Movie Review: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (2009) 

Directed by Michael Bay 

Written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman

Starring Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro

Release Date June 24th, 2009

Published June 23rd, 2009

As a kid I was a big fan of Transformers. Looking back now as an adult I marvel at the idea: Wow, I was one weird kid. Transformers is one goofball concept. Talking, alien robots come to earth in search of ancient energy and disguise themselves as everyday cars, trucks and electronics.

This concept raises numerous logical questions, not the least of which is: Why would giant alien robots need to pretend to be everyday objects? You're a giant alien robot, why are you disguised as an Ice Cream Truck or a tape player? Identities taken on by a pair of alien robots.

The goofball premise becomes even goofier in the live action movie and sequel Transformers and Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. Adding Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox and a couple of wacky parental figures for comic relief, director Michael Bay takes a bizarre concept and makes it even more bizarre.

When we last saw the Autobots, good guy alien robots lead by Optimus Prime, they had stopped the evil Decepticons, lead by the evilest of evil alien robots Megatron, from obtaining something called the All Spark. Now, the Autobots and their human friends are prepping for war with the Decepticons once again, this time over something called Energon. Riveted yet?

The key to finding or rather creating energon, maybe, I'm not sure, is inside the mind of college bound Sam Witwicky (shia LeBeouf). It was Sam's seemingly random purchase of a rundown yellow camaro that lead to mass warfare when it was revealed that his car was really the alien robot protector bot Bumblebee. Sam making this discovery automatically drafted him and the girl of his dreams Mikaela (Megan Fox) into the war between Alien robot races.

Now, Sam has a map imprinted in his brain that will lead to the discovery of energon, or something. The Decepticons want to open up Sam's brain and remove the information while Sam needs to lead the Autobots to the energon to stop them.

If that plot doesn't grab you then you should probably skip Transformers Revenge of the Fallen because at 2 hours and 45 minutes you will have to want to be invested in this plot. You will have to work very hard not to be bored or put off by this exceptionally over-complicated and lame plot.

Worse yet are the juvenile, amateur hour attempts at humor. Sam's parents played by Kevin Dunn and Judy White are used as comic filler, first doing a variation on the comic strip Bickersons and then a really odd stretch where mom is whacked out on drugs. None of this has anything to do with alien robots and yet it's in there.

Then there is the robot who speaks jive. The robot who speaks through classic songs on it's car radio and the robot with giant robot testicles. Yes, testicles. Are you laughing yet?

As much as I loathe most of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen even I cannot deny the technical mastery on display. Director Michael Bay cannot tell a good story to save his life  but his special effects work is some of the best in the industry. Optimus Prime is a mind blowing special effect that in a better more daring story would be the lead character.

Here is a sidekick to a group of forgettable human caricatures and one exceptionally beautiful woman. This relegation to the background makes him bland as a character but still extraordinarily rendered. When he is onscreen, especially in battle with the Decepticons, Prime is the kind of star you build movies around.

All of the alien robots are remarkably works of CGI effects. As characters they mostly stink. That however, they have in common with their human counterparts. Shia LeBeouf is a nice actor with a good deal of charisma but his only real character development comes in being in better physical shape than in the first film, the likely result of having to literally run from one special effect to the next, from one on set explosion to the next CGI green screen robot.

There is no denying Michael Bay is a master of effects. If that is appealing enough for you, then see the movie, you might be satisfied. If however, you require a well told story with your massive special effects forget Transformers. See Star Trek a special effects movie that actually bothers to tell a story in between CGI explosions.

Movie Review: Transformers Dark of the Moon

Transformers Dark of the Moon (2011) 

Directed by Michael Bay 

Written by Ehren Kruger 

Starring Shia LeBeouf, Rosie Huntington Whitley, Tyrese, Josh Duhamel, Patrick Dempsey, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich

Release Date June 29th, 2011

Published June 28th, 2011

To say that "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" is the best of the "Transformers" movies is indeed damning with faint praise. The first two "Transformers" films were brutal exercises in filmic excess. Michael Bay banged his metal toys together inches from our ears and eyes and somehow expected us to enjoy it.

For "Dark of the Moon" however, the slamming and banging is rather welcome; especially when it interrupts Bay's abysmal attempts at comedy. The special effects of "Dark of the Moon" have greatly improved from the first two films. The effects editing of "Dark of the Moon" is better, this time we can actually see some of the robot action that before was a blur of whizbang, MTV style, quick cuts.

Sure, the story of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" remains an incomprehensible bunch of hooey but at least I can make out which robot is Optimus Prime.

Man on the Moon

"Dark of the Moon" picks up with a trip back in time to the original space race. An alien ship has crashed and landed on the moon and President Kennedy authorizes NASA to go find out what it can about this alien vessel. Eight years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin arrive on the moon and discover the very first Autobot.

Cut to modern day and to our human hero, Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf). Despite having helped save the world twice Sam can't find a job. He longs to work with his pals Bumblebee and Optimus Prime but for now has to settle for a job in the mail room of a defense contractor; John Malkovich plays the company's wacky CEO.

Meet Carly

Not all is bad for Sam however; he does have a new hot girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington Whitely), who happens to have a great job that keeps them in luxury. Carly works for a venture capitalist named Dylan (Patrick Dempsey) who happens to have a posh car collection. That he also happens to be an evil consort of the Decepticons will only come clear later.

The plot, such as it is, has the evil Decepticons, led by Megatron, looking to use technology stolen from the crashed autobot ship on the moon to import what's left of Cybertron to earth, essentially turning earth into the new Cybertron and turning the humans into slaves.

Which Robot is Which? Do You Care?

You need not know any more than that as what is left is the aforementioned whooey. "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" is not about plot complications or characters; it's about giant robots pummeling each other. Quick question: Can you tell the Autobots from the Decepticons? Sub-question: Do you know the names of the individual Transformers?

I watched the cartoon as a child but for the life of me, I cannot tell any of the robots apart aside from Optimus Prime. There is a new robot added to the mix in Dark of the Moon, Sentinel Prime, and I could tell him apart from the others but only because of the commanding voice of Spock aka Leonard Nimoy.

Regardless of what robot is what, I could not stop myself from enjoying watching them rip each other apart. There is a moment when one robot rips another robots head off and the robot spine was still attached to the robot head; I couldn't hold back my giddiness. It sounds gruesome but they're robots so I don't feel bad for enjoying this glorious carnage.

Michael Bay, YOU'RE NOT FUNNY!

Sadly, Michael Bay keeps up his childish sense of humor in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon." While we settle in to enjoy robot on robot violence, Michael Bay cannot resist childish jokes about sex and sitcom level banter from Shia Le Beouf about his girlfriend troubles, job troubles and car troubles.

As mentioned earlier, John Malkovich shows up in Transformers: Dark of the Moon and when he shares screen time with John Turturro there is fear that the movie could turn into a classic vaudeville routine in which the performers trip and toss each other out of the way in order to take over center stage. This scenario sounds a great deal more fun than it is.

I'm a fan of Ken Jeong but what was he doing in this movie. Jeong plays a scientist with ties to the Decepticons but his real function is to be Ken Jeong and act all crazy. That was fun in the context of the "Hangover" movies, it's less fun in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" because it feels forced and out place.

Opposing Ideas

Michael Bay has two opposing forces going at all times in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. At once he wants us to take somewhat seriously the notion of an alien battle that may end in the enslavement of all mankind. On the other hand, Bay wants us to laugh at his sophomoric, sitcom jokes. The tone simply never works and the two sides run together like an ugly, head on collision.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon could have been a pretty good movie without the human characters. I get why they are there, our emotional connection to the giant robots is relatively non-existent, but Bay and writer Ehren Kruger have made the human characters so outlandishly goofball that we don't have much emotional connection to them either.

Bottom Line

In the end, all I really wanted was some robot carnage that I could actually see. On that very basic level you could call Transformers: Dark of the Moon a success. Do I recommend the film for a general audience? Not really, you have to really like robots to enjoy Transformers: Dark of the Moon. This is not like Spiderman or Batman where the characters have an appeal beyond their actions.

Movie Review The Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm (2005) 

Directed by Terry Gilliam

Written by Ehren Kruger

Starring Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Lena Headey, Monica Bellucci, 

Release Date August 25th, 2005

Published August 25th, 2005 

Director Terry Gilliam's unrelenting clashes with the powers that be have become Hollywood legend. From Brazil to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen to his famously incomplete The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, chronicled in the documentary Lost In La Mancha, Mr. Gilliam has chafed against studio orders as far back as his days as a cartoonist for the famed Monty Python.

Given his proclivity for challenging authority it seemed more than a little unusual that  Gilliam would go to work for noted control freak Harvey Weinstein for his latest film. Not surprisingly, this film also became mired in another of Mr. Gilliam's battles and has suffered for it. After languishing on the shelf for nearly two years, the compromised vision of Mr. Gilliam and Mr. Weinstein is now onscreen in the mixed up form of The Brothers Grimm.

Conflict is what marks all of The Brothers Grimm. From the behind the scenes issues between Gilliam and Weinstein such as the casting of Lena Headey over the director's first choice Samantha Morton to the conflict of the films script vs it's tone and the conflict of the films budget and special effects. Finally the conflict between Miramax and Disney that played at least a small part in the film being shelved for nearly 2 years.

Terry Gilliam nearly quit the picture after the brothers Weinstein, Harvey and Bob said no to casting Samantha Morton in the role of Angelika that finally went to the little known Lena Headey. This was followed closely by the firing of Gilliam's cinematographer Nicola Pecorini, reportedly because he worked too slowly.

Then there is the script credited to Ehren Kruger, famous for his weak-kneed horror scripts The Ring and its sequel. Mr. Gilliam claims the Writers Guild gave Mr. Kruger credit, though it was he and writing partner Tony Grisoni that delivered much of the final product.  Gilliam and Grisoni carry a credit after Mr. Kruger's as "Dress Pattern Makers".

Finally, rumored battles over the budget, compromised by the loss of MGM as a producing partner with Miramax, lead to production being shut down. Mr. Gilliam left the project long enough to complete a whole other film, Tideland. When he returned he completed reshoots, music ,and effects though not necessarily to anyone's satisfaction. The special effects in Brothers Grimm seem especially compromised. The bad cartoon CGI that brings to life the films werewolf is video game quality at best. CGI effects are still among the most expensive elements of filmmaking so one does not have to speculate as to what aspect of the film suffered the most from budget constraints.

One element of the film that survived all of this conflict is the performance of Matt Damon. As Will Grimm the huckster hustler of the Brothers, Damon turns on the charm and shows a flair for comedy that he has famously said he is terrified of. Mr. Damon would much rather play dramatic roles but when the opportunity to work with Terry Gilliam arose, he fought to take part and step outside his comfort zone.  He was initially offered the quieter part of Jakob that eventually went to Heath Ledger. The film is better for  Damon's effort.

The same cannot be said of Mr. Ledger who struggles with the more subdued role. It is ironic that Johnny Depp was once rumored for this part because Jakob as played by Mr. Ledger is a litany of mannerisms very reminiscent of Mr. Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of The Caribbean crossed with his effeminate intellectual Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow. Homage is not a bad thing but here it only serves to make one wonder how Mr. Depp might have really played the role.

Matt Damon stars as Wilhelm Grimm, the snake oil salesman of the famous Brothers Grimm. With his brother Jakob, Wil sells stories of witches and enchantment to the villagers of hinterland Germany in the 1800's. Utilizing Jakob's scientific wizardry and knowledge of folklore, the brothers stage their ghosts and witches and lure the villagers into paying to get rid of them.

It's a profitable racket until invading French soldiers capture the brothers and force them to take on a real case of enchantment. Lead by General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) and his second in command, the torturous Cavaldi (Peter Stormare), the French want the brothers to determine whether a series of disappearances in a small German countryside forest are the work of hucksters like themselves or something more sinister.

With Cavaldi in tow the Brothers head for the forest with the help of a female guide, Angelika (Lena Headey) whose father and two sisters also disappeared in this forest. Once inside the group comes to a gothic tower with no visible entrance. Inside the tower is the cursed Mirror Queen whose enchantments are directly related to the missing girls. They also encounter a werewolf and trees that come to life with bloodthirsty intentions.

The plot is adventurous and fun in description but in execution it's mixed up and very confused. Brothers Grimm lurches uncomfortably between family friendly adventure and surreal gothic horror. Director Terry Gilliam is certainly comfortable with the surreal part but the family friendly adventure has never been his forte and you can sense a conflict of tone between Ehren Kruger's safe script and Gilliam's darker tones.

Movie Review: Dumbo

Dumbo (2019)  

Directed by Tim Burton 

Written by Ehren Kruger

Starring Danny Devito, Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Eva Green 

Release Date March 29th, 2019

Published March 28th, 2019 

Dumbo is a good movie that I feel good about recommending. The film is solid, well-made, sturdy, family entertainment with just enough laughs and good nature to make it work. I find myself in an odd position with this statement however as I have received some backlash from my radio review of Dumbo. On the radio, I said that I liked the movie, that it was ‘good enough.’ This led to more than one listener asking me why I ‘don't like’ Dumbo. I’m here to tell you, I do like Dumbo despite its many notable flaws. 

Dumbo is the story of a little elephant born with giant ears who learns to fly with the help of a pair of ingenious siblings. This is a live action take on the 1941 Disney animated movie that, at 65 minutes in length, barely qualified to be called a ‘feature’ film. This version, crafted by daft auteur Tim Burton, is more than two hours long and feels about that long. Gone are the talking animals in favor of some well crafted human characters. Best of all, no problematic bird characters. 

Newcomers, Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins star in Dumbo as sister and brother, Milly and Joe Farrier. Milly and Joe recently lost their mother but are lucky to have their war hero father, Holt (Colin Farrell), back home from World War 1 and ready to resume life on the road with the Medici Brothers Circus, under the leadership of Max Medici (Danny Devito). Unfortunately, Holt lost an arm in the war and without his beloved wife, he’s lost his once vaunted horse show. 

With nothing else available with the circus, Max puts Holt in charge of the elephants and specifically, a new baby elephant that Max hopes will be the savior of the circus. Then, Max meets Dumbo and sees his giant, ungainly ears. Max doesn’t believe that Dumbo will be an asset to the circus and when Dumbo is mistreated by the circus roustabouts, Dumbo’s mom, Jumbo leaps to her son’s defense and a man is killed. 

Jumbo is deemed a dangerous animal and is sold to another circus. With his mother gone, Dumbo is left in the care of Milly and Joe who care for him and teach him a game. They begin blowing a feather back and forth only to find that when Dumbo sniffs the feather and sneezes, he flies up in the air with his giant ears as wings. Eventually, with prodding from Milly and Joe, Dumbo learns to fly and becomes the star of the circus. 

Naturally, the flying baby elephant gains nationwide notoriety and the attention of circus entrepreneur, V.A Vandervere (Michael Keaton). Vandervere makes Max his partner in a massive money venture that lands the entire Medici Circus in the big city where Dumbo will star alongside Collete (Eva Green), an acrobat in a brand new, outlandish show. Vandervere means to exploit Dumbo for all he’s worth, even if that means making sure Dumbo never sees his mom again. 

There are no spoilers in that description as there are more characters and more action to what I have described in this review in Dumbo. Tim Burton does well to craft a large, entertaining and colorful canvas. Despite that, this is not typical of Tim Burton’s style. There is an impersonal, mercenary quality to Dumbo that is unusual for Burton’s work. Burton directs like a director for hire rather than a director with a dedicated vision for telling this story. 

Dumbo has a perfunctory quality that makes the film far more average and standard than truly great entertainment. There is nothing really, terribly wrong with Dumbo, but it is not transcendent or memorable in the way Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella was or even as elaborate and fantastical as the live action Beauty and the Beast. The scale feels smaller and the story lacks the kind of stakes that those films established. 

The biggest issues with Dumbo are more taste issues. For instance, I didn’t care for the way that Tim Burton directed Michael Keaton to be Johnny Depp-lite. Keaton’s Vandervere has all of the quirk and cadence of Johnny Depp at his most affected. The same could be said of Eva Green who is directed by Burton to play Colette exactly as Burton’s wife Helena Bonham Carter would have played her, with the same lilting affectations. 

This, aside from a few scenes reminiscent of the lovely watercolors of Alice in Wonderland, though far better than those dreadful movies, are the only Tim Burton signatures in Dumbo. As I mentioned earlier, he doesn’t appear invested in this story or this production in the way he has in his previous movies, specifically the movies he wrote and directed on his own. Burton appears comfortable having delivered screenwriter Ehren Kruger’s simplistic story to the screen with little innovation. 

Nevertheless, Dumbo is not a bad movie. Dumbo the character is quite engaging for a CGI creation and the flying scenes capture the wonder of the circus and a world where magic still seemed possible. The period setting has a dreamlike, magical quality and though the milquetoast heroes don’t standout all that much, they do enough to be rousing and charming enough to keep audiences engaged and in a pleasant mood. 

Dumbo is a good movie. It’s at the lower end of the modern Disney live action adaptations, above Alice in Wonderland and The Jungle Book but well below the transcendent masterpiece that was Cinderella and the lovely Beauty and the Beast. It will be interesting to rank Dumbo when Aladdin and The Lion King finally arrive in theaters this summer and next summer respectively. For now though, I do recommend taking the family to see Dumbo. 

Movie Review: Blood and Chocolate

Blood and Chocolate (2007) 

Directed by Katja Von Garnier 

Written by Ehren Kruger, Christopher B. Landon 

Starring Agnes Bruckner, Hugh Dancy, Olivier Martinez

Release Date January 26th, 2007

Published April 15th, 2007

Agnes Bruckner is a big favorite in the geek community. Her horror movie resume including the cullty, Lucky McKee movie The Woods and the 2005 bomb Venom, have helped her garner her own minor cult. With the wide release of the werewolf flick Blood and Chocolate Bruckner has her highest profile role to date. If only it were a better movie.

Unfortunately for Ms. Bruckner, Blood and Chocolate is more notable for it's goofy title than for it's PG-13 scares.

Vivian (Bruckner) is destined to be the leader of her clan, whether she wants to be or not. As a big anniversary approaches, Vivian is awaiting word of her fate from Gabriel (Olivier Martinez), the current leader of her clan, as to whether she will become his wife. Vivian is a lugaroo, better known as werewolf and according to prophecy she will lead them back to a prosperous existence out of the shadows.

Vivian could care less about prophecy. She has no taste for the hunt and absolutely no interest in be married to Gabriel. Nevertheless, Vivian seems resigned to her fate until she meets Aiden (Hugh Dancy), a writer who arrived in Bucharest to write a graphic novel about the legends of the lugaroo. He believes that the lugaroo are extinct but were at one time a noble race that lived at peace with non-werewolves.

