So today upon finding out that I actually had the day off, I decided to take in Transformers followed immediately by Live Free or Die Hard.
Transformers: I have to admit, I liked this movie a lot more than I thought I would. Here's some advice, FORGET what you know. Go in with zero expectations and you should walk out pleasantly surprised. If you were a fan when you were younger leave that at the door. This is a movie about robots that transform into cars. That may be simplifying it but it's very important to realize this. This movie was not made for fanboys, it was made for anyone who wants to see a big loud movie about robots that turn into cars. Yes it contains all the annoying Michael Bay staples (slow motion shots, a crew of ragtag soldiers, stuff blowing up really loud) but it's not TOO annoying.
I think my single biggest complaint was that it was hard to get a good look at the robots. Say what you will about Jurassic Park (I'm a fan) Spielberg made sure that the first chance we got to really see the dinosaurs was spectacular and allowed us to really just look at the dinosaurs. The decision to make the Transformers look so realistic was a good one but also made it really hard to just get a good look at the robots. I lied, I have another complaint and that is that the Decepticons aren't really developed, especially the most important one of all, Megatron. The Decepticons are largely without distinct personalities and there's a big plot point (won't mention it here) that is kind of haphazardly thrown out at the end.
Live Free or Die Hard: So the words "Die" and "Hard" are in the title and Bruce Wilis is the star but LFoDH doesn't really FEEL like a Die Hard movie. In a series known for being over the top and ludicrous this one I think pushes things so far beyond the realm of believability that you can't help but laugh. And I have to say for everyone that lives in the DC and Baltimore region, watching LFoDH will be a real treat for you. Whenever you see it, pay close attention to the following:
A) What direction McClane enters DC from after arriving from New Jersey.
B) How quickly and easily McClane is able to get from DC to West Virginia to Baltimore especially when [SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT BUT NOT REALLY] all the power is out and even the FBI admits that THEY can't get out of the city
C) "695"
D) The DC tags on the FBI cars
Now, to Joe Schmoe in Iowa these are trivial things that make no difference whatsoever to his/her reaction to the movie. To those of us who live in this area you will find these tidbits pretty amusing and I actually found some of them distracting (specifically B because that deals with explicitly with key plot points and kind of undermines what the filmmakers are hoping to accomplish...to me at least.)
Aside from these nitpicky nuggets, LFoDH is fairly enjoyable despite being completely unbelievable in just about every way.
Oh I saw a trailer for the new JJ Abrams movie that looks amazing and doesn't even mention the name of the movie.
evan [email] said at 1:55 PM 07-04-2007: "The Decepticons are largely without distinct personalities and there's a big plot point (won't mention it here) that is kind of haphazardly thrown out at the end."
i totally agree about the lack of development for the decepticons. what plot point do you speak of?
reggie [email] said at 1:44 AM 07-05-2007: Well it was something Optimus said to Megatron after their battle. I'm trying to be cautious about spoilers and what not.
craig [email] said at 2:27 AM 07-05-2007: I am not sure what you are talking about either, but if it is what I am thinking, I don't see what the big deal is.
reggie [email] said at 10:58 AM 07-05-2007: Okay. Well just to clarify...
[SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT]
As Megatron is dying, Optimus says something like "I'm sorry it had to end this way my brother."
I'm not sure if he means "brother" as in fellow Cybertron native or "brother" as in JFK and RFK. But it would have helped to at least add a little depth to both characters if the inference is of Prime and Megatron once being allies.
craig [email] said at 11:55 AM 07-05-2007: I figured that's what you were talking about. I can't remember if they were supposed to be brother in the cartoons/comics or not.
It would have been nice to get a little more backstory on them in the movie. The flashback sequence that went back to Cybertron was amazing, but it only lasted for a couple of seconds. That scene was probably one the most expensive in the film.
Like many other films based on a vast amount of source material, there were so many ideas that they tried to condense. Interestingly enough, the idea of the allspark is a much later idea for the Transformers which did not get fully developed until Beast Wars.
reggie [email] said at 12:11 PM 07-05-2007: The Allspark was a new one on me. Also, was it me or did they only do the traditional transforming sound once?
reggie [email] said at 10:16 PM 07-06-2007: that's what I was thinking. But I thought there was the suggestion that the matrix does exist (in Optimus.)
jake [email] said at 2:11 PM 07-04-2007: I agree with you about Transformers, it's a perfectly fun big-special effects action film about big robots that turn into other things... There's some great dialog, including some good fan-service, knowing references, and so on. Not so many that you need a freeze-frame and a reference-text like in X-Men 2, but enough that there's one every 5 or 10 minutes.
