Transformers: Dark of the Moon

 The Autobots are at it again, beating up the Decepticons, who are feeling dreadfully sore after their inevitable defeat, two years ago. Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is working in a boring job, whining about how dull his life is now he’s not being the hero. Still, at least he’s got a hot new girlfriend who is played by model, Rosie Huntington-Whitely (a.k.a the shamelessly objectified Megan Fox-replacement).

For a start, that girl can’t act for toffee, and if you’re still unsure for whom this messy whirlwind of a film is aimed at, let me give you a hint: the first bit you see of her is her bum. I’m not joking.

 I had no sympathy for Sam this time round. He’s no longer the dorky under-dog I previously liked from the first film. He’s a moaning brat, who is so terribly hard-done-by. Oh, and Patrick Dempsey is there too. He’s a villain of sorts, but he is seriously under-played.

The acting in general is shoved very firmly into the background, to make way for the blindingly fast special-effects we have come to expect in these films. And our expectations met – and then some! But, it comes to a point where you may become weary of the whole thing, and the sentence, “Oh, another punch-up?!” actually crossed my mind, when I watched it. How many fights do the Autobots and Decepticons need to have, before the boys/men get tired of it?

Yes, the 3D adds to the awesomeness of it, but where’s the atmosphere? If I wanted that much violence and action, I’ve have bought the video game instead, and even then, I’d probably get bored of it, and end up playing The Sims.

Well, there you go. That’s the problem. This is a dude’s film, and it is certainly not afraid to belt it out at the top of its lungs. Kinda like Gerard Butler, in 300. Girls, avoid it unless your boyfriend wants you to see it with him. Hopefully he’ll buy the tickets.

One thing I was pleased about though, was the soundtrack. The soundtrack for each Transformers film has been a rock fan’s dream, and this was no different. Linkin Park had some input as usual, as do My Chemical Romance and Paramore (their song is called ‘Monster’, and it is well worth a listen).

Rating: 2/5

What not to watch -

 Troll 2

if you go on Youtube and look up “bad acting” likely you are to find yourself at this films most famous scene. a speccy guys witnesses the girl he had been chasing dissolve into goblin food –

'they're eating her, and then they're gonna eat me –

oh my goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood'

this scene is bordered by microsecond of inaction and quiet as if to accentuate the film's most poignant moment. This is a film that regularly makes the polls as one of the worst films ever made. So why is this film so bad?

First off there is this obnoxious kid, perhaps the most obnoxious in movie history, who is the film's main character. He whines the entire time he's on camera, and in this case no one would mind if the good guy gets eaten in the end. Then there is my favourite, the bad woman whose acting rivals the speccy guy's at the start. She gesticulates all over the place, speaking the dialogue in the hushed tones  as if she is speaking Shakespeare rather than verbal diarrhoea. Then you have the goblins who are like eworks with ghoulish faces which don't move in any way. And yes in case you haven't noticed I've been using the term goblin because that's what they use in the film, even the town it's set in is goblin backward – Nilbog. It's a film about goblins called Troll 2. 

Well take away all the cute finishes and you have a pretty boring film.  the bad acting grates after a while. The actors rushing around and looking dynamic to try to kid you into thinking that there's actually action happening, when it's not when the film goes at a zombie pace. It's a film that lets it's low budget get in the way. I was expecting lots of animatronic special effects typical of 80s horror films, but all we get is some green food colouring running down a groaning face, as if that's going to keep you up all night. As a feature film Troll 2 is terrible, but no worse then the tripe you see on cable TV channels, such as Sharkypuss and Megaloden. If you;re interested in bad films or are just curious about them then you may want to watch it, but you should do only once and the burn it afterwards in case it my contaminate you. Just be thankfull they never made it into a trilogy. 

What to watch -

Cursed (2005) DVD Review

With the release of Scream 4 it was only natural for companies to re-release some of Craven’s older films for audiences to enjoy once again that being said films like Shocker and Last House on the Left are not the ones to get this treatment it’s one of Craven’s more disappointing films that was released in 2005, Cursed.

Cursed focuses on Ellie (Christiana Ricci) and Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) who are attacked by a werewolf and thus themselves find themselves in turn turning to werewolves; they find out from a gypsy fortune teller that they must kill the one who started the curse to be rid of it.

