Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts (2023)

Although this is typical blockbuster fare, I realised that I might not have much to say about Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts when I prepared to start writing this review. The plot is what you might refer to as bunkum, there aren’t too many human characters, and certainly no complex journeys of development for them, and it jumps from one CGI-filled set-piece to the next throughout the 127-minute runtime (which actually feels much shorter, considering the bloated runtimes we’ve had from a number of big releases recently).

That’s not to say that this is bad though. It may not require any stamp of individuality from director Steven Calle Jr., and you would be right to be wary after looking at the collected filmographies of the six writers credited with the final screenplay, but this is a film that delivers exactly what people want from it, which is a number of scenes involving big robots fighting one another.

The plot involves some key that has been hidden away on Earth to protect both robots and humans from a massive terror named Unicron. Some bad robots want the key (including Scourge, voiced by Peter Dinklage), and good robots want to make it safe again. The good robots include Optimus Prime (of course, and once again voiced by Peter Cullen), Bumblebee, Mirage (voices by Pete Davidson), and some beast-bots aka maximals named Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) and Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), as well as a few others. Two humans who end up helping the robots are Noah Diaz (played by Anthony Ramos), caught up in the action after trying to steal a very nice car he doesn’t realise is Mirage, and Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), a history expert working in a museum that houses part of the special key. And it’s 1994, for reasons beyond me. Maybe to help keep any canon chronology in order, maybe just to have some decent tunes on the soundtrack.

There’s a decent amount of fun to be had here, with a good voice cast doing what they have to do in between each CGI-stuffed robot fight, and this should please both fans of the series and newcomers alike. Don’t worry if you get confused at the start of the film. I was confused and I have seen every other instalment in this franchise. It ultimately doesn’t matter. All that matters is remembering who is good and who is bad, and the film makes that pretty clear throughout. Talk about nominative determinism when you have the name Scourge.

Sitting snugly in between the main Transformers movies and Bumblebee, this delivers the spectacle without feeling excessive, over-indulgent, or horribly distracted by the kind of male gaze that Michael Bay had when positioning Megan Fox alongside shiny cars. And you get a decent amount of maximal action, which will come as a relief to those thinking this might be another trailer tease amounting to very little (as happened with the dinobots in a previous instalment). And if you don’t know how it will all end then I suspect you’re completely new to big, brash, mainstream, summer movies.

Ramos is decent enough in his role, the typical good guy who just cannot catch a break after having served his country some years previously, and Fishback works very well alongside him, the two feeling very much like equals up until Ramos has to do the standard heroic move to cap off the third act. Dean Scott Vasquez is sweet, playing the younger brother of the character played by Ramos, and his presence, and the way he looks up to his older sibling, remains a major motivating factor, despite him not being onscreen for very long. There are one or two others, but those three make up the most important humans in the film. As for the voice talent, you cannot really go wrong with Cullen, Dinklage, Perlman, and Yeoh, and Pete Davidson has a brash enthusiasm that matches his robot, so I must say that I enjoyed everyone picked to portray robots in disguise. And Michael Kelly pops up just before the end credits, in a scene that may frustrate and delight viewers in equal measure.

Enjoyable blockbuster fare, good enough to help this franchise stay alive (at the very least), this is also the kind of thing you already know if you want to see or not. If you do, have fun. If you don’t, have different fun with the many other movies out there. 

Look at that. It turns out that I did find plenty to say about it.

7/10

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Nightmare Alley (2021)

When I finally got around to watching the 1947 film version of Nightmare Alley, it became a firm favourite. It's not a film easily forgotten by those who have seen it, a noir that skirts very close to horror as we watch a man on a journey that eventually takes him to . . . well, that would be telling.

I am not automatically averse to remakes, and Nightmare Alley has a story that you can see being attractive to others. It's also very much of a time and a place though, and it's already good enough that you have to wonder what others think they can do to improve upon, or just equal, it. At least you can start to feel optimistic when one of the people involved is director Guillermo del Toro. If there's one thing that Del Toro can do it's craft an onscreen love with style, beauty, and a wonderful attention to detail. He can also assemble a great cast.

