RJCwoo Reviews: 2009

So the year is over, a new decade begins. So let’s get over that and look back at a year in film.

The year kicked off with a slew of shitty horrors like  The Unborn (which had the hilarious tagline ‘They’re just waiting to be born’), My Bloody Valentine 3D and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. The year seemed doomed to waste advancing technology in the cinematic experience for cheap thrills (with 3D also used for the shockingly bad final destination released later in the year). Underworld was a particular dissapointment, as I genuinly enjoyed the first two films (of course the pattern of most movies is the 2nd sequel is shit), It had far more potential to expand on the world of kate beckingsale in tight clothing (though of course beckingsale was absent, this being a prequel), but the chance to flesh out history of the movieworld was lost.

The year picked up with Taken and Coraline. An action thriller that did exactly that and a quirky ‘family film’ with much darker undertones. Unfortunately this rise in quality was quickly eclipsed by a descent into possibly the darkest month of releases in the year; *voice of doom* FEBRUARY!!!! Just remember that they released a remake of Friday the 13th (in a cynical attempt to wipe all the beautiful nostalgia I have for the series, I believe) and a Jonas Brothers movie (in 3D!!!! FFS). Disney made alot of money from its Satan-spawn factory-grown starlets this year, with Hannah Montanna: The Movie being the high point of parent suicide within the cinema (or so I choose to think). With Dispix now the forefront of genuine quality family entertainment, I will be hoping that Disney might turn back to its roots and do what it was good at instead of whoring out Miley Cyrus et al, the upcoming Princess and the Frog (feb) gives hope. But then this is Disney, a massive sell-out company rivalled by non for their tight-fisted tactics, incidentally Snow White got a DVD re-release this year (the last time was 2001) so that people once again must pay full price for it…

March brought one of my favourite movies to the table with the release of epic Alan Moore adaption Watchmen, which right up until last week was the run away leader for my best film of 2009. Previously adapted from Alan Moore’s work was V for Vendetta a shockingly good action with a message, while director Zack Snyder was last seen brutalising persians in comic adaption 300. The combination of talents worked like a magic orgasmatron, the resulting film being a potent combination of gritty, gripping and highly entertaining. After this impossibly high standard was set, other movies didn’t even try for the next 2 months. All were either mediocre (Sunshine Cleaning, Crank:High Voltage) or plain shite (Knowing, Dragonball Evolution). Though these were simply precursers for the summer of epic action we had been promised.

The trailers promised us a Summer of high quality blockbusters, what we got was was a distinctly more tepid affair. There were a few exceptions:

• Star Trek ended up being an enjoyable romp with amazing visuals, it rebooted the failing franchises failing movie returns as well as introducing the classic characters and premise to a new generation.
• Drag Me to Hell was Sam Raimi’s glorious return to horror, using more atmosphere to increase jump levels, instead of todays cinemas full of gorno. This infused with the film not taking itself entirely seriously produced a thoroughly enjoyable cinema outing.
• Distict 9,  the quirky alien action drama. Unlike any other film this year, an entertaining, original premise. Occasionally marred by an annoying main character, but ultimately totally absorbing.
• Inglorius Bastards from the mind of Tarentino, as always a beautiful combo of cinema nerdism, hiarious moments and tense drama. Anyone who doesn’t enjoy seeing Hitler being shot in the face is dead iside.

Outside these 4 films it was probably best to turn away from the other blockbusters. Wolverine, a film with huge scope and potential, previous x-men films being some of my favourite movies ever (okay, not so much Last Stand, but shhh). Not a single part of the film was properly entertaining, with beloved characters from the comic book canon reduced to filler roles. I was really hoping they’d scrap the whole thing as part of the universes continuity, but apparently a sequel is in the works . This summer was one where I realised explosions do not, a good film make. All the attempts blockbusters, ended up being bland and samey, studio executives throwing money into showy effects that only serve to detatch the audience from the experience, defeating the purpose of cinema acting as the forefrunt of immersive story telling, leaving us with 2 and a half wasted hours. Such other offenders include; Terminator: Salvation (this series needs ending now, please), Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen (my first review), Angels and Demons (who watched Da Vinci Code and thought, omg we need to do another one of these!!?), Land of the Lost (I’m biased because I hate Will Ferrel but it was still crap), The Taking of Pelham 123 (seen it all before), Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (all the charm of the first two clinically removed), Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (my 2nd review), GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra (Do movies of toys ever become quality cinema?).

