My Thoughts of Transformers: Age of Extinction (Some Spoilers)

In late September 1984, I was 11, and one of the greatest cartoons I had ever seen had just aired. Giant robots that could change into cars, planes, guns and a few other things flashed in front of my young eyes and I was hooked. I mean what kid wouldn't be. If you add the ability to buy the toys and play with these amazing things it made the experience even better. So you could imagine how stoked I was to hear that there was going to be a live action movie made. Yes at the time I was 37 years old but at heart I am at times still that 11 year old boy. A boy who's memories were somewhat shattered as Micheal Bay's first film, while not being completely horrible, was NOTHING like I had imagined.

Bay's first film was too busy, hard to follow and the Transformers themselves were visually difficult to differentiate from each other. But it was entertaining just not great. Then came Revenge of the Fallen. Which to put it mildly, sucked. It was so bad the director himself apologized for it. The third film was a bit better than the second but it still was sub par.

 One of the damning elements of all three films, in my opinion, was the casting of Shia LeBeouf as Sam Witwicky, followed closely by, and in some people's eyes surpassing it in horribleness, is the addition of his parents and the ridiculous attempts at humor by the writers (Bob Orci is one of them) using these characters. Which brings me to this statement, Good Riddance Shia! Not having the inane stuttering and fumbling Sam in the latest installment in the "Bay"formers films is a HUGE plus in my eyes.

I will say I was surprised upon the closing credits that, while it has it faults, this film entertained me. I would like to say I was blown away but I can't. The biggest flaw that I found was how long this film is. 2 hours and 45 minutes. You could remove almost an hour of the film and it would have been much better. For some reason Bay must think that his audience needs to see 20 minutes of cars driving every once and awhile to get the point across that, you know, these guys are...um...driving somewhere. The second flaw that stands out is we are introduced to a whole new group of Autobots, none of whom is given any amount of development. Two of them aren't even called by name. If you were to ask me to point out Cross Hairs or Drift, I wouldn't know where to point. Don't get me started on the confusing aspect of exactly who is the main bad guy of the film as there are multiples, none of which save one are truly fleshed out enough to even care about.

The story by Ehren Kruger is darker and a bit more "grown up" (if that's possible with a film about robots who change into cars) than the first three films in that humans are now the one of the enemies and are in league with a new alien force. This plot line is one that in the third act causes a character, to commit an act that is very out of step with everything we know about him, which left me feeling sad in the fact that it is carried out very matter-of-factly. There is a lot of evil corporation/money hungry moustace twirling thrown in for good measure so all of the cliché, bad guy human stuff is there. It is at times a bit gruesome in its portrayal of the human capacity for evil but also a bit silly and here and there bordering on ridiculous (why is it the bad robots all feel the need to announce themselves when they first appear), but it is a Transformers movie, not Shakespeare so what more do you expect. I think another thing that really bothers me is that, even with it bloated running time, this film is so obviously a set up for a sequel, it doesn't even try to hide it.

 Now I ask you what would a Michael Bay Transformers film be without some young, scantily clad girl being ogled by the camera every now and then? Nothing I guess and filling those Daisy Dukes this go around is Nicola Peltz, who plays Mark Wahlbergs 17 year old daughter who, along with Wahlberg and her boyfriend, played adequately by Jack Reynor, gets swept up into the Autobot struggle. The creepy thing about it now that I think about it, save for Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in Dark of the Moon, these characters are all supposed to be minors, sheesh Micheal, perv much?

 A nice addition to the cast is Stanley Tucci who does a good job as the head of a Tech firm who just so happens to be...nah to much of a spoiler, lets just say it's pretty dastardly and underhanded. Another interesting casting is that of Kelsey Grammer as yet another shady human who along with Titus Welliver do a pretty good job of being guys you aren't supposed to like. The voice acting is well cast with the addition of John Goodman, John DiMaggio, Ken Watanabe, Mark Ryan and the always awesome Frank Welker. Sadly Welker is far too under used in my opinion.  There are a few characters who are just there, and don't really add or take away from the film in my eyes, and I am not even going to waste any more time naming them as it would be superfluous.

