Transformers Mega(tron) Review

Transformers 3 opened on July 29 in Canada. I'm not sure about the rest of the world. Frankly, it's a little inconvenient since so many of my friends had things going on. I've basically had to bribe people with free tickets to come. Not that I'm complaining, because ... Come on, Giant Robots! To prepare, I watched the first two movies. Evan couldn't make it over for the viewing, which is too bad, because sometimes it's nice to bounce jokes off of (everything sounds wittier in my head). I didn't watch the Transformers Movie from 1986, because I didn't want to kill my childhood. I'm just kidding - I never really watched the cartoons as a kid. We were more into Wonderstruck or Bill Nye the Science Guy. We may not have been the most pop-culture relevant kids, but we knew that fried worms were high in Vitamin C, dammit.

Transformers

Transformer opens with the Dreamworks and Paramount logos. I like when movies add their own sounds effects to familiar logos. I can't look at the New Line logo without “Mortal Kombat" being shouted in my head. New Line made those movies. It's a little jarring since they also made the Lord of the Rings movies (which also contained quite a bit of mortal combat, but no fighting tournaments and cheesy bad guys - okay, there were cheesy bad guys). Anyway, we get a brief introduction to The Cube (not the movie, the All-Spark) which is a cube (surprise!) that has the capacity to create life. Unharmed after crashing into an asteroid, it's redirected to Earth, where the Transformers logo pops up.

Then we cut to the deserts of Qatar, and the fist introduction. We get to meet Lennox (Josh Duhamel), Epps (Tyrese Gibson), and their special ops team of extras (they're not all extras - some of them get lines). They're coming back from a(nother) mission, and reminiscing about home (Warning! Foreshadowing Alert!) They land at the base, and Lennox chats with his wife over the webcam. He has a baby girl who was born while he was over here (Warning! Cliche Alert!) Meanwhile, a rogue Blackhawk helicopter enters the airspace around the base. After ignoring the warnings to leave, it gets escorted to the base by watchful jets. Instead of having its (holographic) crew step out, it transforms! Awesome! And starts ripping the base a new one. Weapons don't seem to have any effect on it. It goes to the command post (leaving destruction in its wake), peels off the roof, and hacks into the server. The commander, who keeps a cool head on his shoulders at all times, cuts the line to the server. Now the robot (a Decepticon) is pissed and rampages around. Epps manages to get a good shot of it through some nifty glasses / binoculars / optical scanners, and then Lennox's team books it out of there with their local kid / team pet / mascot in tow.

Next, we get to meet Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf). He's busy giving a report in high school on his great-great-grandfather, who was one of the first people to sail into the Arctic circle. Sam's also trying to sell his grandfather's things to his classmates to raise money for a car. Once class ends (and he bargains his grade up to an A-minus) he meets his dad, who has promised to pay for half the car if Sam can get good enough grades. After faking him out at a Porsche dealership (Ha!) they go to an incredibly seedy looking used-car dealership, operated by Bernie Mac (RIP). Bumblebee (an Autobot) drives onto the lot surreptitiously, and finally gets bought by Sam.

Finally, we meet the Government/NSA team. The Defence Secretary (Jon Voight, slumming it) talks to an auditorium full of NSA staff about the attempted hack. We zoom in on a team of four young people (pretty much just out of college) who will be our tertiary protagonists.

Sam, with his new car, tries to hang out with the cool kids from school. It does not go well. Mikaela, an "evil jock concubine" gets into a tiff with her arrogant jerkass boyfriend and decides to walk home, so Sam takes the opportunity to drive her home. Embarrassing moments and some swift talking by Sam ensue.

Meanwhile, back at the NSA facility, our tertiary protagonists are doing computer stuff (Quick! Type really fast! That's hacking, isn't it?) when Maggie (the only girl on the team) overhears the signal again. Someone's hacking the mainframe on Air Force One! Warnings, Alerts, Military Action! Some agents discover the perpetrator - a spindly robot that can transform into a stereo - but it kills them. Finally the NSA shuts down all the hardlines, and the hacker is again defeated. But not before getting some information on Project Iceman, and uploading a virus.

Sam gets home that night, only for his car to be stolen. "No no no no no no no no no!" he shouts (he does this a lot) as he finds his bike and follows. He trails the car to a railyard, where he sees his car transform into a humanoid robot and send a signal into space. He tries to look closer, but gets chased by the dogs guarding the railyard. He flees, and is saved by his car, now back in car form. Sam is freaked out, and throws the keys at his sentient vehicle. Luckily, the police show up, but Sam's arrested (and with tales of cars standing up, it's no wonder). He's bailed out by his dad, who takes him home.

Back at home, who (or maybe what) should show up but his car. Sam takes off on his mother's bike, with his car chasing him this time. He crashes in front of Mikaela, who hops on her Vespa and tails them, trying to figure out what's going on. At a junkyard this time, Sam is again accosted by the cops. These aren't good cops, though, it's a Decepticon. It transforms into a robot and terrorizes Sam, asking about his ebay page. Sam has the good sense to flee from a giant evil robot ("No no no no no no no no no"). Unfortunately, Mikaela chooses this moment to show up and see what’s was going on. Sam tackles her off her Vespa, possibly saving her life from the robot chasing him, and they're both saved by the timely arrival of his car. They get in and a chase ensues (set to some pretty awesome music by The Used). They arrive at a refinery of some sort (this town has everything!) where Sam's car politely throws them out, before transforming to take on the police car. Sam and Mikaela are instead chased on foot by the stereo Decepticon. Mikaela manages to take its head off with a saw of some sort, and Sam’s car wins his fight. After explaining that he's an alien (instead of a super-advanced Japanese robot, as Sam originally suspected), his car invites them for a ride to meet his compatriots.

