Transformers

Transformers
Director: Michael Bay
140 minutes
2.39:1


It’s the cars. Chicks and dicks love the cars.

In a time where original ideas do not sell in Hollywood, the move to greenlight Transformers was not surprising at the time. Like many other TV properties, the animated series that was first aired in 1984 has a built-in audience of boys and girls. That same group of people grew up to be men and women with sizeable disposable incomes. Hollywood loves built-in audience but will the audience love Transformers? Yes they will.


Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is trying hard to get the teenage American dream – a hot car and a hot babe. Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) is certainly hot but not his babe. So Sam is hell-bent on trying to change that with the help of his own ride. Ron Witwicky (Kevin Dunn) however is not helping much, buying his son a beat-up yellow ’74 Camaro as a present instead.

Meanwhile somewhere in Qatar, Army Captain William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Staff Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson) of the Special Forces Rangers have just returned from a mission. They are expecting a quiet night in when an unidentified bogey lands on their base and launches an attack without provocation and warning. The men have to find a way to stay alive and tell their incredible story to the Pentagon.


Having Michael Bay helm any movie does not inspire confidence. However, with a solid producing team behind him including Lorenzo di Bonaventura of Shooter, Tom DeSanto of the X-Men series and Ian Bryce of Saving Private Ryan and of course executive producer Steven Spielberg, Bay’s effort here works staggeringly well. There are his trademark twirling camera moves and bleached contrast look, but that can be forgiven when his kinetic style is matched by the cinematic battles in the film. Director of photography Mitchell Amundsen frames his shots amazingly to create thrilling and beautiful moments.

Smartly the core of the story belongs to the human beings and how they must cope with the arrival of the Autobots and the Decepticons. Most of the dialogues between the characters are simple but convincing. The opening monologue and some later scenes are expositionally heavy, however that is unavoidable for a sci-fi fantasy film. Credit for the screenplay goes to Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, based on the story by John Rogers, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Editors Paul Rubell, Glen Scantlebury and Thomas A. Muldoon manage to capture the essence of Bay and elevate it. While some locations have been used by Bay himself in his other films, production designer Jeff Mann successfully created other visually-interesting sets as well as securing roads, highways and the Hoover Dam for the action sequences.


The transforming sequences are Transformers geeks and fans’ wet dreams come true. It is spectacularly well done! From the transformation and the animation to the composition of the CGIs with practical effects and human actors, these sequences are simply jaw dropping. Nothing in these shots looked fake. Kudos to the VFX team specifically ILM that did the bulk of the CGI work and Digital Domain, as well as the practical effects team at KNB EFX Group for creating the illusion of mass carnage.

The sound design and mixing team complemented the visuals with an incredible and inventive work. Just like the VFX, the sound mix is a joy to listen to. The voices of the Autobots and Decepticons sound better than ever. Not forgetting are the pumping bass from the guns, the many explosions, the choppers and the fighter jets. The action sequences are simply sonic orgasms! Sound designer and editor Ethan Van Der Ryn, a Lord Of The Rings alumni, and his team should be proud of themselves. Both the VFX and the sound crews should expect an Oscar nod next year.


The cast played it straight as they should, given that this is no cheesy B-grade movie. LaBeouf gave another engaging and likeable performance, critical to ground the movie for non-Transformers audiences. Fox is a beautiful young actress and hopefully she will bloom into a solid performer. Dunn and Julie White as Judy Witwicky are a great comedic pair. Rachael Taylor as Maggie Madsen, Anthony Anderson as Glen Whitmann, Jon Voight as Defense Secretary John Keller and John Turturro as Agent Simmons round up the rest of the live-action cast that provide another subplot and half of the comic relief to the story.

The voice cast for the Autobots and Decepticons are well cast. However the actors don’t have much dialogue in the film. This cast is led by Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime and Hugo Weaving as Megatron.


With the right creative team, an okay concept can turn out to be a great film. That is what happens with Transformers. Both fans and non-fans alike will like the movie as well as movie-goers of all sexes and ages. It has a winning combo of cars, robots, action and good looking casts. This will be the summer movie to beat this year.

Fast cars are skin deep but Transformers is more than meets the eye.

Die Hard 4.0

Die Hard 4.0
Director: Len Wiseman
125 minutes
2.39:1

The following review has been rated R.

Unlike Hollywood series of the 1920s and 1930s, not many modern film franchises go beyond three with the same lead actor. Finding the right spark that made the first film popular is hard to begin with. Doing it beyond two sequels is really fucking hard. To get to number four, both the actor and character must have a great bond with the audience. Bruce Willis and John McClane in the Die Hard franchise are it.


