Transformers: Dark of the Moon

“Uh-oh, now this is a clufterf…”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Big robots fight other big robots.

See it if you like: Huge, eye-candy filled special effects films with lots of things being crashed, smushed, blown up, crushed, exploded, etc.

I’ve heard of comments on the internet and even on the radio about films such as Transformers 3, most of it negative and a lot of it saying it’s damaging cinema. I don’t get this. Sure, it’s low brow. It rewrites history ever so slightly, but, hey, this isn’t meant to be a “based on a true story” flick like U-571 or Enigma, both of which shat on the memories of a good number of people.

What it is is entertaining. In a huge way. And I can’t see what’s wrong with people wanting to go to the cinema to be entertained. Surely that’s the whole point?

My one major issue with the first two films was the level of detail in the robotic transformations that I simply couldn’t see. Despite seeing them on the big screen, the incredible computer work was gone in a flash as the robots zoomed past and even a decent cinema seemed too small. That swung my decision to cough up the extra and see this final one on IMAX.

Bloody hell, was it worth it. The 3D isn’t the greatest (most of it was shot in 35mm and converted to 3D in post-production), but the CGI work is simply incredible. This is an effects movie, and it holds no quarter. Everything about it is simply huge, yet the level of detail put into it shows a great degree of skill from those involved.

OK, enough harping on about the geeks in the back room. The story isn’t half bad either and the 157 minutes or so runtime barely drags at any point. Given the length, it could almost have been split into two films which might have raked in some more money, but it would have been pushing it just a bit. The scripting is tight, the dialogue is nicely witty at times and the plot holes can be nicely ignored. Just plug them with popcorn and get over it. It’s a film.

The cast are pretty much by-the-numbers and predominantly the same as the previous two with the exception of Megan Fox who allegedly called director Michael Bay a nazi and was promptly sacked. Frankly, she’s not missed and new totty Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (who sounds as posh as her name) fills the “boobs, lips and legs” rôle perfectly adequately. Shia LaBeouf runs with his character from the first two films and continues to have one of the silliest names of any film star at the moment.

Best background character goes to Dutch (Alan Tudyk), the man-servant/sidekick of mental ex-FBI agent Simmons (John Turturro). Nicely subservient with an undertone of mental. Oh, and then there are all the military characters who could be from any film of this ilk. Out to save the world and kicking ass while they do it. You’ve seen these guys before in The Rock, Invasion: LA, etc.

Star of the show, though, are the Transformers and the sheer scale of the thing. Even if you don’t see it in 3D, you have got to see it on IMAX. I simply can’t imagine watching this on a smaller screen.

Related articles

• Transformers: Dark of the Moon (huangmichael.wordpress.com)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon [Review] (blazingminds.co.uk)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Verdict (moviehart.wordpress.com)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Third Time’s the Charm (candidheadlines.wordpress.com)

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Transformers 3 – Dark of the Moon (IMAX)

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Weird title, weird film. Apparently based on a weird book – which I actually remember seeing in the Popular Science section of Waterstone’s many years ago.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: a journalist with a failed marriage heads for Iraq to write a war story. On the way he encounters a retired soldier who claims to have been part of an elite psychic soldier outfit. And this is apparently based on a true story…

The main cast is astounding: George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey… Robert Patrick is headlined, but he’s only in it for five minutes. They’re all damn good as well. McGregor managed to pull off a decent American accent without sounding stupid while Clooney pulls off stupid without looking… well, stupid.

This is a film about complete mentalists. It’s hard to tell where the line is drawn between docu-drama and complete fiction. I’d guess that the book is the same, partly as it just seems to far-fetched. Yet how unlikely is it that armies were throwing cash a potential psychic “weapons”?

There are laughs a-plenty, most of them quite dark. The fact that McGregor’s character ends up in a quest to become what the psi-ops regiment called a “Jedi” is not lost on the viewing public either.

