Transformers: Revenge of the Nerds

In the recent Michael Bay explosion, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, the boundaries of moving picture entertainment (and boredom) are pushed yet again.

The basic plot of the movie is this: Megatron's mentor known as The Fallen (voice: Todd), is exacting his revenge on the six primes who thwarted his plan to destroy the sun and obtain a vast amount of energon. To do this, Megatron (voice: Weaving) is brought back to life with a remaining piece of the Cube shard, and is in search of the machine and 'key' to harvest the energon. Meanwhile Sam (LaBeouf) is having psychotic breaks after coming into contact with another shard of the cube, and Mikaela (Fox) is pestering Sam to say the three words no guy ever wants to say.

The movie operates under the premise that two years after the events of the original movie, the audience would still want to follow Shia Labeouf. In actuality many went to catch more of the tatted canvas known as Megan Fox. To our satisfaction, and later dissatisfaction, there is more of her in the film.

Her first appearance is that of the trailer, sitting on a bike with a bit of side ass flesh through jean shorts. That's all well and fine, only it's spliced in the middle of a dialog and seems almost completely random, as if by mistake. Next we see her changing, from a leather motorcycle outfit into a short white dress in the middle of yet another conversation. As fan service, the audience gets a 0.3 second or so blast of camel toe through some white undergarments. Also, later in the film there is a David Hasselhoffian slow motion Baywatch boob bounce run scene. Many of her scenes are out of place and appear to be extra footage that was shot and had no place in the film, or were not needed. Most scenes came off as tasteless, and were only trumped by her increase in poorly executed lines. As my grandfather would say, "she's not fit for talkies."

I talked with a couple hard-core Transformers fans (and perpetually single guys) about what they thought of the film. "I can't believe what they did to Jetfire," one says in exclamation! One of the most loved characters from the series is now a SR-71 Blackbird and portrayed as an absent-minded old man upon being revived by a shard. He tells Sam and crew of the energon harvester and states that it's somewhere in the Middle East. Then, almost randomly, he teleports them all to Egypt. "Did they even explain the Space Bridge teleport?" says another Transfan. The movie in fact didn't, and the scenes are poorly meshed together.
The general consensus I gathered from the Transfans was that the movie was worth the watch, even on opening day at 1:30am (getting out around 4:00am), but was not much more than a revamped Transformers 1. A constant complaint was that the battles were often too short, but that the forest battle was the best, a scene that gave homage to the final battle in T1. My only gripe on the battles was that the movie should have shown the 'bots a little more prior to the fight scenes because the battles were gaggles of detail that I had nothing to 'lock on' to when they fought. Both bots, for me, meshed together and I couldn't follow it like I could with a martial arts/action film. That has to be the only drawback to CGI with extraordinary detail in HD.

The movie incorporated many sad attempts to diversify the franchise's fan base. Several setbacks ended up ruining whole scenes of the movie. One such inclusion was the pair of autobots where one was obviously ghetto black, and another street latino. The caricature was intended to bring humor but turned out to be offensive. One African American male I talked to referred to them as just plain "stupid." Another setback was the inclusion of Sam's paranoid conspiracy theorist college roommate, Leo Spitz (Rodriguez). The character was perhaps a replacement for Turturro's character, Agent Simmons, in the first film (who ends up appearing later anyways). Leo is an abomination to the film and appears as a sniveling spineless latino who annoys more than entertains. However none of that compares to Sam entering Robot Heaven and having a conversation with the dead primes...The large culmination of negatives is slightly overshadowed by moments of pure awesomeness held up with fantastic explosions, excellent CGI, bot on bot action, and stunning locations. Overall, my rating comes as a 7/10 and I would say this: Think of T:ROTF as Transformers 1 revisited, with bigger explosions, more fights, and worse acting.

Terminate Marketing

I just got back from the 12:01am showing of the new movie Terminator Salvation, and I have to say the movie was well done... That is not to say that there weren't moments of utter ridiculousness, which usually caught crowd laughter.

I won't full on review the movie since most of you haven't seen it, but I'll give some pointers on how not to be spoiled.

First off, let me say this. Do not see the trailers. None of them. They give away almost every good part of the movie, and watching it after a trailer is like seeing what you already have seen, but with the filler that connects the action.

Second, don't look any female character in the face. Sure, it's 2018, the machines own the planet and the surviving humans are left struggling for survival, but there's still somehow a surplus of bad make-up to go around.

Batman. Yes, there are ample Christian Bale "Batman" moments. Laugh about it and then move on.

Love interests. What would a Terminator movie be without it? "The Terminator" had John's friend coming back in time to pork Mom Conner. T2 had the love of a mother and child, and the black guy's family. Rise of the Machines had Junkie Conner and the young Kate finally hooking up in an underground bunker. T4 is no exception, and if anything it's more out of place. Deal with it.

Cheesy lines. Although there is no Schwarzenegger in the credits, there are a few cheesy lines. They're fan service, but somehow out of place. To this author's dismay, there was no yelling of "Get to the chopper," even though they had more than enough opportunities.

If I have one last thing to say about this movie, it won't be about the movie. It's about the marketing department. T4 should have been run something like this:

Machines firing weapons, human skulls getting crushed in tread, humans fleeing, T-600 exoskeleton standing on a hill. Zoom to the robotic skull, fade to black, run title, run "Christian Bale" name. That's it! Tease the crap out of the movie and build up the hype. The current trailers and exposure ended up ruining a lot of the movie for my friends and me as we knew how almost every action scene was going to turn out, save the last one.

