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Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
10 jobs for a cast of 50
These movies are a part of our family. We have been to see each in theaters when it came out as a sort of pilgrimage. We've seen the highs and lows and Bayhem and aren't that picky. Some Transformers movies were pretty good, others not so much.
Last Knight is definitely the low point in the series, even worse than Revenge of the Fallen by a large margin. Every character in a movie should be there for a purpose, should have a job to do. Something to tell or an important action to perform. In Last Knight it feels like there are effectively 10 'jobs' for the characters to do and yet a cast of well over 50. What you get is that the vast majority of characters have nothing to do and are merely set dressing. Some are only in it for seconds and never seen again.
There is a plot but it's lost amidst the movie's confusion over its own identity. Is it a military epic? An action romance? A Davinci Code-esque thriller? Which group of the multiple presented is the main protagonist that we should follow? Which of multiple villains is the important one? It tries to be all of the above from scene to scene. This lack of focus makes the movie disjointed and awkward.
The vast majority of the movie is Cade running around from yet another anti-Transformers human taskforce. It's a very human based conflict where the robots are in the background and only serve to appear to occasionally punch things too big for humans to punch, or grab the humans out of mid-air falls.
The trailer and market are incredibly deceptive as well. Optimus only has about 20 minutes of screen time (out of a 2.5 hour movie) and doesn't even appear until that last half hour. Izabella and Squeaks only have maybe five minutes screen time total, chopped up into 14-30 second appearances and single lines of dialogue peppering the movie.
I would say that the movie is reasonably entertaining. There's the usual Bayhem explosions, a lot more transformation scenes, even more gratuitous military shots than normal. You can never knock Bay for special effects. But is it a 'good' movie even by Bay or Transformer standards? Not at all.
Death Row Dogs (2012)
Biased and one-sided is the understatement of the year.
I've watched many documentaries about banned breeds, shelters, 'doggy death rows' and most have managed to portray the issue for what it is: complex and heartbreaking without any 'easy' or 'simple' solutions. They usually try to show both 'sides' of the equation, those who are often having the natural human reaction to simply 'ban' anything that hurts us as a reaction to a tragedy with a certain breed, and then owners of dogs who have never done anything wrong who understandably don't want to lose their dog.
This is not that kind of documentary.
It makes absolutely no bones about trying to show the dogs as "dangerous" and the animal control officers as "heroes" while constantly contradicting itself as fast as it can spit out 'facts' or narration.
- At one point the narration declares "Many fighting dogs are the result of cross breeding between perfectly legal dogs to create the banned Pitbull type." which is amazing as it implies you can create a breed of dog using completely different breeds.
- Only seconds later it states that there are "58 defining characteristics" they look for to determine "pitbull" status. A friendly dog named Tyson does not meet some of their characteristics by a good margin, which the officers immediately disregard and declare he is "square" (and thus a "pitbull") anyway. Tyson is euthanized.
- Normal dog behaviour, such as reactions to having a dozen strangers in riot gear bursting into the house in the middle of the night screaming and grabbing people, is blamed on the dog owners. They drag one petrified female dog out of her shed where she went to hide after such a 'raid', and when she shows the slightest resistance to going with the men they make the snap judgment that "she's never been walked".
- Everything is of course framed as concern for the "welfare" of the dog but as soon as they say that, they contradict themselves. On officer states "Would you return THAT TYPE OF DOG to this yard?" which rather implies that they would return other types of dogs and it is yet another thinly veiled excuse to discriminate.
These are just a handful of the numerous contradictions. Beyond that they hyper-focus on the death of a four year old named Jean-Paul. They give *no* factual information on the death at all, only emotional accounts from the family members. A five minute internet search for "Jean-Paul, UK, pitbull" quickly reveals the atrocious dog ownership the entire family had: prior investigations for breeding dogs, three unfixed dogs, neighbors who had reported the dogs for unruly behaviour. The male that killed JP and a female had turned on the third dog and killed it and the family did nothing about it. The female was later run over by a car, likely running loose based on family's total disregard for the most basic responsible ownership. They don't spay or neuter any of their dogs, they don't socialize the dogs, they don't discipline the dogs, they don't do anything even after the dogs turn on each other and kill one. *None* of this incredibly important information and context is given in the documentary. The family is portrayed as a model family who did everything right and was simply turned on by a beastial breed, which obviously seems like it couldn't be further from the truth.