The rest of the Autobots arrive via meteor and take the form of vehicles around them, finally meeting up in an alley. Optimus Prime introduces himself and his team - Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet, and Bumblebee, who's been Sam protector. After telling their backstory (Planet got taken over, blah blah blah), Optimus explains Sam's great-great-grandfather's glasses have been etched with the coordinates of the All-Spark, which the Autobots need to find before the Decepticons, who will use it to give life to Earth's technology and use that to enslave/kill/destroy the universe.

Meanwhile, Maggie (remember her? NSA girl?) takes a copy of the hacking signal and goes to her friend Glen (played by Anthony Anderson), who's the best hacker on the planet (if a little childish). They've just taken a peak at it when they're arrested by the FBI, who tracked the copy to their location. They're taken to a windowless room and left to wait.

Sam, Mikaela, and the Autobots go back to Sam's house to try to find the glasses, all without Sam's parents finding out. Silly moments ensue, but they do manage to find the glasses, at the same time that Sector Seven comes knocking (not literally. They ring the bell). Sector 7 is a secret government agency that arrests Sam and Mikaela on charges of suspected contact with extra terrestrials. In Sector 7's defence, they're totally right. Luckily for the kids, the Autobots rescue them, but not before the rest of sector 7 is called in to help. Soldier converge, Sam and Mikaela almost die but are rescued by Bumblebee, who's captured (along with Sam and Mikaela), but the other Autobots escape. With all this going on, the Defence Secretary decides to grab Maggie and Glen, taking them to be his advisors. The helicopter also has Sam and Mikaela. Finally, Lennox and his team are sent in as well. They're all taken to the Hoover Dam, where Megatron (leader of the Decepticons) is frozen, and has been that way since the 1930's. They also have the All-Spark. They demonstrate its life-giving power, but unfortunately, the Decepticons now know where it is, and converge there.

Sam tells everyone what's going on Alien-war-wise, and convinces sector 7 to let Bumblebee go, as he will know what to do with the All-Spark. Lennox and his team arm themselves and everyone (save a few) goes to Mission City to extract the cube, which has been shrunk to convenient hand-carrying size (it used to be maybe 500m on a side). Megatron awakens after his freezing process is disrupted. He and the other Decepticons chase after the Cube, and a giant battle between giant robots (and some military people) ensues. Many explosions, gunshots, metal fistfights, and explosions later, Sam (who has been holding the cube) forces it into Megatron's chest, where it overloads and kills him. The world is safe, thanks to robots and Michael Bay!

I love this movie. Its such a theatre movie. The action is great. The jokes are great. The music is great. The supporting characters are great (Sam's parents in particular are hilarious). Are there plot holes? Of course! Are you watching this movie for the plot? Of course not! What kind of dolt are you?!?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Like the previous movie, there are sound effects during the company logos (Yay). And like the last movie, there's a short narrated opening sequence. This time, it explains that humans and Cybertronians met long ago in northern Africa. Egypt or thereabouts. The primitive humans get the snot kicked out of them by an evil being called The Fallen. Then we get the Transformers logo.

We cut to China, present day, where many people are being evacuated due to a "Gas Leak." It's actually a Decepticon that's hiding there, only the NEST team has found out (NEST is a group that combines Lennox's team from the previous movie with Autobots, some new, some old) and are here to put it down. They creep closer until the Decepticon senses them, and suddenly it's growing huge and fleeing. Bad news. The three story high robot starts rolling through heavily populated China, and it's time to bring in Optimus Prime, before things get even more out of hand. Also, there's a smaller Decepticon. It's chased by the RC twins, and by 3 motorcycle Autobots that can combine into one robot (the only female robot). It's finally taken out by Volt, an Autobot that transforms into Product Placement. Oh whoops, sorry. It's a fairly obvious advertisement for an electric car. Optimus manages to bring down the behemoth, but not before it delivers a warning: "The Fallen shall rise again."

On a different continent, we meet Sam again. He's getting ready for university, and his mom's having a hard time letting go. His father, not so much ("I got an idea for your room, and it rhymes with Home Theatre"). Mikaela calls and tries to break up with Sam, but they like each other too much for that to actually happen. He tells her about a long-distance relationship kit he made for her, and she promises to come over to say good-bye. He packs his old shirt into the kit, and what should fall out but a sliver of the All-spark. It zaps him when he picks it up, and then it falls through his floor, starting a fire. It lands in the kitchen, giving life to blenders, cuisinarts, and a cranky garburator. The kitchen appliances sneak up the stairs and down the hallway before busting into Sam's room. He's put out the fire, but jumps out of his window when faced with the dangerous (if small) monsters. They've also managed to find some gunpowder, because they're firing missiles and bullets at Sam and his dad, who are huddle behind the fountain in the backyard. Sam shouts for Bumblebee, who bursts out of the garage and takes overkill to a whole new level against the critters.

They die, but Sam's mom is LIVID. Dad manages to calm her down by promising the government will pay for a remodelling (with a pool and a hot tub), while Sam goes to talk to Bumblebee, who has been grounded back to the garage. While Mikaela waits outside, Sam gently explains he isn't allowed a car at college. Bumblebee can go back to helping out the other Autobots, but that's not what he wants. He bursts into tears ... well, windshield wiper fluid while Sam breaks the news. Sam tells him he loves him, then goes outside to say good-bye to Mikaela. He likes her a lot, and she asks for it, but he can't bring himself to say the L-word (Legs? Lesbian? Loquacious? No, Love. Whoops).

