Self/less

RATING: C

Now here's an interesting case: in a modern-day Hollywood littered with remakes, here's a movie that apparently might as well have been a remake of an older one, were it not for different character names and what not. The movie in question is a 1966 flick named "Seconds," which I haven't seen, but it seems that this movie (from 2015) took its plot from Seconds so much that it might as well have been a remake. So it's not a remake... but at the same time, it kind of sort of is. Now poor Hollywood's trying to be sneaky with putting out remakes. 

Anyways, the film centers around a dying wealthy businessman named Damian (Ben Kingsley) who is offered the chance by a mysterious organization to keep on living. To be immortal. They do so by transferring his consciousness into a brand new body (Ryan Reynolds); and how exactly they're able to do that is never really explained, but in these kind of movies (with transferring of consciousness), I get the feeling that's a common thing. 

So, he's got a new body. But inevitably, all is not as it seems; and he goes on a crusade to uncover what the organization is hiding--about themselves, and the new body he has. In some ways, the plot that ensues is pretty predictable. Is it a bad one? Not particularly, but it telegraphs itself all too often so there's not that much that's an actual surprise. 

Despite having a couple decent stars, this movie was unfortunately kind of doomed to a degree by being stuck with a low budget. Hence, the direction is a bit mediocre and it feels a little sloppy occasionally. Ultimately nearly everything about this film is pretty middling. Nothing is particularly great, and nothing is particularly bad either, per se. It's a movie that's often just too average for its own good. 

It's not without its moments, though. There's a couple of nice action sequences, including a decent car chase scene. The ending is pretty good as well. But it also doesn't help that some of the things that the film is based round--such as the immortality conversation--aren't dwelled on quite as much as I'd like. 

It's certainly not a terrible film, but it's also probably easy to see why it was overlooked by virtually everyone. It's a decent movie, but it's also a bit forgettable, so if you even saw it when it first came out, you probably forgot about it when you were looking back on movies of 2015. And while one could certainly do worse with their two hours, the feeling still cannot be shaken that this film could've been done better. 

Transformers 4: Age of Extinction

RATING: D+

The Transformers movies were in an interesting spot after the third one. For starters, they'd killed a *lot* of the robot characters off. About half the Autobots were dead and the Decepticons were basically decimated. So they were going to have to dig further into the Transformers universe for robots. But also, Shia LeBeouf left the franchise. So ultimately, we ended up getting an almost-reboot where none of the human characters from the last three movies were around, and though the events of the last three movies were acknowledged, it's never explained why Optimus Prime and Bumblebee don't seem to care what happened to Sam Witwicky. 

So now, we're stuck with Mark Wahlberg as the lead. And ultimately, I preferred Witwicky's dumber moments. Cade Yeager is a stupid lead character, but then again, virtually all the new human characters are stupid. There's nothing really appealing about any of them. Not that the horrible script helped them or their actors out much. 

We are introduced to a whole new host of Transformers in this movie--most of the Autobots are dead, so they threw in Hound, Crosshairs and Drift out of desperation. Hound is the only one who fares that well, mostly due to being voiced by John Goodman. As for one of the new villains, they bring in Lockdown (neither Autobot nor Decepticon) who is actually pretty awesome and introduces a pretty interesting new plot device involving the Transformers and their "creators"--which is what I guess the fifth movie is going to be about. 

As for the Decepticons? Well, they pretty much exhausted the roster there apparently. So now they've resorted to a stupid plot where *humans* are building Transformers. *Humans.* They create Galvatron out of that, who sadly is hardly even in the movie, especially considering how important to this and future movies he turns out to be. And instead of the usual Transforming effects, these new human-made bots have some awful transforming effects where they turn into a swarm made up of block cubes. Normal Transforming is pretty awesome, so I don't understand why they felt the need to screw it up. 

So yeah, there's a lot of new in this movie--but in some ways, things are still the same as ever. Cool action sequences. Horrible attempts at comedy involving humans. And the plot? The plot is almost nonexistent. Much of it revolves around the idea that somehow all Transformers including Autobots are at fault for the Decepticons destroying Chicago in the last movie. At least in the last two movies, it felt like they were kind of trying--albeit still ultimately failing. It's also beginning to feel like they keep reimagining the Transformers universe and its past just so they can make those movies. 

There are likable moments here. There are still some isolated awesome action moments. The Dinobots, though they aren't in the movie nearly enough, are pretty cool. There's an hilarious sequence where Bumblebee reacts to the human-made Transformers and how one specifically was modeled after him, but "better in every way," leading him to freak out. 

