Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Starring: Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro

Director: Michael Bay

IMDb:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1055369/

Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_Revenge_of_the_Fallen

Oh God...

I am only human with human flaws, and on occasion, I want to see a train wreck. I was curious about why this movie got blasted as hard as it did. Well...I found out. And it deserves every criticism it got.

For the record, I do not say this as a Michael Bay-hater. I actually liked the first "Transformers" movie; it had epic battles between good robots, bad robots, and the military, and had a lot of humor in between. Sure, it had some stupid parts in it, but generally speaking it was entertaining. This on the other hand...there is no defense for this. I do not usually like doing "summery reviews," but I think that this time it is necessary to explain its true awfulness (I will skim over a bit so that I can get to the "important parts"). There will be spoilers, but trust me, you will not care.

It starts off with Optimus Prime talking about how the Decepticons and their real leader, named the Fallen, came to Earth long ago to get energy and a bunch of other stuff that will be explained later on and does not really need to be mention at the moment. It then shows the Autobots and the military chasing after leftover Decepitcons through the streets of Shanghai. The new national security advisor is an asshole (surprised?) and wants to disband the group and sending the Autobots packing, but Optimus warns that this is unwise that there is going to be big problems ahead, indicating...THE REVENGE OF THE FALLEN!!! Or he could have been talking about the plot, which I think ends up doing more damage to mankind than the Fallen ever does.

It then cuts to Sam (Shia LaBeouf) who is getting ready for college. He is still dating Mikaela, played once again by Megan Fox. Has her acting improved since the first movie? Nope. Is she still hot? Yes. Well, that's all that really matters, so let's just move on. Anyway, Sam finds a piece of the All-Spark that was destroyed in the first film and it fills his mind with a bunch of symbols and releases a bunch of really weird looking robots that briefly cause havoc around the house. How exactly did this last part happen? It's not really explained. Get used to it.

Despite this issue, Sam gets to college and meets his new roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), who talks about how the governments of the world are hiding the existence of the robots. This is when the movie really starts to raise eyebrows. How exactly is the U.S. government and its counterparts expecting to have 50 foot robots running around, firing guns at one another, in huge metropolitan cities like Shanghai AND BELIEVE THAT NO ONE WILL NOTICE! This was mentioned at the end of the first Transformers movie, but I did not think anyone really took it seriously. Well, apparently Michael Bay and other people who made the film did! Jesus.... So, how are we expected to ignore this huge plot hole. By laughing at Sam's mom (Julie White), who accidently eats "special brownies" and gets really loopy! Are we also expected to buy this fact even though she apparently bought it from stereotypical looking stoners and that a woman in her late 40s does not know what a marijuana leaf looks like (the symbol is clearly labelled on the bag). I guess there is nothing we can do about these plot holes, is there?

So Sam continues to adjust to life at college, which is filled with hot girls as far as the eye can seen, some of whom walk around only wearing towels, and a number of them have the hots for a strange professor, played by Rainn Wilson. Yeah, because when I think of sexy college professors, I think of Dwight from "The Office". But Sam cannot really focus on this because he is having weird visions and displaying odd behavior as a result of it. He is also being stalked by a psycho chick who is trying to seduce him. Little does he know that another part of the All-Spark was stolen by Decepticons, who use it to revive Megatron and others. Megatron then meets with the Fallen on his base in outer-space, the Nemesis, to discuss plans for global destruction.

It is eventually revealed that the psycho chick is actually a Decepticon that was seeking to eliminate him and steal his All-Spark piece. Wait...what? Hold on, hold on! They are able to make almost perfect replicas of human beings. Since when?! Are they using the Skynet program from the "Terminator" films to help them out? Well, guess what? She gets destroyed shortly afterward and so we never get an exclamation for this new type of technology they posses and it is never mentioned or seen again. Great. It turns out that Sam isn't the only one with problems: Mikaela has to deal with a very annoying Decepticon named Wheelie who sounds like a PG-13 version of Joe Pesci. She eventually "trains" him and turns him into a pet that fits in her purse. Its like Megan Fox is Paris Hilton and Wheelie is her robotic Tinkerbell. That's super! But believe me, it gets worse than this guy.

After being captured by the Decepticons, they are recused by Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. The enemy attacks and while Optimus fights bravely, he is killed in the assault. Bumblebee then escorts Sam and the others to safety, while the other Autobots come in to defend them. Where were they beforehand? Probably could have helped Optimus out a bit, couldn't they? Not that it will do him much good now. The humans go into hiding and are guarded by Bumblebee and twin robots named Mudflap and Skids and oh my god those are the most racist robots I have ever seen! I mean, I am not usually the sort of person that goes after random bits of pop culture and accuses them of being discriminatory, but even I have my limit. The guys speak in Jive, they are depicted as unintelligent, they don't like to read, have no character depth, and...come on, one of them even has a gold tooth:

"But Sam! I don't know nothing about birthing no Autobabies!"

Despite the fact that he is wanted by the government so he can be handed over to the Decepticons as part of a bargain to leave Earth (and so Mudflap and Skids can get handed over to the NAACP), Sam still wants to help save the world and Leo makes his only real contribution to the movie by contacting a guy who he thinks can help them. As it turns out, the guy is Simmons, the government douche-bag from the first movie. He is played once again by John Turturro, because I guess the Coen brothers and Adam Sandler are no longer taking his calls anymore. He helps Sam decipher the codes in his head, and their quest eventually leads them to National Air and Space Museum where they run come across a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird with a Decepticon symbol on it. Not sure how that got by both the Air Force AND the museum's curators!

