Transformers: Age of Extinction - Zero Stars

When did summer blockbusters become hostage situations? When did referring to them as "jaw-dropping" cease to describe their awe-inspiring imagery, but rather their perpetual-yawn inducing relentless stupidity? Just what is it, exactly, for a film to have no value whatsoever? I'm sad, but not at all surprised to admit that these are the questions that ran through my mind while being subjected to Transformers: Age of Extinction, Michael Bay's nearly three-hour fourth installment in his banner franchise of hollow spectacle.

Three years removed from the last time I watched Bay's giant CGI robots fight it out over the course of a bloated run-time, with a miserable intermission in the form of his vile, hate-fueled Pain & Gain (reviewed here), I'm almost ashamed that I endorsed Dark of the Moon (reviewed here) with the mild praise that I did, even giving a tacit thumbs up to Bay's penchant for misogyny, lumping it in as part of the "spectacle," rather than identifying it as the progressively-growing weakness of a filmmaker no longer able create legitimate lasting images. And coming from an Armageddon devotee, I count Ben Affleck trotting an Animal Cracker from Liv Tyler's cleavage to her waistline as a lasting image... I don't know what that says about me, but it certainly doesn't say much for Mr. Bay.

I don't know what it was, exactly, that made me enjoy Dark of the Moon; perhaps it was the ho-hum summer slate of 2011 combined with the fact that that particular set of robots and boobs was actually an improvement on the previous incarnation. Whatever it was, it no longer applies, and I don't think I can ever again trust the version of myself that gave it the OK.

Am I overreacting? No. It's not that Age of Extinction is devoid of any craft. It actually displays considerable talent. In addition to some incredible effects, Extinction also boasts some great cinematography, along with some really beautiful compositions; it reminded me that somewhere deep down, Michael Bay is a truly talented filmmaker, albeit one who has completely lost the ability to string together more than a few minutes of worthwhile material, especially troublesome when he inflicts 165 minutes of cruel repetition on us this time around.

Worse still is that these positive aspects were often contradicted by their context, many of them coming in the first hour, in which Bay seems to be making a concerted effort to develop his characters, showing us Mark Wahlberg's struggling inventor farm-boy father trying to raise a daughter who Bay refuses to clothe, so we get images of college loan refusal and silhouetted dad contemplatively looking off into beautiful sunsets, which would have been effective had we not seen three other Transformers films which conditioned us to ignore the human drama that inevitably gets paved over an hour later by robots bashing each other to bits, as happens an hour after Wahlberg ponders that gorgeous sunset.

But it's not just the ironic negation of the modicum of quality that the film shows, but the utter pointlessness of its being that makes Extinction such a chore to watch. Cut out the stupidity, the misogyny, the out-of-place cliche Japanese samurai Transformer, and you still have a tortuously long blockbuster with an asinine script and played-out imagery that we've seen for nine hours already... How much more robot-on-robot crushing and crinkling can anybody really take? Considering the fact that there's nothing new here, no fresh take, despite the re-boot set-up, Bay and company seem to think audiences are game for hours and hours more of these tired images. I for one say they're wrong, which is why I bought a ticket to a different film when I saw Extinction, and I hope you will to, if you feel the need to watch this trash out of obligation because you saw the other three, because in Hollywood you vote with your dollar, and a ticket to this only begs for Transformers 5, and who knows what wretched depth that film will reach? I definitely don't want to feel obligated to find out.

Locke - **1/2

Stephen Knight's Locke is an intriguing stunt of a film, filled to the brim with dramatic tension as one man in one car in near-real-time puts out all kinds of fires, fending off his boss while attempting to reconcile with his wife and kids on speakerphone, on his way to be present for the birth of an illegitimate son, all while battling some inner demons. It's the kind of totally ambitious cinematic experiment that I crave... And I wish I could say I loved it.

Unfortunately there's only so much that can be done with this premise, but in the end it just doesn't feel like enough. Tom Hardy plays the titular character, and he's very effective in managing the level of stress that we feel while watching him. But again, in the end there's only so much that one man can depict while sitting behind the wheel of a car with the audience seeing essentially just the shoulders up for 90 minutes.

