Bumblebee - Movie Review

After a slow and unfortunate deterioration in the quality of the Transformers movies, the franchise was in serious need of a good reboot, and with Bumblebee the series has transformed.

I saw Bumblebee on New Year's Eve 2018, a week or so after it was released. Early reviews had been positive and the trailers showed a refreshed look and a more grown-up approach to plot and story (even the first Transformers film had "Sam's Happy Time" which somehow escaped the cutting room floor). And the trailer where Soundwave ejects a transforming Ravage... sign me up for tickets, now!

The film opens on Cybertron - yes, really - and I very quickly identified Prowl, Wheeljack,  Brawn, Optimus and others. The Decepticons are also well represented, with later scenes showing the Seekers, Shockwave and Soundwave - who sounds like the original G1 Soundwave too (none of the whispering and growling of the recent films). 

Bumblebee is dispatched to Earth to set up a base and ensure the Decepticons don't establish themselves there.  However, Bumblebee's arrival on Earth is shortly followed by Starscream's and Bumblebee is massively outgunned.  I assume it was Starscream as he transformed and looked and even sounded like Starscream,  even though I don't think he was named specifically.

The battle with Starscream leaves Bumblebee without his voice or memory. I detect the hand of Mr Spielberg in delivering the "alien must have no voice and learn to communicate" plot which he has been pushing - albeit successfully - since ET The Extra Terrestrial.  Losing his voice and his memory, Bumblebee subsequently goes into hiding.

The story is well written, and I'm pleased to say that the robots get plenty of screen time. One of my main criticisms of the later films was the excessive focus on the humans in the story, to the detriment of the robots. I fully get that humans are cheaper to film than robots, but the over-reliance on the human back-story has been an ongoing issue for me.  That's not the case here - the robots feature heavily in the story and it feels like Bumblebee is on screen around 70% of the time, and it certainly seems like the human-only scenes last barely five minutes before there's a robot back on screen again.

And I'm pleased to report that the humans are the best written in Transformers history, by far. The parents are far better than the Witwicky parents, who were consistently dreadful - the only decent thing that could be done with them was to limit their screen time.  Here, though, the humans - the military and civilian - are all credible and make genuine, believable contributions to the plot. We see an early Sector 7 and the basis of the Internet, all handled well.  This is the kind of writing we saw in the better parts of Dark of the Moon, with the Transformers actively involved in human history.

The story revolves around two Decepticons trying to track down Bumblebee, firstly across space  (dispatching a G1 Cliffjumper along the way) and then on Earth, while Bumblebee and his human companion Charlie learn to work together to keep him safe until he recovers his memory.  There are some fantastic touches from Transformers history - The Touch by Stan Bush is a great example - and the final showdown features a neat little sequence where one of the Decepticons throws Bumblebee to the ground; Bumblebee transforms to car mode before turning 180 degrees, driving towards the Decepticon, jumping and transforming back into robot mode - exactly as Jazz does in the title scenes of the series one cartoon.

The ending features Bumblebee leaving Charlie, his mission now accomplished. After exchanging his vehicle mode from a Volkswagen to a Camaro, he drives off across the Golden Gate Bridge and to my delight, joins a red articulated lorry with grey trailer.  There isn't a single word of dialogue or explanation, but the sight of a genuine G1 Optimus Prime on the big screen made me realise what has been missing from all the previous Transformers movies.

I was surprised - almost astonished - to discover that many of the film crew for Bumblebee are the same as the previous movies, with Michael Bay now as a producer instead of director, along with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Tom deSanto and Don Murphy.  This film feels, looks and sounds so different from all of the previous films that credit must go directly to the writer, Christina Hodson, and the director Travis Knight. There are fewer explosions and out-and-out gun battles, and instead the focus is on the story - which is believable (as far as these stories can be) and written with three-dimensional characters who aren't written just for awkward gags.  There is still plenty of action and robot vs robot combat, on Cybertron and on Earth, but less of the widespread explosions and overly lengthy battle scenes.