It turns out to be Jetfire, an ancient robot who has switched sides to the Autobots. I think I hate Jetfire more than anything else in this movie. He is not the most annoying or the most racist character in the film, but he pretty much represents almost everything that makes it so dumb: he yells and screams a lot, he fumbles around on a walking stick (I don't care if he is old; why does A ROBOT need a walking stick?), and when he farts (yes, he farts too) a parachute comes out of his ass...or what is supposed to be his ass. Its kind of embarrassing to watch and it destroys what very little dignity this film already had left. Why...just...why?

Anyway, Jetfire transports them to Egypt, tells them about how there is a machine there that is to be used to give the Decepticons energy and destroy the Earth and only a Prime can stop the Fallen. They devise a really elaborate plan to find a magical object called the Matrix-

Sorry Keanu, Megan Fox is already in this film, but the next time we want a big name star who can't act their way out of a paper bag, we'll give you a call.

-and use it to revive Optimus Prime. They eventually find the Matrix, but it crumples to dust upon touching it. Sam still insists on using it to revive Optimus. Eventually there is a big battle between the Autobots, the Decepticons and the military like in the first film, except the Autobots are rarely shown. Seriously, why were they even in this movie? Oh, I forgot, there is also a part where Simmons find out that one of the Decepticons has a scrotum. That is not as disgusting as it sounds, but it would be best if we not look to much into this.

Well,Sam's annoying parents (White and Kevin Dunn) are transported to Egypt and used as leverage against him, but they are freed after at most five minutes, making this plot point completely pointless. At another point, Sam is seemingly killed by a blast. Wow, the main human character in the second installment of a multi-million dollar movie franchise might be dead; there is no way he is going to come back to life! Well, as you can imagine, it doesn't quite work out that way. He has an out of body experience in which the deceased Primes congratulate him on his courage. He is revived and the Matrix is reconstructed. Umm...quick question. What would have happened if Sam did not get hit by the blast, could not reconstruct the Matrix, and was unable to revive Optimus? Wouldn't the Decepticons have won and the Earth would be destroyed? I mean, for the sake of ending this movie series, that would have been great, but from a storytelling perspective, that seems to be a bit of a flaw in the Prime's design plan, isn't it? Oh forget it, the movie is almost over anyway.

Okay, let's wrap this up. Optimus is back, but is not at full power. Jetfire, realizing that the only thing he has done in his life is hog screen time for a sequel that never should have been made, sacrifices himself so that Optimus can meet the challenge. The Prime then kills the Fallen, leaving Megatron and Starscream to retreat to the Nemesis to prepare for an even crappy sequel for the summer of 2011. Don't you love a two and a half hour movie that ends with a cliffhanger even though the movie you just finished watching wasn't worth sitting through? Optimus gives a stupid speech about unity and all that crap, and the movie finally, FINALLY, ends, with scenes showing Sam returning to college during the closing credits, which serve no purpose what so ever. REALLY LIKE TO END THE WAY YOU STARTED, DON'T YOU, MOVIE?!

This...was...terrible. I expected this film to be bad when I saw it, but I was not prepared for just how bad. I've seen stupid movies before, but with this film, I really thought my intelligence was being purposely insulted. And as far as sequels to recent blockbusters go, this was by far the worst that I have seen. This was worse than the third "Spiderman" movie. This was worse than the last two "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. This was even worse than the "Matrix" sequels. It was way too long, it had so much stuff that did not make sense, it was filled with uninteresting, annoying, pointless, and/or racists characters, and above all, it just really came off as a film that set out to prove that people will see anything with big robots, sexy women, and mindless special effects. Sadly, they were proven right, as this film made more money at the box office than any other film in 2009 except for the all-time box office champion, "Avatar," despite the fact that it won the Razzie Award for Worst Picture (among other dubious honors). Now, to be completely fair, Shia LaBeouf and even Michael Bay himself have both gone on the record to say that the film was not one that they were particularly proud of. Either way, it was released as it was, and those involved will have to suffer the consequences of their actions. If the upcoming third "Transformers" ends up being a flop, they will know why.

And that is it. I strongly DO NOT recommend this film. Unless are an idiot like me and you want to see a train wreck, that is. A really, really, big train wreck.

Review: Legion (2010)

Director: Scott Charles Stewart

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Paul Bettany, Lucas Black

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1038686/

"All those little babies are gonna burn!"

-Evil Old Lady

This is a very religious thriller. And by that I mean, it is religious in the way that I am praying I never have to see it again, and it’s a thriller in the way that I was thrilled when it ended. People…this is Legion.

The movie kicks off with some narration from a woman. As the movie assumes we care about this disembodied voice we do not even know, the woman starts to talk about how her Mom used to tell her bedtime stories about the Apocalypse when she was a child, saying that “God just got tired of all the bullshit.” Well, if that’s true, then how come The Last Airbender was allowed to be released the same year as this movie? I think the rumors of God’s tiredness of the bullshit have been grossly exaggerated. And for that matter, her mother told her stories about the Apocalypse as a kid? That…doesn’t exactly seem like the ideal reading alongside The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.

