Transformers: Dark of the Moon

LOUDER, BUT STILL JUVENILE AND STUPID
By Reymundo Salao

The Transformers movies have become one of the most widely popular movie properties recently. Although I loved the first movie, it seems like the second one had its director Michael Bay run amok with his directorial control, making the most visually overblown but tremendously stupid movie, not to mention the big writer’s strike in the US which also affected the weak script of the movie. Early this year, Bay admitted that the second movie was indeed poorly-made, promised that the third movie would be better and would go deeper into the Transformers mythos. I personally believed that Bay could indeed deliver a better, or at least a satisfying new Transformers sequel. After all, he managed to direct such films as “The Island” which was not a bad movie. On the other hand, I wanted to love the Transformers again and be proud of them because they (the cartoons from the 1980s) were also a big part of my childhood. But my hopes had just gone down the drain. Transformers: The Dark of the Moon was the same piece of juvenile garbage, only louder and more explosive.

Transformers: The Dark of the Moon was like an exercise of giving a criminal recidivist a chance to clean himself up, yet he continues to be a criminal anyway. It was like trying to hope that a junkie can rehabilitate himself. No matter how much perfume you put on shit; it’s still shit.

At first, I was forgiving towards the movie. Sure, there were corny jokes, sure there were silly scenes, but I endured it thinking I could overlook minor little errors of what I wished to be an overall good, or at least satisfying, movie. But the tiny little errors became bigger, then you realize that this director never really learned his lesson from the errors of part 2; repeating the same lousy things that made part 2 a critical mess.

Part 2 was a financial success, but at the same time it was also one of the biggest idiotic movies ever made; which only goes to show that a movie made out of stupidity can be ultra-popular and be a phenomenal box office hit. That is scary because this phenomenon glorifies cinematic idiocy. The last time Bay created something made of sheer stupidity, he was rewarded by tremendous box-office success; I should have expected that he would do the same.

You can tell that there was supposedly a positively interesting and complex script and storyline for this movie. Storyline details such as Sam Witwicky's struggle with his frustrations in life even though he has saved the planet more than once now; there was the conspiracy of how the government knew about the Transformers for a long time already; and then there's the role of Sentinel Prime in this new threat that faces the Earth. But its direction did not give the entire script justice. You can tell that there is a really good storyline under it; Bay couldn’t just merely follow the script; he had to inject his style of corny jokes, insignificant characters, and unimportant sequences over said script. It only proved that no matter how good the story is, Michael Bay's direction can turn it into a big pile of shit.

His crass sense of humor and fratboy sensibilities defines Bay, and is evident in this film. It is as if you put a 12-year old boy in charge of the movie, and surely does remind me of undisciplined and untalented tagalog filmmakers of the 1990s. The film creates its own world and its own set of rules; yet it breaks it later on. The film’s logic is messy and each inconsistency and senselessness insults those who are true fans of the (cartoon) series, because the filmmaker does not take the source material seriously.

The film introduces some new characters that prove to be of no importance after all, than just to deliver little silly jokes that never really do anything to the entire movie; John Malkovich’s talent was wasted over a role that was unimportant after all. The new chick Rosie Huntington Whiteley is a horrible actress. Each sequence with her looks like a cosmetic commercial, and her acting along with her nasal British accent solidifies the blandness of her acting. The crowning glory of awfulness when it comes to her is when the script all of a sudden makes her start a conversation with Megatron, which felt not only as perplexingly misplaced sequence, but also immensely ridiculous.

The change of mood of the movie into being an alien invasion apocalypse would have been a bold progression for this franchise, but taking consideration everything else about this movie (the story, the direction), it becomes a misused ace card.

If only we knew that this was getting to an apocalyptic final act (where there’s basically annihilation of the human race going on), then I felt that it should not have spent too much time with insignificant sequences and lame jokes at the earlier acts. It wasted too much time being pointless at the first half of the movie, and then suddenly overcrowding too much exposition on the second half of the movie.

The film also has some pretty lame continuity issues that do not make sense in the context of the storyline. Why do the Decepticons suddenly have some additional characters such as Soundwave, Shockwave, and Laserbeak? Why did Megatron not summon all the other Decepticons when they fought the Autobots during the last movie? It feels like 90% of the movie relies on a very ""childish cartoon" kind of logic.  Just like the previous movie.

