Extinction Level Entertainment

I've been catching up on a lot of 2014 movies this past week, and I'm going to get on to writing about them soon enough, but right now I just have to talk about Transformers: Age of Extinction. I have to talk about it because the fourth live-action movie in the Hasbro toy franchise might just be the best movie of director Michael Bay's career.

Now, I know what you're probably thinking: "That's not saying much," and normally, you'd be right. Bay has become known as a staple of big, explosion-laden blockbusters, dating way back to 1995 and directorial debut Bad Boys. The director has made a name for himself by making successful tentpole flicks ever since, and even though his stories and characters have been dumb as rocks (and getting dumber every time), people still want to see his movies. That's because Bay wants everything you see (in his own words) "to be awesome", and that energy tends to rub off onto the big screen and excite his audiences. But as I said, his storytelling has gotten dumber, and the first three Transformers movies are perfect examples of Bay's negative trends as a director: he doesn't know where to focus the story, his humor devolves into criminally racial stereotypes, he feels the need to pull a Lucas and create Jar Jar Binks-level caricatures for "levity", and despite everything we've been told in the past twenty years, he's really not all that great at directing action, where the characters clash in mishmashes of unreadable disaster porn.

"Take me to your Earth women."

And yet... Age of Extinction is actually pretty good. Not "great", but also not just "good for Michael Bay". In his surprising fourth turn as director of the franchise (the third was supposed to have been his last), Bay actually seems to be growing as a director. I know, I can't believe it, either! The story takes place five years after the climactic battle of Chicago from Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and in the aftermath a black ops CIA strike force has been hunting down the robotic aliens with a vengeance, with both the noble Autobots and evil Decepticons in their cross-hairs. They're even getting aid from a rogue Transformer bounty hunter named Lockdown (voiced by Mark Ryan) who seems to have an agenda of his own concerning his brethren. With the remaining "robots in disguise" in hiding, nobody knows where Autobot commander Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) is... until a damaged semi truck shows up in the barn of Texas technician Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg)...

Not even Marky Mark can stand up to these baddies...

So, to be honest, the reason I enjoyed this latest Transformers flick so much is because the whole thing is actually ABOUT something. Whereas the first three were nothing but the hidden war between the Autobots and the Decepticons and Bay's love of all things military, and yet somehow focusing mainly on the spasming face of Shia LaBeouf, Age of Extinction actually seems to have something behind the exposition and explosions. It's about being a father, as Wahlberg's character must deal with the realization that he can't always protect his daughter (The Last Airbender's Nicola Pelz) from the dangers of the world. It's about racial profiling in a post-9/11 scenario, as we see the human bad guys (played by Kelsey Grammar and Titus Welliver) expound "us vs. them" speeches without discerning between the evil and innocent under their gaze, with one even having lost family in the aforementioned Chicago battle. It's about cloning, corporate greed, the dangers of too-soon scientific progress, genocide, a veteran soldier's bitterness at being abandoned by the people he worked so hard to protect, and what it means to be a living being. There are deep, philosophical discussions to be made of any of these topics, and they all have a part to play in the plot. Now granted, Bay is not necessarily the best man to be putting these ideas out there alongside his CGI mayhem and robotic dinosaurs, but that he does so well introducing these ideas to a major Hollywood blockbuster makes you wonder if he's secretly been growing as a director while the world has scoffed as his "artistic achievements" thus far.

If struts could kill...

