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Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
You'll want a fast-forward button
I was lucky to have missed Transformers 3 in theaters- you'll want a fast-forward button for this movie.
After watching one-and-a-half Transformers movies, I had hoped that Michael Bay would break away from his tradition of terrible plots, cheesy dialogue, boring action saturated with explosions and cliché characters, thereby making something that resembled an enjoyable movie. To the contrary, DOTM had everything listed above in even greater frequency. Bay even takes his time with it, drawing out the nonsense for three (3) hours! If anything, that's a feat in itself.
"But wait," you say. "Maybe I want to turn my brain off and just watch mindless action for a while." That's fine, I can respect that because aside from the pretentious I-only-watch-Oscar-worthy-movies film buffs, that's a guilty pleasure we all get from time to time. The problem with this film is that you feel like you're watching the same thing over and over again. If I'm going into a movie expecting nothing intellectual, at the very least I want the action sequences to be interesting/stylish, I want the dialogue to be funny, and I want the music to be captivating/cool. Movies in this category are seldom ever considered "good" by critics but have spawned memes like "this is sparta!" and "release the cracken!" and fulfill some of those things mentioned above.
Unfortunately, for all the money spent on the film's admittedly impressive visuals, the "action" in Transformers 3 expects audiences to be captivated by flying debris and destruction which makes up 2/3's of the film. It stops being impressive after watching it for an hour straight (an iPhone in the blender can simulate this pretty well). The musical score is equally uninspired, and the dialogue sounds like it was scripted by a 3rd-grader. I spend the time writing this review in hopes that I can save the time of others. Even for the action lover, there are much better movies to waste 3 hours with.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
Greater than the sum of its parts.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is by no means a cinematic masterpiece. As with any movie, plot holes are evident if you look for them. On the surface you have a sci-fi popcorn flick that is victim to many of the cliché trappings of any alien-invades-earth-it's-the-end-of-the-world film. What makes TDTESS different then is that at the heart of its convoluted and perhaps predictable script is a message about the human soul which should stay with you long after you've forgotten the plot.
The casting is brilliant, and the contrast between Jennifer Connelly's delicate and vulnerable character and Keanu Reeve's stoic demeanor is great to watch. The movie is an emotional one, but not due to its melodramatic scenes - and in my honest opinion these were probably the weaker points in the film - but due to what they say about the greater picture. I've never seen the original and didn't go into the theater with any expectations. I wasn't looking for cheap thrills or even dramatic storytelling. What I got was an idea, and an inspiring one. If you've seen and enjoyed GATTACA or Dark City, you should definitely give this film a shot and go into it with a philosophical and open mind. From an artistic standpoint, the film makers could have done much more, but at the very least, I think we can appreciate the movie for what it tries to do.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
Highly overrated
I went ahead and watched this film because the premise sounded interesting to me. Despite being wary due to the hard-to-take-seriously title and trailer, I gave it a shot. Now I wish I had my 2 hours back (or was it 3?). The movie starts off slowly and never really picks up. It felt as if an entire half of the film consisted of scenes where the main character was driving his car to rap music in the background or of scenes where mobsters watched classic cartoons. There are but 1 or 2 characters that you might actually care about, and they don't include "Ghost Dog" who pretty much always has the same expression throughout the movie. There are some funny moments thrown here and there but they are far too sparse. There isn't any character development, or plot for that matter.
Before you dismiss this review as coming from someone who seems to have a short attention span, I'd like to say I'm an avid film watcher and a huge advocate of independent and/or artistic films including 12 Angry Men and The Man From Earth, both of which are films that take place almost entirely in one room and consist of mainly dialogue. This film, on the other hand kept the word "boring" running through my mind. "Ghost Dog" is not a thriller because the "bad guys" are so inept and unrealistic that any sense of danger disappears, nor is it a drama because the characters are mostly stereotypes and show no development, nor is it action because of its focus characters sleeping, driving, watching TV etc etc. If I had to make up a genre for the film it would be "hip hop comedy spy movie that isn't that funny with cultural references." Even from a technical standpoint, the director doesn't do any interesting as far as camera shots and cinematography goes. Perhaps if this film was 1.5 hours shorter, I would have liked it.
If you read a few dozen Japanese haiku poems instead of watching this movie, you won't miss out on anything.