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Movie Review: Transformers One

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I’ve actually been sitting on this review for months, but due to the non-disclosure agreement I signed at the Preview Screening, I have been unable to publish until now.  But the embargo is officially lifted and off we go!

Transformers cartoons and comics get rebooted every few years, and now it seems the movie part of the franchise is following suit.  After the stand alone 1986 movie we had what many people called the Bayverse, 5 live action movies over the course of a decade.  Several years later we had the Bumblebee Movie followed by last years sequel Rise of The Beasts, a soft reboot of the Bayverse.

Movie Review – Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Now it appears we have yet another Transformers movieverse to explore.  Whether it is a full reboot of the entire film franchise, or is going to run concurrent to the live action movies is at this time unknown, but it is the first time in 38 years a Transformers animated movie has hit the big screen – and so we have Transformers One.

Note: This is a movie review – so SPOILERS AHEAD!

 

Chronologically Transformers One is set before the great Cybertronian Civil War began, but after their war with the Quintessons.  Cybertron is under the thrall of a cast system, with the Cogless (those without Transformation Cogs and thus no ability to transform) performing all the grunt work of society, everything from mining to waste reclamation.  Those with Transformation Cogs live a more privileged life, however a life still constrained as Cybertron is no longer producing Liquid Energon, the lifeblood of the Transformers race, and the only Energon available is that mined from the depths of Cybertron by the aforementioned cogless miners.

We are quickly introduced to Orion Pax, the bot destined one day to become Optimus Prime. This is a version of Orion we have not seen before, even in the comics he was still very Optimus’esque with a strong sense of responsibility.  This Orion is impetuous, adventurous and happy to break societies rules when it suits him.  Though many fans have cried foul of the character not being voiced by Peter Cullen, it is easy to see why they went with the younger Chris Hemsworth, Cullens strong and older voice would not have suited such a youthful interpretation.

The only thing I am missing is Cyber-acne

After a chase between Orion and two security bots, where Orion so conveniently watches a holovid talking about the disappearance of The Matrix and its effect on Cybertron (and thus the main plot of the film), we are introduced to his best friend D-16, who will one day don his big bot pants and become the maniacal Megatron.

My eyes aren’t red, that means I’m not evil… yet.

Through the optics and treatment of Orion and D-16, we see how oppressed the mining-class are, though many of them don’t see it that way as they feel they are serving a useful function for their society.  However unlike his comrades Orion is not content to merely mine for the greater good, he wants to find the Matrix and bring it to their societies leader, Sentinel Prime, who is a hero of D-16’s, second only in his optics to Megatronus who was one of the Original 13 Primes who disappeared at the end of the Quintesson War.

Through a series of misadventures Orion & D-16 end up on the surface of Cybertron, having picked up the unwilling Elita 1 and the very willing Bumblebee along the way, and off for the Matrix they search.  Transformers movies always seem to resort to a ‘we have to find the….’ plotline.   Whether it’s a Matrix, an Allspark, a Cyberforming Seed, a Spacebridge Pillar, a Transwarp Key or even the Staff or Merlin, the writers of Transformers movies sadly resort to the same old trope in order to move the plot along.  Given what they have to work with – giant alien shapeshifting robots – you would think the script writers could come up with something a bit more creative than another round of ‘hunt the shiny’.

The characterization is at least somewhat more original than the plot, with new takes on decades old Transformers staples.  As aforementioned, Orion is a far more youthful version of Optimus to what we are accustomed, Elita is pragmatic and in-charge rather than  being simply Optimus’ love interest, D-16 is rough but willing to begrudgingly follow Orion along for the sake of friendship, and Bumblebee is almost manic in how much he blathers on, a nice change of pace from the Bumblebee who has to talk through a radio that has graced the big screen for the last 7 flicks.

“I can talk, I can talk, I can talk talk talk talk…’

Eventually our four heroes find the place the Matrix was last seen and discover Alpha Trion, one of the Original 13 Primes and the only one who is still functional.  Through him they learn that Sentinel Prime has been lying to the populace – he betrayed the Primes and killed them, causing the Matrix to be lost, and he is having the Energon mined in order to pay off the Quintessons who helped him rise to power.  It is the betrayal of his hero Sentinel, along with seeing the remains of his fallen idol Megatronus, that propels D-16 down the path of darkness (anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering – Yoda was right!).  Before Sentinels goons find them, Alpha Trion informs the heroes that all Transformers naturally have (are born with?  created with?) Transformation Cogs and that Sentinel must have stolen those of the lower caste.  Thus Trion in turn bestows upon the quartet the cogs of four of the fallen Primes.

Much like the IDW comics, until this point there had been a disappointing lack of transformation in this Transformers movie.  With no altmodes all the lower caste look like Action Masters (similar looking non-transforming blocky robots) and with the exception of a race, we haven’t seen enough of other characters to really get a feel for the shape-changing species.  With their new cogs, the four heroes sprout new armour, new weapons, new kibble and increase in size considerably.  The payoff for waiting so long is worth it story wise, but it is a long time coming and for the younger viewers the wait is perhaps too long.

Eventually we finally get what everyone wants to see from a Transfomers movie, a big battle!  On their way back to confront Sentinel they enlist the help of a group of renegade bots being lead by Starscream, Soundwave & Shockwave, and Orion sneaks back into Iacon to inspire the miners to join the fight.  Between the two groups they manage to route Sentinels forces and by capturing Sentinel’s 2IC Arachnid expose his duplicity to the public.  Despite having won D-16 is still determined to kill Sentinel, yet Orion leaps in the way of the shot to try and stop him, the shot taking Orion out.  D-16, angry at Orion’s interference, announces ‘I’m done saving you’ and drops Orion to his death. D-16 murders Sentinel, takes Sentinels cog (it itself stolen from the corpse of Megatronus) and proclaims himself ‘Megatron’, his new cog beefing him up even further in the process.

‘For a change of pace Megatron is going to usurp me’

Though entertaining, there are a few things that don’t sit quite right at this pivotal moment of the movie.  We know Orion is a hero at heart, but why leap in front of the shot meant for Sentinel instead of simply trying to tackle his friend?  Why did D-16 not agonize longer about what he had done to Orion, given their close friendship?  Why after taking victory and then upgrading did Megatron and his troops subsequently begin to trash the city for no discernible reason?  The changeover to old-school Decepticon shenanigans seems too down pat, like the struggle for freedom and the friendship we had watched for the past hour now meant nothing.

Much like in other continuities such as in the War for Cybertron video game and the Prime cartoon, we see Orion, who having fallen all the way to Cybertron’s core, get turned by Primus into Optimus Prime via the power of the Matrix, and then return to fight Megatron.  This is actually one of their best fights over the whole 40 year franchise, both utilizing their various weapons and altmodes as they battle for supremacy.  After taking victory, Optimus banishes Megatron and his army from the city, before using the power of the Matrix to finally give his cogless former coworkers the ability to transform and the Energon to flow through Cybertron once again.  Throw in a post-credit scene of Megatron in the wastes giving his troops the Decepticon brand and that’s a wrap folks.

 

There is a lot to love in this movie, especially for a dedicated Transformers fan.  Many of the background Autobot characters, even before getting their cogs, are recognisable, such as Jazz, Ironhide, Arcee and Wheeljack.  Likewise on the Decepticon side we see many recognisable Seekers, the animators even putting in smaller details such as Thrust’s wing turbines.  There are small Easter Eggs scattered throughout, Megatron being D-16 (the original Megatron toy’s designation in Japan), Blurr’s name being on the leaders board during the Iacon 5000 race (it itself a reference to the Speedia 5000 race from the Legacy toyline) and many others which will bypass the casual viewer but delight those in the know.  The animation is top notch – Cybertron itself looks fantastic, with vibrant cities, dank pits, panoramic landscapes and a world that itself can change its shape, the only confusing thing being the appearance of organic matter on the planets surface.  The Quintessons have always been the main off-world enemies of the Transformers, and although not multi-faced do bear their telltale colour schemes and tentacles and their ship looks suitably imposing floating over the abandoned surface.

“Are you guilty or innocent? Wait, thats the other animated movie’

The characterizations and voice acting are both worthy of note, displaying much of the various characters original traits, yet being fresh enough takes to keep things interesting.  Perhaps it would have been good to see Welker & Cullen take on the voice acting once D-16 and Orion become Megatron and Optimus respectively, but given this film is likely to be the first of an animated trilogy, one can understand the studios wishing to stick to the younger actors who will be able to fulfill the roles for years to come.  What fans will love is that the characters are actually recognizable as themselves; their general appearance, colour schemes, attitudes and altmodes all appropriate.  After years of so many beloved characters being made unrecognizable in the live action movies (such as the Wheeljack controversy from ROTB) it was refreshing to see the writers and animators give proper weight to the source material.  Speaking of source material, there is much Transformers lore to be found within the film, especially around their god Primus and the Original 13 Primes.

