Transformers 2: Better than a Rash

Any movie that has a robot with a gold tooth in it is ok in my book. Having said that, Transformers 2 is one of the most mediocre movies I’ve ever seen that has some truly great things in it. Much like the first one, it would have been a better flick sans human beings, or at least the human beings that had been cast in the movie. I missed Jon Voight, but was pleased that Sam’s parents were still the only humans in the movie worth giving a shit about. Not to sound too pretentious or that I actually have any idea as to what I’m talking about, but I feel like the major weakness of Transformers 2 is weak story telling, and perhaps trying to cram too much stuff into an already epic length movie.

The movie hits some really great beats, robots building a sun eating machine inside a pyramid, dropping Optimus Prime out of an air plane, one wheeled robot women, a college slut with a tight ass & a tail; cool stuff. There is a lot of eye candy, and yes, I guess it’s obvious for a movie about robots, but not a lot of heart to the film. It’s got some cool “technology is taking over our lives” and “the enemy is under our noses and goes undetected” vibes, but it never goes too much further than a robot grudge match. Since the movie is B-Movie trash that maybe for the best, but good 1950s B-Movie always have that fear of the atom bomb or red scare message to them. I feel the movie would have reflected modern times a little more if there weren’t about Big Bads that you know where to aim your gun. Instead, if the movie wanted to movie into murky gray moralistic/ethical areas, I would have had the two teams split up into terror cells of renegade robots using Earth as it’s personal battleground with neither side having a leader. To me, that would be more reflective of our current political climate with multiple enemy fronts and a government that doesn’t seem to know how to pull its head out of its ass.

Sadly, the flick ends up falling back on obvious and over used Hollywood sci-fi tropes of love conquers all, destiny, and good versus evil. Granted, this is a movie based a toy line, and maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty fed up with movies that have all that crud in it. As much as I love Optimus Prime, and I assure you I do. I cried when he died when I was a kid, I tear up when he says “one shall stand, one shall fall” or “Autobots roll out,” and all his trash talk in the flick was a barrel of good times, but they should have kept him dead. They should have cut off the head of the Autobots, scattered them to the four corners of the world and forced them to beat a foe more villainous than Megatron and do it with out Robot Jesus Christ on their side. That could be just my thing, but I like my heroes to be underdogs, and I like to watch them get the stuffing kicked out of them, and then grind the grit in their teeth, catch the foot that’s kicking them and then make the aggressor’s head explode. Bringing Megatron back was a big mistake, from a Hollywood point of view it makes sense, but bringing him back to make him a lackey was weak. The Fallen should have been established as a vile bastard without having to weaken Megatron.

Easily the best character in the movie is Jetfire, not only is he a cranky old robot that walks with a cane, but he’s a turncoat Decepticon that opts out of evil and entropy and instead chooses retirement and solitude. The old soldier who made mistakes, still brandishes his scars, but otherwise wants no reminders of his time of wrongfulness. Instead of being like Sam who is just a marionette on the strings of destiny, Jetfire shows us we can choose our own path and we live or die by our own mistakes and victories and we don’t walks a road that has already been paved for us. If I were to make a summer movie analogy Sam is Star Trek the movie we’ve already seen, nothing new here, a nice old friend, but Jetfire is something new, he’s Drag Me to Hell; something new, scary and wonderful.

Wisely, the stars of the movie are the robots, but where they shine, the humans cast no light. Most of the robots have something great going for them from Optimus Prime’s savage nobility, to Bumblebee’s love for Spike, the villain’s hatred manifesting itself as they spit and vomit juice all over the screen, but the humans…they don’t have anything to do. Sam’s parents get to be fun and kooky, Sam kinds has some faux Marvel Comics Spider-Manisms thrust on him as he wants dump his responsibility for school and ‘tang, but the rest of the humans are just obnoxious. The Mexican dude: irritating. John Turturro has some good lines, but otherwise, irritating. Army guys=bland guys. However, The Fallen suffers from the same problems Nero did in Star Trek, he’s bad because they say he is. Yeah, he wants to blow up our Sun, but he doesn’t walk onto the screen and the first thing you see him do is choke a man to death. How is that George Lucas, who is a retard gets it, and these people, who have a robot with a gold tooth in its mouth, miss the point?
The action is a lot of fun, robots get shredded to pieces and some even get their faces ripped off, but it’s video game cinema at its best. The lines are hokey and cheesy, but they seemed to fit, not only Hollywood blockbuster type of crap, but also the kind of trash talk you hear on Xbox Live. The bits of the movie that played to stoners/gamers really soared, but the parts they tried to cram on to Middle America (love/destiny) just fell flat. My favorite bit of villainy (besides Megatron’s vomiting): knocking over the American flag. Those robots are evil! They hate freedom! Good stuff. If you want to go to the movies and watch robots tear each other limbs from limb goes see Transformers. The run time on the sucker is about a week long, but if you stop and try not to think to hard, you get your money’s worth. If you want to see a good flick go see Up! Or Drag me to Hell. Or maybe the Hangover, I haven’t seen it but I hear it’s funny. That’s what I got to say, feel free to chime in with your opinions.