He has no clue that Vivian is a lugaroo and she has no intention of telling him but when his stories get back to Vivian's clan they fear she has told him their secrets. When the clan decides they must kill Aiden to protect their secrets; Vivian must decide between her budding new romance and the legacy of her family and what is perceived as her destiny.

Director Katja Von Garnier is a talented artist whose American debut, the HBO TV movie Iron Jawed Angels, was an accomplished, in depth portrait of the birth of American feminism. A werewolf movie is indeed a bit of a departure but there is a slight feminist undertone to Blood and Chocolate, it's only a touch the girl power, pop feminism of the Spice Girls variety, but it's there.

Like most pop entertainment of the PG-13 variety, Blood and Chocolate is better at referring to depth than it is at exhibiting it. Whether it is passing glance at feminism or an averted gaze at literary classics  like Romeo and Juliet, Blood and Chocolate is puddle deep with lake ambitions.

Agnes Bruckner definitely has star quality but she needs to find better roles. She was terrific in the indie drama Blue Car but has since drifted to teen horror films, The Woods, Venom, that are serving to type cast her as a horror film hottie. While she can continue to get steady work in this genre for years, based on the small cult that has embraced her, she has the talent to work beyond mindless pop entertainment like Blood and Chocolate and should move on soon.

The other star of Blood and Chocolate is not Hugh Dancy or Olivier Martinez, two nice looking but innocuous actors, it's the city of Bucharest Romania. Though the name is not exactly pretty, the city is exceptionally filmable. With it's gothic architecture and ancient churches Bucharest has an eery beauty that is both inviting and menacing.

It helps that it's also one of the cheapest places in the world to film a movie, thus why dozens of Hollywood features have fled to Romania in recent years.

So what about this odd title, Blood and Chocolate? Well, Bruckner's Vivian works in a chocolate shop. Sadly, the title has no relation to the classic Elvis Costello tune of the same title. And that is where the title significance ends. All part of the odd soft headed hodgepodge that is Blood and Chocolate yet another mindless, PG-13  pop horror confection.

Movie Review Impostor

Impostor (2002) 

Directed by Gary Fleder 

Written by Caroline Case, Ehren Kruger, David Twohy

Starring Gary Sinise, Madeline Stowe, Vincent D'onofrio, Mekhi Phifer, Tony Shalhoub

Release Date January 4th, 2002 

Published January 3rd, 2002 

Four years ago, Dimension films began work on a science fiction film called The Light Years Trilogy. The film was to be 3 short films based on three separate Philip K. Dick stories. The project never fully came together though two of the three short films were produced. One of those was Impostor starring Gary Sinise and Vincent D'onofrio. The suits at Dimension liked the 30-minute version so much they ponied up the dough to turn it into a full-length feature.

They were better off with the half hour version.

Impostor takes place 75 years in the future, with Gary Sinise as scientist Spencer Oldham. Oldham is working on a top-secret weapon in the war against aliens called the Centaurians. Arriving at work after a weekend vacation, Spencer is arrested by the military police headed by Vincent D'onofrio. D'onofrio claims that Oldham is not who he appears, that he is in fact an alien cyborg with a bomb in his chest.\

In a scene reminiscent of the Salem Witch trials, Oldham is to be tied to an operating table while a laser drills into his chest. The theory is to get the bomb out and diffuse it. Essentially, if Spencer is an alien bomb they kill him and if he's not, the test will have proven he wasn't alien. Spencer will be dead but at least he's not an alien. Well of course Spencer escapes, there wouldn't be a move if he didn't, and thus begins a series of dull chase scenes through your typically post-apocalyptic cityscapes.

Sinise is well cast as is D'onofrio but they were likely better served in the original 30 minute version.

There are some interesting scenes in Impostor. For example, the first interrogation scene with D'onofrio questioning Oldham while his friends and coworkers look on has the feeling of a futuristic version of the 1950's communist witch hunts, and as I previously mentioned the Salem Witch trials. The ending does build some palpable suspense with a fun little twist.

But in the end, Impostor is, to paraphrase the band Sum 41, all filler no killer.

Movie Review Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell (2017) 

Directed by Rupert Sanders 

Written by Jamie Moss, William Wheeler, Ehren Kruger 

Starring Scarlett Johannsson, Takeshi Katano, Michael Pitt, Juliette Binoche 

Release Date March 31st, 2017 

Published March 30th, 2017 

Is “Ghost in the Shell'' offensive? It’s certainly tone deaf and in poor taste but offensive? That depends on your perspective. I wasn’t offended by “Ghost in the Shell'' per se, though I oppose the white washing of the casting, I am also practical and cynical enough to understand it from the perspective of a profit driven business. That the film is the subject of such controversy only shines harsh light on the film’s artistic failures, even if better art would not negate the controversy. 

