Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Continuing with my complete repertoire of "Transformers" movie reviews—there are three and I ran out of patience after two—for the next couple of "Take Out the Trash" Days.

 

Can Steven Spielberg convince Martin Scorsese to direct a "Transformers" movie? How about Greta Gerwig? I'd like to see an Aaron Sorkin-scripted Transformers movie (Transformers: The One About the Thing). I must be going through Post-Barbie Depression.

 

"Boys With Toys"

 or

"We Just Dropped Ten Tons of Dead Robot in the Middle of Nowhere."

 

As I recall, my three biggest beefs with the first "Transformers" movie was a) it was your basic racial bait-and-switch movie where the story of a repressed class is sublimated by having the story told through the eyes of a bankable star not of that class, b) the action sequences were ultimately boring and c) Michael Bay made every woman look like a hooker.

Other than that, I didn't mind it as some things were done quite well, indicating that Bay might actually become a filmmaker some day, as opposed to being a well-organized ring-leader and money evaporator.

But Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen* shows no such progression, and is quite a deal worse than the original. The problems with the first film have not been resolved, and the filmmakers have moved on to ignore more weighty problems like coherent writing, clear visual story-telling, or having a point besides making money and providing jobs for friends.

By now, the five-story high Auto-bots have become known to the military (thanks for noticing) if not the public at large, and should be working arm in cog to ward off alien attack, become an early, early warning system, vaporize garbage or at least become part of the motor pool. But it appears their job is to sit in one those ubiquitous governmental underground bunkers, stay out of the way of lucrative weapons manufacturers and kvetch about the government in charge. In other words, they've become part of the legislative branch with the major difference being that they actually go into battle themselves.**

And their nemeses, the evil Decepticons? They're doing much the same thing, except oiling their wounds, going back to the drawing board and plotting revenge. It would appear they have a long-standing grudge against Earth and its inhabitants, which is why this pan-galactic epic battle seems to be centered here, rather than some other arm of the Milky Way. Maybe we really are the Center of the Universe...and it attracts trouble.***

Speaking of self-absorbed monomania, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is off to college, with more beating of breast and patting of wallet by his braying parents (Julie White, Kevin Dunn) who were a welcome relief last time, but are now just wacky walking punch-lines.

Then there's the only reason fathers are taking their children—Megan Fox who's achieved a reputation as a Hollywood hottie and probably did a lot of practicing having a cold trying to get out of her contract-mandated participation, and might have done if she were a better actress. Fortunately, she's not required to do much outside of your typical Almay or shampoo commercial, until the latter part of the film where she's required to run in front of large gasoline explosions. I'd be worried for her as her mascara doesn't appear to run at all, but she doesn't lose so much as a false eye-lash.

The movie is built of the spare parts of a lot of past Studio franchises, and as with most out-sourcing a lot of the pieces don't fit. The Decepticons have a tier-structure (the Decepticon Overlord at one point even says "And you will, my apprentice"), a magic bling must save the day, Sam has trouble saying the "L" word, and there are magic scribblings that they have to go to an expert (John Turturro returning to good comic effect), in order to stop the evil erector sets from setting off a device hidden in the Pyramids that will stop the sun (I'm not sure what that would be but I suspect it's some triangular Maytag ice-maker). Take Transformers, strap on "Indiana Jones," plug in "National Treasure," screw on a pneumatic "Star Wars," some "Gremlins," program in some "DaVinci Code," stir a few thousand times to make it incomprehensible and drop it with a huge clank on Independence Day.

Ultimately, it's a big mess with Bay setting up a swooping crane shot for every line of dialog, and the screenwriters setting up their expositions over explosions so you can't hear all their mumbo-jumbo. The only time the movie comes to life is an extended sequence on campus when Sam, possessed by a piece of the evil Decepticon-maker freaks out in a classroom and goes all "Beautiful Mind" scrawling encryption's on his dorm-room wall, while also avoiding the predatory come-on's of a sorority sister, who's actually a Decepticon in drag. At that point, the movie becomes giddy and fun with complication piled on complication and LaBoeuf displaying some of the manic energy that makes him interesting to watch.

