The fourth and final installment, of this run at least, of the Herald-Sun Geek Panel went to print today.
We had quite the interesting live-chat session; part Bay bashing, part ‘wtf was a robot humping Megan Fox’s leg for, and why did she like it so much’, and an earnest troll convinced there were massive religious subtexts to the film that we were missing.
This review was pretty short and sweet, mostly because I was on flu meds for the film, and we had a only a few hours between seeing it and submitting our reviews. Still, they cut out a bit, so once more, here’s the un-cut version:
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a Michael Bay movie, so you expect it to be filled with slow-mo explosions, people walking away in slow-mo from said explosions and cliched sentimental dialogue in between explosions. What I wasn’t expecting was so many weird sexual scenes: from dogs humping, to the forcible intrusion of robot limbs into human orifices and one girl being covered in a suspicious looking goo. I guess Japan is still the Future after all.
Still, it was great to see Starscream and Megatron bickering on screen again. And John Turturro was as hilarious ever, both as former Sector7 agent, turned blogger “robo-warrior” and providing the voice for the antiquated Decepticon defector Jetfire.
There was much more screen time given to epic robot battles than in the first film, yet it was still 30mins to 1hr too long. Did they really need to divert into National Treasure territory?
Bonus points for using a rail-gun to take out the Devastator. Two steps back for collapsing half of the Middle East into a series of landmarks that you can run between.
Oh, and to quote the end of the chat:
Let us know in future if there’s any films in particular you’d like us to bring the Geek Panel back for - email extrahit@heraldsun.com.au begging for their return any time
14sec is a great little cyberpunk short-film. My man in Budapest, Damage, wrote the screenplay for it. The quality of the CG is particulary impressive.
The third installment of the Herald-Sun Geek Panel went to print today. This was a weird one, since we did two movies this time. Our reviews of Fanboys are online only, and the Terminator Salvation reviews are, as of writing of this, in print only. Welcome to the weird world of a newspaper trying to do online.
Once more I give you the uncut and annotated review. Spoilerz, etc:
How do you make an awesome movie and terrible one at the same time? Get McG to direct, then bring in Christian Bale at the last minute.
Meet Terminator Salvation. It’s one strange beast.
McG is without question a master visualist. The 15minute epic Harvester scene, where Kyle Resse (Anton Yelchin) gets captured, is just pure joy for any lover of machine mayhem. There’s robots within robots, all flinging and flying around at high speed. Who cares that they’re evil, I want one!
The final battle, as John Connor (Christian Bale) goes in to rescue his teenage father is also glorious. Not only does he fight a perfectly rendered Arnie, but the depiction of a SkyNet command center is just amazing. Sure, the main control center, where Marcus (Sam Worthington) talks to a personification of SkyNet, looks like something from the Matrix’verse. But it’s so crisp, we can forgive the references. Because it’s all part of the zeitgeist now; in the center of the machine world everything must be all brilliant whites, and people clothed in soft-cotton. Well, unless you want to be original..
Because without these two drool worthy action scenes, this movie is just plot-hole city. McG can make the pretty, but he sure can’t direct. The idea that drives the film holds up to about a second of rational thought. A plot that suggests humanity deserves wiping out. Blame me, I voted robot!
It’s really easy to pick this apart, so I’ll keep it short. What kind of idiot thinks that a freaking short-wave signal is all it takes to stop a world an all-powerful AI and it’s robot minions? Is this some bizarre reboot of Idiocracy. Did SkyNet kill all the smart people, and it’s just the morons running around. And speaking of morons, when did Connor get so stupid? Did he suffer some sort of head-wound in between films? What kind of fool broadcasts an open call to stop a secret attack?! Seriously..
Back to what’s good. Marcus. Sam Worthington totally pulls a Ledger in this film, stealing the spotlight in every scene he shares with Bale. His arrival post-JudgementDay is a brilliant inversion of the beginning of the franchise. “What day is it, what year?” But he hasn’t travelled back in time, he’s travelled forward the slow way - basically being in robo-hibernation for 15 years. But he doesn’t know he’s a robot, er Terminator Infiltration unit - just like Boomer didn’t in BSG. That’s where this film shines. AND WHAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT BEFORE BALE STUCK HIS PRIMA-DONNA BITCH FACE IN, TAKING WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A MINOR CHARACTER, AND DRAGGING HIMSELF AND HIS SUPPORTING CAST IN WITH THEIR STUPID DIALOG AND..
No, don’t give in to the DarkSide.. Marcus’s character is fantastic and fascinating. OK, he hooks up with Blair (Moon Bloodgood) a little too quickly, but the key point is that she sees him as a man, not a machine. Because that’s what he is. He’s retained his human brain, everything else is just ultimate prosthetics. And this is a conversation that needs to be happening, because the increased merging of man and machine is in our future. What does make us human? If you wear glasses you’re augmented, no one questions that. You have a pacemaker, that’s cool too. Yet chopping off your arm to replace it with a robot one is considered freaky. But within the near future it will be an option. With last years Olympics it was decided that a guy with replacement legs should be able to compete with the able-bodied. It won’t be long before those with prosthetics won’t be merely handy-capable, but hyper-capable. The sooner more people accept this, the better. And I was desperately hoping that this film would be centred around this.
Speaking of sounds of despair (ie my silent screams for most of this movie), not only were the visual effects amazing, so was the audio. And the soundtrack. I almost cried when Alices in Chains came out of the car radio. The use of Guns and Roses “You Could Be Mine” was a nice nod to Terminator 2.