Another major upgrade made to this sequel is the cast. Gone are the boring, adolescent hi-jinks of Sam Witwicky and his useless, pointless, interchangeable love interests Megan Fox/Rosie Huntington-Whitely. Gone are the requisite military bad-asses and really just pointless cameos Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson. Gone are wacko John Tuturro, Witwicky parents Kevin Dunn and Julie White (who were appreciated by absolutely no-one), and almost every racist and sexist stereotype (just almost, because... Michael Bay) that has plagued the franchise to this point. They're replaced by a mostly-solid group of actors, especially Wahlberg in the lead. Finally, Transformers fans have a thoughtful, likable human protagonist who actually does things that MATTER, far beyond just being a cosmic MacGuffin who improbably gets the girl through sheer audience annoyance. Wahlberg has showed a heft of talent over the years, and working with Bay again (they paired up for last year's awful Pain & Gain) as an off-type everyman works surprisingly well, thanks to the equal parts tough guy and compassionate man that the role required, to which the actor took exceptionally well. He gets some good support as well, not only from Grammar and Welliver (the former also gleefully playing against type), but also Stanley Tucci as a results-oriented scientist dreaming of greatness, Sophia Myles (Madame de Pompadour!) as a geologist who discovers that what we know about Dinosaur extinction isn't necessarily true, Resident Evil: Retribution's Li Bingbing as Tucci's surprisingly kick-ass assistant, and even T.J. Miller providing a bit of decent comic relief in the first act. And the Transformers themselves get a bit more attention this time around, with the voices of Cullen, John Goodman, Ken Watanabe and John Dimaggio providing more personality and depth than we had seen from this group in the previous three entries. I've been saying for a while that the series needed to focus more on the titular heroes if it wanted my respect, and Bay actually seems to have addressed that issue, putting them front and center and writing some excellent material for the voice actors to work through. It's almost as if the director actually WANTED to make a Transformers movie this time around.

'Murica!

Not everything works out, however. Bay's dislike of strong women seems to show no sign of ending, as the woman who gets the most screentime is the whiny, bratty, completely useless Nicola Pelz. And her character isn't that great, either (zing!). Frankly speaking, Tessa Yeager just makes no sense, in one scene decrying the head-in-the-sky nature of her inventor father and declaring herself the real manager of the household, the next screaming for her "daddy" to save her from the giant robots battle she's too stupid to run in the opposite direction from. Even her singular "redeeming" moment is shortchanged, as she really doesn't do anything besides help her boyfriend (played blandly by Jack Reynor) do one solitary - albeit admittedly important - task, and it never really makes up for how insufferably annoying she is. Forget comparing her to Megan Fox - whose uselessness was at least mitigated by her coolness and take-charge attitude - Pelz's role and performance make Rosie Huntington-Whitely look like an Oscar-caliber actress. If there's one thing that could be said positively about Pelz, it's that she does a better job here than she did in the abomination that was The Last Airbender, but anybody who saw that knows that pieces of rotting driftwood could have done better.

No, wait, Chevy Camero! Better time! 'Murica!

Another downside - or at least a surprisingly inconsistent element - is the SFX use, which most of the time looks positively gorgeous but on occasion flickers into cartoonish territory. And it's not the Transformers animations, which you could forgive for having more uncanny valley than the average Robert Zemeckis movie. No, those look crisp as ever, and combined with the excellent voice-work, make for some amazingly compelling visuals. No, it's the smaller effects that stand out, such as when some human characters are scaling down a building side, and the CGI is just SCREAMING, it's so noticeable. Bay does use some practical effects, but when he uses computers to render something other than the title's main characters, it just doesn't look quite right. This is a shock when you consider how relatively flawless the previous entries were as far as special effects went (it was universally the best aspect of those moves) and how Bay has essentially built his career on said big screen spectacle. It's only a minor gripe, nowhere near the worst the film has to offer.

It's a robot... with a sword... riding a robotic T-Rex. I have no words.