But that's ten minutes out of two and a half hours of a loud, obnoxious version of "Rock'em, Sock'em Robots." And that's the bottom line of this mess. It was made for the necessities of the Studio making it, not for any artistic need to tell a story. Just as the Studios plan a few years ahead to make "tent-pole" franchises to strategically shore up dividends in the Summer and Christmas, this movie was constructed of sequences dictated by locations cheap enough to shoot in. That, unfortunately, is how the Bond producers have been manufacturing movies for the past two decades: having run out of Ian Fleming titles, they check to see where they can save the most money and set their movies there, and write the script around the location (Hitchcock would utilize locations for material as well). The problem is there's more to a screenplay than "location, location, location." The Bond series perked up only when they had Fleming's "Casino Royale" to provide that film its spine and heart.

But there's no point and no inspiration to Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen, there is only contrivance, and the makers were scraping the bottom of the scrap-heap to do that. The old "Transformers" series used to kill off characters to encourage kids to buy their new lines of toys. One can imagine the day when Revenge of the Fallen will overcrowd the dumpsters of America, as well.

* Reviewer Jim Emerson had the foresight to alphabetize it as "Transformers: ROTFL"

** Hey kids! There are new Auto-bots based on Smart-cars, but instead of speaking French, they're street-cred hipsters and are as annoying as a weekend with Jar-Jar Binks. In fact, these characters aren't only annoying they're vaguely racist (!!??), but then there's a major disconnect with this movie about its audience. It's aimed at kids, but amid all the cussing and humping dog jokes, I could see more than a few parents putting their heads in their hands at the questioning up-turned faces of their kids. It's also aimed at the kids who played with "Transformers" in the 70's and...haven't yet evolved. They were the ones "huh-huh-huhing" at off-color humor. Hollywood has yet to learn that the AICN crowd are a fickle bunch and won't necessarily "open" a movie for you. But then, a goodly number of current directors are fan-boys themselves.

*** At one point at an attempt at depth one of the characters says of the robots: "If God made us in his image, who made them?" Hasbro, Einstein! And probably in China.

Transformers

We talked about the toy-sales aspect of the Barbie movie, although the film-makers had other things on their minds as well. But, you can't say that about the other toy-franchise that keeps manufacturing movie after movie with no other agenda than selling gadgets.

This was written at the time of the first film's release. We'll have the first sequel next week (and after that, I stopped caring.)

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day.

"I bought a car—turned out to be an alien robot. Who knew?"

One has always suspected from the evidence that Director Michael Bay likes machines more than he does people. The stunts--the "tent-pole" sequences-- have loving care lavished upon them, but character development is there for laughs...people are more effective as collateral damage than the purpose of the story. And if somebody gets squished along the way...well, who cares? After all, another stunt is on the way, and how cool is that? The epitome of this director-fetish occurred in Pearl Harbor (never seen it, for personal reasons) when the "money" shot of the attack was one that followed an air-dropped bomb on its destructive path through the U.S.S. Arizona. Bay said in interviews he did "Pearl Harbor" just so he could do that shot. I've seen that little piece of film numerous times (I keep looking for a CGI version of my father waiting on the dock), and it is impressive. It's also the coldest, most heartless way to present a tragedy I've ever seen. What if Oliver Stone had had a "bullet" shot that traveled from the Texas School Book Depository to the meat of JFK's brain (As cruel as that sounds, I've seen similar things a few times on the CSI shows), wouldn't someone raise a stink about that? It's as if one of these little destructive things is on a hero's quest and we follow it's little travails to its ultimate goal. Boom! "Scoooore!" So I've looked at Bay's career with a jaundiced eye, looking for the day he'd grow up and become a real director.

