The Expendables 3

Dear Nicolas Cage, (Declined),

Yeah, I know—you didn’t even appear in The Expendables 3. But your refusal to participate in the popular geriatric action franchise says something significant about the nature of these films. It’s not that you’re too good for them. But perhaps that you’re too complicated. 

The problem with all of the Expendables movies is one of tone: they can’t quite decide if they’re parodies or not. They should be. But there’s must be something about the size and shape and consistency of the egos involved that prevents them from ever reaching the satirical place it seems they should (Sylvester Stallone’s lumpy, veiny physique itself is a grotesque caricature of an action hero’s body). But the humor of these films is surprising in its lack of self-awareness. Which is why you don’t fit in, Nic. Is there an actor in Hollywood more painfully self-aware in front of the camera than you?

No, I’m not talking about the way you acknowledge your own public persona by showing up in SNL sketches. I’m talking about the wonderful, bewildering verisimilitude of your career choices, and the uncanny ability you have to use your supernatural Nic Cage powers in both small indie dramas and terrible straight-to-streaming paycheck flicks. 

You’re a better actor than anyone else in the Expendables cast. Empirically (you actually have an Oscar® for acting). And, of the entire roster, you’re the one most likely to return to that kind of form. I don’t think anyone would be surprised, after the glut of junk you’ve involved with in the last decade, to see you back up at the awards podium. Kellan Lutz, on the other hand? That would blow some minds.

You might not believe it, but under different circumstances, I’ve been a defender of the Expendables movies. My love of action films from that classic era (1985-1995) often overwhelms what few critical faculties I possess. But I have a greater affinity for you and your talents, Nic. At precisely that same time that you won your Academy Award for Leaving Las Vegas, you appeared in the three defining action flicks of the mid-90s (the peak, I would argue, of that classic era I just randomly made up). The Rock is Michael Bay’s most watchable film, and nicely buttressed by a script that was polished by both Aaron Sorkin and Quentin Tarantino; Face/Off is the John-Wooiest Hong Kong action movie ever to John-Woo, and you and co-star John Travolta deliver performances far more nuanced than perhaps the absurd plot deserves; Con Air is the film The Expendables thinks it is, an almost-satire that pays loving tribute to the wonderful excess of the modern action film while remaining wholly in character as a modern action film.  

No one else involved in any of the three Expendables films can boast a run like that. Except perhaps Han Solo/Indiana Jones himself—which is why it’s so disappointing to see Harrison Ford show up and go through the motions. And why it’s so heartening to know that, despite all the unfortunate decisions you’ve been forced to make lately, appearing in The Expendables 3 wasn’t one of them.  

Sincerely,

Jared Young

Status: Return to Sender (2/5)

Sabotage

Dear Arnold Schwarzenegger, Actor,

There’s a very simple binary way to judge your latest post-Gubernatorial comeback flick, Sabotage. And it only takes about ten seconds:

1. The opening shot of the film is perfectly representative of why it doesn’t work. 
2. The second shot perfectly represents why it should have worked. 

Coming from director David Ayer – fresh from the (sort-of) success of his found-footage cop thriller, End of Watch – it makes sense that the film begins with a grainy video clip, hissing and popping, striated with static, colors bleeding bright. In it, a middle-aged woman is bound and tortured by a masked assailant. She begs for her life. Weeps. We hear noises: loud ripping sounds. It’s not exactly clear what these sounds are, but they make the woman scream even louder. 

In this unpleasant manner we are introduced to the world of Sabotage: a sadomasochistic, obscene, hyper-violent, obnoxious, inhumane, dim-witted, turgid, and generally unpleasant place to spend an hour and forty minutes.  

Of course, lots of films are unpleasant. Who would want to spend time in the nameless any-city of Seven, or the dilapidated farmhouse of Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Those films, however, used dark places and darker moods to create tension with the wants and desires of their characters. Sabotage, on the other hand, treats its moral and behavioral ugliness like a thrill. 

