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Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen – Loud, Proud and Utterly Ridiculous

Look out! The critics are coming!!

Rating: 3 out of 10

Everyone strap in, because we are about to go on a familiar ride, one we all took last summer and now we look back on with a mixture of sadness and nausea. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is already breaking records and is primed to repeat the scenario of last summer’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The spotlights are pointed to the ring and we all wait for the inevitable three-way battle between the critics, the movie fans and the head honcho himself, Michael Bay. This flick already grossed more than $60 million dollars in one full day of release, which gives it the auto-greenlight for a third chapter in the robotic roadhouse, but as fast as the ticket sales went through the roof, the reviews have mostly plunged into the floor, many of them nailing similar points and themes running through the movie. I can’t honestly say mine will sound all that different, but you never know, I may crack an original joke here or there.

Revenge of the Fallen continues the mission of the Autobots and their decision to help the people of Earth rid themselves of the terrors of the Decepticons. Unbeknownst to our shiny, metallic heroes, the Decepticons are on their own mission to find a long lost source of Energon, the fuel that keeps them going, and with it revive Megatron, bring their supreme leader, “The Fallen”, back to power and blow up the sun (that’s one hell of a daily checklist). Dragged back into the middle of the fray is Sam Witwicky who finds himself battling with his own mind and a frantic jumble of ancient robotic lettering, possibly leading the way to an ancient machine which will help in the destruction of the sun. It’s a chaotic fight to the finish in a battle not just for the planet, but the entire future of the Transformers race.

There are many who will argue that this movie shouldn’t be held to any real criticism. We should just go in expecting the story and plot to be nothing more than linking posts between the battery of beautiful robot beatdowns. The CGI is amazing and the transformers are all incredibly well-animated, but the drawback is we’ve seen this all before in the first flick. So the opening argument doesn’t hold. All in all the fight scenes began to wear thin towards the end of what was already a needlessly long movie (clocking in at two-and-a-half hours). Remember, this is Transformers here, not the futuristic version of The Godfather. Numerous scenes could have been cut and others drastically shortened in an effort to trim the fat, but the wizards behind the curtain were hell bent on making this one longer, louder and more insane in every respect over the original.

No matter what the movie is about, no matter how fantastic or silly the premise, story is king and it needs due respect, which Mr. Bay and his creative team chose to ignore in an astounding sense. What’s even more shocking about the terrible writing is the duo behind it, now responsible for one of the most disappointing flicks of the summer, is also the same wordsmiths behind Star Trek, without a doubt the best movie of the year so far. They have managed to swing the pendulum of quality from one extreme to the other in a matter of two months. Here’s to hoping their talent follows the laws of physics and swings back once more towards quality and awesomeness as they gather steam for Star Trek 2.

I’m not going to lay out a litany of complaints about the script since that would take up too much time and possibly give me carpel tunnel syndrome, but I will address the controversy surrounding the twin autobots, Skidz and Mudflaps, who are characterized as urban, street talking brothers originally in the form of a beat up Ice Cream truck until they upgrade to newer, slicker looking street cars. These two play directly to the twelve-year-old members of the audience giving them all the comic relief they could ever want, but for anyone out of elementary school the hip-hop heroes were the most racist stereotyping seen in years. It was bad enough when one of them transformed for the first to display a prominent gold tooth jutting out from its bucktoothed mouth, but then the paperthin veil was torn off when both of them shuffle-stepped nervously before admitting they were both illiterate. There’s been a lot of subtle finger pointing going on since the movie released about where these particular character traits came from, whether it was in the original script or changed in production, but so far there is no clear winner in the blame game. To me, it doesn’t matter where it originated, what matters is all the people up the chain who witnessed it, approved it and thought, “Hell yes, that is hilarious.” It was pointed out by another perceptive reviewer that we wouldn’t have even gotten close to seeing these terrible stereotypes if those characters were played by real black actors on screen, but since they were animated robots, suddenly that makes it all peachy keen. At this point with all the cash that will be rolling in this weekend, I predict Mr. Bay and the folks behind the movie to lovingly give the whole racist stereotyping controversy a nice big middle finger and giggle their way to the bank, but I reserve hope that maybe next time around they will think a little more about it before greenlighting characters audiences thought they left in the dark days of cinema.

There were a few glimmers of improvement though and they deserve mention. Shia LeBouf still manages to show his talent even when battling against a terrible script and entire football fields of green screen imagination-land. He’s cemented his star in the blockbuster world, but hopefully it will give him more time and power to make his way back over to drama and indie fare again. If you haven’t already, check out The Battle of Shaker Heights, if only for him, Amy Smart and Shiri Appleby. Josh Duhamel once again gave some true grit, but was barely seen in the overall length of the flick. John Turturro managed to shake of his incessant annoyingness from the first movie and become a reasonable comic foil this time around. Yet, the real surprise and honorable mention must go to Megan Fox. She transformed (pun intended) from the bitchy, unattainable sex-pot into a real person, a young girl with feelings and a cuteness I didn’t expect. She gets a few brief moments in between the massive mayhem to shine just enough to give me and other movie watchers hope that her talent extends farther than her reflection in the mirror.