Back at the NEST base, the team is being debriefed when they're interrupted by an Obstructive Bureaucrat named Galloway. Holy Hell is he obstructive (and disruptive, but that's just a bonus). Galloway lets slip the location of the last piece of the All-Spark (not the one Sam had) - it's in a secure American military facility. Too bad for them that Soundwave is floating up in space, physically hacking into military satellites. He dispatches some minions to capture the shard. They do in the form of hundreds of ball bearings, which drop down the air intake before coalescing into an incredibly thin Decepticon that looks to be made entirely from knives. It breaks the case holding the All-spark and makes off with it, sometimes by going through soldiers.

Sam has given Mikaela the shard he has, and sets off for college. He meets his roommate Leo, who seems fairly normal for about 3 seconds, before revealing he's the creator of a conspiracy webpage. Sam, wary of one too many government warnings about disclosing his relationship with the Autobots, doesn't get along well with that. But school rules preclude switching rooms (what kind of school does that? That's just stupid). His parents come in, and his mother has supported a bake sale. Of ‘special brownies’. Totally high, she humiliates Sam before his father can pack her away. Sam also gets to meet Alice, who takes Maggie's place has the hot blonde minor character. She seems to have a fetish for Sam.

That night Sam, Leo, and his crew (two more conspiracy nuts) go to their first frat party. Alice tries to come on to Sam while he's busy writing mysterious symbols on the table with icing (don't ask). He tries to rebuff her, but the party's broken up when a Camaro (Bumblebee) is found parked on the lawn. Sam gets in, and Alice slides into the passenger seat. Sam's nervous (Bumblebee isn't really helping with the radio song selection), until Bumblebee leaks lubricant (basically pees) all over Alice. She finally gets out, while Bumblebee takes Sam to meet Optimus. Optimus asks for his help, but Sam just wants to be a normal kid.

He goes back to school, but starts freaking out in his Atronomy 101 class (taught by a professor played by Rainn Wilson, taking over the Bernie Mac role of sitcom star making a cameo). He reads through the whole book in half a minute and then tries to explain to the class about energy in different dimensions. The professor kicks him out. He calls Mikaela and reminds her his great-great-grandfather went insane, and now it's starting to happen to him - ever since he touched the All-Spark shard, he realizes. Meanwhile, a tiny Decepticon name Wheeley tries to break into Mikaela's safe, but she's quick enough to trap him and throw him into a box. She tells Sam she'll fly out right away.

Sam goes to his dorm room and tries to get the symbols out of his head by writing them down on any available purpose (including a Bad Boys II poster - snigger). After a while, he's interrupted by his roommate and Alice, who've just walked in. Alice shoves Leo out of the room, closes the door, and throws herself at Sam. If the genders were reversed, it would totally be sexual assault (oh - hai, double standard). She tosses him onto the bed and crawls on top. They just start making out when Mikaela walks in. Disgusted, she promptly turn around and walks out. Sam scrambles to go after her, but Alice starts choking him with her tongue, which is now 6 feet long and metallic! Mikaela turns back around when she hears the struggle, opens the door, and throws her box at Alice when she figures out what's going on.

Sam, Mikaela, and Leo flee to the library. Mikaela's mad at Sam, and Sam is trying to give Mikaela the silent treatment for being mad at him when he's the victim ("her tongue was all diesely"). Alice storms inside, in full Decepticon glory (metal, shiny, evil). Many shelves of books and paper explode around the three heroes, and they escape through a whole in the wall. Mikaela hotwires a car and they grab the box with Wheeley in it. Alice jumps on the good of their car and tries to attack them with her tongue (seriously, that thing is just freaky!) before Mikaela slams the car into a lamppost, killing Alice.

They're in the midst of driving off when the car is speared by a helicopter and brought to an abandoned warehouse. Megatron (resurrected by the stolen shard and back from a trip to his master) holds Sam down while a microscope transformer inspects him. Then they pull out a small scorpion bug thing and shove it in Sam's mouth, where its tentacles reach into his brain and record the symbols that have been driving him mad. Apparently they're a map to a source of Energon (Energeon?) which will prevent the Decepticons (and probably the Autobots too) from aging and dying. It's basically a fountain of (robotic) youth. The map's imprinted on Sam's brain, so they'll just remove it and be on their way.

Just before they cut Sam's head open, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee crash in through the ceiling and rescue Sam. He takes off with Optimus while Mikaela and Leo climb into Bumblebee. The Decepticons race after Optimus, who eventually turns and fights, instructing Sam to run. Heroically, Optimus faces down three robots by himself and kills one, before Megatron slices through his chest. His death allows The Fallen to return to Earth, because only a Prime can defeat him. The Fallen broadcasts the Transformers presence to the Earth and demands they turn Sam over to him, or he and his minions will wreak havoc wherever they choose.

Sam's going to turn himself in when he gets the idea to see what all the symbols in his head mean. They go to former agent Simmons (now a falafel dealer), who in turn leads them to Jetfire, an ancient Decepticon who changed sides to the Autobots and is now residing at the Smithsonian (I think. It may have been a different aeronautical museum). He's revived by the shard the Sam and Mikaela have. He wakes up confused and cranky, basically like every old man on a sitcom. He transports them to Egypt and tells more backstory. Several millennia ago, The Fallen built a machine on Earth that would harvest Energon from the Sun, which would have the side-effect of destroying the sun. The other Primes said "you don't get to kill planets with life on it" and locked the key to the machine (the Matrix of Leadership) away in a tomb composed of their own bodies. Now Sam's team has to find the tomb before The Fallen.

They put in a call to Lennox (who has retrieved Optimus' body) and tell him what's going on and ask for help. Lennox and his team travel to Egypt and set up a perimeter around Optimus. The symbols in Sam's head (with Jetfire's translation) lead to the Pyramids, then onto Petra, where they do discover the Matrix, only for it dissolves to dust. Sam doesn't give up, though, gathering up the dust and heading out to Lennox's location.