Locke plays like a vignette from the domestic drama version of TV's 24, with Hardy shifting from intense crisis to other equally intense crisis while driving really fast on the highway. It's great in the moment, when you're looking close-up, straight-in at a man agonizing over a life-ruining mistake, but taking a step back reveals that it's not necessarily enough to sustain a feature film, especially considering that its conceit forces Knight to completely neglect that which arguably makes a film a film: visuals.

It's a real shame that Locke doesn't quite work, because the writing is superb. Knight and Hardy are able to present a complex portrait of a man struggling to do what he feels is right. It would have made for brilliant radio theater, but as a film, the limitations of the premise are just a little bit too much to overcome. But still... It was daring, and we should always be up for a dare at the movies.

The Lego Movie - ****

"A great film doesn't concern itself with what happens, so much as how it happens.” I’ve used that line once before, in a review I wrote for Toy Story 3 a few years back, describing the joy of being so moved by an animated film about toys. Well, that line is applicable once again, for the very same reason, and quoting it from a review of a widely beloved film is as well, because, believe or not, The Lego Movie is on par with some of Pixar’s best.

It’s a rare and wonderful thing to be surprised by a film these days, and The Lego Movie absolutely blindsides; what could very easily have been a goofy little piece of novel ephemera somehow manages not only to be unique and beautiful, but also smart. It will no doubt go down as one of the best films of this year, and one that will inspire all sorts of backlash by those who see only the surface value of what The Lego Movie has to offer.

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American Hustle - **1/2

David O. Russell is a guy who obsesses over the details. Most great directors do… It’s necessary to create atmosphere in a film, or really anything else for that matter, considering filmmaking is creating something out of nothing. Props, costumes, sets, everything: chosen specifically. So having an eye for detail is nothing new; it’s a necessity, expected, and not really worth mentioning. David O. Russell really obsesses over details, which has generally produced some truly amazing and unique films in the past. But in his latest, American Hustle, Russell loses the forest in the trees, focusing so intensely on getting every tacky prop and every bad hair piece just right, that it feels more like a retro fashion show we’re meant to gawk at and applaud for its bold styles than a narrative film in which we can really immerse ourselves.

A loose retelling (“Some of this actually happened”, we’re told at the start) of the ’70s Abscam scandal, American Hustle is an ensemble period piece that reunites Russell with virtually every actor he’s ever worked with, as well as a few new additions. It’s a marvelous cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner; the list goes on. It’s a who’s who of Hollywood’s best and brightest, and they all lose themselves in their parts, creating beautifully nuanced characters with brilliant performances (Russell also has a way with actors).

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Out of the Furnace - **

Out of the Furnace, Scott Cooper's follow-up to the mostly good Crazy Heart, is full of the same visual richness as that film was. Set amongst low-lifes and good folks with bad luck in an impoverished mining town. It gets right what a lot of Hollywood films get wrong; Christian Bale plays a normal guy with a welding gig without making a big deal of it... Rather than 'designing' a costume for him and fashioning his hair just-so, it looks like the filmmakers just sent him to a thrift store to grab some clothes off the rack and wear them for a few days straight while letting his hair grow. It's a small detail, but important in registering the film's authenticity. Cooper and his crew nail all of these details, and though the direction felt a little stale, the film still managed to look fresh because of them.

Unfortunately Furnace features the laziest screenplay of the year, complete with the third-act cop-outs that almost ruined Crazy Heart. Bale plays Russell Baze, an honest Joe who briefly goes to prison for killing a few people in a drunk driving accident, an interesting turn in the film that essentially goes nowhere, adding nothing to the character or themes. Russell was on his way home from covering for his brother, Rodney (Casey Affleck), paying off a scumbag loan-shark (Willem Dafoe) who has Rodney throwing underground fights to pay off his debts, scenes which contain more superfluous plot construction than is necessary and which isn't properly utilized. Eventually the film has Russell out for revenge after Rodney and the loan-shark are killed for no apparent reason by some crazy hillbillies who run the New Jersey chapter of this underground fighting ring, but not before one of them butt-dials a buddy with his cell-phone, leaving a voicemail of the murder... Ugh.

