"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" - spoiler movie review

I really liked "Transformers", and the trailer for the sequel, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", looked really good, so I was looking forward to seeing it. We've been to a few midnight screenings for movies in recent months, but we weren't quite as excited about this film so decided to pass on the midnight show and just see it opening weekend. That turned out to be a good decision.

I liked the film ok, but it wasn't nearly what I expected, and I did like the first film much better, even with the problems I encountered when I saw the first film. The first film was frenetic in parts, but mostly during the final battle sequence. When the bots are madly fighting each other, it's a little hard to tell who's fighting who. Well, in the case of the sequel, that was multiplied tenfold. I have issues with films that are too jarring, and they can induce nausea, which is no fun at all, so I usually have to manage that by not staring right at the action during those parts. Guess how much of this film I didn't watch/see because of that? And it REALLY didn't help when Michael Bay, the director, decided to dolly the camera around Megan Fox multiple times for seemingly no reason whatsoever, other than that she's hot, and she looks great with the sun behind her. OK, so just have her standing still, in front of the sun, tossing her hair seductively. Done.

The film seemed very disjointed to me, kind of schizophrenic, unable to decide what it wants to be and failing to mesh the disparate parts together. Much of the attempted humour - Sam's mom getting high on brownies and then behaving really oddly at his new college, the whole irony of who Sam's roommate is and his whole attitude, the "twin" Autobots who talked street - just fell flat and seemed forced to me.

The main plot itself, with the Decepticons looking for the magic source, and the prior battle eons ago that led to the sacrifice of all those Primes, was pretty cool. But the plot point that I objected to in the first film, when the head of the bad guys, Megatron, was killed? Well, they wiped that all away pretty handily with the magic bit of cube left over that they brought him back to life with. So, since Megatron was so easy to bring back to life, the "death" of Optimus Prime really lost its effect. Everyone in the movie, from Sam to the military folk to the Autobots, were all devastated at Optimus Prime's death. Me, not so much, because I knew he wasn't going to stay dead, that he was going to be brought back to life before the film was over. If it was that easy to bring back Megatron, it was going to be pretty much that easy to bring Optimus Prime back. Which made his death kind of meaningless. Which was a shame. In the first two films, they've killed both of the main characters in the fight between the Autobots and the Decepticons *AND* brought them both back to life. Isn't that pretty much playing all your cards too soon?

And I hadn't paid enough attention to the title of the film, but the trailing part very much echoes the second "Star Wars" film - "The Empire Strikes Back", and it's not just the titles that are similar. There were quite a number of scenes that really smacked of a Palpatine/Vader relationship.

One odd thing - in almost all of these kinds of film, at least to my memory, they refer to a "president", and sometimes, they actually show him or at least give him a name, but it's always some fake name. During the early parts of the movie, they only referred to the "president", but after the Fallen makes his broadcast, there's a line about how President Obama has been taken to a secure location. This is the first time I can think of where they used the actual real president's name. Weird.

The kitchen appliances gone bad was pretty funny though.

There is one thing I love about this movie, which I got from the trailer - it's got one of the best lines around, right up there with "No fate but what we make for ourselves." In this case, it's Optimus Prime's line - "Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing." Hmm, weird that the two lines are kind of related, huh?

But then that leads me another point I really didn't like. I don't profess to be all that knowledgeable about the Transformers toys and lexicon. I know they change from one thing to another. But I don't recall there being Transformers that were related to Terminators - the hot girl who goes after Sam (and yeah, that was telegraphed that there was something wonky about her, though I did find the scene funny when Bumblebee was playing songs while she was in the car, and then he whacked her into the dashboard - and wasn't it weird that she wasn't then bruised or bleeding or anything like a normal person?) turns out to be a Decepticon who's got this layer of skin and totally passes for a human, until it grows a tail/spine and has magic elastic tongue? Really? Really. No, sorry, doesn't work for me.at.all.

Shia LaBeouf was ok in this film. He still played it well, the boy who gets thrown into a situation he doesn't want to be in, and he ends up having to save the earth and mankind as we know it. I didn't watch the parts where the bots were probing his face and brain and such, even though I knew it wasn't really him. Oh, but I really enjoyed the scene when Sam tells Bumblebee that he can't come to college with him.