Unfortunately, Starscream also finds them, and they wind up being chased into a construction site. Simmons, Leo, and the RC twins provide a distraction, while Sam and Mikaela make for the military. They nearly get there when they're ambushed by Decepticons. The military is also nearly overrun, and the distraction team is assaulted by a team of constructors. They've combined into a massive robot named Devastator, which intends to kill them and destroy the pyramids, freeing the Energon harvesting machine within. After a helicopter crash of incoming reinforcements, Simmons takes one of their radios while Leo helps the injured. Simmons manages to talk the commander of a nearby battleship into firing an experimental rail gun at Devastator, taking out the robot, but not before the harvester is partially uncovered.

Meanwhile, the military is fighting for their lives, and Sam and Mikaela finally manage to get there. They race to Optimus, but Megatron manages one last barrage, and Sam in killed. Slow-motion shots of CPR, rescue helicopters, and a defibrillator follow, until Mikaela finally admits he can't leave her since she loves him. Sam, while dead, has his spirit brought before the Primes. They bestow the reformed Matrix of Leadership on him, and he awakens. He stumbles to Optimus and stabs the matrix deep into Optimus' chest.

Optimus awakes, but The Fallen steals the Matrix and teleports to the harvester, powering it up. Jetfire sacrifices himself to give Optimus more power, and the final beatdown is on. Newly armed with jets, Optimus follows The Fallen and puts a bullet through the harvester, forever ending its threat. He and The Fallen engage in some nice metal combat before Optimus finally tears off his face (wicked!) Afterwards, Sam tells Mikaela he loves her (but only because she said it first). Optimus thanks Sam, and he thanks Optimus. Everything's all good, and the credits even show Sam back at university.

I liked this movie too. Not many other people did. The action's bigger than the last time, and the score's even better (though the soundtrack's worse). The jokes are a little more tired and sometimes more crude. A lot of people hated the RC twins and thought they were racist, but I laughed. If they had been southerners instead of wiggers, everyone would have been fine (oh hai, double standard ... again. It's nice to see you're not just gender-related). People from Texas or Arkansas that can't read are fine to make fun of. But white people pretending to be black people? Nooooooo. Look, illiteracy probably shouldn't be mocked at all, but if you're going to cross a line, why are some lines acceptable and some not? You're still making fun of people who had no choice of their circumstances.

Anyway, besides that, there were some complaints about a lack of heart, but I thought Optimus' sacrifice and Sam's death were much more emotional than anything in the first movie. So yeah, I can see a bit why people don't like it as much, but not the intense hate it has. It's like some person didn't like it, so the next person had to hate it, so the next person had to loathe it, so the next person had to detest it, and it all spiralled down from there. People, just admit it wasn't your cup of tea and move on. For me, I'll go back to this theatre movie for seconds.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

This is a good week for me. Not only did I get to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon on opening night with a group of friends, but the CFL also kicks off this week, and I've been craving football action since the Superbowl (I follow both the CFL and the NFL). Plus, Friday's a holiday in Canada, so that's just the cherry on top.

There weren't that many previews beforehand. I got Moneyball and Captain America, and Brady managed to get Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I was sitting too far from Evan to tell if I beat him, though. None of the previews were in 3D, so after we got an introduction to the theatre itself (it's probably the most advanced theatre in the city, so it needs a special intro, just like an IMAX), we got a message to put on our glasses. That message, plus the Dolby logo, got me used to the extra dimension. So by the time the movie started, I was good to go.

And the movie started well. It opened on Cybertron, with the final days of a war that would leave the planet a dying husk, a mess of twisted girders and rusted construction. The Autobots are outmanned and outgunned, so they put their final hope in a spaceship and send it off. It's pursued in a pretty cool sequence that really makes me itch for Star Wars in 3D (Flying through the Death Star in 3D? Yes please!) before it's severely damaged. It manages to cross the galaxy (or universe, or something) and crash into the moon.

Then we cut to JFK making speeches about putting a man on the moon. He's been given information about the crash on the moon, and now there's a conspiracy to find it. Yes, the space race was all about finding alien spacecraft (which is actually a pretty cool angle). After the Eagle lands on the moon and Neil Armstrong utters his immortal line, there's a 'communication error' and the two astronauts are free to explore the downed craft with no witnesses. It's too big to explore completely, but they do get some good details.

Then we cut to the present day. Since no Decepticons seem to be around, the Autobots are used to keep the peace between humans on Earth. This mainly seems to be (violently) shutting down secret nuclear programs (None of them American, I noticed). Lennox and some other NEST members (including Optimus) get sent to Chernobyl, to investigate something a Russian contact told them about. They suit up and head underground, where they find a chunk of metal a bit bigger than a basketball that's giving off Energon readings. Extra-terrestrial indeed, but why's it in Russia? They don't get the chance to figure that out, as they're attacked by Shockwave. Shockwave's a Decepticon that rides a metallic worm that's either the worst nightmare of any Hentai girl, or a cool homage to Dune. Shockwave or the tentacle monster grab the Energon source, but the NEST team follows them up to the surface, where Optimus hacks off the appendage holding it (which is cool, but it was brought up to me afterwards that if this movie had had humans in the place of robots, it would have been rated R or 18A. It has some incredibly graphic robot-on-robot violence). It turns out it's an engine part from the spaceship on the moon. How did the Russians get it?