Adding to the more "grown up" elements of this film is the inclusion of much more action movie language than the last 3 films. I understand in writing an action film the use of colorful language is a standard, but when your target audience are kids ranging from 7-13 whose parents are the ones you want to buy the action figures, it felt out of place in this film. Anyone remember the backlash that happened from the inclusion of the now infamous "Aww shit, what are we gonna do now" line from the 1986 Transformers the Movie? It was so bad that in the original VHS release of the film it was edited out because of the parental outcry.  Now take that and multiply it by 20-40 and add a few other choice words in there and you get my point. I understand the film is PG-13 but it is still a movie being marketed to children so why all the potty mouths? 

 I realize that I seem to be bashing the film more than praising it, and I am, only because I am a Transformers fan from way back. But don't get me wrong, I liked this film much better than the last two sequels and would watch it more than once if and when I end up owning it on Bluray. There are obviously elements of the film I wasn't too happy with but as an adult fan of the Robots in Disguise, I was entertained enough to say go ahead and see it, just use discretion when deciding to take the little ones.  

My Thoughts on X-Men: Days Of Future Past

There have been seven X-Men films, some have been great (X2) and some have been awful. (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), thankfully this film has earned a place on the top of the list. I was going to write a wordy review but it would be pointless as there are plenty of other reviews that have said exactly what I would have so I will just say go see this movie.

Bryan Singer has in one fell swoop corrected most of the mistakes and miss steps that have hampered the X-Men franchise and those that were not fixed were not brought up so we can, as viewers, assume due to the films time travel elements have been wiped clean as well.

Is it a perfect movie? No but it is a good one. It holds your attention and delivers the goods from the opening scene to the final frame. My only warning would be to those who would want to bring the younger fans, this is not the Avengers. The violence and language in this film push the PG-13 rating to the limit and younger viewers might be frightened or disturbed by some of the visuals. While some hard core fans might be perturbed by the film straying from classic comic storyline by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, in my opinion, is stays true the the essence of what makes the X-Men work. My final word is that it is worth the ticket price and a great popcorn chomping adventure.

My review of The Amazing Spiderman 2

This will be a short review. If you go and look at my review of the first Marc Webb/Andrew Garfield Spider-man film, you will see I truly dislike the movie. Now I went into the sequel not expecting a lot judging by it's predecessor as well as who had a hand in writing it(Bob Orci). This one is no where near as bad as the first film. Not that it is a great movie, just not as bad. What is bad is when this movie stumbles it stumbles hard. I will spoil it slightly by saying it actually has a scene that is basically copied from Joel Schumacher's first Batman film, Batman Forever, and that is never a good thing. The sad thing is this film looks great, and I mean really great. If the story wasn't as congested as it is, it would have been a nice redemption from the debacle that was the first film.

I cannot say I hated it per se, i guess it was just ok.

My review of Godzilla.

Godzilla, his name brings memories of campy movies with rubbery monsters smashing miniature sets, badly dubbed acting and loads of fun. His 60 year legacy has seen him grace the silver screen in 31 films including the often maligned 1998 Roland Emmerich directed,  Godzilla and the 2007 Japanese film, Always: Sunset on Third Street 2, where the big guy makes a quick cameo and marks the first time in Japanese movie history where the he was created solely using CGI.  These all lead up to the king of all kaiju's return in Gareth Edwards' much anticipated remake, aptly named Godzilla.

I will say I hold a special place for the big, green, nuclear fire breathing guy, and this film was high on my list of summer movies that I had to see. Which makes this review hard to write. Now mind you this is just my opinion of the film, and I am aware that according to Rotten Tomatoes I am in the minority when I say this is not the movie I was hoping for. That being said here we go. (I am going to try and keep this spoiler free, it will be hard but I will try.)