For a far more nuanced and fair portrayal, I recommend "Beyond the Myth" by Libby Sherrill or "The Champions" by Darcy Dennett.
Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017)
A sad end to a great legacy by a studio who should know better
The joking title bestowed on the game "Mass Effect Blandromeda" is fitting.
Bioware has earned a reputation for stellar writing complex and emotionally gripping scenes/situations, realistic characters and generally user-friendly games that almost anyone can pick up a controller and jump into.
None of that is true for Andromeda.
The user interface (UI) is clunky, massively cluttered and most of what is offered is completely unnecessary and can be ignored. There are far too many 'currencies' in the game depending on what you want to do (crafting an item, settling a planet, buying items, etc).
The dialogue is immersion-breaking. You get a very early taste of this on the first mission. Where there should be a silent tension as you crash land on your first planet. You've been separated from your father and the rest of the team, attempt your first communication with a new alien species and found them hostile, and then your dude bro squad-mate Liam quips "I think I made him angry. Maybe because I shot him in the face!!" Another point in the game, the protagonist Ryder is confronted with another (supposedly) emotion scene only to declare "Wow, this is some serious sh*t!" in a half bemused tone. Or I could mention Addison's now meme-worthy quip "My face is tired from...everything." In the end though it's not even the terrible animation or the stereotypical trope-y crew that really ruins Andromeda, it's the fact that they're clearly trying to be Bethesda without understanding the slightest reason why games like Skyrim and Fallout are so enjoyable and work.
Bioware clearly learned nothing from the criticisms of it's level design, overly large yet empty maps or umpteen fetch quests from Dragon Age: Inquisition which is also why many fans are calling this "Dragon Age in Space" or "Mass Effect: Inquisition" and rightfully so. It feels exactly the same as playing that did. Hours of searching around bland, overly large maps that tried to compete with Skyrim with none of the charm or effort put in to create unique areas to explore. Bethesda created over 300 unique, handcrafted dungeons, towns, caves and buildings to explore in Skyrim. Bioware apparently can't even be bothered to create more than 5 unique structures. All five planets you can land on and explore are filled with the exact same three (or so) Kett structures, just repetitively copy/pasted every 100 feet or so. I hope you like storming the exact same one or two room structure 200 times because you're going to in Andromeda.
Quests should advance the main plot, tell you something about a main character or be done to introduce you to a part of the level you haven't seen before. They should also have a certain amount of fluidity insomuch that you don't have to return to the same planet or area of the map repetitively, yet Andromeda is guilty of both so many times over. In well designed games, you generally can complete ALL the objectives/quests in a certain area and then move on and never return. In Andromeda? Want to complete this fetch quest you found from a random data-pad about a nobody you don't care about? Drive all the way back from where you came from. Now find these 16 objects scattered all over the maps. Now come back. Now go back to your ship. Now leave the planet. Now come back to the planet. Now leave the planet again and go talk to this person on another planet. Now come back to the planet. Now also check in with this person. Now come back. Now you can FINALLY go back to the very start hand it in. Enjoy that? You better because that's 98% of the quests in the game and where a good 50 hours of content is.
Shepherd never felt like a 'gofer'. Shepherd cured the genophage, united warring species, duelled with Reapers and had UNIQUE knowledge of the situation making him/her irreplaceable.
Ryder runs around picking up errant garbage for everyone who asks, scanning rocks and plants, is only one of many Pathfinders who all have the same SAM (Artificial Intelligence) unit and abilities and never feels remotely important let alone irreplaceable. In fact the Asari Pathfinder goes missing and is replaced before you get to the Asari Ark, and the Salarian Pathfinder dies during a quest and is immediately and easily replaced by a completely untrained fellow Salarian. The game almost goes out of its way to demonstrate just how UNIMPORTANT and easily replaceable a Pathfinder is.
The Tudors (2007)
I come back to it again and again. Superb casting, acting even if not historically accurate.
While Tudors may not strive for documentary level accuracy or the level of political intrigue of The West Wing, it does a fantastic job of presenting history's ogres and harlots as complex, human and even likable characters which is no easy feat.