While that is going on, we get to meet Sam (yet again), who's living with his new girlfriend (Carly) in her apartment. He doesn't have much money because he doesn't have a job, despite saving the world twice (and getting a medal from Obama out of it) and having an Ivy-League degree. He also has two small transformers (Wheeley from the second movie and a similar partner in crime) who get the bulk of the comic relief load. Sam goes on a series of interviews while his parents alternately encourage and discourage him (yes, they're back, and yes, they're embarrassing). He eventually gets hired after giving a completely straight and honest answer ("I've saved your life twice. I can't give you details or anything, but I've done S--- that matters. I just want to do something that matters.") as he's leaving, so now he's the mailroom clerk in a company run by John Malkovich.

The movie starts to take off when Sam is confronted by a coworker who gives him evidence of renewed Decepticon activity. He's all anxious to share it with the government, but the new director of national intelligence doesn't really want advice from a wet-behind-the-ears graduate. He eventually calls in Simmons (who's gotten rich off of writing a tell-all book), and they get to work cracking the mystery, all while Sam is getting more and more jealous of Carly's boss, who's played by Patrick Dempsey, but doesn't excuse the fact that he seems to have a bit of an inappropriate attitude towards Carly.

More things blow up, evidence is uncovered of human in league with Decepticons, a large betrayal takes place, Carly gets kidnapped to ensure Sam's reluctant cooperation, and he eventually goes after her. Oh, and the Autobots are forced to leave Earth because humans are stupid and fearful. We don't negotiate with terrorists, unless they're giant alien robots with superior firepower. In which case they're not terrorists, they're terrifying giant alien robots with superior firepower, and we had best obey or get the snot blown out of us.

Initially, I was a little disappointed in this movie action-wise. I wish they had it more consistently throughout the movie. There's not a lot near the beginning. There's the scene in Chernobyl. There's a cool scene on a highway when Sam and Simmons race back to NEST to explain what they've uncovered. There's a rampage through the NEST base. And there's the climax. The climax is fairly lengthly, but it's broken up by a lot of shots of people and robots sneaking around. It's not consistent action like, say, the Expendables, but it does feature giant robots. It also has a climactic battle between the Big Good and the Big Bad, and someone else as well. Carly's a step down from Mikaela, but not terrible. I don't think Megan Fox was really appreciated appropriately, but maybe we automatically assume that anyone that sexy can't act, so we tend to ignore it when they do. Anyway, Carly's played by a model, which means people expect the same thing. Need I remind you that both Rene Russo and Milla Jovovich were both models before they got into acting? Seemed to work out, both for them and for the audience. So don't knock it. Sure, she may not be Judy Dench level, but she' better than cardboard and more than a pair of breasts. And if she is listless in a few scenes, remember that that may have been Michael Bay's choice to have her shell-shocked. She acted well when Carly and Sam have a fight.

Sam's still scared of danger, although he does a bit more screaming and a bit less "no" than I'm used to. His parents are still funny and embarrassing, and his mom is still innocently inappropriate.

The soundtrack isn't special - I sampled it last night - but I should listen to it more before I rush to judgement. The score doesn't come out for a few more days, so I won't be able to really listen to it until then. What I heard in the movie sounded great, but the released score will be different. The movie usually has shorter snippets of songs, while the official score arranges them into longer pieces. I enjoy the latter more than the former, actually, because it allows the music to be suitably heroic for longer.

The humour's pretty good. No offensive robots for everyone to mad about, just a comedy duo and a bunch of one liners. They're also Alan Tudyk as Simmon's servant, who appears to be an effeminate German former Spec Ops soldier. Funny stuff. And I have to support him since he was in Firefly.

Definitely a theatre movie. Some cheesy lines, some funny lines, plenty of special effects, a hot girl, and more than enough action to blow your mind. Plus, Optimus Prime carries around a portable armoury that's just AWESOME!

The Green Lantern

This blog is one year old. Instead of making a post about how proud I am to have done this (I'm slightly proud, but more stupefied I've lasted this long), or going to see a magnificent movie (that's next week - Transformers 3), we went to see The Green Lantern instead.

I got all the previews. Well, we both called the first preview before the pre-show show ended, so I guess that one doesn't count (it was Transformers 3). But I got Cowboys & Aliens, Moneyball (not on our list), and Horrible Bosses. It's a new preview for Evan, and he thought it belonged on our list due to the final exchange. The 3 protagonists are in a police interrogation room, being questioned by a surly officer. "Why were you doing 51 mph in a 20 zone?" he demands. Jason Bateman, not wanting to reveal he was trying to kill his boss, says "I was drag racing." "In a Prius?" "... I don't win a lot." I'm not sold, but Evan is. And it was a pretty good trailer.

The movie itself started off in deep space, with a narrator (is that Anthony Hopkins? No, just a sound-alike) explaining the backstory to the comics and giving exposition. Eons ago, a race of immortals harnessed the most powerful force in the universe - Stupidity. No wait, Willpower. Sorry. They used this energy to police the universe and stop all kinds of threats. They force was called the Green Lantern Corps, and is 3600 members strong. Which seems rather tiny compared to the 10^22 stars in the known universe. Either the green Lanterns only come out for really big threats, or they're really terrible at their jobs.

Anyway, along comes a being called Parallax, who feeds on fear. It's the opposite of will, you see. Actually, I quite liked that. In the comics, The Green Lanterns' only weakness is the colour yellow. In this movie, they metaphored it, so yellow stands in for fear. Now their only weakness is fear. So they can also make some speeches about how the only thing to fear is fear itself, or some other things. It might not be deep, but it's meaningful if you're willing to go there.

