Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) Movie

Spunky human hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) returns to save the day for the third time alongside his Autobot buddies, led by big rig badass Optimus Prime. Now out of college (courtesy of a Government-paid Ivy League education — he did save the world twice before, after all, it’s the least they could do), Sam has landed a prestigious job … in the mailroom of a company run by the (of course) eccentric John Malkovich. Oh yeah, Sam’s also got a new girlfriend, British beauty Carly (Victoria’s Secret supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, effortlessly standing in for the fired Megan Fox; standing around looking hot isn’t exactly brain surgery, after all), who works for a smarmy, high-flying playboy played by one of those dreamy doctors from those soap opera doctor shows what’s-his-name.

As “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” opens, we get a revisionist take on the events leading to the moon landing by Neil Armstrong and the boys. JFK’s reasons for going to the moon, we learn, was actually the crash-landing of a Transformers spaceship on the lunar rock. Fast-forward to the present, where Optimus Prime and the Autobots are continuing to root out Decepticons wherever they find them; the good machines are working alongside faithful Army guy Lennox (Josh Duhamel), now head of a not-so-secret Autobot-human task force housed inside a building that, it seems, everyone knows about. But the Decepticons, still led by a ravaged Megatron (who has definitely seen better days) have a plan, and it involves an ancient Autobot that has been trapped on the moon all this time — Sentinel Prime, Optimus’ mentor and former leader of the Autobots, thought long lost. Soon, the Decepticons have launched their latest scheme, which if successful, would enslave mankind. That’s Decepticons for ya — it’s always go big or go home with these guys.

Announced early on as the last film on the franchise for both director Michael Bay and star Shia LaBeouf, “Dark of the Moon” certainly feels like a swan song by the duo. It’s a loud, funny, and even at over two and a half hours, manages to be a breezy sci-fi action movie stitched together with an obscene amount of spectacular action set pieces involving elaborate robot action and outrageous humans vs. robots battles. After two movies that have combined to make over $1.5 billion dollars in global box office, it’s easy to imagine that Bay and company were given a blank check and unlimited resources with which to spin their latest robot invasion yarn. Certainly, they had enough money and gumption and Hollywood know-how to turn the city of Chicago into a battlefield that occupies the film’s entire Third Act, essentially one giant action set piece that runs for nearly a whole breathless hour.

There is only enough “story” to drive the film from one action scene to the next, but really, if you’re paying your money to see deep narrative plot points from a movie about robots from outer space that can transform into cool looking sports cars and that like to fight each other at every opportunity, you are seriously in need of some clinical help. The early parts of the film are devoted to Sam and his new life with new ladylove Carly, and Bay and screenwriter Ehren Kruger certainly don’t miss every opportunity to take shots at their former leading lady. Let’s just say Megan Fox should probably not attend opening night of “Dark of the Moon”. As with the previous two films, the comedy comes in the form of some joke-cracking robots that run around in the background, serving no real purpose other than comedy relief (and thankfully, these comedy reliefs have been stripped off any possible “ethnicity”, if you know what I mean). Sam’s miserable post-college life (hot as heck girlfriend notwithstanding) lends itself to some nice gags, including a hilarious series of doomed job interviews that concludes in front of John Malkovich, hamming it up as Sam’s unhinged employer. “The Hangover’s” Ken Jeong also lends his usual kookiness as a fellow officemate of Sam’s who knows a secret or two about the fighting robots.

As “Transformers” movies go, “Dark of the Moon” is definitely bigger and a hell of a lot more violent than the previous two movies combined. The alien robots are apparently common knowledge in the world now, and the Autobots seem to roam freely, mixing it up with their Decepticon rivals at every opportunity — on highways, freeways, city blocks, and basically trashing up the planet every other 30 minutes. Frances McDormand joins the cast as a Government suit named Mearing who is both amusing and annoying, but all awesome. Another great addition is “Firefly’s” Alan Tudyk, playing a character name Dutch, a former spy badass turned personal executive assistant to John Turturro’s ex-spook. When Megatron launches his latest plan for world conquest, it involves what appears to be the wholesale slaughter of Chicago’s citizenry, with civilians vaporized throughout the movie by hulking machines with hulking weaponry. In some instances, I thought I was watching Steven Spielberg’s remake of “War of the Worlds” all over again.

