Kotas Reviews Transformers: Age of Extinction

This weekend I decided to blow off some steam and go see the guiltiest of guilty pleasures, Transformers: Age of Extinction. Let me start off by saying I am a HUGE Transformers fan, and have been since I was 7. I almost religiously watched the Transformers after school, and going to see the movie in theaters is still one of the few incredibly strong memories of my childhood. I'm pretty sure I owned several dozen toys, possibly even close to 100 (and I still have some of them to this day), and I've followed the series from the Original Series, through the Beast Wars era, and some of the more modern incarnations such as Animated and Prime. I occasionally walk down the toy isle and wistfully gaze upon the new, updated models. You might say I enjoy the series.

The movies have been somewhat of a sore spot for me. The very first one, as cheesy as it is, is still one of the better "nostalgia revival" films ever made. Sure, it was a little weird, but it stuck to the spirit of the show and was a fun romp. Nothing as nice can be said about the two sequels. Revenge of the Fallen will go down as one of the worst films to ever have been produced by humans. Dark of the Moon does not fare much better, really, since the best thing I can say about it is that it isn't Revenge of the Fallen. How does Age of Extinction stack up?

So, I'm probably going to have a shit ton of spoilers in this, like all my previous movie reviews. Therefore, I will be enlisting the help of our old pal Ratchet to block off access. Skip past Ratchet for final thoughts and the FACE Rating. Spoilers between the images of Ratchet!

"I'm a fan favorite! Everyone loves Ratchet!"

Okay, so the movie opens up with a big impressive shot of several space ships hovering over what I believe is supposed to be Earth. I kept expecting a Peter Cullen voice over to help ease me into the jarring silliness of a Michael Bay movie, but nothing doing here. We then cut down to the surface of the planet, where a cute lizard thing is eating other, smaller cute lizard things and then sees a space ship. Said space ship starts dropping some sort of bomb, which causes lava-er-wait-molten-metal to shoot out and start murdering a bunch of leftover special effects from Jurassic Park. Don't worry folks, the little lizard thing survives. Then there is some bit in the Arctic with people we don't care about finding a metal dinosaur and it's apparently a big deal.

Cut to "Texas, U.S.A.", where we get the stereotypical American set piece of "dusty old Chevrolet rolling down a dusty old road." This is our introduction to Cade Yaeger, which would be a great name to have if I were opening a brewery. Marky Mark tries to play a good old Texas Lad who by the way is also a Robotics Inventor who is trying to make ends meet in these hard times. We are also introduced to Joel (Jeff? John? I don't even know), the Odious Plucky Comic Relief character that Michael Bay includes in all of these films. I'm sure he won't be excruciating to watch.  During all of these, we see a billboard advising us to "Remember Chicago! Report any Alien Activity!" How very Orwellian.

Anyway, these two are at an old broken down movie theater to do some sort of vague "job" that will, in theory, get them paid. While they poke around the trappings of a former era, a blink and you'll miss it appearance by Richard Riehle (of Office Space "Jump to Conclusions" fame) occurs, as he plays the crotchety Theater Landlord who rambles on about how "movies today are all sequels, remakes and spin offs. What a bunch of crap" Dur hur hur Self Deprecation! A better film could have gotten away with this joke. This is not that film, and why am I suddenly feeling like the butt of a joke? No matter, onward with the explosions! 

Except first we have to have more setup. So, they find an old truck in the theater (wait, what? Did NO ONE notice this? Eh, let's move on) that looks suspiciously like an old toy I own. GEE. I WONDER WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN. Cade asks "How much for the truck?" Cut away to the CIA Anti-Alien Task Force, code named Cemetery Wind. A voice over helpfully informs us that they have a 100% kill ratio against aliens. Neat. They are clearly about to start a new mission. It is at this time we see our first robot, whose face turns into a camera so he can zoom in on what's happening. I thought this would be a nod to Perceptor (who turned into a camera) from the original series, but I was wrong. So, they are hunting Decepticons right? Well, turns out that the robot they are flushing out of...and old ferry ship maybe? is none other than our old pal Ratchet! He runs away, but is eventually surrounded and says "Wait guys, I'm totally an Autobot. I was like, your buddy that helped you out!" Cue Main CIA Asshole "So, if you are a good guy, why did you run?" About this time Camera Face turns into Gun Face and shoots the living shit out of poor Ratchet. There is some back and forth ("If you want to live, tell me where Prime is." "Nope.") and Ratchet joins the ranks of Ironhide in death, clearing out the last of the original movie characters who aren't Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. Then Lockdown (Gun/Camera Face) turns into an evil looking car after ripping Ratchet's spark out of his chest. We are also introduced to Main CIA Asshole's Evil Boss, Fraiser Crane. Turns out that after his show ended he joined the CIA and now has a serious hate on for all robots, even the "good" ones. He brands them "illegal alien enemy combatants". SYMBOLISM and POLITICAL COMMENTARY! Done by an IDIOT!

We cut back to the good puny humans. This time, it's Cade's daughter...uh...Tessa maybe? returning home from school and of course they establish her presence with a lingering shot of her legs. Then she picks up some junk from the "Repair for what you think is Fair" box that her dad is clearly using to Make Ends Meet and gets rejected for scholarship money, all in a 3 minute scene. It's totes sad, really, I guess. Blah blah more establishing shots. Cade rants on about how much his truck can be worth for scrap, Plucky Comic Relief mocks his robo-inventions, and we otherwise set up Cade as a "Good Man on Hard Times", with more long shots of the Texas sunset and blah blah blah let's get on with it, damn it.  

This move is forever in length, so lets get to the relevant bits. Cade figures out that this isn't any old truck, it's a Transformer, and after some wacky hijinks manages to get Optimus Prime (SURPRISE!) back online. There's some back and forth about how Optimus got so beat up ("Ambush, by humans working with a bounty hunter named Lockdown.") and Cade agrees to fix him. Of note is the line from Optimus: "I swore I would never harm a human, but when I find the one who is killing my people, they die." Optimus Prime said this. You know, in the old comics there was an issue where Optimus Prime and Megatron duke it out in a video game. Prime wins, but to win he had to squash some of the virtual blob-thing people in the video game. He is SO distraught by this that he concedes to Megatron and is exploded. Now tell me, is that the Optimus that would pop a giant transforming cap in someone's ass? I Think Not.

Plucky Comic Relief is sent off to get supplies. Stuff happens, yadda yadda, the CIA show up at da farm because Plucky Comic Relief called them to get the big reward or some shit. Cade has a Problem with them bein' on his property without a warrant to which Main CIA Asshole says "My face is my warrant." Like, played for serious and everything. They look around, don't find anything, so Evil Fraiser, using these nifty little drone things, orders them to threaten Tessa with a gun. There's more "tense" dialog, and the order is given to shoot the girl (of course they would say that. Holy Geez this film) when Optimus Busts out of the barn and starts shotgunning the ground in front of the agents, causing them to A-Team over all their cars without getting hurt. The good humans run away, and are rescued by...Tessa's Secret Older Rally Car Racing Boyfriend Who is Also Irish. Then their house is exploded by Lockdown trying to kill Optimus Prime. 

Did you follow all of that? Okay, so the escape sequence is actually pretty decent, except for one thing: They keep focusing on the human chase instead of the epic fight between Lockdown and Optimus that occurs in the background. I'm not sure why this is, because that fight looks like it was amazing, but you only see it in dribs and drabs while we are focusing on the car chase sequence between Evil CIA and Rally Car Racer, which is Standard Action Movie Fare. Sure, the occasional one-liner is mildly amusing, but...I wanna see the Giant ROBOT FIGHT! Anycrap, at the end of all of this they have to leave the rally car which is about to be blown to shit by Lockdown, who drops the crazy metal bomb thing on it. Plucky Comic Relief gets hilariously stuck in the seatbelts, but manages to free himself and run...about 30 seconds too late. The other three escape with Optimus, but Poor Comic Relief dude turns into a flaming metal statue and is forever excised from the picture. I will raise a White Russian in your honor. Optimus is very sorry for everyone's loss.

The movie then veers off into "really creepy" territory when Optimus leaves the worthless meat sacks humans to make sure they weren't followed. There is some "banter" between Lucky Charms (Rally Car Dude) and Cade, wherein Cade accuses him of having an "illegal relationship" since he's 20 years old and Tessa is 17. Lucky Charms then whips out some little card thing that talks about something called the Romeo and Juliet law (is this a thing in Texas?) and spouts off bits about paragraph A and section B and so forth. Maybe it is just me, but isn't this a really fucking creepy segue from "Our family member just got fucking killed"? Tessa even points this out and says something along the lines of "and that's why Joel is dead".  Bad form, Bay. Bad. Form. Did I mention we aren't even halfway through the movie yet? Augh. 