Bradley Cooper is Stanton Carlisle, a shady character who ends up joining a travelling carnival. Once there, he starts to learn some of the tricks of the trade. He is especially interested in the feats of mentalism performed by Pete (David Strathairn), a fragile man cared for by Zeena (Toni Collette). Learning enough to believe he can make a name for himself, Stanton heads off with Molly (Rooney Mara) and performs for bigger and bigger crowds. This eventually leads to him crossing paths with Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), and Dr. Ritter might be able to provide information that could lead to a huge payday.

If you like the selection of names just mentioned then you may be pleased to hear that this film also features roles for Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, Holt McCallany, and Tim Blake Nelson. Don't get too excited though, a number of the cast members are either miscast or disappointingly underused. Cooper, likeable leading man that he is, doesn't feel right for the central role. Blanchett feels like the most wasted in her supporting role, and wasting Blanchett in your film should be a crime. It's the smaller roles that provide more of the treats, with highlights being Dafoe, Jenkins, and any scenes involving Strathairn and/or Collette.

Adapting the same source material as the original movie, a novel by William Lindsay Gresham, the screenplay by Del Toro and Kim Morgan seems to lose sight of what made the story so mesmerising and powerful. You still have a good story here, and it's supported by a smattering of very good performances, but the power is diluted by a) too many moments dwelling on the pretty visuals, and b) an ending that I feel lacks the full bittersweet resonance of the 1947 adaptation.

As good as a director as he can be, and as fired up about his chance to helm this remake, Del Toro feels as miscast in his role as Cooper. He aims for some style and grace that actively pulls the material away from that "down 'n' dirty" feel that the material has running through it. These characters are allowed to create wings and fly close to the sun, but it would be more appropriate to see them simply being allowed to bathe in warm water in between constant trips back to the sewer.

Undeniably enjoyable in places, and a visual treat throughout, it's a real shame that there's such a disconnect between the content and the form. It's a divide that I couldn't easily overlook, despite the many positives (such as the cinematography by Dan Laustsen or the wonderfully old-fashioned music from Nathan Johnson). I know a lot of people enjoyed it a lot more than I did. See it for yourself and let me know if you agree or disagree with me.

6/10

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Monster Hunter (2020)

It's almost as if the way in which some people are easily pleased, and the way in which some people will tolerate any crap that is accessible enough, has created a monster in modern movie-making. And that monster is Paul W. S. Anderson. I'm exaggerating, of course, but not by much. Because Anderson has tended to make films that have allowed him to keep making films, and that has allowed him to assume that he's been doing something right. Which ensures that he has never attempted to correct any of his bad habits, with the two worst being his over-reliance on CGI and his inability to hold a shot for more than five seconds. I can overlook these things easier when I can still find enough to enjoy in his films, as is the case with the Resident Evil movies. It's a lot tougher in a movie like this.

Thankfully, or perhaps not (depending on your view), he keeps casting his wife, Milla Jovovich, in his movies, and that guarantees I will watch them. I like Jovovich. She's not the best actress ever, but she often does very well at being a strong and sexy heroine. Here she plays Artemis, a strong and sexy heroine. So the movie has that going for it.

Artemis is with a group of fellow soldiers when the group is transported to another world, one in which giant monsters can pop up out of the earth and pick off humans like scampering ants. There's also a character named Hunter (Tony Jaa) in this world, and it's not long until Artemis and Hunter start to work together in order to survive against the dangerous creatures around them.

That's really all there is to Monster Hunter, a film so light on plot that I am amazed it has a runtime of just over an hour and forty minutes. Although I am unfamiliar with the videogame source material, and others can judge for themselves if this is a good adaptation or not, Monster Hunter seems to have nothing else really going for it, cinematically. As usual, Anderson wants to provide some slo-mo action overstuffed with CGI (to be fair, the actual creature design here is very good) and wants to allow Jovovich to kick ass. He does that. He just does nothing else, and that includes creating a world that feels as if it expands beyond the perimeters of any screen edges.

Jovovich is sadly disappointing in the lead role, less convincing than usual and hindered by a weak script. Jaa fares slightly better, developing nicely as he and Jovovich learn from one another. There are some other people onscreen, but the only one of note is Ron Perlman, who is wasted in his small role.

A real waste of time, for both viewers and the people involved, this is infuriatingly horrible for almost every minute. Characters are thinner than rice paper, the plotting is lazy and careless (one of those scripts that you can easily imagine was written by an impatient child), and it fails to do what Anderson has sometimes managed with his other movies, which is to provide mindless and enjoyable entertainment that is best accompanied by popcorn and fizzy drinks. 

3/10

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Prime Time: Hellboy Animated: Blood And Iron (2007)

At this current time, a new Hellboy movie has just been released. And it's taken quite a drubbing, in terms of both the general critcal consensus. I have yet to see it, despite wanting to (David Harbour is an actor I like, Neil Marshall is a director I LOVE), so I figured that I could at least check out one or two other Hellboy tales in the meantime.

This particular adventure, Blood And Iron, features the main cast members from the Guillermo del Toro movies, all lending their voices to their characters in animated form (much like the Sword Of Storms tale, which I have also seen, and the super-short Iron Shoes tale, which I have yet to free up three minutes for). The animation style is fun and it's good to just be able to spend a bit more time with these characters again.

But what's it all about? Basically, the BPRD are despatched to investigate a haunted house. They suspect that it's all just a publicity stunt, considering the new owner of the house is a very rich developer who would seem to relish the attention. But it turns out that there's more to the case, and it involves a vampire previously encountered by Professor Bruttenholm. Moving between the present and the past, viewers get to see Bruttenholm finding out about the vampire many years ago, as well as his time convincing others that a small, red, demonic entity could be worth looking after, instead of being immediately destroyed.

Directed by Victor Cook, and Tad Stones, this is an enjoyable distraction for those simply wanting another Hellboy adventure. It retains the essence of the characters, adds some nice backstory details, and moves briskly from one bloody set-piece to the next. Writer Kevin Hopps doesn't seem to have too hard a time putting the script together, a lot of the backstory feels very much like it could have been lifted from many Hammer horror movies, but perhaps it's unfair to think that just because Hopps has done such good work making it seem so easy.

Perlman is good in the central role, although he seems a bit less petulant and grumpy than he was in the live-action movies, and the mellifluous vocal stylings of John Hurt are as enchanting and soothing as ever (maybe that's just me). Selma Blair and Doug Jones round off the central quartet, doing just fine, and the supporting artists all do solid work, with Kath Soucie and Cree Summer getting to have the most fun as the main villains.

It's far from unmissable, and I wouldn't recommend seeking it out for ridiculously inflated prices, but this is a good piece of work for Hellboy fans, with the animation style fluid and nicely in line with the majority of the standard comic art (from what I can see, although I still need to delve in to some of the printed tales). A fun 75 minutes, nothing more and nothing less.

7/10

You can buy the DVD here.
Americans can buy it here.

Shudder Saturday: 5ive Girls (2006)

If you think I had high hopes as I started watching 5ive Girls then you think I am even dumber than my writing makes me appear to be. The only name I recognised in the cast was Ron Perlman, and I suspected that he wouldn't be the one getting the most screen time. The poster was about as generic as they come. The plot summary hadn't been great. And, last but by no means least, it is one of those films that uses a number in one of the letters spelling out that same number. This has been acceptable on a few occasions, but is more often than not a warning sign that someone thinks they have more great ideas and creativity than they actually do.

Things start off promisingly enough. A young woman (Elizabeth, played by Krysta Carter) is attacked by evil forces at her school while a priest (Ron Perlman) finds that he is unable to help her. Fast forward to five years later and the school is reopened. The priest is still there, there's a headmistress (Amy LaLonde) who seems to be unnecessarily strict, and the number of pupils total five when Alex (Jennifer Miller) joins them. Alex is telekinetic, making things move around when she is angry or threatened, and she also has visions of Elizabeth. The other girls are Connie (Tasha May), a conduit, Leah (Barbara Mamabolo), who can pass through solid objects, Cecilia (Terra Vnesa), a blind psychic, and Mara (Jordan Madley), who can heal fresh wounds. It turns out that the headmistress has brought them together for a special purpose, believing she can still save Elizabeth.

