Review: Transformers

Movie: Transformers

Main Actors: Shia LaBaouf, Megan Fox and Optimus Prime (For a complete list, see IMDB)

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Passionate Expressions: There is a military unit that expresses some displeasure and fear in the face of space robot annihilation and I found their opinions believable.

Useless Vulgar Language: There is a lot of vulgar language that is used for the purpose of humor because longer, more thought-out jokes would take away from the amazing robot violence. God’s name is used in vain a couple times.

Sex in a Good Light: Non-existent

Sex in a Bad Light: If you are the kind of guy that fantasizes over hot girls standing in front of or bent over cars in risqué clothing then this movie might be your number one movie of all time.

Manly Violence: There are a few times when a Special Operations team fights against evil robots and it is done very well. It is in fact done so well that I found myself wishing that the movie would focus on the military's role in relation to the Transformers.

Action Violence: This is what this movie is all about. Giant robots from space, destroying each other and all sorts of man-made structures in high-tech, fast moving, iron grounding glory. In terms of this movie being a summer action movie this one delivers all that could be desired. My heart got to pumping quite a few times, I was dizzy more than once and I sucked my giant, overpriced soda dry. So there ya go.

Pointless Violence: They were smart enough to stay away from pointless violence in this one.

Manly Rating: B-

Scorecard
Cinematography: B
Visual Effects: A
Sound/Score: A-
Story: C
Acting: B-


Food to Watch With: I would recommend Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches to help take you back to the day when you walked around with a Transformers lunch box.

Plot Synopsis: This film is exactly what you would expect. Good Robots from space battle with humans against Evil Robots from space for the fate of the Earth and the Universe.

Review: Michael Bay does his best imitation of a Bruckheimer film by spending big on special effects, moving the camera around, randomly inserting dramatic music and cramming every available space with quick jokes and one-line quips. Watching the robots transform from their secret machine identities into there actual selves was more fun then I thought it would be and I wanted to see more of it. There was one character (a secret agent from a super-secret government program) who annoyed me so much that I almost left the theater. In the few times I’ve watched it since, I’ve developed the opinion that he actually acted pretty well, but the editing of his part (how much of him they put in front of us all of a sudden without really introducing us to him) was terrible, so don’t let it throw you.

Life Lessons: Look at the DVD cover, how many life lessons do you think are in there? Ironically there are some lessons, although I don’t think they are the ones the filmmakers were shooting for. The main idea I would like to point out would be the relationship between Shia LaBeouf’s character and his dad. It speaks to the need for a father in a young man's life. To introduce him to new parts of life, to approve of him, and to protect him from a mother that seems intent on treating him and talking to him like he is a child. Another factor that comes into play is, again, centered around Shia. For most of the movie he is a bit of a wimp, unsure and a bit selfish; but he does, in the end, put it behind him and grow up a little bit by being selfless during a final battle between Optimus and Megatron. Fortunately for him, he was able to do this in front of the girl of his dreams. How lucky for him.

Summary: At times it was better than you thought it would be and at times it was worse, so it averaged out in the end to what you would expect of a summer film made about robots from space.

Would I Watch This Again: The odds of me watching this again are directly related to the size of the screen it would be playing on.

Review: The Patriot

Movie: The Patriot

Main Actors: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger and Joely Richardson (For a complete list, see IMDB)

MPAA Rating: R

Passionate Expressions: There are a few of them; the beginning of the movie opens with some pretty dark themes, a lot like Braveheart.

Useless Vulgar Language: There is some. But nothing really jumped out at me.

Sex in a Good Light: I would have to say no.

Sex in a Bad Light: At one point Heath Ledger spends the night with the family of his “lady friend”. Her parents seem concerned about her virginity and their solution to the problem is to tie Heath Ledger to the bed. So while the movie appears to say one thing it really means the other. Also, the sister of Mel Gibson’s dead wife seems to think her boobs are amazing and spends every scene showing us as much of them as she can without actually showing anything. There is no “nudity” in this film.

Manly Violence: There is lots of it, it is a war movie after all.

Action Violence: Nothing fell in this Category.

Pointless Violence: Nope.

Manly Rating: B

Scorecard
Cinematography: B
Visual Effects: B
Sound/Score: B
Story: D
Acting: C

Food to Watch With: Fish and Chips. Let's kill red coats and eat their food too!