Of course, there are a few letdowns.  The primary letdown is the lack of gravitas given to significant events within the film that should hold higher implications.  How was Sentinel Prime able to kill the Original 13 Primes so easily in combat?  Why would Optimus throw himself in front of a shot which would kill the despot, however after only one short battle permanently banish his best friend and his followers from Iacon to the wilds of Cybertron?  Yeah, ok, Megs dropped him into a ravine, I’d be a bit salty about that too, but it would have been more in keeping with the character for him to offer Megatron another chance and for Megs to shun it, rather than so willingly banish so many bots, that had moments ago helped to liberate Iacon, from the city they just helped save.  This and similar events make the characters seem more two-dimensional than is satisfactory, especially for a 3D film, though still miles ahead of the ‘murderbots’ of the Bayverse.

Movie Review – Transformers: The Last Knight

Minor quibbles aside this is a great movie, and it is fantastic to see Transformers return to its cinematic roots of animation.  It is to be hoped that the movie does well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel.  Is this movie for everyone?  No.  Your average adult viewer is not going to be overly entertained by this flick, however for younger viewers and Transformer fans they are in for a treat which will delight anyone remotely interested in the wonderful world of The Transformers.

Have you seen this movie and what did you think of it?  Pop your thoughts in the comments section below!

 

Fan Screening of Transformers One: Sydney fans reactions

 

Random Reviews

Movie Review: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

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In 1988 Beetlejuice hit the movie screens and fast became a cult classic.  Leading to a 3-season cartoon and live stage adaptions, Tim Burton’s horror-comedy told the story of the ghosts of a dead couple being trapped with the family who bought their home, inevitably involving the hijinks of Beetlejuice, the ghost-with-the-most anti-hero.

Well 36 years later we finally have the sequel.  Say it once, say it twice – Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Warning – this is a movie review so SPOILERS AHEAD.

 

The movie picks up 36 years after the original.  Lydia hosts a reality TV show about ghosts that is  produced by her exploitative boyfriend, whilst step-mother Delia has become a successful artist.  Beetlejuice himself has taken his bio-exorcist business to the next level, even having offices where his shrunken-headed minions answer calls from the dead wishing to scare the living from their homes.

Straight off you notice that Michael Keaton who plays Beetlejuice does not have the same vigour he had in the first movie.  And quite rightly so, he is literally twice the age he was when making the original film.  At 73 he is not leaping about the screen as he once did, though he does an admirable job reprising the role and it is impossible to imagine anyone else playing the character – this is not Batman.

Movie Review: The LEGO Batman Movie

Winona Ryder is perfection in the role of Lydia.  Lydia has been traumatized from a lifetime of being able to see the dead, and obviously suffers from PTSD from her first run in with Beetlejuice decades earlier.  Ryder plays her perfectly, Lydia is determined to do right by her daughter, but is dominated by her boyfriend/producer and seems mentally and emotionally frail, not a character archetype one often sees in a comedy.

Catherine O’Hara also reprises the role of Delia splendidly, showing what the character has evolved into from years of success, throwing herself into any artistic whim that takes her, and using the death of her husband to explore new artistic (and narcissistic) challenges.

New to the cast is Jenna Ortega who plays Astrid, Delia’s daughter, and whom the storyline revolves around.  Bitter at the death of her father, estranged from her mother whom she believes to be a fraud, Astrid is dragged from school to attend the funeral of her grandfather and clean out the family home, the very house where the first movie was set.  While there she begins a tentative relationship with a boy in town, never suspecting that he himself is a ghost who plans to trick her into swapping places with him so that he can rejoin the living.

This plot twist will take many viewers by surprise, as until it is revealed that the boy is a ghost one assumes the main plot is the return of Beetlejuice’s first wife out for revenge, and that the budding teenage romance is merely a side plot to make the movie more amenable to a wider audience.  Until it is revealed, only the most savvy would guess that there is anything untoward, and quite quickly the main story proceeds to be set primarily in the afterlife rather than Winter River.

The movie balances the old and the new quite well.  Having 3 of the main cast of the first movie return creates an excellent level of continuity, and there are lots of call backs to the the original; Winter River, the house on the hill, the afterlife’s waiting room are all familiar locations, and there are Easter Eggs for fans such as the Delia thinking she spots Maxie Dean in a crowd and Day-O being sung at Charles’ funeral.  There is plenty new here as well, introducing the concepts of heaven and hell to the afterlife, the afterlife having their own police department and of course the plots revolving around new characters.  As stated, it’s very balanced movie, giving you equal helpings of new and familiar territory.

Is it the perfect successor to the first Beetlejuice movie?  No.  The visual gags have shifted in tone towards the more gross and graphic than the cartoony.  Keaton plays Beetlejuice very well, but you can tell there’s a guy in his 70’s underneath that makeup.  The two main villains of the film – the teenage love interest and Beetlejuice’s ex-wife – are both dispatched too easily.  One of the great parts of the original was the build up and excitement of other characters trying to stop Beetlejuice from marrying Lydia, sadly no such build up happens here.  In fact the ex-wife plot falls flat at the end; all that build up over the movie featuring her sucking souls, yet when she finally finds Beetlejuice she just stands there doing nothing until taken out by a Sandworm.  Given she began dismembered at the start of the movie, I would have liked to see her try and reclaim the finger that Beetlejuice had in his pocket from the first film.

 

Overall however, this is a fun film and a worthy sequel to the original.  I saw it with my family and they all said the same thing “I liked it, but I liked the first one better”.  It’s possible that no matter what movie they made it would not illicit a better reaction from fans, the first movie being so beloved.  This movie does stand on its own, with an interesting, well paced story acted by a superb cast that will keep the viewer entertained throughout.

So get out and see ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’, a title that practically screams for there to be at least one further instalment.

RIP Bob.

Movie Review – Tremors 6: A Cold Day in Hell

Random Reviews

Movie Review – Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

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In 2016 we saw Ghostbusters rebooted, which did not go down well with a goodly portion of the fans or at the box office.  In 2021 we saw the original continuity resurrected with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, showing what happened to our most beloved paranormal investigators in the decades since having a smackdown with a guy in a painting.

Now in 2024 we get the sequel to Afterlife, the 4th movie of the original timeline and the 5th movie overall – so lets take a look at Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

Before continuing a reminder: this is a movie review so that means SPOILERS AHEAD.

 

We catch up with the Spengler family two years after the events of Afterlife.  Gone from hating her father, Callie Spengler has, for reasons unspecified, moved her family and her boyfriend into the old Firehouse in New York and taken over the Ghostbusters franchise.  Unlike Afterlife which was required to spend a great chunk of the movie setting up the story and characters, we are treated to busting right from the get-go as they chase a ghostly dragon through the streets, causing a great deal of collateral damage along the way.  This results in the Ghostbusters old nemesis Walter Peck, gone from an Environmental Assessor to Mayor, telling the family to bench daughter Pheobe or be put out of business.

Thus starts a series of events that see’s Pheobe make friends with a ghost-gal Lind, the old Containment Unit about to burst and the return of the old cast as Winston introduces the Spengler’s to a new generation of Ghostbusting research and equipment.

Pictorial Toys Review – My Little Prime & Plasmane

The story arcs for most characters follow a logical and interesting progression, spliced equally with ghostbusting sci-fi and humour.  Trevor is busy trying to trap Slimer, who evidently has been living in the attic of the Firehouse since the events of GB2, Grooberson is trying to be less a friend and more a father, Winston is attempting to bring Ghostbusting into the 21st century, Pheobe is chafing at not being allowed to bust ghosts while simultaneously making friends with one and Ray and Podcast are on the trail of the new big bad – Garraka.

Talk, dark and horny

All of these arcs run simultaneously and intertwine, leading up to the final confrontation with the new bad guy, a cold fellow who can turn fear into ice and make other ghosts do his bidding.  Whilst I loved Afterlife for what it was, a love letter to the original movies and Harold Ramis, I had felt that bringing back Gozer had been a mistake.  Thus it was nice to see the team have a new enemy to fight with new powers and abilities, perhaps making him/it the most chilling enemy in the franchise to date.

Another thing Afterlife was missing was humour.  Oh there was some here and there, but whilst Answer the Call pushed the needle too far in one direction, with cringeworthy forced jokes and slapstick comedy, Afterlife went a tad to far in the other direction, perhaps in direct reaction to the negativity surrounding ATC. Afterlife was by far the most serious of the GB movies and seemed to forget that at their core the originals were comedies.  Frozen Empire returns the GB franchise to its roots with lots of humour interspersed throughout the movie, without taking it to a zany place that nobody wants to see.

