Transformers: Age of Extinction Review

I figured I might as well review the worse film of the year so far before I see more contenders for the worse film of the year so far will this weekend, like Sex Tape and The Purge: Anarchy. So... *sigh*... here it goes.

I don't blame Michael Bay for directing as much as I do blame Ehren Kruger for writing. Why, must you ask? It's because Michael Bay made at least one good and tolerable Transformers movie which was the first one; whereas for all the rest of them suck donkey dick, in my personal opinion. Where does Ehren Kruger fall in? Why he's the guy who wrote every other Transformers movie EXCEPT for the first one. Maybe THAT'S why all these other Transformers movies are getting such bad publicity. They're all the friggin same movie! The reason why the first one was tolerable was because it was obviously new and not the same movie because it was the first one made. 

I hate Kruger's writing because he never comes up with anything new at all unless it's a racist stereotypical scene or setup. Examples? The two racist ghetto robots from the second movie. How much more racist can you get than that? Watch this new fourth one and find out... or don't and just let me tell you so you can save three hours from possibly being wasted (yes the movie's that long). What this movie has is a bad portrayal of people from Texas. More examples? Apparently according to this movie, EVERY girl in Texas acts like a slut and dresses in short-shorts and cowboy boots. Every guy in Texas (yes including Mark Wahlberg's character) is over protective of everything and is an asshole to every person they come across, whether it's doing business or saving someone's life. Is that all? Of course not. Why not insult the Chinese as well? Well you have your typical Chinese women who speak the most stereotypical accent you can think of; as well as Ken Watanabe who is a Japanese actor voicing a Chinese transformer who doesn't believe in guns and only uses swords to fight in combat. Who hates that of course? Why a big fat redneck Transformer of course who is voiced by John Goodman. I have no idea why those two good actors who have starred in recent Academy-award-winning films would even provide voices for this garbage. They should know better.

As the plot is concerned, it's pretty much the same damn thing again. The Decepticons (or BAD ROBOTS) invade and want to destroy the city and it's up to the Autobots (the GOOD ROBOTS) to stop the Decepticons while the main human characters, that we follow more than the Transformers, (even though Transformers is in the friggin title!) scream and run for their lives the whole time. The only difference is that this time the government has turned bad and is working with the Decepticons this time; so it is up to Mark Wahlberg's character of Cade Yeager (yes, that's actually his name in the movie) to put a stop to the government's plans. The government is played by Kelsey Grammer. Yes, I'm aware of what I said. The reason why I state that flawed sentence is because literally everyone who is associated with the government in that movie does what he tells them to do. Nobody of any higher ranking has control over Grammer's evil character. Why is he evil and working with the bad robots? Well the script forgot to explain that of course. Seriously, f*ck you, Ehren Kruger.

If you're not interested in the plot and just want to see some eye candy and action, this movie may still not be for you. The action was so dull that I couldn't take it. I've seen it so many times in this franchise that I don't get why Michael Bay doesn't get bored with this crap. He apparently says that his reason for making another Transformers movie was because he saw a very long line at Universal Studios theme park for the Transformers RIDE. *facepalm* Even if it's a different plot with different characters, that doesn't somehow occur to him to change the action sequences in a way where we can tell the difference in the movies themselves. Hell you can't tell the difference between the robots that are fighting one another. Which one is Optimus?! The only thing good I can mention about the action scenes is that they actually have Mark Wahlberg doing something. Unfortunately it's not anything to explain what's going on with the plot, but at least they have him with a made up prop gun (that is never explained how it works or what it's power usage is) fighting robots instead of running away from them. That is the only step up this movie has.

Oh and I forgot to mention, Mark Wahlberg has a daughter in this movie, played by Nicola Peltz. She doesn't do anything in the movie though, at all. She just bitches and complains the whole time. Her makeup also stays perfect throughout the whole movie even though there's fiery explosions happening everywhere around her and she has no access to a makeup kit anywhere. I can't tell whether she's doing bad acting or terrible acting because the guy who plays her boyfriend (Jack Reynor) does acting that's beyond terrible in this movie. He is apparently the driver in this movie, even though he only has a couple of short driving scenes throughout this whole three hour movie. Other than that he just bitches and moans the whole time as well.

This movie was a waste of time and it is mind blowing how this had a higher weekend opening than Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Those movies had logical characters, a moving plot, and carefully constructed action scenes. In this, you have none of that. I can easily predict that this will win Razzie awards for sure. I am pretty sure Nicola Peltz has it in the bag for Worst Supporting Actress since nearly every female in a Michael Bay film has been through that phase, and not to mention she has been nominated for one already for The Last Airbender. I hope Mark Wahlberg has learned his lesson by now after doing TWO Michael Bay films. I hope Jack Reynor will take acting lessons as well as receive a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor as a reason to partake in those lessons. I hope Michael Bay realizes that the only way to save his career is to either stop making Transformers movies or if he does, fire Ehren Kruger and hire the writers of the Fast & Furious franchise to make them as funny and ridiculous as possible. I know Michael Bay can direct comedy all right, but he just chooses the worst scripts to do so... like Pain & Gain. My final hope for this review is for Ehren Kruger to quit writing movies FOREVER. That guy has a gift for making everything a lot worse whenever he touches it.