Megan Fox was ok, but I think she had a better part and more to do in the first film. She played on her looks and sex appeal in the first film, but they also showed the substance and fire underneath. It seemed like in this film, they focussed mostly on the sex appeal and neglected developing her character better. However, I did like when she captured the bot that was trying to get into the safe, and she beat the heck out of it and kept it captive, and then she ended up with her own pet Decepticon. Oh, well, Sam had his pet Autobot, so she can have a pet Decepticon. But, Bumblebee never tried to have sex with Sam. She screamed "Saaaaaaaaam" a lot during this movie.

Josh Duhamel was ok in this film, but I'd like to see him in a film where he has a bit more to do. I think he's capable of it - we just need to see it. I did like him in the scene with the asshole rep from the White House, when he's showing him how the parachute works and the guy pulls the plug too soon.

I will admit that I don't remember John Turturro from the first film. But, I did only end up seeing it once, and that was two years ago. I enjoyed him in this film quite a bit, probably the best thing about the film. I loved his delivery of the line about chasing after these alien creatures for years, and Mikaela (Megan Fox) had one in her purse. Speaking of which, how in the heck did she get the bot through the airport scan in her checked luggage?

Still love Glenn Morshower, though I didn't realize they were using his actual last name. "Aaron" kicks butt wherever he is, even if Jack Bauer isn't around.


I've wanted to see "Terminator Salvation" again anyway, but seeing this film just makes me want to see that film even more.

"Terminator Salvation" - spoiler movie review

I've been a fan of the "Terminator" franchise for quite some time now (though I disavow the existence of T3 because I thought it was that bad [but I think I'm going to actually have to watch it again so that I can even remember what happened in it other than that there was a female terminator, I think, and a woman veterinarian], and I'm really sorry that "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" won't be back for a third season), so I was intrigued when they announced that a fourth Terminator film was in the works, and then I was excited when it was revealed that John Connor would be played by Christian Bale.

A friend, the husband and I went to a midnight screening of "Terminator Salvation" on opening night in the Cinerama Dome at the Arclight in Hollywood. It's really the kind of film you want to see on the big screen.

Generally, I liked the film, but it was nothing like I expected, so I want to see it again, partly because I think I will then be better able to have an opinion on it. From the trailers, the film was about John Connor's ascension to be the hero and leader that we know him to become. *This* is the saga of the adult John Connor, who led the resistance of humans against the machines, who helped humanity fight back from the brink of annihilation, who sent a man back to protect his mother, knowing that man would actually become his father, who basically grew up without a normal childhood but was instead hunted and had his life threatened numerous times and who was never able to enjoy the joys and pitfalls of childhood but who knew that the fate of all humans lay in his hands. Yeah, no pressure there.

I knew that Kyle Reese, John Connor's father, would be in the film since it was announced that Anton Yelchin would be playing him. (I joked that seeing the midnight screening of "Terminator Salvation" at the Cinerama Dome was seeing the second half of the late-night Anton Yelchin film festival since two weeks prior, the three of us had also gone to see a midnight screening on opening night at the same theatre of "Star Trek", in which Anton Yelchin plays Pavel Chekov.)

But in the lore of the terminator universe, you don't actually learn that much about John in this film. Yeah, you see a bit of his leadership quality, and you see how people are drawn to him, and you see how even the command comes to realize that John is more powerful and holds more sway than them.

But part of the story is also Kyle, the kid who ends up fighting his way into the resistance. I had thought Anton Yelchin was a bit young to play Kyle, but I had completely forgotten that he was supposed to be a kid when John met him, a reminder that came thanks to Sarah's tapes to John. You see the determination in Kyle that turns him into the soldier that John trusts with his mother's life.

But in the grand scheme of the movie, the major focus is on a third character - Marcus Wright. Who, you say? What role did he play in the terminator universe? Well, none, until now. The film is really about his journey, his discovery, his redemption, his heroics, and his sacrifice. But he's barely in the trailer, and if he is, there's no mention of him. So I'm sitting and watching the film and confused that so much time is being spent on this guy that I don't know and have never heard of in that universe, and where the heck is John Connor?

I liked Marcus' story, but I wished that the trailer had given even a hint of him, had told us that it wasn't just about John, but about the people around him. The end of the film sets up John as the actual leader since the rest of the command died when their submarine was blowed up by Skynet, so the next installment will probably be more like the movie I was expecting to see. And I'm ok with that. But I wish they hadn't set up my expectations wrong.