What kind of director introduces an adorable character only to give him a pitiful and embarrassing death scene later on?

I may consider myself as very open-minded when it comes to violence in movies; but there are just too many "cold-blooded point-blank kill scenes of unarmed victims" in this movie to the point of being disturbingly inappropriate. There was this one character which supposedly would and should have been given enough screen time in order to show off his abilities and compensate for what should be some manner of heroic death, instead this character dies in what looks like one of the most sadistically violent scenes in cinema.

As an adaptation, it also failed by repeating the same mistakes of the previous movie; it did not give the title characters; the Transformers the focus it needed. We are in the third movie, and the title characters are still one-dimensional cardboard characters. During the entire time that should have been spent really getting into the robot characters; knowing their personalities as any film would want their audiences to get to know their heroes; instead the focus goes on to the insignificant human characters that really are pretty much one-dimensional themselves. The time that should have been spent seeing how the robots are in action; we spend wasteful lengths of time with the human characters in goof-off scenes and lame action sequences, the next thing we know the robot fight is over and the Autobots have surrendered, and Optimus Prime wastes time being getting clumsily stuck hanging in a messy entanglement of ropes.

It is only the visuals that redeem the movie, the bits of action sequence fragments; these are the little things that make Transformers 3 bearable. I feel you would have to be under 16 years old to really appreciate the movie; If you are older than 16 and you love this movie, then I admire your tolerance for dumb movies.

There really is nothing wrong about a movie wherein you can just give your brain a rest and enjoy a little dumb fun. But being reckless about being too stupid, which is what Transformers 2 and 3 has been doing so far, is something that does glorify stupidity in the art of cinema.

The Crow Returns

Relativity Media's President of Worldwide Production, Tucker Tooley, and Edward R. Pressman, producer behind the cult-classic "The Crow" franchise, has officially announced that the reinvention of James O'Barr's gothic comicbook character "The Crow" is a go.

The project will be directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) and Alex Tse (Watchmen) to write the script. This Crow adaptation will be a gritty reboot of the gothic iconic character Eric Draven, who returns from the grave as The Crow on a mission to avenge his wife's murder, so that his soul can finally rest. Bradley Cooper (Limitless) is attached to star as Draven. "The original film is known for its breakthrough visual style as well as its unique production design and cinematography. Fresnadillo and Tse are perfectly suited to bring these beloved characters back to life, and to create a world worthy of this modern classic," said Relativity.

Relativity and Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation will be teaming with Spain-based Apaches Entertainment on the production. The Crow is being produced by Edward R. Pressman, Jeff Most, Relativity’s CEO Ryan Kavanaugh, and Apaches' Enrique López Lavigne and Belén Atienza. Relativity's Tooley (The Fighter) and Apaches' Jesus de la Vega will serve as executive producers. José Ibáñez and Pressman Film Corporation's Jon Katz will serve as co-producers.

Ever since the first movie, I have been hoping to see another good Crow movie; so Im also excited about the announcement. But I could not help but frown at their choice actor for the title role; Bradley Cooper doesnt seem even close to what I imagine The Crow should look like. He looks too jokey, too muscular, and too alpha male jock-ish to be the Crow. I would have preferred a scrawny, thin actor to play the Crow, he is, after all, somewhat of a zombie. I am not sure if they can pull this off.

Aside from the harrowing fact that it's the final movie which sealed the fate of the late Brandon Lee (who played the title character), the first Crow movie (directed by Alex Proyas) was one of those great movies that was appropriate for its time when it was released. The 90s was when the gothic subculture reached a very prominent peak. I personally think that it's different now because the goth culture has that unpleasant confusion and mixture of commercialism and Emo subculture. In addition, it was also a time when we were introduced to Proyas' gothic style of cinema which had similarities and refreshing distinctions from Tim Burton's style. Alex Proyas also later directed the underrated Dark City, Knowing, and I, Robot.

source: SuperHeroHype

Green Lantern

GREEN LANTERN:
I LOVED IT, BUT WERE OUR EXPECTATIONS TOO HIGH?
by Reymundo Salao

Green Lantern is one of DC comics' most popular characters, and its role in the DC universe is prominent enough that it is considered by DC as its space epic. So, the anticipation for GREEN LANTERN is so much high that satisfactory is not good enough.