My final sentence for this review is "Stay away from this movie!".

* out of **** 

Life Itself (Roger Ebert Documentary) Review

One of the main reasons why I decided to get into reviewing movies and wanting to blog about them was Roger Ebert. He's still my favorite film critic of all time even though he has passed away. He was one of those critics that straight forward in his opinions for what he reviewed. He cared about the unknown films in the art house world enough to do everything in his power to promote them on him and Gene Siskel's show 'At the Movies'. His good intentions towards reviewing films won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1975. It was sad to see him go after seeing and reading his reviews he did for the past 45 years. Watching this documentary on him was what I needed for inspiration to get my blog going again and keep reviewing movies.

The documentary is directed by Steve James, who was the most appropriate guy for the job knowing Ebert loved his film Hoop Dreams. In fact he loved it so much that he not only listed it as his top film of 1994, but the top film of the 1990s. I'm sure Ebert was as thrilled to have a film made about him by that guy as I would if Steven Spielberg decided to make a feature about me... or Morgan Spurlock if it was a documentary. The way Steve James approaches Ebert's life story is very interesting.

The documentary starts off by showing the impact Ebert has had on his fans, then cuts to Ebert himself in the hospital (filmed by Steve James himself) months before his death. We then progress back to Ebert's past about his life and family before he became a writer, but then the film keeps cutting back to Ebert in the hospital as the stories are told. It's interesting because there are three different types of narration going on as the story is being unfolded. We have Steve James' narration, Ebert himself talking in the hospital through his laptop voice and previous interviews, as well as a Roger Ebert impersonator narrating quotes from Ebert's book 'Life Itself' that the documentary is based off on. It might seem confusing at first, but it matches the pacing that Steve James is going for in telling Roger's life story. The hospital scenes to some viewers may seem unnecessary and depressing, but it fulfills Ebert's wishes in wanting to show his true self in what he's going through daily. Ebert promised that publicity of his health problems to the public after Gene Siskel's death, because Siskel hid his brain tumor from the public including Roger himself before his death. You can call it petty or odd; but for me I liked it because it was a wish fulfilled.

About 69% of the documentary tells Roger's life story at best, where the other 31% are all hospital scenes. Some of those hospital clips are uncomfortable to watch, but technically it does qualify for the title of the movie Life Itself. The hospital scenes do answer questions at the same time though where Steve James does send Roger a few email questions after filming a day and would get an answer from Roger about his childhood or how he would review his films in minor detail. He would always end his emails with the signature "Cheers, R".

There is plenty of behind the scenes footage (as most would want to see) of 'Siskel and Ebert At the Movies'. You find out how it was developed and how they were hired for the job. A fan of that show wouldn't be disappointed in this documentary if they are aware that this film is about Ebert featuring his life in that show. There's also interviews with his wife Chaz Ebert, old friends of his, famous filmmakers like Martin Scorsese (credited as executive producer of the documentary), as well as other filmmakers that may not possibly have a career if it weren't for Ebert's major thumbs up and publicity.

That's really all I can reveal about what there is. It's better in my opinion to watch the documentary to see the true results. It's a beautiful tribute to my favorite movie critic of all time who never stopped fighting to get his reviews out. When Siskel died, he got a new host. When he had thyroid cancer and had to leave the show, he made a website and twitter to post his reviews. When he couldn't attend theaters or festivals anymore to get a first look at the new release, he had the producers send him DVD copies of the film. That man never stopped reviewing movies literally till death. All I can say is this is a great piece to watch if you're a Roger Ebert fan.

A special thanks to Roger Ebert for the inspiration you gave me and millions of others. You were a smart and terrific human being. :)

***1/2

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review

How often does a good movie come out of a reboot from a semi-popular franchise which starts off as a prequel to that franchise? Maybe 1% of the time. That's Rise of the Planet of the Apes and boy was it a surprisingly great hit. Now answer this. How often does a great movie come out that is a sequel to that prequel of a rebooted franchise; not to mention actually BETTER than the first one? Probably 0.001% of the time. That is Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Only two writers have managed to accomplish that goal in life from all the movies I've seen and those are writers, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver for their genius in showing the audience a way a story can be told without using any regular formula hack Hollywood writers use today and can still become a major hit blockbuster. Not only that, it gets the audience thinking as well in what the plot's about instead of just wanting to see action on screen.