On a side note, this film plays fast and loose with the continuity established in the first film.  For example, Optimus is already on Earth in 1987, and in his G1 form, and at the end of the movie we see seven new Autobots about to land on Earth (observed by Bumblebee and Prime). It seems that the new movie is rebooting the continuity - given the strength of this story, that's fine with me.

Overall, this film is far and away the best of the series, even exceeding the first and third films.  Even taking the excellent Cybertronian footage out of the equation, the film is still outstanding. The focus on a limited number of characters works (as it did in the first movie) and the human characters are written with depth, care and real feelings - not the stereotypes we have been served recently.  There is also - most importantly - a significant proportion of screen time dedicated to the Transformers, which is ironic since this is the first film in tbe franchise without "Transformers" in the title.

I highly recommend this film, for original Transformers fans who are old enough to have children and for their children too (who will enjoy the movie just as much, but for entirely different reasons).  10/10.

Some of my other film reviews:
Cloverfield
Inception
The Green Hornet
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Transformers: One
Tron
Wing Commander
Pixels

Film Review: Star Wars The Last Jedi

I loved it.

My first impressions from the first few minutes was that this was a retread of Empire Strikes Back.  The First Order have tracked down the resistance base on a remote planet, and the resistance are trying to evacuate before the First Order land troops and... oh, wait a minute, there is no shield, no cannon and the base is going to be obliterated from space.  And things seem to go well for the resistance, as they are able to stall long enough to get almost everybody safely aboard their cruiser and off to safety.  But not before Poe Dameron (X-Wing ace turned hot-headed insubordinate comedian pilot) decides to sacrifice the entire bomber fleet just to destroy a Dreadnaught.  Let's here it for Pyrrhic victories!

Worse still, the First Order have developed a way to track the Resistance through hyperspace: running away is not a way to escape, and hyperspace fuel is in limited supply.

At the end of the previous film, Rey had successfully tracked down Luke Skywalker, and much of this film covers her efforts to persuade him to join the Resistance.  So, we have space battles interspersed with the story of a Jedi master and a young Jedi-wannabe/trainee on a remote, green, damp planet.  Like I said, I kept recalling Empire Strikes Back throughout this film. I haven't looked online to see if anybody has listed all the parallels between The Last Jedi and The Empire Strikes back, but I saw a few (and I'm only a casual movie-goer).  Luke Skywalker has traded his youthful naivety and enthusiasm for jaded cynicism.  The way he casually lobs his lightsabre over his shoulder is both funny and tragic at the same time.

My only niggle with the film is the amount of time spent on the story with Rey and Luke.  The other storylines were far more exciting and just downright interesting; Luke and Rey - less so.  Luke goes for a walk.  Luke catches a fish.  Luke wanders around his island.  Yawn.

The plot makes a lot of sense, and there's a direct causal link between the Admiral and her tight-lipped need-to-know authoritarian attitude, conflicting with Poe Dameron's "we have a right to know what's going on" and the subsequent demise of the resistance fleet.  If she'd told Poe what her plan was, he wouldn't have sent Finn off to find the code breaker, who wouldn't have subsequently told the First Order about the resistance's plans and their cloaking frequency (or whatever it was).  If they'd all stayed home, sat tight and waited it out, they might all have survived.  I'm not blaming him or her, but it seems like the two characters managed to deliberately out-hard-head each other - aiming to be the most stubborn character and the one who wins, until neither of them do.

Some of my favourite aspects of the film is how the script addresses some of the criticisms that were levelled at the first of the new films (The Force Awakens).

"Finn should have had that fight with Captain Phasma, not with some random stormtrooper with a cool elbow mounted weapon."  Cue large-scale, violent, hand-to-hand fight between Finn and Phasma.

"Snoke is too much like the Emperor and there's no real explanation for him."  Kill him off - now who saw that coming?

