Tag: Michael Bay

Riddick / Pain & Gain

120px-Film-stripA very belated post for these two films as I’ve been so short of time, recently. Weekends taken up with Duke of Edinburgh expeditions has eaten into writing time! We saw these almost two weeks ago, I think…

Riddick

“You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: see-in-the-dark ex-slave-and-planetary-ruler Riddick finds himself stranded on a dangerous planet and wonders how to get off again

See it if you like: Aliens and First Blood.

Following on from Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, this third instalment sees our anti-hero marooned on a scary big planet, seemingly with no way off. This may have happened at the end of CoR, but I can’t remember as I didn’t like the film and may have fallen asleep partway through.

Riddick is much better, though, and more in line with the first film in the series. It’s almost two films in one. The first half documenting Riddick’s (Vin Diesel, in case you didn’t know) escape from the barren half of the planet to somewhere a little more foliage-covered; the second half his battle against bounty hunters who turn up to claim his head.

Much reference is made to the first two films, so if you’re a fan then a repeat watch may be ideal before you take on this one.

Effects are good, dialogue is suitably silly, bad guys are wonderfully over-the-top (especially Jordi Mollà‘s Santana and Katee Sackhoff‘s overly-butch Dahl), and there is a decent story going on around all the by-the-numbers character-slaying.

Don’t take it too seriously and it’s a good romp. My favourite of the three films, anyway.

Pain & Gain

“Unfortunately, this is a true story.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: based-on-a-true-story series-of-heists gone wrong comedy action where people with biceps bigger than their brains show how not to get rich quick

See it if you like: looking at men with ridiculously large musculature while having a giggle

Michael Bay is more famous for his stupidly huge films like Con Air and those ones with the robots that turn into cars. However, he has done a fair few films based more on story and less on fuelling special effects labs. This is one of them.

Based on a true story from around 1995. How close to the truth it is would require some research, but there are some key scenes which I think are documented. Best of all is that they are some of the stupidest. This is a story of success and failure. And succeeding at failure. On a huge scale.

Bodybuilder Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) decided he’s sick of other people being rich when he does all the hard work. So he decides to attempt to extort one of his customers. He enlists the aid of a friend, Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and they, in turn, draft in some additional muscle in the form of reformed ex-convict and musclebound Jesus-freak Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson, formerly “The Rock”).

And it all goes horribly wrong. With hilarious consequences. Especially when they bugger everything up and try again with another victim.

Not a family-friendly film, but one with with plenty of dark and grisly humour. There are some genuinely funny moments, and Dwayne Johnson finally proves that he’s not just got a screen career because of his bulk. He’s genuinely good in this.

Very enjoyable – surprisingly so if I’m honest.

 

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Transformers 3 – Dark of the Moon (IMAX)

By إبن البيطار (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsOur second IMAX treat inside of a week after HP7b, only this time we got there early enough to get nice seats right in the middle and far enough back that we weren’t inside the flipping 3D.

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.

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
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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