Tyrese Gibson

‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ is Galaxies Away From its Predecessor

Ebeth — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:23:26 -0600

Rating: 1.5/5.0

CHICAGO – There are often many reasons sequels should not be made. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is one of them.

Seeking that “Allspark” exhilaration pumped into many of us from the original “Transformers,” moviegoers will flock to the sequel with anticipation. The first 20 minutes or so (skipping the ridiculous introduction) will feel like preparation for lift-off.

Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox, left) and Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf, right) are once again caught up in a battle between the Autobots and Decepticons in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”
Photo credit: Jaimie Trueblood, DW Studios, Paramount Pictures

Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and Bumblebee (voice by Mark Ryan) reappear in two familiar scenes, Mr. and Mrs. Witwicky (Kevin Dunn and Julie White) return with their well-executed bicker-banter and Mikaela (Megan Fox) remains with all the assets she brings to the screen.

We’re introduced to our first three Decepticons and they’re all impressive. From a ferocious tiger-looking beast to a beautiful and all-too-eager temptress (Isabel Lucas), the Decepticons are assembling a vicious team.

Then, before the audience even leaves the ground, alarms sound, the foundation shakes and this invigorating shuttle ride is cancelled. The audience is herded into what feels like a two-hour Segway tour, as we’re led where we don’t want to be and forced to wear goofy helmets of boredom.

The Autobot Optimus Prime once again does battle with the Decepticons in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”
Photo credit: DW Studios, Paramount Pictures

The plot is – sigh – difficult to piece out of this rubble.

While Sam is packing to leave for college, he discovers that a piece of “The Cube” (which was thrust into Megatron’s chest at the end of the previous film) is lodged in his well-worn sweatshirt. Coming into contact with this fragment transfers its energy into his brain and soon he’s spewing codes and symbols.

From a satellite-like set-up, the leader of the Decepticons (known as “The Fallen”) is watching and waiting. The Fallen has been on a mission since the Stone Age to take over the planet Earth and destroy its sun in order to energize his troops.

The codes locked in Sam’s brain are of an ancient Decepticon language and contain the secret location of a machine The Fallen needs to complete his mission. This machine is activated by a hidden key known as the “Matrix of Leadership” and the Autobot team is soon in competition with the Decepticons to locate both of these things.

Megan Fox in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”
Photo credit: Jaimie Trueblood, DW Studios, Paramount Pictures

This is where the “crash and burn” begins.

Recognizing that the very act of watching a sci-fi movie requires one to believe beyond reality, a major failure of this film is that it’s unbelievable within the universe it creates.

As moviegoers, we agree to join in to this world where large “transforming” vehicles exist and protect our planet. No problem. But when, for example, a large garbage disposal of a monster appears and sucks up everything in its sight (including vans, trees, etc.) yet two of our small human heroes are still standing, the audience begins to feel just a bit of disgust.

Sam’s team meets up with a Decepticon convert who is able to “beam them up” and into Egypt within seconds. It takes the entire army of Decepticons who are hunting Sam, though, almost 48 hours to catch up with him.

Not only are the action sequences plenty ridiculous (and endless) but the script (written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) is riddled with disappointingly laughable lines. From references to Barack Obama to supposedly serious battle cries of “let’s win this like we always have with a coordinated military strategy,” one is tired simply from groaning by the end of the film.

The Autobot Optimus Prime returns to battle the Decepticons in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”.
Photo credit: DW Studios, Paramount Pictures

Though Shia LaBeouf does what he can with the material he was given, Megan Fox’s performance will do little but get her a spot on Brett Michaels’ next season of “Rock of Love”. From the straddling of a motorcycle with her daisy-duke framed and exposed butt to the countless scenes in which Mikaela’s nothing more than a running, slow-motion, breast-bouncing bimbo, directors certainly took their cue from big-hair rock videos of the 1980s.

Those not offended by the obvious sexist tones in the film will surely feel offense from the blatant racism. New to the sequel are the Autobot “twins”: a pair of slang-slapping, “ghetto-fabulous” geek bots complete with gold “grills” and derived entirely from racial stigma. As if the target wasn’t obvious enough, when asked to translate symbols from their native language the twins exclaim (as though it should be obvious to those around them) “we can’t read!”.

Though not without its achievements in special effects, one knows there is a problem when something so colorful, complex and noisy leaves you slumped in your seat. Certain scenes – such as a Decepticon discussion on top of a skyscraper – are reminiscent of TV’s costumed “Power Rangers”. Most often, the creature at the end result of the “transformation” has too many parts to have come from its original form.

RELATED CONTENT
Read our interview with the “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” visual effects supervisor.

Read more film reviews from critic Elizabeth Oppriecht.

Comically, if adults still seek to aggravate themselves by purchasing a ticket to this film, here’s a survival tip: make the film into a drinking game and down one can of beer per testicular reference. Since the writers clearly turned to AC/DC’s “Big Balls” for inspiration each time they were blocked, one will leave with a pleasant buzz.

Galaxies away from its predecessor, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” does nothing but taint positive memories from the original film. Utterly embarrassing to the sci-fi genre, seek out some episodes of “The Jetsons” instead as even the cartooned “Rosie” is a more intriguing and complicated robot character.