If I had to use one word to describe Godzilla, the word would be,"boring". I wish it wasn't but unfortunately in my opinion it is. I have read some of the glowing reviews and wonder if I was watching the same movie as those reviewers as there were many times I caught myself zoning out because there was literally nothing happening on screen. Now the same can be said about the original 1954 Toho classic, Gojira and it's Americanized version Godzilla, King of the Monsters as in all reality the title character only shows up for a short amount of screen time, but there is a difference. The original, even with all it's flaws, has a pacing and poignant story that when he does appear it feels menacing and helps move the story. The same cannot be said about Mr. Edwards take on the monster. It seems as if in trying to remain faithful to the original, the director lost all of the heart that made Godzilla what he was.

The first act starts out fairly decently, introducing us to the characters played by Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, Bryan Cranston, and Juliette Binoche along with their son, who would be played later in the film by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and we get a bit of back story on key elements of things to come, but things start to slow down and by the beginning of the second act it plods along so horrifically that even a scene where we are introduced to the main monster antagonist, or MUTO, that should in all intents and purposes get the blood flowing again, ends so anti-climatically that it drags the pacing down even further. One of the biggest complaints I have is no one character, not a single one, is fleshed out enough to make you care about them. Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins have so little to do besides just standing around staring at maps, screens and other inanimate objects they seem just as bored as those of us who were watching it. Bryan Cranston,(who is deceivingly advertised as the lead in this film by the way) while giving probably the best performance in the movie, is severely under-utilized, no, wasted is a better word, that he could have been replaced by a zip drive disk and dot matrix computer printout and the story would have lost nothing save for about 15 or so minutes of drama that by the end of the film seems completely unnecessary anyway.

One of my hopes for this movie was that it would focus on Godzilla, you know the gigantic monster in the title and leave the human drama to a minimum, save for people trying to get out his way. Sadly that is not the case, as the movie trudges along we are subjected to watching Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Navy Ordinance Officer, struggle to get back to his wife, portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen and son, played by Carson Bolde all while some monsters do something, somewhere else in their march to the exact city our "hero's" family lives. I would be remiss if I did not point out that Carson Bolde's acting or lack there of made me actually hope he got eaten. This struggle is more or less happenstances in where our lead luckily finds himself in the exact spot with the exact skills the he needs or not to keep the half hearted script moving along.  Again this character like the rest (including the title character mind you) is so under developed and at times annoyingly so, that you could care less if he lives or dies.Yet we are forced to watch and wait patiently for what we hope will be the big pay off in the third act.

Wrong! How is it possible that Godzilla is a background character in his own movie? There is no big payoff, all the big monster action is either half hidden by smoke, darkness or bulidings, that the 4-5 minutes of actual screen time devoted to showcasing the big G comes too little too late.  The focus unapologetically remains on the ridiculously dragged out scenes of the military's attempts to avert a disaster of their own doing as Godzilla and the MUTO battle in the background.

Visually Godzilla looks incredible, sort of. The actual CG model is great but he has no gravity, no weight, he is just there. Movies like Jurassic Park and even the 1998 Godzilla, have a sense of realism because the characters moved and interacted with the world around them in a sense that you could feel the footfalls of this giant creatures as they walked, they seemed like they were really there. It is this problem that leads to another issue with the film. The lack of any sense of real danger. No one ever seems in peril since the actors and the creatures don't appear to occupy the same space. The sound mixing has a part in this as well, there is very little realistic noise when any monster action is taking place, its as if you had your fingers in your ears when there should be deafening rumbles or crashes. Sadly even Godzilla's iconic roar is only used sparsely here and there. You add this to the little and I mean little development or explanation of why Godzilla is even in this movie, aside from "let them fight" reason, and lack of screen time and you are left wanting more, a lot more.

A great way to judge a film is the reaction of the audience around you. In the showing I attended there was little to no reaction save for the few murmured comments around me of "that's it?", "it needed more Godzilla." and the like. No one said a word actually through out the entire film, which in an action film, is a rarity in my experience. No cheering, no whooping, nada, zip, zilch. We all just got up an left, no one saying how cool a certain scene was, or complimenting anything about the movie. No one said anything. I find this odd since in 1998 leaving the theater after seeing the Emmerich film, the entire audience was whooping it up, sure the movie was at times completely ludicrous, but it had two things this film is sorely lacking, it didn't take itself to seriously and it was fun.