Thinking that it has appropriately set up for the actual film, even though it really just created more questions, the narration stops and we’re shown two cops cruising through the city. One of them is a fat guy who talks about how much he wants to just kill all the homeless people in the town. That’s your law force for you, folks, always looking out for the downtrodden and the weak! Truly these are the guys you want to entrust your safety with! The two cops run into this guy who blows up a building and try to apprehend him when he gets the jump on them. The other cop then has a seizure and turns into a bad special effect with pointy teeth and dilated eyes and says that someone is coming. I really hope he means someone who will make more convincing and scary effects.

About as scary as a Rankin-Bass Christmas cartoon.

Then we fade to the next scene, at a little diner in the desert, where a bunch of people are stuck there, including a family of middle class white people with a slutty daughter, a black guy with a gun and the staff, one of whom is played by Charles Dutton. You may remember him from such classics as Gothika and D-Tox! Not exactly a stunning resume there, but OK! The other cook is played by Dennis Quaid, who is one of those actors I’ve seen before but who never left a huge impression on me. Like a…really unimpressive thing…oh, screw it; he does a pretty good job and this joke is aborted.

We also have his son Jeep – what, are we going to have characters named Truck and Pit Stop next, too? On second thought I don’t want to give them ideas. He’s in love with a rebellious pregnant chick named Charlie, who is so rebellious she SMOKES EVEN THOUGH SHE’S PREGNANT! That’s smart! Apparently Jeep loves Charlie even though the baby she has isn’t his, and even though she really just kind of takes him for granted. Legion, everybody, the supernatural religious thriller with the most gripping family drama ever! You’ll also be on your seat as you witness the incredible tension of the white suburban family, who are worried that their daughter is dressing like a skank.

There's a nice view in this desert diner. Maybe tourist income will increase after all.

Outside, Dennis Quaid chastises his son for not fixing the car, and the conversation then somehow turns to Charlie, prompting Quaid to deliver a monologue about responsibility and one’s lot in life, and other inspirational stuff. And I’m going to warn you now that this is what takes up a lot of time in this film – inspirational monologues. They mostly have nothing to do with anything and are there to make the movie appear to have some kind of depth.

Everything cooks along until the generic old lady that’s in every modern horror movie ever comes into the diner. They’re all being nice to her until she freaks out and starts telling Charlie that her ‘fucking baby’ is going to burn. Goddamn Jesus freaks. Then the lovable old bat starts crawling on the ceiling, biting peoples’ necks and generally doing all the other things that born again Christians are known for.

…wait. Something’s wrong with that sentence.

Yes...truly THIS is the work of a loving God. Man this movie is stupid.

She bites the father of the suburban family and then gets shot by the black guy with the gun. They all pile into the car and try to take the father to the hospital, but are stopped by a swarm of angry insects. Apparently somebody forgot to hire an exterminator. I guess money’s pretty tight out in the desert when you only have a shitty diner to rake it in. They all come back to the diner and hole up there, but not before the Archangel Michael appears and starts talking in the hallowed language of Cryptic Speak to Raise Suspense. Meaning, we get no explanation for anything until AFTER we have a big, traumatic fight scene! Oh yeah, and the suburban white guy daddy gets the axe.

He doesn't look so bad...but 2 seconds later:

"I COULD PROBABLY FIT AN OCEAN LINER IN MY MOUTH!"

And yes, those are the best special effects this movie has for us. Kind of puts the movie’s suspense to a grinding halt, doesn’t it?

Then Michael gets to the Big Explanation, the exposition-festival that every one of these movies has where we get to know what’s going on! Basically God has lost faith in humanity and is now sending angels to kill them all. Why can’t he just snap his fingers and zip the whole planet out of existence? I hear vengeful tidal waves are in this year. Oh, and the unborn baby inside Charlie is apparently the savior of mankind. Because they did it in other movies, so I guess they had to do it in this one in order for it to fit into the Phoned In Apocalyptic Thrillers Club. New members accepted quarterly.

There’s one scene after that where the suburban white mommy is sitting at the bar and Dennis Quaid hands her a beer. She immediately starts getting depressed looking at the beer can because her husband was the beer drinker in the family and he’s dead now. Isn’t that just like…the most overdramatic slippery-slope of association ever? It’s like looking at a toilet seat and going, “That toilet seat was left up instead of down. My husband used to leave the toilet seat up! MY LIFE IS AN ENDLESS VOID OF MISERY AND TURMOIL!” I mean it’s just so silly!

Then Michael talks to Jeep and tells him, without mincing words, that Jeep is the reason he still has faith in humanity. Pre-etty tall order there, guy. I mean, that’s a lot to take in! Oh, and then we get Charles Dutton telling us another little personal inspirational anecdote. In this one, he says that his father used to tell him that if he didn’t wake up in the morning, he had to be proud of what he had done in his life. Even at 10 years old or whatever. Yeah. Real stand up father there, huh? What’s up with these peoples’ parents?! Did they just all get together in secret and decide to traumatize their children for life and never let them have any fun? You don’t want to think about what you’ve accomplished in your life when you’re a little kid probably dreaming about baseball and Transformers and stuff! What kind of parents are these bungholes?