Now, despite the praise I've been heaping on the movie brought to us from Bay and screenwriter Ehren Kruger (whose last great screenplay was The Ring, and that was an American remake of a Japanese classic), I'm not saying that Transformers: Age of Extinction is great. Like I said, despite the surprising depth and metaphor present in the story, Bay still is still not the best director at developing the "human element". The ending is a bit rushed, the only reason they filmed the third act in Hong Kong was a blatant attempt to cash in on the Chinese box office, the product placement is fairly obvious, and the characters often refer to things they couldn't have learned but for a choppy film editing process. The movie also feels a bit long at almost three hours, though it should be pointed out that it never feels as long as, say, Zack Snyder's fellow advertising firm Man of Steel.  But despite these perfectly obvious blemishes, to Bay's credit he doesn't do a half-bad job, either. The action is actually pretty clear, and despite some pointless slow-motion bits (like Pelz' dialogue, Bay doesn't always know how to properly emphasize) the battle sequences are engaging and pretty easy to follow, the antithesis of the first three.

Speech, speech! Oh, who am I kidding, we all know he's going to make a speech.

For the director, this surprising maturity between the first three Transformers movies and now really does bring this fourth entry to a whole other level, blending some serious filmmaking with his usual bombast and bright shininess to create something that isn't entirely brainless and idiotic. I know that might sound like damning with faint praise, but I'm just SHOCKED that Bay was able to create a movie this GOOD and I'm not sure how to say good things about his work. Every action director usually has ONE really good movie, but as Bay really hasn't had one yet, I thought perhaps he had peaked back in the 90's. But - and I'm totally serious when I say this - Michael Bay has made the best movie of his career, and it's a good action film. Not just good compared to Armageddon, or to The Island, or to any of his previous Transformers movies. No, Michael Bay has actually created his magnum opus, a surprisingly cohesive popcorn film that doesn't automatically offend your sense of intelligence every time someone opens their mouth. And Age of Extinction is actually a whole lot of fun, to boot. Sure, you probably need to see the previous dreck to get a full sense of the storyline as a whole, but even if you're not a hardcore fan of the 80's toy craze, there's still a lot to appreciate about what has transformed here.

Not Too Friendly

Some things just seem to work better on paper than they do in execution. At first glance, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World looks like what it aspires to be, a comedic disaster film in the vein of 2012 or Deep Impact but focusing more on the impending victims of this end-of-the-world event. Combined with the solid work of Steve Carell, whose mere presence in The Office, Little Miss Sunshine, Crazy Stupid Love and Date Night raised their comedic efforts tenfold, you could expect that this film would feature a ton of laughs, all the way to Armageddon. Or you could get the much different, far less satisfying movie seen here.

Screenwriter and debuting director Lorene Scafaria, who had previously penned the script for the averagely-reviewed Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, explores the idea of neighbors who had never before acknowledged the others' existence coming together in a time of impending doom. To that end, he pairs the mild-mannered, fatalistic Dodge Petersen (Carell) with the young, optimistic Penny Lockhart (Keira Knightley), as they travel together on one final quest before the end times. Dodge, whose wife has left him in the aftermath of humanity's final failed mission to divert the collision trajectory of an asteroid known as Matilda, is searching for a previous flame, the one that got away. He recruits the unlucky-in-love Penny for her car, claiming that he knows someone with a plane that can get her home to England to see her family one last time. The unlikely pair come upon different shades of humanity, people whose infinitely varied ways of dealing with the upcoming disaster can do nothing to stop the ticking clock of Matilda's arrival.

They're bored already by the premise.

Those interactions are the best thing Seeking has to offer, as exploring how people might react to a calamity of this size proves to be an able source of amusement. It doesn't hurt that Scafaria brought in a boatload of amazingly-talented performers to work these small roles, including Melanie Lynskey, Patton Oswalt, Martin Sheen and William Petersen. Especially entertaining are T.J. Miller and Gillian Jacobs as servers at "Friendzies" (think Friendly's) who have turned the family restaurant atmosphere into the scene of a drug-fueled orgy. Sadly, not everything is as good, with a scene featuring a military-trained group hoping to survive Matilda's impact by burrowing underground is neither funny nor important to the story overall. Most of these scenes also feel inconsequential, with the events occurring only with the explicit presence of the protagonists (an early-scene riot appears to have left no lasting damage when Dodge and Penny return to the area). With such a varying reactions, you would expect some sort of lasting impact. That doesn't happen until the end, and even then it does so in a most unspectacular fashion.