I'll skip some of the rest of this. Optimus gets a minor visual upgrade that also fixes all his battle damage, and they meet up with the remaining members of the Autobots: Bumblebee (who's voice box is still broken), Hound, a rough and tumble old soldier bot who is voiced by John Goodman and honestly steals a lot of the scenes he's in, Vaguely British Gangster Autobot (I learned later his name was Crosshairs) who, I must admit, looks really freakin' cool, and our racial-stereotyped-but-not-as-bad-as-Skidz-and-Mudflap bot Drift, who is a helicopter that turns into a car and also a samurai-bot and says haiku. No, really. They Autobots hate on humans for a while because of the whole "being hunted down" thing, but eventually they all agree to try and figure out what is going on. Using a drone they captured during the last chase sequence, they figure out that the robot corpses are being shipped to Not-Apple-We-Promise, er, KSI Industries and we are introduced to Evil Steve Jobs. 

To sum up a very long and stupid section of the film, Cade and Lucky Charms infiltrate KSI to discover what the hell is going on. Turns out, there's this element called Transformium which is programmable metal and is what Transformers are made out of. Evil Steve Jobs has figured out how to control it, and with that technology can make things that turn into other things. For example, a small brick of the stuff suddenly turns into a Beats By Dre Beats Pill for that perfect audio sound! Aaaaand here is where the product placement starts to be REALLY obnoxious. I expected a lot of car placement, with careful camera shots of logos and whatnot, but the product placement in this film is seriously out of control. There is an Oreo logo'ed up Transformer (don't worry, it does nothing and gets shot in a completely stupid sequence), a pause in a huge battle for Cade to have a refreshing Bud Light, a Victoria Secret ad on a bus that gets lovingly exploded, and on and on. It's really detracting, but makes for a great drinking game. The Hasbro thing is there too, as there is a "hilarious" sequence where some of the KSI dudes are goofing around with some Transformium and turn a plastic Rainbow Dash pony figurine into a gun. Hilarious I tell you. LAUGH DAMN IT.

Anyway, they have run out of the stuff to mine and are forced to take dead Transformers and harvest all the Transformium. While finding this out, Lucky Charms and Cade see that KSI is essentially building their own Transformers, including a really bad ass looking Bumblebee variant named "Stinger". I will give the movie this: The robot designs are all super bad ass looking. Hell, during a sequence where Evil Steve Jobs is showing off his military prototype Galvatron, one of the bit players says as much. Oh Galvatron, I'm sure nothing bad could come from your existence. So, the whole "harvesting Transformers for their bits" thing really pisses off Optimus Prime and the Autobots show up to wreck the joint, rescuing one of the mini-bots from the previous movie who is being held captive. 

As the Autobots escape, Frasier tells Evil Steve Jobs to sic Galvatron and Stinger on them, and so they do. However, Galvatron goes a bit off script and blows up or wrecks stuff he's not supposed to, and ultimately Lockdown shows up. The fight scene here is pretty solid, but Optimus is defeated trying to save some fleshbags and is captured by Lockdown, which is all Lockdown really wanted in the first place. Along the way, Tessa gets caught up in the net and Cade has a "slow motion big No" moment. Optimus is put in a Space Holding Cell, along with "other robots that are renegades" or something that Prime is apparently the "last of"...maybe? Man, Prime sure ends up being the Last Of a lot of things. Lockdown then hands over to the CIA the "Seed", which is somehow important. The other Autobots are totes sad at Optimus being all kidnapped, and Cade has to go get his little girl back, so they mount a foolhardy rescue mission to board Lockdown's ship and stage a prison break. In short, they do, and manage to pop off a small sub-ship of Lockdown's that is carrying, not only Optimus, but the "legendary knights" of...something? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it's the Dinobots. After this rescue, a huge info dump occurs and we find out the Seed is actually a giant version of the "Turn to Metal" bomb that the Transformer Creators used to make Transformium with which to build the Transformers. Lockdown apparently works for whoever these folks are. Also, the mini-dude informs us that he was forced to help translate Cybertronian technology for humans, using Megatron's head as a reference piece. So yeah, Megatron's...uh...mind I guess? is a part of all the Earth Transformer Tech and Galvatron is his reincarnation. SURPRISE!

Then a totally different movie starts. Evil Steve Jobs has everything packed up and moved to Hong Kong, where his plan is to detonate the Seed in the middle of nowhere and harvest the Transformium. Cade calls him and informs him that "Dude, Megatron is totally all up ons with your tech, and will get the Seed, blow up a city (probably Hong Kong), and then make a shit ton of evil robots." This little speech somehow gets Evil Steve Jobs to have a change of heart and become Not Evil Steve Jobs. Of course, he then immediately tells Frasier, who goes apeshit on him and says "You're my golden parachute" then rattles on with what he is supposed to get. And here is where he treads into Dr. Evil levels of super villainy. So, let me get this straight, Dr. Crane. You joined forces with a robot bounty hunter to acquire Transformium from his unwanted corpses AND trade the Seed for Optimus Prime, killing hundreds, maybe thousands of humans in the process of doing all of these things, and  gave all this tech to KSI so that you could retire, join the company, and get a seven figure salary? Was it ONE MEEEEEEEEELLION Dollars? Worst Evil Nick Fury EVER. 

Blah blah blah, the Autobots decide not to give the middle finger to humanity just yet and agree to go to Hong Kong to get the Seed. Not Evil Steve Jobs manages to get the Seed out of his Hong Kong factory just as Galvatron self-activates and takes over the entire pre-production run of robots, including Stinger and "a bunch of unnamed drone bots you don't care about, but look cool.". WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED THIS I ASK? There are lots of explosions, and it looks cool. So, Not Evil Steve Jobs and his Asian Girlfriend have a really cool car chase sequence through Hong Kong, and end up in one of those crazy dense high rise bits. Then there is a completely gratuitous martial arts sequence where Asian Girlfriend kicks some ass, along with a random guy who fights for no reason. Eventually they meet up with Cade and the skin tubes on the roof...when Stinger missiles the shit out of their ship, which causes Hound and Bumblebee to be left behind with the humans while Optimus, Drift, and Crosshairs crash in the forest outside of Hong Kong...I think.  

Bear in mind that at this point the movie has gone on for over 2 hours, with only a few hints as to where the Dinobots might be. We come to the ever confusing climax of the film where all the protagonists have their respective fight scenes. Cade and Main CIA Asshole duke it out in a completely unnecessary fist fight held on the window sills and rooftops of the aforementioned dense Hong Kong high rise. This culminates in a scene where Cade, spying an American Football, throws it at his opponent, who has a knife, which distracts Main CIA Asshole long enough for Cade to push him out the window, after spouting off a one liner. How very 90s it all is! After this, Cade rejoins the rest of his merry band of organic wastes as they hide out in a glass shop while Hound and Bumblebee fend off wave after wave of killbots, with a bit of help from Cade and Not Evil Steve Jobs. Cade had picked up a human sized rifle from Lockdown's ship at some point you see, so he can totes fight giant robots now. Hound absolutely steals this scene and it's actually kind of fun to watch the non-human parts. 

Optimus Prime finally decides that desperate times call for desperate measures, and goes into the ship wreckage to free the "legendary knights". He pulls a sword out of a console thing, his arms change into gauntlets for...reasons....and he leads the titular legends out into the forest, asking them for aid. They promptly take a swing at him and turn into giant metal dinosaurs. Which I must admit is totally metal. The other Autobots decide that "Oh yeah, Prime's got this one" and "Well, I was expecting more of a giant car when they transformed".  There is a fight, Optimus socks Grimlock in the jaw, and suddenly the Autobots are riding three of the four Dinobots down a mountain, heading for Hong Kong, where they proceed to totally wreck Decepticon Shop. It's kind of amazing, and they of course show up just in time to save the day. Optimus Prime has a cool sword, and somehow got a shield that also is a gun, and there is all kinds of awesome robot on robot violence. Then Lockdown comes back and the third ending of the film begins. Jesus H. Christ, this movie just keeps going ON. I know it's only 3 hours, but it feels like seven years. There is just so much filler! 