I was expecting to hate the visual design of the bots as more evangelion or gundam than traditional hasbro, and instead I really enjoyed seeing the big guys in motion. There's some jaw dropping scenes where Transformers that we're used to acting like old fashioned pugilists and street brawlers pull out Chow Yun Fat moves.
Also, there was some really genuinely funny dialog, which impressed me.
My complaints overlap yours a little, Reggie. The Decepticons aren't developed at all, though all but one gets a really impressive action moment. And I too wanted more lingering shots of the robots. There's a lot of images of their legs, and images of them doing something fast and blurry in the background while something else is in the foreground. Maybe that's cheaper/easier to render, but it got annoying. I'd rather see fewer shots of the transformers, but see them in all their glory each time.
Other things that frustrated me: the too-thick make-up slathered on the faces of the pretty femmes; the way too obvious prison interrogation gag; the blatant military propagandizing ("Failure is not an option for these guys!"); The under-use of John Turturro (he almost gets enough but not quite); the way Barricade's digital image of a driver looks a little too much like another character; the sexualizing of an underage girl especially combined with the really creepy voyeurism going on in the last scene before the credits roll...
I also saw a lot of images and dialog that felt cribbed from other movies. Somehow it struck me as derivative, while in the Warchowski's work it adds to the fun. Megatron's imprisonment is straight out of the Inhumanoids and one of his short screeds sounds exactly like Agent Smith from the Matrix. There was more like that...
Finally, I don't actually understand how the final battle was won. I kind of get it, but not really.
But I enjoyed the movie and felt good about spending the money, so what more can I want?
reggie [email] said at 1:58 AM 07-05-2007: Actually for a second I thought the holographic image of the driver looked an awful lot like Robert Patrick, which would have been funny.
As for the final battle...not sure I really got it either.
and one of his short screeds sounds exactly like Agent Smith from the Matrix
Did the fact that he was voiced by Hugo Weaving have anything to do with that?
Another complaint I have might be a minor one but I think it matters: where was Megatron's big gun? That arm cannon is a distinguishing characteristic of both Megatron and Galvatron. That's almost the equivalent of doing Star Wars without Darth Vader's breathing. It would have made Megatron stand out and be more intimidating, more threatening. We needed to see him evaporate something with the arm-cannon just like we needed to see the power of the Death Star early in A New Hope.
craig [email] said at 2:25 AM 07-05-2007: There have been several versions of Megatron since generation 1 without the Fusion Cannon. I think all in all the design of Megatron suited him well. I liked the samuarai-esque helmet that he had on.
neilbert said at 1:55 AM 07-06-2007: I was just happy that they still gave Megatron his gun and did not wimp out and change it to something else. The only thing I did not like about the movie was the apparent bullets and shells that some of the transformers fired as weapons; it should have been just a straight up laser-fest.
craig [email] said at 11:03 AM 07-06-2007: Lasers are out of fashion in science fiction movies. Even the new star wars prequels started using missiles and shells.
jake [email] said at 11:26 PM 07-05-2007: I didn't know it was Weaving, but it was the words, not the sound of it, that were cribbed. "Why do you persist? Is it courage, or fear?" Just like Smith's words to Morpheus in the tower before the helicopter rescue.
craig [email] said at 12:37 AM 07-06-2007: Yeah, I was a bit disappointed that this movie took place from the perspective of the humans. The comics and the cartonns were always from the perspective of the robots.
reggie [email] said at 1:20 AM 07-06-2007: I didn't really have a problem with that choice. I think it keeps the story somewhat grounded and not being too full of itself. I wish there wasn't the prelude in the desert. I think it would have been better if all the stuff with the military had been revealed (to us) later on.
Mainly because what ended up happening was after the introductory narration by Prime we get Prime telling Sam what we already know when they first meet.
Cut the opening narration from the beginning, cut the army stuff out of the first half altogether, incorporate the opening narration into the Autobots meeting Sam and work from there.
I just think there should be a little more mystery in the story. Who are they? Why are they here? Who should be trusted?
I mean really the whole story is pretty clumsily told as it is so you just have to take it with a huge grain of salt. But it also isn't unreasonable to ask for a little more thought to be put into the script.
reggie [email] said at 1:01 AM 07-06-2007: Yeah, Knowles' review is one of the best I've seen. I'm glad he didn't drool over this movie like he tends to.
reggie [email] said at 12:59 PM 07-09-2007: Yeah dude. I appreciate his fanboy quality but sometimes there seems to be no discretion and he praises movies that really do not deserve to be praised. Also, and his Talkbackers have continuously called him on this, but he tends to give unfavorable reviews to movies you'd expect him to rave about when it's a movie that he hasn't been given a studio-sanctioned behind-the-scenes sneak peek at.
However, I find Moriarty to be a lot more trustworthy, even when I disagree with him on a movie.
milky [email] said at 8:02 PM 07-09-2007: Harry is the main reason I stopped reading that site years ago. The last time I really checked for something, I was living in Texas.
