Movies – Page 26

The Revenge of Michael Bay

My rating of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: B (Good)
Cast: Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro, Peter Cullen, Hugo Weaving, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson
Directed by: Michael Bay
Studio: Paramount Pictures / DreamWorks SKG

Originally posted at Youthpad.

The movie Transformers 2 has turned into a juggernaut the likes of which we have never seen before. It has already surpassed Angels & Demons as the highest grossing film of the year. Director Michael Bay uses this as a platform to point a middle finger at one and all for not handing out some awards to the best-selling physics tutorial documentary The Island. (Seriously, watch that movie once and physics ke saare funde clear ho jaayenge. As in, you won’t remember anything you learnt in physics class at all after watching that movie. It’s a good movie though – my rating for it would be an A).

At first even I approached the original Transformers movie with skepticism. “How retarded can it be to have inter-galactic wars over a frikkin’ spark plug?!” I pointed out some inaccuracies in the script and so did others. The same story repeats with Transformers 2. There are hilarious FAQs ripping the movie apart – that article’s funny but also ‘unfair’ since they’ve twisted bits of the story to suit their jokes. Rolling Stone refused to give any stars to the movie in its rating. Cinematical talks about absurdities in the script. The most accurate summing up of the movie would be in Paste Magazine. That’s the legacy Transformers 2 seems to be leaving behind in all critics’s reviews – all of them mangling parts of the story to suit their own jokes. Then you realise that Michael Bay simply isn’t playing to that gallery with these two movies. I admit I have blasphemed, Mr Bay. I never knew The Right Path of what the eff exactly you’re trying to accomplish with your movies until the day I saw The Island.

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Watch the trailer for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

In Transformers 2 Michael Bay dishes out explosions at a never seen before scale – or rate for that matter. Get the Physicists Association on phone, guys. I propose that the ‘scientific unit for the scale of a fake explosion on a movie set’ be named ‘MichaelBay’ in His honour. Among the very first scenes is one in which a C-40 transport aircraft airdrops a GM truck, which transforms into Optimus Prime mid-air for skydiving, and then transforms back into a truck while crash landing onto a Shanghai freeway. This means the ‘Mind your head’ signs they put in the theatre need to be taken literally; if this scene does not convince you to switch your brain off and soak in the visuals for the next two and half hours, nothing will.

This movie suffers from is that it’s way to long and repetitive. An hour into the film you start wondering when this will ever get over. There are so many Transormers milling around that you can just vaguely make out that Autobots are fighting Decepticons and that’s about it. One giant robot fight after another is piled on your senses until they go numb. The humans have nothing much to do except scamper around calling for ‘more Autobots’.

Michael Bay & Co also make no qualms in showing off their huge collective crush on the US of A military. Whatever screen-time is left where metal monsters aren’t ripping each other apart is spent on slo-mo showcases of the ‘latest munitions’. Knowing Bay for what he is, I’m surprised he didn’t have a scrolling ticker at the bottom with a 1-800-BAY-BOMB number to “ORDER YOUR OWN FUNCTIONING MODEL OF A GODDAMN PREDATOR WOOHOO!”

A lot has been made out of racial stereotyping through the characters of ‘black stereotype Autobots’ Skids and Mudflap. I wouldn’t hold Michael Bay exclusively responsible for that kind of ‘outrage’. Any black Hollywood actor other than Denzel Washington, Terrance Howard and to an extent Will Smith has had nothing at hand other than “Yo homies” ‘black stereotype role’. So it’s Hollywood at large which is at fault, not Bay.

Megan Fox continues with her role of a cutesexyhoteyecandy™ who has nothing to do other than wrap herself around Shia LeBeouf’s character. And honestly, I’m happy that they didn’t give her anything to act after watching this trailer of her upcoming movie Jennifer’s Body. (Diablo Cody will prove that Juno struck a chord because of Ellen Page’s acting and NOT Cody’s screenwriting.) Megan Fox is there for Michael Bay just so that he can zoom into her boobs or bottom every now and then. Nobody’s complaining. Oh, and also watch out for newcomer Isabel Lucas as the Decepticon chick Alice.

Don’t try to dig too deep into the plot. It’s utterly ludicrous for most bits. (There’s a scene where the US Navy beats the fucking crap out of a monstrous alien robot from hundreds of miles away by blowing off its metal scrotum using a railgun. True story.) Like how Sam Whitwicky dies at one stage, goes to Cybertronian (note, not human) heaven where a refreshing beverage of Castrol engine oil is presented to him then he gets sent back by Optimus Prime’s ancestors ‘for his courage’. Shia gets a second lease of life, a magical ‘Matrix of Leadership’ key gets reformed from silica dust to something which brings Optimus Prime back to life – in the most belief-suspending use of deus ex machina ever.

The movie is littered with funny moments. You could laugh all the way if you wanted at the sheer scale of robots fighting but you’ll probably get bored soon. Instead, stick around to watch the genuinely funny moments and dialogues – of which there are many.