16 years have gone by and John McClane (Bruce Willis) is still an NYPD cop. He’s mostly content to read the Miranda act to Lucy Gennarro’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) dates. Enter Matt Farrell (Justin Long), a white hat (good hacker) who had just uploaded a program to an unknown client. This algorithm is meant to test secure networks. Before you can even type U R PWNED!, the FBI cyber intelligence system is hacked and the Feds are pissed as fuck.

Director Bowman (Cliff Curtis) sends local detectives across the nation to track down all the black and white hats for questioning. That is how John and Matt meet and they soon discover a group of terrorists led by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) is the cause of it all.


Let’s lay down the controversy first - the ratings. Twentieth Century Fox’s executives need to get serious kicks on their balls for this fucking mess, if they had them to begin with. No, the film is not a mess but the drive to get a PG-13 rating is. Even though they removed the blood splatters, and edited and ADRed scenes to censor every fucking expletive, the fact of the matter is this movie is still violent!

Many people die violent, on-screen deaths and this should be the main reason to keep the film’s rating at R. 13 year olds should not have easy access to this film. To beat a dead horse yet again, the MPAA’s system is fucked. The film has received BBFC’s 15 rating in the UK - “Suitable only for 15 years and over” - while the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia has given it an SG-18 – “For 18-years and above. Film contains elements of violence and horror that are not excessive.”


The fans of Die Hard are not die-hard fans of the F word. What they are fans of is the iconic character of John McClane. Age has an effect of mellowing people to tone down their language in real life. However in tense situations as depicted in a movie, it is completely believable and understandable that stressed people, and not just McClane, will blow off some motherfucking steam with the F words peppered in their conversations.

Censoring the foul language out of Die Hard 4.0 is just fucking dumb.


With this being his third film, director Lens Wiseman shows that he has a good sense of action, drama and comedy to pull off action movies. Working with a tight script by Mark Bomback - story by Bomback and David Marconi, and based on John Carlin’s war-games article “A Farewell To Arms” – Wiseman wisely gives enough hacker details to the story to create tension early on. Wiseman however trimmed down McClane's signature wisecracking nature significantly. He and director of photography Simon Duggan designed dynamic camera movements in the thick of action scenes that are fucking impressive. The aerial photography unit also did an amazing job at capturing beautiful and exciting shots. Editor Nicolas De Toth keeps the pace quick and moving with enough sense of backstory and comedy, though the scenes where “fuck” is uttered a lot are sloppily edited and sometimes do not match the ADR.

Production designer Patrick Tatopoulos must have one of the harder jobs in the production in trying to recreate NYC, DC and Baltimore by masking L.A. locations with props. In spite of not pulling that feat off consistently, he and set decorator Robert Gould did a great job with the sets of the FBI, the terrorists’ hive, and the action set pieces, both practical and CGI. The work by digital film colorist Siggy Ferstl and digital conform Alex Romano must not also be forgotten for they are responsible in stringing together scenes from different locations to look the same. Kudos must also be given to the under appreciated departments of make-up and costume for without them, McClane’s and Farrell’s roughed-up state just won’t be believable.


No modern action film can get by without the help of digital visual effects. To their credit, the VFX by The Orphanage do not scream for attention or look too fake. The augmented scenes have enough believable animation detail that they don’t detract from the movie experience. With additional work by Riot, Pixel Magic, Amalgated Pixels, as well as computer screen simulation by Digital Dimension, and miniature effects and miniature visual effects by New Deal Studios and Cinema Production Services, the VFX of the film as a whole is cohesive. Interestingly enough, it is the non-action green-screen driving sequences that feel fake. How the fuck did that happen?

Sound Designers Ai-Ling Lee and Jason W. Jennings and Sound Effects Editor Randall Kelley did a great job at creating soundscapes that are enveloping and alive. No doubt their work is also affected by the need to conform the film to a PG-13 rating. The sound of the gunshot wounds do not sound as wet and bloody as they normally would. Still, it is a bang-up job by the sound department.


Finally, the cast is great. Willis’s performance is the one that most people may overlook. His McClane is an aged McClane and that performance requires some intimate knowledge of the character. It may not scream Oscar-worthy but it is a great work. As the instant sidekick, Long’s characterization is also noteworthy for he had to be vulnerable without being annoying and still fulfill his tiny arch in the end. Olyphant as the bad guy gives a great performance with his minimal facial and eye expressions, and some really snappy lines.