The second shot of the film is a close-up of you, Arnie. Slumped and swollen-eyed, looking worn-out in a way that we rarely see. Clearly you’re watching the grainy video clip, and clearly the woman being tortured means something to you. The shot doesn’t last long, but quickly establishes that isn’t the usual wisecracking, invincible Schwarzenegger hero we’ve come to expect after four decades. The knock on you has always been a lack of range, but that’s less about your acting abilities than it is about your career choices (you haven’t popped up in a lot of Paul Thomas Anderson flicks). Working with Ayer seems like a bold choice for you. His films are abrasive and kinetic in a different style than many of your past collaborators. If there was ever a chance for you to do something different – to redefine the Arnold mythos for a new generation – this would seem to be it. 

But, alas, the ugliness representative in that first shot is too overwhelming. 

Sabotage can’t seem to decide whether it’s a genre film or something different. Despite what is implied by that second shot, it turns out that you are, more or less, that wisecracking, invincible Schwarzenegger we know so well (though the wisecracks are a bit more filthy and the invincibility a bit less easy to believe). There’s even a scene where the grumpy chief pulls your badge and gun out of his desk drawer and puts you back on the case. But soon after there’s a sequence in which your arrival at a crime scene is intercut with the crime being committed – a sort of Silence of the Lambs-style misdirect – which gives us a sense that the film thinks a little too much of itself. Which is a shame, because Ayers has assembled a rather impressive all-star cast of shoulda-beens, briefly-wases, and almost-ares, including Olivia Williams, Harrold Perrineau, Terrence Howard, and Sam Worthington looking like the bassist from a Korn cover band.

You’re no stranger to these kinds of squandered opportunities, are you? I sat down a few weeks ago to fill in one of my biggest blind spots in the Schwarzenegger filmography, Last Action Hero, and even that magical convening of some of my favorite filmic elements (you, John McTiernan, parody,1990s action excess) somehow resulted in a thing that was far less than the sum of its parts. Just like Sabotage.  

Yes, it seems that your long career has finally caught up to the obscene action movie aesthetic of modern times, and the result is kind of a bummer. I prefer you in your natural state: toting absurdly large machine guns, smirking to let us know that you’re in on the joke. 

Sincerely, 

Jared Young

Status: Return to Sender (1.5/5)

Hercules

Dear Peter Berg, Executive Producer,

As a director, you’ve adapted screenplays from books, actual events, and even from a beloved board game. As executive producer of Hercules, you must have been excited to bring such an epic character to the screen. The legend of Hercules is entrenched in history through song, art,  and literature. In pop culture, he has graced the large and small screen for over eighty years. Strange, then, that with this abundance of backstory – and dude-bro Brett Ratner at the helm –you offer up such a flaccid and forgettable version of the mythological hero.

Hercules is the story of the man, not the myth. We’re introduced to the titular hero as a mortal warrior with a tragic past rather than the demi-god of lore. He and his small team of mercenaries are hired by the daughter of the King of Thrace to help defeat the brutal warlord Rhesus, who is intent on overtaking their empire. On the page, this plot must have seemed like it was right up your alley, Peter. You’ve long been a fan of the whole “leader of men” trope, from meme-friendly Coach Taylor in Friday Night Lights, to Jamie Foxx in the FBI thriller The Kingdom, and the real-life SEAL team of Lone Survivor.

So why do Hercules and his ragtag band of swords-for-hire feel like a B-rate A-Team in sandals?

Dwayne ‘”The Rock” Johnson is perfect as Hercules, which worked out well for you, since there aren’t many other actors of his calibre – physically or professionally – who could have played the son of Zeus. When you need someone to throw a horse, he’s your guy. His comic timing is just as impressive, too, which is why it’s so unfortunate that the laughs in this film are either too obvious or just plain unclear. Like Hercules himself, this script suffers from an identity crisis. Are we supposed to laugh when he fights three wolves or dons a hood made of a lion’s head? Are the close-up 3D effects trying to mimic a vintage Disney View-Master reel? Are the relentlessly bloody fight scenes worthy of only a PG-13 rating? One of the writing credits goes to a screenwriter who helped pen The Jungle Book, Tarzan 2, and Lion King 1 ½. Another credit goes to the late Stephen Moore, whose articulately researched comic concentrated on lending veracity to a grittier, more human Hercules. It’s obvious that someone at the top couldn’t decide which way to steer the chariot. Was it you?

Hercules isn’t awful, it’s just not good enough. At least not as good as its individual parts: the intricately choreographed action sequences, the roster of respectable British thespians, the $100 million price tag. The sum should be something more. Had you picked the right lane and gone with substance over style, you might have had a film closer in tone to Gladiator than Goofy Goes to Thrace. For someone who purports to value authenticity – as evidenced by your commitment to detail in Lone Survivor and the much-praised documentary-feel of the series Friday Night Lights – it’s disappointing that you didn’t fight harder to honour Moore’s source material. And apparently Moore felt the same way. 

With any luck, this muddled effort will inspire audiences to pick up Moore’s comic, or perhaps learn more about the classical myth of Hercules. It’s such a rich story. Shame you short-changed it. 

Regards,

Di

Status: Standard Delivery (2.5/5)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Dear Dawn Barkan, Rat Trainer,

Seems like a dangerous time to be training animals. Apes are riding horses and shooting machine guns. Raccoons are flying starships and shooting machine guns. Sharks are falling from the sky and being mowed down by machine guns! Now it’s mutated turtles turning into ninjas and – you guessed it – getting shot by machine guns.

Business is really booming, huh?

Luckily you had a much safer job: working with the wise old rat, Splinter, spiritual leader and father figure to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He’s a much more frail presence than his young green protégées, and it’s his new found vulnerability that spurs the turtles into action…

Oh, what am I talking about? This is a Michael Bay joint. Everyone is an action star. Splinter was obviously enrolled in the same parkour classes that Yoda took in preparation for the prequels—he’s just as badass as the teenagers he raised. It must have taken you years to train that beady-eyed martial arts master to move so quickly! Or did you just use a regular rat for the flashback sequences and let the special effects team go wild on the older version of the sensei?

Yeah. That’s what I thought.

Maybe this is a good time to start talking about my own pet peeves with the film.

See, TMNT reigned supreme in my childhood. Which meant, yes, it took me most of the movie to adjust to these new voices, adapt to the new look, and feel comfortable with my boyhood buddies squaring off against machine-gun toting terrorists. But I eventually came around (or gave in to) these changes. 

The dynamic within the group, for example, still works. Michelangelo gets all the best lines, Raphael gets to grunt and moan, Donatello brings the nerd factor, and Leonardo is as boring as ever (despite being voiced by Johnny Knoxville). Megan Fox is also a fine April O’Neill, and Will Arnett providing comic relief as a cameraman doesn’t ruin anything.

What does ruin things, however, is the ultra-lame Amazing Spider-Man everyone-is-involved-in-the-conspiracy plotline. Not that it’s inherently a bad idea to make April’s dad a scientist who worked on the ooze that mutated the turtles (and April once treating them like pets), but to tack on the reporter-who-stumbles-on-the-story gimmick is one coincidence too far. And by amping-up the turtles to superhero status, making them invincible to bullets and moving at unintelligible speeds, the action sequences are just more incoherent Bayhem tripe—even if Michael Bay was only a producer.

Jonathan Liebsman tries every trick in the book to crowd the frame with lens flares, colliding axes, Dutch-angle dolly-shots and shaky-cam nonsense. His editing goes for a bare minimum average shot length, and the whole frantic effort feels strangely dated— you know, from a time before Marvel proved the benefits of making action comprehensible again. Even the evil Shredder goes full Transformers in this film, for reasons they don’t even pretend to explain.

A line about the turtles not, in fact, being “aliens” was the only moment of self-awareness the filmmakers allowed. Had that ridiculous change been applied to this franchise’s already ridiculous premise, your job on this film might not even have existed. 

Though maybe that would have freed up your time to work on more films like Inside Llewyn Davis.

Speaking of which—your turn to write back, Dawn!

Feeling trapped,

Christopher 

Status: Standard Delivery (2.5/5)

Lucy

Dear Arnaud Hémery, Data Manager, 

That must have been one hell of a database you had to sort through! Most people would have a difficult enough time managing all the normal files for this type of film. You know: CarFlip_Camera4_Take12.xml, ThroatPunch17_AsianGang_Blooper.xml, ScarJo_LegSpread_MoneyShot.xml, etc.