If “Dark of the Moon” is indeed Bay’s last movie on the franchise, he’s certainly going out with one hell of a bang. The film moves at such a fast clip that it’s liable to keep you breathless, with a great balance of comedy and action and heroics and unbelievable action set pieces. Really, Bay has outdone himself here, and while narratively speaking “Dark of the Moon” isn’t too much of an improvement over “Revenge of the Fallen” (but then again, I’m one of the few people who didn’t think that movie was an unmitigated disaster), he doesn’t seem to have lost any of his love for the fighting robots one bit. And finally, it’ll be interesting to see if the producers will be able to rope LaBeouf back as Sam Witwicky for future installments (because let’s face it, there WILL be more installments), especially since at this point he has so perfectly embodied Earth’s savior and best friend of the transforming good guy robots that it’ll be hard to see anyone standing in for him. But as long as the fighting robots return, more “Transformers” movies will always be ready for the making. And last I heard, Optimius Prime, Bumblebee, and the rest of these guys don’t have agents to re-negotiate their contracts. Yet.

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Romantic Heaven (2011) Korean

Jang Jin, director of wonderfully offbeat films like “Guns and Talks”, “Murder, Take One”, and more recently “The Quiz Show Scandal”, returns with another equally hard to pigeonhole offering in “Romantic Heaven”. Although its premise may sound suspiciously sentimental, dealing with a variety of characters and their relationships in both life and the afterlife, the film is very much in line with Jang’s previous works, being deliciously oddball and imaginative. As ever, the director assembled a top notch cast, including Kim Su Ro (“Death Bell 2”), Kim Dong Wook (“Take Off”), Shim Eun Kyung (“Hansel and Gretel”), Lim Won Hee (“Officer of the Year”) and others.

The film basically plays out as three stories about people facing up to the deaths of loved ones, with Mimi (Kim Ji Won) trying to track down a bone marrow donor for her dying mother, and becoming involved in a murder investigation by accident, while a recently bereaved lawyer called Min Gyu (Kim Su Ro) tries to get over the death of his wife, and taxi driver Ji Wook (Kim Dong Wook) attempts to look after his Alzheimers suffering grandfather, while tracing his long lost first love. Slowly but surely, the characters cross paths as their stories come together, as part of a bigger picture which reveals truths about their lives and the fragility of the human condition in general.

It’s kind of a shame that “Romantic Heaven” has such a sappy title and DVD artwork, as there’s far more to the film than generic romance and melodrama. Like all of Jang Jin’s films, it defies easy categorisation and benefits from a complex, well written script that works on a number of different levels and combines elements of several different genres, including love story, comedy, drama, ghost and even police thriller. Its various stories are expertly intertwined, and none play out quite as expected, with many of Jang’s trademark leftfield twists and turns along the way to keep things fun. As usual, he peppers the film with a stream of strange and seemingly random little moments that help to give it a unique and playful feel, his direction fun, polished and well paced throughout.

This having been said, Jang doesn’t neglect the emotional aspects of the premise, and the film is essentially an offbeat drama about love and loss, rather than actual romance. The film does a very good job of honestly depicting a variety of different loves and different scenarios, whilst at the same time dealing with more harsh truths of grief and healing. The film is quietly moving in places, avoiding the usual clichés of the genre, and although it does get a little much during the final act when it brings together its narrative threads, it’s still a winning mixture of the bitter and the sweet, even if its soundtrack does tend to soar and swell somewhat alarmingly. The characters themselves are well written and their bonds are mostly believable as a result, with Jang bringing them together in a way which though often reliant on coincidence is still engaging. This sense of fate sits well with some of the script’s big schemes, and in this respect it’s actually quite a brave film, going so far as to show heaven, complete with angels and God himself (played by veteran actor Lee Soon Jae), all depicted with fun and light-hearted touches.

