Indiana Jones and the Cradle of Filth Indiana Jones and the Something of Somewhere (see cause he's old and forgot) Indiana Jones and the Knackered Knees of Athritica Indiana Jones and the Last Big Payday (unless they do a sixth (they'll definitely do a sixth)) Indiana Jones and the Mortgage of Doom The Jones Identity (they're really looking to change up the series with this one) Indiana Jones 5: Jones Harder Indiana Jones and the Trip to the Doctor Indiana Jones and the Confusing Supermarket Layout Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Chicken Soup
Michael Bay's remit for this sequel appears to have been "the first one, just more so" and that's exactly what it is. More explosions, more masturbating over the Yank army, more "plot" padding out the time between giant robots battering each other. It certainly is more so.
And yet somehow it feels less.
Don't get me wrong, the first Transformers is by no means a great film, but it is enjoyable, explodey summer fluff. And that bludgeoning direction of Bay's even kind of works in the context. Plus the robot effects are bloody excellent. All that's present and correct here as well but it doesn't feel as impressive. There are some bloody amazing sequences, all shot through with Bay's own patented Confuso-vision, but at no point does the film knock you sideways the way the original did. It lacks the crucial "wow factor". Plus the main problems with the first one are also back, and like everything else they're also "more so". The plot is pure crap. Now, I'm not expecting something to rival the classics here, but it could at least rival the first film's story about, er... finding some spectacles on eBay or something. It seriously is a bit rubbish, even for a whammo, blammo movie. That sense of confusion as to what's actually going on and which character is which is also present, thanks to Bay's aforementioned habit of having so much go on it's actually impossible for the human eye to comprehend it all. Too often it feels like the camera is sitting too close to the big robot fights, possibly done to show off how flawless the admittedly fantastic effects work is, but you may as well be watching the ones and zeros that constitute the fighters for the good it does. Also making an unwelcome return is the strangely childish sense of humour that led to a joke in the first one involving an Autobot pissing on John Turturro. How do you top that? Here's a Decepticon's testicles swinging in your face, will that do?
Then there are the "comic relief" characters. Sam's parents return and manage to grate, especially the whole Mum getting stoned because even though she's clearly the right age to have been around in the 60's she doesn't know what hash is, but they are not the worst. Not by a long shot. Added to them we get a couple of Autobot twins, sorry I didn't catch their names and I'm not a Transformers geek, who are a stereotypical redneck and some faux-hip-hop speech spewing arse respectively. But that's not all as there's also Sam's college room mate, a conspiracy theorist sure about the existence of the Transformers who's only function appears to be to scream, cry and get hit in the nuts. Be thankful then for Turturro's double turn as the returning Simmons and as the voice of the decrepit Jetfire. The worst character though is Tyrese Gibson's Epps who's only functions appear to be a) spouting dialogue that "comments" on what's happening, but not in a clever, fourth-wall cracking sort of way, rather in a "hey isn't that politician a bit of a dick" style, and b) to be the token black character in an otherwise all-white film. In fact when other non-American nationalities appear they only do through a "this is how Americans imagine you to be" filter. If a Scottish character was in it he'd probably be a real-life Groundskeeper Willy.
In fact the biggest bugbear is how "pro-American" the whole thing is. As much as it supposedly is a film that is designed to in no way illicit a single thought from the viewer that's not strictly the case. It's very clear Iraq and the "War on Terror" loom large over this. There's just a bit too much "look at how fucking great all this big army shit is, look at how efficiently we can kill people who don't agree with us". At times it feels like the film's a recruitment video for the army, making dieing in a sandy sweatbox look kind of fun.
Maybe I'm looking for too much. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a two and a half hour mess, with a storyline that doesn't so much unravel as just explode in your face at intermittent intervals. The effects are indeed amazing, maybe the best you'll see to date, but having them shoved at you constantly deadens their impact until it's just a big jumble of colour and sound dancing about in front of you. So pretty much just like the first one then, but, you know, more so.
Den of Geek speculates 2012 will be the first available time for them to all get together.
Given the gap between Last Crusade and Crystal Skull I predict that this one will require John Candy in Wagons East style computer wizardry to complete it. And not just for Ford, for LaBeouf as well.
That's right! The best sci-fi show on telly (take that Battlestar Galactica (I'm sorry Battlestar Galactica I love you, please don't look at me like that)) is back for 26 new episodes probably next year. All the news and quotes from all the trade press are contained in that there link back there.
It means more of this:
And if you're a fan who bought all the DVDs then pat yourself on your extra special back as you probably helped save the show.
The most striking thing about watching Sam Raimi's last film, the third Spiderman, is how lifeless the whole thing is. Raimi's movies, with the odd exception, tend to be thrill rides, the type of stuff that justifies the whole notion of cinema experience as rollercoster ride. Yet here it just feels somewhat uninspired, like he's going through the motions. Watching it would suggest a director who needs a break, and by that meaning he needs to make something else. Drag Me To Hell is that break, and a return for Raimi to the genre that he started in, horror. Look at it as Raimi being like a band who have become massive, and have been churning out bloated, emotionless albums for ages suddenly deciding to make an album that "goes back to their roots" so to speak. On other words make a cheap, quick effort that looks to capture the energy of those earlier works before the fame and mass expectations set in.
Realistically Raimi has only actually made one horror film, Evil Dead. The sequels are really comedies and The Gift isn't a scary film. Of course that one sojourn is a schlocky mess but rises above the rest of the genre thanks to its energy and Raimi's creative approach to camera work, editing and sound design. To realise how lacking Spiderman 3 is just watch it back to back with either of the first two Evil Deads. Raimi's approach to the horror genre is helped by his background in comedy, and in particular slapstick. Of course there are many similarities to the two genres and Raimi gets this, using his expert sense of comic timing to engineer tension before the release, in this case through a fright, although there are a few laughs too. It is this same approach that he brings for Drag Me To Hell.
To say that you should treat this movie with a pinch of salt is an understatement. In fact not doing so will probably seriously affect your overall opinion of it. This isn't arty Euro horror like Let The Right One In, but neither is it the sort of depraved, joyless effort that is represented by endless Saw sequels and remakes of already brutal and tasteless nasties from Evil Dead's era that makes up America's horror release schedule. This is dumb fun, but with an intelligence that only a highly creative mind can bring. So you get flying eyeballs, phlegm, bugs, a cake with an eye, a corpse that has a thing for hair, a possessed hankie, and a crappy CGI goat that's just hilarious, but kind of for the wrong reasons. To attempt to analyse Drag Me To Hell on any sort of social level the way you could, say, Romero's films would actually be doing it a disservice as you would only reveal how shallow it is. It's here to entertain and make you jump, and that is all. Of course there is the point that Capitalism, and more so individualism, is bad, but we all know that anyway. Instead just enjoy the ride.
Drag Me To Hell isn't by any stretch of the imagination a masterwork, neither is it some revolutionary horror here to shake up the genre's very foundations. Rather it's a decided old fashioned little horror film with scares, laughs and enough "ewww" moments to keep you entertained for its running time. It's safe to say that with this Sam Raimi has rediscovered his mojo and proves, as he did with Evil Dead, to be a master of the horror artform. Indeed it is to that genre's loss that he hasn't made more scary films. It's probably wrong to say it, but let's hope he burns out again soon.