There's so much more that is crammed into Furnace's two-hour run-time, but it's impossible to briefly contextualize all of it, mainly because Cooper and his co-writer can't even find a way to contextualize any of it in the film itself. There's a sub-plot with Zoe Saldana as Russell's ex-girlfriend who left him while he was in prison, and another featuring her new boyfriend, a thankless role filled by Forest Whitaker, who I swore was Saldana's father for most of the film due to a lack of clarity and the fact that they barely ever look at each other, let alone touch. It's a confusing dynamic in a pointless sub-plot, only one of several in the film, which together pull so much focus from the story Cooper is trying to tell that it could only barely be said that he tells one at all.

What's worse is that what little there is that is cohesive is riddled with bad dialogue, cardboard characters, narrative convenience, and what can only be described as a lack of umph. It's obvious where every scene is going as soon as it begins, and too many of them are over-the-top or under the mat, completely lacking the edge that it needs for the suspense it wants to build. Fortunately, a top-notch cast delivers all of this with enough conviction to make enough of Furnace compelling enough, even when it's misfiring, so when Russell runs into Woody Harrelson's Harlan DeGroat, the leader of the psycho hillbillies and says, "You got a problem with me?" and Harlan replies, "I got a problem with everybody," only a piece of us laughs at such one-dimensional absurdity, while the rest of us shrugs it off and moves on. And that's pretty much how it goes in Out of the Furnace.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - ***

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is exactly the film that Ben Stiller set out to make, for better or worse. It’s incredibly uneven, takes forever to take off, and is unexpectedly bogged down by an excess of seemingly unnecessary plot exposition, but there’s passion infused in every frame, and there’s something wonderful about that which makes most of the film’s flaws forgivable, if not lovable.

Stiller plays the title character, a tenured, unappreciated photo lab grunt at Life Magazine, who loses an important photograph by the famed recluse photographer, Sean O’Connell (played by Sean Penn in a cameo so good I almost wish the whole film had centered around him), expected to be the cover shot of the final issue of the magazine. Lost, lonely, and lovelorn, Stiller’s Walter Mitty sets out on an adventure to find O’Connell and infuse his life with meaning. He also hopes to win the affections of a new payroll clerk in his office with whom he’s been trying to connect via an online dating website; however, the site restricts his access due to an incomplete profile left blank because he’s never been anywhere or done anything noteworthy.

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Thor: The Dark World - **1/2

Just when I thought I was out, done with dull superhero movies, they pull me back in, with Thor: The Dark World. This recent brood of superhero films have tread the line between dismal and mediocre, but I actually really enjoyed Kenneth Branaugh's almost quaint depiction of the Norse god, and the choice to set that film in small-town New Mexico rather than a metropolis like, well, Metropolis. Unfortunately, Alan Taylor's sequel, either through Marvel Studios' preference to use all of its properties as cross-promotion for the rest of them, focusing on the universe as a whole, rather than the individual titular characters, or through Disney's recent acquisition of said properties, forcing more hands in to stir the pot, or perhaps simply through Taylor's lack of gusto, Thor: The Dark World lands somewhere in the realm of... Adequate.

A prologue opens the film, introducing Malekith, the leader of the Dark Elves, an ancient race that went into some kind of disappointment-hibernation after failing to capture "The Ether," a mystical evil energy force as old as time itself, or something like that. This sequence elicits the first in a series of groans that last through to each of the films three endings (depending on how soon after the credits one chooses to saunter out of the theater) as we're subjected to a heap of lofty exposition like this, all so that we can understand a very simple premise. The plot turns, and turns again, and an anti-gravity warp zone opens up because every x-amount of time the Nine Realms line up, and something and something, and so love interest Jane Foster ends up with the magic Ether inside of her blood-stream, a sad turn which relegates her character simply to Vessel for Plot Progression as she becomes the target of Malekith, somehow awakened by Ether activity.