Movie Review – Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Both the original and new casts do a great job in Frozen Empire, with well-rounded and relatable characters.  Admittedly Venkman and Janine add little to the overall story and similarly Lucky and Podcast seem more along for the ride.  That said, it’s a big cast of characters – there is only so much you can fit into a 2-hour flick and the absence of the aforementioned characters would have been something negatively commented upon had they been left out.  One is left wondering how many more Ghostubusters movies Bill Murray will show up for before, like Rick Moranis, he decides he’s had enough of the franchise, as Venkman puts in far less of a showing than the other original cast members.

We are introduced to some new characters; Lars Pinfield who is the head researcher for Winston and Nadeem Razmaadi who apparently took his cues from watching the Avatar cartoon and can bend fire.  Both these characters work well with Lars adding some much needed scientific paranormal examination which was previously Egon’s domain, and Nadeem being a weird guy played solely for laughs, taking the place of Luis Tully.

Is this the perfect Ghostbusters movie?  No.  Some of the story plots feel contrived, such as it never being spelled out why the family decided to take up Ghostbusting and Pheobe deciding it would be a grand idea to turn into a ghost for a few minutes.  Walter Peck is a far less interesting foe as the Mayor – he’s more mellow and thus more boring.  His shutting down of the Ghostbusters is a total non-event – they simply pick the lock and a van full of new Proton Packs shows up almost immediately.  Peter and Janine felt shoehorned in, as did Slimer though it was wonderful to see him back and he arguably did more than he did in GB2.  The new big bad being able to freeze the proton streams rendered the Ghostbusters too impotent far too easily, thereby leaving the gang with their throwers in their hands and too obviously setting Pheobe up to save the day.  And really, that ghost-girl hung about for decades just so she could light a match – that was her arc? Don’t get me wrong, the frienship/budding romance was sweet, but still.

That said, these are minor quibbles.  Overall this is a really fun and entertaining movie with a great cast – the old and new cohorts having blended together nicely.  It’s funnier than Afterlife and has a more involved storyline than Ghostbusters 2.  And perhaps the main takeaway from this movie is that it is and is meant to be fun – it’s fantasy about catching ghosts, something your more serious critics and fans sometimes forget.  Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire walks the tightrope of treating the existing lore with respect and delving into new territory and walks it well.   If you are a spectre-head who doesn’t mind a chuckle then it is highly recommended you get to your nearest theatre, as watching all the busting will make you feel good!

Toy Review – Ectotron

 

Random Reviews, Transformatorium

Transformers Movies: All 8 ranked from Worst to Best!

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Feel free to read ahead, but for an updated list with all NINE Transformers movies ranked, please follow the link below:

Transformer Movies – all 9 ranked from Worst to Best!

Rise of The Beasts is now finishing up in theatres, the 7th instalment in the live-action Transformers Movie franchise and the 8th Transformers movie overall.  More than any other part of Transformers, be it the comics or cartoons or toylines, the movies have divided fans.  Many Transformers fans have grown up on the live action movies, or were first attracted to Transformers by it hitting the big screen.  Others have lamented films with more humans than robots, convoluted and contradictory storylines, unrecognisable classic characters and even coined the term ‘Bayverse’ – a derogatory term to refer to this part of the franchise as more concerned with big explosions than any form of storytelling.

But love them or loathe them, most fans who has seen all the movies has in their head their own personal list of ‘best to worst’, judging the films by their own personal criteria.

Ghostbusters Movies: All 5 ranked from Worst to Best!

So here is Big Angry Trev’s own list of the Transformers movies, starting with my least liked and working up to Number 1!

 

Number #8 – The Last Knight

Movie Review – Transformers: The Last Knight

Saw this in the cinema, and have watched the Blu Ray a total of twice, both times at the behest of someone else.  This is a movie that ran for over 2 ½ hours and may have been better received if they had shaved a lot of that runtime off.  Even upon multiple viewings the storyline jumps around too much to coherently follow – first they are hiding out in a junkyard, then they are racing through the streets of London, then they are undersea looking for a tomb and then finally up in the air fighting on broken bits of Cybertron.  Throw in a few human storylines, most of which were superfluous, the appearance of Unicron’s horns which were never properly investigated, and Merlin to boot and you had too much going on to properly sit back and enjoy.

Toys Review – The Last Knight: Steelbane, Cogman & Sqweeks

The movie did have some positives going for it.  The reemergence of Barricade, Welker finally voicing Megatron, Optimus Prime becoming Nemesis Prime and having a smackdown with Bumblebee, finding out what happened to Cybertron after TF3 etc.  Also a few good battle scenes; Crosshairs jumping from the back of a stolen Con flyer, deploying parachutes and blasting enemies will always stick in my head as one of the best visuals of the entire series.

Toy Review – MB-20 Nemesis Prime

But in the end none of this could make up for a French-sounding Hot Rod, Marky-Mark removing his shirt for no reason, Combiners that seemed to flow together instead of actually transforming and a plotline that left you going ‘huh?’.

Toy Review – The Last Knight Infernocus

 

Number #7 – Revenge of The Fallen

If only the movie had been as awesome as the toyline!

I feel part of the reason this movie is so disliked by much of the Fandom is that it seemed such a letdown after the relatively well received first movie, and many feared such a sequel would put an end to the live action Transformer flicks altogether.  Bay blamed much of the movies faults on the writers strike.  Since another strike is currently occuring lets hope it doesn’t adversely affect next years animated Transformers One movie

This was a movie made for 13 year old boys.  Considering its Transformers perhaps that should not be too surprising.  The crass humour was dialled up big time and for me (as someone who has avoided even learning about Kiss Players) the most cringeworthy thing to ever happen in all of Transformers was watching Wheelie hump Mikalya’s leg. Devastator having testicles, dogs humping other dogs, a fleshy tongue on the end of a metal tendril trying to lick Sam, a sidekick in his underwear demanding toilet paper, a stoned mother and Jetfire farting a parachute – the childish humour seemed to never end.  Add to this… urgh… the Twins, the most racially insensitive thing in Transformers since Carbombiya, and this movie felt like it was written by Beavis & Butthead after they discovered pot.

Toy Review – Studio Series Scrapper

Like TLK, this movie still had some good points.  The introduction of The Matrix, the Original Primes, The Fallen and the Pretender concept were welcome parts of Transformers lore to be included into the live action universe.  Soundwave becoming a Communications Satellite was a clever idea and him ejecting Ravage in order to infiltrate an installation was very cool.  This is also where Soundwave got his tendrils, a concept carried over into TF3, Prime and RID15.  The way Devestator combined was dramatically done, even if he subsequently only smashed bricks and sucked sand.  Despite only being a byproduct of the movie, it is also worth noting that ROTF brought us one of the best and most  expansive toylines of the live action franchise, indeed Bludgeon who wasn’t even in the movie receiving the best toy he has ever had!

Toy Review – Studio Series: Scrapmetal

But once again despite all the positives, too many negatives were contained in this film to overlook, and thus Revenge of the Fallen comes second last in the Transformers list of fav movies.

 

Number #6 – Age of Extinction

Grimlock on the big screen baby!

The previous two movies are widely regarded as the worst of the Transformer flicks so I doubt them coming in at numbers 7 & 8 will raise many eyebrows.  Likewise I doubt this movie will cause a lot of contention by not being #1.  Age of Extinction had a lot going for it, a new human cast (Shiah LeBouf having taken to wearing a paper bag on his head by this point), new robots whilst still retaining a few fan faves that survived the slaughter of DOTM, an interesting plotline and a cool bad guy.  Yes, Lockdown (imported from the Animated universe) made a refreshing change; a bounty hunter not involved in the Autobot/Decepticon conflict who could turn his face into a sniper cannon.  The Autobots on the run, hiding out from being hunted down by the government was also a nice change of pace from being teamed up with Lennox and his crew.  Throw in a few Dinobots, an evil Fraiser and the old trope of Megatron being reborn as Galvatron and you’ve got a winner right?