Many good films did arise from a slightly lower budget selection, gems such as Moon are a rare occurance of exceptional quality, brilliant acting and superb direction, (500) Days of Summer also falls into this catagory. The height of low-budget high-quality came, however, with the arrival of the phenominal Swedish vampire flick Let the Right One In, with creepiness levels far and above any other film released in the last decade, child actors that actually rival the best of their contempory adults and a story that was diturbed but emotional. It was a film I couldn’t help but love. Then for those horror fans sick of vapid gore fests like Final destination (in 3D no less), Halloween 2 and the remake of Last house on the left there was straight to DVD nazi zombie-fest Dead Snow a surprisingly great horror.

The Autumn brought with it a return to uni, so the end of regular cinema going, though through a variety of methods I have managed to see most of the important films released in this period *shifty eyes*. XD

The end of the year was a time for kids, the highlights being the release of Up! from dispix at about the same time they rereleased Toy Story (sigh, I guess 3D is valid here :/) the latter being a masterpiece from my childhood, so new generation of parents get to pay to see it with their kids *rips the ears off mickey mouse*… sorry got carried away… Anyway, Up! was another masterstroke from Dispix, possibly the most consistantly great studio in all of cinema history, by being one of the few actual family films anyone can enjoy (provided heart and sense of humour are still intact). This was followed by Where the Wild Things are and Fantastic Mr. Fox, unfortunately I was unable to watch WWTA, mainly because those things are fucking creepy, but it go some excellent reviews, so I thought it deserved a mention. FMF, was entertaining, but I felt it would have had more charm in a more traditional animation style ala my favourite Roahl Dahl film The BFG.

The run up to christmas was spiced with some interesting films. 2012, the spiritual successor to The Day After Tomorrow saw Roland Emmerich return to form as he blew the world up, again. The film suffered minimally from a lack of story asthe intent was clearly the spectacle, which was impossibly to not find epic in proportion. The Men Who Stare at Goats was also… um… interesting, a story to watch to the end, and definately worth seeing once, but this is a film where I had no desire for repeat viewings. Of course there was also the continuation of the SMeyer’s vampire saga with the release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, The fact this series has the audacity to call itself a saga is laughable, not a single element of this film was watchable. The effects were bad, the story was worse, but all this was eclipsed by the acting, now we know that at least Kristen Stewart is capable of emoting in good films, so I’m gonna say even the cast know these films are shockingly bad and only turn up for their pay cheque.

Of course the most important film of the year Avatar has its own review (see below) but the gist is… WOW!! A film I happily paid to see twice. Runaway winner for my film of the year.

And that’s 2009, some true high points of quality, in fact, some of the best films of the decade. If only we could forget how full of dross the summer was… I give this year 7/10.

Now to look to the future… 2010 promises:

• Nowhere Boy
• Nine
• Alice in Wonderand
• The Princess an the Frog
• The Lovely Bones
• The Clash of the Titans (remake)
• Iron Man 2
• Prince of Persia
• Toy Story 3
• Harry Potter 7: Part 1
• and many more…

and at least one of them has to be good… right? :/

HAPPY NEW YEAR BITCHES

xxx

Changes

I never really liked regular blogging, something about writing my feelings down on a computer is somewhat… mlah. I’d rather tell people stuff, face-to-face. I do really enjoy reviewing though and; seen as I’m not so terrible at it that I’ve been banned from the internet for poor quality, this blog will now be solely dedicated to that… Hope you keep reading =D

TTYL Bitches

xxx

RJCwoo Reviews: Avatar

James Cameron is one of my favourite directors in the business. His roster may be short (only about 10 films to his name in a career of over 30 years) , but T2 and aliens stand as pretty much the best sequels of all time (both bettering their predecessor by a very long way), and are my personal benchmarks for progress within the movie industry. While Titanic stands on a plinthe as arguably the best movie I have ever seen (I know very few people will respect me after that statement, but who cares, it was a fricking amazing film), being the single film I’ve watched the most. Therefore after a 12 year hiatus, I – among many others -  was waiting for his latest magnum opus to rock the movie world as significantly as his last. So… will Avatar – the film that has been buzzed about, hyped, overdone, criticised, slated, slandered and then hyped again - be arguably the most financially successful film of all time? Will it rock the oscars with 14 noms, 11 wins?