But on the whole, this is definitely the worst of the Transformers movies. With no decent human characters, very little plot and being too long even for a Transformers movie (165 minutes), it's pretty difficult to ultimately redeem this movie even if there are some isolated enjoyable moments. I still didn't quite cover everything wrong this movie, but when a movie is this long, it's pretty difficult to hit all the points, good and bad alike.

The set-up for the next one actually looks kind of interesting, with the concept of the "creators" of the Transformers and such. But it's difficult to see it turning out any better than the others as long as Michael Bay is at the helm. Yes, he creates some good action and visuals, but he can't create a good enough story, and he can't resist putting other stuff in like human drama that no one who's interested in the Transformers cares about. If we got a new director (a proper one, mind you), we might sacrifice some of the visuals, but it might be worth it so we can finally get at least a B-grade movie out of these  movies. And they better hurry before they run out of material to do that with in this series. 

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

RATING: C

Wait, what? Is that really what the subtitle there says? "Dark of the Moon?" I have to wonder just how this weird seemingly-broken-English title happened, especially considering that the proper term "dark side of the moon" is used a few times in the movie. That probably left the more skeptical ones already knowing how this was going to turn out, but seeing as Michael Bay was still attached to these movies, they probably should've known anyway if they saw the last two movies. 

Coming off the heels of the sloppily plotted Revenge of the Fallen, we're now given a plot where the 1960's Space Race to get man on the moon was actually a disguise to get to a crashed Transformer spacecraft before anyone else. When the Autobots discover this, a race begins to get to the spacecraft and the technology and knowledge within before the Decepticons do. Sam Witwicky gets thrown into the fray again as well when a co-worker gives him knowledge of the conspiracy, leading him to discover the truth of the newest mess he's found himself in. 

Although this movie has a better plot than its predecessor, that's really not saying much; because it's still pretty sloppy and there are still quite a few discrepancies as they end up contradicting certain events from the first movie. And if they hadn't embraced the more brainless thrills of their movies before, they do now more than ever before; to the point where things are just so ridiculous that I basically turned my brain off around the two-hour mark of this 155-minute movie and just enjoyed the robots slamming each other around and the destruction. 

As a Transformers movie, it delivers more or less what you'd expect. You still have the great action sequences (though more unrealistic than before). You still have the appallingly dumb human interaction stuff aside from that. You still have the much more interesting robotic conflicts, and you also have the stuff during the first act that is genuinely insulting to the viewer--such as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's "performance" and the way she is used that was so bad it actually made some people wish to have Megan Fox back. 

Probably the most insulting part of the movie, though, is when Leonard Nimoy's new Sentinel Prime character quotes Nimoy's most beloved character Spock in one of his most memorable lines ("The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few") in a manner that is definitely not logical and straight up feels random and out of place, making you wonder just what Michael Bay was going for and if he was trying to insult the memory of Wrath of Khan and how in the world Nimoy was convinced to repeat his own line in that manner. 

So once again, as usual, it's the action sequences and the robot fights that make the movie worthwhile. There are some scenes that stand out more than others, such as the spectacular highway chase/fight scene and Optimus Prime's street rampage near the end. And in general, the whole final hour of the movie or so is pretty riveting. Bringing in Shockwave was pretty awesome as well, as was involving Soundwave more. I do wish Megatron hadn't been reduced to a mere afterthought until the final ten minutes of the movie, but whatever. 

All in all, this Transformers movie is basically more of the same, so it kind of depends on how you viewed the previous two. And it's not a movie you should go in planning to take very seriously, because you will definitely walk away frustrated. If you found enjoyment in the action scenes of the previous two movies, you'll enjoy those parts of this third one, which manages to often outdo the previous installments in that regard. So once again, a movie pretty strictly for fans of the characters and for people who are fine with non-demanding action movies; everyone else should probably skip out. 

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

RATING: C-

When you go to watch a movie about robots that can transform into cars, you go to watch that movie  pretty much just to watch the robots fight each other, right? Just verifying as I get underway with this one. Because both Michael Bay and some of the audience don't seem to entirely get this. 

The Transformers series continues as the Autobots are still working on cleaning up some of the remaining Decepticons on Planet Earth with Megatron dead, but turns out his master is still alive--The Fallen. (If he ever had a different name, we never hear it.) And he's ready to begin his conquest to exact his "revenge" upon Earth; which includes resurrecting Megatron. So now the Autobots and Decepticons are going to war again, and Sam Witwicky gets dragged into things again when he looks into a shard of the All Spark, which transmits a bunch of symbols into his mind--which supposedly lead to an Energon source. Or something. 

