Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Ice Cream Rating: Butterscotch
Director: Michael Bay (Transformers, Pearl Harbour)
Top stars: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whitely and Tyrese Gibson
Running time: 157 minutes

Transformers 1 was awesome!!! Transformers 2 (Revenge of the Fallen), even though it won ‘Worst Film of the Year’ and was bombed by the critics, still blew my mind and I remember expecting all the cars on the road to unfold into superbots the day after I watched it. So when I sat down to see Transformers 3, I already had my “I just saw an awesome film” Facebook status ready. Considering how prejudiced I was to like the film, and how much I ended up being annoyed by it - should give you a fair idea about Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Disclaimer: I have tried hard to rein in the negative adjectives in this review.

Let’s get the plot out of the way. The story is basically a re-hash of the second film. The Autobots find a long lost Cybertronian ship, carrying technology important for the defeat of Megatron. They also realize that the humans had already discovered the ship on the moon during the Apollo mission. (If Autobots are as technically advanced as the films make them out to be, how did earthlings manage to find the ship before they did, and hide the intelligence all these years? Yes, gaping holes!) Beyond that, it’s just a montage of Megatron’s scariness, crumbling buildings and lots of mechanical parts.

Why is Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) so whiny all the time? How did Carly Spencer’s (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) hair go from straight to perfect curls in consecutive days of captivity? And what is with the psychotic behavior of Jerry Wang (Ken Jeong)?! Not to mention the eyebrow raising weirdness of Bruce Brazos (John Malkovich), the boss. Throw in a peevish Mearing (Francis McDormand), a crazy Simmons (John Tuturro) and his German side-kick and we have the perfectly harassing Transformers parody. The entire film is an ensemble of caricatures that start to intensely irritate you in the course of 2 hours and 37 minutes.

I will not deny that the special effects are exhilarating and in some scenes, genius. But is that enough to float the third part of a series in which the previous films also had amazing sequences? No. Dark of the Moon drowns in its paper-thin plot and indifferent actors.

It might seem mean of me to pick on one person among the entire incompetent cast (save Patrick Dempsey, who is fairly irreproachable). But when I found myself thinking, “Megan Fox’s performance had more depth”, I knew that Ms. Rosie Hunting-Whiteley was the worst thing that happened to this film. All she does is look remarkably envious in her low cut dresses and high heels. Shia LaBeouf deserves better. Atleast, Sam Whitwicky, the guy who’s saved our planet twice before, does.

So Michael Bay, if you want to carry on with the Transformers series and make films that we all would like to watch and re-watch, bring back Megan Fox, re-orient Shia LaBeouf and get a new background scorer and all might be forgiven.

More on Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Christian Spotlight, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert, Metacritic, Wikipedia

Hanna

Ice Cream Rating: Chocolate (with a Vanilla aftertaste)
Director: Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice)
Top stars: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett
Running time: 111 minutes

The film ends and I sit back in my seat - still, silent and stunned.

That’s what Hanna will do to you. It suctions you into the fast unraveling world of sixteen year old Hanna and takes you on a jaunt. The cinematography is, plainly put, brilliant (so brilliant that I actually found out who the cinematographer was). Scenes like the conversation between the two girls, the electricity havoc in the little room and the escape from the safe house are gorgeously shot and please may we have a standing ovation for Alwin H. Kuchler (the cinematographer, duh!).

The highly manipulative background score pushes the viewer into definite oscillations of emotions and proves to be quite quirky at times. Half way through the movie, just when you’re starting to think about how tight the editing is, it slackens in the second half. But none of these things matter in those 111 minutes because Saoirse Ronan redefines the term ‘show stealer’. She hops from being an inherent killing machine and a wide- eyed, inquisitive teen with uncanny ease. Competing with her is the icy Cate Blanchett. Blanchett is as terrifying as her role requires her to be but shines in those little moments of fear, surprise and falsity. Unfortunately, apart from the two ladies, nobody else makes an impression in the acting department. Eric Bana just barely flickers, then dies (pun intended).

Hanna (Ronan) is raised by her 'father’, Eric Heller (Bana) in the wilderness of Finland and is pumped with extensive knowledge, a large number of languages and combat skills in preparation to take on whatever is waiting in the world for her. Marissa Wiegler (Blanchett) is the CIA agent previously in-charge of killing Eric and Hanna, as they are both strays of an experiment cover-up. This compounds into a wild chase and it would be injustice to the film for me to reveal more. 

Every character, no matter how small, has beautiful depth which is very subtly revealed. But the apparent effulgence of the film dims after you have watched it. The plot begins to seem confusing and certain scenes, far-fetched. How did Hanna, who was so startled by ceiling fans and a telephone, so easily use the computer? What happens to the travelling family? And how on earth did Hanna get ear piercings living in a forest?

But sometimes an explosive first impression is enough to carry a film through. And if those occasional moments of intimate humanity and cinematic genius don’t leave you still, silent and stunned, little else will.

More info on Hanna: Christian Spotlight, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert, Metacritic, Wikipedia

Introducing everything from Coffee to Butterscotch

Moi

When my mother was pregnant with my brother, my parents read somewhere that it’s important that the first child not feel left out and jealous. So when the little brat was born, I remember Appa taking me for watching a film almost every week. And we always went for night shows. So from a 3 year old child who never cried in the theater (like most toddlers do) to a 17 year old who is trying her hand at film reviewing, it’s been a ride that I owe to my brother, my mother and equally film- obsessed father.

I love films. Period. I’m very prejudiced, technically unsound and obstinate in my opinions - everything that a reviewer should not be. But I love them and I’ll badger you to watch a phenomenal film, till you concede just because I’m getting on your nerves (speaking of which, anybody who hasn't seen Inception, go see it NOW before I start haunting your dreams). So, if my film reviews will enhance even one person’s experience of a film, then I will continue to beg my mother to let me spend an hour writing a review in the middle of the week.

So here’s how things are going to go down. After I write what I personally thought about a film, I will rate it on a scale of five. But hey! Numbers are boring. Ice cream is not. So here is the rating scale.

5 - Coffee ice cream (Yaiy! Awesome!)

4 - Chocolate (Pretty good)

3 - Vanilla (OK OK)

2 - Strawberry (Bad)

1 - Butterscotch (Yuck!)

And people, don’t be too nice to me. If you disagree with me, please leave a comment saying so! The only thing I like more than a debate about cinema is coffee ice cream. Don’t NOT watch those butterscotch films. After all, the bad ones make the good ones taste better. If there are films that you think I should see, let me know. I’ll be watching and reviewing films, old and new, epic and epic fails. So leave behind smileys, feedback and comments. Just keep a hold on the swear words.

Meanwhile, I’m going to keep satiating myself and spend my free time on films, reviews, nothing else.