But then someone like writer/director Luc Besson comes along and says: “That’s not enough! I want shots of dolphins flipping out of the water! Lions ripping out a gazelle’s throat! Beetles humping on a leaf!”

And so, while scrambling to keep all the files in order, you probably thought: “Okay, he wants to draw some parallels between the action of the film and the natural world. That might work.” But poor you—you hadn’t even scratched the surface of your post-production adventure on Lucy.

The story begins slowly, until the first interstitial nature shots come out of nowhere. Some douche in a cowboy hat doesn’t want to drop off a mysterious suitcase himself, so he hands it off to his girlfriend, Scarlett Johansson. As she walks into an expensive Taiwanese hotel lobby, Besson intercuts scenes of an impala being hunted by cheetah. Foreshadowing! It’s pretty heavy-handed, but, even worse, there’s no character motivation for these flashes. Instead, Besson is simply setting up the montage barrage he’s going to unleash in the second half of the film.

That, I assume, is when your real nightmare began. We get shots of tornadoes and floods and eagles and iguanas and mousetraps and cavemen and magicians and fighter jets and bustling cities and man-made islands and more shots that aren’t just inspired by Ron Fricke, but actually licensed from Baraka and Samsara. All in the service of showing us the broad, wild, and wonderful range of life on earth that Lucy learns to experience when the secret thing she was delivering – a synthetic super-drug – unleashes the full potential of her brain. 

Lucy is a prototypical high-concept action movie, meaning the “concept” is the market differentiator, and the “action” puts butts in seats. Besson probably imagined it as The Tree of Life meets The Matrix, though it turned out more like Limitless meets La Femme Nikita—which, when everything starts coming together, turns out to be a perfectly serviceable model. Johansson gets all of her heavy dramatics out of the way early, then embarks on her path to enlightenment and ass-kicking. This is punctuated by ascending numbers that show up every 10 minutes or so , telling us what percentage of her brain has been unlocked (nice even intervals of 10%, 20%, 30%, etc). You probably loved cataloguing those shots for the same reason anyone watching will enjoy them: they’re clean and simple, come in a logical progression, and actually build tension/excitement.

They’re just maybe not as fun as all that other stuff. 

Managing this film just fine, 

Christopher

Status: Air Mail (3.5/5)

The Running Man

Dear Andrew Davis, Fired Director, 

It’s not as embarrassing as you might think to have been fired a week into shooting The Running Man and replaced by Detective David Starsky from Starsky & Hutch. 

Despite his camp origins, Paul Michael Glaser brought just as much experience to the director’s chair as you did: in the preceding few years, he’d been behind some of the most seminal episodes of Miami Vice, as well as the Michael Mann-produced television pilot Band of the Hand, which, after it wasn’t picked up by the network, was released into theaters. But there’s no question that The Running Man would have been a much different film had you stayed on board. Even Arnold Schwarzennegger thought so; he lamented in his autobiography that Glaser “lost all the deeper themes” of the film.

Many of these “deeper themes” orbit the core idea of exploitation as entertainment. That The Running Man preceded the Golden Age of Reality Television by a decade makes it feel, even today, rather portentous—if not prophetic. The Stephen King novella upon which the film is based is focused on different dystopian ideas: urban decay, totalitarian rule. But what the filmmakers chose to focus on instead is what makes the film a rather unique artifact of mid-1980s action excess—and perhaps proves why, despite what many (myself among them) might consider your superior craftsmanship and aesthetic instinct, you probably weren’t the right man for the job. 

See, The Running Man is a all about television, and that it was written and directed by two of some of the biggest names in television (Glaser, writer Steven E. de Souza) lends it credibility as a satire that seems, as a studio action flick, beyond its mandate. Sure, the action scenes are lazily choreographed, monotonously shot, and laconically edited. Sure, the pacing is rote, waxing and waning to the arrhythmic beats of an hour-long network drama. Sure, some of the cinematic mistranslation is laughable, like the “security camera” footage of the Bakersfield Massacre which is shot-for-shot and edit-for-edit the opening scene of the movie. Yet there’s a strange sort of authenticity to the film; the scenes that work best are those that take place in the production offices and control rooms of the nefarious ICS Network, as The Running Man’s smarmy presenter, played by real-life game show host Richard Dawson, conspires with the Attorney General and berates his underlings (Dawson, it is well worth noting, gives the film’s best performance; his comedic timing is a reminder that long before he was hosting the Family Feud he was famous playing a charming conman/cardsharp on Hogan’s Heroes). 