Marcus is a very engaging character, and you feel for him when he still can't believe that he's a machine, and you see his body slump when he tries to infiltrate Skynet's headquarters, and the robot guard registers him as an ally and allows him to pass. It seems like Marcus would have almost preferred to have been shot at and/or killed because that would have proven that he was human. And then you really feel for him when he finds out that he's been a pawn all that time, that he's been used to lure both Kyle and John to the facility to be killed. And you root for his redemption in being able to save both of them and in ultimately giving his life, his heart, so that John can live. And you know that in this story, without him, without his actions, neither Kyle nor John would have lived.

Marcus is a great character - but he's a stranger in the terminator universe who presumably only made a one-movie appearance since he's dead by the end. That's what I don't understand. There's some focus on history, but the main character is not actually John Connor, but rather, someone we've never known before.

But as far as history is concerned, I did love the use of Sarah's tapes, and especially that it was Linda Hamilton and at least the first passage is what we saw Sarah taping in the first film. There's a later segment that I don't specifically remember from the first film, but I'm assuming it's from that as well since it's still her voice. I don't believe any of the other films have mentioned the tapes at all, so that reliance on history was terrific, and even the use of the well-known picture of Sarah that Kyle eventually carries around with him.

I liked that John had a wife, but I'll admit that when I saw that he had a wife, and a very pregnant one at that, I thought for sure she'd be a goner by mid-way through the film. I'm glad to see she'll be around for the next one. I wonder if they'll ever talk about how they met and got together, because I think that would be interesting. Given how his years of growing up went and how he was never really able to trust anyone, who's the woman who broke through that enough for him to love her and marry her?

Those spine-like machines were NASTY. They had a model in the lobby of the Arclight theatres, and with the way it was designed, it really looked like some kind of Klingon weaponry to me.

That was pretty cool when John and Kyle fell into the terminator-making factory. Cool and creepy.

I liked the little mute girl.

I didn't really like when Blair turned so quickly and easily and betrayed the Resistance to set Marcus free. It just seemed to come out of nowhere.

I had heard rumblings that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be in the film, but I'd never really heard if that was true or not, so it was cool to see him as that particular model of terminator. I don't know how they did those sequences, but he definitely doesn't look like that now!

One major thing that I didn't understand came towards the end of the film. John comes across the Arnold model, who tosses him around and presumably tries to kill him. Meanwhile, a metal model is attacking Kyle, and then John runs into the metal model, who I think is about to kill him, but then the Arnold model comes around the corner and destroys the metal model. Now, they're both terminators, even though they're different models, and they're not like Marcus who is differently programmed. So why would one model destroy another model when both should have programmed into their systems to target and destroy/kill John Connor?


I thought Christian Bale did a decent job as John, for what he had to do, but he is still using that speech affectation he adopted for "Batman Begins" where he seems to think that talking in an unnaturally low, raspy voice makes him sound more mature or authoritative or something, because he does that here too, and not just when John needs to be whispering. It's very distracting and slightly annoying because it makes no sense and it makes it hard to hear him. I'm really looking forward to seeing "Public Enemies", so I hope that Michael Mann, his director on that film, has weaned him of that bad habit.

Sam Worthington was excellent as Marcus. I've heard that his performance in this film is what led to him being cast in James Cameron's "Avatar", and if that's true, I can certainly see why.

Anton Yelchin was good as the very young Kyle Reese, and I actually liked him better in this film than in "Star Trek", partly because he didn't have a very distracting Russian accent. But, I have to say, Kyle Reese will always be Michael Biehn to me.


Anton Yelchin as a very young Kyle Reese.

Michael Biehn as THE Kyle Reese.


Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter to Ron Howard) was very good as John's wife. I know she's been in a bunch of other stuff, but I don't think I've seen any of those. She played a character that I thought was completely worthy of being John Connor's wife.

I was surprised when I saw Helena Bonham Carter's credit pop up. She was good in the film, though it's a small role. Jane Alexander was fine too, in an even smaller role.

I always like seeing Michael Ironside, even though he often plays the same character.


I hadn't known that Danny Elfman did the music for the film, but he did a good job.

"Terminator Salvation" - movie and prequel book

We were in Borders on Saturday to buy something else (I *love* 40% off coupons!), and I happened to notice that Timothy Zahn has a book out tied to "Terminator Salvation" called "From the Ashes" (I'm including the Amazon link because the Borders link to the book sucks big time). It's billed as an "official prequel" and presumably gives you the story leading up to the events in the movie. The tag line to the book reads: "This is the story you must read before the brand-new movie hits theatres!"