Overall a good film that doesn’t outstay it’s modest running length.

Jennifer’s Body

The last decent female-based teen horror film was Ginger Snaps and that was released ages ago. Jennifer’s Body goes more down the “monster” than “werewolf” route but does it well with some great black humour. And two hot girls snogging.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Town bike Jennifer turns from slut to blood-hungry psycho, requiring the blood of scared teens to survive. Her best friend is the only one to know her secret and she doesn’t like it.

When I saw the trailers I thought “rubbish – move on”. Then I saw some reviews, and not just from the likes of Baz Bamigboy and Jonathan Ross‘s far less talented sibling who will say anything is the “Best film of 2009″ if it gets them a free bag of popcorn. The schedule fitted in with my free time so I took a chance.

The film opens after the end of the main plotline with one of the characters putting us into the scene. The story then jumps to the beginning and is more or less linear from there except for a brief jump back to explain exactly what happened to Jennifer (Megan Fox). Fox, incidentally, is hot. Scorchy hot. I-would-give-a-limb hot. But credit must also go to co-star Amanda Seyfried who plays the frumpy best friend, Needy – “frumpy” in the sense that as soon as she takes off her glasses and shakes out her hair she’s also typically sexy.

Everything happens at a good pace with the characters not being too stereotypical. The gore isn’t over-the-top and the effects are good. What I liked most, other than the humour, is the way the two main characters act opposite each other and how Needy develops.

You can pretty much guess what happens, it’s the ending that’s fairly original. Although not a huge twist, it’s definitely well written.

Don’t avoid this film just because it has obvious eye candy in. Don’t get me wrong. Fox isn’t that great an actress, but her hotness is actually useful in this film. And you get to see her with her tongue down another hot chick’s throat. Admittedly this scene was made somewhat less erotic by one numpty in the cinema crying “YAY” in a dull monotone, resulting in a huge outburst of laughter and a smattering of applause.

Still, that’s a throwaway moment in the film in my opinion. The main reason to see it is Seyfried’s performance. And the poor jokes.

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• Review: The Men Who Stare At Goats (thejc.com)
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Film Saturday

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

On a scale of “meh” to “wow”, Revenge of the Fallen makes the mercury explode from the top of the thermometer in glorious CG red splashes.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: there’s a plot? Oh, yeah. Some metal thing puts some mumbo-jumbo into the kid from the first film’s head and the bad guys want it. Which means lots of robots beating the crap out of each other.

I was listening to Radio 5 Live on the way back and someone connected with the upcoming feature Moon spent a good few minutes absolutely slating Transformers 2. The basis for his argument was that science fiction is – or at least used to be – about things other than big robots hitting each other. He’s right, you know. The likes of Soylent Green, The Omega Man and 2001 were definitely more high brow than this… but Transformers has big sodding robots from another planet! If that’s not science fiction, I don’t know what is.

Sure, there’s only a basic story – enough to hang a few gazillion computer calculations off – but there are also a fair few laughs and some quite outstanding action sequences. Oh, and there’s Megan Fox for the eye candy. At least I’m assuming she’s stunning – it’s hard to tell when it’s so patently obvious she’s wearing enough makeup for Optimus Prime to cover up his wrinkles.

If I had to pick a stand-out performance, I’d go for John Turturro as the voice of Jetfire. Whoever decided to make him an aging Brit was a genius. Watching a hulking rustbucket on two legs stagger around and say “bollocks” helps take the Transformers out of “object” territory and into “character”.

If I have a complaint about the film it’s that there’s just too much going on at times. The screen is only so big and the effects so complex that I just felt like I couldn’t take it all in. A shame that there isn’t a local IMAX screen as this is most definitely a movie that would benefit from the additional screen real estate. I believe the IMAX version is also a noticable amount longer.

Science fiction comes in many flavours. As do summer blockbusters. Revenge of the Fallen fits well into both categories and they don’t bust blocks much bigger than this.

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen