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No, not the James Ivory version.

 In 1986, my nine year old self practically forced my dad to take me to see the first Transformers movie - the animated one - at gunpoint.  I loved it so much, and watching it as an adult, there’s no question as to why - it’s a big, frenetic collection of music videos and running gun battles, new characters, and the epic final showdown between Prime and Megatron. 

If I didn’t have the same fever-pitch excitement last night, it’s only because I’m an old, old man now, and it was late.

So, here’s the thing:  For me, the 2007 movie is the definitive Transformers.  I miss the old designs, but I can deal with it.  I care about these Autobots as characters far more than I ever did for the animated ones.  They’re a bit broad, yes, but that just gives them room to invest a lot more personality into the screentime that they have.  It also makes them fun, and I like that the movie isn’t afraid to be fun.

This is the movie Michael Bay was born to make.  The style he brings to any of his movies is the perfect fit for the script, and the perfect fit for the sheer spectacle of giant robots.  I feel like he’s starting to evolve as a filmmaker - much like Tony Scott did in Deja Vu, learning to kind of rein himself in.  The quick cutting is dialed back significantly, and it’s a lot easier to get a real sense of the action than is typical for his work.  Most importantly, Bay and ILM construct a movie in which the giant robots feel absolutely organic, with almost no sense of ‘oh, well that’s just CGI’.  I said ‘F^&$ YES!!!’ out loud at least five times during Transformers. 

Really, though, the movie is all about Shia LeBeouf.  The human cast is generally good, if not a bit over the top, but the movie is all on LeBeouf’s shoulders.  He’s our POV character, and I love to watch him work.  Josh Duhamel is kind of wasted as Captain Lennox, on the other hand.  I’ve met Josh briefly, and he’s an overpoweringly likeable guy, but it’s difficult to really communicate that when all you do is run and shoot.  He’s tough and charismatic in equal doses, but the military plotline is strictly a B plot, and the action - which is gorgeous - is the real star. 

Bottom line: When was the last time you had a genuine sense of awe during a movie?  If you miss that, this is the movie you need to see.  ‘Nuff said.

SYNOPSIS:  When the Autobot Grimlock dies unexpectedly, Autobots and Decepticons gather at his lush estate in the English countryside to hear his will.

 INT. An Edwardian Parlor, richly appointed with fine trappings.  In the foreground, OPTIMUS pours a glass of sherry and offers it to IRONHIDE, then pours one for himself.

IRONHIDE
You don’t love her, not really.

OPTIMUS PRIME
No, I suppose I don’t.  But I married her all the same.

IRONHIDE
Your damned moral compass again.  Why don’t you let me destroy the human?

OPTIMUS
I gave my word.

IRONHIDE
But what about love?

OPTIMUS
Love is the right of all sentient beings, old friend.  But not marriage, and certainly not happiness.  A man is as good as is word, and I have kept my word.  Now please go.

EXT. NIGHT.  STARSCREAM walks by the lake, a wistful look on his face.  MEGATRON appears abruptly, rowing across the water.  They look at each other, than look away.

MEGATRON
Have you secured the Energon?

STARSCREAM
It is both my duty and my pleasure to serve my master to the best of my ability.

MEGATRON
The Energon Cubes, Starscream!  Where are they?!

ECU: A tear rolls down Starscream’s face.

STARSCREAM
There is none to be had.  No, not anymore.

MEGATRON
Starscream, you buffoon!  You have failed me once more!  I will rip the circuits from your chassis for this impudence, you insolent gnat!

STARSCREAM
It shall be as the Master wishes.

I still haven’t seen Live Free or Die Hard.

Why?  Too busy doing unimportant household tasks and getting a new car.  It’s trivial stuff, and John McClane would not approve. 

I mean, the man is a washed-up drunk of a New York cop.  His family hates him.  He hates himself.  John McClane is trapped in an air duct on the top floor of an LA highrise and all he can think about is how good gin tastes, but he still comes through.  He will still find some way to completely execute you if you mess with him, and he will crack wise while doing so.  If McClane couldn’t get to the theater to see Die Hard, he’d steal the biggest, most impractical vehicle he could find and would not stop causing collateral damage until he was seated in the front row.  And God forbid someone use a cellphone.  God forbid.

DIE HARD Week rolls on.

You’ve seen buddy cops.
You’ve seen lady cops.
But nothing can prepare you for a cop with a dog.

K-9 is perhaps more ripe for mockery, but Turner and Hooch has a Die Hard link - the legend known as Reginald Vel Johnson.