There’s this other really overly long scene where some travelers get ambushed by the possessed people, which raises another plot hole: These angels are surprisingly easy to defeat. For an all powerful deity who wants all mankind exterminated, he sure didn’t send his best guys if a bunch of average Joes in a diner can beat them all. Oh, but there’s a kid with a knife and a poorly done scary voice, I guess we’re supposed to be SO SCARED WE CAN’T THINK STRAIGHT!

It's like a demonic Stewie Griffin...

Michael points a gun at Dennis Quaid and threatens to shoot him if he goes outside and helps his friends being attacked. I just hope he’s better at gun control than Vince Vega from Pulp Fiction after his divine intervention.

The baby is born, and then we get the arrival of Sloppily Written Plot Point, or Gabriel, the…co-angel of Michael who does want to follow what God said and do his work. Gabriel kills off Dennis Quaid, kills Michael and chases down Jeep, Charlie, the skanky daughter and the baby as they try to drive away. They have some drawn out and boring fight scenes, Michael is resurrected somehow, and he decides not to kill Gabriel because “that’s what the Lord really wants.” Huh? I thought he wanted to wipe out humanity. What changed? Oh well. We get our main characters riding happily into the sunset with the exact same narration from the beginning played all over again, because…this is a fucking cheap ass movie; I don’t know. Lovely. But at least everything ended OK and the world is nice and happy again!

Until the next time God loses at poker and decides he hates mankind again. Didn’t think about that, did you?

What’s that noise I hear? Oh, right, it’s my common sense and logic telling me this movie is crap. It’s not terrible and it’s not really as bad as some of the other shit I’ve reviewed, but it’s just boring. There are a million clichés, the story has a dozen plot holes and it’s just not an entertaining film. Legion is so average it hurts. This movie can suck it, and I’m done.

Cinema Freaks Presents: The Observer's Top Ten Movies of 2010

Well, it is the end of year and everyone movie reviewer is revealing their favorite films from the last twelve months. So...I am going to do the same thing. The usually rules apply: these are my own opinions, not anyone else's, and I have not seen every film that come out this year, including ones that were really popular and/or have gotten a lot of praise, so try not to get worked up if some of them are not on here. That being said, here is my list:

1. Shutter Island - Another winner from Martin Scorsese as this thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio examines the dark side of human nature and the paranoia that comes when begin to question your very sanity.

2. Kick-Ass - A different kind of superhero movie, it combines action, hilarity, humanity, and Nicolas Cage to make itself one of the genre's best. (http://docuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/04/review-kick-ass-2010.html)

3. Inception - There is nothing that I can say about this film that has not already been said. (http://docuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/07/review-inception-2010.html)

4. The Book of Eli - A powerful post-apocalyptic drama starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman that has both action and a great story about the struggles of maintaining one's faith while defending it against those who wish to exploit it for evil purposes.

5. The Ghost Writer - Whatever you think of Roman Polanski as a person, there is no denying that he is a fabulous filmmaker, as can be seen in this "Chinatown"-like thriller with great acting and sharp dialogue.

6. True Grit - The Coen Brother's take one of John Wayne's most famous movies and make it better with and their trademark humor and good storytelling. (http://docuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/12/true-grit-2010.html)

7. Winter's Bone - The story of a girl living in a dangerous town in rural Missouri takes a number of dangerous turns in this low-budget but well-acted and disturbing picture.

8. Machete - Robert Rodriguez's violent revenge flick with a large cast and even larger laughs.

9. The Expendables - A good-old fashion action film from Sylvester Stallone with lots of action, humor, and special cameos that will surely entertain. (http://docuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-theater-experience-with-expendables.html)

10. Hereafter - Clint Eastwood proves once again to be a master director as he takes a glimpse into the afterlife in this though provoking film with excellent performances by Matt Damon and others. (http://docuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/11/review-hereafter-2010.html)

Feel free to leave questions, comments, death threats, etc. in the comments selection below. Have a Happy New Year.

Review: The Last Airbender (2010)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz

Website: www.thelastairbendermovie.com

This review was co-written by my friend Tony Collazo, who hated this movie with a passion, as he is a huge fan of the Avatar cartoon series. Hope you enjoy.

I was going to come up with something big to celebrate the end of the year, but I don’t really have anything. So we’re just going to review The Last Airbender instead!

Man, and I mean man, did this film cause a stink. Everybody hated this one! Me, I never cared much for the original Nickelodeon series it was based on, and I never liked director M. Night Shyamalan one wink, but apparently a lot of people missed the memo on that and were actually surprised when Shyamalan botched this film up. Here’s some news for you, people. He has always sucked. He has sucked in copious amounts ever since he started out. This is not the first time he has released a film that falls below expectations – that should be old news to everyone. But since it isn’t, I figured I might as well give this film a piece of my mind.

Our first scene starts with two pasty white kids walking around aimlessly in the middle of the snowy wastelands when the brother, Sokka (pronounced Soak-a, like a water gun made for three year olds or something), hears something in the ice. Logically he decides to start bludgeoning the ice right under their feet with his tool, because THAT’S not dumb, right? Then his sister Katara breaks this big ball of ice that comes up through the ground like a big old pimple, releasing…a tiny Asian kid with tattoos on his head! Uh, well…at least you can’t call them unoriginal, right?

"The arrow on my head points where my career is going after this..."