I've got a message to the creators, "fire marketing"

Overall I'd say 7.8/10, solid C+ in my book, and worth seeing, just skip the trailers and you'll be set.

Super Woes

It's no secret that I have been watching a lot of Superman related media the past month or so. A friend of mine turned me on to Smallville and out of curiosity I branched out to practically all other Superman related paraphernalia including comic books, graphic novels, TV shows, movies, and shorts.

This brought me to writing this blog and what will be known as my first of many "Worst Lists."

Here are the runner ups:

Smallville

Some would argue that the show is one of the best delineations of the comic than any other moving picture representation. I would disagree. What's different in this rendition of the classic superhero? Well for starters, Smallville is now in its eighth season and still no super suit. Now, I don't really want to see a grown man in tights and a cape, but there has to be something better than putting Tom Welling in a blue shirt that is two sizes too small and an off-hue red jean jacket. Sometimes, they even mix it up and throw on a blue jean jacket instead! Horrible. What else is different?

• Lois Lane is now played by a flabby stripper who makes it her business to date virtually every other male character (save Lex) and single handedly force me to spam the mute button.
• Lana Lang in the comic book is Superman's high school sweetheart and in the movie Superman 3 she is superman's girlfriend. In Smallville, however, Ms. Lang (played by Kristin Kreuk) is actually Clark's bleeding vagina, and is the cause of much discontent. She also steals much of the show's airtime in the first 7 seasons, drawing the viewer into useless subplots that are nothing more than a ploy to engage the young female viewers. Don't even get me started on the 'She's a witch' plotline.
• Chloe Sullivan is a new character to the franchise and created solely for Smallville. The character is more of a Lois Lane then the actual show's Lois Lane and in the first 6 seasons remains a constant reminder of why some of us don't keep in touch with our high school 'friends.' In Season 7 and 8 however, she becomes a love interest for a young Jimmy Olsen.
• In the comic book Jimmy Olsen is a young photographer that teams up with Lois to get the latest scoops. In Smallville he is now played by what appears to be a middle schooler, but somehow remains to be one of the most realistic and authentic characters.
• Oliver Queen/Green Arrow is not a mainstay in the Superman series, but many will notice his credits on the JLA comic franchise. Smallville highlights a unique character that although screams homosexuality, seems to constantly fall in and out of love with the ever single/slutty Lois Lane.

The show is built on a foundation of 1/4 trendy bullshit and 3/4 teenage angst, even though the characters supposedly left high school 4 seasons (years) ago.

Superman and the Mole Men

Circa 1951, and in Black and White, Superman is transferred to the silver screen for one of the first times. The plot consists of Clark and Lois traveling to a small town (name unimportant) to write a story on the world's deepest oil well (plot unimportant). Peril hits the town (and story) as the drilling strikes a secret cavern where the Mole Men live. After many an angry town mob sequences and ugly monster rebellions ensue, Superman is forced to play monkey in the middle and saves a Mole Man before taking the brunt of a ray gun and punching out a townsman stating "it's better than you deserve."

Unlike any of its predecessors and successors, there is no comedic flair to the movie and it is acted with an almost laughable seriousness. The Mole Men, the source of much paranoia for the movie, are seen as furry monsters with bald heads and posses the ability to touch something and make it luminescent at night. OoOoOoooo.... Scary... This of course sends the town into sheer peril and sparks a riot. Classic SciFi response, right?

It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman
A short-lived Broadway musical and later straight-to-TV movie, the musical follows Max Menkin... Wait, what? Who? The character doesn't exist in the comic and oddly enough is the main character to this travesty. Max is an egotistical Daily Planet reporter who's envy of Superman manifests into hatred.

The main villain of the musical is Dr. Abner Sedgwick, a nothing new/interesting character that takes the place of the Lex Luther persona... Rumors are that the creators of the musical didn't want to pay DC for the rights to use the Lex Luther character... and rightly so, on Broadway, the musical was a complete bust.

In what is supposed to be a comedic approach to the role of Superman, it is hardly about Superman at all. The only comedic responses derived from this are how bad the music, script, and acting are.

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
What do you get when combine bad writing with bad acting? This show.

Dean Cain's "Slater" (see Saved by the Bell) version of Superman includes all the pitfalls and woes of the Superman Franchise: A gay man in pastels. From his high pitched voice to his awkward cod piece, Cain creates a unique rendition that is better watched with eyes and ears covered.

Lex Luther is no longer bald, instead supporting an ugly shock of dirty brown/red hair. His almost lewd fixation with Alexander the Great is still in full swing and as a bonus he gets a trained falcon sidekick that kills pigeons.

Teri Hatcher, as Lois Lane, reminds me more of a cousin then a love interest for Clark Kent, which doesn't hinder their marriage plans... Her physical "hotness," however, is the only redeeming side of the show, and is in fact the only positive trait that comes to mind.

That being said...

There are so many choices, but like the hit movie Highlander, there can be only one.

And the Winner (loser) is....

It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman

Who doesn't want to see Superman sing while battling generic Chinese acrobats (played by Caucasians) and lying on the couch for a psychiatry session? At least the others were mildly entertaining.

Two words: Epic Failure.