Transformers

The summer of films that are way better than they ought to be continues with the eighties cartoon made (CGI) flesh by ultimate big blowy uppy thingy director Michael Bay.

What does Bay have against our senses? All of his films love to assault them, well two, sight and hearing. If a movie assaults touch, taste or smell then it's just plain wrong/brilliant depending on your point of view. Seriously though, walking out of one of his films leaves you feeling like someone's slashed at your eyeballs with rapid jumpcuts and stood next to you clattering a metal bin with a stick. And Transformers may well be his, if not cinema's, slashiest, bin clatteringist movie yet.

It's visually stunning, big robots shifting between being big robots and motors, big explosions, Megan Fox, crumbling buildings and John Tutorro in his underwear. It's enough to make your eyes melt. Storyline? Something about a pair of glasses, a cube and a geek trying to get off wae a hot bird. And there's some army guys. And some computer hackers. Did I mention the big robots?

Storyline and logic are of no importance in a movie like Transformers. Many may moan about that but let's be honest, it would have just got in the way of big robots fighting. What little there is almost does thanks to a bit too much human screentime. Thankfully the robot effects, especially the transformations, are pretty damn brilliant.

Many a person would call this sort of movie "dumb". They may have a point on some level, but that's ignoring how well crafted the overall thing is. it's actually very clever, because it gives you exactly what you want if you've paid to see Transformers - big robots kicking shit out of each other. Who gives a flying fuck if the story's mince or you don't learn anything from it? If I want to watch a film that teaches me something about the human condition then I'll watch an Ang Lee film. If I don't really feel like that then give me giant robots that double as cars wrecking a city just because it happened to be in the way of their little scuffle. If that makes me dumb then so be it. it doesn't make the movie dumb though.

Don't get me wrong, it has its faults. The aforementioned lack of robots for a good chunk of the opening half of the movie, apart from the comic relief baddie Frenzy and Bumblebee in car form, is a bit disappointing after the initial Blackout attack on an army base. It whets the appetite but it's a good while until the main course truly arrives with the rest of the Autobots. Also Megatron's barely in it. And when the metallic arse kicking starts it can often become confusing as to what's actually happening. The director's at fault there. And what is Bay's obsession with framing people in silhouette in front of a setting sun? Seriously, you'd swear that everyone in a single scene was, even if they're at opposite ends of a field facing each other.

Apart from those minor grumbles Transformers is typical (very) enjoyable summer fare. Don't expect too much from it and it'll deliver. The film's further proof that summer 2007 is actually a bit good compared to the last few. Also it becomes another Michael Bay film that it's acceptable to like, along with The Rock and the first Bad Boys.

The actual trailer:

The Host

When it comes to Asian filmmaker's original approaches to steadfast and supposedly sucked dry genres, especially horror, you have to ask what's in the water out there. Turns out it's a giant mutant tadpole thing.

The host is not going to be to everyone's taste. What has been marketed as a straight forward monster movie involving people wandering around a sewer seemingly being picked off one by one by a creature turns out to be a very much different film. In the same way as Jaws isn't really a horror but a buddy drama set against the hunting of a killer shark, The Host is a family drama/slapstick comedy/political thriller set against the hunting of a giant mutation that's appeared in the Han river.

The film centres on one Korean family as they battle the creature, the state and their own loser tendencies to find the youngest member of the family, taken by the creature in a wonderful opening set piece. That search may be what doesn't sit well with some viewers. This is mainly because the proper structure of this type of movie is thrown up in the air, and it seems that the film was then put together by how they landed. Anything you expect from a monster movie may actually happen, it's just that it probably won't be where you expect it, or it'll be in the middle of some bizarre scene involving people over-acting their sorrow and falling about everywhere.

The slapstick nature of the earlier scenes feels strained, like they were inserted just so the makers could claim another genre was a part of the mash-up, but the other elements add to an unpredictability that makes the film feel fresh, even though in reality it's really just yet another monster movie with some social comment thrown in. But what for some will be the strength of The Host will no doubt be the major stumbling block for others.

Die Hard 4.0

Right, let's get through this review without saying "yippee kay-ay motherfucker!". Fuck and bugger. Oh well, now that that's out of the way onward and upward.

John McClaine, he's like that tough bastard frae your local. You know the one, he sits in the corner with a face that looks like fizz and it's pretty clear that his head would break a baseball bat if you attacked him with one. If you tried to glass him he'd probably eat the glass. Well replace the glass with a fighter plane and you've got an idea how hard McClaine is. Just give him a huge truck and a bridge and he'll take it out nae bother.