Schwarzenegger later complained that Glaser shot the film like a TV show. But the fundamental absurdity of grown men in bright-yellow neoprene suits grappling with low-rent super-villains like Dynamo (if you’ll recall, he’s the cyborg opera singer who shoots lightning from his fingertips) seems best expressed in the flat, colorful style that Glaser employs. To be frank, the very premise of the movie seems at odds with the procedural style that you would go on to apply to such great effect in your later work.

But it all worked out, didn’t it? You may have failed at making a film about the farce and debauchery of network television, but managed, just six years later, to make one of the best television-to-film adaptations in the history of cinema. One could trace the cause-and-effect of being fired from The Running Man to directing The Fugitive (Harrison Ford reportedly saw Under Siege and demanded that producers offer you the job, and Under Siege was the apogee of your collaboration with Steven Seagal, which began with Above The Law—the film you made instead of The Running Man). But the machinations of the Hollywood system are, I think, a bit more complex than that. Glaser’s version of The Running Man remains, deservedly, a minor piece in the Schwarzenegger oeuvre, overshadowed by more proficient vehicles for his particular brand of monosyllabic gladitorialism. Like Terminator, like Predator, like Total Recall.

All three of those films were made by directors with real cinematic vision. Which begs the question: where would The Running Man rank among all these cult classics if it had been an Andrew Davis film? 

Impossible to say. But I prefer you on the wintry streets of Chicago. Let Glaser have his paper-thin hockey-rink sets and perfectly plain primetime sensibility. 

Sincerely,  

Jared Young

Status: Standard Delivery (3/5)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Dear Charlton Heston, Actor and Former President of the NRA,

You were the star of the film that started it all. In the 1969 version of Planet of the Apes, you played an astronaut who landed on a planet where apes were the dominant species and humans were enslaved. Your intelligent captors named you Bright Eyes, and when you finally spoke, you screamed a line that has become a classic: “Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!” In your second career as president of the National Rifle Association, you popularized a phrase that although iconic, is perhaps one of the most divisive you ever uttered, “From my cold, dead hands.”

It’s almost a blessing that you didn’t live to see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I can imagine it would be bittersweet for you to now see the apes with guns.

When you passed away in 2008, the Hollywood model of rebooting franchises from origin stories was hitting its stride, reaching a high-point with this film’s direct predecessor Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011. In Dawn, a decade has passed and the man-made “simian flu” has wiped out most of humanity. Caesar, a super-intelligent chimp, lives a peaceful existence with other advanced primates in the Muir woods outside San Francisco. Now the father to an adult male and a newborn son, Caesar governs his society with compassion and fairness.

The first human that comes in contact with the apes shoots one of them, claiming it was self-defense. I guess you would call that ‘standing your ground’, even though he had invaded the ape’s territory. The ape wasn’t fatally wounded, but his father, Koba, who was tortured by humans and rescued by Caesar, wants revenge. In order to avoid all-out war, Caesar grants a small group of humans permission to restore power to a hydro dam that borders ape territory. But the humans must first surrender their guns to the apes to be destroyed.

 

That rumble I just felt must be you spinning in your grave.

Don’t worry, since we’re dealing with humans in America, there is a stockpile of weapons. An armory, in fact. Koba overtakes the armory, and turns against Caesar. The most important tenet of ape society is ‘ape shall not kill ape’, like those prop commandment tablets you held up in your role as Moses. You know, the ‘thou shalt not kill’, one (which doesn’t really jibe with the whole NRA thing, but I guess that’s why you were such a great “actor”). Rest assured that your dogma is adhered to even once the apes are armed and on the attack, because guns don’t kill people, apes do.

