Film Review - Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the third movie in this live action series and the story here this time is that back in the 60's, an Autobot spacecraft fleeing Cybertron crashes on the Dark Side of the Moon, creating the famous space race of that decade, in the present day however Sam played by Shia LaBeouf has moved to Washington to start a new job and has a new girlfriend Carly played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, but the Autobots may need his help again as rumours fly around regarding the return of some old foes.

Dark of the Moon was seen as director Michael Bay and company's attempt to make up to the fans the failure of the last film in the series, 2009's Revenge of the Fallen which had nothing of any worth to go with it apart from a fight sequence in a forest, as a result this was the one movie I had been dreading so far all year, but was I right to expect the worst or did I expect a pleasant surprise.

Well, first off I'll start with the good stuff and that is twofold: First is the larger allotment of screen time given to Optimus Prime voiced again by Peter Cullen, this time around he's not used just to narrate the film or provide a fight sequence here or there, this time it really feels like he has a part to play in the storyline of the film as well as giving us the aforementioned narration which Cullen has done very well throughout all three films plus the badass fight scenes which are nothing short of fantastic to watch, mainly because we care about Prime as a character and want to see him triumph as "One shall Stand, One shall Fall."

The second positive is that there was a genuine attempt to atone for the mistakes of the last film by actually attempting to write a plotline for the film, the first half of the film for the most part is somewhat interesting as it involves the whole moon landing thing mentioned in my plot synopsis.

However, the film also has a lot of shortcomings, pretty much all of which occur in the latter two thirds of the film, how do I talk about thee, well let thee count the ways in no particular order.

1. Carly herself: Though Huntington is a vast improvement on Megan Fox, she's also not that much better either as she parades through the film looking like a 35 year old fashion model on vacation with Sam being the 21 year old kid she picked up and bonked more times than a worn and very old shagged carpet plus her British accent just gets grating after a while and she turns into nothing more than a plot device with tits and ass that just decides to phone in the whole thing, smegging hell.

2. No Heart: Pretty much the last hour of the film is the battle in Chicago between the Decepticons and the resistance and with the exception of the final showdown with Optimus and a few shots of fighters on the attack, it all gets monotonous, loud (so very loud) and boring as most of it is BWAMMMP, SHREECH, BOOOOOOMMMMPPP turned up to 15 and given audio enhancement steroids, it all gets too much after a time and it feels like you've had 10 decibels ripped off your sound index when it's all over.

3. The Role of the Decepticons: Ah yes, the dreaded Decepticons and Quite frankly, yet again they're given nothing to do apart from setup the action and also yet again, I was reminded how Hugo Weaving makes nothing work with Megatron, with some of his lines screaming for Frank Welker to say them so that you get some satisfaction watching him on screen, however though he does voice Soundwave as he did in the last film as well but again is given nothing to do as is Starscream, he might as well have taken a vacation, I'm sure Thundercracker or Skywarp could've filled his boots and also, what was the point of bringing in Shockwave if you're just going to shove him in there for no reason at all.

And to top it all off, watching this film kept reminding me of how good Avatar and James Cameron were, Bay is just nowhere near as good an action director as Cameron because he just piles the action on without giving any thought to making it matter or giving us a reason to care about the action on screen or for that matter letting us see who's fighting who in a clear and concise way, I know some weren't big fans of Avatar but at least Cameron took his time, wrote a storyline and characters and paced his action like a master.

But there is one last positive I must talk about and that is I didn't see it in 3D, if I did I think it would've been the equivalent of institutionalised torture, the 2D experience was more than enough for me.

So all in all, if you want a good Transformers experience then I highly recommend tracking down last year's video game War for Cybertron, that should be more than adequate, as for this movie well if you must see it then wait for the Blu-Ray release otherwise I wouldn't bother too much in going to see it, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Cars 2 (2011)

Cars 2 is the long awaited sequel to the 2006 Pixar movie Cars, Lightning McQueen again voiced by Owen Wilson has won his 4th Piston Cup when Sir Myles Axelrod develops an alternative fuel source called "Allinol" and to celebrate he's hosting a World Grand Prix in which McQueen will race, but a spy named Finn McMissile voiced by Michael Caine is also racing to advert a major disaster.

