Grade: D

The Gist: “If you can get past the overt racism, the mediocre acting, sweeping camera shots, racial slurs, slapstick humor and lackluster story telling….you would still think this movie was wack….unless of course you’re mesmerized by large explosions in overwhelming excess. “

Let me begin by saying that my views were somewhat skewed before I even went into the theater. I had read a few reviews on the film at LatinoReview.com. To be honest, those guys hit the nail on the head with this one. Michael Bay and co. have delivered a fine film…if all a film requires is mediocre acting, sweeping camera shots, racial slurs, slapstick humor and lackluster story telling. Don’t worry I will hit all the points of that last sentence.

I am not going to summarize the movie because it is too convoluted and filled with lackluster plot points to really effectively communicate in a few sentences. Suffice it to say, Sam and co. are in a race against time to stop “The Fallen” from destroying the sun with an ancient machine that was built in Egypt thousands of years ago.

Coming into this movie I was most concerned about Megan Fox and her acting ability. I had heard a lot about how she was just awful and that she should be slaughtered to avoid anymore cinematic  travesties. The fact of the matter is that she wasn’t that bad. I think it’s somewhat cool right not to hate her. She wasn’t spectacular, but she certainly didn’t give any better or worse a performance than anyone else in the film. Shia Lebouf was the pinnacle of the acting in the movie, which again says something about what kind of “acting” there was. He plays the character decently enough. If your not a fan of his, you will be disappointed because he has a certain kind of attitude in all his roles. Either take it or leave it. I don’t particularly mind it. The rest of the cast were either unimportant or just plain bad. John Tuturro was the same silly sector 7 agent you remember, and that’s the sad part. Tyrese and Josh Duramel play the same characters as well. I often found myself wondering why Tyrese was even in the film though. It seemed like he was filling that token black guy role with likes like “We gonna get our asses kicked.” You could have replaced him with any one of the characters from the Wayans brothers TV show and no one would have noticed. Sam’s roommate, played by Ramon Rodriguez, is pretty much a stereotype of Latino men. He is cowardly, annoying, and obsessed with women. His role was utterly pointless. It seems like so many of the characters served more a “comic relief” purpose than an actual one. If someone can tell me why Rodriguez’s character was needed, please do.

I am not going to harp on the cinematography much. Suffice to say, it was pretty bad. A lot of the action sequences were unwatchable. The camera work made everything hard to follow and a lot of the time important scenes were skewed by shotty camera work. Aside from that there was the vast number of sweeping camera shot, which seem to be Michael Bay’s favorite technique. It at one point became ridiculous because they did a sweeping shot of Sam’s astronomy teacher (Dwight from “The Office”) lecturing…why? I have not idea.The slow motion shot was also overly used. There was a point where I was waiting for someone to yell “This is SPARTA!”

The kind of humor this movie presents is also very childish. If its not the two Sambo-bots Mudflap and Skids fighting or displaying some kind of buffoonish behavior, it is Sam’s parents. I will not lie, some of their material is funny, mostly due to Julie White (Sam’s Mother). She is particularly funny to watch. Still, the extent to which we had to endure their shenanigans was just ridiculous. I have no idea why they were transported to the final conflict. They served no purpose there. All while I was watching, I got the feeling that this movie didn’t need to be made. The continuation of the Autobots story in this direction seemed so obviously manufactured to bring in more money it was kind of ridiculous. Every element seemed like it was put there to make the movie longer, not because it was an important element in the story. The story really had no important elements.

The last or maybe first straw for this movie were the two Minstrel Autobots Mudflap and Skids. These two are idiotic twins who first show up as a bumbling ice cream truck. They get upgraded after the Shanghai mission to slightly more visually appalling vehicles. Still the gist of their offensive personalities remain. The twins constantly bicker and talking what can only be described as ghetto-ebonics-rap-video. Of course, this is the stereotypical version of those things. They are shaped like monkeys and use slang terms like “pussy” and “bitch ass.” As if that weren’t bad enough, at one point in the film Sam asks them if they can read the symbols he has been seeing and their response is “Read?…We don’t do too much readin’…” I was just waiting for them to tack “Boss” on the end then shuck and jive right out of the frame. Not only was their presence annoying, it was down right offensive. One of them had buck teeth with gold fronts! C’mon now, that’s just overtly stereotypical. As soon as you see these robots you know exactly what their purpose is: Slap-stick, minstrel type comedy. They even had an Italian robot who was completely obsessed with getting “wacked” by other decepticons…

I will close this review with this. Michael Bay sucks…not only that, but he is a racially insensitive film maker who refuses to make any movies of real substance. Remember that the next time one of his films comes out. Save yourself the 10 bucks and watch Fight Club. You’ll thank me…

]]> http://jetblackart.com/movies/128/feed 1 http://jetblackart.com/movies/24 http://jetblackart.com/movies/24#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 17:31:30 +0000 JetBlack http://jetblackart.com/?p=24 Grade: A-

Ever since James Cameron began to facinate our minds with the posibility of time traveling robots that are tough as nails and will stop at nothing to destroy their targets, we have been watching and at times waiting patiently for the action that we know a Terminator film can possess. The newest film does a good job of finding a happy medium between the action packed 3rd installment and the story and character driven first movies. The result is a well crafted cinematic work that most will enjoy.

John Connor (Christian Bale) and his team of resistance soldiers battle against time to rescue Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and deal a lasting blow to the MCP-style juggernaut Skynet. The story is very solid, without giving too much away. Skynet is as sinister and intelligent as we could have imagined it. The new characters Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), Barnes (Common), and Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood) fit into the story seamlessly. They each play their respected roles well. My main critique is that of Rapper turned actor Common. His performace is lackluster at best. Not having much life or real emotion to his character made him seem relatively expendible in the whole grand scheme of things. Luckily he was just a spporting character. Bale and Worthington stole the show followed closely by Yelchin. Acting wise, the film was solid with the exception of Common, who even with his lifeless performance played the role of tough right hand man adequately enough.

There werre some great scenes in the film a lot of which did not have a lot of CG. The scenes that did were even more beautiful. The graphics work in this film was top of the line. There is a suprise cameo that is very suprising and is also a testament to what we can do now with the emergin technology of the day in film. Another stand out was the music which was done by veteran Danny Elfman. The action sequences we definately edge of your seat material. There were some points in the film where you can’t possibly imagine the humans ever winning the war.

With a running time of 130 minutes its was just long enough for you to get wrapped up in the movie, and just short enough so you didnt start to get bored and wonder when the end would come. McG did very well and hopefully from now on everyfilm he does will use this sort of production as a benchmark. If your expecting Charlies Angels, look elsewhere because this movie is not it. Congrats to McG for finally stepping his game up. This is a great summer movie, next to Star Trek its a front runner for the summers best. Definately worth the 10 bucks.