By Robin E. Simmons
TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION
There’s nothing that any movie critic can say that will impact the box office of this silly, loud, violent juggernaut that just won’t quit. It will go on forever as long as it continues to be a virtual license to print big bucks. The preceding trilogy (2007-2011) has already stolen more than $2.6 billion from movie-goers around the globe. The latest $170 million version — in 2D, 3Dand Imax 3D — is targeted at the lucrative Asian market where the main story takes place. This long two hour and 45 minute fourth installment appears to be the start of another trilogy. I was surprised by the odd similarity to the theme and plot of X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, but that’s sometimes happens in the strange, lengthy business of creating and marketing movies.
Michael Bay continues to direct the over-the-top human and robotic action. With each edition, the software that generates the visceral mech action improves. This time around the Autobots side with humans in an Armageddon-like battle against the evil Decepticons that has Biblical overtones. But now a second generation of human-designed Transformers, thanks to Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), are targeting the Autobots. It all starts when Cade Younger (Mark Wahlberg) finds a truck — actually a transformer — in an abandoned Texas movie theater.
It takes about 40 minutes for the bot action to actually begin. The all-new human cast is okay. Kelsey Grammar is an odd choice for FBI agent Harold Attinger but Tucci strives for laughs — and gets them — as a crazed egotistic Steve Jobs like genius inventor hired by Attinger. Overall, I thought the screenplay by Ehren Kruger (he also wrote two of the previous Transformer titles was often rather mundane and ordinary. The attempt to be hip and self-reflecting seemed forced in ineffective. Back in the day, who would have ever guessed Hasbro’s ubiquitous, innocuous silly little toys would be such a gargantuan money-maker as it transformed itself into a series of silly movies. Now playing everywhere on the planet.
NEW FOR THE HOME THEATER:
300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE
Not to be taken seriously, or historically for that matter, this visceral and bloody action epic dwells in a parallel, or companion, world to Zack Snyder’s 300. But if you liked the previous film, you will no doubt enjoy this gnarly and truly awesome interpretation of the saga that moves to the open seas with Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) trying to unify all of Greece against the gargantuan invading Persian forces under the command of god-king Xerxes (and yes, there was a real Xerxes. He’s even mentioned in the Bible!). Rodorigo Santor is back as the mortal-turned-god in full homoerotic regalia. But it is Eva Green who steals the show as ferocious Artemisia, the vengeance driven leader of the Persian navy.
Noam Murro directs in a style similar to Zack Snyder’s previous film (based on Frank Miller’s superb graphic novel). The CGI work is extensive and jaw dropping. The blood flows freely and in slow motion. There’s a beauty to the crimson drenched design that tries to convey the nobility of fighting, and dying heroically in a battle that matters. Has it ever been thus? Nice featurettes. Warner bros. Blu-ray
A HARD DAY’S NIGHT
What more can be said about the Beatles or their breakout movie? Just in time for the 50th (!) anniversary of their now iconic musical, this beautifully packaged disc is loaded with documentaries and interviews that reflect on their early days as well as the then inimitable film stylings of director Dick Lester. After the shared shock and sadness of the JFK assassination, the Beatles brought us out of our grief and pop culture forever shifted its focus.
There’s a crazy comic, distinctly British DNA in the tone of the film that is not too far removed from a “Monty Python” mind-set. But it’s the music that matters most. And time has not diminished the joyful exuberance of a very young John, Paul, George and Ringo. This superb edition is one for the digital cinema library. Criterion. Blu-ray.
robinesimmons@aol.com
