Reviews

OK. My biggest complaint is this - the alien robots can choose really to transform into any type of machine they want to. So how come the decepticons choose fighter jets and the idioticons, errr, the good robots choose to be cars. Now a yellow camaro is cool and all but since this is really a war, why continuously and idiotically keep choosing a vehicle that is 15 times slower than your enemy. And they repeatedly over and over again against all logic make this absurd choice.

And the stupid writers of this movie just keep punishing us, the viewers with this moronic decision every chance they get.

So the decepticons are chasing you in the desert of egypt and you need to get to where the body of Optimus Prime is 50 miles away? Well let's drive there! So you can get stopped at the border. And of course the bad robots know where you're going to so they fly there and in the plot take pot shots at you as you lug along at sub-100 MPH speeds. Truly a bizarre movie. Very bad.

Oh and who can tell what is going on when the robots are fighting. It's just dumb.

This movie had so much potential but they turned it into a psycho-fest with idiotic plot points.

Idiot 1: After watching the AI stab a fellow worker in the eye, they all just wanted love on the AI

Idiot 2: The psychiatrist goes into the cage with the AI and decides to piss it off until it eats his throat.

Idiot 3: The writer who had the AI eat someone's throat

Idiot 4: So now everyone is dying and a guy finally decides maybe his rifle is in order but instead of shooting the AI from where he's standing, he runs right at the AI telling it to stop instead of, you know, shooting it and preventing it from killing his, albeit it shallow, love interest. Of course the AI grabs the gun from the idiot's hands and kills him with it. I mean why else would you run at the AI shouting stop if not to complete your plot point by dying.

The sad thing is this movie was a great idea and set up well but literally, they couldn't help themselves. I'm guessing this was written by liberal children with the emotional growth of the average 8 year old.

I don't usually watch movies like this and this drivel is a reminder as to why.

It's not just the unnecessary level of gore. I swear they tried to make the people who suffered the loss look like idiots, and somehow make the poor, pitiful teens who did the killing look like victims.

You could see the twisted minds of Hollywood producers thinking up some exalted constitutional argument as to why these sick deviants should live.

And through the power of the medium, people are going to feel sympathy for those whose hearts are as cold as ice. Meanwhile everyone forgets the 3 kids who won't get to live their lives.

They wantonly murdered 3 little boys. They deserve to die. They don't deserve your sympathy.

They forfeited their opportunity.

Movies like this should be destroyed.

It seems the more Hollywood depends on CGI, the worse the writing becomes. Graphics should enhance the viewers experience, not fool them into thinking that fancy graphics are going to excuse one implausiblity after another.

What is wrong with this movie? Where to start.

OK, I love Jodie Foster and have respected her work in the past but her performance in this movie was inexcusably bad. She was feigning some kind of accent but we were never sure quite what. Maybe it's Elysianin? Let's just say it made everything she said truly bizarre. Personally I felt like she just realized what a dog this script was just trying to hold down the vomit reflex. "Hey. It's got cool graphics and I get to work with Damon too." Now Damon is in an all out fight for his life and he's got this super-cool rail-gun rifle that's awesome. So he beats this guy down with it, sort of knocks him out or something so what does he do? He throws down his rifle and runs to mourn the loss of his buddy who's way dead.

How convenient for the plot that the guy he beat down isn't dead and there are other bad guys not 50 yards away from him! "Hey. I don't need my only weapon anymore! I'll just throw it on the ground and go cry over this corpse over here!" As ludicrous as that was, the idiot writer had him do the exact same thing in the climatic scene of the movie! He's got his cool rail-gun rifle and kicking butt. He blasts open a door and then for literally no reason whatsoever just throws the rifle on the floor and leaves without it. Let's just assume that people in the 150 year future have handled the "Aw shucks. I'm out of ammunition" problem.

The movie of course doesn't let you know that that is the problem. And if that's what this juvenile writer is going with all I have to say is: "Really? Really? You don't think maybe some smart person will have solved that problem in 150 years? Really? Since only an idiot (of course this writer might qualify) would make that still the problem, we have to assume that the writer has made the hero an idiot, which pretty much makes the writer an idiot again.

But I digress. So the hero goes out on the platform where immediately he meets his nemesis where something like, you know, the rifle he just threw away would have come in really handy! Other ridiculous issues: 1) So they have this multi-trillion dollar space station yet they haven't figured out how to stop a few lightly armed transport ships from violating their space.