These and other ideas help “Romantic Heaven” to succeed as a somewhat eccentric, though consistently engaging and very human take on the mysteries of life, death and love. Jang Jin again proves himself one of the most talented and interesting Korean directors, and one who will always be worth watching, no matter which genre(s) he chooses to play in.

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The Hangover: Part II

It’s two years since the events of The Hangover, in which mismatched groomsmen Phil (Cooper), Stu (Helms) and Alan (Galifianakis) manage to lose their friend Doug (Bartha) after a raucous Vegas bachelor party which none of them can remember. Flash forward to the present day and it’s Stu’s turn to get hitched – except he’s taking no chances with his wedding to Thai bride (not like that) Lauren (Jamie Chung). His stag do consists of a pancake breakfast before the wedding party leaves for Thailand, and Stu is determined that even with Doug’s socially stunted brother-in-law Alan tagging along once again, nothing will be allowed to go wrong.

Naturally, nothing is exactly what doesn’t go wrong. The next morning, Phil, Stu and Alan awake in a seedy Bangkok hotel room – Doug’s safely back at the resort, but Lauren’s little brother Teddy (Mason Lee) is nowhere to be found. Very much in evidence, however, are a monkey with a denim jacket, Stu’s monstrous new facial tattoo and Alan’s shaved scalp – not to mention a collection of muzzy heads and a distinct ignorance of anything that happened to the ‘Wolfpack’ the previous night. The race is on to work out what the boys did in Vegas Bangkok and where they left Doug Teddy, so they can get back home to the resort in time for Doug’s Stu’s wedding. Also, Mr Chow is there. Also, why the is there a baby monkey? Also, Mike Tyson. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

The film’s setting defines almost everything about it – gangsters, fighting monks, ladyboys and human ping-pong ball dispensers all abound in a squint-and-it’s-not-racist whistlestop tour of, as Alan grandly puts it, “the Asiatic peoples”. Having said that, Phillips and co do make the most of the huge variety of locations at their disposal; the boys stagger from back-alley brothel to high-rise hotel via monasteries, street cafés and bustling markets, with otherwise gratuitous trips in cycle rickshaws and punts thrown in to cement the admittedly well constructed sense of disorientation which pervades their adventure. Cooper and Helms return to their roles with gusto, although Galifianakis’ expanded part just gives him more opportunities to stick in your teeth – however, he’s diluted by a number of well-timed cameos including appearances from Nick Cassavetes and Paul Giamatti. Farewell, Mel Gibson, we hardly knew ye…

If you really enjoyed The Hangover and have suffered amnesia since 2009, you are going to bloody love The Hangover: Part II; the two films are, to all intents and purposes, identical. The sequel’s main advantage is that the lead characters were all nicely defined in the previous film, so there’s no need to spend any time setting up the situation – everyone’s exactly as you remember them, and everything’s going to unfold exactly as you expect it to. That’s fine if it’s what you want – everyone likes to switch off occasionally, and The Hangover series was evidently written for a target audience languishing in a PVS – but even after two films the format is getting tired. Go if you want, laugh at the obligatory revolting photographs during the credits and wince when a whole pig gets smashed up by a Toyota Corolla, but don’t buy the DVD. Please don’t buy the DVD. If you do, I suspect there’ll be a threequel – and a third outing for this already sickly-looking horse can only end in corpse-flogging.

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The Smurfs (2011)

One of the safest, non-offending children's films I have seen in a long, long time. It hardly evokes a reaction due to the fact it doesn't even try to evoke a reaction. Outside of a couple of funny one-liners, a bit of fun had with Hank Azaria as Gargamel and the annoying "la, la, la, la, la, la" of the little CG Smurfs, there's nothing to takeaway.