Even Henry for all his on-screen brashness and cruelty, and historical barbarity, has his moments where you can almost understand *why* he's doing what he's doing. Rhys Meyers does a superb job portraying a very young version of Henry at the peak of his power and insecurity. You get a very real sense of the bipolar nature, paranoia, restlessness and perpetually unsatisfied natures that monarchs tended to embody.
The casting is clearly focused on great acting, not simply selecting people for their physical likeness to their characters. I could care less of Henry has his appropriate red hair, so long as he is well written and acted which he was, or whether Catherine's Spanish is perfect. She was superbly acted and the casting of the slightly older Kennedy created some riveting and poignant scenes with the much younger Dormer (Anne Boleyn).
Dormer gives a tour de force performance as Anne Boleyn, one of history's most misunderstood women. While most see Boleyn only as the 'other woman', here she is both manipulative and manipulated. At times she is clearly seeking her own ends, while at the same time it is clear she is being used by the men of her family to advance their own agendas regardless of what happens to her. It eventually rounds to an almost poetic end where Boleyn is dethroned by the very same methods she herself used to dethrone Catherine. There is a fantastic on-screen chemistry between Dormer and Rhys Meyers that makes the tumultuous romance all the more believable.
It should be noted that The Tudors never set out to depict the politics or history of the entire Tudor family and legacy. This is a Showtime show after all. ;-) It's clearly meant to focus almost purely on Henry's romances and a dramatized accounting of how/why he ended up with each wife, with only a smattering of politics on the side to break up or advance some of the main romance plots.
Jenna's American Sex Star (2005)
More awkward than sexy
I watched this for the same reason most people probably did; it bore Jenna's name and seemed like an interesting concept.
Unfortunately it's a lot more like watching your grandmother watch porn than something sexy or even funny. It's just awkward for everyone involved.
The girls are wallflowers and clearly overwhelmed in front of the seasoned judges and a live audience. Even the ones who have 60 or 80 movies to their names already and are seasoned vets just seem to flounder. They try to sound sexy and talk dirty but sound like scared little girls reading from a page. It's painfully obvious that they're only saying what they think the Judges want to hear (aka lying through their teeth). One girl tries to tell Jenna that she wants to (F word here) her but cannot even bring herself to look Jenna in the face as she says it and looks the complete opposite direction, blinks about 14 times in a second and looks ready to cry.
There's little variety between the girls at all. The only girl that stood out was Gizele, a tall gorgeous dark-skinned gal who was pretty much immediately booted off for not having any prior movie experience which just left a gaggle of short, no-breasted and often rather average/homely blondes who wanted nothing to do with the Judges and spent their entire stage-time sucking up (sometimes literally) and awkwardly groping Jenna who rarely looked at them, moved around dragging them groping behind and focused on the Judges.
The Judges were largely well picked. You won't find bigger pornstars than Ron Jeremy or Christie Canyon (who still looks fabulous). I have no idea who the third guy is, who seemed to only be there as a pseudo/wannabe Simon Cowell as he always had something extremely rude to say and gave the lowest marks for everything. I can't imagine anyone wanting to work anywhere near him with how demeaning and unappreciative he was, whereas Christie gave almost consistent tens and Ron (always a nice guy) gave 8-10s and never said a bad thing about any of them.
Beyond that there isn't really much to say. Obviously there's lots of porn thrown in but with how awkward the girls are and their constant (obviously) lying through their teeth and superficial personalities makes it hard to even enjoy it. We know too much about them for them to be fantasies anymore and what we know is rather annoying and a turn-off.
It would've been better in a more 'Top Model' format where Jenna really lead and tutored them instead of the 'Idol' format they went with.
Earthlings (2005)
Just a 1.5 hour music video of animal torture to rambling narration
You would be hard pressed to really call Earthlings a documentary. It's an hour and a half of animal cruelty clips strung together with rambling pseudo-philosophical narration. Many of the clips aren't even recent and have been floating around youtube for years.
Moreso Earthlings falls into the same trap that so many documentaries do. It over-saturates the audience without providing any real information. 100% about the problem, 0% about a solution. Sure there's lots of gross, graphic images from all over the world in this film but not much else. Instead of focusing on a solution and informing the audience of how to change laws or live cruelty-free the entire film is just a constant stream of 'This is bad. This is mean. Look at how mean it is.' Audiences will leave disgusted but quickly tune it out and fall back into bad habits with no outlet or information on how to change those behaviors.
