Reviews

There is something compelling about making a movie that observes Man's ever more reliance of machinery to find joy and meaning into their lives. Mai's mother uses it to forget about her husband, others use it to enhance their entertainment factor or as a way to impress others.

The world building is pretty good, especially how robotics weaves itself into the future USA. As a marketer, I feel bad that we are going to bombard people with branding 24/7 to get them to buy our products.

This could have been a fantastic film if it weren't for such an self centered main character, who plays a selfish, petulant child nearly throughout the whole movie, treating her "friend" as a machine, blaming him and throwing guilt on it when it only has good intentions. There is something rotten about her soul, as she never learns her lessons from the pain she inflicts, whether it is being mean to her mom and causing a bully to cry, through most of the movie.

The robot character, 7723, is a much more compelling (although it is a low bar) character, someone learning human emotions but is a robot, similar to the Iron Giant, but he as long as he plays subservient to it's master Mai, it's growth is limited.

The movie somewhat redeems itself at the end. It could have taken the easy, Disney ending, but it took a bit of a smarter move, in the vein of The Iron Giant. It also helped redeem the annoying Mai who has to change from the role of taker to provider. However, by the time she learns her lesson, it is too late.

It is hands down the best summer popcorn flick this year.

Basic premise, a cube of enormous power lands on earth, Megatron tried to get it in the 19th century and failed, now the Decepticons want it to use it against Earth (as a launching point to ruling the universe), while the Autobots want to keep it out of their hands, and destroy it if they have too.

This movie is a cut above the others because it doesn't leave out the human factor. It would've been easy for director Michael Bay to simply focus on the robots and use the humans as cannon fodder, but humanity actually has a say on the Autobot/Decepticon showdown. Shia LeBeouf, who is the main character, excludes charm and sardonic wit as does minor character John Turturro (nice undershirt pal!) who plays a spoof of Will Smith's character from MIB.

There were many problems with the movie. While Shia Lebeouf is in fine form (the comedians in this movie were the best - Bernie Mac and Anthony Anderson), some characters were cardboard stereotypes (Megan Fox and Josh Duchamel and his men).

Another issue was some of the fighting scenes. It was hard to make out who was who and the first fighting scene with Bumblebee and Rampart was virtually unwatchable (I mean, all this is CGI, why are the robots out of focus and off centre!?) Also, you can't really tell the difference between Ironhide and Rampage when they are robots.

Another issue is the inclusion of a "Michael Bay" eye-rolling moment. Whether it is the sappy exchange in Pearl Harbour (okay half the movie is sappy) or the animal cracker scene in Armaggeddon, why is there tender moment in the middle of a fight? However, these issues are minor complaints to a movie that doesn't aspire to be what it is (and it actually has a shout out to Hasbro in the credits). It is an engaging, funny and spectacular spectacle.

Demons was a fair movie, which was not Dario Argento's shining moment. Demons 2 is not a sequel (it seems to be set in the far future), but a continuation. The number one rule of horror movies is followed here (whenever one is in trouble, suddenly all the door become locked), and the suspension of disbelief is very high. Who would believe that a monster would break through a TV screen from another movie? Wouldn't it be an actor coming out of the screen, not an actual demon? Anyway, while Italian horror movies are often better than their North American counterparts, this one seems to be the exception.

It was breezy to say the least, but for the most part it was lightly entertaining. I'm pretty sure that this movie was made, when Sheen was at the bottom of his career, yet he always seems to deliver, even when the material is weak.

I thought this movie was set in the 1980's (like 1984) but was surprised to see how new it was (aka: It felt dated). Much of the situation was contrived, but it was a good type of contrivance I can live with.