Fortunately Taylor inherits the well-drawn characters for Branaugh's film, whose likability acts as The Dark World's saving grace, filtering all of this nonsense through the levity-inducing sensibility of its ragtag group of Earth scientists and their side-kicks... And their sidekicks' side-kicks. Chris Hemsworth reprises his role as Thor, again providing the right balance of snarky arrogance and endearing tenderness. Tom Hiddleston's back as Loki, too, and thank Odin for that, because without him there would be no edge to the film, very troubling considering there's barely any with him.

Where a great sequel builds on the world introduced in prior films, further developing its characters and ideas, Thor: The Dark World simply gives us bigger, and more. We see more of Asgard, but still don't really get a sense of what it's actually like there, beyond home of Odin's palace, where most of Asgardian screen-time is concentrated. It seems as though great opportunities are squandered at every plot turn, with Taylor often holding back from the audience vital information that all of the characters know, in order to manufacture cheap suspense which will never hold up on a second viewing. One such episode involves Loki, finally free of the shackles he's been under for most of the film, immediately betraying Thor when we've all (thought we've) been fooled into trusting him, but it turns out that it was just part of a plan they hatched up off-screen to fool the Dark Elves.

And that's pretty much how the film goes: just when something might happen that will set the film apart from others and make it at all unique, it turns out it's just part of a bland plot twists that negates whatever was interesting. What's left is still a serviceable piece of ephemeral popcorn entertainment, which hits all of the expected beats, but what's most memorable about it is how much potential it leaves unrealized. Rather than taking the opportunity to further develop Thor and co., Marvel uses it to boost their brand, and The Dark World is instead yet another largely generic feature-length trailer for whatever comes next with the Avengers.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - **

Looking back on the story arc of Catching Fire leaves one wondering where the hell the rest of the film is. For all its flash and grandiosity, not much really happens, and it leaves very little to ponder beyond how we got suckered into making this series the phenomenon that it now is. Maybe that's because, like the first Hunger Games, about halfway through, the characters are again thrust into an unsatisfying fight-to-the-death which contributes relatively nothing to the film's already convoluted narrative, and manages to be about as thrilling as a group of toddlers playing hide-and-seek in the backyard.

Director Francis Lawrence takes over directing duties, surpassing the lackluster Gary Ross, and he provides more edge to the action, while handling the drama with a subtler touch, focusing on some interesting details the first film glazed over in its broad-strokes approach, and yet he still turns out a film that couldn't accurately be described as better than average. If Lawrence, whose films include I Am Legend, and Water For Elephants, has a trademark as a director, it's that he makes a great first half that is negated by the absolute mediocrity of the second, and while Catching Fire's narrative woes can hardly be ascribed to him, it nevertheless falls in line with his seeming lack of follow-through.

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Monsters University - **1/2

Outside of making gobs of money for Disney, selling Mike and Sully dolls to a new generation, Monsters University has no reason for existing. We didn't need to revisit these characters any more than we needed an update on the adventures of Lightning McQueen and his buck-toothed car buddy in Disney's Cars 2.

A few years ago Disney acquired Pixar and they have not wasted any time in taming and sanitizing the once-invincible animation house, stripping it of everything that made it great: innovation, creativity, and a boundless sense of wonder, leaving them to languish in the doldrums of generic storytelling and cash-grab sequels. With Monsters University, it seems that Pixar has surrendered whatever control they were still grasping onto. If not for the brilliantly inspired short that plays before MU, I'd say Pixar's creative muscle has atrophied; Pixar almost seems to be making a deliberate effort not to create a unique or even memorable film, making MU feel more like a naive act of defiance at having to spend three years producing it than the joyous splendor that its far superior predecessor, Monsters Inc., was.

That said, MU isn't the worst film out there, nor is it an ugly piece of animation; even in his sleep, Bobby Fischer is still going to beat you and nine other people simultaneously in a game of Chess. It's bright, crisp, and pleasantly entertaining... Everything you'd expect out of a direct-to-video sequel (okay, prequel), only they released it in theaters and had the audacity to put it in 3D and charge a few more dollars for a useless extra dimension. But even as cynical as I was about the whole thing I found myself giggling throughout the entire film; most of the jokes land, even if it is because Pixar wasn't aiming very high in the first place, opting to play it very, very safe rather than reaching for the stars, as they so boldly used to do. It may sound hypocritical and contradictory to follow such a take down with the confession that I enjoyed MU, but the fact is that I really do love these characters; not wanting another adventure with them is just a reflection of my desire for new characters to love, characters I know Pixar is more than capable of producing.