If they're trying to change skeptics minds, they have no chance. There's nothing concrete such as scientific reports or even a single 'expert' put forth in this movie for anyone who wants more than just ramblings about feelings and clips of animals frolicking in nature. It's just a constant stream of clips -- some of which clearly seem to date back to the 70s or perhaps even 60s -- set to music and narration.
You could get the same for free from youtube with the same level of educational value. Being shocking alone doesn't make a documentary or good documentary.
Apt Pupil (1998)
1 part Nazi, 15 parts Hollywood jambalaya
Sadly whatever made the novel good is lacking in this adaptation.
Apt Pupil is a movie that feels like a new director took over every five minutes with a different idea of where the movie should go. It creates a vortex that sucks up any chance at emotional connection to the characters or overall film.
What little plot there is gets rushed. There are several times when the film is too lazy or simply incapable of properly showing passages of time so it simply cuts to black 'X weeks/months later..' screens.
Poor editing destroys any chance to introspect on the conversations between Kurt and Todd. One moment Kurt will be describing Holocaust victims defecating on themselves in the gas chamber and then abruptly a basketball is on screen and Todd is at school in gym class. Then a moment later his friend is talking about dates and parties in the locker-room.
The on screen chemistry between Kurt and Todd is that of a wet paper-towel. The characterizations feel wrong and not in an interesting way. Think of an adult being scared of a baby. That's basically what you get. Kurt, a former SS officer who worked in both Bergen-Belsen and the notorious Auschwitz camp shrinks constantly away at Todd who is nothing but an angsty spoiled emo teenager. The movie would've been far better served with a more aggressive stance from Kurt, especially when the movie is attempting to show how evil and 'badass' the Nazis were.
Even without any sort of chemistry and with Kurt being blackmailed and forced to dress up for Todd, he abruptly takes a shine to him ala Miyagi style and impersonates being his Grandfather to the guidance counsellor and the movie shifts into Todd's school life and trying to get his grades up.
Then it shifts back to them hating each other. Then abruptly Kurt, who is a wanted fugitive who has intelligently and carefully concealed his identity for decades and lived a law-abiding life in the US decides to stab someone.
None of it makes much sense and we care even less to figure out why because he doesn't like Todd and Todd seems to be a blossoming sociopath who doesn't like anyone except himself.
Ultimately I feel like what I watched was a boy's masturbatory fantasy about having his own private SS officer to dress up, interrogate and harass mixed in with odd and boring clips of teenage high school angst.
Not good for a movie that bills itself to be basically a Nazi thriller.
Wonder Woman (2009)
Does a great job of unjumbling the most confusing origin in comics
Wonder Woman may have more origins than any other hero in comics and DC's 2009 offering does a great job of picking some of the best elements while discarding the outdated and ridiculous and then turns it into a good final product.
The plot moves very quickly and within the first fifteen minutes of the film we seen the destruction of the Amazon's first city, their move to Paradise Island and Hippolyta's creation of Wonder Woman from clay.
It's wonderful to see some of Diana's well-loved supporting cast like Artemis and Etta finally making film appearances. Even better that DC remains true to the original Wonder Woman and portrays a positive relationship between Diana and Hippolyta, which would make this a great film for mothers and daughters to watch.
Where this film does lag and lose points is focusing too much on the 'newborn in the world' idea. The first is touching as Diana witnesses children for the first time. Then it becomes tiresome as she catfights jealously with Etta, drinks at a bar with Steve and walks down dark alleys. It's a minor pick however and the movie seems to realize it and corrects itself, quickly returning to the plot at hand for the remainder.
The voices are spot-on, especially Madsen for Hippolyta, Dawson as the ever-snarky Artemis and Molina always wonderful as the villain Ares, the film's antagonist. Keri Russell manages alright as Diana although some parts feel a bit stiff.
Overall a very enjoyable telling of the most true Wonder Woman mythos and the best offering of Wonder Woman in the last 20 years easily.