Anyway, Parallax was eventually defeated and imprisoned on The Lost Planet, in The Lost Sector, or something like that. Sometime later, three aliens crash landed on that planet ("Sir, I'm afraid the malfunction is plot-related. There's no way to fix it." "Pray to the script-writer, number one. Only he can save us now.") While exploring, they fell into a massive sinkhole where Parallax was kept. He sucked out their souls (I think it's supposed to be their fear, but it's pretty much the same thing that Shang Tsung did in Mortal Kombat) and used that power to free himself. Now he roams the spaceways, looking for trouble. Just kidding. Actually, he goes looking for revenge, trying to kill the one Green Lantern (Abin Sur) who defeated him. He manages to find Abin Sur and mortally wound him. The Green Lantern flings himself into an escape pod and send himself hurtling to Earth.

Meanwhile, on that lovely blue planet we call home, Hal Jordan wakes up next to a beautiful blonde in bed. His joy is short-lived when he remembers he's late. Driving the General Lee (okay, it wasn't the General Lee, but it was an orange Dodge Charger that Hal drove like the Dukes of Hazzard) to an airbase, he hurriedly dons his pilot suit while engaging in acrimonious banter with the other pilot, who may as well be wearing the nametag "Love Interest." She's played by Blake Lively, though, so that was nice.

They're test pilots. Today, their test is against advanced pilotless jet fighters. The AI's take down Blake Lively, but Hal breaks the rules of engagement (by climbing above the engagement window) and takes them out when they all stall. Unfortunately, he flashes back to his father's death, who died in a failed test flight. The memories overwhelm him and he can't pull out in time. He ejects, but the plane is lost. He's first fired, the quits, then is grounded.

Anyway, he goes to his nephew's birthday party. It's a good thing the news is playing a piece about the test flight. Otherwise the party guests wouldn't know how much danger Hal was in. Really? Is the news these days so scarce they're resorting to test flights?

As Hal is walking to his car after the party, he's encased in a green sphere and flown to the crashed Green Lantern. Hal tries to help (how do you do CPR on an alien?) but Abin Sur soon dies. But not before bequeathing the ring to Hal, along with his actual green lantern. The alien tells Hal to put on the ring and take the oath.

Anyway, adventures soon start. Hal is mentally told the Oath by the ring, and he's brought to Oa, the home planet of the Lantern Corps. He's trained, but the other aliens look down on him because he's human. The Head Lantern (who was mentored by Abin Sur) gives his frank opinion of Hal's abilities (basically, them and 75 cents will get you a cup of coffee) and so Hal quits, despondently going back to Earth.

Soon he's fighting crime when he realizes it might hurt Love Interest. He's also up against one of his acquaintances who's been infected by some of Parallax's energy when he did an autopsy on Abin Sur. Eventually, Parallax comes to Earth and Hal must come to terms with his own fear and fight.

I liked it. I don't think many other people did. Evan was pretty much dreading the movie (which makes it seem almost cruel that it was his turn to pay). Sure, there were more than a few lines that fell flat, but there were also some great ones as well.

The special effects are pretty good, but that's what happens when the budget is $200 million. The Ring granted to all Green Lanterns gives the user the power to create anything in their imagination, so there were cool things, all coloured green. I liked that effect because most were slightly translucent, so they gave off the half-real/half-imagination vibe. The music I didn't notice that much, except for the theme, which is decent.

Now, what I didn't like - besides the aforementioned lines and organizational nightmare it would be to oversee a universe with only 3600 cops, there was a definite lack of imagination. It might be from the comics, but it's a problem I see in movies like this, or other ones with telekinesis. Does no one think of strokes? No heart attacks, no brain aneurysms, no air embolisms, no crushed lungs? Even in a beloved property like Star Wars, why do no Jedi think to crush blood vessels in a brain? Surely that's easier than trying to hurl landspeeders at someone. Or hacking at them with a (admittedly awesomely-cool) sword made of pure energy. In the Green Lantern, why did no one think of black holes, or atomic bombs? Really, the only weapons we had were fairly standard.

Besides that, Ryan Reynolds was funny. But he had this constant tilt to his head. Like he couldn't look at someone straight. It was just a few degrees, but it threw me off the entire movie. It wasn't just one scene. It kept showing up. Does his magic suit cause neck cricks? I don't know.

Also, there’s the problem that any space movies have when they centre around humans. That is, why is our insignificant planet so significant? It’s one of the reasons I can’t get into Doctor Who. A master of time and space, with a fantastic spaceship, and he always hangs around Earth. Does he have some weird hang up? An Earthling fetish? I don’t know. Anyway, the same thing will end up happening to The Green Lantern movies (if a sequel ever happens). If Hal Jordan has billions of stars to patrol, why does the evil always happen on Earth? And it has to happen on Earth, because the audience won’t care if some Evil is threatening the inhabitants of GD-66, even if it is relatively close to us.

Anyway, this (like many before it) is a Blu Ray movie for me. There's just enough action and comedy for me to like. I'm sure other's will hate it (with good reason), but not me. It might be I'm partial to Ryan Reynolds, or Blade Lively, or that fact that finally, a movie acknowledge the improbability of ridiculously humanoid aliens.

Super 8

Instead of watching game six of the NHL Stanley Cup, Evan and I went to something I'm far more interested in - Suppurate. No, wait, not the bleeding. Super 8. I got more of the previews, and I think most of them are on our list (although there's a body switching comedy with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman I wouldn't go to see if you threatened me suppurating wounds).

Going into this movie, we didn't know a whole lot. There would be kids trying to film their own movie. There would be a train crash and an alien. J.J. Abrams wrote and directed while Steven Spielberg produced and provided inspiration. That’s about the extent of our knowledge. So going in, I didn't know how I would write about it without spoiling it. But after seeing it, I can sum it up pretty well. I can talk unequivocally about the central theme, I can discuss plot points, I can elaborate extensively about what this movie was about. I will tell you here and now about everything this movie is about. And that is: Lens Flare!