Anyway, Lockdown uses a big ol' magnet to try and catch people, it eventually gets blowed up real good. Optimus and Lockdown square off in a knock down drag out, while Cade uses his gun to aid Optimus. During all of this, Fraiser Crane shows up to kill Cade, and Optimus sees it and pops a cap in his ass, totally killing him dead. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, this was foreshadowed stupidly through dialog. This proves to be a mistake, as Optimus somehow becomes impaled on his own sword while Lockdown taunts him about it. Bumblebee leaps into the fray to stall Lockdown long enough for Tessa and Lucky Charms to utilize a tow hook to a) knock down Lockdown and b) pull out the sword from Optimus' chest, JUST IN TIME for him to impale and slice in half Lockdown, who was about to murder Cade. THEN Optimus grabs the ugly bags of mostly water, sets Lockdown's "Grenade of Wrapping Up Loose Ends", and flies to safety on the rockets (!!!!!) in his legs. 

Everyone has one big reunion but the film isn't over. Not Evil Steve Jobs gets together with is Asian Girlfriend and offers Cade help with getting a house or something else I don't give a shit about. Lucky Charms and Cade have bonded over...all this crazy stuff. Tessa proved she was more useful than the Chick From Dark Of The Moon, if only just. The Dinobots are now "free" and go...live in the wilds of China I guess? Then Optimus opines about how he's still got a price on his head, and how his Creators will come looking for him, and that he's a danger. So he tells the Autobots to "protect the humans that, you know, totally tried to kill us, because this one little group was nice" and shoots off into space (!!!!!) using his rocket legs, SOMEHOW able to fly INTO SPACE, holding his SHIELD in front of him like some crazy Superman/Captain America robot, all the while saying "Look to the stars, and think of one of them as my soul". Oh and "Hear me Creators, Imma come bust a Giant Transforming Robot Cap in your Mysterious Completely Off Screen Asses!" or something along those lines. The movie then finally ends.

Okay, the spoilers are over. Poor Ratchet. His only crime was being an older toy.

Not again! That's the second time those bastards did this to me in a movie!

This movie raises ever so many questions about everything. Why is the CIA working with a corporation to murder robots and harvest them? Why did this corporation get access to dead robots in the first place? Sure, I get the whole "black ops not telling people" stuff but...it's the Apple Equivalent. It's not even a military contractor, though they do make nods in that direction. Why does the Transformium made by humans act in ways FAR superior to the transformations we see in the alien robots, and yet look that much dumber? Why is there an Oreo Car bot that gets shot to shit for no reason? Why does an alien bounty hunter's ship have a weapons locker with a human-sized greatsword that turns into a rifle that is also human sized? Who are the Dinobots and where did they come from? I get they are "Legendary" but come on, there HAS to be more story behind this. Why is Optimus the Last of them? Wasn't he also the Last Prime or something? Why did we have a 5 minute foray into edge case age of consent laws that was SUPER FUCKING CREEPY? So, the Dinobots now just live in China? Isn't anyone concerned about that? So, a well known member of a Texas community's home was destroyed by an alien robot who climbed a grain silo in BROAD DAYLIGHT in front of dozens of witnesses. Won't someone be even a BIT concerned about that? If Optimus had rocket legs all this while, why did he not use them to get to Hound and Bumblebee faster after enlisting the Dinobots? For that matter, Drift can turn into a helicopter, so why didn't he fly there instead of waiting around for Optimus to do his thing? Why is Optimus Prime weirdly violent in very specific circumstances? How did he FLY INTO SPACE IN ROBOT MODE WITH A SHIELD? Why did we suddenly have a Hong Kong Action Theater sequence for no reason? What was all the bits about the Chinese Government being all "We must help protect Hong Kong!" after the Hong Kong guys were all "We must contact the Mainland!"? Why was there so much completely blatant product placement? Who stops in the middle of a giant robot fight to have a freakin' Bud Light  of all things? Why did you set up Plucky Comic Relief dude as a main character, then murder him for what amounts to an "Oh my God, They Killed Kenny!" moment and then nonthing? That one I think I can answer actually. I'm pretty sure Michael Bay had written in this character and was all "Yes, everyone is going to LOVE this guy! Just like the OTHER ones I wrote!" and then someone told him "Hey Boss. No one likes these guys, ever." "Oh shit, well we've already shot some of the scenes with him...I know! I'll kill him off and it'll be totes sad!" I could go on, but I think the point is made. 

I did like some stuff about this movie. For one, the robot designs are freakin' amazing. I absolutely LOVE the design of Stinger, who is meant to invoke "Evil Bumblebee" and does a good job. It's also either a great coincidence or a very subtle nod to long time fans of the series that he is essentially Red Bumblebee. Back when the toys first came out there were several well known toy mistakes one of which was a toy labeled as Bumblebee and using his model sculpt, but in red instead of yellow. This seems to me to be a wink and nod callback to that old toy. Or maybe just a crazy coincidence. I still enjoyed it. It was nice to hear Frank Welker (the voice of Megatron and Galvatron from the original TV series) flexing the old voices and I thought Galvatron was a great, completely underutilized villain. I also enjoyed the "old truck" transformation for Optimus Prime, and he looked really cool in his Knight getup, even if it wasn't explained well. Most of the action scenes with the robots were pretty solid fun. Some of the car chase scenes are neat if ridiculous. Hound is just fun, I don't care if it's kind of stupid. That's...about it really.

This movie is a loving tribute to the idea of "...and then..." storytelling and all the excess that implies. Michael Bay is a master at creating these sorts of narratives and filling in the gaping plot holes with more explosions. Still, he managed to restrain the worst of his instincts (See: Transformers 2: Please Let Me Die for that) to produce a movie that is...better than 2 and 3 in the series. On the FACE Rating System, this gets 0 faces. I can't hate it too much since, well, Optimus Prime rides Grimlock as Robot T-Rex to beat the snot out of Decepticons, but it certainly isn't recommended for anyone who is not a huge fan of the series. It's a jumbled confusing mess that goes on for what seems like forever, but at least you see some neat things along the way.

Kotas Reviews Pacific Rim

Science fiction is experiencing a minor resurgence at the box office. There have been a fair number of new original intellectual properties emerge on the scene this year: After Earth, Oblivion, the upcoming Elysium, and today’s subject: Pacific Rim. What is Pacific Rim? Well, Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Planet Terror) really, REALLY wanted to make an old fashioned kaiju movie in homage to the kaiju films of his youth that inspired him to make movies. What is a kaiju film? Ever watch a cheesy Godzilla movie? Yeah, that’s the stuff. Giant monsters brawling it out in Tokyo, occasionally with human intervention. That’s kaiju, in a nutshell. So, how does Pacific Rim stack up? Let’s find out! Warning: I will be giving out tons o’ the spoilers. Scroll to the bottom for the TL;DR version and FACE rating.

The opening sequence sets up the basic plotline for this movie: At some point in the near future, giant monsters named kaiju (Japanese for “Giant Monster”) start appearing from a portal under the sea to menace humanity. In order to combat these creatures more effectively, humanity has developed equally large and impressive giant robots named Jaegers (German for “Hunter”). With the Jaegers, humanity is able to curb the attacks, and the Jaegers become the equivalent of rock stars, movie stars, and sports stars. Jaegers, for “reasons”, require two pilots to synchronize and share memories. Why giant robots? Why two pilots? Why not just “lots of big ass guns on ships, planes and tanks? Shit son, what kind of movie you think this is? Now sit your ass back down and pay attention.

Enter our hero, Raleigh, and his older brother OhSoFuckingDead. They are the pilots of the Jaeger named “Gypsy Danger”, who is voiced by GLaDOS. Yes, I am serious. The two brothers are some of the best, but are known for going outside of orders if the situation demands it. Also for being good at fighting. A kaiju named “Knifehead” appears, and these two go out in Gypsy Danger to meet it, to some really kick ass theme music. There is a fight. It is god damn amazing. Our hero and his brother appear to win, but in a surprise to exactly no one except the characters in the film, the kaiju is “not quite dead” and in the ensuing rematch DeadMeat is killed, but Raleigh manages to not only finish the fight but also to walk his ass back to shore solo. This kind of fucks him up.

5 years later Idris Alba (yeah, he has a name, but you don’t care it’s fucking IDRIS ALBA), the commander of the Jaeger program is being chewed out by the Council of Vaguely Different National Leaders. Seems that the kaiju are coming faster and furiouser, and the Jaegers are taking a beating. Clearly, the solution here is to shut down the program and build a big fucking wall, the poorly named “Wall of LIfe”. He’s given 8 months to fix shit in Hong Kong, and then he’s done.