Cursed is not a good film in any sense of the word, if anything it’s a very poor attempt at making werewolf films “meta”, a trait that has stuck with Craven ever since New Nightmare and is most apparent in his Scream trilogy. In those films it works but here it’s just dull and feels very overdone.

It’s a comedy-horror that’s set out right from the go but it’s neither horrific nor comical, not in the sense that it was meant to be anyway most of the jokes are hit and miss and the ratio between the hits and misses is more in favour of the misses more than anything. Overall Craven feels out of his depth, sure he had good intentions but when he actually got to the heart of it there wasn’t much that could be done building upon the thin and strangely enough, quite tragic, script by Williamson. Therein lies the issues of Cursed and when a film is trying to build upon wrecked and shoddy foundations it’s no wonder it fails the way it does.

On a positive note there are some saving graces and those are namely the main two performances (Ricci and Eisenberg), they might not exactly be anything special but they make the whole ordeal seem a little less flat and monotonous.

Fans of Craven’s work will most likely be shocked and in disbelief that Craven delivered them this pile of absolute trash (and not in the ironic sense) and the responses might sound something along the lines of “What the hell happened?” or “This isn’t the Craven we know and love surely?”

It’s bad but there are a lot of enjoyable moments sprinkled lightly throughout and it’s far from unwatchable but it’s certainly not worth the price on the tag. Rent it or wait until the prices goes way down.

Grade: D

Give it a try if you must but be warned, it won’t exactly please you to known Williamson wrote the script and Craven directed it after being put through the ordeal of watching it.

Chatroom (2010) DVD Review

Hideo Nakata has always prided himself on being different when it comes to horror films, take for instance Ringu the most well known of his films was a vast departure from what audience’s knew as a horror film it took an idea and added the idea that it could well be an urban myth to it, it fascinated audiences everywhere and it even kick-started Hollywood’s interest in J-Horror, depending on your stance that’s a good or bad thing.

Aesthetically and conceptually, Chatroom is unlike the majority of other films out there but it’s not accessible to all and only those who can see the true meaning of the film will truly appreciate it and of course it’s not going to be much of a success after audiences have already seen films like The Social Network and Catfish which both explore similar themes. Chatroom is not dissimilar to the aforementioned but it is different enough to hopefully develop a cult following of sorts.

Chatroom focuses on a group of teenagers who encourage each other’s destructive behaviour via an internet chatroom.

The internet chatroom in question is presented as both an actual chatroom on a computer and a real life room where people visit, this helps to establish the connections between each and every one of the characters and the idea of psychological manipulation is easily explored.

The manipulation runs deep in Chatroom, the idea that it is so easy for people to bully one another on the internet is another observant point to make, the idea that there are some people who purposefully seek out other more weaker people and psychologically twist them to their ideals and in some cases drive them to suicide has quite real and frightening possibilities. Maybe it’s even trying to reinforce the message, trust no-one? Knowing Nakata’s leaning towards the more ironic side of life, it’s a satirical point about the overly protective nature of society when it comes to the internet and its way of instilling fear into each and every one of us when it comes to the “dangers” of the internet.

There a lot of aesthetic differences between reality and the internet world one such being the use of colouring, in the real world it is bleak, dark and depressing and in the chatroom it is bright, colourful and everything a person could ever want. But throughout these two different sets of stylistics interchange between to give the audience the feeling of confusion which brings them to the level of confusion the characters are feeling about their real lives and their lives on the internet.

It’s a smart and observant point to make that teenagers are so wrapped up in both in internet and reality that they don’t understand where they actually belong and all of the little nuances that Nakata places in the film gives the audience the same feeling and help them connect to the character’s situations, the disjointed nature being one such example.

But, this would not actually work were it not for the actors giving each and every character the dimensions they need to make the emotional connections possible. It’s slowly paced as to give the characters time to evolve throughout and without the pacing, the stylistic changes and the actors this film would have been dead in the water.

Grade: B

Viewed as a drama with psychological elements Chatroom is superb but when viewed as a psychological thriller like it was billed it does fail and audiences aren’t likely to see past this which is a shame because Chatroom is fascinating and at times quite chilling.