The success of the Toy Story sequels seems to have cursed Pixar into revisiting the rest of their catalogue. But where they were able to translate our natural connection to toys and our ever-changing relationship to them as we grow older into a meaningful and beautiful piece of entertainment that wasn't afraid to explore deeper issues, MU fails exponentially to come anywhere near that, with its monster-tailored college cliches and don't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover theme. Mike and Sully join fraternity Oozma Kappa (abbreviated "OK" for a solid (perhaps meta?) pun on mediocrity), but what does Greek life actually mean to monsters who don't know who the Greeks are, anyway? Roughly the same as what Monsters University actually means to me... Ultimately nothing.

Pain & Gain - Zero Stars

Director Michael Bay stated that Pain & Gain was a kind of synthesis of Fargo and Pulp Fiction. But where Fargo has rich atmosphere and subtlety, and where Pulp Fiction has style and wit, Pain & Gain has Michael Bay, who possesses all of the subtlety and wit of a lunkhead bodybuilder... or three lunkhead bodybuilders, to be more accurate. Michael Bay, for whom $20 million is a micro-budget, and for whom dick jokes and gay-bashing are still bottomless sources of gut-busting hilarity. Unfortunately for us, all Michael Bay took away from those films is shocking violence and endless vulgarity, leaving behind the grace and finesse that made those attributes palatable. To say that Pain & Gain scrapes the bottom of the barrel would be a generous understatement; Bay bores right straight through the barrel to mine every last nugget of tastelessness, stupidity, homophobia, and his now-trademark misogyny.

Pain & Gain has Mark Wahlberg playing personal trainer Daniel Lugo, who hatches a plan to kidnap Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) a rich client who shows disdain for just about anyone he meets... And despite occupying the villain role, he's not even the most unlikable character! Lugo enlists the help of his trainer buddies, limp-dicked (literally and figuratively) Adrain Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and pseudo-Christian Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) as they steal his money, spend it, and need more, and unravel in a frenzy of drugs, greed, stupidity, and some misfired statement about American values, or the American Dream, or the American legal system... Or some reason that calls for having the American flag waving prominently in a way I'm pretty sure was supposed to be ironic.

These events are purported to be true, though they are so thoroughly filtered through Bay's teenage sensibility that the result is more cartoon than anything else. Regardless of how unlikable, unrelatable, vicious, dumb, or pathetic the real people may or may not have been, Bay fails immeasurably to give them any dimension, which might make these characteristics entertaining, or even tolerable. Instead he focuses on lending trivial voice-over narration to just about any character with a speaking role, opting for asinine witticisms over any genuine insight into what a Christian might have been thinking when he set a guy on fire and ran over his head with a van, or when he decided to erase a pair of murder victims' fingerprints by chopping off their hands and grilling them on a Weber across the street from a beat cop.

Aside from his narrative sloppiness, and cast of poorly drawn half-wits, it's the glee with which Bay presents scenes like these that make Pain & Gain such an unpleasant experience, stylizing the violence and brutality enough to divorce it from reality for the sake of entertainment while taking pride in the fact that this is a true story: While Dwayne Johnson twirls a pair of tongs in slow-motion like he's trying to sell them on some QVC affiliate geared toward douche-bags, flipping grilled hands, a caption slides across the screen reminding us that this is, indeed, still, a true story. Well, I wish we had gotten that story, because just as it is too bizarre to be true, the unique atrociousness of Bay's film has to be seen to be believed.

Iron Man 3 - *1/2

Iron Man 3 has everything I've come to expect out of a $200 million franchise film, and most of the things I desire out of one: a bold villain, snarky hero, surprisingly sharp wit, and a whole tangled mess of unnecessary explosions. And yet the most amazing thing about Iron Man 3 is how indifferent I felt about it walking out. The whole thing feels empty, routine, with no discernible style or voice. Yes, it dispenses it's action and humor at the necessary intervals, but it feels more like a connect-the-dot exercise with which the writers are hitting a series of obligatory points rather than using these sequences to tell a story. And not that blockbusters like this need to be an intellectual experience, but the only thought Iron Man 3 manages to evoke in its 2+ hour running time is, "So what?"

