Terminator Salvation and Transformers 2

Both Terminator: Salvation and Transformers 2 are frozen shit Popsicles. If I had to watch one of them again I’d choke down Terminator only because it’s shorter. If I had to choose between watching either movie again or suicide this would be my last post.

T:S was rife with clichés, unexciting action and zero-dimensional characters no one can possibly give a shit about, with the exception of the guy who played Kyle Reese (and Chekhov in the new Star Trek).

A post-apocalyptic Terminator film would be a challenge to make by the best filmers, because as the story begins, humanity has lost, rendering the better “prequels” irrelevant (even T3–which really isn’t so bad–is a masterpiece compared to this travesty).

There’s no getting around the fact that Christian Bale is a spoiled ass. I have no numbers to back it up but it’s my opinion the yelling-at-some-lackey-on-set (turned into a brilliant techno song) struck a blow against the buzz. His portrayal of John Connor had me rooting for the machines.

Salvation’s plot isn’t worth regurgitating. The movie is a total loss, but what kills it above all else is the way Skynet is depicted. For a murderous artificial intelligence it’s way too sane and collected, to the point I was wondering why it ever viewed humans as a threat.

Given the “rules” of the post-nuke Terminator universe it would be easy as hell to win a war against humans, simply by waiting them out. For human numbers to grow they need food, water, infrastructure. What’s time to a machine? Why don’t the ‘robits’ simply do nothing for 50 years, let the humans grow soft, while the machines gather or build neutron bombs for radiation attacks? Burn all the forests and arable land, kill everything green. So much possibility, all unexplored.

T3 and Salvation are dumb movies, which is fine, except they’re not fun. Movie audiences know too much so it’s time to put the T-franchise to sleep for awhile.

Transformers 2 is a rainbow-colored turd. Everything bad you’ve heard about it is true. The effects are seamless, yet it’s vulgar, cheap, bombastic, aimed to evoke mass guffaws from the lowest common denominator of society.  Pro-tip:  just because the target market is 8-year-olds doesn’t mean the movie has to be shit.

At 2 hours, 30 minutes Tran 2 is impossibly long; longer still if you can’t stand Megan “Fred Flintstone Thumbs” Fox, a spoiled ass in her own right. Yeah, she’s “pretty”, so what?– a lot of porn whores are as hot or hotter. Had Fox not gotten her break, she could easily be choking on Sean Michael’s blacksnake like Avy Scott or any number of strumpets.

By now you’ve probably seen both of these cineturds. Like circumcision, they only have to be endured once and you’re done for life.

Smallville review, Season 8, Episode 2 – “Plastique”

Assuming this is the last season of Smallville, I’ve decided to write mini-reviews for all 22 episodes. They won’t be written in order but later on it won’t matter; we’ll all be dead in 2012 when the asteroid strikes earth.

“Plastique”

Cheap-ass follow-up to the season 8 premiere. An off-camera bus explosion outside the Daily Planet introduces paramedic Davis Bloom, who is really Sam Witwer, the Sith Apprentice from Force Unleashed. Chloe befriends “Bette”, a sassy “15-yr-old” street urchin with Asian eyes who was on the bus (if there’s anything I hate more than women I’m not having sex with, it’s girl-women I’m not having sex with and can go to prison for having sex with). Bette shacks up with Chloe, then, Clark in tow, goes to look for “Tommy”, a suspect who was also on the bus.

Upon seeing Bette, athletic teen Tommy runs away, only to be thwarted by a chain link fence barely taller than him. Bette secretly uses some kind of heat vision and ignites one of a few FLAMMABLE oil drums conveniently stacked nearby. Clark, who can “hear a dog bark 10 miles away” and see bullets moving in slow motion, doesn’t notice what really happened. It’s probably better Tommy got roasted, otherwise his ghost would be pissed off Superman was 20 feet away yet couldn’t save him.

Back at the Planet, Lois announces her plan to get ahold of Tommy’s autopsy report and Clark lopes along after her to remind her how wrong it is to steal and that she’ll go to prison “for years”. (I hate when Clark is dumbed down, which means I’ll be hating a lot of casual moments this season).

Chloe and Davis Sith share a Moment screwing…in a light bulb at the” Isis Foundation”. Could Davis be some sort of new love interest for Chloe? Since Jimmy Olsen proposed at the end of Season 7, the timing is somewhat bad. OR IS IT? At “Metropolis General Hospital”, Lois shows off her arsensal of stolen electronic passcards to a worried Clark, who then runs into the Sith Paramedic.

“Chloe is engaged and I thought you were the engager, Clark!” “No, Bloom, I didn’t know she was engaged.” “Oops. Then don’t tell anyone, gotta go!”

According to the “medical” report, Tommy had a long rap sheet (!!!) but the barrel shrapnel from the explosion went toward him, not away! OMFG! Tommy was innocent and Chloe, Lois informs us with a “joke” 10-years too late, is babysitting “Psycho Spice”!

Meanwhile, Chloe and the Firestarter/Jailbait discuss “Black Creek”, the Lex-made prison-lab for people with powers where Chloe was captured last week but Bette was kept in for 3 years. (It should be noted here, for no reason at all, that while hot, Bette has a very annoying, shaky voice, which she uses to announce she’s going to silence Chloe with death).

Chloe runs and Clark arrives just in time to deflect Bette’s fire-eye-balls, thus completing this episode’s single minute total of special effects. After the commercial break, some flashing red/blue cop lights on the outside wall of Chloe’s loft explain that Bette has now been taken away to “Belle Reve”. This makes no sense since less than 5 mintues ago Bette was freaking out about The Authorities chasing and capturing her and has proven her willingness to kill people who help her, much les random strangers.

Tess “Cat Eyes” Mercer meets up with Bette in a green-glowing cage and invites her to join a team of others with powers, so either we’ll see Bette again later this season or we won’t.

Chloe calls Davis Unleashed but he can’t come to the phone, since he’s naked and curled into a ball in an alley! What the hell’s going on here?

And that’s that.