Toy Review – Nemesis Grimlock

Well… sorta.  In a franchise that often let its movies run too long in order to fit in as many Michael Bay explosions as possible, this one was the longest coming in at a whopping 165 minutes!  Even if you are enjoying yourself, that’s too damn long!  By the time Lockdown’s ship was using its gravity weapon to suck up boats and building, simply to dump them down again, your average viewer was exhausted.  Like TLK, it may have been better received if it had cut at least half an hour of superfluous material.  The Dinobots were very cool, but seemed to be more monsters than Dino’s, whilst Hound had transformed from a nature lover to a rotund, gun-toting drill sergeant.  The whole storyline of Tessa Yeager was just fricken creepy!  All the skimpy outfits and sexual innuendos attached to a 17 year old girl dating a 20 year old was just…. bleegh!  Don’t get me wrong, I like looking at pretty girls on a big screen as much as the next guy, but this just made you feel gross, especially that ‘Romeo & Juliet Law’ thing.  The Lucas Flannery character stating ‘There goes a couple of dune bugs’ while he leers at other underage girls paled in comparison and that’s saying something.  The other negative for die hard fans was Transformium (not to be confused with the fantastic Transformatorium) – we want to see robots cleverly turn into vehicles and back – turning into a bunch of pixels is just cheating.

This was a movie that had more positives than negatives, yet one cant help think that if Cade was bereft of children this movie would have been shorter and less creepy on the whole.

 

Number #5 – Dark of the Moon

Optimus, save me from another movie like ROTF!

Okey Dokey, now we are getting to the better stuff!  DOTM (in my opinion, remember – these are just my opinions.  But because they are mine they are fantastic!) brought Transformers back from the depths that ROTF sent it tumbling into, giving us an action-packed and interesting movie full of battling bots destroying everything in their path.  No street fight with a dozen bots, no skirmish out in the desert in Qatar – this flick gave us huge battles where Chicago got ripped to shreds as the Bots and Cons went head to head!  This movie had a coherent storyline that seemed to stay on track and kept the plot moving forward at a good pace. It was not frantic enough you lost the plot, nor slow enough you got bored.  The humans were at least tolerable (for the most part) though that toilet scene was plain weird and Sam’s mother had gone from amusing to disturbing.  Optimus having his trailer, the appearance of The Wreckers, buildings toppling over from some giant driller thingie – all pro’s.  With the addition of  Laserbeak becoming a pink version of Bee so he could kill some kids Dad and you’ve got yourself a bonifide action movie boys and girls!

Was the movie perfect?  Oh my no, hence why it sits at No #5.  Sam’s as big a loony as ever, jumping around with a Con-watch attached to his wrist.  The Autobots are far more brutal than the Decepticons, examples being the Wreckers ripping an enemy limb from limb and Optimus killing both Megs AND Sentinel at the end of the movie, even as the latter asked for mercy.  Shockwave is grossly under-utilized for such a major character, and lets all thank the powers that be that they decided to make Wheeljack named Que instead, because he looked like Einstein got reanimated as a robotic skeleton.

Quibbles aside, this was a pretty good movie and if nothing else, acted like TF:TM by killing off a lot of the old bots so we could enjoy some new ones the next time round.

 

Number #4 – Transformers

Off to finally see some live-action Transformers!

Now, to clarify, I actually like DOTM more than the 2007 Transformers movie.  But credit where credit is due, this is the flick that brought the franchise into the world of live-action movies and was successful enough those movies are still being made 16 years later, so ya gotta give it some props.

Yes, this was the movie that had some sections of the fandom crying ‘Michael Bay raped my childhood’ – and what a stupid platitude that was.  You still see social media groups today that have vowed after the first live-action movie to never watch another one, or have deemed anything not purely G1 as an abomination.  To these people I say: once you’ve closed yourself off to anything new, then stagnate you will, and so will the franchise you apparently love so much.

For me nothing will ever quite match the magic I felt as I watched Blackout transform for the first time.  And as for Optimus transforming from Truck to Robot – I had to put a hand over my mouth and stifle a little sob of joy.  It may not have been G1 but here was the Transformers finally done in live-action, and they weren’t f’ing it up!

Oh the Geewunner in me decried a lot of the movies aesthetics.  Megatron and Starscream were as ugly as sin, Ironhide and Ratchet were the wrong colours and so on.  And that’s when they were actually on screen – for a lot of this movie you sat there wondering ‘When are the robots going to come back?’  For a movie called Transformers, they certainly seemed to take a back seat a lot of the time.

The humans?  Well besides taking up too much screen time they weren’t too bad.  Sam hadn’t gone insane yet and neither had his mother, her short performances being the comedic highlights of the film.  Mikayla was quite a strong character for someone who the male audience was supposed to primarily drool over, and Lennox and his team did their best to not be simple jarheads, actually adding to the plot nicely.

So yes, this movie had a lot of faults, but for bringing Transformers into the mainstream and giving the franchise a gigantic shot in the arm which it still benefits from today, Transformers 2007 comes in at Number #4 for me.

 

Number #3 – Bumblebee

Movie Review – Bumblebee

This is the movie that so many die hard fans wish that Transformers 2007 had been.  First we are treated to a scene with all the bots battling on Cybertron, and they look like themselves again!  No weird colour schemes, no faces and bodies so mashed and distorted that once they move you cant tell what part of a bot you are looking at, all those aesthetic quibbles gone.  Cybertron looks like Cybertron again too, its not some Hexagonal mesh covered in bots that are the same colour as its surface and it’s not in bits and pieces flying over the Earth either.  It was all so beautiful it could bring a tear to the hardest Geewuners optic sensor.

Of course this did not last long and off to Earth they went, but not many of them.  Yes, by only having Bumblebee, Shatter and Dropkick on Earth you got to see their characters actually develop, interact with humans, interact with each other – you know, actually act like characters in a movie instead of murderbots.

Charlie Watson remains to this day the most likeable human out of the entire movie franchise.  You empathise with her woes and you celebrate her victories.  She’s not going nuts, or trying to shag someone, or being overly heroic or sexualised or insane.  You hate Tina Lark and laugh when Bumblebee smashes up her car, you root for Memo as he tries to step up to be a hero despite being scared shitless, and manages to show his romantic interest for Charlie without being sleazy.

And how much 80’s nostalgia could they pack in eh!  The music, the aesthetics – all spot on.  Bumblebee is a Volkswagen Beetle as we always wanted him to be and reprising his role as the sweet best friend of the central human rather than just bashing up Barricade a lot.

There is very little to fault with this movie.  Oh sure, Blitzwing looked more like Starscream than the live-action Starscream ever did so the ‘changing bots beyond recognition’ concept from the Bayverse movies hadn’t completely disappeared.  It was also confusing to many fans that this was billed as a prequel rather than a reboot, yet it contradicted so much that had come before, such as Bee hitting Earth in 1986 rather than having been around so long he had been battling Nazi’s.

This was a wonderful movie, with a lot of heart and fully deserves it’s place in the Top 3 Transformer movies of all time.

 

Number #2 – Rise of the Beasts

Movie Review – Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Yes, I have to give it to the latest instalment of the franchise, Rise of the Beasts has been the best live-action movie so far.  With far less humans and far more Bots, new factions and – gasp – Unicron himself, we get a fantastic movie with Transformers banding together to save the world itself!

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts – Special Preview Screening Event!

I love Bumblebee, I do.  He’s a great character and my son’s favourite.  However many of us were suffering from Bumblebee overload.  Every movie, every cartoon, every toyline, everything from 2007 onwards he has been front and centre.  And sure, it makes sense as he’s the posterbot for the franchise now.  But enough was enough, so I was very happy to see Mirage step up to take his place and Bee to be sidelined for much of the adventure.

Video: Interviews at Transformers Rise of the Beasts Preview Screening

Was this the Mirage of old.  Well, no.  In fact when you first see his altmode you think ‘Jazz is back!’ It’s rather odd how much they made his vehicle look like Jazz, though they did give a holographic shout out to his old mode.  His invisibility is gone, but his holographic powers from the original tech specs and the Netflicks cartoon are in evidence.  For me he was a tad too cheery, a tad too immature and he was able to swap altmodes far too easy – he can have the bulk of a garbage truck but be as small as an exosuit?  Transforming seems less special when you make it almost limitless.

Optimus is sounding old and weary.  And who can blame him, Cullen is 82 now!  The poor old bloke will be on his deathbed and still have a boom hanging over his head so he can voice Prime.  One wonders if they cast Prime in the ‘concerned weary leader’ role just to take into account the voice actors age.  That said, he still rocks it as he always does and he is respected and loved by beast and bot alike.

Transformers Beasts Base Camp

Scourge makes a passable bad guy, an amalgamation of his G1 and RID(01) incarnations, being a black truck with his Sweep minions (looking like Frenzy’s cousins).  Battletrap is awesome in the battle scenes with those chains of his, it’s only Nightbird that doesn’t add much to the trio.  The Maximals Optimus Primal and Airazor get a lot of dialogue and screentime, though fan favourites Cheetor & Rhinox do little indeed.  Arcee seems a good mix, looking similar in bot mode to the Bumblebee movie and similar in altmode to her ROTF incarnation.  Its just Wheeljack that got fans annoyed, and it turned out there was a lot of noise over a character that barely appeared.  And like many fans, I’m remaining hopeful of a Stratosphere action figure.

