Chills, Thrills, and Michael F'N Bay!

I'll start out by saying that my all-time record for most movies seen in a theatre in a week is 12 (actually seen in the span of 4 days). This occurred while I was visiting my parents in Houston over Christmas right after I graduated in 2000. This is not something I recommend. The movies I saw, in no particular order, were: Proof of Life, Cast Away, Vertical Limit, Dungeons and Dragons, What Women Want, Dude, Where's My Car?, Miss Congeniality, Quills, The Family Man, The Grinch, Dracula 2000, and Little Nicky. I don't honestly remember any of them, unless I have seen them again since that time. They all just pretty much run together, and all I have is a vague sense of whether or not I liked them at the time. I bring this up because, although it is nowhere near my record, I have gone to the theatre 3 times in the past 5 days and I don't remember the last time I did that. So I figured I might as well post a review of them all, especially since 2 of them were advance previews (Live Free or Die Hard and Transformers) and the other (1408) is still less than a week old. So without further ado . . .

1408
It might not be saying much, but this is without a doubt the scariest PG-13 movie I've ever seen. It just goes to show you the oddities of the MPAA ratings criteria. They are always looking for the things you can quantify (i.e. how many uses of profanity, how many total seconds of nudity, and how much blood is shown) that when you get to some ambiguous things like tone and tension they have no idea what to do. So you end up with a film like this, which is far scarier than any Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, going out the door with a PG-13 because there's almost no swearing and not a whole lot of blood. All I know is that had I gone to the theatre to see this as a 13-year old I probably would have run out crying and slept with the covers over my head for a month. In any case, on the whole I thought this was a real solid movie; definitely in the upper tier of the Stephen King adaptations. If any of you don't know, it's about an author (Mike Enslin played by John Cusack) who makes his living staying overnight at supposedly haunted places and then writing about them. He doesn't actually believe in the supernatural and so, when one day he gets a postcard from The Dolphin Hotel in New York that says simply "Don't Go Into 1408", of course he boards the next flight there. Samuel L. Jackson does a great job in a very small part as hotel manager who tries in vain to keep Mike from going into the room. He delivers the single best line in the movie, which I won't ruin here in case anyone plans to see it. Well of course it goes without saying that once Mike gets in the room it doesn't take too long for him to change his mind about the supernatural.

The movie is divided into three distinct acts. The first part introduces us to Mike, gives us a small bit of background on him, and then gets him into the room. The second act takes place in the room, and the third act wraps things up. The first and third acts are both solid, particularly when Jackson is on the screen, but it's the second act that really sets this movie apart. I have to give the director (Mikael Hafstrom) a lot of credit for knowing just how to create an extremely intense 35 minutes of cinema. He knows exactly how far to take you before giving you the "jump scare" or letting the air out and then building it up again. This is not an easy thing to achieve, especially when you are trying to keep things PG-13 (sorry to keep harping on that). He keeps reaching the point where it's about to go over the top and become absolutely terrifying, but he always manages to recede right before the brink in a way that feels like a real relief rather than a copout to the audience. Cusack is good here, too, although this will most likely not go down as one of the roles he's widely remembered for 10 years from now. The key with him is that while his character certainly has problems, he's largely a likeable guy who is given a solid backstory that unfolds slowly throughout the movie. It makes you actually invested in his character and that's what makes it all the worse to see him endure what he goes through.

Anyway, I know I haven't given a lot of specifics, but I think it's better that way. This movie is all about tone and suspense and it does a great job with each. Easily the best horrorish movie of 2007, although considering the competition that's not saying all that much.

Live Free or Die Hard
A very popular discussion to have while tipping back a few pints is "which is the 2nd best Die Hard movie?" Everybody is unanimous that the first one is superior, but opinions are very much divided after that. I am firmly in the Die Hard: With a Vengeance camp. I thought Samuel L. Jackson brought a lot to the movie and I also thought that Jeremy Irons made a great villain. Die Hard 2, on the other hand, I just thought was pretty much the same movie as the first Die Hard, and thus seemed pretty repetitive and unnecessary. That's not to say I won't sit and watch it when I come across it while flipping channels, though. In any case, the real question is will this new Die Hard enter into the discussion as the 2nd or, dare we dream, best Die Hard movie? Um, no. At least not for me. While I still put this one above Die Hard 2, to me it is quite a bit behind Die Hard and With a Vengeance.

Again here I have to bring up the rating. This is the first Die Hard to not be released with an R. I presume that when the studio took a look at the script's action sequence requirements and corresponding budget they wanted to make sure they hit as large an audience as possible. Overall, the movie is just as violent as its predecessors, and the only real difference is that John McClane must have gotten himself a swear jar sometime during the last 12 years and learned to say things like "jerkwad" a lot more. While that doesn't necessarily take away from the movie, there are times when he's speaking to the villains and it just doesn't seem like he's saying what John McClane would really say. I guess that's probably the most general problem with this movie; somehow it just doesn't "feel" like a Die Hard movie. In fact, change the character's name and remove about 3 different lines of dialogue, and this would just be a generic Bruce Willis action movie.