Taking place on the heels of the events of last year's Marvelous display of hollow fatuity, The Avengers, this new (and hopefully final) Iron Man shows us a Tony Stark addled by panic attacks and sleep deprivation, holing up in his basement, producing an endless series of prototypical variations on his Iron Man suit. Meanwhile, the Mandarin taunts the President, using malfunctioned genetically enhanced amputee war veterans (yes, you read that correctly) as bombs to teach a series of "lessons" to America.

Of course there is more to it, but every bit of summarization exponentially increases the number of plot holes and convolutions which coincide with each detail, and outside of a rather inspired plot twist concerning the Mandarin I don't have the heart to spoil, none of it is really worth the endurance necessary to either write or read such a description. The most irritating of all of Iron Man 3's myriad issues is its needless tie-in to The Avengers, which constantly provokes the question, "Where the hell are the other Avengers during this crisis? Why is this a solo world-saving adventure? Why does Tony enlist the help of a twelve-year-old rather than, say, Thor?

Though the finale does provide some solid spectacle in the form of forty of those insomnia-inspired prototype suits on auto-pilot attacking a bunch of bad guys on an oil rig... Swooping, firing energy rays, and blowing up with no real purpose or effect, Iron Man 3 has already numbed you to anything but the poignant realization that such a sequence is the perfect metaphor for the ephemeral pleasures of the recent rash of superhero films. I wish I could say this signals the downturn of disappointments like Iron Man 3, that the superhero craze has finally run its course and is sputtering out into obscurity, but I'm sure that, like Tony's army of remote-powered suits, there will be plenty more to take its place and do the same goddamned thing.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - **

Deathly Hallows Part 2 feels incomplete. Maybe that's because it is only half of a movie, with no discernible structure, no beginning, middle, and end, which means that it feels every bit like half of a movie. If you're like me and you haven't read the books, and were too bored by Deathly Hallows Part 1 to revisit it to refresh your memory on what is going on, being thrust into the middle of a five hour film is disorienting, especially when the characters start throwing around magic terms and looking for horcruxes National Treasure style. For once I was actually hoping for at least one shamelessly expository line, like, "Four down, three to go, Harry," just so I could know many more infiltration scenes followed by an obligatory CGI action spectacle with a dragon or fire monster were left.

The Potter films have always had flaws, but until these last two they've always been too much fun to get hung up on minor details. Deathly Hallows Part 2 almost seems designed to call its flaws to your attention, with its mess of pure action, numerous monumental plot twists, revelations of characters' true allegiances and motivations, and the piss-poor invention of a certain character's back story, not to mention the most out-of-place utterance of the word "bitch" since Juggernaut declared who he was in X-Men: The Last Stand, which unfortunately comes less than ten minutes after a speech from Dumbledore on the power of words... I cringed so hard I almost fell out of my seat.

Worst of all, the magic is gone in Deathly Hallows. It's missing the pleasure of discovering and rediscovering this world and its strange characters. Also lacking is the sense of danger that I came to enjoy in the last few installments, even though Harry and friends are constantly in harm's way. Revealing that Lord Voldemort, the source of that danger, grows weaker every time Harry destroys a horcrux doesn't help, especially considering the entire first half of the film has Harry destroying horcuxes, yielding shots of Voldemort in agony, scurrying off in retreat.

This is also the first film in the series in which we see and hear nothing of the real world, the non-wizard world... Curious, considering the events in this one more than any other make me wonder about the impact they would have on the real world. It made me ask myself what the significance of this whole war is at all. What is at stake here if Voldemort and the bad guys win? They never really say what they'll do. Is it just that he wants to kill a character I've grown to enjoy?