Raleigh is working on the Wall of LIfe, when news comes of a kaiju attack in Sydney, Austrailia which a) busts through their edition of the Wall of Life and b) is effortlessly stopped by the Jaeger “Striker Eureka”. Uh, neat? Alba shows up to pick up Raleigh and gather the remaining Jaegers and their crews. This is done. We meet the Japanese girl from the trailer. Her name is Mako. Because of course it is. She might have a tragic past where her family is killed by giant monsters and now she has trained all her life to get revenge. We meet the quirky scientist crazy guy, his very British Odd Couple counterpart scientist, and Ice Man, from Top Gun, as an Australian. Also, his dad. Why? They FIGHT CRIME, er, MONSTERS as the pilots of Striker Eureka. There are two other Jaegers: The Giant Russian One and the Chinese One. They have crews. That’s pretty much the end of their characterization, but damn do they look bad ass.

British Scientist predicts that a) the monsters will show up faster and b) they will start coming two at a time, and then three. Gypsy Danger is refitted with stuff, including a second nuclear core. Because one is just not enough. There are tryouts for the co-pilot position. Make wins, Flawless Victory. Crazy Scientist figures out how to neural link with a kaiju’s brain fragment. It goes...surprisingly well, but as expected for these types of films. He is shuffled off to the B Plot, which involves going into Hong Kong and tracking down a dealer in “kaiju parts”, which is apparently a thing. Long story short, he runs into Fucking Ron Perlman, who chews the scenery and steals every scene he’s in. He is awesome.

During the test run for Gypsy Danger, there is a nice GLaDOS reference mixed into a scene where Mako gets lost in her memories and starts re-living the monster attack that inspired her to be a pilot. She might also have accidentally turned on Gypsy Danger’s GIANT GODDAMN PLASMA CANNON. Raleigh talks her down, but she and Maverick, er Raleigh are now grounded until further notice. Also, Idris Alba is Mako’s adopted father. He also piloted one of the early Jaegers. This has apparently given him cancer or something, because getting into a Jaeger again will absolutely kill him. Everyone got that? Good. Anyway, his current plan is to strap a nuclear bomb to Striker Eureka, have the other Jaegers run interference, and shove it through the portal to Kaiju World while it is stabilized to let in multiple kaiju. Where did they get the bomb? The Russians can get anything. TruFax.

Two kaiju show up, looking for Crazy Guy because “neural links are two way”. Three of the four Jaegers are dispatched to deal with them. After putting up a showy fight, the Russian Jaeger and the Chinese Jaeger are destroyed in various unexpected ways, as the kaiju are considerably bigger than any before and also especially well equipped to deal with Jaegers, targeting the cockpits and spitting acid at them. When Striker Eureka joins the fray, one of the beasties pops out an EMP gland and shuts the whole mess down. Gypsy Danger, by virtue of being “nuclear” and “analog” (say WHAT?) is still operational, so it is sent out. Australian Ice Man and his dad, in their now crippled Jaeger, decide to do something really stupid to keep the monsters’ attention on them for as long as possible: they get out of their robot and shoot them with flare guns.

Suddenly, a New Challenger Appears! Gypsy Danger shows up and there is a fight scene. It is goddamn amazing. EMP Beast is wrecked, and Acid Beast gets smacked around with a battleship. Acid Beast has enough of that shit, grows wings, and flies our hero into the sky. That’s when Make turns on the sword. That’s right! It has a sword, and they cut that motherfucker in half. Ultimately, everyone survives. Except the Russians and the Chinese. Poor bastards.

Crazy Scientist and Fucking Ron Perlman are out to harvest the brain of Acid Beast. It’s damaged, but turns out Acid Beast was a MILTRSITF. A Mom I’d Like To Run Screaming In Terror From. Acid Beast Baby emerges, and it’s gross. It dies because it’s not developed enough. Fucking Ron Perlman stabs it in the face. Then it eats him, and dies again. Crazy Scientist and British Scientist are gonna neural link with the brain of Acid Beast Baby. Why will this work? Kaiju apparently have a “hive mind”. While they set this up, the two remaining Jaegers are going to travel to the portal with the nuke. However, in an astounding twist, Idris Alba has to take over for Australian Ice Man’s dad, who was injured in the previous fight. He gives a rousing speech too.

The two Jaegers walk to where the portal is. They meet up with 2 kaiju. There is a fight scene that is pretty cool. Uh oh, Striker encounters a 3rd kaiju, this one bigger than any they’ve ever seen by a large margin. Gypsy Danger is assaulted by a kaiju, and heavily damaged in the fight. The other two converge on Striker Eureka. Since Gypsy Danger is “nuclear”, Idris Alba tells Make that she’s great and then, with Australian Ice Man’s consent, they blow the nuke, taking out the two kaiju and allowing Gypsy Danger to throw itself into the portal to blow up. Crazy Guy and British Guy inform them that the portal will open only for kaiju, so they are gonna use a carcass to fool it. But oh shit, ROUND 2 MOTHERFUCKER. Here comes Mega Kaiju! Gypsy Danger tackles it into the portal, burns it to death, and then explodes in Kaiju World after the pilots eject. It looks like Raleigh isn’t going to make it, but then he does. The End! Oh wait, Fucking Ron Perlman! The Really For True End!

This film is an unabashed love letter to giant robot anime and the kaiju films of old. The story is simple, but told very effectively. The tone throughout the film is maintained, and all the proper beats are hit to move the story along. There is nothing truly unexpected about this film (with the exception of pretty much anything to do with Fucking Ron Perlman), but it is told well. The characters are archetypal in just about every way. If you have seen any giant robot anime, they are all there: the Grizzled Commander, the Young Hotshot out for Revenge, The Arrogant Yet Skilled Rival, The Hero with the Tragic Backstory, the Comic Relief. However it is done in a way that says “inspired by” rather than “completely ripped off from”. All the standard tropes are here, but it is okay because it knows what kind of film it is and never strays from that message: If we all work together, we can make GIANT FUCKING ROBOTS to fight HUGE FREAKY MONSTERS and save the world.

The visuals are simply astounding. The soundtrack is bad ass. The comedy is not completely odious, and even actually amusing. Fucking Ron Perlman. For the anime fan, there are a few nice callbacks. One of the “cameo’ed” Jaeger designs resembles one of the robots from Neon Genesis Evangelion (Unit 02 in D-Type equipment). One of Gypsy Danger’s weapons is the “Rocket Elbow”, which is an homage both to the “ROCKET PUNCH” of several Super Robot shows and to the series Big O. The kaiju themselves have a fairly consistent yet unique look about them, with blue glowy bits that resemble the glow that Godzilla would often have, and thus remember their roots.

Overall, for me, Pacific Rim hits all the right notes in a super summer blockbuster about giant robots fighting giant monsters. On a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces, I give it 3 smileys. If I were not such a huge anime or giant robot fan, I might knock off a smiley. It ain’t high cinema, but I knows what I likes.

Kotas Reviews The Hobbit

Today I saw the Hobbit. First, a little background. The Hobbit was THE book that got me into fantasy literature. I was sick for a week or two one summer as a small kid, and I couldn’t really do anything. I found a copy of The Hobbit amongst my parents books. I read that thing like 3 times...in a row. My grandfather recorded the original animated movie off of HBO or something the next year, and I watched the hell out of that too. Wore out the tape. I love this book, perhaps more than any other book written so far. Be warned, beyond this point thar be spoilers. Skip to the final paragraph for the FACE rating and final word.

This film is not the movie of the book. It is a movie based on the book, and more to the point, it is a movie based on a book as seen through the lens of the previous Lord of the Rings films. This is not a children’s bedtime story, this is an epic tale that is clearly a prequel to an even more epic tale. The themes have been increased in scope, and in doing so have changed some of the underlying nature of them. Bilbo is still our unlikely hero, but he’s much less...bumbling. In fact, the entire set of dwarves, mostly comical figures apart from Thorin in the book, have become more of a rough and tumble assemblage of adventurers. Thorin is an appropriately brooding “King Without a Kingdom but Gonna Get it Back” fellow. Gandalf is, of all the characters, the least changed. Enigmatic, yet with a twinkle in his eye and a penchant for sage advice, as is befitting a wizard.

The opening narration is a particularly good bit of work. Ian Holmes and Elijah Woods reprise their roles as Old Man (er Hobbit) Bilbo and Frodo in the framing device of “Bilbo finally getting around to writing down his story in full.” Both of the actors looked comfortable back in the roles and I enjoyed it. The transition to “60 years ago” was nicely done. I must say, Martin Freeman does a simply wonderful job as Bilbo, always giving off the right impression I would have for the hero in his situation. In fact, the acting is excellent from almost everyone. The dwarves at the party hits all the correct notes from the book, and the cleanup scene is well executed. From this point however, the movie makes some considerable departures from the book. Oh, none of the main story elements are changed, but...well, I’ll get to it.