On both counts I very much doubt it…. Sadly enough though, It deserves it.

 It’s no secret that the plot for avatar is pretty much a rip. Most people compare it to Dances With Wolves, a film critics rave about but is ultimately quite dull, and while the story may lift from there, it is by far no means the first film to do so. Nor does DWW have the patent on that story, in fact, the whole concept is repeated  throughout the industry more than friends on E4. With Avatar, however, the story is executed in te most compelling way yet. Despite the fact it was riddled with cliches, and had an overall story arc so unimaginative that I wouldn’t be surprised to see it written in hieroglyphics, the entire film had me absolutely gripped till the very end, this came from being very attached to the characters. Each actor seemed born to play their role (a subtley -I don’t think so- cast Sigourney Weaver as my personal favourite), and given the majority were fresh faces, there was probably an extensive casting process to get the amazing balance into the characters.

Of course great characters are simply a smaller part of the overall experience. Cameron has a tendancy to follow a strict pattern with his films; a slow start to introduce the characters, this followed epic action sequences to the end. The ultimate crux of a Cameron movie is that the emotive side of the film is never sacrificed for the spectacle, the characters are always as strong as they were at the beginning. The slow introduction, however, allows this strong connection with the audience to form. At points I genuinly wanted to shout out for the characters, a major credit to the films animation department as we’re meant to be on the side of the Na’vi, a bunch of computer generated aliens, while the Humans are the bad guys (if I’m spoiling the plot for you, then you shoulda gone to see it first XP). Of course the Na’vi look a bit like humans plus they love the environment so it’s easy to sympathise with them when the dickhead humans decide to blow some shit up to get a bit richer. The topical message of being at one with nature is somewhat hammy, it’s by no means a deal breaker, cliche has never stopped a movie being good as long the execution is compelling.

A major selling point of this movie is that it is supposed to represent the future of cinema. This statemnt is truly accurate in the sense of immersion you get from the world of avatar (obviously the story being a big old rip-off, it doesn’t refer to that). The big BIG budget of 230,000,000 has been lavishly spent rendering the most realistic and complete interpretation of an alternative world, despite the evolutionary unlikelyness of pretty much all the plants and animals it’s so detailed intricate and damn beautiful that noone but pedantic biologists with realism fetishes would actually care. The creatures all follow a basic pattern, as do the plants, suggesting a common ancestry, which I thought to be interesting and one of the finer attention-to-detail points that make the film shine. At times I actually expected David Attenborough’s voice to start telling me the natural history of this world, in fact I’d pay to see that show. Even when the characters start gabbing off about a vortex and why they make the mountains float, the need for reason behind why is lost in how visually transfixing it is, the mountains are part of that world, they don’t need reasoning, that’s how complete this vision is.

The immersion is completed further by the fact this world has a history, a civilisation, a language, a religion, a culture. Though very little detail is given about much of this there is a constant feeling of more. Like this film is but telling one small story of a rich tapestry woven throughout the world of Pandora. This is a film that could spawn many more ‘tales of pandora’ (in fact two sequels may be in the pipe if this one is financially successful). Cameron does have this knack with his films of creating a world around the story, but never has it been this whole.

Most importantly this is a film I want to see again, in fact it’s a film I wanted to see again as soon as I left the cinema, just to check it was as good as I thought it was. If there is only one film you get to see a year there is no contest.

Story – 9/10 – ok, so it wasn’t original, who cares? It was amazing, immersive and complete.

Characters – 9/10 – Well rounded and believable.

Action – 8/10 – At some points irrelevant to the story and the whole experience, but still easily topping sequences from the summer blockbuster action market.

Engagement - 10/10 – If I could give higher than a 10 I would, I’m hard pressed to think of films that Immerse the audience so richly and completely.