To be honest I wasn't looking forward to this film, mainly because I wasn't a big fan of the first Cars which looked amazing but had an average story but the trailers for the film made it look like a lot of fun so how did they do?

Well they failed, and rather miserably at that, the film is so Boring it is not funny, nothing of any substance in this works, there is too little of the actual racing which IS pretty exciting nor is there a lot of the spy subplot too which is setup terrifically with the opening sequence but just ends up wasting Caine as it goes on.

What we do get is endless jokes regarding Tow Mater, the tow truck character from the first movie who is shoved into the limelight as the central character when it's McQueen that fronts all the posters flying around the place but nope McQueen's sentenced to the race track while Mater gets all the screen time and boy oh boy does it get excruciating to watch after a while, director John Lasseter really should've known better in this regard.

What did work though was the Toy Story short prior to the main feature, in which Barbie and Ken hope to go to Hawaii with their owner Bonnie for Vacation but are left behind, so the other toys fill in the blanks, it's very funny with some great jokes and almost made me yearn for another Toy Story movie, but hopefully we don't get it.

You know, following that wonderful film with this one was like following Highlander 1 with Highlander 2, what a disaster this was, if you must see it wait for the Blu-Ray release, otherwise don't bother, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Super 8 (2011)

Super 8 is a collaboration between director JJ Abrams best known for 2009's Star Trek reboot and Steven Spielberg, the story is that Joe Lamb a young kid played by Joel Courtney as lost his mother in an accident, as a result his father the Deptuy Sherriff is concerned for his well being but Joe is determined to help his friend finish his Super 8mm movie, but one night the crew experience a train crash, one that will change their lives.

Super 8 was a wonderful achievement by Abrams, who has improved immensely on his Star Trek outing in that we actually care about the main characters and the action scenes are actually well shot and edited, one couldn't help but wonder if Abrams did so after the action scenes in Avatar but he doesn't have James Cameron's skill in that department.

However that doesn't stop the film from reminding you of the Spielberg movies of the 70's and 80's like The Goonies, ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind mixed in with Cloverfield for good measure, all of the main kids are exceptionally good and earn our trust, one of them even sparking a few tears in one scene, as for the cause of all this well I won't give that away despite others doing so, it's bad enough we went through all this with Scream 4 earlier this year and it's disappointing to see another prominent critic break a cardinal rule of reviewing.

As for yourselves well you should go see this movie pronto, it's one of the year's best, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - X-Men First Class (2011)

X-Men: First Class is a reboot of the X-men film series that fell into despair with 2009's Wolverine movie, here Kick Ass director Matthew Vaughn is tasked with bringing the series back on track with his exploration of both Charles Xavier played here by James McAvoy and Erik Lensherr aka Magneto played by Michael Fassbender.

A s good as Super 8 was, this I felt was the better of the two mainly because I found this movie involving as it was a great action adventure ride with great characters and most of all a good villain, see that makers of Thor they actually made their villain important to the plot not a total afterthought and Kevin Bacon plays it with great relish as do McAvoy and Fassbender, capturing the same chemistry that Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen had in the first two X-Men movies directed by Bryan Singer, who also acts as a producer on this film.

But that's not all folks, the film's storyline balances both the seriousness of the main relationship, the historical aspects regarding Russia, the back story to X-Men 1 and the fun of the 1960's into a seamless whole, but there are others such as Rose Byrne and January Jones that deserve a mention, Byrne in particular has a very convincing US accent that was almost impossible to pick faults with, one fault I do have was the lack of the X-Men theme from the 1990's, just once I wish I could've seen that theme in an X-Men movie as it's a great theme that deserves to be heard in a cinema.

All in all, an awesome thrill ride that's worth the wait, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - True Grit (2010)

True Grit is a remake of the classic 1969 Western which starred John Wayne and earned him his only Academy Award, this time it's Hallee Steinfeld as Matti Ross a 14 year old girl who seeks retribution for the death of her father, to do this though she will need help, so she hires a US Marshal Cogburn played by Jeff Bridges and along for the ride of his own will is Texas Ranger Labeef played by Matt Damon.

True Grit is a very enjoyable film, well directed by the Coen Brothers Joel and Ethan and nicely paced by their hand, Bridges and Steinfeld are amazing and it's their performances that help to carry the film however both Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are pretty weak but it's only a minor complaint.