The ROTB Wheeljack Controversy

And perhaps this is why this movie ranks for me as the highest of the live-action movies – I can spend all this time taking about the robot characters.  Yes, they were finally characters with dialogue and weren’t one-dimensional killing machines, a precedent set in the Bumblebee movie that was thankfully followed on.

Toy Review – Studio Series Airazor

There were a couple of humans too of course, and it was nice to see there wasn’t a romantic/sexual story between them, a refreshing change.  They weren’t annoying either.  And whilst they got a lot of screen time, perhaps for the first time since the 80’s the robots were truly the stars of a Transformers movie.

And speaking of the 80’s, that leads us to…

 

Number #1 – The Transformers: The Movie

A movie so good I had to recreate it in action-figure form

C’mon, you all knew this was coming.  TF:TM remains the high point for many of a franchise nearly 40 years old.  Yes it was a glorified toy commercial.  Yes it was designed to kill off as many old characters as possible so that Hasbro could flog the new toys.  And yes, it sent many children out of the cinema in tears as they watched their beloved Optimus Prime die.

Toy Review: Kingdom Rodimus Prime

But it did SO MUCH.  And it introduced SO MUCH!  A slew of what is considered quintessential to Transformers got it’s start here.  The Matrix of Leadership, Megatron becoming Galvatron, Junkions, Quintessons, Sharkticons, Optimus dying (to one day be resurrected) and so on.  Hot Rod, Kup, Blurr, Arcee, Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, Scourge – all these iconic characters got their start here.  Not to mention Unicron, perhaps the biggest big bad to ever exist in pop fiction ever!  Galactus drains the energy from planets, well our bad guy eats planets and swallows moons whole!

Who became Cyclonus? Skywarp, Bombshell or an Insecticon Clone?

Now this isn’t to say the movie isn’t without flaw, there’s plenty.  Two Cyclonus’, a miscoloured Rumble, Snarl appearing and disappearing randomly, characters that die showing up later etc.  And though I loved it as a kid, the adult in me cringes a bit watching them having a dance off on Junkion.  Hasbro was way too brutal with killing off fan favourite characters, though one could argue this is one of the things that makes the movie so memorable – this was a no-holds barred slaugherfest in places which set it apart from many of the other 80’s toy movies.

Toys Review – Studio Series Hot Rod & Scourge

But damn, there is a reason they are STILL selling toys based directly on this movie 37 years later, its just too good!  It had stellar cast of pop culture icons such as Lenoard Nimoy from Star Trek, Eric Idle from Monty Pythons and a song by Weird Al Yankovic, as well as other big name actors such as Orson Wells himself playing Unicron.  It even managed to make Daniel and Wheelie not annoying (if only S3 of the cartoon had managed such a feat).

Toy Review – HasLab Unicron

Space battles, motorcycle chases, Dinobots, Constructicons, a bad guy the size of a fricken world – it’s amazing they could fit all this into such a short movie.  Throw in a soundtrack which is so 80’s it makes you want to run to the nearest music store to buy an electric guitar to learn such tasty licks, and you’ve got a movie that is still beloved nearly 4 decades later.  Yes, The Transformers: The Movie sits at number #1 as the greatest Transformers movie of all time; it had both the touch and the power.  Heck in spots it even dared to be stupid!  And one suspects will retain its throne for many years to come, until Galvatron gives it a hint at any rate.

Video: Kingdom Galvatron Review

 

So how would you rate the 8 Transformers movies from worst to best?  Similar to myself or completely differently? Pop your list in the comments section below!

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Movie Review – Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

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After a 5 year absence of giant shape changing alien robots in theatres, Transformers Rise of the Beasts has hit cinemas worldwide June 9th.  Thanks to the generosity of Hasbro and Paramount Pictures, some of us lucky folk even got to attend Special Preview Showings on Thursday 8th, being able to quench our thirst for Autobot antics a day early.

Even Mirage got invited to his own flick! Love Hasbro & Paramount putting on these special events!

Warning, this is a Movie Review – so SPOILERS!

One of the main complaints of the live action Transformer films is having to wait around for ages to finally see some robots.  No such complaint can be made here.  One of the main groups of protagonists – The Maximals, and the main antagonists – The Terrorcons and their gigantic master Unicron, are introduced at the outset, setting the stage for much mayhem to come.  We are also introduced to the Allspark Matrix Control Pillar Seed Staff of Merlin Transwarp Key, a… glowy thingie… which will be used as an excuse for robots to travel to Earth, trapse all over the globe and fight each other to obtain it.

I can eat whole planets – but can be defeated by the lack of a glowy thing the size of your forearm

And then of course we transfer to the obligatory human characters and their backstories.  Firstly Noah Diaz, an ex-solider who is about to embark on a life of crime in order to support his younger brother who, I dunno, has a pain in his hand or something.  And Elena Wallace, an undervalued researcher in a museum.  So yes, we have humans but good news – there is no romantic subplot!  That’s right folks, a live action Transformers movie with no romantic awkwardness between teens or overt sexualization of young women – can I get an amen!

We are never scantiy dressed or sexually attracted to each other – are we sure this is a Transformers movie?

Anyways, these humans need to meet the Transformers for the plot to advance, so Noah tries to steal Mirage, police chase ensues, they escape and we get introduced to the bulk of the Autobot cast.  Brooding Optimus & perky Bumblebee, the mainstays of the movie series are on hand with Arcee, returning for her third outing, combining her robot look from the Bumblebee movie with her motorcycle altmode from ROTF.  But its Mirage who takes the staring role both in this scene and for much of the movie (oh thank you, thank you Primus for not making yet another movie all about Bumblebee and Optimus again!).

We are fam-i-ly!

Lets take a look at Mirage shall we.  Originally in Generation One the character was a blue & white Autobot Warrior, a member of the upper class who wants the war over so as to return to his lavish lifestyle on Cybertron, who could turn into an Indy Racer as well as cloak himself with invisibility.

‘A giant robot race car that can cloak? I rock!’

Here he seems to be a pastiche of other G1 Transformer characters.  He has the youthful exuberance of Hot Rod, the altmode of Jazz and the holographic powers of Hound.  That said, at least there is some resemblance to previous incarnations there.

‘You are  really going to enjoy me’

Mirage also seems to be able to turn into anything.  Yes I know that’s the point of Transformers, that they can change their forms, but Mirage can change into most anything on a whim.  In short order he transforms into a Porsche, a Lamborghini and an Indy Racer (in an homage to his G1 counterpart).  Yup, all cars approximating his mass and size, so what’s the problem?  No problem as such yet, but a short time later he transforms into a garbage truck bigger than Prime himself, and near the end an exo-suit for Noah which is not much bigger than the human.  By making Mirage seemingly able to be anything, it waters down the specialness of the transforming ability in general.

Wait, wasn’t I like 100 times bigger only an hour ago in the movie?

It isn’t long before, in pursuit of the glowy key thingie, the Autobots meet the Terrorcons, with much fighting and general violence taking place.  Thankfully for the franchise it learned from Dropkick and Shatter from the last flick as in a few fleshed out bad guys can prove more interesting than an army of generic ones (don’t worry, that happens later too). Scourge, the Terrorcon leader and main Herald of Unicron, is powerful and commanding enough as the main villain, though can’t be said to be breaking new ground – at least he comes with a couple of deployable Freezer minions.  Battletrap is pretty cool, using chains with clamps and wrecking balls on the end in both his modes to hurt his opponents, often using the environment around him to help smash his foes.  Nightbird can fly to provide her group air support, she also produces her signature swords near the end of the movie but doesn’t do much with them.

I will use the one ring to rule you all!

The glowy thingie is found, but oh no!  It got all broke up and now we need to find the second half!  Cue off to Peru, courtesy of Stratosphere, a pretty cool old transport plane character.  They meet up with Pablo Wheeljack who has an idea where the second half may be.  There we see the Autobots actually using their ‘robots in disguise’ moniker by hiding around the city in vehicle mode while the humans do their thing.  Then off to the jungle where the Maximals are hiding out where they are most definitely not robots in disguise.  Don’t get me wrong, they look cool.  But they are all way bigger than the animals they are supposed to be disguised as (the glowing eyes don’t help much either).  Maximals and Autobots team up, get their arses kicked, the glowy thing is put back together and thus the final act is underway.  The transwarp portal is opened, allowing Unicron to come and chow down on Earth.