I should have seen it coming, what with J.J. Abrams as the director, but none of the previews did it justice. The movie starts with Lens Flare! It finishes with Lens Flare! There's Lens Flare! at the beginning, Lens Flare! in the middle, and Lens Flare! at the end. There's Lens Flare! for the main plot, and Lens Flare! for subplots. There's Lens Flare! during the day, and Lens Flare! during the night. The actors are all played by Lens Flare!, and Lens Flare! is the executive producer. Lens Flare! wrote the music, did the cinematography, and was even the Best Boy Key Grip. Yes, this movie was all about Lens Flare! It could have been called Lens Flare!: The Movie, if that wasn't already the alt-title for Star Trek two years ago.

So, there was a lot of Lens Flare! (it's used as much as cheap cheerleaders use Jazz Hands). But besides that, we also have Joe Lamb hanging out with friends and filming a movie while getting over his mothers accidental death four months before hand. They witness a train crash, and Joe falls in love with one of his co-stars (the only girl in the cast). The train crash is pretty spectacular, and seems to be far more destructive than train crashes should actually be.

Soon, weird things starts happening in town. The sheriff goes missing, so Joe's father, the deputy has to step up. Also, Joe's parents were divorced, so he wasn't in Joe's life until he had fatherhood thrust upon him by his ex-wife's death. Sub-plot one.

Sub-plot two involves a lowlife who missed a shift at the steel mill, so Joe's mother took over for him. That's when she was killed. The lowlife is also the father of Joe's love interest. And single. His wife dies or left. Single fathers who have a reason to hate each other while their kids start dating. I would have been blinded by the cliché if the Lens Flare! hadn't done it first.

Yeah, there are a lot of clichés as well, but the reason clichés are clichés is because they're used all the time. And the reason they're used all the time is because a lot of the time, they work. So yeah, we have fathers who make decisions their kids don't like, only to reconcile by the end of the movie. And there is a military commander who's a jerk and gets his comeuppance (he's played by Noah Emmerich, who seems like a nice guy but is always trapped in antagonistic roles. He's the duplicitous best friend in The Truman Show, and the conniving (OPR) FBI agent in White Collar).

And then there's the tremendous acting of the kids ... oh wait, that's not cliché. That's actually tremendous. After the movie, Evan said it's just not fair that people that young can act that well. And the adult actors (particularly Kyle Chandler - who no one will recognize from Friday Night Lights because only critics watch that show) are pretty good as well. Except for the Lens Flare! this could be a small town in Ohio where odd (and sometimes disquieting) things start happening after a train wreck. Well, as long as we travelled back in time to 1979 and spied on unsuspecting passerby.

There's the required action scene, and the cheesy scene required of any movie in the E.T. vein. And there's a bit of comedy too, but the movie is mainly about kids gradually finding out about the truth, and then trying to save the girl. I don't think it's a theatre movie (I haven't seen one of those in a while, and I'm getting kind of anxious), but I'd put it at the top of the Blu-Ray pile. Make sure to stick around during the credits, though. We finally get to see the movie these kids have been working on, and it's sort of half-decent, in an Ed Wood kind of way. Plus, it has an awesome reference to Romero. So there's that.

X-Men: First Class

This week, Evan and I saw a prequel to X-men (no, not that prequel, although I think it gets a bad rap. I enjoyed it, although my tolerance for crap is higher than other people’s). Evan won the preview game three to two, but he got Mr. Popper’s Penguins so fast it makes me think I should add it to our list.

Anyway, the movie opens in the past with a young Erik Lehnsherr in a concentration camp, bending the gates through mutant powers as he’s torn away from his mother. The head of the camp (Shaw) takes an interest in him, but soon figures out the only way for Erik to use his gifts is through anger or pain.

20 or so years later (1962), Erik is busy tracking down every Nazi that’s ever hurt him. Meanwhile, a CIA agent is tracking suspected communists when she surreptitiously witnesses mutants under Shaw’s command convince a very high ranking American Military muckity-muck to install nuclear weapons in Turkey, where they’ll be inside the USSR’s warning system, rendering it useless. Overhearing that mutants are powered by their special genes, she needs a gene theory specialist, and quickly. It’s a good thing Charles Xavier has just gotten his PhD.

She brings him to Langley, where he gives a short lecture on genes and evolution to the senior CIA people, concluding by telling them that mutants may already walk among them. They laugh him off, until his adopted sister Mystique (What? Where the hell did that relationship come from?) shapeshifts into the head of the CIA. The heads promptly lock them up. Or try to – Charles is not a powerful telepath for nothing. He freezes their arresting officer, then takes off with his sister, the CIA agent, and another CIA honcho who was the only person interested in using their powers for good.

They go after Shaw, and while pursuing him, meet up with Erik. Charles invites him to join the team, and a tentative friendship is formed. At the CIA facility, they’re introduced to a primitive Cerebro, and use it to locate many other mutants, whom they invite to join their growing flock.

Action ensues, but I can’t really talk about it without spoiling a whole lot of it, except to say that Shaw is a mutant too. It’s rather important to the plot. Anyway, on with whatever I can talk about.

There’s a lot of cameos, and HITG’s (Hey, it’s that guy!) whom some of you may recognize. James Remar (Raiden in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation), Michael Ironside, Rade Serbedzija (who I recognized from somewhere, but it wasn’t until I got home and checked on IMDB that I found out he had a part right at the beginning of Mission Impossible 2).

The music was serviceable. Some was good (mostly during epic moments) but most of it was forgettable. I didn’t recognize the composer, but that doesn’t really mean much anymore. Transformers was the first time I’d heard of Steve Jablonsky, and it’s awesome (and he’s coming back for the third one. Good times).

There wasn’t a whole lot of action. A tiny bit when Erik and Charles meet while attacking Shaw for the first time. A bit more when the CIA facility they’re staying at is attacked (forcing them to relocate to the mansion seen in the other X-Men movies). And the climax has a lot more.