Watch the music video for the song New Divide by Linkin Park, part of Transformers 2 soundtrack

You’ll probably hate Transformers 2 for being too long, but give it a shot. The sheer lunacy of this whole operation keeps the movie ticking. There are great visuals to watch out for (and I’m not talking of only Megan Fox here). Don’t think too much while watching this movie.

Live long and prosper

My rating of Star Trek (2009): A (Outstanding)
Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Bruce Greenwood, Eric Bana, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana
Directed by: JJ Abrams
Studio: Paramount Pictures

Originally posted at Youthpad.

Late review, I know. I watched this movie a few weeks back (a few days before I came down with chickenpox) and have been meaning to do a review for quite some time. I was both looking forward and not looking forward to this movie. I was looking forward to it because it’s directed by J.J. Abrams (best known for the TV series Lost – I used to watch that for the first two seasons; those were the days when the series came close to making any kind of sense). I quite liked what he did with Mission: Impossible III. On the other hand, that guy was the writer for Armageddon. Yes, the same movie which is known for its highly scientifically accurate script, NOT! (That movie is a fun to watch though. Purely for its sheer lunacy coupled with a “Yee-haw!” attitude.) Also, the marketing for Star Trek was quite confused. All the trailers were pretty much identical to each other – and practically all of them used a different font for the movie name. Even the posters. Either there’s a Douglas Adams-ish tendency in the Trek universe to be inconsistent or they let an intern at Paramount create the publicity material.

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Watch the trailer for Star Trek

I must confess that I’m not a Trek fan. Despite George Lucas’s douchebaggery of always re-editing films all with quite weak storyline in the first place, I like the Star Wars series. probably because Darth Vader is the most badass villain ever! Still, I couldn’t let this opportunity of watching Star Trek pass being an SFF fan. I hadn’t seen much of the TV shows earlier expect for a few episodes, maybe a few Next Generation thrown in.

Good for me because this movie is supposed to be a ‘reboot’ of the whole movie series. Trekkies can enjoy it to and so can those who aren’t acquainted at all with the series. And the movie manages to achieve that admirably! The movie would probably be best enjoyed in IMAX but for now normal theatres would have to suffice in India.

The movie provides a detailed back-story of pretty much where all the main characters came from. At no point does the movie drag its feet – it’s action all the way till the credits but action not in the sense of a Michael Bay movie (where simply flushing a toilet might result in explosions). Thankfully there isn’t too much obnoxious product placement to deal with since a major part of the movie is set in space; deal with Godrej Aerospace Labs didn’t work out I guess. Except for this one scene in the very beginning where young James Kirk trashes his guardian’s car where there’s in-your-face promotion of a Nokia cellphone. Speaking of that scene, that was so totally unnecessary, especially the bit where Kirk does a daredevil stunt by jumping off a speeding car before it crashes off a cliff.

For a large part though this movie works because of the stellar performance of Chris Pine as James T. Kirk. The same Chris Pine who spent the days when he was young and foolish playing the role of a young and foolish guys in romantic comedies / Disney princess movies with his hands permanently in his pockets. Since all those parts only required him to stand in one corner and ‘look handsome’ we didn’t get to see much of his acting abilities. If there was ever one guy you’d expect to screw-up his serious film debut then it was Chris Pine, and Chris Pine proved all his critics wrong. He plays the role of a drunk, reckless, skirt-chasing son of gun who has the balls to storm enemy ships with bravado to perfection.

The other praiseworthy performance comes from Zachary Quinto as Spock. No doubt this is his breakout role – he hasn’t even acted in anything in particular in the past! His one task as a Vulcan was to be emotionless and he manages to keep that facade up most of the time. The times when he does lose are ones where he is supposed to lose it according to the script. The voice he used has a startling resemblance to Alan Rickman’s in the Harry Potter movie series.

None of the other characters get much screen time. Keeping up Hollywood tradition we have Anton Yelchin’s character from ‘Mowther Rosshia’ who ‘kennot spik Engleesh’ properly who provides comic relief. Simon Pegg’s short but crazy performance as Scotty (he also played the role of Benji in MI3) is nice. Eric Bana as the Romulan leader Nero was disappointing – no memorable dialogues to remember because most of the time he kept barking words along the lines of “Fire everything!” (maybe that was intentional, as a reference to the Roman emperor). Then there’s dewy eyed Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike, Karl Urban as Leonard McCoy and that guy Harold from Harold & Kumar who make up the motley crew of Starship Enterprise. They all do their parts…but nothing much to speak of since they’re all pretty much replaceable doorknobs in the storyline.

On the whole, this movie gets a thumbs-up / don’t-miss if you’re science fiction / fantasy lover whether or not you’re already aware of the happenings in Trek universe. If you aren’t into science fiction then you’ll find this space opera movie boring – avoid.