The story begins with the death of Abin Sur, who is a Green Lantern, a warrior entrusted with a power ring in order to protect his sector in the universe, from the wickedness of evil. Abin Sur's ship crashed to Earth, and there he let his ring choose his successor. The ring chose pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) to become the new Green Lantern. But Hal's assumption of Abin Sur's ring could not have come in a worst time as an entity known as Parallax is set out to destroy the Green Lanterns, specifically the one who bears the ring that once defeated it: Hal Jordan.

I love the universe of the Green Lantern as created by DC comics, and I did love the movie. But inasmuch as I wanted this to be flawlessly good and wished to be blinded by love for this movie, I could sadly point out that it was far from the perfect movie I wanted it to be.

It is also noted that the director of this movie Martin Campbell rejuvenated the James Bond franchise twice by directing the first Pierce Brosnan Bond movie "Goldeneye" and the first Daniel Craig Bond movie "Casino Royale" not to mention that he directed "The Mask of Zorro" so it played with all expectations. It made me wish that I never knew this, because even though that I did love the movie, I could clearly point out its many flaws.

The characterization and the explanation of the villain Parallax, for instance, was not given sufficient detail and clarity. Even though there was a flashback about him, it was still unclear as to what this creature is and what its true motive is. It quickly becomes this one-dimension cardboard character that generates very little impact. The scenes in Oa, and the process of getting to know the aliens felt rushed and gravely insufficient.

The universe of the Green Lantern storyline is indeed complex, but not impossible to capsulate and explain with sufficient clarity within a few scenes. I think the shortcoming of the film was its failure to ensure that its audience flawlessly understood the world it tries to create in the film. What is more surprising is that it did not invest on a long running time. Epic summer movies of late have been gradually standardizing the practice of extending the running time of movies well beyond the less than two hours a regular feature film has. It was sad that Green Lantern did not do this, as it could possibly have made the overall film better.

It suffers from the same flaw as the Transformers movies had; that which it gives too much weight on the human focus and less on the alien aspects, but that human focus was not compelling enough, impressive enough, or worthy enough to waste too much time on. On the other hand, the Transformers movies are too extreme as a lousy example. But I do dread to admit that the animated movie "Green Lantern: First Flight" tells a better Green Lantern origin than this.

In this movie, the story dwells too much on Hal Jordan's self-pain and lack of self-confidence to become the hero that is expected of him. The movie dwells on his feeling of failure, of his painful memory of his father's death, and his romantic relationship with Carol Ferris (Blake Lively). It was difficult to appreciate Reynold's performance as Hal Jordan because I felt that he was not funny when he intends to be, and whenever he is serious, I am not sure if he's kidding around. I still think he was gravely miscast for this role (and believe that he's more fit for The Flash).

Despite Reynolds as usually a great performer and Campbell as a potentially efficient director, the characterization failed to be impressive and emotionally effective. The failure was more on the script and the sequences of the story. While the movie starts strong, somewhere in the middle it felt like it got messy and awkward. There were sequences that felt like they should have been cut off the movie and there were also instances that felt like it needed several missing sequences. An example of that is when Hal went to speak to the Guardians; a scene which felt like Hal was in an entirely different character mindset from the scene directly before it.

On the other hand, I did love the movie despite its shortcomings. It is the magnificent visuals that make this movie shine like the Green Lantern that it supposed to be; the aliens, the backgrounds, the overall visuals that surely blow audiences, especially ones that are not yet familiar with the Green Lantern mythology. I may have enumerated things that make this movie less than perfect, but there's no denying that I still am going to watch it again.

Additional Note: Yes, there is an extra scene in the middle of the end credits

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

X-MEN IS INDEED FIRST CLASS
by Reymundo Salao

It was the 1960's and it was a time of Cold War. It was also a time when genetic mutation has began to manifest its existence among the population of mankind. A group of mutants led by Sebastian Shaw are planning a diabolical plot to start World War 3, and CIA operative Dr. Moira MacTaggert sought out the help of a mutant named Charles Xavier to aid them in the capture of the mutant criminals. Along the way, Xavier & MacTaggert meet Erik Lensherr and several other mutants who would aid them to bring Sebastian Shaw and his mutant criminals to justice and prevent World War 3.

This movie serves not just a prequel to the X-Men series, but may very well be a restart of the franchise to set things right. And yes, I do indeed wish for X-Men to have a fresh start or maybe at least do a storyline in the similar vein with JJ Abram's Star Trek movie which weaves the old movie continuity with this new continuity.

