Movie Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Starring Shia LeBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey
Written by Ehren Kruger
Directed by Michael Bay

Story: The evil Decepticons hatch a plan to take over the world and enslave the human race, and mankind's only hope is the Autobots. Plus some stupid shit involving some asshole and a supermodel.

Review: The opening shot after the title screen is 30 seconds of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's ass. Not kidding. I haven't heard as many people snicker and laugh at the ridiculousness of a movie since the cliff jump in Fast Five. If you're expecting a reinvention of the series, you'll be sadly disappointed. But if you're hoping for a return to the level of goodness that the first Transformers was, then you should be pretty happy. The human characters are terrible again. Shia is bad, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is a short step to the side of Megan Fox, and Patrick Dempsey is an awful nemesis for Shia. This should come as no shock to anyone, so you only have yourself to blame if you expected an improvement from the actors. However, the action sequences are excellent, and the storyline is straightforward and easy to follow. Instead of humans being stuck in the middle of a battle between the Decepticons and the Autobots, this is an alien invasion story. The Decepticons want to enslave the human race so they can rebuild their homeworld. (And it would have worked, too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids.) How they plan accomplishing this sets up a nice showdown in Chicago. And they fuck that city up!!! By far the best action sequence in the series and it lasts for about an hour. Pretty much, what I'm trying to say is, "If you like seeing shit blowing up, then you should enjoy it."

Comparable Movies: It's a lot like Independence Day or Battle Los Angeles with robots instead of aliens.

Rating: *** 1/2

It's the best of the series, but if you didn't enjoy the first, then you won't enjoy this.

May the Force be with you,
CHUD

Movie Reviews: Bad Teacher, Cars 2, and Kung Fu Panda 2

Bad Teacher
Starring Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Justin Timberlake, Lucy Punch
Written by Gene Stupnitsky, Lee Eisenberg
Directed by Jake Kasdan

Story: A gold digging, shallow, foul mouthed teacher tries to raise money for a boob job, so she can catch the eye of a wealthy substitute teacher.

Review: Remember how Bad Santa was really crass and funny? Well, Bad Teacher was really crass. Apart from a few funny gags (dry humping being the highlight), there's no reason to see this movie.

Comparable Movies: Role Models or any other movie where an immature adult grows up after being forced to watch over children.

Rating: **

Not the worst movie ever, but still below average.

Cars 2
Starring Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy
Written by Ben Queen
Directed by John Lasseter

Story: Tow Mater gets caught up in a international conspiracy to take over the world's oil market by Lemons (Hugos, Gremlins, and other crappy cars.)

Review: I know Cars was one of the most successful franchises that Pixar has made, but I'm not a big fan of the first movie. I hate Larry the Cable Guy, and he is the main character for most of the movie. Cars 2 has a lot more cliches than most of the Pixar films, and the plot is very formulaic. Compared to other 3D animated movies that come out it is okay, but a definite miss for Pixar.

Comparable Movies: Pretty standard animation fare. Be yourself and don't worry about what the world thinks of you. Shrek with cars.

Rating: ** 1/2

If you like Larry the Cable Guy, or really like Tow Mater from the first Cars, you'll like this one.

Kung Fu Panda 2
Starring Jack Black
Written by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger
Directed by Jennifer Yuh

Story: Po must save China and Kung Fu from an evil warlord who has discovered the use of gun powder.

Review: A sequel that lives up to the first film. Although Kung Fu Panda is only a good movie, the sequel brings back all the characters and has a good, fast moving storyline. The animation is excellent, the voice acting is good, and the action sequences are over the top and fun.

Comparable Movies: Very similar to the first film. Like it's almost the same movie.

Rating: *** 1/2

Over the last year and a half I would say Dreamworks Animation has been better than Pixar.


That's it for today kiddies. Should have a review of Transformers 3 by the weekend.

May the Force be with you,


CHUD

Movie Review: Green Lantern

Green Lantern
Directed by Martin Campbell
Written by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, Michael Goldenberg
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard

Story: Hal Jordan is the first human selected to join the Green Lantern Core. His first mission is to stop the evil Parallax from destroying Earth.