It's not all bad, though. There are some nice moments, and some great performances, Ralph Fiennes especially. And though it's a mess dramatically, most of the action is pretty well staged, though sometimes a bunch of kids zapping each other with wands does look a little silly. And the effects are great for the most part, if I ignore the aforementioned fire monster chase, which resembles that awful waterskiing sequence from Die Another Day. Still, I think the biggest compliment I have for it is that I didn't hate it, but maybe that's because I was trying so hard to love it.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - **1/2

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is an intelligent, well-crafted action/drama that serves as a biting commentary on today's socio-economic landscape. The battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons has over the course of three films evolved into a layered metaphorical critique on current Unite-- Okay, no it hasn't, nor is there any biting social commentary, but we knew that going in, right?

The Transformers series is about one thing, and that's spectacle. Dark of the Moon has great effects and well-staged, if not almost exhausting, action sequences and, yes, the female love interest is most definitely introduced by a close-up of her ass... The spectacle is there. And what's better is director Michael Bay and his writers seem to have learned from the second film that the robots are not interesting as characters, which yields far less scenes of the robot teams just hanging out on world monuments talking strategy. Oh, and no racist robots this time, either.

So what else occupies its bloated 150 minute run time? A great opening sequence that was sort of ruined by being the film's teaser trailer, nine minutes of over-the-top comedic gold from Ken Jeong that is better than anything and everything in The Hangover 2, and John Turturro delivering some of the weirdest lines in recent memory ("Megatron! Let's tango!").

Is it perfect? No. Is it kind of hollow and empty inside? Sure. Could they have shaved 40 minutes off of the run time? Yup. Will you probably forget most of it twelve minutes after leaving the theater? Absolutely, but while you're watching it, it's honestly a pretty good time.

Green Lantern - Zero Stars

Zero. Zero chemistry between leads; zero action; zero fun; zero humor; zero excitement; zero plot; zero cool; zero subtlety; zero intelligence; zero logic; zero narrative coherence; zero talent displayed; zero passable effects; zero effect on the audience who possess zero interest in the characters, zero interest in absorbing any of the crummy images put up on the screen, zero interest in fighting the urge to allow sleep to overcome them, zero interest in paying attention to some truly shit dialogue, unnecessary flashbacks, uneven and confusing introductions/uses of powers, ugly green imaginary weapons, unimpressive set pieces, lousy set/costume design, a villain that is more scary in the unintentional sense of more closely resembling the set of dreadlocks found on the head of some jackass wearing a tie-died shirt and trying to sell me on the benefits of organic toilet paper when I was in college than an evil, menacing entity bent on world-- no, UNIVERSE domination in a movie that looks less like it's based on a popular comic book series than on a line of generic action figures from the dollar store. Zero heart; zero grace; zero subtlety; zero wit; zero ambition; zero effort... Zero stars. And most importantly, zero desire for the surely shit sequel that was shamelessly teased during the end credits.

Hanna - ****

Hanna is the kind of movie that should be making one-hundred million dollars. It's original; it's intense; it has a great hero, fun villains, and some amazing action sequences staged in creative locations. It's gorgeously shot, and it also features a brilliant score by the Chemical Brothers, who use techno beats and lullabies that keep things fast-paced, even in the quieter moments. What more could you ask for?

Cedar Rapids - ***1/2

Nice guy leaves his cozy surroundings and gets sucked into a lifestyle of chaos and debauchery... It's a familiar comedy premise, and a tired one at that. Ed Helms plays our nice guy, Tim Lippe, a small town insurance agent chosen to go to an annual insurance convention, where the Twin Diamond Award is given to the representative who displays outstanding character and respect for God. What's amazing about Cedar Rapids is that it completely sidesteps all of the boring pratfalls that most films of this kind seem to indulge.

Limitless - **

And we have our first contender for Most Deceiving Title of the Year, Limitless disappoints with its utter lack of imagination and ambition. What would you do if a pill could make you smarter? Apparently pretty much the same thing you would do if you won the lottery. Bradley Cooper plays a struggling writer who gets addicted to a hard-to-come-by street drug that allows him to use one-hundred percent of his brain. He gives up writing to play the stock market, and deducing from the film's hypothesis, brain use only correlates to how much money you want to make, and how fast you drive your car.