Visual beauty – 10/10 – the team responsable deserve some kind of super oscar or something

Overall – 10/10 – RJCwoo’s film of the year- just in time for a new year of cinema to begin

HOPE YOU ALL HAD A MERRY XMAS AND HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR

xxx

RJCwoo Reviews: Me and Orson Welles

Preconception is a weird thing. It can be totally pivotal to a movies box office success or failure, regardless of the actual quality of the movie. I Initially wanted to see Me and Orson Welles because it stars Zac ‘OMG he’s sooooo fricking hot, why hasn’t he met me and realised he’s my one true love yet?’ Efron. Where as Cath (who I went to see the movie with) was apprehensive at first because it stars Zac ‘OMG that annoying twat from High School Musical, why is he still making movies?’ Efron. Neither of these ways is the right approach to amkovie because it inevitably colours your opinion from the start, however it seems somehow inevitable and means a movie has to work harder to break preconceptions and come across as an interesting piece of artwork. It’s therefore a good thing that MAOW manages this breakout exceptionally and is truly a great film that showcases its talent’s ability to work outside their preconcieved boxes while never sacrificing the message and story that go with that. The messages are strong and the story engaging.

Zefron for once doesn’t play the perfect pretty boy adored by all (HSM, Hairspray) and instead aims his performance more understated. Playing the naive teenager, inexperienced with the world, who gets sucked into the strange world of Orson Welles, where the auteur director is king of his own little world. For the most part Zef gives an emotive, beliveable performance far exceeding most of the dross he’s been in before. Some of his earlier sceens his character doesn’t seem to mesh well with the rest of the cast, but very soon there is some realistic chemistry. At one point where he gets emotive about a girl he’s known for a week, it was geuinly touching and a poignant commentary on the insanity of first love during the teenage years. It signalled to me that it’s time Zef stopped relying on his looks and market appeal to the generation of HSM Disney fans (how long can he continue to be cast as a 17 year old when he’s 22?). Instead he can rely on his acting talent which is far greater than most will believe, he’ll never be an Ian Mckellen or Jack Nicholson, but he has it in his capacity to be a Leo DiCaprio or  Brad Pitt, all he needs is a chance to have his Blood Diamond or Fight Club. MAOW remains a solid addition to his roster that could certainly be a precurser to some modern classic.

Having someone as normal as Zef’s ‘Me’ play a main role is intriguing as it serves to exagerate the performance of Welles (played wonderfully by Christian Mckay), a figure who left behind a reputation of character and ego as infamous as his films. Mckay manages a believable but exagerated performance that captures the generally known Welles exceptionally. Simultaneously the scripting gives but a glimpse of the genious he had, however,  a glimpse is all the movie needs, as a homage to arguably the greatest director of all time (against Hitchcock it’s nigh on impossible to find a difinitive winner) it works without sacrificing good story or getting too technical, meaning the movie is far more accessable to people who arn’t movie nerds. As a character Welles was forever flawed and the movie brings that across giving him aspects that the movie gooer will both love and hate which is a novel concept for the central character of a movie.

The plot concerns Zef being cast a minor role in Welle’s make-or-break showing of Caeser, and shows him becoming attached to one of the women who also works with Welles (a marvelous Claire Danes demonstrating her ability to select spectacular but sparse roles for herself – if we ignore T3 of course-). Within a short time she has also caught Welle’s eye and Zef finds himself in a career vs romanticism scenario. Contrast to common movie plot, the girl chooses to bed the influencial director in an attempt to rise through the echelons of Hollywood. A stark commentary on the reality of the world we live in, which made this movie more refreshing than the majority of mainstream films. The whole plot concerns one week, and is well paced so as to keep the audience interested to the end, it shows how quick thngs change, and the impact very short lived events can have on life.