Take for example the troll scene. I enjoyed the portrayal of our dear friends Bert, Tom, and Bill Huggins. But the scene is different. The dwarves didn’t lose their baggage when a pony fell in the river, instead Fili and Kili are counting up the ponies and realize two are missing. They draft Bilbo to assist in the recovery. The trolls have taken them, of course. Bilbo sneaks in to try and set them free, but due to a bit of bad luck is found out when he tries to pick pocket a tiny knife (for a troll) to cut the rope for the ponies’ pen. Kili leaps in to try and save him...along with the rest of the dwarves. A frightful row ensues, with the dwarves attacking and beating up the trolls with their many weapons, and only stops when the dwarves are forced to surrender or the trolls will pull Bilbo in half. They are in sacks or tied to a spit, but Bilbo manages to stall them for long enough for Gandalf to show up and smite a boulder in twain, revealing the dawn and turning them to stone.

This scene hit all the basic elements of the scene in the book, and served the same purpose. It showcases Bilbo’s inexperience with adventuring, puts the dwarves in a pickle, and Gandalf saves the day. But it is much more the scene it had to be, viewed through the lens of the previous films, rather than a scene from the book. Bilbo was caught this time, not because he was doing something somewhat foolish in order to impress the dwarves, but some rather unfortunate bad luck (grabbed by the troll when he reached for his handkerchief, which just happened to be right where Bilbo was standing to grab the tiny knife) instead of an enchanted coin purse. It is Bilbo, not Gandalf, who keeps the argument going over how best to cook the dwarves, and he does so directly, rather than trying to sound like the trolls. These dwarves are not the comical lot who get stuffed into sacks, but capable warriors put in a tough position (though they are vastly more comical than say, Gimli). Gandalf doesn’t trick the trolls into taking too much time, he straight up splits a fucking boulder to let the sun in. Don’t get me wrong, the scene is actually a lot of fun, but you can see the alterations made in the name of “seriousing it up” a bit for the movie.

Many of the film’s other scenes are in this vein, making things a bit more serious than they would otherwise have been had the other Lord of the Rings films not existed. There is actually an excellent character moment between Bilbo and Bofur right before the orcs attack them in the cave, but it drives home one of the new themes of the movie: Everyone Needs a Place to Belong. The actors play it well...buuuuuuut it is not exactly Tolkien’s writing here. Same with the entire thing with Azog the Defiler, the Primary Antagonist of this film. There is a whole heaping helping of stuff here that’s dolloped on top of the Hobbit to give it some of the epic scope of the previous films. It’s not badly done, but it seems to be a bit of “trying too hard” to make Thorin into the dwarfiest of all dwarves...for actual reasons as opposed to being stereotyped. There’s a bit during a flashback to the fall of the Lonely Mountain where we learn why Thorin has a severe dislike of elves...which isn’t even in the book to begin with and sets up some antagonism between Thorin and the Wood Elf King in the next film...that doesn’t really NEED setting up. It just seems so...superfluous and a little off putting, making out the Wood Elf King to be “kind of a huge jerk”, way moreso than in the book. Hell, Thorin is totally an asshole to Elrond, when in the BOOK he’s a little standoffish, but otherwise seeks council and rests up for a good long time and they part as friends.

Most of the stuff they added in about the “rise of the Necromancer” and so forth isn’t bad. It’s just..rushed. In the book, the Necromancer is a “far away bad guy who’s been around for a long time” and the reason why Gandalf isn’t with the dwarves for everything after Beorn. This time? Radagast the Brown finds out he’s set up shop in an abandoned fortress and is fucking with Mirkwood. Sauruman dismisses the threat, but Galadriel and Elrond do not take it so lightly. These bits are interesting, but again they “serious up the story” because of how epic the OTHER films were. I know I harp on this a lot, but it really, really changes a LOT of the tone and theme of the story.

Ugh, let’s talk Radagast. I should fucking love this character to death. He’s played by Sylvester “I am the Seventh Doctor” McCoy, and does some interesting wizard shit in the name of healing an animal, has a rabbit drawn sledge, and is all around an eccentric character with some clever tricks, underestimated by his enemies and friends alike. But...he’s got shit all over his face. Radagast lets a couple of birds nest under his hat. The character design for this calls for a veritable RIVER of bird shit to run down one side of his head, face and into his beard. This bothers me on a very fundamental level and I could NOT get over it. In every scene he is in, I just could not stop thinking that he’s gotta bowl you over with his foul bird shit stink. No one EVER calls him out on it, even though it is RIGHT ALL OVER HIS FUCKING FACE and is TOTALLY DISGUSTING. Just awful and it made me hate this character so very much. There’s “eccentric old nature loving hermit wizard” and then there’s “crazy old homeless guy covered in shit.” This falls into the latter category.

On the other side of the spectrum, there is Gollum. GOLLUM. This may be the very best scene in the entire film, is when Bilbo meets Gollum. Andy Serkis nails this performance to the wall, and Gollum is absolutely terrifying. He straight up bludgeons an orc to death with a rock on screen! The dual personality from the other movies is played up a little less here, but is still an essential part of the character. This IS Gollum as he needs to be for this film, given the Gollum from the other films. It is brilliant and wonderful. The other CGI character I enjoyed was the Great Goblin, huge warty pustule covered goiter and all. Just a delightful character, and pretty much spot on from the book too.

The climax of the film is the “Fifteen Birds in Five Fir Trees” scene from the book, but it is VASTLY different from the book, as it is the climax of the film. Everyone heroes it up, though Gandalf’s role is slightly downplayed, and the eagles are shown to be more a tool of the wizard then as acting of their own accord. It’s still a pretty fun showdown and puts the movie in a good place to pick up the story in the next one. Bilbo gets to show why he’s the protagonist of the movie and everyone gets a small moment to shine, all ending on a very clever representation of the Carrock, with a lovely shot of the Lonely Mountain in the distance.

On a scale of five frowny faces to five smiley faces I give this a sold three smiley faces. It did not feel like a three hour movie to me and I enjoyed it very much. However, it is very, very different in a lot of ways from the book, and this may bother people. The main themes of the book are here, and there are some additional ones that add a bit of depth and scope, in keeping with the “movie universe” that the previous films created. Definitely NOT for small kids though. It is PG-13 for a reason.

Kotas Reviews Wreck-It Ralph

This weekend Charlotte and I went to see Wreck-It Ralph in the theater. We even paid full price. Did you know that two movie tickets for two adults at full price costs $21? Neither did I. Anywho, we got to see previews for the Hobbit, which was awesome, and some other crap I don’t care about.

The movie is prefaced by a little short called Paperman. Paperman is a tale of a man, a woman, and about one hundred paper airplanes. There is no dialogue for the whole thing, but it was very, very well done. To talk further about it is to spoil it, and I wish to not do that. It was very good.

Fair warning, I am going to try to avoid spoilers as much as possible in this review, but a few things may slip in here and there. If you want the summary, just skip down to the last paragraph for the FACE rating and my final thoughts.

Okay, now that that is out of the way, let’s dive in. The opening montage sets up the story of the game. Fix-It Felix Jr. is an arcade game in, well, an arcade. It’s been there for 30 years now, watching other games come and go...and Ralph has been the “bad guy” in the game for all that time. He wrecks the Niceland Apt. complex, Felix Jr. fixes it, Ralph gets thrown off the roof, lands in the mud, and Felix gets a medal. At the end of the day, everyone goes inside for punch and pie, while Ralph goes to live in the dump, next to his old stump, with a bed of bricks.

As the narration closes, we finally see the framing device of Ralph at a support group for “bad guys” called Bad-Anon. Essentially, he is dissatisfied at being treated like a real “bad guy” for just doing his job. I think we can all relate to that, having had to be the “bad guy” once or twice in our lives. Anyway, the support group breaks up and reveals they are all actually inside the Pac-Man game...and can leave it via a giant power strip that connects all the video games. It seems that the characters can travel to the Power Strip (a.k.a. Grand Central Station) and thus move between all the different games in the arcade. That is, unless their game gets unplugged, in which case they either “die” with the game, or remain in Grand Central Station. The other major problem, which is revealed via hearing a “safety warning” by Sonic the Hedgehog playing on a nearby billboard, is that if you die outside your own game, you don’t regenerate and are gone forever.