They take him back to their ice village where they establish no character development before the Asian kid is stolen by a bunch of guys who say that if he doesn’t go with them, they’ll destroy the whole village. Their leader is Zuko, played by that kid from Slumdog Millionaire because I guess he really was out of cash after the Indian government didn’t let him have any of the proceeds from that film. His character is basically angry all the time, with little other emotions at all. It’s revealed that he’s the son of the Fire Lord and that he’s been looking for a mythical figure called the Avatar all along.

Meanwhile, our two ice zombies, since they have about as much personality really, have a vapid talk about responsibility, saying that the kid was their responsibility all along even though they knew him for less than 5 minutes. Their grandmother comes in and seems to have been created solely for the purpose of spouting exposition. We get a lot of backstory here about spirits and the different tribes and legends and all sorts of meaningless mumbo jumbo that would probably water-bend the kids’ brains into mush by the time it was over if this film was at all realistic. I mean seriously, lay off the exposition! It’s not a college course!

While that’s going on, the Asian kid escapes the Fire tribe so quickly that I wonder why they even had that plot in the movie to begin with, and finds Katara and Sokka riding his giant flying pet water buffalo – hey, don’t look at me, I didn’t write this movie. Apparently this monstrosity of nature is called a Sky Bison in this world, and although it’s never really explained how it exists or anything, I guess it’s the Asian kid’s companion or something. They go to this other place that is apparently an Air Temple, where the kid reveals that his name is Aang, and that he was an Airbender. Apparently Aang used to live here, and thinks that he’s only been gone a little while, and that his monk friends are all still there waiting for him…cue tragic pay off in 3, 2, 1…

Yup, he’s actually been in the ice for centuries, whodathunkit? He goes through the usual tragic stuff and all, although you’d be hard pressed to tell, as his acting is so wooden that I think the actual trees do a better job. Also, while we’re on him, what the hell is up with the pronunciation of his name? It’s very clear in the cartoon version that his name is pronounced Aang, with a long A. But here it’s like Ung, with a U. How do you mix that up? Did these people even watch the original version at all?

But it’s OK, we’re interrupted by a random gender ambiguous Asian child running onto the set! He’s being chased by some Firebenders, but since this movie is allergic to character development – like, even the most simple, basic version of it like telling us a character’s name – we just learn that he is being arrested because he threw rocks at them. Oh no.

They then go to a village full of Earthbenders held captive, who for some reason do not fight back…and the stupidity of this is even noted by Aang himself; isn’t it lovely when even the characters don’t buy your shitty writing? He reveals he’s the Avatar, but this one dude doesn’t believe him and asks him if he can do other kinds of Bending and use other special powers. This prompts Katara to go push him down and shout at him about being rude to poor Aang. This scene is just ridiculous because…well, it’s actually a legit question! Why should anyone believe he’s the Avatar anyway? It’s not like there’s been any real proof yet and…oh, wait, I don’t really care. We then go through a very tepid, confusing fight scene in which we see wondrous special effects that I’ve seen done better in several early 1980s movies.

So Aang goes to this other temple where he meets a monk who leads him into this open area and then betrays him. Even though he’s supposed to be the savior of this world, he gets betrayed anyway. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! Totally ungrateful.

Aang gets kidnapped a second time, chained up, and then saved by a mysterious masked man who wants to save him. Who could it be? We get a fight scene outside with some guards where Aang bravely and heroically sets up shields around him to pick off the bad guys one by one, letting his savior fight off all the rest of the guards by himself. They escape, split up and the whole scene was completely pointless!

I really just don’t get it; was this really how these scenes were written? It’s like they just threw them in at a random order, no coherence at all. There’s no flow between these scenes. They just sort of…happen, one after another, without anything really feeling connected. Did Shyamalan’s dog just eat the script and then by the time he shat it all out, it was time to film already?

Okay, so he meets up with his buddies again and they go to this ice kingdom place where we get more special effects and Sokka hooks up with a Barbie doll. I’m sure she has a name and all, but really she’s just a giant talking Barbie doll, nothing else. As Aang is meditating, Zuko comes in again and fights with Katara, knocking her out and kidnapping Aang again. Man, this kid gets kidnapped a lot! Is he like a little Asian version of Princess Peach or something? But he escaped quickly again, making the whole thing pointless, more padding for this worthless cinematic carcass. Meanwhile, and here’s a surprise, THE FIREBENDERS ARE ATTACKING AGAIN, because I guess they got bored doing their knitting and croquet for the afternoon, and because they haven’t attacked or invaded anybody in the last five fucking minutes. They get antsy when they don’t do that!

"This is why I'm hot."

So because the Firebender general guy wants to kill the moon spirit, who is in the form of a common fish in the pond…just smile and nod your heads, audience…he goes to the cave and stabs the fish! I guess Occam’s Razor wins the day. But seriously, the all powerful spirit of the moon is in the form of a little fish? Even if I was going to sit back and assume that everyone in the known world will leave it at peace and not disrupt the space-time continuum, what if some random natural disaster happened that killed it? What if some unknowing little kid whose parents just forgot to tell him about it cooked it and ate it? This is stupid!

And check out those action scenes, man. I have never seen such pointless, gratuitous slow motion use in a film. I mean, at least 300 had them used consistently. Here we get banal sequences where it alternates between slow-mo and regular speed in the same sweep of motion, like Aang is sweeping a kick to another guy’s head, and it goes from slow-mo to regular about three times in that one kick. Am I supposed to be enthralled? It’s like riding a roller coaster and having it jerk and stop at completely random points. Does that sound fun to you?