Plot Synopsis: A father avenges his son's death by winning the American Revolution.

Review: I had such high hopes for this movie and I left the theater feeling so confused. The fight scenes were wonderful, the small scenes they did of the Continental Congress were a little off but some good representations of viewpoints back then were well represented and, in fact, the first half hour to 45 minutes of the movie were excellent. Mel Gibson’s character was not entirely predictable. He gives many reasons for not wanting a war with England, but his main under-riding theme is that he wants to take care of his kids which is totally understandable as they have no mother. His sons, also understandably, want to help fight the war and one of them, Heath Ledger, does. This is where things started to fall apart for me. Gibson joins the war effort because some Red Coats kill one of his sons (hmmmm, sounds a little like Braveheart) then Gibson goes bonkers and kills lots of people (hmmmm, also sounds like Braveheart). Mel finally goes and joins the Americans for the fight and is given a Colonel ranking and then he starts turning the tide of the war by basically discovering Guerilla Warfare all by his lonesome. The fights with the British remain good, but amazingly tactics of Mel and his band of Merry Killers make the rest of the Americans look like idiots (I don’t think that was intentional, but that’s what happened). The movie then takes another turn for the worse; it focuses on Heath Ledger’s character. I think that Ledger has a hit and miss record with his acting abilities and this was a miss, a really big miss. The movie starts to lose itself more and more and culminates in a scene where Mel Gibson not only provides the tactics to win the war to the rest of America’s idiot officers but does so by single-handedly rallying the Americans to charge the British. So, yeah, I didn’t like it. But that might be because I was hoping for an American Revolutionary War movie and what I got was a revisionist history Mel Gibson hero movie. Blah.

Life Lessons: There were some, but they got lost. I guess that what I learned (from this movie and from Braveheart) was that if I ever turn into an evil military or political entity, and I run into someone that looks like Mel Gibson, I should just leave him alone.

Summary: What can I say, I love this country, and while I can accept a little bit of leeway taken by the filmmakers to make their story work, don’t destroy American History for your desired ending. Especially not an ending as lack-luster as that.

Would I Watch This Again: Only if I’m in the mood to see Mel’s "Kill" face.

Review: The Day After Tomorrow

Movie: The Day After Tomorrow

Main Actors: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum (For a complete list, see IMDB)

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Passionate Expressions: I’m going to go 50/50 on this one. The language that is used is in response to extremely stressful situations, yes.

Useless Vulgar Language: However, some of the language that is thrown in seems to just be put in there to put it there and at times the actors seem awkward saying them. Not because it looks like they don’t want to say them, but because the words don’t fit the tone of the film. But, there was a surprising lack of language for what this film could have had.

Sex in a Good Light: There is a first kiss between two senior high school students that I did not find offensive at all. Considering all of the bad things that had been happening, the writers could have taken the opportunity to push it farther but they didn’t, good for them. One of Dennis Quaid's buddies tries to hit on one of those multitudes of hot female government employees that Hollywood seems to have in endless supply but she denies him entirely. It is nice to see 1. A guy have the courage to go for it and 2. A woman have the moral fortitude to not encourage him, handle him with decency and not give him anything out of pity like it is something she can just throw away. I’ve heard some people say that there is an inappropriate scene in this movie, but I disagree. There is one scene where Jake takes his shirt off and the girl is Emily is hugging him, trying to warm him up because he has hypothermia. That’s the way it works, body heat is the number one way to warm someone when body heat is all you have. Also, they could have lost more clothes, and in reality, less clothes on them and more clothes around them would have been more effective so again I say bravo to the film crew for not taking it any farther and just telling us what we needed to know and see to get the point.


Sex in a Bad Light: I didn’t really see any.

Manly Violence: The two most violent parts of the movie are both done during a scene that have a sense of adventure and heroics. Dennis Quaid's character and his friends go through a emotional scene where one of them sacrifices himself for the good of the team and to allow Dennis to continue the trek to rescue his son (Note to self: never be the fattest guy on a snow covered trek across New York) The second one comes when Jake’s character and his friends venture into the snow covered streets of New York to retrieve some medicine for Emily’s character who has fallen ill. They brave the snow, a creepy abandoned ship and crazy CGI wolves.

