Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
June 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment
There was a lot, and I mean alot of explosions. There was also lots of people on screen running in slow motion while very dramatic music was playing. I must’ve been at a Michael Bay movie! Yup, Michael Bay is back with more Transformers, a lot more Transformers.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the second live action big budget summer block buster rendition of the old Transformers animated series. Or should I say animated toy commercial? We loved the original Transformers movie, and we gave it a full 5 stars. It was quite simply a good time. Michael Bay and the studios obviously thought more of the same would be even better!
So we get more Decipticons, more Autobots, more fights, more action, and well, you get the point. But the question is whether more is better? One of the few complaints we had with the first movie was that during the big final fight there was so much action on screen that you really couldn’t keep up with who was who and what is going on. Instead of a Rocky versus Apollo type fight, there’s just random robot parts, missibles and bullets flying all over. Well, we get a lot more of that too!
We went into Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with low expectations. That’s likely a good thing as we ended up being more entertained that we thought we would be. What did we like? Megan Fox running and bouncing in those Michael Bay slow-mo shots for one thing! The added humor was a nice touch. There were a lot of cool new bots.
What was not to like? The action was almost “frantic”. The plot was predictable at best. And there was little if any character development. We do not really get to know any of the new bots, nor do we really find out much about what the others have been up to since the last movie. One exception is a pair of twin Autobots that talk in hip hop slang. These two suffer from “Jar Jar syndrome” big time as they are so obviously there only to make the little ones giggle and wanna buy toys. They will annoy most rational adults.
This movie is what we’ve come to expect from Hollywood for sequels. The summer blockbuster formula is get as much of the original cast as you can, double the action and effects budget, whip up a comfortable safe low risk script, shoot some really cool trailers and let it rip. But hey, check your head at the door, get in the nice cool theater out of the heat and watch the bots go boom! Dont expect deep sci-fi, just expect to have fun, and you will. We give it 4 stars.
Popularity: 64% [?]
ICE AGE 3-D Father’s Day sneak preview
June 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment
The third Ice Age movie opens in theaters on Wednesday, July 1st, but on Father’s Day, Sunday June 21st, you can see the film in 330 theaters across the U.S., one day only.
Here’s a list of theaters where it’ll be playing on Father’s Day.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Popularity: 54% [?]
Caprica
June 12, 2009 | 1 Comment
Caprica is the pilot for the prequel series to the new Battlestar Galactica. The pilot was released on DVD in April 2009, the series will start airing on the SciFi Channel in 2010. Set 58 years earlier than the beginning of Battlestar Galactica, it details the origin of the Cylons.
It follows two families, the Greystones, and the Adamas. Both are struck by tragedy when a terrorist plot on Caprica kills loved ones. So if Battlestar is an Iraq War metaphor, this has overtones of 9/11.
But, it revolves around virtual reality technology, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
Eric Stolz plays Daniel Greystone. After losing his daughter Zoe (Alessandra Torresani, who looks a bit like a younger Zooey Deschanel), he discovers that The Kids Today on the planet Caprica have been playing around in in a virtual reality world to sample the vices that they haven’t done in real life. But he discovers his daughter has left a simulacrum of herself in the virtual world. He becomes obsessed in a Doctor Frankenstein way with bringing her back to life, at least in some form. He’s also developing robotic soldiers for the government. Proto-Cylons, basically.
Meanwhile, he befriends Joseph Adama (Esai Morales), who lost his wife and daughter in the same terrorist attack. His son survives, and, if you watched Battlestar, you can probably guess who he’s going to turn out to be.
The Adama family are immigrants from the planet Tauron. There is prejudice against them on Caprica, and, let’s face it, as depicted here, Taurons are basically movie Sicilians. He’s a lawyer for a Tauron crime syndicate. At times, the Godfather overtones are laid on pretty thick.
Then there’s Laci Rand (Magda Apanowicz), a schoolmate of Zoe’s, who discovers her school may shield a religious cult of dangerous fanatics.
The look of the production is interesting. Like the revamped Battlestar Galactica, it tries to keep fashion and props and architecture somewhat like our world (everybody isn’t dressed in tinfoil outfits) while still trying to make it look like another world in a far-away time.
For the record, I was a mild fan of the revamped Battlestar Galactica. I’ve seen the last half of Season 3 and most of Season 4. I still haven’t seen the first two seasons. It was an interestingly gritty retake on the original series, a big Iraq War metaphor. I think it bogged down sometimes in all the Cylon mysticism.
So I watched this with some misgivings. Did it really need a prequel series?
But it’s actually very good. As science fiction, better than Battlestar Galactica.
It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out as a series in 2010. For now, you can watch the DVD of the pilot.
Popularity: 69% [?]
SPREAD (Ashton Kutcher comedy)
June 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Opening August 14th, Spread is an Ashton Kutcher comedy about a sexual grifter in Los Angeles who romances beautiful. rich, older women (such as Anne Heche) to support him in the lifestyle to which he’s become accustomed.
Complications ensue when he falls for a waitress his own age (Margarita Levieva). As it turns out, she’s a sexual grifter as well.
Popularity: 49% [?]
Land of the Lost
June 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Land of the Lost has Will Ferrell with dinosaurs. Based (loosely) on the 1970s Saturday morning live-action show from psychedelic showmakers Sid and Marty Krofft, it involves disgraced scientist Rick Marshall, his graduate student assistant Holly (Anna Friel, from the tv show Pushing Daisies), and redneck Will (Danny McBride, from The Foot Fist Way) thrown through a hole in the space-time whatzit to a land of dinosaurs.
Beyond the dinosaurs, this does incorporate a lot of atmosphere from the original series. In this version, Marshall, Will, and Holly are not related, and are all adults, so we get a lot of jokes about groping Holly’s boobs. But there are still cliff landscapes, jungles, lost cities, and the lizard-men Sleestaks, along with semi-evolved primate Cha-Ka.
But what it mostly is, is Will Ferrell doing some crude, sometimes gross, and generally pretty funny schtick in dinosaur lands – sometimes Laugh Out Loud funny.
It’s not really much of a parody of the old show – oddly enough, the Sleestaks are played pretty straight. And I’m not sure how much of this really needed to be in The Land of the Lost… pretty much the same jokes would have worked with any time-machine-throws-us-back-in-time story.
But, probably a lot of people seeing it have never heard of the original show.
Quite a lot of the movie takes place in a sort of desert Sargasso Sea of time; where artifacts from our world seem to have dropped in willy-nilly. I don’t remember that in the old show, but maybe that was in the 2nd or 3rd season.
The movie seems a little confused at times as to what kind of farce it wants to be. Still, Will Ferrell dumping dinosaur pee on himself, that’s entertainment!
Popularity: 49% [?]
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