Ultimately the film becomes a tale about growing up and how the world is both a harsh an beautiful place, where sometimes to be successful you have to compromise  people and use others (something that Welles knew all too well). Despite his conflict with Welles causing him to lose his part in the play Zef’s character quickly moves on to find other opportunities, taking lessons from his experience. An important message that more often than not it’s the bad things that cause changes that define us. It appropriately homages a hollywood great and emerses us in his world. Sometimes I got the impressio the movie was so filled with messages that it overshadowed the story the man it was meant to be focussing on. Becoming more to do with the ’me’ than Orson. This could be countered by the theory that this might be necessary to appeal to a wider audience and never hinders the film so much as to become an obvious issue. While the ending is a little out of sync with the rest of the film it seemed like good closure to the story and the whole movie was uplifting with degree of charm I wasn’t expecting when I went in. Obviously to some people this simply won’t be the genre for you, but if you’ve ever stomached something other than an action film and could reasonably say you ‘enjoyed’ it, this is well worth a viewing.

Story 8/10- tight and to the point, occasionally hampered by inclusion of messages, but strong till the end.

Characters 9/10- A well selected cast all on their game across the board.

Engagement 9/10- I found myself intrigued to the end.

Charm 8/10- A sweet affecting tale, ultimatly highly enjoyable

Overall 8/10- Definately worth watching

Harry Potter and the Half Arsed Continuation of an Ailing Series

YAY!!! A review…

May contain spoilers for the 3 people who havnt read the book…. (YZ am looking at you!!!)

First the main point is… yes I have read the books and seen the other movies… thank god!! Or I wouldnt know WTF was going on with the plotline for this movie… unfortuantly no-one who made the film seemed to have a clue. It does make me wonder if the creative team for this movie bothered to read ahead to see if they were missing any crucial parts of the book (the horcrux’s identity) or accidentally including horrid and superfluous scenes (quidditch, which -after it’s exclusion from the last film- I thought the movie-makers had twigged we don’t care to see any actors sittng on boxes in front of blues screens looking like twats, for that I’ll watch superman).  Many people have said the movies suffer from an eratic tone… and -not to push that point to hard- they’re right. Many series have suffered from changes in direction or other major players in the process (x-men, alien, bond movies), but none quite so badly as the Potter series. The series is fnally settled on one director till the end now but the difference in tones brought by each director makes for bad continuity in a story where the earlier parts play roles in much later aspects of the story.

Aside from that the movies suffer immensly from the source material. The books are both terribly and well written. Badly because the characters are very shallow descriptives, the story is fairly predictable and most of the interest in what is happening comes from the fact that most of the world is in your imagination. That’s the well-written part, the books may have very little content (lot of words though) but the descriptions are light enough to allow the reader to flesh out the characters and surroundings to suit their own means. It means that everyone has a different idea of how they should look and act, what the scenery looks like, how the battles pan-out. It keeps people gripped because the characters are more a part of their mind than J.K. Rowlings or anyone elses. Unfortunatly this doesnt transfer well to screen. By using the books for inspiration as to their character’s personalities the film-makers have assembled a young cast with the emmoting abilities of a raddish, while the script calls for them to be bland, giving overall character depth of a teaspoon. But because on screen (unlike in the mind) it is virtually impossible for  the audience to project their versions of the characters onto the ‘blank canvas’ actors. It means that nobody really cares when anything happens to them, unless the film-makers version of dumbledore was like the one in your head then when he died, nobody cared (whereas when I read the book, it was a genuinly heartbreaking end to a character I loved). Even the reappearance of veteran actors (including personal fave of mine Alan Rickman) could not ——Goddammit!!! just got interupted by more fucking godbotherers… grrrrrr…. can’t they waste someone elses time!!!——– add any characters I wanted to care about, though the introduction of Jim Broadbent (who is another actor I highly admire) was the addition of a character that was at least likable, if not how I envisioned him (similar to the injection of Luna into the 5th film). The writers also managed to get sme of the more dubious lines from the book, especially concerning the character’s love lives. While this reads ok, when said out loud the lines are delivered in a cheesy manner with very little conviction, which makes the resulting pair ups a little jarring to watch because the chemistry is so ludicrous (when have Harry and Ginny ever spent enough time together to have developed any sort of intense liking of each other, that and Ginny is plainer than ryvita).