Action Violence: There is some action violence that comes in the form of crashing helicopters and one of the many stock video of New York being destroyed: This time by water.

Pointless Violence: They were able to avoid this by just showing the destruction of the city in general and not focusing too much on the people involved.

Manly Rating: C

Scorecard
Cinematography: B
Visual Effects: B
Sound/Score: B
Story: F
Acting: B

Food to Watch With: Something Frozen, preferably ice cream with lots of frozen bits of candy.

Plot Synopsis: The earth responds to our destruction of its environment by rapidly freezing the earth and starting a new ice age.

Review: I view this movie two ways. When I first saw it I was in the mood to be entertained and I enjoy watching outdoor movies like Cliffhanger and Vertical Limit so I latched onto certain parts of this film and enjoyed the man vs. nature aspects of it. But, after I came down from my CGI snow and Reese’s Pieces induced high I had some different opinions. There are a lot of earth disaster movies out there. For most of them the plots are pretty outlandish and impossible and are meant to be viewed that way. But this one was different. The center point of this movie was on the U.S. government's ‘accepted’ view on the state of the planet. The idea that humans are destroying the environment by being evil and greedy. I personally disagree with this idea and I believe that clear looks at actual facts will back that up, but that is beside the point. The point is that it mixes the still unconfirmed with the impossible and tries to actually pass them off as fact, maybe unintentionally, but that is what happened. That combination was not a successful one. The film gets lost in it’s self. Is it a disaster movie or is it just a better funded version of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. I don’t think the film makers were certain and consequently, I’m not certain. So, there are some good adventure scenes and terrible science trying to be good science and the poor viewer in the middle, confused and unfulfilled on both fronts. Blah.

Life Lessons: Dennis Quaid’s character (Jake’s Father) was tied up in his education and job when Jake was growing up, and as result, their relationship is strained. Go Figure. The film does promote selflessness and decency. Emily’s character was a breath of fresh air in a world filled with feminist or slutty female antagonists.

Summary: Confused and a bit of a let down.

Would I Watch This Again: Not really.

Review: Cliffhanger

Movie: Cliffhanger

Main Actors: Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow and Michael Rooker (For a complete list see IMDB)

MPAA Rating: R

Passionate Expressions: Funny enough, there is no language used when you would think they would use them, they just scream a lot.

Useless Vulgar Language: Pretty much any language in this movie falls under this category. Language is used when not necessary and the few times that you would think people would actually curse, it is used as part of a catch phrase or with the actor saying something funny.

Sex in a Good Light: Non-Existent

Sex in a Bad Light: Non-Existent

Manly Violence: If the early Stallone movie’s were about anything it was about manly violence. There is so much of this that I can’t mention it here, it would take way to long. There are explosions, rock climbing and falling, shooting, freezing, airplane crashes, death by icicles and everything was tied into the plot, had a consequence and was a part of the story line. In other words: AWESOME. I’ll have more on this in the Review Segment.

Action Violence: I don’t think there was any.

Pointless Violence: Again, a lot of people might say that the whole movie was pointless. I disagree, it was pretty clean of pointless violence.

Manly Rating: A

Scorecard
Cinematography: A
Visual Effects: B
Sound/Score: B
Story: A
Acting: B+

Food to Watch With: Something light, like water and a Granola Bar so after the movie you can head outside and climb something (or at least act like your going to).

Plot Synopsis: A bank Robber (Lithgow) attempts to steal a shipment of money while in transit on an airplane over Colorado. It of course fails and they crash. The bad guys spend the rest of the movie fighting an issue packed team of mountain rangers in an attempt to gather their lost bags of money.

Review: Is this a great movie: Yes. Is this one of my favorite movies: Yes. Would I watch this movie with my wife: No. Sometimes the Manly men they (wives) want us to be does not translate very well in a movie and this is one of them, especially if your wife is more sensitive to Violence and Peril. This doesn’t mean she doesn’t want you to be manly like the guys in the movie, it just means that the movie was meant to portray the manliness to you, not to her. I said that I would talk more about the Manly Violence above so here it goes. There is a scene in the movie where Stallone’s character impales a guy who is trying to kill him and his girl, on something pointy hanging from the cave they are in. This gave me pause when I was assigning Violence ratings. How could this not be Pointless Violence. He is literally driving a man upwards onto a spike. Gruesome. But, he didn’t have any other weapons at the moment and the guy was trying to kill not just him but the woman he loves. What was he supposed to do, excuse himself from the cave so he could find a more civilized means of killing him. Nope. I tried to put myself in his shoes and if for some reason I find myself locked in mortal combat with an evil villain who is trying to kill me and my wife in a cave and I had no gun or knife and I was super-humanly strong, I would do the same thing.