Only the second feature directed by Warren P. Sonoda, who also wrote the script, this is a film that reeks of a sense that it was considered an easy option. Get some pretty actresses together, get one well-known actor, use some CGI whenever things are supposed to be scary, and keep it all very teen-friendly. Anyone can do it, right? Well, as so many others have managed to prove time and time again, no. Not that 5ive Girls is anywhere near as bad as some lazier and less competent films I have seen in the genre, but it doesn't ever rise above the just below average.

Sonoda directs better than he writes. The script is weak, especially when it comes to the actual plotting and the moments that serve as simply titillating diversions for teenage boys who end up watching this (you can't tell me there's any other real reason for the scene in which the headmistress spanks Alex with a ruler, I'm not buying it), but he doesn't do too bad when it comes to the moments that require the girls to actually fight against evil, often in the shape of another one of their number who has been taken over by the force.

The cast help, which isn't to say that they're the best. They're just okay, but that's a pleasant surprise when you consider the dialogue they have to utter at times. LaLonde gets a number of the worst moments, so it's fortunate that she's distractingly attractive enough to make up for it. Some of the main character make less of an impression, May and Mamabolo being the main two who are given less to do as the plot develops, and Perlman, as suspected, just isn't onscreen for long enough.

The central idea isn't too bad, as silly as it is. But it's hard to watch this without asking yourself a number of questions. What is the point of the plan? Why is it the telekinetic girl who starts having the visions first? And why is this school happy to reopen for a total of five pupils? (sorry . . . 5ive pupils)

You can waste 90 minutes with this one and not feel too pained but it's unlikely to be remembered a few weeks down the line, or one that you'll ever rush to rewatch. Decidedly disposable entertainment.

4/10

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Ani-MAY-tion Month: Tangled (2010)

For their 50th animated feature, Disney decided to turn to the classic tale of Rapunzel, shaking it up a bit to create a beautiful, funny adventure that ranks up there with some of their best work.

Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore) is resigned to her life in the tower. Whenever she pleads to go out and see the big, wide world her "mother" (Donna Murphy) manages to convince her that it's no good. But opportunity comes her way when a charming rogue named Flynn (Zachary Levi) seeks temporary safety in the tower. Flynn is forced into agreeing to take Rapunzel out into the world, letting her see the lights that fly in the sky, every year on her birthday. Little does she know that the floating lanterns, for that is what they are, get released every year by her real mother and father, who are royalty, as well as the subjects that they rule over.

Perfectly mixing the traditional with the modern, in terms of both animation and also the characters, Tangled is yet another in a recent run of near-perfect Disney hits. All of the expected elements are in place - the anthropomorphic animal (a scene-stealing horse named Maximus, in this instance, but there's also a very cute chameleon raising smiles), the beautiful princess, the wicked crone, the moral lessons - but they somehow manage to avoid feeling stale. I think that's due, in some small part, to the way in which everything is portrayed in a fairytale age gone by, while also being injected with some modern sensibilities. Disney isn't reinventing the wheel here, but in recent years they've managed to embrace a sense of fun again, a real exuberance that has been elevating their work.

Directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard have a great script, by Dan Fogelman, to work from, and they keep a nice balance between the sweet, more Disney-esque, moments and the sequences that embrace an enjoyable irreverence. The musical moments, by Alan Menken, also help a lot in this regard, with "Mother Knows Best" and "I've Got A Dream" being the two highlights.

While the vocal cast isn't exactly full of people who are immediately identifiable from their speech, everyone does well in their respective role. Moore, Murphy and Levi are all a pretty perfect match for their characters, while Ron Perlman, M. C. Gainey, Jeffrey Tambor, Brad Garrett and Richard "Jaws" Kiel also lend their talents to the mix.