Ralph, after essentially being shunned by his game mates during the 30th Anniversary of their game being plugged in, decides that he’s gonna go get his own medal, even shinier and bigger than any of the ones Felix has. Thus, he decides to game jump and win a medal in another game. Hilarity doth ensue, and everyone learns valuable life lessons about, uh, virtual life. The main characters have a fair amount of depth for the most part, with Ralph and Venelope having the most while Felix and Sergeant Calhoun have the least. That said, I particularly enjoy Calhoun’s backstory as it is one of the better “video game in jokes” of the movie.

In fact, that is really one of the highlights of this film: All the video game jokes. Most of them are just little visual gags in the background, but they entertain me so. From the Pong lines and blobs running around Grand Central Station to the fact that the protagonist from Tapper is the local barman, there’s a lot for a video game nerd to enjoy. The other source of cheap laughs is the setting of the racing game Sugar Rush, a candy and sweets themed racer where a lot of the film’s action takes place. The myriad of jokes are infinitely predictable, but they are still pretty funny, and there’s even a few Chekov’s Sight Gags to be found.

The film’s flaws are mostly found in the middle acts. A lot of what makes this film clever is the game hopping stuff, and seeing characters out of their element. Jane Lynch’s Sergeant Calhoun is a riot to watch, Ralph is a VERY sympathetic character, and Felix is a likable but privileged jerk ass at times, and all these characters have interesting arcs...buuuuuuut once we get to Sugar Rush, all of these elements become sidelines to the story of Venelope, played by Sarah Silverman. I liked the character well enough (she is annoying...but she’s SUPPOSED to be annoying so it works), but the movie switches the focus to mostly her and that is a bit of a detriment. The end is, well, very, VERY predictable with only one real twist that came as any sort of surprise. Still, the old standby story constructions have served us well over the years, and when presented well can be very, very enjoyable.

This is a fun movie, and I enjoyed it a lot. On a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces this gets a solid 3 smiley faces. It is a kid friendly movie that holds a lot of hidden gems for those of us who grew up with video games and can get behind some old fashioned sentimental entertainment. Definitely the feel good movie of this week.

Kotas Reviews The Amazing Spider-Man

Today I went and saw The Amazing Spider-Man with Charlotte and a bunch of other people. My expectations were kind of mixed, given that I’d heard good things about it and bad things about it. Some of my favorite reviewers (like Film Critic Hulk) have reviews of it that I haven’t read yet, but the gist I got was “not thrilled”. I had avoided most trailers simply by not watching a lot of TV or other movies, so I was sort of going in blind. I set my expectations at “Better than Spider-Man 3”. In this, I was not disappointed. This, however, is not your Daddy’s Spider-Man…or is it? From this point on, there will probably be some spoilers (Hint: Uncle Ben Dies), so skip to the end for my capsule review.

First off, I rather liked the performance given by Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker. One of the comments I’d heard about this film was that it was a bit less “comic book-y” than the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, and in some ways I agree with that assessment. This Peter Parker is still nerdy, but he’s a smidge less awkward socially and a lot less weepy. Now, I LOVED Toby Maguire as Peter Parker in the first film, but I also really liked this performance. In this version, they tone down some aspects of Peter (photography, extreme dorkiness) and turned up others (super science, curiousity), but he’s still the lovable dorky everyman…sort of. The parts with his mother and father at the beginning set up WHY he lives with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and add a bit of mystery to his past…but it doesn’t really go anywhere in this film except as a bit of a MacGuffin and in the setup for the sequel. That is one of the nitpicks I have with this. A LOT of shit is in this to set up the sequels. Occasionally I feel like the writers were saying “Yeah, yeah, you’ve seen this all before. We have to do it because it’s a reboot. You’ll love the sequels!”

So, after that, how were the other performances? Overall, I’d say “Not Bad”. Martin Sheen turns in a good performance as Uncle Ben. I liked that they gave us more time focused on Peter and Ben to see their relationship in action, rather than mostly inferring it as in the previous origin film. The back and forth they have felt more natural to me than the Raimi version, as did some of their arguments. Uncle Ben’s death was handled fairly well, and more realistically than the whole “wrestling thing”, so it wasn’t bad, and of course it needed to happen. The “final voicemail as voiceover flashback” was a nice touch to scoot around the whole “flashback audio” you get so often in these types of films.

Though his part was small, the guy who played Flash Thompson was enjoyable to watch, especially some of the nods to his character in the comics, though a bit inconsistent in portrayal. I think they overdid it a bit in his initial “beat up Parker” scene. Emma Stone turned in a pretty good shot at Gwen Stacy, Peter’s first love, who is finally getting some screen time instead of just “Mary Jane this” and “Mary Jane that”. Sally Field was fine as Aunt May, but Aunt May wasn’t given a whole lot to DO in this story. In the Sam Raimi movie, Aunt May was a core character and a lot of Peter’s grounding influence. Here, she just seems to be…there. “Oh, it’s Spider-Man. Gotta have Uncle Ben and Aunt May somehow.” This is a woman that Peter Parker LITERALLY MADE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL (Fuck you, One More Day) in the comics to save, and in this film she is just sort of…there.

The Lizard was a good choice for a “first outing” villain. The Lizard in the comics is sort of “Hulk Lite”. Brilliant Scientist turns into Child-like green monster due to an experiment gone awry. It’s a classic sympathetic villain, and the power level is right on par with early Spider-Man. HOWEVER, this is also one of the weaker parts of the film. Kurt Conners (should be CURT, but that’s nitpicking) isn’t as likable as he’s been in other media, or even in the first Spider-Man film. He’s not a BAD guy, but he’s less sympathetic in this portrayal than in others. It doesn’t help that he also gets a case of the “Take Over the World” crazies for what appears to be no reason. I mean, really, if the Lizard part of him is “taking control”, shouldn’t he regress to a more simple viewpoint? This is just setting up the “green serum” as giving you the crazies, so in the next film we have the Green Goblin. Whatever, Chekov’s Mass Aerosol Dispersion System had to come up at some point, right? Overall, I enjoyed the Lizard in this film, but they tried to combine the Lizard and some of William DeFoe’s Green Goblin, and the seams show a bit.

Dennis Leary was a surprise as the initial antagonist for Peter Parker rather than J. Jonah Jameson. Frankly, the Sam Raimi Jameson was damn near perfect and that’s some big shoes to fill…so they didn’t bother trying. The film also emphasizes the “Spider-Man as wanted criminal” aspect more than the first film, and it was a nice twist on it. Leary’s defense of “why Spider-Man is more of a hindrance rather than an aid” speech was a nice jab at the conventional wisdom in comic book movies, and it was appreciated since they were going for a “more realistic” feel.

Let’s talk about that “more realistic” feel the movie tried to accomplish. The CGI Spider-Man in the first film was pretty good, but it suffered from the “too clean” problem. Everything was just a touch too shiny, too perfect. Here, they’ve done a pretty good job of making it look a little more grimy. Spider-Man is not quite as completely bending the laws of physics when he bounds around. He swings around with more weight it seems. There were also some nice practical effects with Peter jumping around that were fun. The Lizard's effects were serviceable, though the CGI tail growing back was pretty lame.

One thing that threw me off a bit was the decision to go with mechanical web shooters rather than organic ones. Yeah, I get it, Peter is smart enough to have built them, but SURELY someone would recognize the product as “OsCorp” stuff? Then it’s simply a matter of looking for someone who buys it regularly who probably shouldn’t…like a HIGH SCHOOLER. Or maybe he stole it from Kurt Conners I don’t know. The change to “DNA weirdness” instead of “Fucking Radioactive Spider” naturally flows to “organic web shooters” and this was just sort of out of place. Hell, it only comes up twice in the film (they don’t work underwater, and the Lizard crushes them at one point), so…why bother? Eh, it’ll probably be made more of in the sequels.

One of the story problems with the film is that it felt disjointed. It seemed to me that it went. “Peter does something. And then Peter does more stuff. And then Peter gets bitten. And then…” Scenes made sense story wise, but the transitions just weren’t. It was a lot of scenes connected by a running story, but not by the film itself (except toward the end, when it all kind of made sense, sort of). It was like "Six Stories in Six One Act Plays, Where All the Stories are Sequels to The Previous Story". This was annoying at times, because a lot of scenes were sort of "half" set up, and then proceed as if they were fully set up. Speaking of gratuitous scenes, the whole “line up the cranes” thing was super, duper cheesy, WAAAAY moreso than the “if you fight one of us you fight all of us” from the first film. It really needed each crane to have an American Flag hanging from it to truly be cheesetacular. The only thing cheesier would have been a scene of Spider-Man swinging into Slow Motion, and shooting a web directly at the audience to justify the 3D effects....OH WAIT, THAT WAS IN THE FILM.