The Barbie doll goes to the cave with Sokka and tells him she has to sacrifice herself to revive the dead moon spirit, or…something like that. This leads to some of the most contrived, passion-starved romance scenes ever. They last for all of a second and a half. Shyamalan then decides mid-scene that he’s bored already and dissolves to a shot of her already walking through the water. She lies down in the water and everything starts glowing…hey, it’s the new soup menu: girl-and-fish stew, everybody! Have some. It’s good for ulcers.

"There, there, now; even if the movie bombs, they will at least make cheap action figures of all of us. Don't worry. The future is bright."

Aang eventually gets up and summons a huge tidal wave to scare all his opponents in the water. It just kind of hangs there, not doing anything, like Shyamalan fell asleep before he could tell the special effects guys what to make it do. The movie then ends with the leader of the Firebenders telling his daughter that she is the most powerful secret weapon they have and that it’s her turn now…and that’s how the movie ends, with a fucking cliffhanger. I wasted two hours watching this shitfest and you’re telling me you don’t even have the balls to PROPERLY END IT?! That’s…asinine! You can’t be serious! All that wasted time and we don’t even get a real ending? How incompetent are you?

But it’s not like I really care too much, because I was never invested in this pile of lard to begin with. There’s no character development, a hackneyed plot, shithouse acting and no sense of direction. It’s just a shitty film from beginning to end. And the fact that they got so much from the show wrong is just unforgivable, and although I’m not a fan, many people are. I can really understand all the anguish from the fans of this show, as M. Night Shyamalan’s version is just a big slap in the face. A crap film from a crap director, it should come as no surprise that The Last Airbender is the cinematic version of a ride on the short bus to school. Purely incompetent and disgustingly worthless. Do not ever waste your time, money or energy on this slop.

Well, that was 2010, people. It's been a great year and I hope you all have a good festive end of year party and avoid movies like this one! Happy trails and I will see you in '11!

Review: Rambo: First Blood (1982)

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Brian Dennehy, Richard Crenna

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083944/

"I could have killed 'em all, I could kill you. In town you're the law, out here it's me. Don't push it. Don't push it or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go. Let it go."

-Rambo

I am not predisposed to talk about war, and I often feel guilty for doing so, like one of those horrid bleeding-heart liberal fanatics who talks about things he doesn’t really know about first hand. It makes me feel slimy. But I do like talking about movies, and Rambo: First Blood, even though it’s about war and one of the rawest and most heartfelt tales about such that I have seen. It’s not a tale from the front-lines, which is unusual enough, but rather from the dust of the aftermath. This is a tale from the Back-Home, after war, the effects of a war that didn’t really end well for anyone. Or so I’m told, as I wasn’t there myself.

Sylvester Stallone portrays Rambo, a Vietnam vet who is back home and searching for one of his old army buddies, who he’s told passed away from the cancer spread by Agent Orange. He travels down the countryside some more until he reaches a little country bumpkin town run by perhaps the most intense sheriff and police force ever to exist in the deep south – I mean, these guys take it so personally, the events that transpire in this film. It’s downright scary to think I could go through a small town and be harassed and abused like this by the lawmen. What are you even supposed to do in that situation?

Rambo is abused because he was in Vietnam. That alone was enough. The cops were a bunch of small town rednecks looking to impose their small-brained vendetta on someone and Rambo was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is perhaps the most interesting and dynamic element of the film; that a chain reaction starts from this abuse. Whatever the cause of Rambo’s war – and I will get to that later – he fights back, and he fights back hard. The film that started as a case of a bunch of guys whose fathers probably never loved them beating up on this poor guy ended up turning into an explosive microcosm of the war in this Southern town (and man was it cool – but that’s also another paragraph). It is the definition of a chain reaction, and watching it unfold, growing larger and larger in the magnitude of its conflict, like a blossoming rose of fire. Beautiful in its own dirty, rough way.

When I first saw the movie, I said that Rambo had reverted to some primal instinct, a thought guided by the flashbacks he had when the guys were cornering him in the police barracks. He simply snapped and started fighting back exactly as if he were in ‘Nam again. There is another scene where the General, Trautman (Richard Crenna), talks to him over the radio just like he would have in ‘Nam, giving him battle orders and everything. But really, he was completely lucid the entire time, and knew exactly what he was doing. This is a reactionary film, with one guy sick way beyond his capacity of all the crap he’s taken just because of the war, people blaming him for it and putting him down. He’s bringing the war back to the place where it went unsaid, where it needed to be fought for different reasons. First Blood is really not a subtle movie. It hits with the force of a jackhammer to the face. But it is raw – to use that word again; it so very much fits – and the passion really shines through so much that it doesn’t matter how subtle the message is.

Plus, the lack of subtlety is actually one of the film’s strongest points, because the bluntness gives way to some of the BEST ACTION SCENES EVER LAID DOWN. They are unbelievably tense, gripping masterworks of heart-pounding, jugular-tearing adrenaline. The atmosphere in the scenes where the police hunt Rambo in the woods is so thick it’s malleable – by none other than a cast-iron sledgehammer. The ways Rambo picks off the officers, including breaking bones, shooting them and even a row of spikes to the crotch area. That’s just harsh. But the execution…is flawless. Fake lightning and all, it’s just flawless. The shadows and contrasts are stunning, the setting horrific and the attacks actively surprising and chilling. The whole sequence puts most every slasher ever made to shame, bar maybe Halloween. And even then, it’s a close call.