If you didn't care much for the first one, you're going to have a difficult time with this one. Following a pretty awesome opening sequence in Shanghai, the movie's next 45 minutes are spent around stupidity regarding the humans, a Decepticon that can turn into a human, and boring college stuff, and more horrible attempts at comedy that feel out of place in a movie about robots fighting each other. In other words, it's more of the same of what you saw in the first movie... only put some emphasis on the word "more." 

Unfortunately, the plot (which was just okay in the last movie) takes a bit of a dive in this one. There are bits and pieces of a decent story here and there, but there are quite a few inconsistencies. Namely, this legendary key that can supposedly only be used by someone who's earned it--and then the villain proceeds to use it right away.

There's some issues also regarding the usage of the robots. Of course, there's a pretty long stretch where we don't see much of them early on in the movie same as the first one. The good news is, Megatron gets a lot more screen time than the first one. The bad news is, Optimus Prime doesn't. The good news is, Soundwave is finally brought in. The bad news, The Fallen doesn't really do much despite being a pretty formidable villain until the very end--and then is killed in three minutes in a pretty awesome but incredibly rushed final fight. And of course, now there's a LOT more robots on both sides and it's getting more difficult than before to tell who's who. Not to mention the fact that a few robot characters just disappear completely without explanation and are never seen again. 

So what is there to enjoy about this film exactly? Well, watching the robots fighting each other or just wreaking havoc in general is pretty great as before. There are some genuinely awesome fights and visuals. Although most of the cast isn't that good (*cough* Megan Fox), Shia LeBeouf fares better in the second movie as an actor, and John Turturro is actually more funny for most of this one. Oh yeah, and Steve Jablonsky writes a fantastic soundtrack. 

So really, what much of this comes down to (again) is if you enjoy watching robots fight each other and if you enjoy the Transformers to begin with. If you don't, this will probably be a dumpster fire of the highest order, due in part to the sloppiness of the story and the idiocy of the script. If you do, you still won't find this to be a classic by any means, but you might want to check it out if this kind of thing is up your alley. Otherwise, you probably shouldn't bother. 

Transformers

RATING: C

Transformers. If you were a kid during the 80's, you might've been a fan; whether it was the toy line, the TV show, and apparently there was even a comic. And in order to find a way to sell more toys, the guys figured they might as well make a live-action movie. Or something like that.

And hence, we have the first movie about the war between the Autobots (led by Optimus Prime) and the Decepticons (led by Megatron) as it comes to Earth, with both parties in search of the "All Spark," a mysterious cube that powered their home world, Cybertron. Obviously, one side intends to use it for good; the other for evil. And some teenager named Sam Witwicky holds the key to finding its location on Earth. 

Michael Bay was selected to direct this movie (and all its sequels), which is part of the reason there are often mixed emotions about this movie. To start, the action sequences are pretty doggone incredible. Watching the robots fight each other is what you came for, and the special effects department delivers and then some. The only problem with these scenes is that (if you're not already familiar with the various robots) without doing a little research you might have trouble figuring out which robot is which (save for Optimus, Megatron, and Bumblebee--Sam's guardian). 

The biggest problem by far with this movie is much of what goes on when we're not watching robots in general. We spend more time than I'd like with Sam Witwicky and his personal life; little of it even ties into the actual plot of the movie, aside from him and his new car (Bumblebee). The attempts at humor used are just plain awful; material that I'd expect to find in maybe a teen "comedy" movie, but not in an action/adventure movie about robots fighting each other. And often the script (especially during these "comedy" scenes, which really aren't that funny) is just awful.

And honestly, I'm not that big on Sam Witwicky at all. He gets better during the awesome final act, but he's just annoying for most of the movie. I like Shia LeBeouf, but this isn't one of his better films. But he's better than Megan Fox (who plays his love interest), who isn't an actress so much as she is intended to be eye candy. As it turns out, the two primary military characters (Lennox and Epps) turn out to be far more appealing than the two main human characters and I wish we'd spent more time with them instead when we weren't spending time with the robots. 

Really, what makes this movie worth watching at all is the Transformers themselves, their conflict and their battles. All of that is far more interesting, and it's what you came to watch in the first place. But we just spend too much time with meaningless human material that contributes little to nothing to the plot. The crude attempts at humor in most of this movie are awfully misguided and feel pretty out of place in a movie about robots fighting each other. 