OK, so that's what's "generally" wrong with it. Specifically, there is one glaring problem with this movie and that is with the villain. I won't blame the actor (Timothy Olyphant), but this character is just one of the most bland, boring bad guys to ever appear in a big budget action film. While action movies certainly aren't known for developing 3-dimensional villains too often, this is Die Hard and the ghost of Hans Gruber really bites them here. Alan Rickman gave us one of, if not THE best, action villains of all time and to see such a cookie cutter replacement just shows us how far the series has fallen. The fact that the plot centers around high tech thievery and data manipulation doesn't help matters either. There was a time when the evil villain had a brainy henchman that did the geek-speek so that the main baddy could concentrate on being cool and evil and it just doesn't have the same affect when McClane is essentially hunting down a tech support guy. One of the head henchman (actually a woman) is pretty interesting, but as soon as she gets dispatched of (about halfway through the movie) there's really no one left worth caring about and McClane might as well be shooting at stormtroopers for the rest of the film.

You know, I realize that I am really sounding overly negative about this film and I'm really not intending to. I absolutely enjoyed it and think it's a real fun film. The action sequences are way over the top, but that's a really good thing in a Die Hard film and they are done very well. Also, some kudos to the director (Len Wiseman) for opting to not use CGI; the difference really shows. He also uses some really cool tracking shots during a car chase that some other action movie directors should take notice of. So, overall, a solid although admittedly flawed film that most fans of the series will have fun with but probably not rave about. Had this actually been a generic Bruce Willis movie I probably would have been more forgiving, but that's the double edged sword for the studio. You can't have the hype around a new Die Hard film without raising the expectations.

Transformers
Last night I had the opportunity to see an advanced screening of Transformers. Not only was it free, but it was at the theatre which is only a mile away from our apartment and the theatre was only about half full so we got some great seats. With all that going for me, I should have known my luck would not hold up.

I'm searching for the right words to use here. How about this? This. Movie. Sucks. Yep, I think that about covers it. To any of you out there that are excited to see this movie, all I can say is that the other 5 people who saw it with me all enjoyed it, so I appear to be in the minority here. 20th Century Fox and Michael Bay better hope that I am. For me, the only thing this film successfully transformed was my large Cherry Coke into a gallon of piss.

I'll take the opposite approach of my last review and talk about the good things first. By and large, the transformers look good. Going live action means you are pretty much forced to use CGI, and kudos to the special FX guys for a job well done here. Also, most of the action scenes, especially the one at the end, are pretty cool. And Megan Fox is absolutely smoking hot. Every scene she's in is good just because she's in it; usually with not a lot of clothes on.

So what's wrong with the movie? Everything else. With a run-time of 2 hrs. and 20 minutes, the transformers have maybe 40 minutes of screen time. That means we get 100 minutes of not very interesting story all about the human characters. In the Transformers cartoon, humans were very minor characters. It was all about the war between the machines. Here, it is the other way around. We are forced to follow the humans, and pretty much only see the transformers when they are around the humans. What has Optimus Prime been up to before he appears more than an hour into the movie? We don't know and don't get to find out, but I bet it was a hell of a lot more interesting than the B-movie plot we're forced to sit through. I don't know whether it was a budget constraint or a creative decision to not show more of the Transformers, but the end result is some not very entertaining cinema. The other glaring problem is that (mild spolier alert) Megatron only appears for the last 25 minutes. Why they decided to have the main villain pull a disappearing act for 75% of the film is beyond me, but they did. The other problem is that even though individually the transformers look good, in a battle it's really difficult to tell them apart (with the exception of Optimus Prime). You just see a mess of metal colliding and rolling around and have no idea who you're supposed to root for, so it quickly becomes pretty boring. Finally, again with the exception of Optimus Prime, most of the transformers speak maybe 3 lines in the whole movie. Once more, the transformers are relegated to the background while the humans take front and center. Finally, and most obnoxiously, there is an approximately 25 minute subplot concerning Rachael Taylor and Anthony Anderson's characters that goes absolutely nowhere. And I'm serious; you could completely cut them out of the movie and lose nothing (other than the gratuitous minutes). In a movie that is already pushing the boundaries with its running time this is just completely unacceptable. Even the other people I saw it with that enjoyed it couldn't tell me what the point of this subplot was.

Overall I can't say I was disappointed with this movie, only because from the moment I heard Michale Bay would be directing I instantly had zero expectations of it being good. As Trey Parker and Matt Parker said in Team America "why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?" With the exception of The Rock, this guy has had the reverse Midas Touch on everything he has been involved with. And given that somehow his movies continue to make money despite him, I don't see things changing anytime soon.

I'm quite certain that most of you will see Transformers at some point, and some of you will probably even like it and try to convince me that it's good. I'm always open for discussion, but I will only sit down and talk to you about it if you can answer me this: why do the Transformers growl?