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” which stars Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Rainn Wilson, John Turturro, the voice of Hugo Weaving, the voice of Peter Cullen and Tyrese Gibson, opened everywhere on June 24, 2009. The film is rated “PG-13” for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material and brief drug material.

By ELIZABETH OPPRIECHT
HollywoodChicago.com
elizabeth@hollywoodchicago.com

In Purely Exploiting Gratuitous Violence, Paul W.S. Anderson’s ‘Death Race’ Remake Kills All Comedic Value

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:23:00 -0600

Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – While 2008’s “Death Race” makes no secret about being a remake of 1975’s “Death Race 2000” with David Carradine as the title character Frankenstein and Sylvester Stallone as his archrival Machine Gun Joe Viterbo, what’s perhaps less obvious but still clear is how the film steals from others.

Though the “Death Race” story has a different book cover, Jason Statham’s character as Jensen Ames and then the masked Frankenstein can be directly correlated to (as just one example) Nicolas Cage’s character in 1997’s “Con Air”. We’ve certainly seen this before: a man who’s supposedly in the slammer innocently and has a monster axe to grind.

Navigator Case (Natalie Martinez) arrives from the women’s prison in an action-thriller set in the near future with the world’s most brutal sporting event as its backdrop in “Death Race”.
Photo credit: Takashi Seida

While films today can be rewarded for being quality remakes of compelling yesteryear memories, 2008’s “Death Race” not only disappoints in its unoriginal ripping from other films but ultimately loses face in its mission merely for unadulterated and gratuitous violence.

“Death Race” is yet another film along the lines of so many second-rate Hollywood products we see today feeling pressured to blow stuff up bigger and badder while servicing the human need to fantasize in the utterly ridiculous. All the while, a weak story is slapped on top of what essentially just amounts to an anthology of big booms.

Sometimes films succeed in being pure entertainment and don’t attempt to have underlying meaning or instigate inspirational change. When they do, though, they’re most successful when their fundamental purpose at least has some redeeming value.

Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) drives Frankenstein’s Monster in an action-thriller set in the near future with the world’s most brutal sporting event as its backdrop in “Death Race”.
Photo credit: Takashi Seida

The unfortunately simple message of “Death Race” merely says we’re living in a time and place where financial corruption can allow us to prostitute ourselves to charge $250 to watch one guy violently off another for our viewing pleasure. In the film, 70 million morbid viewers take the plunge.

To keep our sanity and our hope in this day and age, we have to believe our society won’t ever bow that low.

Perhaps the most interesting choice for “Death Race” was to send it entirely astray from “Death Race 2000” in its lack of comedy. The 1975 version was only part violence and very much part comedy, too. This time around, though, there’s also no presidential plotline.

Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) kills time in his prison cell in an action-thriller set in the near future with the world’s most brutal sporting event as its backdrop in “Death Race”.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures

Instead of winning the 1975 death race for the chance to meet the president, the modern version offers the winner the chance to leave prison.

Frankenstein’s Monster is attacked in “Death Race”.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures

The relatively unknown supporting character Frederick Koehler in this “Death Race” is actually one of the most standout and appreciated roles in the film.

While not exactly comic relief, he plays a memorably tense character named Lists who essentially serves as Wikipedia for Statham’s race-to-the-death driving team.

As for the decision to cast Joan Allen in 2008’s version, we can only pray that she doesn’t continue her current line of typecast roles any further.

Playing the warden in “Death Race” is directly akin to her Pam Landy government character in 2004’s “The Bourne Supremacy” and then again in 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum”.

While her character is no surprise based on her past work, the opposite can be said about Tyrese Gibson’s role in “Death Race”. The real-life model plays Statham’s archrival Machine Gun Joe Viterbo as well as an Old Navy model trying to sell ultra-luxury chic on a fine designer’s runway.

With a strangely unnecessary homosexual spin scripted for Gibson’s character that doesn’t make any meaningful sense as to why his sexual orientation would even matter, even though he attempts to sell you on being a man who gets down and dirty you’re still afraid for him to break a fingernail.

RELATED IMAGE GALLERY
View our full, high-resolution “Death Race” image gallery.

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More film reviews from critic Adam Fendelman.

One of the film’s one and only redeeming values is its decision to cast Statham as the title character.

Following his work on 2002’s “The Transporter” and then 2005’s “Transporter 2,” his ability to sell grit continues to get the job done here. Statham will deal his Frank Martin character a trilogy in 2008 with “Transporter 3”.

Famed filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson (who directed and wrote “Death Race” and also directed 2004’s “AVP: Alien vs. Predator,” 2002’s “Resident Evil” and 1995’s “Mortal Kombat”) continues playing to the darkest parts of the human heart and filling them with sludge.

Anderson in 2009 will next attempt to butcher a film version of “Castlevania” based on the beloved video game.

“Death Race,” which is written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, stars Jason Statham, Joan Allen, Tyrese Gibson, Natalie Martinez, Ian McShane, Max Ryan, Jason Clarke and Frederick Koehler. The film opened everywhere on Aug. 22, 2008.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com