‘Wait, you can tell that I’m not an Earth-gorilla? How?!’

But things don’t happen that fast.  Despite the transwarp portal castle thing materializing in seconds, it takes a long time for the portal to open enough for Unicron, so even though Airazor is now dead and Bumblebee near death himself, the remaining bots go to stop the portal opening, Optimus and Noah learning the magic of friendship (or something) and trusting each other.  Here we get the big final battle, with all the good guys who survived near dying at some point but never quite managing it, while the bad guys (along with the promised hordes of weaker bad guys to go smashy smashy on) get their comeuppance.  Cue some post battle scenes and that’s a wrap folks.

Movie Review – Bumblebee

So yes, the plot is very formulaic and nothing you haven’t seen in a hundred other flicks.  So is this movie worth watching?

Yes, yes it is!  This is actually to my mind the best live action Transformers movie to date, as well as being the most fun!  The majority of robots are treated like actual characters, receiving their fair share of screen time and character development, not simply murderbots to show up to kill each other between prolonged human scenes.  Speaking of, they finally seem to have struck the right balance for robot-to-human screen time – it’s a Transformers movie with actual Transformers!

We are in the film! We are in the film lots!

The only time I got sick of the squishies was the final battle scene; a huge stunning battle taking place with the Maximals and Autobots fighting the Terrorcons and a legion of their minions while Unicron decends from above, and they halt the action for two full minutes for Noah to have a heart-to-heart with his brother over a walkie-talkie?!  Shut the hell up Noah – we want to see the robots fight!  This did detract from the exo-suit scene for me, as I was all pissed off with Noah ruining the flow, but thankfully times like this in the movie were rare – no 10 minute scenes of Sam Witwicky having a mental meltdown in class, followed by talking about how a kiss had a deisely tinge to it.  The pacing of the movie is spot on, keeping you entertained without things going so fast you don’t know what’s happening, the humour gives you a few genuine laughs without it ever sinking into the gutter, in short this movie seems to have listened to all the fan gripes about the first 5 movies and rectified them, producing a fun and entertaining flick about our favourite giant, shape-changing alien robots!

I give Transformers Rise of the Beasts 9 out of 10 stolen Autobot badges.

You like me, you actually like me

Have you seen this movie?  What did you think of it?  Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Movie Review – Transformers: The Last Knight

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Movie Review – Ghostbusters: Afterlife

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Ghostbusters fans aren’t as hardcore as say those of Star Trek, Star Wars or even Transformers, but they are a loyal bunch.  The 80’s movies, along with the cartoon, are still much beloved and fondly remembered to this day.

Yes I am one of those fans

Many fans had hoped the franchise would be revitalized in 2016 with the new Ghostbusters Movie: Answer the Call.  Instead they got a box-office flop filled with toilet humor and forced jokes, tarnished further with constant social media bickering and cries of ‘misogyny’ whenever anyone dared to criticize the film, whatever their gender.

With this utter failure to revitalize the franchise, many Ghostbusters fans resigned themselves to the idea that Ghostbusters, much like the creatures they hunt, was dead.  But never underestimate the appeal of making more money to Hollywood, and thus in 2021 (a 2022 release here in Australia) we received Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

 

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Unlike Answer the Call, Afterlife is not another reboot attempt but a continuation of the original films universe.  In fact this movie, despite having predominantly an entire new cast, could be best summed up as a 2-hour  love letter to the original 1984 film.  Whilst new viewers will no doubt enjoy the movie, it is very much aimed at existing fans and those hardcore Ghostbusters nuts will spend their time picking up on a thousand Easter Eggs that reference the first Ghostbusters Movie – everything from stacked books to a collection of spores, molds and fungus.

The story center’s around Egon Spengler, one of the original Ghostbusters, who was played by Harold Ramis  and the only star of the first two movies to have passed on.  Egon has become a recluse in an old farmhouse and very early in the movie gets killed by a Hellhound in a way instantly recognizable to fans of the original flick.  Thus to all but the uninitiated one becomes immediately aware of who the main bad guy (or girl – its whatever it wants to be) is going to turn out to be.

From Ghostbuster to Dirt Farmer

Enter Egon’s estranged daughter and her two children.  Being broke and evicted from their home, they have come to sort through Egon’s possessions in the hopes of finding enough items of value to pay off their debts.  Phoebe, the 12 year old daughter, is the star of the show and instantly recognizable as Egon’s granddaughter with her round glasses and odd behavioral patterns.

Over the next hour of the movie we watch Phoebe, guided by whom she soon realises is her grandfather’s invisible ghost, discover her families past and learn the ways of busting, aided by her summer-school teacher and new school-friend Podcast.  Her older brother Trevor meanwhile resurrects Ecto-1 and the busting is back on!  This is a movie of likable characters, all of whom bring something to the story and help the humor and the plot move along nicely.

Nice to see kids actually get outdoors and play!

For those looking for a brand new Ghostbusters experience, they may be somewhat let down.  This movie is very much about the main character discovering her past and uncovering that once again Gozer is looking to conquer Earth.  She hunts ‘Muncher’, whom appears the be the metal-eating version of Slimer, all while uncovering more about her grandfather and how he has been holding Gozer at bay single-handed for many years.  Same equipment, same main bad guys – it is less a new take and more a trip down memory lane.  It is nice to see Ecto-1’s abilities showcased more, now displaying the gunners seat it had in the original 80’s cartoon.

How much would you pay to ride in that seat eh!

The movie culminates in the face off with Gozer, though apparently she forgot to grab herself a Destructor form this time around.  Just when things look lost who shows up – Ray, Peter and Winston!  And when they don’t prove enough Egon’s ghost finally makes a visual appearance and the four originals, along with Phoebe, take Gozer down for good.  Cap it off with an emotional scene with the living Ghostbusters and Egon’s family talking to their departed love one and that’s a wrap folks!

 

As stated at the start of this review, this is a very Egon-centric movie.  Given Harold Ramis is no longer with us the special-effects crew did an astounding job of creating a ghost version of Dr Spengler and it is a very emotional moment when he appears at the films climax.  Yes, I’ll put my hand up that I did have tears in my eyes, even my wife cried too and she’s not the rabid fan I am.  Seeing Venkhman, Zeddemore and Stanz firing their proton packs alongside a spectral Spengler really tugs at the nostalgic heartstrings and one can understand why so many fans have reported leaving the cinema with a lump in their throats.  The movie is not only a love letter to the 1984 Ghostbusters Movie but to Harold Ramis himself, and one could imagine that if ghosts really did exist, then Harold’s ghost would be very moved indeed.

 

Is this movie worth watching?  If you are a fan of the original movies then definitely – it pays homage to everything you loved, though perhaps is the first ever part of the Ghostbusters franchise to lack Slimer even having a cameo.  Whilst the pace of the first half could have been better and it would have been good to see a wider variety of ghosts near the end, this movie ticks all the nostalgic boxes.  If you are hoping for an all-new Ghostbusters experience then you will find this movie entertaining enough, but lacking the depth that hardcore fans will undoubtedly find within it.  If the 2016 movie was more your cup of tea then don’t bother with this film, with no new gimmicks and no subpar slapstick comedy, this movie about a 12-year old girl is probably too mature to entertain.

I give this movie 4 out of 5 proton packs.

Got something to say about this movie?  Pop it in the comments section below!

 

Movie Review: Star Trek Beyond

Movie Review – Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Movie Review – Bumblebee

 

 

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Star Trek V: Kirk vs God

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While I quite like Star Wars – the first three movies made at any rate – I’m much more of a Trekkie.  And like my feelings on Star Wars, I much prefer the original stuff to the new stuff.  Oh there have been some quite good new movies made in both franchises, but it’s the old stuff that revs my engine.

Before Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted, there were 6 Star Trek movies. Admittedly the first one was a dog’s breakfast, an absolute shitshow which even the most die hard Trek fans struggle to like. The others were more well received but there is one that still cops flak – unfairly in my opinion – to this day. And that is Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Or as I like to call it – Kirk vs God.

Back in The Original Series Kirk faced down not only supremely powerful aliens with god-like powers routinely, but even met old gods from Earth like those of the Greek Pantheon.  In these encounters Kirk either had sex with them or beat them up – a winning formula for a Starship Captain on the frontier. 

Kirk: “I don’t care if he is in a dress – I’m not boning this one”

In Star Trek V this attitude of James Tiberius is taken to the extreme.  Let’s look a short synopsis of the plot:

 

*Kirk, Spock and Bones go camping, play with jet-boots and get drunk.