The other great action scene in this movie is the last one, in the city. Rambo takes his guns and just…goes to town on the town, for lack of a better expression, cutting off every lifeline they have and rendering them totally helpless. His plan is to cut off the town’s light sources first, which he goes about doing quite efficiently, soldierly, as is to be expected. Plunging the town into darkness, he intends to give the cops a war just like Vietnam, a miniature portrait, and to finish what they started. I just really like how orchestrated and methodical Rambo is at executing this whole plan. It’s just so surreal and yet so visceral at the same time that it’s like nothing else I have ever seen. The final outcome is so chaotic and yet it’s set in a very familiar looking 1980s city setting. I found myself wondering how this whole scenario played itself out in Rambo’s head. The wiring of his brain really fascinates me here, and makes me want to read his thoughts and find out what the process was. Such chaotic militance – a strange oxymoron – is something to be admired.

Another thing that works really well here is the interactions between General Trautman and Sheriff Teasle, played by Richard Crenna and Brian Dennehy respectively. The two serve as semi-narrators to the film, providing the bulk of the dialogue and exposition with their excellent tradeoffs, negotiations and arguments while Rambo lurks in the shadows. They have a mutual acquaintance in Rambo from very different angles, and while Dennehy wants him brought in, Crenna is more of a silent cheerleader. He wants Rambo brought in too, but he understands the situation more than Dennehy, and isn’t surprised at all that Rambo snapped, given his training and the circumstances. He wants to help but at the same time seems secretly proud of his old protégé. Crenna and Denehy make an excellent on-screen team and their acting is another reason why the film is as immediate and intense as it is. A good story is only as good as the people that tell it, after all, and these two guys are sort of telling the story of this film with how they play off one another.

Well, that’s Rambo. It’s incredibly raw, incredibly powerful, incredibly action packed and just all around incredible. It’s an action flick with a message, and one of the more somber and solemn you’ll see compared to a Lethal Weapon or a Die Hard, coming from one of the Big 80s Action Dudes nonetheless. Rambo is an artful, visceral film that doesn’t pull any punches and works well as a social statement and a blow-‘em-up action flick alike. Check it out if by some miracle you haven’t already, or die! That’s an order, private! March as fast as you can to the nearest video rental store!

Review: The Santa Clause (1994)

Director: John Pasquin

Starring: Tim Allen, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111070/

With all the countless movies made for families about Santa Claus, with their jolliness, holiday cheer and just a little bit of risqué jokes for extra measure…this film is another one. The Santa Clause, starring Tim Allen, tells a heartwarming story of a man who became Santa Claus and was briefly estranged and alienated by his family and friends before becoming accepted…as being Santa Claus…okay, okay, it’s a weird-ass, schmaltzy flick without much common sense, sue me.

This film does have some problems. I mean, the whole idea is that whoever puts on the Santa suit after Santa is dead or incapacitated in any way becomes the new Santa, right? Well what if a Jew or a Muslim or a Scientologist became Santa? I guess the elves would make due, but all I’m saying is, they should be grateful that Tim Allen was so reasonable about it. Hell, what if nobody put on the Santa suit in time for Christmas? Seems like that’d be a pretty big fucking deal. Maybe they have some secret back up plan that the movie isn’t telling us about?

But fortunately for the elves, Tim Allen puts on the suit and although he’s initially suspicious and apprehensive, he grows very quickly accustomed to the idea and makes a 180 turn in terms of morals and thoughts about it. Too fast, I think. I mean we’re barely given any time to accept this whole thing in the first place, and yet with the movie’s quick editing it seems like Allen barely has a second thought about it, going straight from Scrooge-esque disgruntlement to immediate acceptance in the bat of an eye. Not really convincing, movie.

After Allen’s rendezvous to the North Pole, along with his incredibly annoying little boy, the kid starts to tell everyone about his dad’s new job. Why does Allen keep letting him though? This is the kind of thing I’d like to call the Idiot Effect, a snowballing of events that propel the film’s plot forward, but could have very easily been avoided if the characters just had a little more intelligence. Why does Allen keep letting the kid blab to everyone and thus flush his self image down the drain? It could all be solved by just one sentence of dialogue: “Hey, listen, don’t tell anybody about what happened last night.” That’s it. That is all that is needed. Then none of the problems in this movie would have happened, and maybe we could have spent our time better actually delving deeper into the whole Santa mythos that this movie obviously put time into. It seems like the film has a priority issue here, that’s the main problem.

My last issue with the film is that it’s just resolved all too quickly, the whole entire thing. Allen comes to term with his being Santa and decides to give it his full effort, but his ex wife and her new husband are afraid of him and think he kidnapped their son. He brings the kid back, escapes the police with the help of his James Bond-style elves (I know, just go with it) and everything is pretty much fine, resolved quicker than you can count to three on one hand. Give us some more conflict! This just is not enough, and I know there could have been more effort put into it.

Really, this is just a decent film. There are a lot of little plotholes and things they could have fixed if they just tried harder, but it is a charming film. I like the way the elves have all that futuristic technology and I like the way they set up the Santa mythos. Tim Allen does OK, even though the kid playing his son pretty much sucks. But what can you expect? It’s a kid’s movie, a dime-a-dozen family flick from the 90s that pretty much went through the motions. It’s fun, but it’s unspectacular.