Review: I think Green Lantern works as a comic book series, and would work as a television show, but not a two hour movie. It's an epic story that spans the entire universe. Cramming that much exposition into a summer blockbuster is an impossible task. I can see why they had four different writers. Nobody could make this work. It has no focus. Just like this blog. It introduces backstories that are pointless, romances that nobody cares about, and a big bad guy lifted from The Fifth Element. This movie was doomed before the cameras started rolling. There are some fun action sequences and some of the unexplored storylines would work better if they were given a proper amount of screen time.

Comparable Movies: More of a Superman, the world is going to end, type of superhero movie. Rather than a smaller, save the city type.

Rating: ** out of 5

If you're into superhero movies, you probably already saw it. If not, don't.

May the Force be with you,
CHUD

Movie Reviews: The Last Six

Sorry I haven't been posting my reviews for the last handful of movies. I've been pretty busy, and haven't had the time to waste here on the blog.

Here's some mini reviews of the movies I've recently seen.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Jack Sparrow is a great character, but even he cannot do it alone. The problem with the second and third Pirates movies wasn't with the characters, but with the convoluted script. Two and three had the same characters, but got too ambitious with the story. While Elizabeth Swan and Will Turner were generic and not all that interesting, it did give Jack someone to play off of. In On Stranger Tides, Jack Sparrow has to play the comic relief and the hero. Johnny Depp is an excellent actor, but its to much to ask of one character. And again, too ambitious and convoluted.  ** 1/2

Water For Elephants - I'm sure the book was fine, but the movie was mediocre. It's hard for film to show the passage of time like a book can, and I think that's what's wrong with the movie. One second Jacob is a stowaway and the next second he has the fate of the circus riding on his shoulders. Everything felt rushed, and the relationships were forced together. Now, if the acting talent was a bit better, it could have covered up some of this. But Robert Pattinson is not up to the task to do anything other than look sleepy, and  Reese Witherspoon does nothing special here. But Christoph Waltz was amazing as the abusive leader of the circus, August. Quentin Tarantino deserves a lot of credit for introducing him to American audiences in Inglorious Basterds. **

Priest - A pretty unoriginal dystopian sci-fi movie. Think Judge Dredd meets Underworld. The Catholic church creates a group of super soldiers, Priests, to subdue the vampire menace taking over the world. After defeating the vamps, the Priests are discarded to monotonous day jobs while the Church rules 1984 style. Years later, the daughter of the leader of the Priests is taken by a new kind of vampire, a human turned vamp. The Priest takes action against the wishes of the Church, who think it is all a hoax. It has a few actors I like (Paul Bettany, Karl Urban) and one I absolutely hate (Cam Gigandet). But none of them have anything to do, because the director is a special effects guy. When has that ever worked? *

X-Men: First Class - After destroying the numeral series with X-Men 3: The Last Stand, the origin story of Professor X's school for the gifted is told. Bryan Singer is back as a producer, and I could see his fingerprints all over this movie. Feels much more like the first two films. James McAvoy is fantastic as a walking Professor X, with a full head of hair. When he fits the role, McAvoy is brilliant. Michael Fassbender steals the movie though. His Magneto is so conflicted, and you can see how he evolves into the leader of the Brotherhood in the original movies. Fassbender makes him so sympathetic that you want to see him win. However, the supporting characters are pretty forgettable, and the villain played by Kevin Bacon is nothing special either. But nobody is so terrible that they distract from the two leads. *****

The Hangover Part II - Take the same cast and the same story and set it in Bangkok. Some good one-liners, but pretty disappointing overall. **1/2

Super 8 - I really like JJ Abrams, so my expectations were extremely high. Super 8 delivered, but not to my unfair expectations. The problem was that this movie should have been made thirty years ago. Making it now just feels like a remake of an old classic. There are winks and homages galore. But not a lot of originality. The casting for the kids was great, and Kyle Chandler was a solid choice. There's not as much effects work as I thought there would be, but the train accident is huge and goes on forever. I was hoping for the best movie of the year, but instead got a solid pick for the top ten or fifteen. **** 1/2

Midnight In Paris - I should have known better. I've never been a Woody Allen fan. I like a few of his movies, but for the most part, I hate him. If you like him, enjoy it. If you don't, skip it. This won't convert any non-believers. **

Again, sorry for the absence. Enjoy your summer movie watching, and I'll try to post my reviews a little quicker.

May the Force be with you,
CHUD