Tag: Movies

My rating of the movie Transformers (Yahoo! Movies page): 6.0 / 10
Directed by: Michael Bay
Cast: Jon Voight, Megan Fox, Shia LaBouf, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Anderson, Rachael Taylor
Released by: Paramount Pictures

Pop quiz – what do you get when you decide to make a movie based on a Hasbro toy line, and team that up with a director with a penchant for over-the-top delivery like Michael Bay and the financial backing of Steven Spielberg? The answer is Transformers. This movie IMHO, should only be seen for a) Megan Fox (a big reason in itself); b) the somewhat cool special effects (most of which were done by Industrial Light & Magic).

In brief, the story can be summed up in this – two races of extraterrestrial robots, the Autobots and the Decepticons, decide to fight it out on Earth for something called the ‘All Spark’, a cube-like thingy which can bring mundane devices to life. That, is where the story starts and ends. Throw in a couple of sex-starved teenagers with prominent in-movie advertising, and there you go. It seems that Hasbro / Michael Bay approached a bunch of excited young 8-year hyperactive kids who empty whole packs of sugar-bomb cereals daily, made them write a ‘story’, passed it on to a different set of sex-starved teenagers, and then put in the usual Hollywood mumbo jumbo to make this movie. +10 for style, minus 42 for nonsense.

Watch a trailer of the movie Transformers

I’ve talked about my digust of trashy tech scenes in movies, and Transformers works overtime to ensure that. Sure, sprinkle the whole set with Macbooks, but where the hell is the OS? Again, some *evil* Decepticon virus breaks into their defence network in ’10 seconds’. Suits me fine – it’s ET tech, that can happen; in fact their hot analyst chick (Rachael Taylor) wonders about it and says ‘even a supercomputer with brute force would have taken 20 years’. But then, that same hot analyst chick then takes it too some ‘zis hacker guy’ who can crack through their code in less than *5 seconds*. Right. Must be a PC from the Intel Core 2 Quad line, eh? :p Without being too demanding I’d also like to point out the ‘geek’ they brought in looked nowhere geeky, uhuh, not at all. And guess what, since the movie producers were paying this hot analyst chick woman for the tech-(trash)-talk, they decided to dispense with the need to buy firewalls on the set. So with a whole battalion of people monitoring defence networks, it *HAD* to be this hot analyst chick working in cordoned off area on some transmission from a US base in Qatar who had to find out the security breach on the network.

The other thing I got really pissed off about was the whole in-movie promotion thing. Using Linkin Park’s What I’ve Done (from their album Minutes To Midnight) in the movie is overkill, especially when the scenes had nothing to do with what anything had done except that Shia LaBouf was attempting to swallow Megan Fox’s tongue at that time. Then, there’s the Panasonic overkill – at one point that hot analyst chick simply copies data onto an SD card (a 2 GB one, if you really wanted to know) and walks out of a top-secret US military facility, but when she copies it and takes it out of the card reader, the camera perceptibly holds it and fills the Panasonic logo on the SD card. I did mention the whole Apple Macbook thing earlier too, but that’s ok. There’s the eBay overkill – it’s featured quite a few times in the movie. Apparently, these alien bots learnt about our culture using the World Wide Web and eBay. Talking about search engine superiority, it becomes clear after watching Transformers that even they prefer Yahoo! Search – because that’s what they use in come scenes. Of course, there’s the Chevy overkill.

Basically, if you desperately want to enjoy this movie, you’ll need to switch off your mind to enjoy it. Watch it for the so-so effects it has – it’s nothing path-breaking like 300 actually. Transformers‘ SFX gives you a feeling of deja vu, because this sort of stuff has been done. My bet for the visual effects Oscar would be 300, although I get this sad feeling that the moronic Oscar jury will give 300 the thumbs-down just because it’s gory. Transformers is a one-time popcorn flick that you wouldn’t mind if you accidentally broke its DVD.

PS – Megan Fox is so damn hot in this movie too! Remember her from Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen as Carla Santini?