One thing I must mention though is the beautiful cinematography work by Roger Deakins, in fact a lot of it reminded me of Dean Semler's work on Mad Max 2 and Dances with Wolves as there are many scenes of cold and darkness, vast landscapes and mountain ranges, even down to the forests in the background and the big buildings that feel very real and not the product of computer graphics, a job most well done indeed.

However as I said before, Damon and Brolin are the weak links as is the film's ending which drags on a little too long for my liking but considering both my enjoyment of the film and it's under 2 hours running time, these are only minor quibbles.

All in all, worth a look, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Unstoppable (2010)

Unstoppable is inspired by true events and concerns two men: Frank Barnes played by Denzel Washington and Will Colston played by Chris Pine who are tasked in stopping a freight train carrying Hazardous material and is also unmanned and heading towards a populated area in Southern Pennsylvania.

Unstoppable is a fun, stupid movie like some of the early movies director Tony Scott made early in his career like his 1986 hit Top Gun or his 1987 sequel Beverly Hills Cop II, Both Denzel and Pine play off each other very well and the film does pick up steam after an initial wishy washy beginning.

But the one thing that I just couldn't get out of my mind as I watched this movie was its reminders to me of the classic Simpsons episode "Marge vs. the Monorail" I mean seriously it's all there, there's the brain-dead slob in the cushy job, the runaway object, the reclusive scientist that made me go "It's not Batman" heck even the crazy plan to stop the train is similar but this time it doesn't involve an anchor of some sorts that's stopped by a giant donut, all you needed was the management to do the whole solar power thing and one of the kids on another train to go "A Solar Eclipse, the cosmic ballet goes on."

All in all, it's stupid but fun stupid, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Chances Are (1989)

Chances Are stars Robert Downey Jr. as Alex Finch, a Yale Graduate who takes the fancy of Miranda Jefferies played by Mary Stuart Masterson, but when the two go to her house and Alex meets her mother Corrine played by Cybil Sheppard, Alex starts getting strange memories.

Chances Are is a fun movie with several scenes that made laugh out loud and is also nicely anchored by Downey, Masterson, Sheppard and Ryan O'Neal but if the film has a failing it's with the slightly convoluted storyline that goes into all of these different directions regarding the main characters and though it nicely tied together in the end, I couldn't help but think that this was a big problem.

All in all, a fun movie that slightly overcomes its script problems, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Air America (1990)

Air America is the name of a supposed civilian operation by the Americans inside Laos, despite the insistence of President Nixon that there is no US presence in Laos, but a hotshot LA pilot played Robert Downey Jr. arrives to participate in the program and finds something very different.

AA was a fun movie with some great cinematography and flying scenes, some very funny moments and good acting from Downey, Mel Gibson, Ken Jenkins and others, If I had a complaint though it's the classic third act terminal illness that infects a lot of movies and spreads itself as it creates a breakdown of the rest of the film which was a funny one prior to it and adds a layer of sentimentality to it, luckily it wasn't terminal and it didn't affect the rest of the movie.

All in all, not a bad little film that's worth your time, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Black Swan (2010)

Black Swan stars Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers, a ballerina with a company which is starting its new season by doing a version of Swan Lake, but when a rival dancer from San Francisco played by Mila Kunis comes to dance with her company, Nina starts to lose her mind.

You know, I don't know in all honesty if there will be a better movie released this year, almost everything about it is unbelievable and at times heart stopping, Portman, Kunis, Vincent Cassel and Barbara Hershey are all really good but the star attraction here is Portman, who puts everything she has and more into this, at times driving herself to the brink of total insanity through sheer determination to prove herself not only in this movie but as an adult actress to the world, having for a number of years failed to impress audiences since her film debut in Luc Besson's The Professional in 1994 when she was just 13.

In terms of the film itself, director Darron Aronofsky really lets his camera do the talking and finally shows off how to properly film dancing scenes letting the actors and the editing flow in a natural and uninterrupted way that lets us soak in the dancing in the scenes, I was also reminded of two other movies as it went on: David Cronenberg's The Fly and Rocky II.

I guess I should explain the latter reference in more detail, you see both Black Swan and Rocky II end in a big climax that involves our hero going to the brink before earning the adulation of the crowd and also in both instances, the final scenes are heartstoppingly tense in a way that makes you soar.

All in all, go check it out, 4 and a half out of 5.