Utilizing the narrative last used by Disney's Enchanted, we begin in a land of fantastical beings. In this case we meet the three-apples-high Smurfs as they go about their daily lives, hidden in the forest from the evil wizard Gargamel who wants to capture them and extract their "Smurf essence" (yeah, this film is rife with innuendo) and become the most powerful wizard in all the land. Problem for Gargamel is he can't find their mushroom village. Not his fault, it's protected by Papa Smurf's invisibility shield. Boom, score one for the Smurfs.
Fortunately for Gargamel, there's Clumsy Smurf (voiced by Anton Yelchin) who accidentally leads the wizard back to the Smurf village while he's out picking some Smurf root. The resulting chase scene ends in a wet and wild ride through a magical portal that sends Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters), Gutsy Smurf (Alan Cumming), Brainy Smurf (Fred Armisen), Grouchy Smurf (George Lopez), Clumsy Smurf and the ever so tantalizing Smurfette (Katy Perry) to Central Park. But watch out! Gargamel and his cat Azrael are right behind them and the chase continues throughout Manhattan as Papa searches for a way home and Gargamel searches for Smurfs. Smurfin' nuts… amirite?

The Smurfs ultimately end up in the hands of Patrick and Grace Winslow played by Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays, the latter of which for some reason has a problem speaking like an adult. As for Patrick, he was just handed the executive advertising position at a cosmetics company, which is run by a tyrant played by Sofia Vergara ("Modern Family"), and you better believe he's on a deadline for a new campaign. 48 hours? What the what? Hmmmm, I wonder if Clumsy will mess things up, or will Patrick learn a valuable lesson? Or both? The tension is killing me!

So the whole group — Smurfs, wizards and humans — runs around the city in search of whatever they may need to keep the plot moving forward all while posing for advertising tie-ins for the likes of Blu-ray and the Blue Man Group (you know, because Smurfs are blue and it's free money) as well as Wacom, Guitar Hero, FAO Schwartz and M&Ms (again, free money). When the product placement stops, Gargamel points out how Papa Smurf has 99 sons and one daughter and sarcastically adds, "Yeah, because that's not weird"; Patrick points out that just because the Smurfs are named after their most dominant trait it doesn't mean that's all they are; and Smurfette stands over a vent which results in her dress going over her head (no pervert, they don't show it). So if you thought you would be walking into a film without deep morality lessons, guess again.

Still, having said all that, The Smurfs is a movie that's just as impossible to hate as it is to like. In fact, it's too safe to have any real feelings toward. The curious thing, is how do you judge such a movie? With recent kid fare such as Mr. Popper's Penguins and Zookeeper there was plenty to harp on. The Smurfs doesn't fall into the cliched traps of stupidity those films mined, but that's only because it seems to be actively avoiding them to the point it does absolutely nothing to offend or entertain.

Smurfs director, Raja Gosnell, is probably best known for bringing Scooby-Doo to the big screen and seems destined to hack out similar features for the rest of his career. His last film before this was Beverly Hills Chihuahua, a film more along the Popper's Penguins and Zookeeper lines. By comparison, it seems with The Smurfs he finally decided that if he can't make a film that will please everyone, he'll make one that won't please anyone, and he'll do it in such a way you hopefully won't have too many bad things to say. Success!

In the end, it's a movie titled The Smurfs and it delivers on its title's promise. There are Smurfs in this smurfin' thing, but if a Smurf is in a movie and nobody cares to smurf it, did it really smurf and is it really a movie?