"Why yes, we ARE high! What was your first clue?

It doesn't help that Carell does little and less in this particular motion picture, a shame as he was my main reason for going to see this film. Not given a whole lot to do, Carell's job seems to be to react to each scene with the same sort of confused look in his eyes and a perpetual frown on his face. He's never given a chance to break out, and his role here is more for your pity than anything else. Relying on his more natural, easy-going charm, Carell plays the straight man in a world gone mad, and it doesn't help that you can see in his eyes a desire to play along that never comes to fruition. I haven't liked Knightley since her role in the very first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, so I wasn't expecting to enjoy her performance here. But lo and behold, she actually picks up where Carell left off and does her damndest to carry the whole thing on her back, and to her credit she mostly succeeds. Unlike the dour Dodge, Penny actually goes along with much of the silliness that pervades each scene, making her more sympathetic and in tune with the audience. It's her best performance in years, and while still not a GREAT one, it was certainly a nice surprise.

He'll have to settle for writing the Great American Letter.

Unfortunately, while there are plenty of nice ideas that Schafaria puts forth, Seeking is not the movie that decisively puts them all together in anything resembling a cohesive narrative, or even a decent use of a couple of hours. It's not BAD, but the idea that it could have been so much better is a lot to take. The movie never diverts hard to either hilarious spoof or romantic drama, and so the final product has not enough of either to keep afloat. The result is a jumble of decent scenes that somehow add up to less than the sum of their parts. For such a good-looking trailer to turn out as a merely "okay" movie is a little disappointing, but it could still prove somewhat worth your while, depending on your mood. If you decide to watch this, go see a matinee or wait until it's available to rent; whatever you do, don't bother paying full price for your ticket.

Welcome to Dragon Training

It's got to be tough being DreamWorks sometimes. Even though the animation company, launched in 1999 by Steven Speilberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, launched an award-winning, worldwide cultural phenomena with Shrek in 2001, it has been overshadowed by rival Pixar for what feels like forever. Since animated films were finally given their allotted due with the Academy Award for Best Animated being introduced in 2001, DreamWorks has won the award only twice: for Shrek in 2001, and for the stop-motion Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005. Pixar, meanwhile, has tasted success five times with Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008) and Up (2009), cementing their place as the more celebrated animation studio. And of the two studios, Pixar also has the only film that has broken the one BILLION dollar mark for gross, with this year's Toy Story 3. But give DreamWorks credit: they never give up and released three 3D animated films this year in Shrek Forever After, the recently-released Megamind, and the one that might be up for some awards at year's end, How to Train Your Dragon.

...And THAT'S how you train a dragon

Based on the fictional children's books by Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon takes place in the Viking island of Berk, where the local populace is tormented by a particular variety of pest. Dragons roam the area, stealing livestock (or anything appropriately food-like) from the villagers, who in turn attempt to capture and kill the invaders. Nobody knows where the dragons attack from, and the leader of the Vikings, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler) often leads his warriors in raids on the fog-shrouded dragon territory, usually resulting in disaster. The story focuses on Stoick's son Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), and undersized boy with a penchant for clumsiness and not at all cut out for fighting dragons, much to the embarrassment of his father. He is also the object of scorn from the other young people in the settlement, all looking to become hunters in their own right, especially Astrid (America Ferrera), the girl Hiccup pines over. Hiccup's helplessness reverses when he somehow befriends an injured dragon that he names Toothless, helping the creature re-learn to fly and the two fast becoming best friends. However, it's only a matter of time before he can keep this secret friendship hidden from a society that hates dragons with a burning passion.