The movie takes place around 8 to 10 years after the first movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes after the apes and a virus explained from the first movie and the beginning of this one managed kill off half the human race and make the world post-apocalyptic. If that's a spoiler, my apologies. We follow our favorite and only ape we can identify with known as Caesar, played brilliantly by Andy Serkis. Caesar has a family now and helps lead the apes daily using literal body language to maintaining a peaceful lifestyle without fear of the human race striking back at them. Caesar never wanted a war or violence at all in the first place which is why he is the most perfect hero/protagonist in the movie, even more than all the human characters combined. Our runner-up for best hero in the movie is Malcolm also played brilliantly by Australian actor, Jason Clarke who wants to help save the human race without resorting to violence as well. Do we know if he has fear of the apes? Not certainly, but we do know he means no harm as he said in the trailer. As for Gary Oldman's character, Dreyfus, he trusts only the humans and not the apes, but is genuine enough to let the humans like Malcolm help without resorting to violence giving the audience the question of him being an anti-hero. Malcolm and Dreyfus' goal to help the human race is to restore power to the city of San Francisco where a big group of their race is in current hiding. The only problem is that the place to restore power is located at a dam in the forest where the apes are currently located.

The movie escalates quickly when Malcolm decides to approach Caesar in a peaceful manner about fixing the dam and restoring power. This is one of my favorite scenes in the movie, because you're on the edge of your seat without any action going on at all. Malcolm is trying to explain his goal and Caesar trying to read his body language and can only understand very little dialogue (because even after almost a decade, Caesar's still in his own learning process of understanding verbal communication). This is one out of many scenes that make the movie so spectacular is because the quiet and subtle scenes are what moves this story faster, rather than just action scenes of people shooting at one another which tend to slow the story down 90% of the time. The action scenes are only featured when they need to be, because they've built up enough character development to make it worthwhile. For example, another ape who is one of Caesar's main followers is Koba. He had always been tortured by humans and wants revenge as well as apes to rule the human race. They spend time developing his character first before any action scenes happen with the apes fighting the humans as you would've obviously guessed if you watched the trailer. There are of course humans that are blaming the apes for the post-apocalyptic world they live in and have the same angry intentions as Koba. Who shoots first though? I'm not telling you.

As much as the action scenes are enjoyable and well made, the main message and conflict of the movie comes from the quieter scenes with more dialect and body language between the apes. You're rooting more for a subtle agreement between Caesar and Malcolm because they're both very likable and that's the moral of the story. Andy Serkis gives the best motion captured performance out of everything he's done; and that's saying a lot after doing the roles of Gollum and Kong. He's already earned the title of the best performance to never be nominated. As for Jason Clarke, I'm glad he's getting bigger roles now. If you want to see other work he's done as great as this, maybe even better, see Zero Dark Thirty. Gary Oldman holds his poker face throughout the film because you never know what his character is going to do next. Same thing goes for Toby Kebbell who played Koba.

This is a terrific movie because it promotes subtle negotiation over physical violence. It's like the film decided to go back to fourth grade level in politics in showing how you can manage society without resorting to arguments which could lead to physical harm. Using humans and apes with higher intelligence is a great example of that. The action scenes are only used when necessary to move the plot forward (which many movies don't do these days). It's definitely a film worth checking out if you want to see an action blockbuster with actual logic and human connection.

***1/2

I'm Back!

Hey guys! How long has it been? Two and a half years now? Almost three? Jeez! What have I been up to? Well all I can say for sure is that I've busy with other things; in fact so many things that I forgot that I had put a hold on writing this blog for a much longer time than I had expected. Well I guess you're now wondering why I decided to come back. I guess you could say that I always loved talking about movies I saw immediately after I exited the theater that I just had to go back to typing it out again. I thought about starting a YouTube channel in which I would just express verbally on what I thought about the latest movie to date, but then I realized that the process would be long in just having to render and export every video I'd be making which would take hours. You never know though, because it might still happen eventually. No guarantees though. Another reason is because I decided to check on my blog to see whether it would really be worth it in the long run. Turns out that I've had over ten thousand page views on my blog by movie buffs and random "googlers" wanting to know the opinions of the average movie goer like myself. I know that doesn't sound like much to most pro bloggers but to me I didn't think I'd have over two thousand even. My page for the films that made my Top 10 Cinematography pretty much filled in half those views alone. It sort of inspired me to continue what I started nearly three years ago because I've seen so many films since then that I would LOVE to review which would possibly help get the word out and have those films gain more respect that they deserve. Movies like Fruitvale Station, Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Spectacular Now are just only a few of MANY I would love to spread the word on and how genius the filmmakers were in creating those works of art. Now I know that if you go on a few lists, the pictures of the posters probably lost the HTML connection from the site I got them from that they aren't showing up in the blog. I will put a fix to them soon and find a way to permanently keep them on the page. For now, I will be writing reviews to movies that are currently playing that I would highly recommend or stay the hell away from *cough* Transformers. I'm really excited to get this blog going again and am grateful that my page is still getting views today looking at the past history of this week and me being hiatus for the past three years almost. I hope my next post will be very soon after I decide which film I should review first. See ya guys soon.

Yours truly,
MovieManiac14

P.S.: I have not forgotten about those random Top 10 Category lists and will post another list soon after a few reviews. Obviously soon because of the views my Top 10 Cinematography Films received. :)