When Harry gets a sneak-peak or presents/comps, the movie review is so positive, it's disgusting. And it ends up being for A LOT of films.
I made the mistake once of buying a film I was on the fence with because of an on-the-cover DVD blurb by him. I figured at best, it would be a decent movie, at worst, definitely tolerable.
craig [email] said at 2:22 AM 07-05-2007: I saw this today. Overall I really enjoyed it.
I think a big complaint of the movie will be that we did not get to see enough of the robots. A lot of time was spent on sub plots that have nothing to do with the Transformers, like the plots involving the army guys and the sound analysts.
None of the characters were very much developed. The Transformer that got the most screen time was Optimus Prime. Second would have to be Bumblebee. It would have been nice to see a little more of Starscream frome the beginning of the movie as the leader of the decepticons while Megatron was on ice.
I liked the look of Megatron a lot, especially the face and the helmet like encasing covering his face. Also, the teeth. I liked their complex robot eyes, too.
I have to give them props for having Peter Cullen voice Optimus Prime. I respect Hugo Weaving, but he didn't sound very much like Megatron to me.
reggie [email] said at 1:10 PM 07-05-2007: It's amazing how they could get away with that, uhm, "trigger" for so long without parents saying something.
reggie [email] said at 3:03 AM 07-05-2007: The final choice definitely adds some distinct personality to the design.
I could imagine the Dinobots working their way into the next installment.
I think it's a good starting point and leaves room for many improvements as the series (and we all know there will be sequels) goes on. Not sure if the Transformers are completely computer generated but maybe next time around they could pull a Kink Kong/LOTR and steal Andy Serkis to act out the motions. If that makes sense.
craig [email] said at 2:44 PM 07-05-2007: I thought this was going to be a trailer for a new Godzilla movie. I thought one clue might be the fact that the guy who was about to leave was on his way to Tokyo. Who knows. I love the way the head of the Statue of Liberty was ripped off and tossed into the street.
anthony [email] said at 2:03 PM 07-05-2007: I found LFoDH to be one of the first action movies I've seen in a long time that was actually enjoyable. The film never took itself seriously. The dialog of quotable one liners went along almost perfectly with every implausible situation.
neilbert [ url ] said at 8:52 PM 07-05-2007: The J.J. Abrams trailer was for the movie "Cloverfield." It is supposedly a big monster movie, like Godzilla, but without the "man in suit" cheesiness. The movie is going to be shot entirely from the viewpoint of "consumer" video cameras. There is also rumors that "Cloverfield" will be tied in some loose way to LOST.
reggie [email] said at 11:11 PM 07-05-2007: I think Cloverfield is the working title though. Did you check out the website for the movie (1-18-08.com)?
Great marketing, no matter how the movie turns out.
reggie [email] said at 12:03 PM 07-06-2007: Duhh moment of the week: Three days later and I only just now realized that the main soldier dude was NOT Timothy Olyphant but someone named Josh Duhamel.
josh [email] said at 1:00 PM 07-09-2007: he needed it... bad boys and pearl harbor were relative disappointments when you factor in their huge budgets and the island lost dreamworks like 75 million bucks
josh [email] said at 1:32 PM 07-09-2007: yeah but it lost money domestically... i'm sure it made a small sum once you factored in international and dvd etc...
his most profitable film is def. the rock or maybe bad boys... since those movies had smaller budgets and did really well. the rock cost $25 and made $135 domestically... that is a tidy profit. pearl harbor cost $135 and made $198... which means it lost money since the studio only gets about 50-60% of the grosses back. and because budgets don't include marketing costs.
brandon [email] said at 4:24 PM 07-11-2007: Negative. Each transformers "spark" was referenced heavily in the old series, the animated movie, and the post-movie series based on cybertron. I don't know what an allspark is, but the concept of a robot soul/spark was hatched early on.
I'm not going to see the transformers movie, because I'm told that at no point does a transformer rip a person in half, pop a robotic erection, rape an earthmover, or piss on a burning building filled with smoldering geriatrics.
Plus it's like three autobots and three decepticons. That's like half the constructo-bots or destructo bots. Or, whatever. Fuck a buncha transformers.
jake [email] said at 5:30 PM 07-11-2007: Actually Brandon, there's a lovely moment where one of the transformers does a little of column b and a little of column d to Turturro...
brandon [email] said at 6:32 PM 07-11-2007: I just want to see a transformer eat a H2, and then take a gigantic robot shit on the White House lawn. Maybe in the next movie...
jake [email] said at 6:59 PM 07-11-2007: Like I say, there's one good moment along these lines. I don't know if it's worth the price of admission for that alone...