I initially thought that this was going to be indeed a prequel because the movie starts out with the same flashback to the Nazi concentration camp scene, as is in the first X-Men movie. But I say that this is a new continuity because of its inconsistencies as well; In X-Men part 1, Xavier says he met Erik (Magneto) when he was 17 and they built Cerebro together; that is untrue according to this new movie. In X-Men 3, there is a flashback of Xavier (who is not yet disabled) and Magneto in their late 30s/early 40s meeting Jean Grey as a kid; but in the end of X-Men First Class, Erik & Xavier have already become enemies, not to mention, Xavier has at that point become disabled. With those things considered, it would be unwise to treat X-Men First Class as a prequel to the first three X-Men movies.

X-Men: First Class is its own movie. And I love the hell out of it. There were more than several moments wherein both the storyline and the script gave me positive chills. This movie achieved what the Star Wars prequels failed at, which is originally attempting to tell a story of two iconic heroes who became close friends and the breakdown of that friendship because of a clash of beliefs. The friendship between Xavier and Erik are well translated onscreen, that you do feel their genuine care for each other, that when they finally must choose to oppose each other at the end, the pain of that is evident emotionally.

X-Men First Class is a superhero movie that is not afraid to show onscreen villains utilize their powers in realistically evil ways. What Azazel does to his victims, or what even Magneto does to his victims is ruthlessly violent; the kind that may not have been easily acceptable at least 5 years ago in superhero movies. But now is the right time to give an appropriate approach to movies like this in an almost perfectly equal level with what the mature comics really portray in terms of how dense their character arcs are, how creatively complex the stories are told, and realistically ruthless some scenes can be.

There is a whole lot of action in this movie; but that which is not your typical action. I am not talking about elaborate fist-fights martial arts and gunfights. The action here is super-power based. The cleverly conceived action is done by whatever superhuman abilities are being used. I would even dare to say that this movie is more daring than the first X-Men movie because this one has little to almost zero standard action scene. The height of the action is whatever kind of power they will use to fight each other, and there is a whole lot of outwitting the other opponent.

The film was set in the 1960s and I adored the entire look of the film; from the costumes to the set designs; I felt like I was watching one of those Sean Connery James Bond movies. But there is a degree of simplicity and does not go so far to exaggerate or even call upon itself as having a retro feel. It just simply is, and feels like a 60's movie. And most especially that they used Rose Byrne playing Moira Mactaggert, who I think has that 1960s film star beauty, she looks like a Bond girl. Although on the other hand, I could not say the same for January Jones playing Emma Frost; The White Queen, who is not as pretty as the role originally suggests, but does look like a Bond movie villainess. Although she seems to fit the atmosphere, her acting felt bland.

There is a very brief scene of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in the movie wherein Professor X and Magneto try to approach him, and as they were just introducing themselves, Wolverine simply told them: "Fuck off" This was a brilliant cameo appearance which, in its less than a minute of appearance, is the most accurate portrayal of the anti-hero comicbook character, and it seems that they are bent on portraying Wolverine properly from now on hopefully.

For me, the movie was so close to perfect except for a few minor ignorable scenes at the final 15 minutes of the movie. One was right after Xavier got shot, and when Magneto was delivering his final farewell to Charles as a friend, as he bid his final words of goodbye, we see Magneto and the mutants who would rally by his side line up in formation and just suddenly, without any initiating dialogue, they held hands as if they were about to sing Kumbaya or the People Power theme song. Yes, we all know of course that they needed to do this so that Azazel could teleport them out of that place. But the sequence seemed silly with that pose of them holding hands.

Another funny thing about the last 15 minutes of the movie is Magneto's red costume at the end and how he customized the helmet. Sure, it is a combination of the classic Magneto costume and the Magneto costume from the previous X-men movies. But this one seemed to have a loose fit. It looked like he was wearing a pajama. And his helmet; sure it's nice that they were faithful in depicting Magneto's actual original helmet, but I think it does not translate in real-life movie format all too well. It also didn’t help that his pose was a bit awkward and without any little stretch of "comicbook macho" poise.

