Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon in 3D

“Years from now they’ll ask us, ‘where where you when they took over the planet?'”

Synopsis: When NASA landed on the moon in 1969 they discovered a mysterious alien ship from the Transformer’s home-planet, Cybertron. In present day, an army of Decepticons threaten to use its technology to enslave all of humanity.

Dark of the Moon is Michael Bay’s conclusion to his big-budgeted, gratuitous, and explosive Transformers trilogy. Thankfully, Transformers 3 learned from the glaring mistakes of Transformers 2 and corrected them somewhat. It still features some annoying Autobot sidekicks but their Jar-Jar Binks effect is lessened. The ‘secret history’ of the NASA missions is much more interesting than ancient ‘Fallen’ transformers building the Pyramids in Egypt (gag). Rosie Huntington-Whiteley replaces Megan Fox as the leading lady; and though she’s nothing more than playing ‘Miss Fanservice‘, her character is somewhat less of a dead-end. Dark Moon’s extensive cameo list (Leonard Nemoy, Alan Tudyk, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Ken Jeong, and a villanous Patrick Dempsey) add layers of quirky humor to the film. But sadly, director Michael Bay can’t help from bloating the scale to global devastation and forcing the film to take itself far too seriously.

There was just too much action. (I never thought I’d say that before!) Now before you think I’m crazy, let me explain. I like action movies with loads of explosions and special effects. I relish ridiculously epic, action packed, high stakes, crazy intense movies with totally untenable situations. I loved the climactic battle in Avatar and thought it was an incredible cinematic achievement. So you’d think Michael Bay would be a shoo-in, right?

Michael Bay is not a bad director. He’s very good at what he does: excessive explosions, slow-motion battles, ridiculously contrived heroics, and camera ogling the leading lady. But Michael Bay took this to a new level with a 2.5 hour long Dark of the Moon. The result had me shrugging “what’s the point?” The action is so meaningless and repetitive that I began wondering “holy-armageddon-batman, why is the end of the world taking so long? Seriously, Decepticons! Get it over with and kill the humans already! Or enslave them! Or whatever you’re trying to do!”
For example, there’s a particular action scene with a falling skyscraper that lasts for over 7 minutes (it feels more like 15). Not to spoil anything, the humans decide to ascend this glass skyscraper instead of sneaking through the streets. The explosions keep coming, the people tumble around, and the tension drags on, and on, and on. Finally, at the end of this lengthy building toppling; nothing has changed, the humans simply resume sneaking through the streets. Not one character has died (good or evil), not one person did something heroic, and no circumstances have changed! You could LITERALLY cut this 10 minute sequence out of the film and the audience would have NO IDEA it was missing! This otherwise ambitious and visually stunning scene would’ve stood out as jaw-dropping-amazing had it not been squeezed between an hour of pretty much the same thing.
Once upon a time, action was used to progress the story. Remember the lightsaber duels in the original Star Wars trilogy? Ben Kenobi is killed, Luke’s hand gets chopped off, Darth Vader reveals that he’s Luke’s dad… Some serious crap hit the fan during those fights! They’re more than special effects, they were the catalyst for the most intense, plot-altering, and emotionally gripping scenes of the entire saga! After watching Transformers 3, this concept of ‘action with a purpose’ appears completely lost to this generation, and dead to director Michael Bay.

Themes: War, Betrayal, Purpose

Picking up on our current economic crisis, Sam Witwicky’s fruitless job search opens the door for conversations about purpose, “Do you know how demoralizing it is to have saved the world twice and still be groveling for a job?” When the nature of the Autobot and Decepticon civil war is revealed, it raises the issue of compromise vs. betrayal. There’s some good food for thought here, “when are you willing to compromise your values, even if it means betrayal?” but its never explored in depth.

Conclusion:

Transformers 3 is a great example of “sometimes, less is more. Way, way more.”
I kept wondering what made the first Transformers so fun and endearing, and its sequels so bloated and unsympathetic. I believe the answer lies in simplicity. The original Transformers had a simple climax: a handful of Autobots fight a few Decepticons while trying to protect Sam and the AllSpark. It was fun, easy to follow, and tightly knit enough to work. Transformers 3, however, declares war on the entire planet. The final hour depicts hundreds of Decepticons taking over Chicago, our heroes fighting their way to its center, and an intergalactic teleporter. The scale is simply too large to be taken seriously. Its like blowing bubbles: Blow a tiny bubble and you can hold it in your hand. Go for a beachball size bubble, and it’ll splatter in your face.

Rating:

3 out of 5 Zipped Lips – for the special effects alone.

Dark of the Moon is visually impressive and better than its predecessor, but an unnecessary 157min runtime gives you ample opportunity to realize that Michael Bay isn’t really building up to anything, except another explosion without point or purpose.