Recommendation: Bigger doesn’t always mean better and this is silver screen proof. A two-and-a-half hour explosion concert is nothing when not backed up by a worthwhile and legible story. For those thinking IMAX is the way to go, please don’t take any drugs before hand. Your mind will most certainly be beaten into a colorful mush.

Crank – High Voltage: High Style, Low Content

OK, who’s the funny bloke who told me to stick my tongue to this thing?

Rating: 3 out of 10

“Just go in, shut your brain off and watch the pretty colors.” I’ve used this statement many times before to friends of mine who might take a film too seriously: I was incredibly prepared to follow my own advice while walking into this inevitable sequel. The original movie, Crank, ends in a fashion defying anything resembling logic. By the closing moments in that film you’ve left logic sitting at a bus stop forty miles out of town, lonely and holding an empty popcorn tub. You could say that Crank: High Voltage doesn’t disappoint in faithfully keeping the trend going, but then again, it all depends on what you find disappointing.

Crank: High Voltage begins three months after the final moment of the first film. Our fearless anti-hero, Chev Chelios, has his miraculously still beating heart harvested and replaced with an artificial one that only runs with the constant intake of electricity. Chev wakes up before the rest of him is picked apart and goes on a multi-million volt tirade in search of the people behind his involuntary organ donorship. Banding together once again with the strangest people in the underworld of Los Angeles, Chev unleashes constant mayhem on all who stand in his way.

Coming from a long standing love of brainless action films (Demolition Man, Showdown in Little Tokyo and Gymkata, just to name a few), I am one of the first to jump up for something that barely resembles a plot and takes in no consideration for performances or tone as long as the action is true and holds together. This one tiny thing is something co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor seemingly did not know how to do. These two loudly broke down the walls of Hollywood with the original Crank and many regarded them as the new, fresh faces of the indie-action genre. Yet the failure here is that beyond the inclusion of 8-bit video game graphics, there is nothing new to their style. Crank: High Voltage pulsates off the screen like a mixture of Guy Ritchie (circa Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), Danny Boyle (circa Trainspotting) and a massive overdose of Adderall. The whole thing ends up as a collage of scenes strung together by the running thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if this happened here?” I’m usually a big fan of that question, but only when this next question is successfully answered: “But does it make any sense at all?” Strident, frenetic and unapologetically overdone, this movie only shows what a freshman student filmmaker could do with a little cash and some famous friends.

Jason Statham, reprising his role as the unstoppable Chelios, shows up and does what is required of him, but unfortunately that’s not much. He gives the stare, gets beat and tortured mercilessly, then breaks through everything with pure rage. He’s the main draw for this because without a doubt he is the most underrated action star on screen today. He is also the action genre’s version of Samuel L. Jackson, who will do just about any movie attached to a paycheck. The only difference is Statham is not getting offered the big budget flicks that will elevate him to where he deserves to be. Many actors get to a point when they do one studio film for the check and one indie film for the credit, but Statham seems to be hovering on a see-saw of bad versus good choices. He stunned people in his debut in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, followed nicely by Snatch (see the Guy Ritchie connection forming?), but just as he was riding the wave of stardom up the action movie totem pole, he starred in The One, his first pairing with legendary kung-fu icon, Jet Li, which left a lot to be desired. Their second time out together in War tumbled even farther down the hole. Statham also followed his bank account to the set of In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, directed by the infamous Uwe Boll, where Statham was a random Renaissance-era farmer who just happened to know martial arts. Yet, on the other side of the resume, keeping people interested was a handful of stand out performances in The Italian Job, The Bank Job (no relation) and the original Transporter (the franchise has slipped a bit in quality since then). I’m still keeping my hopes up for his upcoming projects: 13, The Brazilian Job (this one actually is related) and the Sylvester Stallone directed uber-explosion flick, The Expendables. Statham is better than this particular franchise and I look forward to him getting to prove it.

Now, not that these types of movies really get a whole lot of acting critiquing going on, I can’t let this go without mentioning the painfully terrible visual caricature of Bai Ling. Bordering on offensive, her turn as a hooker who gets psychotically attached to Statham brought groans from all over the audience. She trots over the line between comical and tragically bad taste in a pair of trampy stiletto heels. I can’t add anything positive under the realm of Amy Smart (who plays Chev’s girlfriend, Eve) or any of the random cameos that litter this movie. The only person who actually gets away with a believable character is Dwight Yoakam as the brilliant and depraved friend-cum-heart surgeon. The filmmakers actually gained a point for having his character laughably stop himself halfway through the picture while telling Chev, “You should be dead already. Doesn’t matter. Anyway…” It was a nice admission from behind the silver screen that they knew none of this really worked as a story of any value, instead relying on my old turn of phrase, “Just go in, shut your brain off and watch the pretty colors.”.

Recommendation: The main failure here is that the whole film is one big joke, but it felt like the filmmakers weren’t letting anyone else in on it. It’s more like something made by a bunch of friends who all made each other laugh on set without ever thinking if it would work on anyone else. Watch at home while drinking, but not if you have any history of epileptic seizures.