2) The relationship between our hero (Damon) and the woman is really bizarre. I think this is part of the problem with writers who rely on graphics to cover bad writing. They actually are incompetent writers and cannot figure out the nuances of real relationships. So they compensate with explosions and massive quantities of inane coolness.

Their relationship was supposed to be this huge childhood thing, yet when they met up years later, they were just cool if not cold towards each other. Strange.

First, I like Kevin Spacey a lot. He's a fine actor. And I like Camilla Belle a lot.

But really, Hollywood, please get over everything has to be gay. It is beyond ridiculous and turns a potentially fun movie into yet another propaganda piece for a bizarre cause that no one cares about.

98% of us are not gay, don't want to be gay. Leave us alone and stop pushing your absurd agenda on us.

Really, so she didn't want to invite her father to her art show because he might offend a buyer but then she invites her uber-feminist lesbian roommate who blurts out to the first customer she finds: "I'm a lesbian!" Really? Really? This is just utter stupidity on the most basic level.

These producers/directors should be fired and then flogged, or maybe flogged and then fired.

They are just stupid people.

And this is a stupid movie.

Had potential. Ruined.

One of the most boring movies you'll ever see. If you're having trouble sleeping, this one will help.

I really like Elle Fanning. She was fantastic in Super 8 - a movie where something interesting actually happens.

There really isn't anything interesting about this movie.

OK. This guy lives a vacuous life. We get it. But please, do we have to be exposed to it for 94 minutes, non-stop.

Like when his Ferrari drops the tranny, couldn't they just have something interesting happen like someone run into it while they're standing next to it? As an added benefit, maybe the they could have Dorff's character die as a result and end this bomb right there.

Don't watch this thinking that Fanning can save it. She doesn't.

Oh. And the immorality displayed by this guy in front of his daughter just makes me love Hollywood all the more.

Really this is a horrible film.

I truly cannot understand why so many people gave it a good rating.

I cannot understand how movie makers get away with presenting drivel like this to the public and expect to get paid for it.

Where to start...

The cliché of a woman who needs to load a shotgun and spills the shells everywhere... really?

The absurd - so the guy gets stabbed in the foot while killing two bad guys and a day or two later he's walking what appears to be several miles to his restaurant. He does this simply to further the plot since the other bad guys come to town looking for him and are heading to his house, threatening his family.

OK there's illogical things that are done that further the plot that might be acceptable but really, he's going to walk 5 miles to work to get some exercise with a seriously injured foot? Really?

More cliché - the dumb, angry teenage boy gets angry and runs out of the house only to be nabbed by the bad guys and used as ransom... didn't see that one coming.

Well could only get half way through. Simply a terrible movie.

Not worth your time. Next.

Well I really liked this movie a lot. It was generally very well done and I even was able to get over the fact that they cast Robin Williams (why? why?) in it. I generally love stories where a kid gets lost and is somehow saved by someone who loves/finds/runs into them.

And how can you not love Keri Russel. She's awesome.

I would give this movie a 10 but there are two somewhat serious drawbacks.

Well my first issue is not that major but, really, it is a problem that I think everyone seeing this movie would notice. When the boy is "discovered" by the reverend and is taken to Juliard, we are expected to believe that Juliard, a top of world music/arts school for gifted children, would just take in a kid without any documentation of who he is? That simply is not believable. They require parental permission and signatures, etc. Sure they'd want him but they would so incredibly liable if they did what they did in the movie. I know it would sort of destroy the ENTIRE plot if that didn't happen like that and that's sort of my complaint. As a writer, you shouldn't have to box yourself into such a bad plot miss in order to make your story work. Shakespeare always made every thing work, brilliantly. With a little more effort, you could have too!

Second, the ending was a real letdown. I don't think the writer fully understood his movie to be honest. I know things get complex in movie making with writers, producers, directors and editors all having a say in what ends up being the movie but for me they really, really blew this one.

OK, what I'm about to write is a major, end of the movie spoiler. I've already marked this review as a spoiler but if you really don't want to know the end, don't continue reading! :)

The movie ends with the boy on stage looking at his parents and then in his mind narrating some trite comment about the grandness of music, vision etc. This is what I mean about the writer not understanding this movie. Repeatedly throughout the movie, he tries to interject a narrative of spiritual feeling ideas about music being almost godlike. Yet the movie as you see it on screen takes on a totally different life. The music really becomes - and I might add the word 'merely' to qualify becomes - the vehicle to achieve the overarching theme of the movie - the love of a boy for his parents and the love of a mother for her son being so strong that they persevere 12 years to find each other at last.