Once again this film has tried to go darker than the previous ones, which leads me believe the last film will be voiced-over black screen if they continue on the current trend, although the effects (asside from afor mentioned broom riding) are good and the ‘magic’ is believable…. wait… I forgot about the inferi, where cartoon zombiesattack Harry and get beaten back by underwater fire, by taking a leaf out of george a romereo’s book and painting some extras blue the whole scene would have been alot more convincing…

HBP does suffer from having no pivotal plot points or antagonists…  charismatic main villain voldemort being absent throughout for only the second time in the series and the whole show suffers from it. He’s meant to be a silent enemy who uses his puppets to do his bidding and his absence should portray that. However his minions are somewhat not scary and seem to be acting on the orders of an idiot (enter school, kill dumbledore, leave…. take no opportunity to wreak havok on the unsusspecting student populace despite them being very vulnerable…).  Malfoy (tom felton, whose hair is wafer thin) steps up (after basically being eliminated from any the last few movies, often playing only a bit role) as a pivotal main bad guy, but he just isnt threatening enough and we’re supposed to believe his character is tortured and has depth, when in reality we just don’t care. He was a dick in the 1st few movies and then failed to really appear in any of the others. Hopefully the final films will have plenty of mr fiennes’ snake-nosed bad guy creeping about the screen giving us someone vaguely threatening for us to want them to win ( I wish bad guys won more often).

No matter what, pretty much everyone is going to see this movie and perhaps it will collide with a few peoples visions so they just might like it… however the whole film seems to serve to whet our appetites for the last shout (in two parts of course, why not make twice as much money while you’re at it warner bros, you grasping bastards) but fails spectacularly as a film in it’s own right…

Summary

Story: 6/10 -followed the book, but dropped some important point and failed to intrigue (who cared who was the HBP by the reveal anyway).

Characters: 2/10 – failed imagining of the core content with actors stiffer than harry’s wand *raised eyebows*.

Action: 3/10 – big gap filler to the climax coming soon, some superfluous over hyped scenes put in to make the trailer look cool (millenium bridge/ weasley house destruction).

Engagment: 4/10 -Unbelievable love trinangles abound and an unemotional loss of a series beloved character, poor execution.

Teenage angst: 6/10 – toned down from the last film, thank god

Overall: 5/10 -go see it if it’s your thing, if not, who cares?

Transformers: Revenge of the Boredom

*may contain nuts spoilers*

 

Soooo yeah I went to see Transformers 2 last night and cos I’m bored  thought I would review it for my 1 occasional reader who also went to see it with me… :S

Let me start by saying that I liked the first film quite alot but not enough for me to go into this with massive expectations that could never possibly be met (see any Disney sequel and the star wars prequel trilogy).

The one thing I did have any set standards for were the cgi and the soundtrack. The cgi because the first film did set a good standard for a film where 70% of the cast and 100% of the reason the film is being watched were rendered in by a computer ( I assume that’s what happens please don’t correct me Lewis or I shall kill you in your sleep), I have to say that the new film kept the standard high, though at point the computer’s work was somewhat obvious and at times seemed completely unnecessary. Sometimes models and robots are just a more realistic alternative (as seen in the Jurassic park films) and the physical contact with the actors makes the whole scenario more believable and immersive to the audience… The soundtrack of course was a Micheal Bay soundtrack… full of overly dramatic tones and rock while loud explosions go on in the background, at times I did find it cheesy to the point of beng cringe-worthy, but not a killer to a film, I mean you can fill a soundtrack with celine dion and make one of the greatest movies of all time (do I need to specify that one)…

So over the expectations lets get onto the main points of the film.