Resident Evil: Afterlife – In 3D

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) – In 3D – Review by Isaac

“My name is Alice. I worked for the Umbrella Corporation. Five years ago, the T-Virus escaped, and everybody died. Trouble was… they didn’t stay dead.”

Will you enjoy Resident Evil: Afterlife in 3D? – That depends. How do you feel about character development? What about intentional dialog? Or realistic fight scenes? And what about physics, are you really set on that? Because if you expect any of the above, you probably won’t dig what Afterlife has to offer.

Here’s what Resident Evil: Afterlife is about:

• Milla Jovovich.
• Dual wielding.
  
• Zombies and/or Monsters.
  
• Explosions.
  
• Slow Motion.

Oh, and sometimes Ali Larter.

But seriously, despite hating the first three Resident Evil films (read my article,) I really enjoyed Afterlife. Perhaps I gave up on the idea that these will be good movies and just enjoyed the slow-motion in 3D. Which is why Paul W.S. Anderson is able to succeed on the big screen: it’s all about the 3D glasses. They won’t make poorly written characters and storyline three dimensional, but all the shooting in slow motion is really cool. My movie-going buddy commented that this was his best 3D experience (winning out over Avatar and Clash of the Titans). The presence of 3D sews together the mismatch pieces of this ‘style-over-substance’ action flick.

Plot Synopsis: Genetically enhanced Alice leads her army of clones to destroy Umbrella’s headquarters in Tokyo. The mission is successful but Alice barely escapes, injected with a T-virus antidote. Alone and powerless, Alice joins a group of survivors who must escape to Arcadia, the mysterious safe-haven free of infection.

It’s good to see a franchise start getting things right. The film opens with an incredibly juvenile, Matrix inspired, over-the-top action scene featuring Alice’s clone army assaulting a secret Umbrella base. We’re treated to Alice tearing through hordes of SWAT teams with every cliché in the book. The base is destroyed, along with her clones, and Alice loses her superpowers. This explosive move wraps up the silliness created by the second and third RE films, making Alice a normal human being again. Now that she’s powerless, Alice becomes likeable again. There’s a welcome return of danger and risk throughout the film.

Writer/Director Paul W.S. Anderson’s second great move is using some source material. I bet he played Resident Evil 5 and thought “woah! I’d better make another movie!” The zombies (inexplicably) have mutated into the “Los Plagas” infected types featured in Resident Evil 4 and 5. The Executioner makes an appearance and his fight is one of the film’s highlights. Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) is introduced as the main villain, a point I was initially excited about because Wesker is one of my favorite villains ever, but his treatment here is weak. They actually copy an entire fight-scene from Resident Evil 5 move by move, (I guess if it ain’t broke, why fix it?) The end result is uninspired. There’s a common thread among zombie-plots, especially Resident Evil, that the initial developer/spreader of the zombie virus is more evil and depraved than the flesh-eating zombies themselves. Afterlife decides to make this dichotomy literal, depicting Wesker as a cannibal who must eat living flesh in order to control his powers. And of course, he has to ingest Alice to survive (geez, talk about Mary-Sue tropes!)

When Alice searches for Arcadia, she encounters a group of survivors holding up in a prison (The Walking Dead, anyone?) The cast is paper-thin for the most part; even famous videogame character Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller) has little plot exposition. (Perhaps a bit of fan-service here, introducing Prison Break’s main character in a prison cell?) In fact, a number of glaring questions surrounding Chris and Claire Redfield’s characters are never answered before the credits roll.

I love character development in horror movies. More specifically, I love their attempts at character development. A single statement like “I was on the High School swim team” not only caps their character depth, but justifies their ability to navigate a flooded, zombie infested barracks with nothing more than a flashlight. Afterlife is par for the course here, featuring raspy voices and dual wielding pistols for all the “cool” characters and thin, red-shirt stereotypes making up the supporting cast. I wish I was kidding about the raspy voices. I was beginning to wonder if lead actress Milla Jovovich had a serious throat infection all through the filming of Afterlife. Her speech was really low and raspy, like halfway between chain-smoker and Christian Bale’s Batman voice. The introduction of Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) and Chris Redfield (Miller) revealed that either A: the raspy voice technique was supposed to make the main characters edgy and ‘badass’, or B: the throat infection had spread throughout the leads. Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter did their best to counteract this illness with thick eyeliner and lipstick (which is apparently abundant in the post-apocalypse) but it didn’t help much. But at least Alice stayed properly clothed this time!

Conclusion:

I haven’t decided if Paul W.S. Anderson is incapable of writing a good ending, or if he has some sort of psychotic condition that forces him to write only cliffhangers. Afterlife sets itself up for a sequel trilogy in one of the most contrived ways possible. But considering how much I enjoyed this installment, I’m ready to see what he comes up with next.

3/5 Zipped Lips – Surprisingly entertaining!

3D Glasses bring a new sense of thrill and action to a dull franchise. The style is so sleek and the action so fun, you might just forget how bland the characters are.