It's maybe not quite as good as absolute classic Disney fare (although keep an eye out for both Pinocchio and Pumbaa in sneaky, fleeting cameos), but it's pretty great nonetheless. Let your hair down and give it a go. Yes, I just ended with that pun.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tangled-Blu-ray-DVD-Mandy-Moore/dp/B004E10JD4/ref=sr_1_4?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1397497711&sr=1-4&keywords=tangled

Dark Country (2009)

Many thanks to the GGTMC for their fantastic interview with Thomas Jane from some time ago that turned me onto this film (and, indeed, made me an even bigger fan of the actor).

Thomas Jane and Lauren German star in this interesting neo-noir that wobbles constantly between thriller and horror movie territory. It may feel like little more than an extended episode of The Twilight Zone as the end credits roll, but that's no bad thing.

Jane plays a man who has just woken up in a motel beside his new bride (played by German). The two of them have only recently met - one of those crazy, drunken nights in Las Vegas - and they're about to set off down the road to start their new life together. Unfortunately, that new life together is interrupted when they find a seriously wounded man in the middle of the highway. The near-dead man has a hugely disfigured face and a disconcerting way of putting the newlyweds on edge as they try to help him. Does he know something about one, or both, of them? Something that, perhaps, one hasn't yet shared with the other?

Written by Tab Murphy, and directed (very well, I might add) by Jane, Dark Country is a homage-packed love letter to the crime and noir movies of the past. Even I spotted more of the obvious references, and I'm sure that those more familiar with the sub-genre will find many more. The sardonic voiceover is there, the rear projection is deliberately obvious during most of the driving scenes and many of the scenes are processed in a way that makes the whole thing feel a bit older than a 2009 release. It's nicely done.

Despite the other people who appear - the accident victim, a police officer played by Ron Perlman, one or two others - this is, for the most part, a two-hander between Jane and German. Both do a great job. The former is a nice mixture of cynicism and optimism, while the latter is sweet and damn sexy. One particularly memorable scene with an ice cube is now seared into my brain, it's one of the most impressively erotic moments that I've seen in recent years.

Of course, being the type of film that this is, the characters are far from flawless, and each has a moment or two of being a bit too rough on the other one. Viewers will start to wonder if German is a standard femme fatale one moment, the next they will just be thinking of Jane's character as, to be blunt, a bit of a bastard.

While it's not going to win any awards, this is a great little movie that keeps things entertaining while wearing plenty of influences on its sleeves. Sit back, strap yourself in and go along for the ride.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/COUNTRY-3D-Jane-thomas-german-lauren/dp/B004K46QUA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383071846&sr=8-1&keywords=dark+country

Bad Ass (2012)

Danny Trejo is a badass. You know it, I know it, everyone has been well aware of it for years now. But in this movie he IS Bad Ass. He gets his own theme tune and everything, which makes it all impossible to deny.

Springboarding from a real incident (shown here on YouTube), Bad Ass is all about Frank Vega (played by Trejo), a man who hasn't had much luck since the days that he spent serving his country in the war. Time and opportunities kept slipping away from him until he was an old man without much in his life. But all of that changes when he retaliates against two thugs on a bus and the whole incident is recorded by witnesses and uploaded online. Frank becomes a hero though he doesn't think of himself as a hero. He just wants to get on with his life and be left in peace. But it's not long before more violence occurs in his life and he has to continue being a badass while others are left to clear up the mess.

I, and many other movie fans that I know of, think Danny Trejo is great so I'm happy to see him getting more lead roles than ever before. His biggest role might always be Machete but films like this one are good enough to keep fans happy, even if they aren't actually great.

Directed by Craig Moss (who also pitched in here and there to tweak the screenplay by Elliot Tishman), the movie is an easy sell to anyone who has enjoyed films such as Walking Tall, Urban Justice, Death Wish and Harry Brown. The fact that it has Trejo in the lead role and a supporting cast that includes Charles S. Dutton, Ron Perlman, Richard Riehle in a small role and Craig Sheffer in a blink-and-miss-him cameo also helps. Joyful Drake and young John Duffy may not be as well known but they're likeable enough in their roles.