Marvel's Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Wow, is this getting better! If you wrote this show off I would say give it another shot. It took a few episodes to get its traction, but it is full bore Marvel now. So much comic book/geek stuff going on. Extremis, AIM, Asgardians, Kree...that last one was a spoiler....sort of. Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson has had a lot of character altering situations as of late. He is still the Captain of the team, but I Marvel at the amount of crap he has had to go through and the amount still left to sift through.  It's almost Inhuman. Any of these rumor innuendos working??

Not a review but thoughts on Star Trek and Into Darkness.

This was a post I meant to publish months ago after seeing the film for the first time. I have seen it a few since then, and my opinion is not as forgiving as I was back then. That said, here is my initial thoughts.


As I was sitting here staring at my computer screen, reading the various views on Star Trek Into Darkness, I began to ponder what Star Trek is, was and what it seems to mean to people.

I saw Into Darkness opening night/morning and I went in completely aware of every spoiler and was prepared to hate the film from frame one. Oddly that never happened. I caught myself watching with interest, laughing at the humor and was unexpectedly entertained. Entertained is the perfect word to describe how I felt. I wasn't blown away by any means, but neither was I screaming for my money back. That said, there are many things I find wrong with the story and film, but there are also so many things done right. I am not going to spoil anything for anyone, if you have seen a trailer or commercial what I will say from here on will be no surprise.

To bring this back to the reason I am not reviewing the film but commenting what Star Trek is, I think back to watching so much raging that enveloped my twitter feed. Anger, hatred, malice and the oh so clichéd "raping of memories or childhood,etc." speeches where rampant.  Now mixed in to all of the negativity were comments of approval, some even praising the film. How could this be. How could people who all claim to be Star Trek fans have such different opinions? How could I claim to be a Star Trek fan and dare to be entertained by what has been called by many as "Not My Star Trek".Sadly I don't have an answer. I just don't know.

"Not My Star Trek". I looked at this statement and wondered. My Star Trek. Now for me, my Star Trek was fun, it had humor, action, emotion, and drama. It came in many forms, TV, movies, books, games, toys, even cartoons and fan films. All of which were very different but still Star Trek. Some of it was good, some was really bad. (To this day the words Pagh Wraiths and Kost Amogen make my ears bleed, and I am sorry but Seven of Nine was WAY over used.) But still it was Star Trek. Some of it contridicted itself, some of it stretched the limits of suspension of disbelief, but it was still Star Trek. So why does this new version bother so many? 

OK, I know JJ Abrams has said he wasn't a fan of Star Trek, and new reports show him to be an ego maniac, who wanted to make it his own vision and left when he didn't get his way. SO I say see ya, don't let the turbolift doors hit you on the way out. (And if you screw up Star Wars so help me...) That said, his two films are Star Trek, just not the one we are used to. Some of it bad but some of it is good. 

Take James Kirk, Iconic, Heroic, So...very...wooden. A joke, I kid, Kirk was the captain everyone loved. He had it all, the ship, the women, he was cocksure and determined. He was the product of his upbringing. His Father was the reason he joined Starfleet, he was a bookworm, a stack of book with legs. He was strong willed, and bent the rules when necessary. Why would anyone want to mess with such an icon.  Someone had the courage to ask what if you took that all away. What if James Kirks past was one of turmoil and loss. What if he never knew his father. What if he was raised by his far from understanding uncle. How would he turn out, knowing that his core personality, his intellect were the same just shaped by a different set of circumstances. You would have the reboot version of Kirk, a brilliant but flawed young man, who needed a push now and then, who's self assuredness would grow to arrogance with out guidance. A Kirk who was dare I say it, a bit more human.  Is he "Your James Kirk" no but he is still James Kirk. I like the new Kirk, there are hints of greatness, they are just covered in a lot of other less admirable qualities.

A few one sentence movie reviews.

RoboCop (2014)
A truly uninspired, lackluster attempt to recreate a film that didn't need to be recreated.



















The Lego Movie (2014)

Everything is Awesome, not just a song in the film, but a good review of it as well.