Music really was incidental to that real goal, as the boy repeatedly states in the movie that his ONLY concern is to be reunited with his mother/parents. The music to him was merely the vehicle to see that happen.

So we get to the finale, and everyone watching the movie wants there to be a huge reunion with hugs and many tears - which if it was me separated from my son for 12 years, I would have leaped onto the stage!

But no. We get no completion and are only left with empty, trite words about some new-age idea about music.

No hugs, no tears, no explanations back and forth between the 3 miraculously reunited, no resolution.

OK, I generally liked this movie, at least I wanted to like this movie but it was really difficult to look past some of the more ludicrous plot points.

I mean if your goal is to be stupid and make sure you die, you'd pretty much do what this guy did throughout the whole movie. This is one of those movies where your constantly left asking: "Why did you do that? No one would do that."

I realize it doesn't make much of a movie for someone to figure out immediately how to get out of this contrived situation but still, the writers could have at least tried to create something a bit more compelling.

Also, the prosecutor for the case was on his hit list who happened to take the same cab as the hit-man does, within minutes of each other. Setting aside the absurd level of coincidence that would take, why would they want to kill the prosecutor? They're not witnesses. I'm sure they'll find another prosecutor!

Watched this movie last night and my mind has a few more observations/issues with this movie:

1. Immaculate Discovery - as is pretty much required in this genre/level of writing for this movie, the bad guy miraculously and immediately knows exactly where the main POWER cables for the entire building are and is able to chop through it with a convenient axe.

2. Good thing that modern buildings aren't supplied with back up power generation or something...

3. Off the grid - Also convenient that this is the ONE large building in LA that is entirely off the grid so that a complete power loss event wouldn't trigger a call to, you know, the POLICE of Fire Department or something.

4. The Lone Ranger - OK so she's prosecuting this HUGE case and four of HER witnesses just got murdered. No one of the many federal agents working on HER case think to call her and maybe send some, you know, protection for her!

5. The Lone Ranger - Part II - I know the government has limited budget. How convenient that she's the only prosecutor working on this case. She's only trying to bring down a major cartel. I'm sure the government sends only one lawyer to work the case.

6. The lonely employee - what a bummer that major business buildings have only one employee working at them in the evening! Especially ones where prosecutors working on sensitive cases involving the drug cartels work! And this one employee gets killed so I guess no one can, you know, call the police or something. Too convenient for the bad guy!

Well, there's lots more fun in store too but don't want to spoil it or nothing!

Could there be a more pompous character than the lead in this movie. This movie is one childish attempt after another to: A) Discredit Christ of the bible B) Pump up the main character into a god-like figure. Mainly I spent the movie wishing I could reached onto the set and slap this guy. Not only is this character stupid, the actor who played him is terrible.

OK huge spoiler: They actually went here in the movie - they actually made this little trifling person into Jesus - he supposedly was the literal Jesus of the bible, you know crucified and all.

Of course, as usual, Hollywood bent over backwards, just like their spiritual ancestors - the pharisees, to explain away the crucifixion which always has been an offense to these evil men.

Don't be dumb enough to buy what these guys are selling.

Please don't waste the 158 minutes on this movie like I just did.

I kept waiting for there to be one redeeming quality about this movie, one character that was remotely interesting.

Never happened.

The music was truly bizarre, misplaced - think Mission to Mars weird.

Maybe if you want to examine the mind of a complete psychopath without the benefit of a writer who even understands how to present that, give it a shot.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Your will be really, really bored, disappointed.

Minor Spoiler - contains content to 16 minutes into movie...

At 16:48 into the film, they go into this scene that mimics the movie that shows Hitler going ballistic when he finds out he's been deceived at the end of the war.

It's used to spoof Rebecca Black here... http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=bTdjjtFWEws

I love this movie. Yeah. It's kind of dumb on some levels but it really is pretty funny and if you watch really carefully, it has lots of subtle references and funny little nuances. Even the sound effects make references at times.

I rarely see movies these days that I would call clever, witty. I'm excited about watching the rest of it. I'll post again after watching the rest.