Sucker Punch - 1/2*

There is a scene late in Sucker Punch in which a guy running a fancy whorehouse/dance studio/prison describes what it's like to save virgins for the "High Roller"..."It's like I'm in the corner of the sandbox watching everyone else play with my toys." Watching Sucker Punch, a live-action manga nightmare, one can't help but think of writer/director Zack Snyder seeing his actresses in much the same way, as dolls to accessorize and play dress-up with, outfitting them with crazy weapons, and contorting them into sexy poses. I wouldn't really have a problem with that if there were a payoff, but Snyder keeps all of the fun for himself while boring the rest of us with a poorly-conceived story of a fight for freedom inside of a girl's head... inside of a girl's head.

Paul - **1/2

Paul, both the character and the film itself, is kind of a one-trick pony. Paul is an alien who crash-lands on Earth in the 40s and escapes from the government in present day into the hands of two British nerds (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), in from England for Comic-Con and a road trip to all of the extra-terrestrial-related sites in the American Southwest.

It's a pretty nice little movie until Pegg and Frost actually meet Paul, who essentially just acts contrary to most on-screen aliens have in the cinematic past, which would be refreshing if it didn't mean simply swearing, getting naked, and getting high. That still might sound satisfying enough, but it honestly just gets old really quickly. Aside from a few random inserted jokes, like a flashback to 1980 that has Paul giving Steven Spielberg some advice on what E.T. should be like, Paul doesn't really offer up much that is worth your while. And aside from a handful of top-notch Star Wars references, Pegg and Frost don't really do too much either. There are some great supporting performances from Jason Bateman, Joe Lo Truglio, and Bill Hader, as well as an amazing cameo by Jeffrey Tambor as an asshole of a sci-fi novelist doing a signing at Comic-Con... "Did you buy a book? Well, then get the fuck out of here."

Paul really isn't a bad movie; it's enjoyable enough, but it's just kind of bland. It's not that the jokes fail, so much as the jokes are not even there to begin with, and there isn't enough plot, character depth, or just general originality in the film for it to be lacking in humor.

Drive Angry - ***

Drive Angry is a quick redemption for Nicolas Cage from the more-horrible-than-you-can-imagine Season of the Witch, which was released about one month prior. It's all of the awful ridiculousness you hope for in a non-legitimately-great Cage film, all of the silly fun you used to get out of such an in-between Cage film, back before people associated him with pure shit, which really isn't fair, even after garbage like Bangkok Dangerous or The Wicker Man, back when his "in-betweeners" were more like National Treasure or The Rock. Pure, unabashed fun, with no point or reason for existing other than entertainment, Drive Angry has the goods.

Drive Angry is essentially what Grindhouse and Machete and anything like that released in the last few years was trying to be, except it succeeds. It features a lot of the same things as those films, hot girls, fast cars, crazy weapons and extreme violence, so why is it better? Because, unlike those films, it's not trying to be cute. It's completely sincere in its mayhem. There's no winking at the camera, the images weren't made to look grainy and scratched in post-production, and I actually get the sense that the filmmakers think what they are doing is legitimately cool, not just kitschy and ironic. It takes a particular combination of talent and lack-thereof to pull off this kind of film, and I'm sorry to say, but Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are simply too talented to waste their time trying (though "too talented" doesn't account for Inglorious Basturds (or however the fuck it's not spelled)).

So what is Drive Angry? Well, Cage breaks out from Hell, steals the "God-killer" from Satan, which is a big gun that blasts any living thing, divine or not, into nothingness (but for reasons unknown only comes with three bullets), teams up with Amber Heard on a road-trip to track down the leader of a Satanic cult, who intends to sacrifice Cage's new-born granddaughter after raping and killing his daughter, all while being chased by the Devil's Accountant, played to brilliance by William Fichtner (watch for the greatest delivery of "Come here, fat fuck" you could ever hope to see). And it delivers on everything that description promises, which includes a fist-fight in the midst of a gunfight inside of an RV that is in the middle of a ten-minute-long car chase. Among other things. It'll certainly do until Cage's next Bad Lieutenant.