Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Predicted Rating: 1 Star

Directed by: The worst man on the planet. Starring: Red Bull, Bud Light, Oreo, Sprite, Victoria Secret, Beats by Dr. Dre, Samsung, Chevrolet, Bugatti, and Mac Trucks.

So Mark Whalberg finds this truck that turns out to be Optimus Prime and then the government tracks him down, then I don’t know, this movie is fucking stupid, I don’t care about the plot.

It is no secret that I don’t like the other Transformer movies. There is way too much time spent on the stupid human characters and the transformers are just there, there is way too much going on in the fight scenes that it just looks like hunks of metal flying around, the humour appears as if it was written by a 6 year old and they are terribly racist. I am going as far as to say that Transformers 2 is the worst movie ever made. As a result of this I was very reluctant to see this instalment but I thought, hey, there are Dinobots in this film so I will give it a shot. I mean giant transforming dinosaurs, that is pretty bad ass. From when I sat down, so from the start of the previews, to when the dinobots made an appearance was 155 minutes! ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE FUCKING MINUTES! That is 2 hours and 35 minutes, or 9 300 seconds, or 9300000000000 nanoseconds. In that time, the average person could have sex 22.14 times, I could run 31 kms, play 10.33 games of FIFA, watch 89% of The Godfather, or listen to November Rain 17.22 times. I have never walked out of the cinema before but I was so close to doing it here. This movie is just way too long. I was going to put a time value on how much this movie runs overtime but I think it is just 165 minutes too long.

Just everything about this movie was so stupid. It appeared the person who wrote this had an IQ equivalent to a glass of water. They tried to include intelligent characters such as Mark Whalberg as a whiz bang inventor but he didn’t say anything smart the entire movie. And when the characters tried to say something intelligent it was completely wrong. For example, they found an old dinobot in the Arctic Circle, which of course is made of metal. The lead scientist then mentioned they managed to carbon date it at some date. Ummmm when I last checked you cannot carbon date metal as what you are testing needs to contain carbon. Also, it was a metal that does not exist on earth. There were also so many small things that frustrated the hell out of me. In Michael Bay’s trademark racist moment, one of the autobots was a Japanese Samurai. Something that might be cool but he didn’t even transform into a Japanese car, he became a Bugatti, which is a German car?! They shoved a Chevrolet badge on a Citreon as someone who lives in Rockingham would do to their Commodore. The Irish guy decided to change his accent to Australian, Scottish and American on multiple occasions. Then there was the product placement. Oh god the product placement. I was waiting for the show to come back on because it just felt like a giant advertisement break.

I was trying to think of something that I liked about this film but I really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Maybe the fight scenes were slightly easier to watch than in the previous films. The main girl was slightly smarter than Megan Fox and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, but then again, so is a Chimpanzee. That’s all I’ve got. This franchise just infuriates me. I loved the cartoon as a kid. It was always the first thing I went for when choosing a video at the video store. I had so many diecast toys and I swear all I did was play with them. Then Michael Bay just came along and took a huge shit on my childhood. I know I am part of this problem but these movies make so much money so he is just going to keep making them. STOP SEEING THESE MOVIES! As a subscriber of the unlimited parallel universe theory, I just hold onto the hope that there is a parallel universe out there where Transformers is directed by Joss Whedon. That is the universe I want to live in.

Overall:  A huge steaming pile of shit. Minus 155 stars, one for every minute I waited for the dinobots. 

Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Predicted Rating: 2 Stars

Directed by: Doug Liman  Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt

As part of a PR stunt, Major William Cage (Cruise) is sent to the front line of a ferocious battle between the human race and alien invaders. After getting into an argument with the general, Cage is demoted to private and finds himself way out of his league. After being killed on the battlefield, Cage discovers that he must relive the day over again. Cage seeks the help from Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Blunt), who he discovers also once had the same ability. They must now use the ability to defeat the aliens.

I am going to start this review off by saying I love Tom Cruise as an action hero. He was surprisingly good in Oblivion, Top Gun is an absolute classic and he is a boss in Mission: Impossible. I even loved him as the crazy dude in Eyes Wide Shut. I know this might turn a few people off this review, but hey, deal with it. There are many critics in regards to Tom Cruise, mainly that he is too short to be an action hero and that he is downright bonkers behind the screen. I for one think that you should not judge an actor’s skills based on their off screen antics (as long as said antics are legal), but by what they do on screen. In that way, Tom Cruise is one of my favourite actors.

I am going to throw another curve ball out here and say this is the closest a movie has ever got to being a video game despite the fact it is not based on a video game. It captures the experience of playing the final boss level on a video game. At first it seems impossible and you die almost immediately but as you gather more knowledge you progress through the stage. Finally you can defeat the boss but not after spending many frustrating hours on it. Tom Cruise’s character goes through exactly the same process. I also make this comparison because Edge of Tomorrow reminded me a lot of the Playstation 3 launch title; Resistance Fall of Man. It not only shares a similar setting and plot but similar characters.

Overall: A very edge of your seat, entertaining sci-fi that is a cross between Groundhog Day and the computer game Resistance. 4 Stars