Robots (2005)
Mishmosh of random characters and outdated cultural jokes
In spite of the child-friendly PG rating, Robots feels more like a poor attempt to mimic Pixar's success at making adult friendly cartoons.
The cultural reference jokes are odd picks clearly made by older higher-ups who never bothered to check what decade it was. The protagonist robots are designed to look like 1950s appliances, Britney Spears song was already seven years out of date in 2005 and Madame Gasket's shop does a poor theft of Broadway's 'Stomp' but the plot is not nearly enough to interest the adult viewers this film was clearly trying to attract.
The characters are unlikeable at best and largely irrelevant. We never stick with any long enough to find out anything about them. They appear, say one or two lines and then disappear for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Robin Williams' Fender is the same fast-talking character Williams does in every Disney movie which may amuse some children but is quickly irritating as almost every scene mid-movie revolves around him shouting about something. The rest of the voices, mostly by B-list actors, are largely forgettable.
The same could be said for the plot. I'm still not sure what the moral message is supposed to be. Follow your dreams? Be yourself? Anti-capitalism? It can't seem to settle on one so all we have are a bunch of disjointed scenes smashed together. Rodney wants to follow his dreams, instead ends up paired up with a bunch of vigilante-esque 'Outmodes' fighting against the capitalist industry that wants them to 'Upgrade' into fancier robots. The characters fight and dislike each other through most of the film, even stealing each other's parts out of desperation, then are forced together for the big finale which feels incredibly artificial.
My six year old seems to enjoy it, perhaps because it's colorful and requires no attention span so I'll give it 3 stars instead of 1.
Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
A great rendition of a tragic part of the Batman mythos
Batman: Under the Red Hood is another great animated offering by DC, retelling the 1980s Jason Todd story which is perhaps the most tragic of all Batman stories.
The PG-13 is definitely a lax rating for the amount of graphic violence and themes in this movie. The first ten minutes of this movie takes its stand that it is not messing around in telling this story in all its grizzly details.
The plot moves along decently enough but can feel artificially drawn out though it sticks to the standard 75 minute DC animated format of most of its movies.
The alternate cast does a decent job and one doesn't spend much time lamenting the loss of the standard Conroy, Hamill, etc. Di Maggio's Joker leans more towards drag Queen-esque than utterly insane but remains creepy. Even Neil Patrick Harris who might seem an incredibly odd pick for Nightwing pulls it off.
The climax, while fairly predictable even to those unfamiliar with the story, is still satisfying although no bones should be made that this film will not leave you with an uplifting feeling.
Under the Red Hood is designed to pound into viewer's heads yet again how tragic and dark Batman is...and it does in spades.
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Destroys the mythos and IM character
The best way to sum this movie up is that it's like rain, one droplet isn't a huge problem but add enough and you have a flood. So it was with this movie slowly chipping away at the Iron Man mythos from the first film and creating problems. Almost everything that the first movie laid out was systematically destroyed in this one.
--- Spoiler ---
In the first movie we're shown that it was this nearly superhuman feat of genius that Tony built the Arc Reactor in a cave, then went on to build the suit with the best of the best of current technology. In the second movie we learn that his father built something better...in the 1970s, when the Apple IIE, Atari and VW Golf were top of the line technology.
In the first movie Tony is a savvy businessman. In the second he lets his company crumble away without care, finally ousting the ruins onto Pepper to run.
In the first movie he uses the Iron Man suit to stop various conflicts and destroy illegal weapons caches. In the second movie he uses the suit to pee in, dance around drunk at his birthday party and explode watermelons over a bunch of scantily-clad young women. We're told early on that he's the cause of world peace but we don't see any of that. It's one line fairly early on and then forgotten about.
There are far too many filler callouts to the upcoming Avengers movie and solo movies. Captain America's shield, Thor's hammer, Nick Fury, etc, making the movie feel like a rushed out, desperate filler to attract attention to those movies instead of making a good Iron Man movie. "Hey if Tony Stark has a Cap shield then it must be cool! Lets go see it when it comes out!" Sure there's a lot of slow-motion action sequences and explosions and a few laugh out loud moments but for those who care about Iron Man and aren't in it just to see 'an action film' it's a pretty sad to see a great super hero stumbling around drunk, making bathroom jokes, peeing in his suit and making a fool of himself for 98% of the movie.