Overall, I’d give the film 2 smiley faces on a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces. It was a pretty good super hero movie that does what it needs to do to set up the “reboot” of the franchise, and it feels very much “by the numbers”. It’s fairly well done, and I liked it. If you’re a comic fan, I recommend checking out a matinee. I still prefer the Sam Raimi Spider-Man over this one, but I can appreciate this reboot as being "not bad". It's not gonna make anyone's top movie list though.

Kotas Reviews The Dark Knight Rises

Charlotte and I saw "The Dark Knight Rises" today. I won't go into any deep detail, because most of those out there who read my stuff have already seen it. That said, there are probably spoilers in here, so just skip to the end for the final verdict.

The movie opens with some operatives from somewhere who drop the name Bane. The resulting hi-jinks, which are surprisingly slow paced, are supposed to set up the premise of the film: A mercenary named Bane is going to wreck shit, and he's an excellent planner. It does a reasonable job of this, and I liked the scene, but it just felt a bit too slow.

After that, the movie moves on to a Gotham City that is "cleaned up". Organized crime has been brought to heel by the Dent Act, and they are celebrating Harvey Dent Day. Commissioner Gordon has a troubled heart, wanting to confess to the lie he's held onto for 8 years, but finds that the time is not yet right. Batman (and Bruce Wayne) hasn't been seen since that fateful night at the end of "The Dark Knight"...

This is where the film really starts, and I feel that the beginning was a false opening, just given to set up some back story about the nuclear physicist, Dr. I'm Totally Dead Meat and show that Bane is "pretty bad ass". It works, but it feels a bit out of place. It also seems to be the only real misstep of the film. I'm confident that with a few changes of dialog the whole "nuclear scientist" bit could be cut without affecting the story of the film.

The rest of this is a loving goodbye letter to this franchise. We get more of what we expect, and then some. More cool toys (The Batpod returns, The Bat copter thing is freakin' awesome). More light social commentary on the nature of humanity (Bane's backstory, Selena Kyle's heists, the whole Robbery of the Stock Exchange sequence), More Gravely Bat Voice (okay, maybe not EVERYTHING is gold...). More amazing Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. More, More, More, all culminating in the final exit that we've been expecting since Batman Begins. There are a TON of links back to that film in this one, along with several nice surprises and return cameos (I always enjoy Dr. Crane's antics), and this film shows the core of what the Nolan Batman is: Made of Determination and Persistence. This is not the Great Detective Batman, nor the Hyper Prepared Batman, nor the ultimate Combatant Dark Knight. This is the Batman that crawls inside himself to wrench the will to do what needs to be done out, often at great cost. Who returns from his losses, to finally Rise to be the hero that Gotham truly Needs.

It is not often that one gets to say that the first film of a trilogy is probably the "worst" one, but I think this is the case with the Nolan Batman Trilogy, not that any of these films are bad. While I think I like the Dark Knight better, this film is a worthy end. Sure, I enjoyed the Avengers more, but that's because I'm a Marvel Fanboy at heart, and I have my biases.

The Dark Knight Rises is a fantastic send-off to a character who brought Batman as Crime Story to the people, and made them love it. I give it 3 smiley faces on a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces. If you liked Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, do yourself a favor and go see this film.

Kotas Reviews Prometheus

Last night, at the urgings of one of my friends, my wife and I went and saw Prometheus. Having avoided just about every trailer and review ever, except for a few offhand remarks that ranged from "I love this movie!" to "Why does this piece of shit even exist?", I walked in with the following expectation: That it would be better than Aliens: Resurrection. Given that expectation, the movie performed as expected. HOWEVER...

This is not a good movie. I know, I know, I'll be annoying folks with that statement, but hear me out. This movie commits a cardinal sin of horror movies: It is boring as shit. This is an hour long tale that was stretched to fill two, and the movie suffers horribly for it. The basic story is not engaging enough to make me care about anything, so it feels twice as long as it should. A lesser sin that this film commits: It's not scary. Sure, there are a couple of jump scares, and some of the effects are neat and gross, but it's not scary so much as icky. There is build up to scary, and it COULD have been scary, but it's just not. It is just icky, and that is why this movie is not good. Now that I've said that, be warned thar be spoilers ahead!

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Okay, let's break this shit down. The opening credit sequence is lots of long shots of beautiful landscapes meant to evoke a "raw, untamed world" sort of feel. Then a creepy albino dude drinks a thing that does awful stuff to him, falls into a lake, and disintigrates into black dust that fades away. Others have stated this is meant to represent the alien beings seeding the Earth with the primordial soup that eventually results in the stupid apes known as human beings, but I would argue that any plan that involves "drink some weird shit and be dissolved" is a terrible plan. Consider my suspension of disbelief stretched a bit. This is also the first of many scenes that could be excised from the film with no loss to the story.

Next up is a quick scene that sets the plot for the film: Archeologist Couple finds evidence that People from Space (I call them Space Idiots) have been visiting our world for thousands of years and have left a clue to where they came from in the form of a "star chart that primative people couldn't possibly know about". Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, something about the Pyramids being impossible to build w/o spaceships...until someone figured out how to do it. Eh, whatever, neat premise, I'm hooked.

The next 10 or so minutes is actually a really really good characterization scene with the character David. David is a creepy, creepy android and maaaan does it show here. This scene calls back to the long shots of people doing normal, everyday stuff on the ship in 2001 and sets the mood of the film. Brooding, slow, and thoughtful. I liked this part immensely, and the actor (whose name I can't remember and am too lazy to look up) does a lovely job here and throughout the film. The acting in this film is actually pretty good, even if the story being told is padded as all get out.

Then we get the requisite "people out of hypersleep" scene that establishes Cherlize Theron's character as not only a bitch, but a hardass bitch. I enjoyed this character, and sort of wished she had been more developed. This is a problem we'll see throughout a lot of this film: Characters not developed enough for me to give a shit when terrible things happen around them or to them. Anyway, time to introduce our characters! The bright eyed-scientist dude (who I don't really care about), the bright-eyed scientist chick (who got ever so slightly more backstory, so I kind of care about her), The Mean Guy (dead as a doorknob), the Nice Awkard Guy (Dead too! Probably paired up with the Mean Guy), The Captain (Heimdall from Thor, also given a bit more development than the others, and probably the best overall character in the film), The Captain's Two Sidekicks (1 dimensional characters who end up being fun), and Random Nameless Extras We Don't Care About And Are Fodder.

Then we get the briefing scene that explains to us everything we already know that the crew of the ship doesn't know, and introduces another character that is obstensibly the driving force behind this but doesn't play a huge role in the film: Mr. Weyland, the Decrept Old Rich Guy Seeking Answers. Now that we have our players, it's time for a bit more development and some atmospheric shots that are well done. They also point out several Chekov's Guns (or Flamethrowers, or Lifepods, or RoboMedicalBays, or..). The first up close views of the Alien Complex are pretty cool, and the tech on display is pretty awesome. Truly the Future. Then they discover alien bodies, THe Mean Guy flips out and leaves, the Nice Guy goes with him, and everyone else gets science-y while David The Paranoid Android does Shady Things...For Science maybe?.

Blah blah contrived action scene. Then we're back to the ship for the revelation that Mean Guy and Nice Guy "got lost on the way back". This is really where I went "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa WHOA. You mean to tell me that with those awesome 3-D mapping robot things that TRANSMITTED A FULL 3-D MAP to the ship, AND have obvious locator beacons and CAMERA feeds...that these two idiots got LOST? My..ASS." Eh, fuck it, they are clearly fodder, because hey, gotta have somethign gross happen in a "No really it's not Alien...but it's Totally Alien" movie! Some science people do stupid science things, the Android does Horrible Thing to Bright Eyed Science Dude, and after a lot of boring stuff, the two Guys are eaten by a Space Cobras in a gratuitous death scene that is slightly squicky, but still kind of dull, because you totally see it coming a mile away. Oh, and the Captain and Cherlize Theron get it on off camera, thus leaving the death of the two Guys unwitnessed, because they don't have DVRs in the Future. /eyeroll

Next day it's time to go get the two Guys, Bright Eyed Science Dude (BESD for short) has an eye leech from the goo that David slipped him in a drink, and he's all "oh man, I'm freakin' out...but I'll wait until we discover the bodies first". They discover the Space Cobra, everyone freaks out, and Cherlize Theron flamethrowers BESD before he reenters the ship because "Holy shit, infected persons maybe shouldn't be let on board." This is supposed to show she is heartless, but I prefer to think of her as "smart" instead. Meanwhile, David the Paranoid Android has discovered that at least one more alien is in Space Hypersleep, and runs home to tell his "Mysterious yet Totally Not Mysterious at all" boss.

