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.

The Dark Knight reviewed by meatlights

Saw The Dark Knight this afternoon. I would get a lot of shit for this if anyone actually read this blog, but Batman Begins is a better movie which I like the most between the two.

Or should I say, three.

To contain my Batcitement (going to see this film made me actually feel happy–such a rare and alien feeling) I bought the animated Batman movie Gotham Knight and watched it the night before.

Gotham Knight (which could also be called Batman 2.5) features 6 loosely connected stories, some referencing events of Batman Begins. It’s beautifully animated and well-written; any Bat Fan is bound to love at least two of the segments and enjoy the rest.

But back to The Dark Knight. Fanboys are claiming the role of The Joker drove Heath Ledger “insane” or pushed him over the edge….it’s an idiotic urban legend that’s taken on a life of its own and will probably be with us for decades. Ledger was no more made insane by this role than he was turned gay by Brokeback Mountain.

Is Ledger’s Joker Oscar-worthy? It’s a moot question due to the tragedy of the circumstances. I thought it was an excellent performance for a rather limited character. A better question would be “Does anyone give a shit about the Oscars any more?”

Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent was equally good as was Gary Oldman’s James Gordon, and Bale, of course, IS Batman. I’m in the camp that thinks that Maggie Gyllenhal–so hot in her weird way–is an improvement over Katie “Xenu” Holmes.

With hundreds of extras running around, Gotham doesn’t have the dark, claustrophobic feel it did in the first movie and is therefore less of a “character.” That’s a minor gripe. The more serious (“Why…so…SERIOUS?”) problems I had with The Dark Knight were unfortunately recurring: its exceeding length, suspense build-ups that tarry and about halfway through all the characters are “endumbened” as they often are in horror movies, in order to move the story along. Without giving anything away, much of the Joker’s evil plans involve infiltration, but there’s a marked lack of checking and double-checking credentials. “Cop A” climbs into a vehicle with “Cop B” whom he’s never seen before and doesn’t think twice about it. It does get tedious, but as the box office shows, curmudgeons like me aren’t going to stop what may end up being the biggest movie of all time.

Until next summer.