Transformers leaves you with mixed emotions, indeed; you might be wowed by the action sequences, but you'll be pretty frustrated with a lot of other things. If you're a fan of the material, and you enjoy big action films in general, you'll want to see it; but if you're looking for something a little more serious and more well done on things other than the action, this is not for you. I was entertained enough to not regret watching it, but it's definitely only for a certain audience/demographic. 

The Last Witch Hunter

RATING: C+

When you think of Vin Diesel, you might think of that guy from the Fast & Furious series who says things like "Let's go for a lil ride." You might also think of "I am Groot!" from Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh yeah, and there's also that "xXx" crazy-stunt franchise. Well, here's another possible franchise with him for you; one where he hunts witches.

This movie centers around an immortal warrior named Kaulder, who helps keeps the peace between humans and witches (who are allowed to live in peace) in the present day by defeating rogue witches, always accompanied by a "Dolan" (a priest) who records the events. He is forced to deal with an uprising of witches using incredibly dark magic to try to bring back their long-dead leader. Accompanied by a new Dolan (Elijah Wood) taking over for his predecessor (Michael Caine) and also by a "good witch" named Chloe, he'll have to keep the world from being turned into a wasteland.

As you might expect (especially if you saw the trailers), this movie is quite the action-fest that rarely lets up. Considering the poor reception, I wasn't sure what to expect from the plot, but I was actually somewhat impressed. Once you accept the idea of a movie taking place in a world where witches exist and are allowed to live in peace, everything else flows pretty well. There are a few pretty good plot twists; a couple which I didn't see coming at all.

The action scenes, for the most part, are actually pretty decent. The CGI occasionally is a bit overdone, but for the most part, the visuals are strong as well; carrying a dark atmosphere without being so dark that we can't realize what's going on at all. It's not a particularly boring movie by any means.

Most of the issues lie elsewhere; the script is average at best; and Michael Caine is tragically underused, not being in the movie nearly enough. That said, he's not given much to work with, so it's not that memorable of a performance for him. Elijah Wood actually fares better, but his character is more complicated. Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel; doing what he does. But his character is somewhat underdeveloped, even if entertaining.

If you're unable to accept the premise of the movie involving the witches, it's going to be a rough ride. And if you're looking for an action masterpiece, look elsewhere; this film is just flawed enough around the edges to avoid that distinction, and just a little more forgettable than some other recent action films. That said, it's still pretty entertaining, and better than I expected, and still really not that bad on the story front. If you're looking for an exciting action film without being *too* demanding of it, or you're a fan of Vin Diesel in general, give it a whirl. Despite the bashing it took reception-wise, you might be surprised. 

The Avengers

RATING: A+

There was a time when the idea of this movie seemed risky; if it fell apart, it'd be a massive failure for everyone involved, and the successful build-up that they had created up to that point (with the solo Iron Man, Thor and Captain America movies) would ultimately have been for nothing. Four years later, now they're trying to do more and more movies like this; they're trying to do the same thing with the Justice League. 

This movie was pretty much every fanboy's ultimate dream ever; combining the forces of Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, and some archer guy named Hawkeye into one. And that was before they added even more guys later on in these Avengers movies! It's all of these guys versus Loki, Thor's brother, and some alien army he's allied with in order to take control of the Earth.

The film takes an oddly simplistic approach, having established its universe in previous films. Bad guy shows up (previously thought dead). Team comes together; fails against the bad guy on first try. Team then *truly* comes together, and defeats bad guy easily. That's more or less how it goes. It's a formula we've seen before (and since, probably). 

So what made this movie such a huge success? Well, the tougher question to ask would be what *wasn't* successful about it. It's undeniably awesome to see all these heroes together at once and fighting against different enemies; and the script is brilliantly written, courtesy of Joss Whedon (also directing), loaded with humor at every turn; whether it's the film poking fun at itself, or characters poking fun at each other (physically or verbally). The film's all-star cast delivers.

So what ultimately is there negative to say about this film? Very little; and what there might be to gripe about are very, very minor occasional gripes. Even non comic-book fans can get in pretty easily without being confused (as long as they've seen the previous movies in this series, anyway).

This movie is basically the perfect blend of action and comedy; it's pretty likable even for people who aren't quite as big of fans of superhero movies. It's definitely one of the best movies of the decade, if not the best. You've probably already seen it, but if you haven't, you still should; this is an action movie that's about as much as fun as they come.