, I can’t be too angry because they bounced back with a great sequel. That is rare! Sequels are usually not as up to par as they should be these days. You’re always let down…I could list quite a few movies where I was disappointed with the sequel or one of them if there was more than two. The one that I remember just hating was Transporter 3…talk about getting lazy.  X Men 3: The Last Stand…I think they didn’t read the comics or care to know the story. Someone just made up their own story and killed it…brutally. I could go on hours on that one but I’ll save that for another review. Now, lets get back to Fast and Furious 4.

I’m going to voice my own opinion in a moment, but first off let me state that I tend to like movies others do not and I tend to not like movies that others tend to like. I believe this is because I am a screenwriter myself and I nit pick on important things even story structure, and I also notice little things that I found powerful or very useful in the movie. I break every movie I see down into very small pieces and that is how I create an opinon on the film.

Now in short terms, I loved the movie. It had a strong story, it captured the feel of the first two movies all of us FnF fans fell in love with, and it had fantastic action which is expected due to the previous films. Brian O’Connor played by Paul Walker, his first sequence was fantastic. It gave me a slight Paul Greengrass feel. The Directors idea was executed in such a manner I yearn to see the seen again.

Being a car fanatic, another bonus I hand out to all those participating in the film is all of the gorgeous cars…I was drooling. Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are flares on screen together. I have always enjoyed the two actors for different reasons, but both of their talents combined is truly enjoyable. I also enjoyed the familiar relationship between the two characters Brian and Dom, the big brother little brother sense you get from them. The little brother always seeking out the approval or acceptance of the older brother and the older brother never giving him what he wants but the two of theme still having a strong bond without expressing it directly.

I enjoyed seeing the side of Brian that we love, the ‘lose cannon’ that occasionally surprises you. He’s the character with the focus while Dom is the bull in a china shop, but the two of them together is a whirlwind you can’t get enough of. The scene with Brian smacking a fellow co-workers face into the wall caused me to have a little smirk on my face on the theater because it’s expected from the character to occasionally step beyond the borders or over the ‘lines’ of where he is confined. Loved it. You also get the usual crazy from the two of them loving the adrenaline rush.

Vin Diesel did a phenomenal job embracing his character Dom T. once again. He tore it up on screen with Walker when he realized Brian had been in touch with Letty. (Loved it) It was raw. The race across the border was a huge thrill for those watching. I loved seeing the shot of the two characters trying to escape with a scary large amount of crazies on their ass.

I loved the ending…it was open. And it gave you that ‘yeeeeeeahhh’ feeling leaving the theatre with a smile on your face. The second you saw the bus driving in a sandy area where there were zero cops trailing behind and in the middle of no where you mind went…’yes…’  I loved seeing Dom’s sister along side Walker who was driving Dom’s well known vehicle from the first film. It hit home, you were pumped and ready for the next film already! I loved how it cut off…it was short and you wanted more. I look forward to the coming movie.

A few things I didn’t like, a few wasted shots on lesbians for my tasting. I know hot bods come with the cars and I dig it but the other was overrated. Karina Longworth from SpoutBlog says it best:  “There is a lot of girl-on-girl kissing in this film; it seems to be director Justin Lin’s PG-13-safe visual shorthand for the hedonism of the morally specious world in which the heroes immerse themselves in the name of a greater good. The correlation between girls kissing and intolerable uncoolness is made so blatant that one obvious dickwad is even punished while hosting a sapphic scene in his living room. His crime? Being an obvious dickwad in a shaky position of superiority.” Hell yeah Karina!

And the biggest let down was the introduction and death of Letty. I liked how they opened it with action. Beautiful. However, I did not feel the death of Letty. I knew she died and it should have been an emotional rollercoster because I had grown to love the character in the past films but I was not mourning with the characters. That is needed for such a film, since their actions were mainly pushed by relationships and loss. If there would be something I’d fix which is what we writers/directors do that would be it.

What are your opinions when you take the movie apart?

Links & more reviews…the usual…’first week made 72 M..bla bla…”

I go on a rant about those who don’t understand Fast and Furious or say it’s too far from reality – bland humans…check it out. (check back for this in a bit)

Fast and Furious: The Movie

Listen to Paul Walkers interview

Beyond Hollywood.com

Blog-Spout

Movie-Moron..sure is a moron but it has a nice piece on Fast and Furious 5