I don't know that he has, but if he keeps making movies like Transformers, maybe he shouldn't. One wants to be cynical about a 2 hour 20 minute commercial for Hasbro (the movie is rife with product placement for young and old alike), but damn, if the things isn't as effective an action-comedy that has come down the pike in quite awhile. Aimed directly at where male adolescents live, the movie has the great good sense to cast Shia LaBeouf as its token humanoid.* LaBeouf's fidgety, jittery, always "on" performance is one of those joys to behold in movies-- constantly shifting, feeling like an ad-libbed performance (though the prize for that must go to Julie White as the slightly addled Mrs. Witwicky, always trying to make something positive out of a negative) and holding his own against all comers be they performing veterans or CGI monsters.

The story deals with an invasion of Earth by warring stealth robots, the Autobots and the Decepticons, who hide in plain sight by adapting the forms of the mechana of whatever world they crash-land on. They're decidedly nostalgic, taking on the form of boom-boxes and 70's Camaro's. When we meet hyper high-schooler Sam Witwicky, he is combining a school assignment with a mercenary sales-pitch trying to raise money for wheels. This sets in motion a plot so full of contrivance that it almost knocks your block off (sorry, wrong battling robots), but between the machine gun performances and Bay's constantly moving camera (a bit less shake and quiver than usual), you don't have time to notice, so deeply submerged is the movie in the "now."

Along the way are some interesting performances by Bernie Mac, matching LaBoeuf shift for shift in animation,** Jon Voight, looking florid and dour as the Secretary of Defense, John Turturro, whose agent for the secretive Section 7 ("...never heard of it." "And you never will.") careens into Pacino-like histrionics, and Michael O'Neill from "The West Wing," brings an understated straight-faced gravity in the face of sci-fi mayhem that just allows the movie to survive a lengthy exposition sequence at Hoover Dam. All fit as the tone of the movie is more like the Spielberg-produced Gremlins, than, say, The Iron Giant.

After pulling off a good movie for most of its length, it succumbs to the wishes of the toy-clutching fanboys, and turns into 45 minutes of "Rock'em, Sock'em Robots" in the streets of L.A., which is just as boring as it sounds. All the fun just drains right out of the movie while the titular characters get in each other's grills, kick each other's cans for what seems like an eternity.

That's one of the problems. One can kvell about stereotyping, but I can't think of any minority (or majority, for that matter) not being lampooned (in fact, there's a nice double-shot at white geeks and director Bay when a fan boy reacts to a violent meteor shower--"This is SO cooler than Armageddon!") except for Asians. Didn't "Transformers" start in Japan? Hmmm.

Also, why are two of the more prominent women-roles both made up like 30 year old porn stars? And one's supposed to be in high school? How many grades was she sent down? They may be hawt (I believe the phrase is), but really, the only other person who comes close to having that much make-up caked on them is Jon Voight! And there is the staple of Bay--the slow-motion military shots that look like they've been culled from recruitment ads, and the faux-Hans Zimmer thudding score makes it feel more germanically militaristic than normal.

Still in all, it's the best damned, most entertaining toy commercial I've seen in a long time. Can't wait for "Furby: The Movie."

"Some assembly may be required. Choking hazard."

* Ever been annoyed at black-themed movies where the stars and main characters are white? This is sort of a mechanoid version of that scenario.

 

** Though it does cause some of the dialogue editing to be a bit ragged in places.

Jennifer's Body

Written at the time of the film's release...

"Cluster-Fox"

 

The critical drubbing that horror film/High School satire Jennifer's Body has endured belies its talent behind the camera. After all, it was critics who first pointed out the particular tenor of Diablo Cody's writing in Juno and championed it through its short Film Festival run into theaters (Jason Reitman's previous film Thank You for Smoking, although a nice piece of film-making with a brain in its head, didn't do well at the box office.) Director Karyn Kusama isn't too shabby a director, although Æon Flux was an MTV-ginzu'd nightmare. I was surprised that 2oth Century Fox advertised it as a straight horror movie starring Megan Fox (aiming at—and only at—teenage boys), rather than including girls in the mix. As a result the film "opened soft" (as they say), and the film received decidedly mixed reviews depending on how serious they took it....even serial contrarian Armond White sided with the majority.

But horror films aren't just horror films—they say something about our fears, and more broadly, the "Holy Shite"-geist of society. The proverbially "good" horror movie touches our souls with a chilly finger and reminds us we're all mortal, but whether it's our relationship with God (in Frankenstein) or our relationship with sex and guilt (Halloween), horror films find our soft underbellies and either tickle us or stab up to the third knuckle. 

Jennifer's Body tells the story of Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) and Anita "Needy" Lisnicki (Amanda Seyfried), girl-hood friends in the small town of Devil's Kettle, who've stayed close despite a Mutt and Jeff relationship in high school. Jennifer is a cheerleader, drop-dead gorgeous and just as likely to tell you...to drop-dead, that is. Needy, by contrast is blond, bespectacled, and Jennifer's beard, of sorts, her "Biff" in "Diablo-Code," able to rein her in if she gets too out of control in their adventures. Unfortunately, one night when the pair go off to a local dive to see an up-and-coming indie band, the place goes up in flames and Jennifer's entranced enough with the lead singer (Adam Brody) to go off in the band's van, leaving Needy behind, in a state of shock.

When Needy gets home, she finds Jennifer waiting for her, pale, crazy-eyed, smiling through bleeding gums, and vomiting a noxious black bile: she's turned into a succubus from Hell, and where in the past she used to merely chew out aggressive boys, now she chews them out (quite literally) and consumes them, leaving behind what one schoolmate describes as "lasagna with teeth." It's up to Needy to keep her Best Friend Forever from being discovered for the fiend she is, while simultaneously protecting her class-mates—a task if she was any good at would effectively kill the movie.

It sounds like very rich material with which to go over the societal strata of High School, if the territory didn't have so many skid-marks running through it already.* One could see it as a revenge flick for all those sosh's who've terrorized the commoners, but Jennifer is as much a victim as anyone, and is an equal opportunity disembowler. And Needy's loyalties are so divided that you begin to wonder just whose side she's on. Stacked like bodies on top of that, the "males as victims of the woman" angle would seem fresh...if it was done 20 years ago.** Ultimately, the message aspect to it is weak and anemic, so ham-strung is the script by its own cross-messages. 

Good direction would divert your attention from them, but even there, everything comes up short. However cob-webbed the old cliche's, Kusama's rhythm for them is off, with loud bumps in the night that land with a dull thud. Opportunities lurk around every steadi-cammed corner and go un-sprung. Then when something happens, Kusama won't cut away until the carnage becomes so much spewing corn-syrup. In trying to do something different and avoid the standard horror tropes, Kusama can't even deliver any chills.

And, despite what you've heard, Megan Fox isn't half-bad, showing far more depth and humor than, say, other sex-bomb's like Raquel Welch, have in the past. Fox isn't afraid to not look beautiful, and does so frequently, even if it's just with an "I'm Sooo-C'ra-zy" glint in her eyes, but she also has the easier part. Seyfried has to play the "normal" girl, who can be both the ugly duckling and beautiful swan when the circumstances call for it. It shows how weak the material is when J.K. Simmons and Amy Sedaris can't find much inspiration in their parts. There was potential here, but it isn't satirical enough, funny enough, or scary enough to provoke any reaction other indifference. And that's the worst death in a horror film.

The View from 2021: 

But...but...Jennifer's Body was saying something a little different—something about objectification and the male capacity to exploit, rather than a female's capacity to trap using attractiveness (which, I think most critics glommed onto). But, more importantly, it's about BFF's and their power in the lives of young women—that iffy support system that feels like it will never die—and in the case of Jennifer's Body, it doesn't. I mean, it really doesn't.

 

One could blame the marketing by 20th Century Fox—it was promoted as a sexy horror comedy. The trouble with that is, it wasn't. The only characters that matter are Jennifer and "Needy" and the rest of the cast doesn't matter—especially the "gents". It's a revenge fantasy—the  story of a woman sacrificed on the altar of male-bonding (almost literally) and through a misreading of the fine-print of Ritual 101, Jennifer is allowed to come back to life without the burden of a victim mentality, but, instead, with the urge to avenge herself, combined with a supernatural ability to carry it out. And how, objectively, it might look like the wrong thing to do, empathy makes it subjective and contagious. Think Promising Young Woman with "besties" and fangs.

 

And in that context, with the POV of the sacrificed making her an outsider from Society and its natural enemy, it really is a horror film. But, which side is the monster? 

 

* Carrie, Halloween, Alien, Scream, Species, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" have all staked out the same territory and potential that Jennifer's Body squanders, usually more pointedly and more entertainingly. 

** 50 years if you want to cross-categorize with "film noir."

Jonah Hex

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day in these parts, but we're still doing Westerns for awhile, so...

Written at the time of the film's unfortunate release.


"Jonah Bloody Hex...Ah'd Recognize that Half-Cooked Pie-Hole Anywhere."

The title of this post says it all: "Jonah Hex," the movie, is "half-cooked" as in half-baked and a "pie-hole" as in an empty void.

Sad, too. Jonah Hex could have been a lot of savage fun if it were truer to the source—the DC comic book, the last semi-regular western title the publisher produces.

Jonah Hex was a confederate officer, who would not take part in a raid that would only produce civilian casualties, and so, he was the ultimate outlaw, trusted by neither the North or the South, and a bounty hunter, with a particularly nasty streak (not counting the melted-flesh scar adorning his right cheek*).

Hex was in a "funny book," although, he had no "powers and abilities far below those of mortal men," except a deadly accuracy with all things kill-making.  Seems that's not good enough for a four-color movie adaption these days, because the character now has a way to commune in the darker places of the spirit-world, awakening the dead with a touch in order to obtain information.  This hooey is a result of being saved from death by the mumbo-jumbo of the Crow Natives, who salved his wounds (but knew nothing from plastic surgery) and snatched his soul back from the after-life.**  Of course, the wounds were CAUSED by Natives in the comics, but consistency is the hob-goblin of little minds, and the pea-brains who made this one decided to air on the side of political correctness—which "Jonah Hex" never was and never should be.

The best of the "Hex" stories (not counting the ones where he was flung into a post-apocalyptic future, as a "Mad Max"-type) were written by a scribe with with his own twisted streak, Michael Fleischer (although don't call him "crazy" because Harlan Ellison implied it in an interview, and Fleischer sued...and lost).  The last issue he wrote had Hex meeting his end, and then being stuffed and mounted for display and the amusement of anyone who'd fork over two-bits.

He should contact his lawyers, because he might have better luck this time; this one's a PG-13 fiasco that's all-hat and no cattle, that tries to be gritty-tough, but doesn't have the powder to show a kill-shot.  A lot of people get killed, roasted, bludgeoned and chopped, but all discretely off-screen, even while its trying to be as nasty as can be, like a bully that talks tough but runs away from a fight. And anyone who thinks The A-Team was poorly directed (guilty) will be amazed at the cluelessness displayed here by director Jimmy Hayward,*** former animator for Pixar and co-director of the very fine Horton Hears a Who!****

It's all shot in a snatch-and-grab style, awkwardly staged, with no time to linger over period detail, then settles into a Leone-like formality (with picturesquely ugly extras) that's to a spaghetti western what Chef Boy-Ar-Dee's "SpaghettiO's" is to fine Italian cuisine. The Main Title fills in some animated back-story (fine), but then the thing hits the dirt like Hoss' played-out horse, with a tricked up story about a Doomsday Weapon about to be lobbed on Washington by Hex's former commander (who happened to murder his family to boot).  At about the half-way point, it looks like someone had seen Sherlock Holmes***** and tried to emulate the steam-punkish style, but—(never thought I'd say this!)—didn't have a clue how to match the precision of Guy Ritchie.