Let's be honest, this could have been utter baws. Bruce returning to his one bankable franchise after twelve years and adding in a junior sidekick, a daughter in peril and a ton of 24-ish techno babble could have been a recipe for disaster, especially when you add in the fact that Bruce ain't young enough for Demi anymore. The fact that it isn't is maybe the greatest surprise of the summer. The fourth Die Hard's the fuckin' nuts!

Bruce is still the man, no matter what age he is. He could show most of today's action heroes a thing or two, although not Matt Damon as Bourne, he's just as much the man as Bruce as McClaine is. Thankfully everyone involved seems to have realised this and as such "get" what the Die Hard films are all about. John McClaine's your average workaday hero, thrust into situations he little understands but ultimately gets the better of because he has to. He has to be the hero. That's what made him different from all the other eighties action flick heroes. He was never the hero by choice. That and he wasn't some musclebound dolt able to take out the entire Soviet Union with only the gun turret from a passing helicopter he's just brought down with his teeth. Through the way Bruce played him he was emotional, cared about the plight of those he was trying to save and could be identified with by any normal person watching the Die Hard films. His enemies were always smarter, better organised and better fighters. Because of that McClaine would get the shit kicked out of him, and he'd bleed. He was up against it, but somehow proved to be invincible in the end, overcoming those smarmy bastards with sheer pluck.

It's those characteristics that remain in Die Hard 4.0 even with all the modern improvements. To move McClaine along with the times he has to deal with cyber terrorism this time round. He also has the young computer geek for a sidekick. The fact that neither of these is a bad thing is more down to McClaine than the thing themselves. The plotline certainly is one of those frightening "it could really happen 'cos of all the computers" types, but by adding in a cynical old bastard that doesn't understand any of it and sets out to simply batter the baddie makes it all pretty fun. As for the sidekick, what could have been a hackneyed replacement of Samuel L. Jackson's angry black racist turns into a great sparring partner for McClaine purely because they are polar opposites.

This attempt to update while playing up to McClaine's character also proves to be at the centre of 4.0's shortcomings. Obviously the set-pieces are more spectacular than ever to the point that the whole McClaine gets through thanks to instinct and an uncanny ability not to die no matter what is thrown at him becomes just a tad ridiculous. See the aforementioned fighter jet, heavy truck, collapsing bridge sequence for a perfect example. Also by having a cyber terrorism plot the baddies are all geeks, apart from the now stock shaggable bird that can kick McClaine's arse till he uses a 4x4 to take her out character. As good an actor as Timothy Olyphant is at the end of the day he's playing a techy geek, who might be smarter than McClaine but could never take him in a fist fight. Sure neither could Hans from the original film but he was as intriguing a character as McClaine, especially played with such hammy relish by Alan Rickman. Sadly Olyphant's Gabriel is more along the lines of Die Harder's villain, Col. Stuart, just not fun enough to get a kick out of. And Stuart could batter McClaine.

So the baddie's a bit forgettable and it's a tad over the top, plus there's no white vest, but apart from those slight missteps Die Hard 4.0's a worthy installment in what must be the finest series of action films ever. And Bruce still rocks the shit, as his young sidekick might say, but he most certainly wouldn't.

The Simpsons Movie

Like I need to tell you this is brilliant. You've been waiting for like fifteen years for it so you've either already seen it or you're going to no matter what anyone says so just go and laugh like a trumpet, okay?

Debate point: is it better than the South Park movie?

Hot Fuzz

British film. It conjures up images of kitchen sinks, Albert Finney swearing and dour Northern towns shot from the top of a hill. It most certainly does not involve explosions, car chases and homo-erotic buddy relationships. But why shouldn't it? Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg think it should.

Hot Fuzz takes a similar approach to filmmaking as Shaun Of The Dead did. Take a very non-British style of film and apply it to a British setting, making no concessions to style in the process. Shaun brought Romero's zombie invasions to London, Fuzz invites Michael Bay, John Woo and Tony Scott to guest direct episodes of Midsomer Murders, with all the carnage and bloody violence in a rural setting you'd expect.

The overriding feel of Hot Fuzz is fun. Everyone involved is clearly having a bawl, goofing about or hamming it up when they're required to act and then blowing the shit out of an idyllic town in the west country for no other reason than it's a blast to do it.

Every action movie cliche is in there, from Woo's doves to the obligatory "suiting-up" with guns scene. A big part of the enjoyment of Hot Fuzz is spotting every reference, no matter how obvious or obscure.

Of course it has it's problems, the major one being that it's a bit too long, but then again it is a movie poking fun at over-blown action epics so the fact that some of the excess fat hasn't been trimmed does make sense.