‘Cop with a dog’ is a natural comedy pairing, much like ‘cop with a kindergarten class’.  It has all the charm of a Shane Black buddy actioner, but making one of the leads a dog makes the movie cheaper and inherently funnier.  Face it, you could watch a cute dog do taxes for five hours, and you’d still smile.

The movie teams straight-laced Tom Hanks (Turner) with a sloppy, ill-mannered partner who ruins his life (Martin Riggs, I mean, Hooch).  The movie, after having not seen it for years, reminds of nothing so much as Lethal Weapon with a more sociable, less suicidal Mel Gibson.

Check it out:

The Announcer rings the bell - When calls Bahlactus, violence answers!

No Wednesday post because I was nowhere near a computer between 6am and 11pm. I’ll double up today, but for now, enjoy BONUS CONTENT from All-New Atom #12, the finest DC Comic ever printed:

The comics Internet’s favorite cyberstalker has apparently been unmasked.  Unfortunately, it was not old man Mooney, the janitor at the old run-down amusement park.

Church says “Jinkies!”

It’s a week of movies about cops! Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs!

MORE COLIN FARRELL!! MORE TV REMAKES!!

We’ve forgotten all about SWAT, and it’s only been four years! It’s the movie that made Olivier Martinez a star! What? Olivier Martinez, the guy that shouts “ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!” in the trailer. Still no? He always plays some Eurotrash dick villain. Now you know who I mean.

Remember that part in the restaurant where LL Cool J starts singing the old tv show’s disco theme song? So, the SWAT tv series exists in their world? And they all happen to have the names of characters from that show? At what point when Street, Hondo, Deacon and McCabe are sitting there laughing and singing along to that infectious disco melody do they realize that Street, Hondo, Deacon, and McCabe came before them, that they have already seen a work of fiction based on their future selves? That’s seriously messed up. It reminds me of a time when I was drunk for about a week in college and became convinced that the incoming freshman class was composed of doppelgangers selected by Admissions specifically to take our places. Unfortunately, that moment never comes, but just thinking about it makes me want to see a new SWAT remake directed by Spike Jonze from a script by Charlie Kaufman.

Also, a plane lands on a bridge, and lots of stuff blows up.

Please stop talking about Harry Potter.  I know you are enthusiastic about both the book and the film coming next month.  You don’t need to keep telling everyone in the office.

Thank you.

According to Wikipedia, everything that has happened in South Florida since 1985 is the direct result of Miami Vice.  What the online encyclopia doesn’t say, however, is that the tv series is a cultural black eye that represents everything wrong with the late 80s.  That omission, coupled with the fact that anonymous editors frequently change the Sea and Sky pages to wage a running battle between the two elemental forces, leads me to believe that it’s a dubious source of information.

Just like Dragnet and Car 54 Where Are You? before it, Miami Vice proves that remaking tv shows as movies is a deplorable idea.  Aside from the names Crockett and Tubbs, Miami Vice plays like a very bad Bad Boys  sequel with no humor, little violence, and an amount of unnecessary dancing not seen since The Matrix Reloaded. 

Michael Mann, who was the executive producer of the original series, brings his signature style to bear, which means that Vice is always pretty, but is hit-or-miss in terms of actual content.  Usually miss.  And usually because this 2 hour and 15 minute movie has shockingly little content to begin with.

For instance, there’s nothing that makes Crockett and Tubbs more than ‘crazy white cop’ and ‘by-the-book black cop’.  Not once.  There’s no sense of peril for them because we don’t connect to them, not even for a second. 

Why is there no peril?  Because the film is all about how fabulous these guys are.  Early in the film, when Colin Farrell’s Sonny Crockett mouths off to a federal agent and the fed looks rebuked and a bit scared of a guy called Sonny with a mullett and a Lynyrd Skynyrd mustache, that’s something of a bible for how the rest of the film goes down.  Their fellow cops admire them, the bad guys are jealous of them - in fact, the bad guys being jealous of them is CENTRAL TO THE PLOT - and no woman is immune to their raw magnetism.  Yes, there are also drug deals and double-crosses, but the movie spends so much more time on Crockett and Tubbs showering, having sex, driving boats, and dancing that you almost forget about it.

There are only two explosions in the entire movie, but I can forgive that because the shootout at the end, once it finally opens up, is a ballet of relentless brutality.  It doesn’t make the rest of the movie worth sitting, though, sadly. 

Miami Vice, yours is a sad fate.  Much like Don Johnson before you, the transition to the big screen was just a bit beyond you.