“Ghost in the Shell” stars Scarlett Johannsson as Major, a secret agent with a not so secret super power. Major is mostly a robot but with a human brain. She is relatively invincible, impervious to most things, but with human intellect and instincts. Major was the subject of an experimental surgery undertaken by a secretive organization for which Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) serves as the public face and the seemingly benevolent doctor who saved Major’s mind, if not her body.

Major is tasked with tracking down Kuze (Michael Pitt), a hacker/terrorist who is targeting the scientists and doctors who created the Major. Kuze claims to have a secret about Major that is being repressed in her mind through drugs the company claims she must take in order for her mind not to reject her cybernetic shell. It’s a secret that the filmmakers hope will cure them of white washing allegations, even as it only serves to make things worse in the eyes of many.

“Snow White and the Huntsman” director Rupert Sanders helmed “Ghost in the Shell” and he has certainly created a feast for the eyes. The futuristic Asian setting is rich with glittery, bright colors and tech similar to other sci-fi visions of the future such as “Minority Report,” minus that films’ visual wit. “Ghost in the Shell” is quite pretty with star Scarlett Johansson only adding to the visual delights.

That said, the spectacular visuals do serve to underline the emptiness at the core of the story. While the original anime “Ghost in the Shell'' was about identity and what made someone human, the live action “Ghost in the Shell” has been sheared of the subtext in favor of more of a revenge movie in which Major eventually begins to seek vengeance against those who kept secrets from her related to how she ended up a cyborg.

The change dumbs the movie down into a more mainstream action movie because hey, audiences don’t like to ponder existence when there are simple thrills to be had. This is not the fault of Johansson who seems to want something deeper in her performance but it’s just not there onscreen. This could also be the function of multiple screenwriters culling the deeper themes through series after series of rewrites, the film has three credited screenwriters including the subtext challenged Ehren Kruger.

I don’t hate “Ghost in the shell.” It’s not poorly acted and the visual splendor is undeniably fun. I must admit, I am knocking “Ghost in the Shell” for the most part, for not being the movie I wanted it to be and not for the movie that it is. The movie that “Ghost in the Shell” is is a shallow yet dazzling action movie that will satisfy the base action movie audience with their brains turned off.

I’m also reviewing the film’s politics which isn’t really fair either. From a business standpoint casting Scarlett Johansson makes more sense than casting a more appropriate Asian actress with less name value. From that very base, cold, cynical perspective I can’t fault “Ghost in the Shell,” I can only ask why it had to be “Ghost in the Shell?” Why go for the full Asian aesthetic and then cast white people, the setting has no impact on the story and could be transported anywhere. 

Why not rip off the concept, move it to New York and abandon the burden of white washing accusations in favor of the much easier to deflect cries of ‘rip off?’ The controversy only harmed the film which otherwise would have likely skated to modest success as a standard, simpleminded action movie instead of being pilloried on its way to underperforming.

Movie Review: The Ring 2

The Ring 2 (2005) 

Directed by Hideo Nakata

Written by Ehren Kruger 

Starring Naomi Watts, Simon Baker, David Dorfman, Elizabeth Perkins, Gary Cole and Sissy Spacek 

Release Date March 18th 2005 

Published March 17th, 2005 

When The Ring was released in 2002 and became a nationwide sensation with 129 million in box office sales and there was no doubt that there would be a sequel.  Hell, the Japanese version of the film spawned multiple sequels so there was even material from which to borrow for a new movie if necessary.  The real question was whether the story they told in the sequel would matter to viewers, not that it mattered much to marketers who had the poster mocked and approved on The Ring's second weekend atop the box office. Unfortunately there is no more story worth telling, or if there is the producers of Ring Two failed to locate it.

A quick recap of the original concept: The Ring was founded on the idea of a crazy looking videotape that, when viewed, left the viewer with seven days to live. A girl trapped in a well used the supernatural powers of the videotape to escape and claim anyone who watched the tape. Naomi Watts starred in The Ring as a journalist named Rachel who saw the tape while searching out a story about the urban legend surrounding it, a legend that may have claimed the life of her young niece.

Rachel is back in Ring Two with her preternaturally creepy son Aiden (David Dorfman). The two have escaped the tape's supernatural curse by running off to a small town somewhere in Oregon where Rachel has taken a job as a reporter for a small town paper run by Max (Simon Baker). How location could prevent a supernatural being from finding victims is a logical question that the film fails to address, among many other failures in logic and works of luck and chance that would be forgivable were they not so numerous.

Unfortunately for Rachel and Aiden, the tape has been traveling with a new legend attached to it. Teens are passing it around under the pretense that if you can get someone else to watch after you the curse is transferred from you to them. This theory fails a teenager who tries to pass it off on an unsuspecting girl. This is in the opening ten minutes and for some reason is the last time in the film we will hear about the killer video.