Bad acting, as you know, can also kill movies. In your later years, you became a master of scenery chewing. Heston the legend usurped Heston the actor. It’s ironic, then that this film’s lead, Andy Serkis, is renowned for literally disappearing into his remarkably nuanced motion captured performances. As the deeply conflicted Caesar, Serkis delivers such profound emotion to his role that even the best available CGI could never imitate. In fact, all of the simian performances are so gripping in their realism that – despite the film’s masterful art direction, understated special effects and strong human characters – it’s their authentic interaction that rescues this movie. Instead of being restricted to the confines of being just another franchise potboiler, those hairy primates elevate Dawn to the type of storytelling that transcends genre. 

You’re no stranger to Dawn’s theme of competing ideologies. Above all, you were a man who saw issues as very black and white. But it’s the moral grey areas of this film that make it so compelling. There are no good guys or bad guys, nor is it obvious who we should root for. Indeed, as the apes become more like humans, they struggle with this very notion. Dreyfuss, the leader of the human compound, nearly steals a line right from your cold, dead mouth: “They may have their hands on our guns but that does not make them men.”

For the sake of ape-kind, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Rest In Peace,

Di 

Status: Air Mail (4/5)

Snowpiercer

Dear Derik Gokstorp, Pipeline Technical Director,

A lot of things need to line-up for a film to succeed. There are the obvious elements – a great script, a talented director, a convincing cast, a savvy marketing strategy, and so on.  Toiling in the background, however, is a whole artistic assembly line, which also needs to come through. You know, the technical crew that you’re in charge of managing so the production stays on track. See, if they decided to just rebel against the whole industry, the movies as we know it would cease to exist. Middle-men like you would then have to either try to stop then, or join the revolution.

You can see where this is going, right?

Yes, you are the Mason (aka. Tilda Swinton) to Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer. But this action-packed locomotive is not her story to tell – or yours, for that matter. It belongs to the labourers and unsung heroes that are told they should be grateful just to be around. People like Chris Evan’s character, Curtis, and his clingy best friend Edgar, played by Jamie Bell, or a protective mother like Octavia Spencer’s portrayal of Tanya. Covered in soot and clinging to gelatinous protein bars, they’re plotting an uprising the moment we meet them. This gives the film a classic prison-break structure, only this prison is a class-divided train filled with the last survivors on earth. 

There’s a mysterious conductor and de facto God in the front, a meaty middle that represents a cross-section of humanity, and les Misérables in the caboose. Your on-screen counterpart, Mason, likens this arrangement to the way a body depends on the foot knowing its place on the body. Except as we know (and as the film shows in chilling detail), people learn to live without limbs all the time.  In fact, some characters in Snowpiercer wear their dismemberments like a badge of honour, for reasons that aren’t clear until the end of the film.

Deficiencies and disabilities in the making of a film, however, are less endearing. In the case of Snowpiercer, this responsibility unfortunately falls at your feet. The exterior shots of the frozen-over landscape and train itself are rendered with unconvincing graphics that feels you pushed your computer effects team to work a little too fast, and a little too cheaply.  That’s a small quibble, however, in what is otherwise a beautifully shot ripping ride.

Casualties come fast and furious in this South Korean co-production, which feels heavily influenced by Asian and South Asian hit films. It’s one part The Raid, and a couple parts Oldboy (a comparison the film comes by honestly with director Park Chan-wook as a producer). In fact, just imagine Oldboy’s violent hallway sequence stretched over the course of an entire film (and with some equally delicious plot turns). Yet there’s also a lot of heart here, to the point where I kept feeling surprised and unprepared for any of the characters to die – the exact opposite feeling I get in franchise-focused Hollywood productions. Snowpiercer, by contrast, feels like a singular effort on a one-way track to thriller-ville. It succeeds – but after circling the world for a year now on the international film circuit (ironic, isn’t it?), I’m just not sure enough outside factors will align to bring in audiences.

Here’s hoping people do line-up to see it.

Christopher

Status: Air Mail (4/5)

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Dear Steve Salazar, Welder,

When it comes to melting metal on Hollywood sets, it’s hard to top your CV. In the last few years alone, you’ve built some of the most badass battleships, spaceships, train sets and superhero battlegrounds we’ve ever seen. Now you’ve come back to the Transformers franchise, where the metal thrashing must be bigger, harder, faster, and louder than anything that came before it. Personally, I’d rather just bang my head against the wall. At least that’s how I felt going into this film… and then again at about the 90-minute mark when I realized it was only halfway done.