On another note: Cliffhanger is one of the few movies that attained a high level of success that was almost entirely filmed in the wild. It is worth watching just for the scenery and to watch what they put these actors through. I’ll give it kudos just for that.

Life Lessons: There is always forgiveness (sometimes you just need to kill a few bad guys to find it) and even seemingly benign guys like John Lithgow can make kick-butt evil masterminds.

Summary: If you’re a guy, watch it, but unless your significant other has a very high tolerance for violence, watch it with other guys only.

Would I Watch This Again: I’ve never been able to turn it down and I don’t think I ever will.

Review: Law Abiding Citizen

Movie: Law Abiding Citizen

Main Actors: Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler (For a complete list, see IMDB)

MPAA Rating: R (Medium to low level)

Passionate Expressions: Maybe just one or two uses of cursing where you would expect it. I’m actually torn a bit over some language that is used at one point against a female judge who is making a ruling on Butler's character. The language that he uses and the names that he calls her are warranted and they are coming from him in anger. However, he makes the assertion that he is not after revenge, that he is out to make a point and change the justice system. So, while you could see yourself making the same claims and saying the same things, they are not consistent with the message that the story is try to tell.

Useless Vulgar Language: This movie is filled with strong language that I think the writers used to try and emphasis their point. The problem is that the people they have using the language are portrayed as intellectually smart civil servants and engineers. Some of the conversations that were had over the course of the film could have been heightened and been raised from mere good points to opinion changers if they hadn’t taken the lazy way out.

Sex in a Good Light: Non-existent

Sex in a Bad Light: There is a perceived rape scene during the first few moments of the film and later there is a woman who is naked from the waist down. And while you don’t see anything, the angles that were used and the things they do show you were enough to make me study the armchair fabric.

Manly Violence: If someone were to tell you the violence seen and imagined that takes place in this movie in a list, it would sound like they were describing Saw or some useless, disgusting movie like that. However, when you watch the movie and are heavily invested in it, and you get to some of the more violent scenes (by the way, the most horrific violence is imagined and talked about, not actually shown; a blessing for sure) you actually find yourself rooting for it and agreeing with it. There is a scene with both of the main actors in an interrogation room, after Butler's character finished murdering the man who raped and murdered his family in a very nasty way. Jamie Foxx's character (working for the District Attorney) turns off the recorder, sits next to Butler and says “Bravo”. There are deaths by bullets, explosions and miscellaneous pieces of lawn care equipment, but everything has a point.

Action Violence: I didn’t see any violence in this movie that would count towards pure action.

Pointless Violence: I believe all the violence they put into this movie had a purpose.

Manly Rating: A-

Scorecard
Cinematography: C
Visual Effects: B
Sound/Score: B
Story: A
Acting: A

Food to Watch With: Eating food while watching this movie might be difficult because it is easy to get wrapped up in the story. However, as hard as it is to ignore good acting, it is equally hard to ignore good food. Gerard Butler's character enjoys a nice Steak Dinner with all the trimmings and every time I have watched him eat it I feel hungry. So, I recommend the same. Steak, mashed potatoes, cheesy noodles and some vegetable drenched in butter. However, I recommend finishing your meal before Butler finishes his.

Plot Synopsis: A brilliant and angry father attempts to not only get even with but change a corrupt justice system after it makes a deal with his family’s murderer.

Review: 2009 was a great year for movies and this one stood its ground alongside the best of them. Both Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx provide believable, well thought-out characters whose words might not be clear indicators of their true motivations. This movie does a good job of portraying problems with the justice system when it comes up against other idealisms of Right and Wrong, Honor, and Integrity.

Life Lessons: Life isn’t fair, do everything with Integrity and don’t underestimate Gerard Butler

Summary: Excellent Movie, People in the Justice system should watch it but I doubt most of them would understand it.

Would I Watch This Again: Absoutely