Kirk: “I was pissed and napping. I ain’t getting fully dressed for whatever this is”

*Spock’s half-brother Sybok brainwashes the crew of the Enterprise (bar Kirk & Spock) to fly the Starship to the center of the universe to find God.

*Klingon’s follow as their Commander wants to destroy Kirk since doing so, as his second in command states, it would make him “The greatest warrior in the Galaxy”.

*They find God.  Kirk, Bones, Spock and his brother beam down to a planet and have a chat with him.

God: “Hey, I’m God. I’m all loving, so do as I say or die!”

*Kirk doesn’t like the cut of God’s jib – Kirk thinks God is coming across as a bit of an arsehole.  So since God isn’t female Kirk picks a fight! God, wisely knowing that if he gets into a brawl with Kirk he will get his celestial arse handed to him, shoots at them with energy bolts instead, then has a wrestle with Spock’s brother and kills him.

*Kirk knows God’s cheating with the energy bolts so returns the favour by having The Enterprise shoot God with photon torpedoes. Kirk’s near where the blasts will impact but knows he can withstand it, whilst God himself sustains a nice bit of damage.  Kirk has his friends beamed away so he can finish the fight one-on-one.

*Kirk and God square off.  Before Kirk can headbutt him, the Klingon Bird of Prey spaceship shows up and shoots God in the face, killing him.  The gun then swings towards Kirk.

*Kirk’s pissed off – that was his fight!  So standing there he calls the Klingon’s bastards (despite the fact THE GUN THAT JUST KILLED GOD IS BEING AIMED RIGHT AT HIM!) and challenges the hovering Klingon Battleship to bring it on!

*Just before Kirk can punch on with the battleship he gets beamed up and turns out it was Spock in the Klingon battleship that shot God, as he was the Vulcan equivalent of pissed off at God for killing his brother.

*Everyone gets drunk again.

 

Now to me, that is good cinema.  Oh, besides the camping scene, the first half of the movie is forgettable with Spock’s half-brother running round curing peoples inner pain and whatnot.  And there was plenty of other stuff that probably could have been cut as well.  However the ending is great!

But then… could the ending have been EVEN BETTER?

I think so.  Frankly I wanted to see Kirk and God duke it out.  It might have been one of the few times Kirk was faced with an actual challenge – the two most powerful entities in the universe getting stuck into each other would have looked great on the big screen!  I also would have liked to see Kirk get into a fight with the Klingon Bird of Prey. Would have Kirk’s fists been enough to take down a heavily armed and armoured alien intergalactic battleship?  Personally I have faith they would have been up to the challenge, but I guess now we’ll never know.

Kirk vs Spaceship – lets get ready to rumble!

So yes, while many prefer the later Star Trek shows and movies, with Picard constantly drinking Earl Grey tea and Janeway talking to others about their feelings instead of, you know, making some tough decisions and actually getting her crew home quick, I shall always be a fan of the Original Series. And the last half hour of Star Trek V, where you get to see Kirk face off against the The Almighty himself and put the smack down, should be treasured by all those fans of Trek.

 

God something to say about this classic piece of cinematic history?  Pop it in the comments section below!

 

Related Article:

Movie Review – Star Trek Beyond

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Movie Review – Godzilla: King of the Monsters

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Godzilla. One of the longest running film franchises in history. Dozens of movies with people in rubber suits bashing each other, while the audience tries to believe they are giant monsters near the size of Trypticon.

Over the last 20 years Western film companies have tried to have a crack at portraying the big fella using CGI. There was the terrible 1998 movie with Matthew Broderick (he should have made Ferris Buller and then retired) which was so maligned that no one in the US dared have another go for another 16 years. The 2014 Godzilla movie was better, but out of a 2 hour movie Godzilla was on screen for less than 12 minutes, which irritated fans who wanted to see more of him and less of the other monsters.

So here we are in 2019 and a sequel to the 2014 movie has been made. Godzilla: King of the Monsters, is the third Western-Based Godzilla movie and picks up 5 years after the last film. And something has happened.

Something amazing.

Something incredible!

Something stupendous!

THE WORLD FINALLY HAS A KICK-ARSE GODZILLA MOVIE!

This movie is AWESOME! I mean it is really damn good! No rubber suited monsters bashing into each other like the old days. No drawn out plots where they either totally discard what has come before or else never show you Godzilla. This Godzilla movie is giant monster balls to the wall action from start to finish, leaving the audience happy yet drained after getting such a huge huge monster fix.

 

The Plot

Let’s be frank, any plot in a Godzilla film is simply there to facilitate reasons for giant monsters to fight each other. This film is no different. Godzilla has been lurking under the ocean for the last 5 years, monitored by Monarch. Monarch is a worldwide organization that monitors Titans (giant monsters). All are asleep bar Godzilla, and Mothra who is just beginning to hatch and go into her larval stage. Without going into painful detail about all the things that happen in a two hour movie the synopsis is that one of the scientists has figured out how to communicate with Titans via a box that makes noises they respond to – The Orca. She then goes nuts with a bunch of other nutters and goes around the world trying to wake them all up so that they can ‘restore the natural order’ that humanity has stuffed up.

This plan goes (predictably) wrong. They wake up Ghidorah, who it turns out is not part of the natural order (being from space and everything) who as an Alpha wakes up all the other Titans on his own terms, via sonic noises, and orders them to start destroying the world, essentially terraforming it for his own needs. Of course Godzilla, being the other Alpha, doesn’t take kindly to this and lots of fights ensure.

Plenty of other stuff in the movie involving human families and governments and history, but honestly the above is really all you need to know.

 

The Visuals

F*cking superb! None of this crap where the monsters are hidden in fog or smoke or behind a building half the time. There are right out there where you can see them and they are BIG. I don’t think any Godzilla movie has portrayed such a sense of scale before! Godzilla is that big that destroyed aircraft wreckage lands on his shoulder like a speck of dirt and he doesn’t even notice. Ghidorah is f*cking MASSIVE! And looks friggin scary as! If I had been one of the humans in that movie my mantra would have been “Let’s get to the other side of the planet and hide under the biggest rock we can find right f*cking now!” The special effects are done excellently too, mainly portrayed as the different energy blasts the Titans aim at each other, but it’s certainly the CGI monsters that steal the show.

 

The Sound Effects

Ya gotta love that Godzilla’s roar has hardly changed over the last 70 years. Think of the roar from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park but dialled up to 11. Thankfully the noises made by the other monsters such as Ghidorah and Mothra have been updated and sound appropriate to creatures that size, rather than random keys on a synthesizer. Big, loud, deafening, that’s what one should expect from a movie like this and that is what you get.

 

The Lore

Now I am one of those geeks that actually knows a great deal of the Godzilla lore. And this movie has really done its best to keep faithful to what has come before. Yes it’s ridiculous lore but it’s about giant monsters so if you don’t like it – what did you expect? Everything from a Mothra being reborn/hatched when the previous one dies, Godzilla feeding on nuclear power and Ghidorah being able to regenerate heads and coming from space – it’s all faithful to what has come before. The only new thing for a classic character added is Rodan being born of fire – he comes out of a volcano with smoking wings and even appears to have some kind of heated plasma for blood. But given in the past all he was was a flying lizard, it’s quite a nice addition for him. There are also some new Titans on the scene in very minor roles, which adds to the ever expanding creature cast list for the franchise.

 

So worth a watch?

Hells yes it is! I’d say this is the best Godzilla movie ever made by far! But it still isn’t perfect by any stretch. The pacing is great with the exception of a prolonged sequence where Monarch try to revive Godzilla later in the movie – this could have easily been cut to save 20 unnecessary minutes. There was a bit too much human interest in the final fight scenes – it detracts from the action by constantly cutting to them trying to save a main characters daughter, when at this point you really just wanna watch the monsters fight. The Orca plot device is relied upon too heavily as well, too much of what happens in the movie is based around a machine that looks like it should be sat on the back seat of a Delorian.

But these are minor quibbles. This is what a Godzilla movie is meant to be! Brilliant action sequences of giant monsters squaring off and that is what you get. No waiting for an hour for them to put in an appearance, it gets going pretty quick and from that point on pretty often. Mothra and Rodan are both done very well; it speaks to the size of this movie that Rodan, who not only takes out dozens of fighter jets  by performing an aerial spin, but completely decimates a city simply by flying over it, is definitely a supporting player. It now remains to be seen if the third movie which is slated to come out next year, where Godzilla versus Kong, has a hope of comparing to the catastrophic creature carnage that this flick gives you in spades.

Go get your Zilla on baby! And watch out for Ghidorah – he’s one bad Mothra F*cka!

 

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Movie Review – Tremors 6: A Cold Day in Hell

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Tremors.  A flick about big monster worms that come out from under the ground and eat people.