Littler Fockers (2010)

Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Owen Wilson

Director: Paul Weitz

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970866/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fockers

Why was this movie made? Sure, there are, and have been, weirder sequels out there, but I just do not understand why they keep trying to milk this particular series to death. "Meet the Parents" was a funny film that showed the problems of having difficult in-laws and having to come to terms with them in order to make your loved ones happy. "Meet the Fockers" was a mediocre sequel that drowned itself with unfunny gags and bathroom humor. So now we get this. Let's see how it goes...

The film starts off with Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and his wife Pam (Teri Polo) living in their apartment complex with their twins Henry and Samantha (Colin Baioochi and Daisy Tahan respectively). They are expecting the arrival of Pam's parents, Jack and Dina Byrnes (Robert De Niro and Blythe Danner) who are coming to celebrate the twin's upcoming birthday. Before this happens, Jack, who has secretly suffered a minor heart attack, tells Greg that in case something happens to him. Uh, didn't Jack have a son in the first movie? Or are we just going to pretend he never existed? We are. Fine. Anyway, despite his new agreement with Greg, things start to go airy when Jack begins to micromanage the couples affairs, such as how they try to decide on a new school for the kids and fix up a house they are moving into. Things get even more complicated when a sexy pharmaceutical representative named Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba) enters the picture.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it is extremely predictable. You can see the situations and jokes coming from a mile away. As soon as I saw Jessica Alba in the opening credits, I knew she was going to be used as someone who people would suspect Greg would be having an affair with. In another scene...okay, before I get to that, I have to explain what happens right before that because to show how low this movie goes. Jack takes some medicine that ends up giving him a boner. Yes, Robert De Niro gets a boner in this movie! Thats...just... terrific! Thank you "Little Fockers" for giving us this great moment in cinematic history! Then again, "Meet the Fockers" showed us Dustin Hoffman on the toilet, so I guess it was only a matter of time wasn't it? Anyway, Henry walks in on Greg and Jack as the former is trying to inject a needle into Jack's annnd thats all you really need to know. The following day, he has some tests done, in which he needs to draw a picture that corresponds to the word "family". Guess what he draws? Bingo!

Even when the movie tries to be clever, it fails. When Jack names Greg as his successor, he designates him as "the Godfocker" just as he had previously named his now ex-son-in-law Dr. Bob as "the Bobfather". Umm, I'm guessing this is supposed to be an inside joke because Robert De Niro was in "The Godfather, Part II". I mean, otherwise that would just be a really stupid thing to call someone. There is also another instance where it is pointed out that Alba's character's name is very similar to that of actor Andy Garcia. This might have been intended as a running gag, but it has so little traction from the start that even the film itself seems to give up on it after a while.

There are also some problems in terms of plot holes and the nature of the characters involved. Besides the whole thing with now nonexistent Byrnes son that I mentioned above, there is the matter of Jack's feelings toward his daughter's ex Kevin Rawley, played once again by Owen Wilson. Why would Jack, as conservative and uptight as he is, be more impressed by Kevin, who has gone really hippy-dippy since we last saw him, than Greg? Sure, Kevin has a lot more money than Greg which is always a big factor when it comes to these things. However, I would think that Jack would still have doubts about ditching someone who is generally "down to earth" and the father of his grandchildren than a spacey guy who is "trying to find himself". Shouldn't he also be a little weirded out by the fact that Kevin has a tattoo of her on his back and carries a photo of her around? I wouldn't want my daughter to break up her marriage so she can spend the rest of her life with a guy who is border-line creepy and so emotionally needy. This would be an opportune time for me to make a joke about Owen Wilson playing a guy with serious emotional issues, but I have a feeling that it will come across as being highly inappropriate and insensitive, so I am going to have to take a pass. Sorry folks; have to draw the line somewhere.

Now, you probably want me to crucify this film, which I sort of already have. That being said, I have to be completely honest: for all its flaws, it is not that bad. The acting is pretty good, even as far as the kids are concerned. The bathroom humor but it is more toned down, probably due to the fact that Hoffman and Barbra Streisand have reduced roles compared to the previous "Fockers" movie, though when they do show up they are fairly pleasant. There were also a few parts of it that were mildly amusing, like when Jack want to brainwash his grandson and the physical confrontation between Greg and Jack at the end. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Jessica Alba in this picture; she allows her peppy character to be really fun and full of energy, even if she is a little on the crazy side. And she strips down to her underwear at one point, which from Alba is always welcomed. It almost makes up for the De Niro boner segment. Almost. I think probably the best part of the movie was the fact that after years of being subjected to Jack, Greg finally starts to show a little bit of backbone when he is around. While he still hopes to gain his in-laws approval, it is not a necessity like it used to be. He has finally taken command of his family and his life, and (perhaps) this will finally allow Jack to fully accept him into the family...and leave him the hell alone.

Overall, the film was...okay. I will give it that much. I was not ecstatic after watching it, but did not feel like I completely wasted my time either. It is certainly not as good as "Meet the Parents" but it is better than "Meet the Fockers". It is not a must-see film by any means, but if you have a desire to see it for some reason, it is possible you may enjoy it. Just keep your expectations in check and be aware of what you are going into.