Before Transformers: Age of Extinction gets inevitably unwieldy (just like the three films before it), I found myself actually enjoying the slow burn introduction – “slow burn” relative to a Michael Bay film, that is. A whole new cast of actors have been rotated in, I think: past characterization has been so ineffective, I couldn’t really tell. This reboot approach does, however, force a little more fleshy face time, which, although easier to follow, is ultimately just a distraction from the film’s central preoccupation.

So we’re introduced to Mark Wahlberg as an inventor/farmer who lives with his short-shorts loving teenage daughter, played by Nicola Peltz, as well as T.J. Miller, who steals all his scenes as Walhberg’s reluctant partner. They find an old truck in an abandoned Texas theatre that proves to be Autobot leader Optimus Prime (huh?), and are eventually chased by black op government agents for harboring an alien. Stanley Tucci is also in here as a Steve Jobs-inspired billionaire inventor, inexplicably trying to turn his character into late comedic relief. But whatever. These are people, and nobody goes into a Transformers movie for the people. Like you, all they care about is seeing big shit get smashed.

I assume you’re okay seeing your hard work destroyed, anyway. Being a construction artist on a Michael Bay film would require the zen of a Tibetan Buddist creating sand mandalas. You know what you make is barely going to be seen before being obliterated, and worst of all, in an age where computers tend to take all the credit for movie magic, most people will never even realize what you’ve done. That last point, however, is a credit to the Transformers’ continuing innovation in seamless visual effects. The most memorable parts here being the bits when we see people flying out of car wrecks and mid-air crashes, adding a much-needed human stake to this emotionally dead world of culturally stereotyped robots.

So I wish I could give you more specific credit, but I’m not sure where that would be. And not just because everything looks really good, but because when I walked out of the theatre this time, just like the last three Transformer films, the whole movie is kind of a blur. That seems strange as the editing pace has been mercifully slowed down, and the action is finally digestible almost throughout the movie. I guess there’s just something about metal aliens that doesn’t connect with me. No matter how hard you tried.

Fusing out

Christopher

Status: Standard Delivery (2.5/5)

22 Jump Street

Dear G.A. Aguilar, Second Unit Director,

Hooray, you’re back! This was your second shot at second unit directing the second Jump Street film. But rather than having a bad case of déjà vu, you probably felt even more comfortable in your role. The action scenes you directed this time were a little bigger, and even better suited to your considerable experience with stunts. The party scenes you handled were also a lot wilder, and, as a whole, 22 Jump Street trades the element of surprise from the first film for pure comedic satisfaction. That’s quite an uncommon accomplishment for a sequel – especially one that’s fixated on being a sequel.

The repeatedly self-referential narrative part of the film, however, didn’t concern you. Why would it? Your job is always a bit repetitive anyway, working on all the connective tissue that doesn’t involve the stars – in this case, the establishing shots of the fictional “Metro City”, the transition scenes around campus, and the aforementioned action sequences using stunt performers. It’s up to you to understand what the film is hoping to achieve, and to fit your set pieces into an established template. It’s almost like making a sequel within a sequel.

Whoa. Did I just out-meta Phil Lord and Christopher Miller?

Hardly. The fact they were able to keep their pace for the entire runtime – actually, longer than the runtime with some incredible end credits – is fairly astonishing. Despite the overtly self-aware tone of the film, it never crosses into parody. This is mainly because Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum once again fully commit to their too-old-for-school undercover cop characters and never wink at the audience by acting above the material. Even the homoerotic bro-mance gets hit up so often that it actually changes from being a lazy joke to the entire point of the film. This obsession with a professional marriage no doubt comes by Lord and Miller honestly, as they represent an extremely rare case of non-sibling co-directors who have made several projects together (including the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs films and The Lego Movie). Their hot streak shows no signs of slowing down, either. If I were you, I’d stick around.

Seeing double and loving it,

Christopher

Status: Air Mail (4/5)