Sadly, other aspects of the movie are quite poor. The action isn't too bad but the script is weak, and laughably bad in places, and the actual plot is a bit cheesy and ridiculous (e.g. the moment in which Frank Vega easily finds some evidence missed by police). Then we have the way in which Frank gets to know his neighbour, Amber Lamps (Drake, playing a character actually named as a nod to the way in which the word "ambulance" was said by the asswhipped idiot in the original, real life event). It's just unbelievable even if it allows for a number of nice domestic scenes showing a softer side of the character, and a softer side of Trejo.

So it's unbelievable at times, cheesy and ridiculous and has a very weak script. Despite those flaws, I still can't help rating the movie above average because Trejo is just so enjoyable in the lead role.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Ass-DVD-Danny-Trejo/dp/B0083TZXSE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347906754&sr=8-1

Cronos (1993)

A smart and stylish take on the vampire mythos from writer/director Guillermo del Toro, Cronos is one of the best modern vampire movies to offer someone who claims that the subgenre is overcrowded and tired. Everything can be given a fresh coat of paint, it just takes someone to come along with the right brush strokes.

The cronos device was created many years ago by an alchemist who hoped to give himself some kind of eternal life. With the help of an unusual insect at the heart of the device and some interesting and complex internal mechanisms it would seem that the alchemist succeeded. But eternal life is only ever guaranteed if you avoid every misfortune possible, which the alchemist doesn't manage to do. The cronos device falls into the hands of Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi), a man who doesn't realise what power it has. He soon starts to put the pieces together, however, when he sees the device in action and when he is visited by someone (Angel de la Guardia, played by Ron Perlman) trying to persuade him to hand it over. Angel doesn't even want it for his own use, he's been tasked to get the device by his uncle (Claudio Brook), but he takes his responsibilities seriously when it has a chance of affecting how good an inheritance he can get. Meanwhile, Jesus starts to realise just how much of a blessing and a curse the cronos device can be.

Cronos is, to me, one of the best vampire movies of the 1990s and certainly an intelligent and interesting take on the material. It's surely no small coincidence that an insect lies at the heart of the proceedings here and that del Toro's first big Hollywood movie was the cockroach-infested Mimic. The man certainly finds bugs interesting and has made good use of them onscreen a number of times. Perhaps it's their design and aesthetics, perhaps it's how alien they seem, perhaps it's just the reaction they often provoke - whatever the reason, Cronos is a great chance for the man to use bugs in horror in a new and unusual way. It's also another movie that shows yet again why the traits of men and insects shouldn't be mixed up. We might be in territory that seems a million miles away from The Fly but the two movies are quite closely related once you start to see the themes being explored and the nature of the horror on display.

The script mixes everything quite wonderfully, balancing genuine moments of warmth and humanity with some over the top outbursts as the cronos device affects the lives of those who know all about it. There's also a great streak of macabre humour that makes the darker moments more palatable, leaving audiences free to think more about the choices being offered to people as opposed to just taking everything as it's shown.

We know now just what a great visionary director Guillermo del Toro is but people who caught Cronos back in the 90s could already see the potential for greatness there. I'm lucky enough to count myself as one of those fans who discovered a real gem (and I'm sure there are many other horror fans who were bowled over at the time) but his writing and direction are really helped by superb performances from everyone involved. Federico Luppi is so good in the lead role that he keeps you on his side from start to finish, despite some horrible and degrading moments that show just how the device is changing him. Perlman is also very good, as much a victim of his uncle as he is an occasional bully to others. Claudio Brook, Tamara Shanath and Margarita Isabel are also fantastic, fleshing out a small cast that you genuinely warm to and grow to care for.

Cronos won't necessarily barge its way to the top of your favourite movie list but it's the kind of quality, thoughtful, unique horror movie that should (I hope) be remembered and appreciated for many years to come. And it's essential viewing for fans of vampire movies.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cronos-Special-Guillermo-del-Toro/dp/B004EMS0YI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339342807&sr=8-1