From there the film changes the supernatural elements, losing the videotape and randomly deciding that Samara, the killer chick in the video, can attack by possessing Aiden, Exorcist style. This leads Rachel back to that well in the basement of Samara's house and to Samara's real mother, an institutionalized woman played by Sissy Spacek. None of this leads to any satisfying conclusion though to the film's credit there is no overt set up for another sequel.

Ring 2 is shockingly bad. Truly shocking considering the talent of director Hideo Tanaka whose original Ringu is terrifically stylish and suspenseful. Ring director Gore Verbinski skated by in the original by being visually inventive and taking advantage of the films unique premise. Ring 2 abandons the original premise and even much of the strong visual aspects, replacing them with what amounts to a series of rip-offs of other horror movies.

Ring 2 is the perfect example of what I have called 'sequelitis.' It's a film that exists solely as a concept, a poster, a series of demographic marketing numbers and never anything resembling a real film.

Movie Review: The Ring

The Ring (2002) 

Directed by Gore Verbinski 

Written by Ehren Kruger 

Starring Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Brian Cox, Jane Alexander 

Release Date October 18th, 2002 

Published October 17th, 2002 

With Halloween around the corner, movie fans are making their plans for Halloween movie watching. Most will stick to the classics: Jason, Freddy, and Rocky Horror. Some fans will take a chance on new movies like Ghost Ship and The Ring. Will either of these films become Halloween rituals? We shall wait and see on Ghost Ship. As for The Ring, with its stylishness and mystery, it has a chance at achieving cult status.

The Ring stars Mulholland Drive’s Naomi Watts, an actress used to stylish mystery, as Rachel Keller, a journalist investigating the unexplained death of her niece. Investigators and doctors have no clue what could have killed this normal, healthy 15-year-old girl. What the investigators failed to notice were the mysterious deaths of three of the girl's friends in separate locations, with each of the kids dying at exactly the same time: 10 p.m.

From a friend of her niece, Rachel learns of an urban legend about a videotape. If you watch it you die exactly one week later. A typically skeptical Rachel begins investigating more benign leads, which takes her to a cabin not far from the girls' Seattle home. At the cabin, Rachel stumbles across the tape and watches it for herself. Suddenly the details described in the legend begin to come true; an eerie phone call informs Rachel she has one week to live and images from the tape begin to appear in reality.

Rachel then takes the tape to her ex-husband, Noah (Martin Henderson), who happens to be a video expert. He also watches the tape and is puzzled at his inability to determine its origin. The tape doesn’t have the distinguishing marks of an average tape. Adding to Rachel’s mounting terror is her strangely sullen but intuitive son Aiden (David Dorfman) who accidentally views the tape, making the investigation even more urgent.

We have seen this conceit before. In fact, we saw it earlier this year in Fear Dot Com. In that film, if you viewed the Web site in the title, you would die in three days. In each film, the investigators believe that if they find the source they can stop the killer. However, there are many subtle differences. Fear Dot Com is a poorly lit, slowly plotted, poorly acted, deeply dull film, more obsessed with unusual visuals than with creating a compelling story. The Ring is more stylish, with an occasional arty quality that is notable in the killer video.

The performances by Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson and David Dorfman are all perfectly pitched, with each creating interesting characters that are never merely manipulated by the plot. The film also has a great mystery to it. At first, the killer is unseen and the more the killer stays off screen the more suspense the film builds.

In fact, it isn’t until the killer is revealed that the film loses steam. It’s a shame that as good as most of The Ring is that director Gore Verbinsky can’t resist the false ending. The ending is highly unsatisfying, a shameful Hollywood tease for a sequel in case the film is profitable. Why is it the first ending of a modern horror movie is almost always the better ending? 

The same thing happened in Red Dragon recently, the Silence of the Lambs spinoff. Putting aside the distasteful ending, The Ring isn’t a bad movie. For most of the film, it’s a suspenseful, engaging horror mystery and I recommend it for your Halloween viewing. However, you're better off leaving when you think it should end instead of waiting for the film itself to end.

Movie Review: 'Mindhunters'

Mindhunters (2005) 

Directed by Renny Harlin 

Written by Wayne Kramer, Kevin Brobdin, Ehren Kruger

Starring Val Kilmer, LL Cool J, Jonny Lee Miller, Kathryn Morris

Release Date May 13th, 2005 

Published May 12th, 2005 

Mindhunters was a strange affair. The film was completed in 2002 but did not get released by the late Dimension Films until 2005. Why? Who knows, they probably realized the the stinker they had on their hands. After finally blowing the dust off this crusty little thriller with LL Cool J, Val Kilmer and Christian Slater, the newly, non-Weinstein regime at Dimension films finally dumped the film into theaters. Why they bothered with theaters instead of directing it to the video stores of 2005 where it belonged must have been some kind of contractual obligation. There is no other explanation for why garbage like Mindhunters ever made it to such a wide release.