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Thor 2011

If, like John Cleese in the classic Monty Python sketch, you’re an avid consumer of fermented curd (albeit of the cinematic variety), only to find that there are no cheesy comestibles to be had, you may be in for a similar disappointment with Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, the latest in Marvel’s self-financed superhero flicks. At first glance, all the ingredients for a cheddar convention to rival the likes of Flash Gordon are there — ginormous sets, larger-than-life characters (one of whom has a blond barnet any page-three stunna would kill for) with ridiculous names and powers to match. But Thor is too knowing to stock up on the movie mozzarella. What it is, though, is tremendous fun, and further proof that Marvel Studios knows how to handle its back catalogue.

He’s a tricky one, the Odinson. Unlike Iron Man, Hulk or Captain America, he’s a god. An actual god, with awe-inspiring powers and a rich back story. There’s a lot to get through, and this is the sort of material that has to be handled with the utmost care, lest it go in any number of directions: pompous, cheesy or, most damaging of all, unintentionally hilarious. Things could go from bad to Norse.  Thor plunges you straight in, following a pre-credits stint in New Mexico, to a dense 30-minute sequence in Asgard where we meet all the major players — Thor, his dark-haired brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), their father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) — and the notion that these extraordinarily powerful beings have been at war with a race of Frost Giants. And not only is it done with a straight face, but the sweep of the material, with vast tracking shots through stunning Asgardian landscapes, is by far the biggest thing Marvel has attempted; this is fantasy on a cosmic scale.  It’s bewildering at times, condensing nearly 50 years of comic history with a speed that can mean characters are paid scant lip service. You suspect there’s a lot of material on the cutting-room floor — Rene Russo, as Thor’s mother Frigga (stop sniggering), might want to have a word with her agent, while the core relationship, between Thor and Loki, doesn’t really get going for a while.  When it does, though, as Loki manipulates the esurient Thor into defying his father’s orders, kicking Frost Giant butt and ultimately getting the heave-ho from Asgard, it’s powerful stuff. After Marvel set Branagh to direct — another leftfield choice to go with Jon Favreau, Joe Johnston, Joss Whedon and Shane Black — you sensed that their model was the Bond films, with tech gurus (in this case, the mighty Vic Armstrong) ensuring the bells and whistles were up to scratch, while the directors bring their own skill-sets to bear. And when it comes to making Shakespearean material — and the relationship between Thor, Loki and Odin positively reeks of the Bard — work on the big screen, Branagh has no equal.  So as father and sons square off against each other, it’s heady stuff, the three H’s attacking the material, and each other with fury and intensity straight from the West End stage. In one scene, Hiddleston’s Loki, a complex and surprisingly layered villain, confronts Odin about his true origins. It’s intimate and affecting, yet as thundering and loud as you’d imagine gods would be. Then, once you’re up to speed, the film yanks Thor off to the modern day and tackles the thorny issue of his near-omnipotence by separating him, and his powers, from his enchanted hammer, Mjolnir. There’s a neat tonal shift, as human beings meet Thor (and, later, in the film’s funniest moment, the Warriors Three and Sif) and find everything he does or says ridiculous. Here, Hemsworth — the Australian actor who impressed so much with his one-scene cameo in Star Trek as Kirk’s doomed dad — comes into his own, adding new layers of humility and humour to his blustering God Of Thunder. At one point, Thor fights off hospital orderlies with an outraged, “You DARE attack the son of Odin?!?”. The fish out of water stuff works like a charm. Hemsworth emerges from this a true star, adept at action, good with comedy, swell at the romantic stuff with Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster (there’s a romantic streak a mile wide here) and cut like Kate Middleton’s engagement rock.  In fact, you’re instantly intrigued by the prospect of seeing Hemsworth on screen with Robert Downey Jr. (and Chris Evans) in next year’s The Avengers. Marvel copped flak for turning Iron Man 2 into essentially an extended trailer for its big gamble, and has clearly learned a lesson. Yes, SHIELD is involved. Yes, Jeremy Renner shows up for one spectacularly pointless scene as the ace archer, Hawkeye. But Thor, ultimately, stands on its own two feet. We’ll toast that with a glass of mead and a feast fit for a king. Hold the cheese.