See this movie for the amazing visuals, you probably weren’t expecting the plot to make sense anyway.
The final installment of this run of the Geek Panel will be June 25, to dissect Transformers 2. Hopefully we will be returning in December to rave about Cameron’s Avatar and maybe a few others out around then.
BONUS CONTENT!
You know what is a good little direct2video SF action movie. Screamers: The Hunting! It takes the whole “machines evolving to kill humans by posing as them” deal to some neat places, with a wicked ending. I was reminded of this during Terminator Salvation by the Terminator eels that attack John Connor, and lead to Marcus saving him, and JC accepting Marcus as possibly being human.
You know what Terminator Salvation should’ve been? STEAMPUNK! Yes. Think about it. It’s completely absurd for the “resistance” to be flying around in their 20thC jets and using advanced comms and such. How can they trust them? SkyNet can be everywhere, inside anything with a chip, anything running software. The only way to be safe is to go mechanical. Clockwork guards set off by trip wires. WorldWar II-era anti-aircraft guns. Old as new tech vs computer algorithm generated machines. A real battle of humanity’s creativity vs the AI challenger. Now _that_ would be something!
The second installment of the Herald-Sun Geek Panel went to print today.
We had quite the spirited discussion of the film over on the website. Ok, so it largely turned into a Star Wars vs Star Trek war, peppered with much love for all things Whedon on my part. Ewoks were mentioned, and I also managed to work in a few Farscape references.
Once more I give you my uncut and annotated review. Here be spoilerz:
I was ridiculously excited to check out the Star Trek reboot; and I am in no way a Trekkie (or Trekker). Though I am a massive science-fiction fan, I like Star Trek about as much as Mac people like PCs.
So why the excitement? The trailers. Here, I thought.. here’s exactly what the world needs. To look up into space and see a new future for humanity.
Star Trek: TOS was launched during the height of the space-race. The Apollo program was in full-swing, and though we’d always looked to the stars, for the first time they seemed within our reach.
This was an incredibly cutting-edge show, introducing concepts like teleportation and faster-than-light travel to mainstream audiences. It made radical casting choices; completely unprecedented for it’s time. It dared to show humans of all genders and races working together “to seek out new life and new civilizations”.
How exciting to contemplate a reboot of this. Something taking the spirit of the original series (and later films), and re-interpreting that within the 21stC condition.
But that’s not what J.J Abrams has delivered. Instead, we get re-creationism. A remake, not a reboot. He clearly spent a lot time thinking of how to reset Star Trek, whilst setting it within the same Universe. So we get angry Romulans from teh_Future, messing up the time-lines of Kirk and Spock and somehow making the logical Vulcan a sexy beast.
Also, Kirk, now the angry young man, who goes from being an Academy graduate, barred from the Enterprise, to it’s Captain in about 10 confusing minutes. He’s made First Officer why now? Ah JJ, always relying on ‘the fridge moment’ to fix his plot holes. Through another series of ‘accidents’, the whole, Original crew is assembled in short-order. And where accident fails, JJ sends in old-Spock, ’cause he came back too, hanging out in a cave in some Hoth-cold planet, making sure Kirk hooks up with McCoy.
I did like a few things about this movie. Karl Urban was the stand-out as Bones. He made every line zing. (Simon Pegg was just Simon Pegg-as-McCoy and John Cho was shown up by his stunt-double).
Child Kirk and Spock just plain owned over their sexy early 20s versions.
I could watch child-Kirk outrunning a flying-cyborg cop, barely able to see over the steering-wheel of his ‘vintage’ car, with the Beastie Boys cranked up to 11 FOREVER. (Except that scene was just a longer edit of the start of one of the trailers).
Ditto child-Spock, with mummy issues, throwing epic tantrums.
In fact, the whole movie I was waiting for Spock to say “let me tell you about my mother” and blast away with his phaser.
Also cool was the giant-red-ball of gooey doom. Which, I’m taking as a reference to end of J.J’s second soap-opera, Alias. Wielded by a tattooed, white-faced Eric Bana (as Romulan leader Nero), one drop of the red-stuff was enough to destroy a world.
This gets me thinking; I’d much rather watch the Letters from Iwo Jima to Star Trek’s Flags of Our Fathers. Bana drifting through space for 25 years, waiting to take his revenge on the man that promised, but failed, to save his homeworld. A man that doesn’t even exist when he arrives. That might actually be interesting.
Star Trek fans will love this film. Everyone else will wonder what all the fuss is about.
This is not new Bond. Nor even new Batman.
In short: epic franchise kickstart fail.
File next to: Dolph Lundgren’s The Punisher and Ang Lee’s Hulk.
The Geek Panel will return June 4 to rant and rave about Terminator: Salvation.
Kebabs and Coffee - these are few of my favourite things!
I found this place last week, but having just eaten I could only make a note to return. And return I did today, ordering myself one of each.
The coffee was perfect. The “kebab”.. well, it was one big pile of delicious meat.. wrapped in pita bread!
It is contentious in some circles, but to me if it has pita bread it’s a souvlaki.
Still, it was a very fine meal.
Location: Victoria St, Richmond (about halfway between Church St and Vic Gardens) Service: Friendly Price for Lamb “Kebab”: $AUS 8.50 ($10 with small coffee) Halal: Unknown Rating: Yummy