Time for pointless body horror! So, Bright-Eyed Science Chick (Or Liz as she is named in the movie) ends up lying on a medbay bed after watch BESD burn to death for being horribly infected. This is clearly traumatic, so David the Paranoid Bastard Android quizzes her about her sex life, and then lets her know she's 3 months pregnant with Horrible Alien Baby, all because she totally did it with BESD right after he was infected, ya know, last night. David's plan is "put her in cryosleep", which as we all know is a terrible plan. Then some nameless extras show up to prep her for the cryo bed, she beats them up...somehow, and runs to Chekov's BioBed to have a Space Cesarian. BioBed is like "LOL only dudes LOL", and is totally trolling her, but she does some Science Stuff and it all works out, even if it is horribly disgusting in every possible way. It is played for tension, but I just...didn't care? I mean, yeah, she's a total badass for walking around after MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY, but there is tension because...Horrible Tentacle Baby is angry at being pulled out. It's icky, but not scary...and merely sets up Chekov's Horrible Tentacle Baby for later. Oh, and Mean Guy comes back as a horrible creature for a pointless action scene.

For some reason, after going through HORRIBLE TRAUMA, she confronts Mr. Weyland (oh yeah, he was totally on board the whole time), and he reveals he's gonna go talk to the one alien left alive. Uh...kay. David will translate (they established how he could do that earlier, so it's cool). Long story short, that doesn't go well, Albino Alien is Not Happy, rips off David's head, beats Mr. Weyland to death with it, and then Cherlize Theron says "fuck this, we're out of here" while Albino Alien gets ready to leave. Somehow, Lizzy figures out he's going to Earth and not Going Home to Let Everyone Know "Hey guys, our horrible plan turned out horribly", and as the alien ship (oh yeah, it was a ship. NO FUCKING SHIT) takes off, the Captain and his Buddies get all Self-Sacrifice-y while Cherlize Theron ejects along with the LifePod. The ship crashes into other ship, which falls out of the sky...and then I just started laughing.

This completely dumb action sequence is the epitome of "fucking retarded". The ship falls out of the sky and lands on an edge...and starts rolling towards Liz and Cherlize. Who then RUN AWAY FROM IT IN A STRAIGHT LINE. I just started laughing, it was ridiculous. Anyway, Liz lives, Cherlize is crushed by the Rolling Ship of Murder, and just as Liz makes it to the lifepod (where she discovers Chekov's Horrible Tentacle Baby is now All Grown Up), David's Head informs her that Albino Dude is coming to kill her...because he totally knows where she is somehow. Seconds later, he bursts into the Lifepod and Liz sics her Babby on him and then flees. Horrible Tentacle Baby then proceeds to do exactly what you'd expect it to do in this film and Face Huggers the whole alien to death. Then the film doesn't end and I got sad.

So, Liz is now upset (and really, who wouldn't be). David's Head calls her and says "Oh, by the way, there are other ships on this planet. Uh, I can totally help you fly one." Liz then leaves, headed to find the Albino Guys and ask them "What the Fuck, yo?" Then the film doesn't end again, and I got sad.

So, back to Horrible Tentacle Baby and Albino Dude. Albino dude twitches slighly, and then (of COURSE) out of his body bursts a proto-Alien. Said proto-Alien was also way too big to fit inside Albino DUde without distorting the corpse, but really, at this point I was just glad to see the credits roll.

This is not a good film. It looks pretty. The acting is good (and in some ways, brilliant). The script is bullshit. It goes for some pretty heavy themes, but it ruins them with lots and lots and LOTS of padding and pointless grossness. There is so much of this film that could be cut and not change the story at ALL. The opening "seeding the earth" sequence. The ENTIRE sequence of Mean Guy and Nice Guy getting eaten by Space Cobras or turning into horrible monsters. The entirety of Chekov's Horrible Tentacle Alien Baby and the aftermath of it. This film is heavily padded and is full of "setup that did not deliver" sequences, ESPECIALLY regarding the Space Jockeys. It posed some really neat ideas, but failed to deliver them in a meaningful way. The character development was bad for all but a small handful of characters, and even most of those got the shaft. This film could have been great, but it collapses under the weight of its own hubris. On the other hand, the acting is excellent. The sets are awe inspiring at times. The special effects are pretty good (nice to see less CGI than usual), and I did think there were some deep themes. It was just presented poorly.

I give this film 1 frowny face on a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces, mostly on the strength of the David character, and the fact that the Captain played a squeezebox. It commits the twin sins of being boring and not scary, and that makes it a bad horror film AND a bad Sci-Fi film too.

Kotas Reviews Dark Shadows

I took my parents to see Dark Shadows for their anniversary, because that is what they wanted. Bear in mind, I originally suggested we go see the Avengers, but they apparently "already done that".

So, what can I say about this film? A FUCKING LOT it turns out. First off, I did not hate it. No, really! I thought that some of the scenes were actually very well done, and there were even parts where I laughed. I can safely say that while I somewhat regret spending actual money on this film, I was at least entertained occasionally. Is it a GOOD movie? Hell no.

I won't go into the back story, because you either already know it, or you don't care. Suffice it to say, there were lots of nods to the original series and affectionate pokes at the culture of 1972. My parents really enjoyed a lot of the cultural dressing, because that was "their time". I think if I grew up in the era when this show was on, I would have gotten a lot more out of it. Anyway, the short, short setup is: Vampire Soap Opera Before It Was A Thing, from the 1970s.

Johnny Depp gives a remarkably entertaining performance as Barnabas Collins. The dialog he is given to work with ranges from awesomely retro to tiresomely predictable, but he always gives it the old college try and I did not feel like he phoned this in. Bella Heathcote as the Romantic Interest is sort of bland, but only because her character arc is utterly unnecessary to the plot of the story, but she tries her best.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Eva Green, as the Strong Female Semi-Protagonist and the Main Antagonist respectively, give decent performances. Nothing stood out as spectacular, but Eva seemed to be enjoying chewing the scenery with Depp in their lover's spats, and she can rock a red sequined dress with the best of them. The same cannot be said for the other Tim Burton Alumni Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Doctor Only In This To Set Up A Possible Sequel. No, I didn't ruin anything by saying that, but her performance was really, really weak in my opinion, and her side story added very little to the film, other than as setup to a few jokes that weren't that funny.

The other characters served only as one to two dimensional foils for a scene or two, and otherwise were nothing but walking pratfalls, sight gags, or exposition. The best of the lot is the cameo by Christopher Lee as a Grizzled Sea Captain, who is on screen for 5 minutes and delivers his silly, silly lines with gravitas that says "I was fucking Sauruman, and a better Dracula than YOU pretty boy!". Musical guest star Alice Cooper puts on a good show as well (though again, it has little to do with the plot and seems to only be there for the shit of it). The Hippie Brigade was also sort of fun, if only for one very special scene. Spoiler: They Smoke Weed.

Let's talk about the story. It's a soap opera that doesn't seem to know if it wants to play it straight or play it silly, or try to mix the two. The tone of the film is not very consistent, with many scenes that start off fairly lighthearted but take either a very DARK turn, or just go nowhere. The first time it happened was actually sort of interesting, as I thought it might mean the film was done screwing around and was gonna get really Gothic. Yeah, not so much. The main plot is pretty much as simple as it gets, but I just don't give a damn. Never at any point in the film am I concerned about the success or failure of any of the characters, good, bad, or indifferent. It's little more than a string of excuses for semi-supernatural hi-jinks or "oh, he's from the past, LOL" bullcrap. The "climax" of the film has some nice moments, but there's a LOT of odd things that get revealed and just come completely out of left field, presumably because it was based on a soap opera and that shit happens all the time in those. I had to ask myself WHY? Why was all this extra stuff shoved awkwardly in at the end? Was it for a very unfunny joke that was delivered? The payoff for something that was set up the whole film but ultimately lame as shit? Just for the hell of it? It's almost as if they left out a good 15 to 20 minutes of story, just so they could wrap the damn movie up. The ending is a non-ending, since you never actually find out what happens to any of the characters except Barnabas and the Love Interest, and the retarded sequel tie in (which is SO not gonna happen, ever).

Ultimately, I would say "watch this if you don't have to pay much money for it". It gets one smiley face on a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces, if only because I DID actually laugh a few times (very few times), I enjoyed a lot of the sets and costumes, and I've always liked Johnny Depp As Gothic Weirdo (See, Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow).

Kotas Reviews The Avengers

Okay, I just saw the Avengers. HOLY CRAP THIS IS THE BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!
That is all.