LL Cool J is the star of Mindhunters-- he must have drawn the short straw-- as a shady cop invited to join a group of rookie FBI profilers on a training mission on a deserted island military base. Val Kilmer is the leader of this little band but his role is little more than a cameo.  And, yes, that is Christian Slater as one of the profilers of whose fate the trailer and commercials spoiled mightily and for no good reason whatsoever.

Joining Cool J at the head of the cast is Johnny Lee Miller as Lucas and Kathryn Morris from TV's Cold Case as Sara. They are joined by a group of other semi-recognizable early 2000s character actors including Eion Bailey then of TV's ER, Patricia Velasquez and Clifton Collins Jr. each of whom line up to be victims of the films serial killer as if they were camp counselors having sex at Crystal Lake. Canon fodder is a kind description of the roles played by Bailey, Velasquez and Collins. 

Essentially this little group is on the island to profile a fictional serial killer who is obsessed with time. The military base is set up as a small town with dummies standing in for real people. The profilers must locate the crime scenes, examine the fake dead bodies and assemble the clues that could lead them to the fictional killer. However, as they quickly find out from the death of one of their own, this serial killer is very real.

A search of the island shows the young profilers are either alone on the island, or not entirely thorough, thus leading to the obvious conclusion that one of them is in fact the killer. As the Rube Goldbergian murder devices unfold and remove one obvious victim after another, it is not hard to decipher which characters are going to survive and which is the killer. Morris, Miller and L.L Cool J all have main character powers so it's a safe bet that they are among the top suspects. 

This mess of horror film aesthetic and  thriller clichés attempts to fool audiences but not with clever plot twists and good character work.  No, director Renny Harlin's weapon of choice is utterly incomprehensible stupidity. The film was edited by Neil Farrell and Paul Martin Smith both of whom are wishing the Editors union accepted synonyms like the Directors union's well known Allen Smithee. Mindhunters seems as if it were assembled from different versions of the script each featuring different killers, victims, and survivors. This owes more to Harlin's baffling direction and Wayne Kramer's script than anything these poor and likely tortured editors did.

The mess extends to the acting and dialogue as well, as the confused cast bounds from one ridiculous setup to the next seemingly unaware of which version of the script they are acting from. LL Cool J, Johnny Lee Miller and the rest of the cast wander about looking at each other and seeming to say "No, I'm the killer!" "No I'm the killer!" "Are not!" "Am too!" and on and on throughout most of the final 30 minutes of the film. And somehow the killer still turns out to be easily predictable.

Mindhunters is a real shame because this is a very talented cast. Catherine Morris appeared to be a legit star on her TV show Cold Case in 2005. On that clever CBS crime procedural, her steely demeanor perfectly evoked her tough but vulnerable FBI Agent. In Mindhunters, however, Morris is thoroughly done in by a confused and disorienting script that may or may not have had her as both killer and victim at different points during filming.

LL Cool J, Christian Slater and Val Kilmer are shells of the actors who have flirted with stardom in the past. Kilmer we forget was once Batman, but he is far from even that flawed blockbuster in Mindhunters where apparently he owed the producers a favor. How else can you explain why he accepted this minor and entirely forgettable role. Mindhunters was sadly par for the course at the time for Slater who was coming off of his asleep-at-the-wheel lead role in Alone In The Dark. Mindhunters came at a time well before Mr Robot came around and brought Slater back to the respectable world of working actors. 

LL Cool J is at least an enjoyable star to head up and ham up Mindhunters and his is the only thing remarkable about the film. LL Cool , even in this terrible movie, had the charisma of an A-list celebrity and that helped him to outshine some of this deeply confusing script that I'm sure featured him as killer and victim and survivor and savior at different points during the production.

Johnny Lee Miller, Eion Bailey and Clifton Collins Jr. were terrific young actors in 2005 who had succeeded in the past with strong character work. Miller was once quite the rising star after leading man after starring with his then wife Angelina Jolie in Hackers and then gave a strong turn in the cult hit Trainspotting. Bailey made a good impression with a small role in Fight Club and a memorable performance in the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. And as for Collins, his best work was in front of him as he once earned genuine Oscar buzz for his supporting role in Capote opposite Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Watching this terrific cast suffer at the hands of director Renny Harlin is quite painful. All of this talent and  Harlin can do nothing with it but line them up on a formula horror thriller assembly line and eliminate them one by one until he's done picking names out of a hat to decide who lives and who is the killer. To call Renny Harlin a hack is far too simple. After once looking like a star director in the action genre, Harlin regressed as a filmmaker so much that he went from blockbusters to making movies that no longer see a theatrical release. Harlin hasn't seen one of his movies reach theaters in wide release since he made he vomited Exorcist The Beginning into theaters in 2004 to widespread derision and empty box office coffers.