Curtis’s Fed man is commanding, decisive but sympathetic. Winstead as the daughter gives an interesting and fiery performance that nails down the essence of John McClane. Maggie Q as Mai is just a bad-ass cunt; she must have had a great time chewing her scenes during the shoot. Last but not least is big nerdy bear Kevin Smith as the Warlock. While it may not be as endearing as his performance in Catch And Release, the scenes he is in are just fun to watch. His scenes alone probably would jack up the ratings and no doubt a lot of them ended up on the virtual floor of the cutting room.


In the end though, Die Hard 4.0 is a kick-ass action movie. It is similar in structure to Die Hard With A Vengeance than the original film. But let’s face it. Die Hard is in the top 5 action movies of all time. Even without the F words this movie fucking works.

Hopefully when the Blu-ray Disc and DVD are released later this year, Fox execs would come to their senses and release the truer version of the film, with the realistic, expletives-filled dialog put back in. Until then, action film lovers are just going to live with and hopefully enjoy the violent and kids-friendly Die Hard 4.0. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!


Die Hard 4.0 is the international title to Live Free Or Die Hard.

Surf's Up

Surf’s Up
Directors: Ash Brannon and Chris Buck
85 minutes
1.85:1

A paradigm describes this colorful CGI movie: understated.

For a while now, these two things are synonymous: penguins and tent-pole summer movies. Because of this, there is a sense of apathy towards Surf’s Up. It is another CGI animation feature that has penguins as the main cast. In spite of this handicap, Surf’s Up serves up.


For Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf) is an aspiring surfer in a dead-end job. The one thing that drives him everyday is his love for surfing. His hero is Big Z, the first surfer that made a career out of the sport. However, everybody in the chilly town of Shiverpool is unsupportive of him, including his own mother Edna (Dana BelBen) and his brother, Glen (Brian Posehn). It wasn’t until Mikey Abromowitz (Mario Cantone), a surfing scout, comes down into town on a slow whale to Antartica that Cody realizes he could live out his dreams.

Together with best pal Chicken Joe (John Heder), they got picked for a surfing competition organized by Reggie Belafonte (James Woods) and they all head up to Pen Gu Island. There he meets his biggest surfing foe Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader), the girl he fancies in Lani Aliikai (Zooey Deschanel), and her bum of an uncle, Geek (Jeff Bridges).


What makes Surf’s Up stand out from the rest of the CGI features so far is the fact that it is a mockumentary on the rise and slide of Cody’s career. Yes you read it right: mockumentary.

Most other CGI features have done a few scenes that had the shaky look documentary films have. In Surf’s Up, most of the scenes had that unsteady camera shot. It is not just the shots either that created the feel of a documentary. It is also the cross-cutting of different scenes back and forth as well as the ubiquitous filmmaker’s voice prodding his subjects on that made it feel real. Directors Ash Brannon and Chris Buck must be credited for breathing fresh air into an over-hyped animation style.


However, even this technique wouldn’t have worked if not for the genuinely affecting story and the very funny dialogues. To this, writers Chris Jenkins and Christian Darren, who came up with the story, and Don Rhymer & Ash Brannon, and Chris Buck & Chris Jenkins must be thanked. Their contributions are immense.

The thankless job the animators did is terrific. To animate a scripted performance is hard enough but to portray a supposedly spontaneous action is another. The nuances coming out of the characters were a joy to watch. On top of that, the cinematography is spectacular. The ocean is filled with waves, wakes and mists. The lighting effects courtesy of the sun and fire is gorgeous. The realistic looking coconut trees and forest fauna are incredible. To top it all off, the pseudo black-and-white shots, the 8mm and 16mm shots make Surf’s Up a joy to watch. Hats off to Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Imageworks!


The voice cast is amazing. The repartee between the characters is absolutely funny. LaBeouf, who is simply in every hit movie this year, delivers another winning performance here. Deschanel just oozes love and care. For some reason, Woods plays slimy characters really well but at least here he’s funny. Posehn, Bader and Heder simply have to make a movie together. Reed Buck, Reese Elowe and Jack P. Ranjo, the kid actors who play Arnold, Katey and Smudge, should also do the same. And if you loved the Dude in The Big Lebowski, well you’re in for a treat!

It is clear that the studio had trouble marketing this movie. The initial tagline from the teaser trailer was “A True Story” had changed to “A Major Ocean Picture,” courtesy of the marketing department. Then there’s the penguin effect. Regardless of how the trailers looked or how over-exposed penguins have become, you can’t avoid this one. It is sea-breeze fresh, wickedly funny and the surfing sequences are beautiful to watch. So far the best animated movie this year belongs to Surf’s Up.