The best scenes of the movie show us how imaginative and how simply creative Matthew Vaughn's style is. One simple scene that blew me away was in Shaw's room where he is forcing young Erik Lensherr to manifest his skills, and the camera shows us the other side of the room which reveals a laboratory filled with what could possibly be torture devices as well. Another scene is when the young mutants hear crashing noises and they later realize that the teleporting mutant Azazel is one-by-one killing off government agents by teleporting them up in the air and having them crash down. This was such a unique kind of a killing spree scene. It was also refreshing to find that this movie does not shy away from showing such a ruthless scene, it shows proof that comicbook-based movies like this are now given more or less the equal mature treatment it has in the comicbooks as well.

Aside from other minor errors of the movie, such as the special effects in some scenes, the movie is superb. Almost flawless and almost reaching the level of "Dark Knight Excellence" I can easily say that this is the best X-Men movie I have ever seen. And I hope this is the start of a better X-Men series.

Bane is revealed, for Dark Knight Rises

In a stroke of viral marketing brilliance, Christopher Nolan gave his intrepid fans on Twitter a sneak preview of “The Dark Knight Rises“: the first photo of Tom Hardy as Bane in the next Batman film.

As fans discovered, tweeting “#thefirerises” helps fill in the hidden Tom Hardy image on “The Dark Knight Rises” website, which launched Friday. Holy Twitter, Batman! What a way for Nolan to mark the first week of filming.

Bane, the chemically created brute who first appeared in the comics in 1993, is a “younger” villain for Nolan’s Batman mega-franchise, which has most prominently featured the Joker (who first appeared in 1940) , Two-Face (1942), Ra’s Al-Ghul (1971) and the Scarecrow (1941). But don’t let Bane’s relative newness fool you; the muscular juggernaut once broke Batman’s back in the comics.

– Noelene Clark
source: LA Times

Animated Prologue for 'PRIEST' Released Online

An animated short which serves as an official prelude for the movie PRIEST has recently been released on Youtube and on its official site: http://Priest-themovie.com/ This animated short was created by Genndy Tartakovsky who is best known for creating Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and he is also the one responsible for the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series.

PRIEST is based on the Korean comic of the same name, which is set in a futuristic world where warrior Priests are at war with the Vampires that threaten humanity. The movie and the comicbook is heavily influenced by Spaghetti Westerns, and vampire action, kinda like Underworld and the Blade series. The film is directed by Scott Stewart, and stars Karl Urban, Maggie Q, Christopher Plummer, and Paul Bettany as the title character.

While it is set to be released in the U.S. on May 13, 2011, PRIEST opens this May 11, 2011 in Philippine theaters.

Extra Scene at the end of the credits of THOR

Yes, THOR was indeed an awesome movie, and I'm sure that many of you are so pumped up with excitement for the next Marvel comics movie that will lead up to The Avengers movie.

As many of you know, Marvel movies have this knack of inserting an extra scene after the end credits. Examples of that are at the end of Incredible Hulk, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) appears and talks to General Ross (William Hurt) about "putting up a team" (obviously referring to the Avengers), and in Iron Man 2, a scene where we find SHIELD Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) heading to a site where Thor's hammer (The Mjolnir) landed (a similar scene within the Thor movie). At the recent Thor movie, it should already be expected by Marvel fans that there is an extra scene at the end of the credits.

Many of you may have left the movie theater without seeing that extra scene. Well, here it is...



...If we take the context of what is already in the Marvel comics universe, the Cube in the scene may be the Cosmic Cube, which is actually a containment device created by various civilizations throughout the Marvel Universe at various times, including the alien race the Skrulls, and various other, unnamed civilizations (whose Cubes were gathered/stolen by unknown means by The Magus in the Infinity War story arc and The Goddess in the Infinity Crusade story arc). This Cube has the power to change reality, a god-like power, obviously. And most probably play a huge role in the coming Avengers movie. If this cube is in the storyline, then it would mean the involvement of massive degree Marvel characters such as Thanos, who is an alien warlord. If that is so, then the coming Avengers movie will indeed be something beyond fantastic and mindblowingly epic. Let's just hope that our optimisms are at the right track.

THOR is Beyond Mighty

The film adaptation of the Marvel comics character based on Norse Mythology, entitled THOR may seem like a movie that has a heavy degree of fragility to be translated onscreen. The slightest mistake could have made this project look silly or awful. But Branagh and his team have succeeded in overcoming that incredible obstacle and proved that THOR is an excellently-made, and a cleverly-conceived movie. Expectations have been exceeded with this movie.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE