We haven’t mentioned much about it, mainly because everything Michael Bay has ever done has been complete and utter wank, but apparently those fucking awful Transformers films did quite well. So well in fact that there’s a third helping of robo-shite about to be heaped onto steaming cinema screens everywhere. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Anyway, here’s the first trailer for Transformers: Dark of the moon, wherein we find out that Hasbro’s favourite son’s (and daughters -can’t forget the fashionably pink Arcee after all) have been lurking about on the moon for years. For some reason…
We were actually supposed to put up our Harry Potter AND Skyline reviews today. But unfortunately I was too lazy/had real work to do, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Stop whining you feckless dogs, and instead bask in the magnificence of the few morsals we do charitably throw you from our gilded movie castle – here’s the new trailer for awesome explody alien-dfest Battle:LA for starters.
What’s the odds on the Hollywood sign getting blown up at some point then?
Going in to former BBC visual effects guru Gareth Edwards’s first big screen foray, it’s forgivable if audience and reviewer alike are amped up in expectation of this year’s ‘District 9′, so it comes as a shock when we get a rambling, very human drama that meanders along at a pace that matches it’s protagonists long trip across central America towards their comfy suburban homes.
In terms of plot, there’s a fairly straightfoward setup that’s efficiantly dealt with in the opening credits. At some point in the past a space probe is sent to investigate possible alien life, on it’s return, the probe breaks up over Mexico, causing strange new life-forms to arise and spread. In the panic the US and Mexico wall off much of central America and begin a long running (and possibly futile) battle to halt the spread.
Cast into the middle of this we find photographer Andrew (a rangey and able Scoot McNairy), tasked with escorting his boss’ injured daughter Sam (the elfin, and frankly too-sexy-by-half Whitney Able) home from South America. With no ferries or air travel available across the ‘infected zone’, they find themselves forced to cross the heavily guarded no man’s land, first in the company of gun-weilding mercenaries, then finally trekking up to a mile high wall erected as protection by the US.
Of cours, the US has resorted to walls and violence to keep the alien invaders out – anyone miss the metaphor?
And that, in a nutshell, is the biggest problem here. The heavy handed preaching unfortuantely becomes grating and patronises the audience, while the central characters lack empathy – Sam is a spoilt little rich girl, Andrew is..well, a bit of a dick really, meaning scenes which could have been emotionally stirring are rendered isolated and quickly dismissed. The characters (of course) begin to fall for each other, but they never develop in any noticable way despite the horrors they witness on their journey.
Edwards litters the script with wishy-washy liberalisms too. The soldiers in the jungle talk about the wall with Sam who agrees “hey, yeah, it’s like, we’re fencing ourselves in…man…” while on reaching the wall Andrew pipes up with the oh-so-wise 2 it’s so weird, looking into the US from outside, you know? And tomorrow it’ll be so easy to forget all this…”
Wow man…like…mind. BLOWN!
or not. If you’ve a modicum of intelligence you’ll recognise these as first year student ramblings, poorly formed and ill-advised. The underlying message here is that hey, even if things seem different, we’re all the same deep down man,. Can’t we all just get along? A point hammered home as the pair witness a bizarre alien mating ritual once they’re over the border. Hey man, they tried to stem the flood of illegal aliens into the country, but they got in anyway dude, and hey – they’re a lot like us really aren’t they? (apart from being 80-foot tall photonic Octopusephants obviously).
On the plus side Edwards has a superlative eye for cinematography, catching the startling latin scenery in awe inspiring detail. Magnificent ancient ziggaruts contrast starkly with scenes of urban decay and genuinely realistic military destruction, while the waters on an ill-advised river trip are magical, calling to mind Eric Gautier’s wonderful work in The Motorcycle Diaries. The quiet beauty is wonderfully realised.
As a nature documentary, this would be stirring stuff, but as a movie, it’s meandering, overlong and misguided. it’s crass to say so but the film fairly cries out for a few good action sequences. Instead we get a mish-mash of ‘Blue Planet’ with splashes of Jurassic Park and Schindlers List, minus the excitement or emotional heft of either.
Overall, this is a good looking but unrewarding watch.
Tentacles, exploding stealth bombers, giant killer robots. Yep, the new trailer for upcoming sci-fi monsterpiece Skyline just hit the web, and while the acting might leave something to be desired, who cares when you’ve got helicopter-chomping gloop beasts and fighter jet vs. UFO action like this?
In these cynical times, it’s easy to pour scorn on the vague rumblings emerging from Hollywood’s rumour mill, as well as stars returning decades later to the roles that made them famous. Let’s face it, Indy didn’t exactly light our fires the fourth time around, and who the hell gives a shit about Wall Street II?
No-one, that’s who.
Of course, there is one property that we’ve been longing to see again, we’ve ruminated on it in the past, we’ve covered the rumours more recently, and given the current propensity for huge hair, bleached jeans and ‘Poison’ tour shirts here in London town, we pretty much encounter it on a daily basis on our way to work.
No, not ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’.
That’s right, we’re talking about the long awaited return of Bill S. Preston Esq. And Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan.
If there’s one thing likely to lift that grim sheen of shattered sequel hopes , it’s a final comeback tour from Wyld Stallyns themselves, and now it looks like it may actually happen.
Speaking to MTV, Alex Winter today confirmed that the bodacious duo are working on a way to return to this time period:
“We kicked around the idea over the years and had always thought if we could make something that was as kind of genuine in spirit as the originals and without falling prey to kind of retro cynicism or something that was unnecessary, it would be worth doing. Now the cat’s out of the bag, and the truth is that, yeah, we have finally hit upon an idea that we think is pretty great. We’ve been working on it for the past couple of years, honing that idea and getting it into shape.”
While there’s no set date for a release, this is the most promising franchise news we’ve had in a long time, let’s just hope it isn’t bogus.