Hot Fuzz raises a great point about the nature of British cinema, as did Shaun of the Dead, why does it all have to be so worthy and dour? Scottish film especially suffers from this, note the rejection of funding for that Glasgow ninja movie. But cinema's strengths lie in its variety. It can raise some pertinent issues and make you think or it can feature a British cop flykicking a farmer's Mum. Both are great in their own ways and there is no reason why Britain can't do both. Danny Boyle has demonstrated that for over a decade, even if he does get Hollywood funding because we're too tight. Wright and Pegg have shown that it can be done successfully, not just artistically but commercially as well. We have them to thank for making British cinema fun, and for making British action films that don't feature cockney gangster twats.

Great* Lines From The Movies *Interpretations of "great" may differ from mines, Part 4

"If you want to be a big cop in a small town then fuck off down the model village."

Hot Fuzz again! As you can tell, a review is coming.

Great* Lines From The Movies *Interpretations of "great" may differ from mines, Part 3

"Crusty Jugglers"

Hot Fuzz. The best description for a Gypsy I've ever heard.

Boaby, sorry, Bobby

Genius is an overused term these days. Anyone with a bit of flair or imagination gets tagged with it, like some desperate attempt to counteract all the nonentity "celebrities" constantly foisted upon us. "It's okay", they say, "because the useless twat I read Heat for was dubbed a genius on Jonathan Ross the other night". The current issue of NME asks on its front cover if that twonk from Razorlight's a genius. I've made my point. In cinema there's a similar term that gets overused, and ironically enough its genesis lies in a man that, when on his game, was a genius. That term is "Altmanesque".

You know the type of film that gets labeled this. Sprawling ensemble pieces with multi-narratives that intertwine at certain points, either to major or minor effect. Films like Nashville and Short Cuts, both directed by Robert Altman, hence the moniker for similar films. Boaby is just such a film. Whether it manages to do those "Altmanesque" things as well as they were done in the aforementioned films is debatable.

I'll start with Boaby's positives. For a first time director/writer this is a pretty impressive effort. It's tightly directed and well written. There's nothing too flashy about anything technical, something that can often bog down first time efforts. The flash comes in the shape of a starry cast, featuring the likes of Martin Sheen, William H. Macy and Frodo Baggins of the Shire. As you can expect the actings great, hell even the presence of Lyndsay Lohan, Sharon Stone and Anthony Hopkins Welsh-like American accent can't bring this side of it down as the first two are excellent and the latter doesn't get in the way enough to matter. Of course there is a reason for the good stuff. Boaby's written and directed by Emilio Estevez. The cast appears to be Estevez calling in some celebrity favours, a la Clooney directing Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind. As for the steady approach, the man knows movies. He's starred in the Mighty Ducks series!

The major problem with Boaby is the script. As well written as it is, most of the storylines basically go nowhere and the links between them, beyond the fact that all of the characters are present at the assassination of the other Kennedy. Apart from that they don't intertwine until the final scenes, and for most there is very little incident. I can't even tell you what the Martin Sheen/Helen Hunt storyline is about, apart from ill-fitting shoes. The most interesting ones are connected with the kitchen area of the hotel, as racial politics between white, Mexicans and blacks surface and Christian Slater's bastard boss steals the show, closely followed by Freddy Rodriguez and Larry Fishburne, doing his best Silver Surfer impression.

Boaby is one of those films that is perfectly enjoyable thanks to good acting and unobtrusive directing, but it really is about it. There are some pertinent points about everyone coming together as one and stuff like that, but everyone involved probably thinks it's more profound than it really is. Fair play to Estevez, he obviously feels strongly about his subject, and by choosing to let Boaby Kennedy speak for himself shows that the man's beliefs were admirable, but the execution of this movie somehow just doesn't sit right. Maybe if some of the storylines had been cut, and something more actually happened before the end, then this could have been a cracking movie. As it stands it's purely average.

Grindhouse

Well thanks to it tanking so badly in the States us Brits aren't getting to see it in the way it is intended. Both films are being released in theatres seperately, the last time I checked Planet Terror didn't even have an actual date. Looks like we have to wait for the DVD in anticipation that the fake adverts have been restored, because at this point we've been told to go online to see them.

I for one am very unhappy that just because the film failed in one country, everyone else has been made to suffer. Think yourselves as lucky, because there's a good chance we will never see Grindhouse as it was meant to be, double feature with commercials and reels missing from the films. The Weinsteins should know better when dealing with Britain, as we tend to go for stuff like this, even if the actual grindhouse theatre concept is a bit lost on us. Reservoir Dogs was a hit over here first was it not?

Come on Weinsteins, get a finger out and treat audiences with a bit of respect.

Greatest Line That Hasn't Featured In A Movie...Yet!!!

"We'll set about ye."

It may sum up a nation's mood toward those hamfisted "attacks" and any that may come better than any 10,000 word essay.