lol… there was a story? Harsh I know, but I do often wonder who the hell comes up with all of this shit tht convolutes nerly every major hollywood movie into a major dissapointment. The story basically follows sam (shia lebouf from TF1) going to college and immediately leaving again to once again be caught up in the eternally confusing conflict between the autobots (good guys) and the deceptacons (bad guys). The deceptacons bring megatron (major baddie from film one) back to life who then goes and grovels to the titular fallen who is in space for some reason and can’t come to eart but then suddenly can a bit later. The fallen created a fuss a while ago by wanting to destoy the earth using a thing. These guys defeated him and -instead of finishing the job or moving to a different planet to protect the magic planet destoying widget- commit suicide to form an easily penetrable shell that is found by some people and some retard (slightly racist) robots after solving like one clue that is easily obtained by asking someone politely. 2 major characters die (but no one cares, and who expects cpr to work when you die by explosion?… I hate hollywood) and then don’t; and sam tells his vacuous girlfriend (megan fox) he loves her after several tedious and drawn out scenes that made me feel mildly uncomfortable. Needless to say the fallen is defeated, it all ends well and a cheesy speech by optimus (Peter Cullen) that is in no way as deep or profound as the first film woke me up. Along the way army guys kick lots of arse, a massive robot is made, gives the desert a blow-job then dies anti-climatically(no matter what anyon says devastator was SHIT; made of 7 robots with only one usable weapon-compared to all the other robots which have like 20-  and only able to partially detroy a pyramid) , and lots of childish humour is inserted to make me feel like I went to see a later installment of american pie (i.e a shit one).

Major problems with this being that the story is once again a Mcguffin driven excuse to string aload of action sequences together while failing to allow us to connect to a single character, be they human or shape shifting alien robot. The main problem is that no single character is given sufficient screen time to develop or become even remotely likable. The major screen timers are either dull (sam), pointless (his parents), annoying (the twin autobots), eyecandy and fuck all else (megan fox), or not really present (all the other transformers). While the first film suffered from having no truly likable characters they were at least trackable. Ironically this transformers film suffers from having too many soddin transformers in it, most serve to please fans by appearing (forcing the plot 3 inches forward) and then dieing or vanishing from the screen to have no conclusion by the end of the movie (anyone tell me what happened to wheelie??). This may seem like a stupid quibble as the transformers were the good bit about the first film, but in #1 they felt powerful, the deceptacons seemed like a more realistic threat that could only be overcome by the autobots (remember the opening army base scene), the technological advancement making the human army weak and needing help. In #2 the army are the only ones who seem to do anything (like one autobot was in the final fight against loads of deceptacons and I dont remeber his name or what -if anything- he did) and they take out swathes of robots without losing a single recognisable person from the ranks. Te only robots given any screen time were those twins, who seemed to have been placed in the start sequence as a joke, but then progressed to rub that same joke in our faces for the rest of the  movie while proving to be tooth-grindingly irritating, making me once again wish the fallen all the sucess at destroying the god forsaken world that allows them to exist.

All the plot crap could be forgiven, many action movies get by with a paper thin plot and some superb sequences (see ‘Mr nd Mrs Smith’ ‘X-men 3′ or ‘underworld’), but the action in this movie was poor given the brilliant effects, massive budget and beatiful locations. The film was clealy meant to have some spectacular set pieces, but unfortunately the director (an abysmal michael bay) seems to have not realised that he should have gone for spectacle and soem excellent robo-robo fight scenes. The spectacle is ruined by the camera always being either 3 miles away from the action or so close I could count the hairs up the robo nostrils. This made the action underwhelming and unengaging as the camera skitted about showing exactly one tenth of what could be going on… The final optimus vs fallen & megatro battel being the worst offender, given I wasnt sure what hit who and didnt really care till it was over (tbh to sayI cared afterwards would be a massive stretch on the truth). The other main battles were human vs deceptacon with hardly any involvement, the camera hovered 3 miles over a perpetually exploding town while humans stood at one end shooting a succession of barely distinguishable robots who seemed to be ingnoring them, the scene rounded off with some carpet bombin that dissapated the tension that had completely failed to build.

I managed to stay awake throughout the film, but it’s not to say I cared at all. I found it boring, crass and far inferior to any movie I have seen this year. My expectations were far from met and I didn’t find it engaging or fun (the two pillars of any blockbuster). 2 1/2 hours was an incredible time for any reasonable mind to sit through and be punished like that. The plot could have been wrapped up in half the time and then I may have found the film more tolerable (cut out any part involving college, love or army guys). I give up on summer this year… I doubt Harry Potter will make my mind change, that will be probably be reviewed in the near future ( sorry bout the nifty wrap up, am tired).

Story: 1/10

Charaters: 2/10

Action:4/10

Engagement:1/10

Transforming robots:7/10  (dissapointing given this was the catgory it should have in the bag)

Overall:4/10