The movie's look changes dramatically whenever Megan Fox is on-screen, but that's not to the good. Instead of the gritty telephoto look of the rest of the film, she looks like someone spent some precise time lighting her, as she's bathed in golden light with roseate high-lights in her hair—it's the reverse equivalent of smearing vaseline on the lens to hide an actresses' wrinkles—it stands apart from the rest of the film almost to a laughable degree—and for no good reason other than it makes her look damned good. You can't shine gelled baby-spots on her performance, though, which, unencumbered of any modern girly-girl archness (at which she can be quite smart), is delivered in a flat, lazy drawl (sometimes, as she's inconsistent) and suggested to me that she might be this generation's Raquel Welch...or Jill St. John ("Ya look great, honey, just don't speak, okay?  You, too, Keanu").

It's a mess.  The script's bad (by the makers of the "Crank" movies—seems like a "natural" choice to me!), and only matched by the slip-shod film-making—whoever did it, and it could be a bean-counter at Warner for all I know.  The best parts are in the trailer, as the movie's only 85 minutes long (with credits), you're only missing 83 minutes of garbage.

I sat, during the credits, with my own Hex-like sneer on my face, contemplating just how badly this thing was screwed up, when the name of one of the Executive Producers showed up: Akiva Goldsman. Of course! The man who wrote the bad "Batman" scripts, who wrote Lost In Space, I Am Legend, Practical Magic, I, Robot, won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind ("schizophrenia can be fun, kids!!"), and adapted both The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, and whose only talent seems to be the ability to "crack" a script by taking anything edgy or complicated and dumbing it down to the level a kindergartner could understand. If he were a chef, his specialty would be a liquid, runny oatmeal. 

His name has so symbolized terrible work that in my most churlish moments (usually after seeing one of "his" movies) I can only refer to him as "Hackiva." The man should be barred from having control over anything of literary merit, and consigned to merely working on "Chipmunk" sequels. He's been pegged to direct the remake of (appropriately) The Toxic Avenger. One hopes that he's a better director than he is a writer/producer, and may prove to be with the bar set so low. I doubt it. It's tough to avoid the "Hackiva" hex.******

* Among the many flaws of the movie, the prosthetic creating this effect looks a bit plastic—you don't see it on the poster, of course, in another instance of white-washing the movie—but it does have one funny outcome:  Whenever Jonah goes to a bar, he always has to order a double because half of it goes through the open wound in his cheek.

** And, just to pile on the atmospherics, he also seems to be followed around by flocks of crow familiars, which must make it hard to sneak up on people, although he does from time to time. 

*** Okay, to be fair to Hayward—"Horton" IS a great movie and certainly the best of the recent big screen Seuss adaptations—was replaced by Warner execs by Francis Lawrence (Constantine, I Am Legend) during re-shoots, so that may account for the film's inconsistent tone and look. 

**** I first suspected hopelessness when the hilarious Will Arnett showed up...in a completely straight-laced role as a government functionary.  What a waste!

***** Both Jonah and Sherlock are Warner Brothers movies, so, that's a distinct possibility.

****** He did not direct The Toxic Avenger remake, but 2014's Winters Tale, which bombed at the box office. After Hex, he exec-produced Paranormal Activity 2, 3, and 4, wrote the screenplay for The Dark Tower (that's why...), and has latched onto the "Star Trek" franchise, producing and writing "Star Trek: Discovery" and "Star Trek: Picard".