Good times.

Here's something spectacular for my fabulous fiftieth post.

To Comfortably Go Where We've Already Gone Before.

Just got back from seeing the new star Trek movie, and it was a pretty decent movie. But...it's not that great. The biggest problem I had with the movie was that it was called Star Trek. Somewhere in the middle of the movie it dawned on me that there was no reason for the movie I saw tonight to be tethered to some 50 year old science fiction franchise, when it would have served the movie better had it been called Sexy Teenagers in Space. The entire film I sat there and dissected and compared and contrasted this flick with the original series, and I never even gave it a shot as its own independent thing. Technically, it isn't its own independent thing and therefore the comparison must be made.

It reminded me of when I go see the super hero movies that and I sit there and think about how much better I like the source material than what I'm watching on the screen. Star Trek suffers from the same thing. It has awesome laser gun noises and the spaceships look wicked as hell, but no one that utters a line even matches up to their original counterpart. Sure the inflection might be there or even the occasional he sort of looks like Kirk there, but you never really see Kirk up there.

The whole idea of the movie is a little lazy in that it doesn't have to establish anything new. We already know these characters by heart, si there's no need to do anything but stay on the surface. One thing that struck me about the movie was how there weren't any great one liners you could walk away quoting. Then it dawned on me there were great one liners, it was just that I'd been hearing them all my life and they had become routine. I've already heard "Dammit Jim I'm a doctor not a clit masseuse" a thousand times. Gimme something new fellas. The archetypes work just fine, we'll trot them out in some shiny new shirts, but they'll say the same things and people will think they're seeing something they ain't never seen before. Therein lies another problem.

Star Trek is about boldly going where no one has ever gone before, except this time we've already been to Myrtle Beach. It doesn't mean Myrtle Beach isn't a bad place, it's great actually, but we've been going there for a few Summer's now. I hear Virginia is for lovers, lets see what the poon tang is like in that direction, it might be great.

The argument could be made that I knew wasn't going to get anything new out of something called Star Trek anyways, that if I want new I should go see something else. and you would be correct, but that outer space big budget sci-fi movie didn't get made, because they went for the sure thing and remade Star Trek instead of giving me Sexy Teens in Space.

There's a line in the movie about star Fleet needing guys like Jim Kirk that'll give it a boot up its ass and make it exciting and not so self assured and routine. Maybe this was a little aside about Hollywood. It needs something to come along and make something new for the kids today. It's great that I like Superman and Batman and my nephew does too, but it saddens me some to see that a lot of the same toys I played with are still popular today. I know there are some new and great things out there, but sometimes it gets hard to see them with the old ideas mugging for everyone's attention.

Questions that kept running through my mind is why not Star Trek? and when do you change things to the point where it's no longer Star Trek. If you're making a movie about the space navy that journey's around having adventures you might as well call it Star Trek, but if but if you start tweaking a few things maybe it's no longer Star Trek. To me Star Trek was much more cerebral than this movie. Star Trek is less laser guns and more philosophy. Less rocket engines and more dramatic intensity. This of course is partly due to the limitations of 1960s TV, but for better or for worse, that's what Star Trek is. Well, not this movie anyways, this movie is just Space Navy pretending to be Star Trek, but maybe in it's heart of hearts it wants to be Sexy Teens in Space. If you call the ship the enterprise, but you never really wrestle with any moral dilemma or philisophical question, is it still Star Trek?

I ate a lot of pop corn, I saw some some cool blinky lights, and I generally had a good time. There's certainly worse things I could have spent my money on, but in another time line my $8 went to Sexy Teens in space, and I had a blast.

Here's a video from Cartoonbrew.com about the early/forgotten history of Superman in animation before his Tv show in the 1950s. For those keeping track it's about 7 minutes long, but I still found it to be a lot of fun. Lately I've been thinking about my love of super heroes and how I really seem to enjoy "off model" or parody versions even more than the genuine article, so it wasn't a huge surprise when I liked the Little Lulu portion of this piece the best. Maybe someday I'll get around to doing a post on my love of parody and cipher versions of my favorite heroes. The video opens with some clips from the Fleischer studios Superman cartoons of which I have been a big fan of since I saw a bunch of them on Nick at Night back when I was like 11 or 12. I used to really hate Superman but the slick animation and darker look really made me like the Man of Steel.



Notice the differing "S" shield with the black background instead of yellow. I have quite a fascination with the evolution of the symbol, and I've bought a few Superman comics just because they've used that "S" symbol as opposed to the standard version.




It was this look that inspired the Superman from Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come, the first time in comics form I ever liked him. Yes, I followed the Death and Return of Superman and had an issue here and there, but during that I was hoping the Cyborg would turn out to be the real Superman, but when Supes returned with a new mullet in tow my hopes were dashed of ever really liking him. Over the years I've read some really amazing Superman comics that have opened my eyes to the character, and I consider him one of my all time favs now. Enjoy the video.

Save Me Black Dynamite

Trailer

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After about 15 minutes of doing homework, I needed this. NSFW, as if any of the people I know work in real places.

It's probably a trap.

Yer God damn right it is.