The fire effects are especially eye-popping

I'd been trying to get this film for a while now, all the rental places had been out for weeks and it was becoming less and less likely I'd see it before my interest ran out. I had pretty much passed it over when the film was released in March, and only witnessing lavish praise heaped upon it for months after it's release made me think that perhaps I should sit down and watch this. I'm usually not immediately on-board with animated films, even those which have gotten gross recognition. I didn't see last year's Up in theaters, though when I finally got around to seeing it, the film became one of my favorite films of the past decade. I've never seen a Shrek film. I watched Toy Story on TV, but never saw the second, which many hailed as being better than the first. The Incredibles I rented on DVD. I still haven't seen WALL-E or Ratatouille. Despite how much I invariably enjoy animated films, I almost always overlook them when they come out in theaters in favor of other, live-action titles. Maybe some part of me thinks they're for kids? The best animated films can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike, and How to Train Your Dragon is no exception.

...Aaand so are the atmospheric effects

The film is somewhat of a retelling of the classic "boy and his dog" archetype; Hiccup must hide his pet/friend from his father lest there be consequences. That the film does this while incorporating breathtaking visuals and dragon fights is a bonus, and the film is worth watching for it's beautifully-rendered backgrounds and settings alone. And yet it still comes back to the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless, as well as that between Hiccup and his father, that drives the story forward.

Hiccup attempts to protect Old Yeller... I mean Toothless

The voice acting is especially good, even if you take umbrage with Norse warriors being depicted with the Scottish voices of Butler, Colin Ferguson and David Tennant. Butler especially is noticeable in his performance as the great warrior of the village of Berk. He varies between strong warrior and frustrated father with ease. The only unfortunate thing is that he's so recognizable (and he was the only one I KNEW was in the cast before I watched it) that it breaks the suspension of disbelief, with my mind telling me that this was Butler, not Stoick. Ferguson I recognized - though could not name - and enjoyed as Stoick's friend and Hiccup's mentor Gobber the Belch. From his portrayal of the Viking handicapped by years of battle with the dragons, Ferguson conveys a respect for the character inherent in being the buffer between father and son. He does all he can to help Hiccup and persuading Stoick to give his son a chance. America Ferrera does a great job as Astrid, a powerful young warrior who eventually learns to like Hiccup. Though not given a lot to do for the film's first half, she makes it work when it's her time to shine. Other youths take a part of the story, but they don't have a lot to do with the time they're given. That they're so good helps, however, especially T.J. Miller and Kristen Wiig as rival fraternal twins. Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse are also great in limited roles, adding humor and character in small doses to the audience. The only actor who might be considered a disappointment would be Baruchel, whose voice seems to sometimes be perfect to the dialogue he's given, while other times seeming completely out of place. His is a small quibble within a sea of talented voice actors, but since he's the main character it is possible to be sick of hearing his voice by the end.

Like most animated films, human character are just a LITTLE off

The film only has one additional problem in my opinion, and it's with the film's animation style, especially those of the dragons we see during the film. While the backgrounds and distance shots are all beautiful, the movements of the dragons, especially the big ones, see a bit clunky and not nearly as smoothly animated as the rest of the film. While even the human characters stand out a little from the settings they're plunked in, the dragons are even MORE removed, making them seem out of place and almost hokey. Well, okay, Toothless is fine, but I suspect only because the animators put so much more work into him to make it work for the viewer.

Uhm, sure, you can be there for the sequel...

In the end, I'm not even sure How to Train Your Dragon will be remembered as the best ANIMATED film this year, as opposed to some who would seem to think it deserves discussion as best film this year. It certainly deserves a spot on my Top 10 Movies of the Year, but at #9 I wouldn't count on it staying there too long. I really enjoyed this film for it's amazing art and animation, even if the dragons weren't too well incorporated. A little character development would have gone a long way, but I can't complain about a film that was feel-good from beginning to end and succeeded in transporting me to a world where Vikings and dragons co-exist in such an awesome way..If you haven't seen it yet, do so now.