My rating of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Yahoo! Movies page): B+ (Memorable)
Directed by: David Yates
Released by: Warner Bros
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Alan Rickman, Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton

This is what happens when you have a long and meandering story to turn into a movie. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which might just be getting the most amount of attention because of the forthcoming release of the last Harry Potter book this Saturday, turns out to be the worst of the lot yet. In fact, if you simply go and watch the movie without reading the book, I won’t blame you if you can’t make out a thing. You NEED to read the book before seeing this, because the movie has cut down the novel’s story so short that it doesn’t make sense at times. It was meant to happen – when the longest novel of the series so far is turned into the shortest HP movie ever. Sheesh, the whole movie is akin to watching soccer match highlights! And they way they’ve twisted the storyline is terrible terrible…

Watch the trailer of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

To be fair, the movie does have its high points. I really liked the use of raw and jerky camera footage in some sequences, something noticeably absent in the earlier ones. It also deserves much praise for its stunning visuals (and I don’t mean special effects here). The stunning Lord of the Rings style sweeping vistas and flybys are well, stunning. The way the transitions between scenes are handled, and the cool camera perspectives that are used are worth appreciating. As for special effects, I’d call them mediocre, after the high standards set by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I heard some gushing stuff in the newspaper of them having made some of the biggest sets for the current movie, but frankly, I wasn’t impressed. The ones in the movie hardly even compare to the massive spaces in the Ministry of Magic and all that are depicted in the novel. In fact, the Department of Mysteries sequences definitely feels as if it was shot in a small kitchen or a library, compared to what the book paints it like. Must say though – the scene on the Azkaban break out was way cool, although short.

As for the acting, I’ve always said it’s pretty bad in ALL Harry Potter movies. The only exceptions, among the regulars, are Alan Rickman as Professor Snape – boy does he fit the role well – and Emma Watson as Hermione Granger – she’s the only one among the three main protagonists who can actually act, and do it well too. As for this particular movie, it’s worth mentioning that Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge, and Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood (she really DID act well) do a commendable job. After watching the trailer I had been apprehensive about Umbridge, because she seemed far too sweet in it to be the toad-like and evil woman she is in the novel; she definitely looked like a harmless old granny rather than a person who’d make people etch lines on their hands. I take back my words after seeing the movie. Sure, she isn’t as revolting to look at, but she’s definitely got the irritating part right. You really WILL feel the hatred against her for her sheer irritatingness. Gary Oldman as Sirius Black is ok. Rickman does well as usual, imbibing that cold, ruthless speak amazingly. Emma Watson, as always, is the only one who actually has and expression while speaking. As for Rupert Grint as Ron Weasely, he’s far too old for his role – he looks like a 20 year old man! Justin Long as Matt Farrell in Die Hard 4.0 looked younger! The rest of the cast is pathetic, simply muttering lines without any feeling, simply because they need to get their paycheck. Mrs Figg in the movie doesn’t act scared even after seeing the Dementors; Uncle Vernon reacts to Dudley’s ill health as if he just heard something funny on the news – it’s terrible the expressionless way everyone does their roles in this movie. Daniel Radcliffe has shown some improvement because he no longer keeps on gaping like a goldfish all the time; but is still pathetic as far as dialogue delivery is concerned.

The soundtrack is grating and terrible. It’s totally loony as far as syncing with on screen events is concerned. A cheerful tune while Dementors are attacking? Yeah right. And funeral dirges on solemn occasions? Yup, they’re there too.

Don’t get taken in by the ‘this Potter movie is darker than the previous one’ (which they say for every new Potter movie) this time. The fourth one was definitely more darker than this. I really don’t like this one for changing the story so much. The list is endless. Starting from Privet Drive, everything has been compressed. Ron and Hermione become prefects – never mentioned. So much of the happenings at the Department of Mysteries has been cut out and twisted and mangled that there was hardly anything left of it. Even the turning points like Sirius Black getting killed seems like it was done as an afterthought. No focus AT ALL has been given on the OWLs; the part on Harry going public with The Quibbler ain’t there; and there’s no Quidditch too in this one! It was a major part of the novel after all. Even the exit of Fred and George Weasley from Hogwarts is so watered down that it looks pathetic. The much hyped kiss with Cho Chang has simply been put in because of the buzz it would create – because it certainly didn’t deserve screen time if other much more important scenes have been dropped. Oh, I can go on and on about it, but they really really messed up the story. I wouldn’t mind watching a longer movie really, if it ensured that the stuff would be better. It seems as if Warner Bros wants to spend less and extract more profits out of the franchise.

My fave among all Potter movies though would be Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. When seen along with the others, it’s horribly out of sync in the look and feel of the characters; watch the movie and isolation though and you’ll find it far better than anything else that has come out in the series. Seriously, Alfonso Cuaron is one helluva amazing director. His effect HAS rubbed off on the subsequent ones though – even the latest movie has some droll wit; and his work on better focus on visuals continues, albeit much watered down, in the later movies.

Overall, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is simply something to be watched BECAUSE it comes in the series. It’s the worst by far. The only saving grace are the awesome camera perspectives.