I decided to buy the book on Saturday, but I've decided that I'm not going to read it until after I've seen the movie. I expect the book will set things up so that it makes the movie that much easier to understand, but I also think that lets the movie off the hook for any problems inherent to the movie itself. I love books that are related to or expand on movies, but I also think the movie should stand on its own, and you should not have to rely on a book to have the movie make sense.

So I'll be eager to read the book after I've seen the movie. I'm also planning on getting the official novelization of the movie, partly because I like Alan Dean Foster, who wrote it.

Part of why the prequel book caught my attention is that I love Timothy Zahn. I was introduced to him through the "Heir to the Empire" series of "Star Wars" books, which I absolutely love - Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade are definitely new characters worthy of being included in the "Star Wars" universe. After I read the first book, I liked his writing style so much that I sought out his catalog of previous books, mostly thanks to used book stores, and I liked him even more after reading those books. In particular, I love the Cobra series and the book of related short stories called "Distant Friends".


So, I'll have two more books to read after I see the movie. We have our midnight screening tickets for opening night. I can't wait!

"Terminator Salvation" - trailer

So, as much as I'm dying to see "Terminator Salvation", I had decided that I did NOT want to see the trailer online - I wanted to see it in a movie theatre. Well, I held out and was finally rewarded. When we went to see "Watchmen" Saturday night, they showed a trailer for "Terminator Salvation", which we were hoping for since it made sense. (It was actually rather interesting that every single trailer they showed before the movie was for a film I wanted to see. In addition to "Terminator Salvation", they also showed trailers for "Star Trek", "Knowing" (which I'm going to see in spite of Nicolas Cage), "Public Enemies", and I'm not sure if I'm forgetting anything. I don't think it's happened before where every single trailer being shown is for a film I'm interested in.)

Here's a link to the trailer we saw. It looks awesome. And at this point, now that I'm satisfied at having seen a trailer, I don't really want to know much more about it. I just want to see the film. We have plans to attend a midnight screening of the film on opening night.

and the mystery caller is ... Christian Bale!

So I was listening to Kevin and Bean this morning, and it was shortly before 8am, so it was time for Ralph's Showbiz Beat. At the end of each hour, Ralph usually talks about different stories going on in Hollywood and such. Well, this morning, he mentioned that there was a special guest on the phone. And who should come on the air but Christian Bale! Kevin and Bean were actually surprised because they had no idea that was going to happen. Christian explained a bit of what happened that led to his tirade that's been posted all over the net this week. It was actually a really good segment.





With all the publicity and such having to do with the issue this week, I was figuring that news of Christian's call on the show would make the rounds. And it did. Here's an article about the call this morning.

Here's a link to the entire call so you can listen to it yourself.

I had thought about doing a blog post about this whole issue the day after the audio was released, but I never got around to it, and I won't now. Suffice it to say that the explanation Christian gave was pretty much what I figured happened, so I wasn't condemning him as I heard a lot of people do. It's nice that he apologized, and I can't wait to see the new movie anyway!

"Terminator Salvation" - theatrical trailer

I had noticed some mention of the trailer for "Terminator Salvation" being available online, so when we were seeing "Eagle Eye" on Sunday, I was hoping we'd get that trailer in front of the movie. It seemed to be a good genre match, and it's a new movie - I didn't expect to see that trailer in front of "The House Bunny" - and it might have gone ok with "Traitor", but that movie has been out for a while with a smaller viewing audience now, so it didn't really make sense to show in front of that movie either. But "Eagle Eye" - perfect. But not so much - we didn't get the trailer. I was bummed. [OK, I just went to the official website, and it says the trailer played in front of "The Dark Knight" at the end of July. Ummm, yeah, thanks, saw that movie ages ago!]

So I had to watch the trailer online after all.

Here's the trailer.

I have to keep in mind that it's only a teaser trailer, because I want to see so much more, but really, I should actually stop listening to any more information about the movie so that I won't get spoilers. I already know it's about John Connor's fight - that's all I need to know. I do love that they cut the trailer to the familiar strains of the theme song.

Christian Bale is playing John Connor, but I didn't know that Anton Yelchin is playing Kyle Reese. I absolutely loved him in "Charlie Bartlett", and I'm interested in seeing his portrayal of Chekov in the next "Star Trek" movie. But does he look like Christian Bale's father? And no, that's *not* a spoiler! If you don't know by now that Kyle Reese is John Connor's father, then you have no business in this franchise.


The film opens May 22, 2009. I think this is going to be one of those movies where I have to go to the opening night/midnight-ish screening.