That’s what most people think of when you mention a Tremors movie.  What most people don’t know is that it isn’t just the one movie – there have been 4 sequels, a prequel and even a season-long TV series! 

Tremors is actually one of the few Sci-Fi series that never seems to contradict itself.  There is a coherency throughout all its iterations, ranging from the evolution of the Graboids (the big underground man-eating worms) to the the individual human story arcs, even the very minor characters.  Plus the movies are just damn fun!

A ‘chick flick’ this is not

For my money Tremors 1 & 2 were by far the best of the flicks, and incidentally the only movies to get cinema release.  The next three were all straight-to-DVD releases and whilst good (especially Number 4 which was the prequel) none quite captured the fun of the first two.  Today we will be looking at the latest instalment in the Tremors franchise Tremors 6: A Cold Day in Hell.

 

The story starts off, as you can imagine, with a Graboid attack!  What makes this attack unique among all those featured in previous films is that it takes place in the snow, specifically a glacial area in Canada.  And when Graboids attack, who do you call for?  Burt Gummer – that’s who!

Have gun – will reluctantly travel

Burt Gummer (played by Michael Gross) is by far the star of the Tremors series, the only character to have appeared in all six films (though it was his ancestor in the prequel) as well as the TV series.  Burt is a jaded survivalist gun nut who likes living in Perfection Nevada because of its very low human population (and those that do live there often get eaten anyway) and its remoteness making it hard for the Government to interfere with him.

By the 6th movie, Burt is the only resident left in Perfection and is living in the run down remains of the town store.  However a visit from firstly a taxman saying Burt is about to lose what little he has, then one of the Canadian researchers along with Burt’s illegitimate son Travis (introduced in Tremors 5) prompts Mr Gummer back into action.

And from here the plot is really like all other Tremors films.  There are Graboids to deal with along with the occasional Ass-Blaster (another stage of the Graboid life-cycle first introduced in Tremors 3).  The Ass-Blasters retain their upgraded CGI look from T5 as do the Graboids – personally I thought both looked better before the reimagining, especially the Ass-Blasters which had previously resembled avian versions of Shriekers (another Graboid life-phase).  I would have liked to see some Shriekers included since its been a while since they were trotted out.  Gone is the concept of the Graboids three serpent-like tongues being detachable (T5) which personally I found to be out of line with established Graboid evolution (yes, I AM that much of a fan), however the tongues have retained their new power of sight (also introduced in T5) – you see one sneaking through a window to grab a lady and others dodging machete blows from Travis.

Ass-Blaster or Galgamex vagina?

There are minor plot lines contained within.  For instance Burt is slowly dying of a parasite he got from being eaten alive by a Graboid (T3) and needs liquid from a live Graboid in order to be healed.  There are DARPA agents that intend to bio-engineer Graboids into weapons and so on.  One of the key researchers, Valerie McKee, turns out to be the daughter of the two main characters from the very first movie.  But all of this is background noise to what is essentially another movie along the lines of a ‘Don’t move!  They sense vibration through the ground!’ mentality of your standard human versus Graboid movie we all expect.

Michael Gross and a bunch of actors you probably wont see in the 7th flick

Is this movie worth a watch?  Well if you are a fan of the series then of course!  Michael Gross does a stellar job as Burt Gummer yet again and there are monsters galore to shoot or be devoured by.  However if you are looking for something new here that you haven’t seen before from the franchise you will be disappointed.  Besides at the beginning of the film there are not even any action sequences in the snow, the remainder of the storyline takes place in a dry ‘hot spot’ which exists within the otherwise snowy landscape.

In short this film adds to the storyline of the human characters involved in Perfection but there is nothing new monster-wise and it lacks the fun and character of the first two movies.  However for those loyal followers of the series, it is at least another 90-minutes of Gummer fun.

 

Now take two teaspoons of cement and harden the hell up!

Got anything to say about this movie?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!

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Movie Review – My Little Pony

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My Little Pony, much like its boyish counterpart – The Transformers, has a generations spanning popularity.  Despite the 5 to 12 age range on the boxes, just as Transformers is not just for little boys, My Little Pony is not just for little girls.  And now, like The Transformers, My Little Pony has hit the big screen!

My daughters wall

Now let me start off by saying I know waaaay more about MLP than any self-respecting 40 year old male should.  As the househusband I watch it with my two kids when it comes on TV at 8.30am every morning after their mother goes to work. In fact I probably know almost every episode from Season 4 onwards off by heart!    Whilst my daughter loves Fluttershy and my son and wife both love Pinkie Pie, I’m most definitely a Rarity man, whom I find really sexy amusing, especially when she throws a drama queen fit.  I also really like DJ Pon3 for some reason, she is just so cool!  The cartoon itself is really well done, it’s thoroughly amusing on many levels and I defy anyone to watch the 100th episode special from season 5 and not crack up laughing!  Fantastic battle scenes, great music, an interesting and ever expanding cast – in fact I can confidently say it’s probably one of the best kids cartoons out there today.  As such I was hoping for a lot from the movie when I took my family to see it …

 

But it looked so cheerful!

… but sadly it did not deliver.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s certainly not a bad movie.  But if you are familiar with the cartoon this feels like they have watered it down for the movie rather than beefing it up.  A good way would be to compare them to ice cream.  The cartoon is triple-raspberry swirl with rainbow sprinkles – delicious and exciting!  The movie is a bowl of vanilla – certainly nice enough and you may even want a second helping but you aren’t going to rave about it to your friends.

The storyline is very formulaic, but given the target audience for this flick that is forgivable.  All the ponies are gathered for a giant party being organised by the heroine of the show Twilight Sparkle, when the bad guys turn up, capture the other 3 Princesses of Equestria and enslave the Pony race. Cue Twilight and her friends escaping, meeting new comrades in their search for help, then returning to defeat the big bad, turn an enemy into a friend (cause Friendship is Magic dontcha know) and bring freedom back to the land.  I think even most young kids, whom this movie is primarily aimed at, could predict what would happen next in a very by-the-numbers plot.

 

Sadly, everything that happens feels like a sanitized version of the cartoon, designed to have the broadest appeal by ‘playing it safe’ .  The one argument between friends (Twilight finally after all these years gets a gutful of Pinkie Pie) is very short and undramatic, as opposed to some of the larger Rarity & Applejack spats from television.  Likewise the music, which should be a major highlight in a movie like this, lacks punch and is not particularly catchy.  The 2014 Equestria Girls Rainbow Rocks has far superior music that sticks in the head and keeps you humming for days.  The animation, which given the world the storyline is set in had the potential to dazzle, suffers from bland backgrounds, though these are necessitated by the storyline sending the ponies through deserts and other sparse locals.  Tempest Shadow is a pretty cool bad guy with her sparking broken horn and is rounded out fairly well on the whole.  However her boss, The Storm King, is a predictable character who is frankly neither scary or amusing, despite the writers trying to portray him as both.

 

There is not much character development here.  Given the cartoon is in its seventh season perhaps it was felt there is not much more for the 7 stars of the show to grow into.  It would have been nice for the girls to at least use their different abilities in significant ways to aid the plot.  Rarity’s entire contribution consists of performing a 2 second fix on a coat, earning them a friend in a roguish cat which in turn ends up giving Spike his only interesting thing to do in the movie – being used by said cat as a flamethrower.  Rainbow Dash awakens the buccaneering spirit of some air pirates, but her signature sonic-rainboom does nothing but give their position away to the bad guys.  Applejack and Fluttershy sadly bring nothing at all to the plot and in fact the movie could have easily been done without them.  None of the characters really engage in the kind of humorous banter that makes the cartoon so funny and don’t really bounce off each other, mainly they just react to events and – in the case of Fluttershy at least – look scared.

(my t-shirt) Should have just let these two handle the problem

The two stars of the movie from the regular cast are Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle.  Pinkie serves as the anchor of the group, being too silly-headed to have her spirit brought low by the various precarious predicaments. Meanwhile Twilight allows herself to lose hope but in the end, predictably, uses the spirit of Friendship to win Tempest Shadow over the side of good and defeat The Storm King.

 

So is this movie worth watching?  Well again, it’s like a bowl of vanilla ice cream.  You will enjoy it but you will soon forget you consumed it afterwards.  I laughed out loud a couple of times but sadly my two young kids never did.  Given the price of a movie ticket these days you can easily wait for this to be released on DVD and in the meantime get your MLP on with the brilliant cartoon instead.

One day Rarity my sweet, one day we will be together!

This movie gets 3 out of 5 party cannons.

 

 

Got something to say about this movie?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!

 

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