Despite all that, I liked the movie quite a bit. It was fascinating to find out how they’d weaved together the narrative that’s been in place for all the movies taking place afterwards, and that’s the last time I’ll sound like a film geek, I promise. Honestly, I wanted to find out how they’d fix the plot lines, and where all the mutants came from (and where they’d go. There are a lot of mutants in the movie that don’t show up anywhere else).

Of course, as with any mutant movie, we get some that are kind of lame. A few characters could get into a Least Useful contest with Aquaman. It could have devolved into an Eigen plot, but it didn’t. Still, one character – Banshee – could shout, or whistle, or talk, supersonic screeches. Which seems a bit silly, but they justified it by giving him a webbed suit and having him bounce his screams off the ground to fly. They probably should have just left him out entirely (“We’ve signed a secondary character from Friday Night Lights. What do we do with him?”)

I liked the subplot about acceptance. Should mutants try to look like humans? Should they need to? I imagine that a lot of minorities will feel more empathy with those characters, but anyone who’s tried to fit in can relate.

I didn’t really like the antagonist’s motivations. Conquering the World? Really? It’s been done. Besides, that’s also what Magneto (Erik) wants to do as well. Why are they fighting? Oh right, because Shaw killed Erik’s mom at the beginning of the movie. It’s weird and disconcerting watching a good guy who’s exactly the same as the bad guy.

Anyway, I think it’s a Blu-Ray movie. There’s not enough action, music, or comedy to make it a theatre movie, but I’m so invested in the characters and their stories (and they’re well told stories) that I really wanted to find out what happened. Of course, it did introduce some discontinuity (wait, didn’t Xavier get paralyzed later?) but if you can let that go, you should be fine.

Kung Fu Panda II

Due to a series of circumstances completely within my control, I didn’t get to see a movie until very late this week. Also, because Evan hadn’t seen Kung Fu Panda (and he’s also pretty busy), I got to take my nephew Brady to see Kung Fu Panda II. I explained the Preview Game to him, and he held his own (the previews were for Spy Kids 4, Smurfs, Muppets, and Tintin). So mad props to him.

The movie starts with paper animations of the backstory. Two peacocks rule China, or simply watch over the capitol. They’re pretty decent people, and good rulers, and put on magnificent fireworks displays. But their son Shen starts using fireworks for evil (what with increasing the payloads and aiming them at people). The couple go to a fortune teller, who says the son will be stopped by a warrior of black and white. Shen overhears, and wipes out the panda population. He proudly goes back to his parents, who banish him for his wholesale slaughter (admittedly, some of this was reading between the lines because genocide is a little heavy for a kids movie).

Anyhow, we cut to CG as Po (a panda, and the dragon warrior) is impressing his friends and kung fu mates with his face-stuffing skills (he can fit 40 dumplings in his mouth at once). He’s totally ready to be a Kung. Fu. Hero (Got stars in his eyes. And you thought I was going to break out Kung Fu Fighting, didn’t you). He goes to his teacher, Master Shifu (bonus points – shifu means “master” in Chinese. You pick up these things when you watch waaaaaay to many kung-fu flicks), who’s trying a technique of rolling a raindrop around his body without harming it. It requires inner peace, which Master Shifu is working on, and which Po lacks.

Inner peace is one of the plot lines in this movie, but since it’s a rather nebulous concept, they’ve boiled it down to Po finding out he’s adopted, trying to find out why, and what that means for who he is. There’s also the matter of taking care of Shen, who’s invented a weapon that can destroy Kung Fu.

The voice acting is pretty good, although most of the lines are by Jack Black and Gary Oldman (Po and Shen, respectively). Angelina Jolie has a large supporting role as Tigress, and James Hong has a smaller role as Mr. Ping (Po’s adopted father). Everything else may as well be an extended cameo. Jackie Chan, Seth Rogan, Luci Liu, David Cross, Dustin Hoffman, Michelle Yeoh (well, she has a few more lines than the rest), Danny McBride, Jean Claude Van Damme … they all get a few lines at most. Maybe the chance to work on such a fun movie was enough to bring them in.

While the voice actors did a good job, the animators should be the stars of the film. A lot of the jokes were physical (some lines might go over kids’ heads, but everyone appreciates a good pie-in-the-face gag), and they were tremendously done. The climax takes place on some beautiful looking water, even if Po does bust out a move reminiscent of the Kanoball attack in the original Mortal Kombat.

One thing they do very well is take advantage of the all CG format. Turn gravity off? No problem. Put cameras where they couldn’t? Sure. Have ridiculous weapons and armour? Absolutely. When Star Wars went cartoon (an event I try and pretend never happened), they didn’t really take advantage of their medium. Their fights were generic and pretty boring, and different very little from what would happen in real life. In cartoons, you can have people (or animals, in this case) moving quickly, throwing fists and feet in all directions, or racing down streets on a one-wheeled cart. The Kung Fu Pandas really get it right.

Another thing right is the music. It’s done by John Powell and Hans Zimmer. If you don’t know John Powell, he’s done the music for the Bourne movies, as well as Hancock. If you don’t know Hans Zimmer, you lead a miserable life. No, wait – sorry. You may not recognize his name, but you’ll sure know his scores. He’s done The Rock, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Inception (Although the trailer music was by Zach Hempsey), and so forth. So the music is excellent, mixing (what we foreigners think of as) Chinese music with action scores to really add to the movie. Makes everything more exciting.

So this movie is totally a theatre movie, especially if you see it with a theatre full of kids. There’s something really uplifting about kids’ laughter, so make sure there’s at least one person under the age of then when you see it.