"More Poe Dameron!" - definitely fixed in this episode.  He kicks off the action at the start; we see more of his character throughout this film (borderline arrogant, but still funny) and he commits mutiny.  This is not a replacement for Han Solo; this is a whole new character who has his own ideas, opinions and history.

"Do something different!"  - I saw most of the parallels between The Force Awakens and A New Hope.  In fact, it felt like a rehash of the story with new faces. As I mentioned earlier, The Last Jedi has elements of The Empire Strikes Back in it, but those elements have been rearranged to produce a fresh story (and no, I didn't for one second think "It's salt!", I knew full well it was meant to be snow).

All-in-all, I'm excited for the next installment; I'm looking forwards to the Han Solo movie and I feel even more optimistic for the future of the Star Wars saga.

Some of my other film reviews:
Cloverfield
Inception
The Green Hornet
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Transformers: Bumblebee
Transformers: One
Tron
Wing Commander
Pixels

Film Review: Pixels

Image credit: IMDB

Loud; brash; subtle-as-a-sledgehammer: 1980s arcade games. And, to be fair, "Pixels", the Adam Sandler movie. If, like me, you grew up on classic video games (not Halo or Call of Duty) like Defender, Pac-Man and so on, then you'll enjoy this film.  The content is 1980s video games, made larger-than-life and blasted all over the planet, and the style is also very much 1980s video games.

The story is full of all the clichéd characters, including - the cluster of nerds, the "snobby" love interest, the British military officer, the cannon fodder, the wizened old general who represents "the way things have always been done" and who doesn't get this new-fangled technology.  The film even goes so far as to actively introduce them.  For example, the Adam Sandler character, Brenner, is a nerd herder in the style of Chuck Bartowski, but lacking any of Chuck's charisma:

"Hello.  I am a nerd from the Nerd Brigade.  Here to nerd out on all your audio and visual needs."

"Do you have to say that every time you turn up at a house?"
"If I want to get paid, yes."
"Isn't that kind of demeaning?"
"Only if someone brings it up."

The love interest is in the form of one of Brenner's customers, Violet Van Patten, who - it transpires - is also a senior officer in the US army.  She doesn't fully understand 1980s computer games, but she is prepared to go along with him anyway - eventually.  There isn't much plot or character development to speak of: this is basically a Hollywood mash-up of the best computer games of the 80s exploded into the real world, and viewers will watch in order to identify all the old games blasted across the big screen, and to get all the references.  The story that supports the video-gaming roadshow is very straightforward:  arcade game experts (rendered as has-beens, with the exception of the President of the US - who for his part is inept at his job and can't read or count properly) take on a bunch of aliens who misunderstood 1980s video game footage as a declaration of war and have decided to retaliate.  Or start a war.  Their motivation is a little unclear. 

Anyways, after the declaration of war, the arcade experts have to outgeek the aliens, and in so doing, become recognised as national - no, global - heroes.  After all, all geeks are actually really sensible people who just want their chance at success and fame, even if it takes interstellar war to achieve.  In the real world, playing arcade games probably won't make you famous, but this is Hollywood, and hey, it's harmless enough fun to try and be the best at the latest version of electronic entertainment on the off-chance you might get recognised in the wider world for it.  (Back in the 1980s, the way to get famous with electronic entertaionment was by was high-scoring on video games; nowadays it's blogs, social media or YouTube channels.  Like and subscribe, folks ;-) ).

The unprepared humans, their hardware and buildings get beaten into cubic pixels by the first few waves of alien attacks - Galaga and Breakout - but get their act together and start repelling the next attack in the form of Centipede.  The nerds have been training the regular military, but this approach is not working, and Brenner has to take a light cannon and show the army how it's done.  He tells his friend Ludlow to join him in defending the planet, but the army refuse to give weapons to civilians.  Violet refers the question to the President:

Violet:  "Mr President?"
President:  "Let the nerds take over."
Violet (to the General): "Let the nerds take over!"

And they do.  The Centipede scene is where the film got my attention - after all, nobody has ever previously taken 2D sprites and made them several hundred feet tall, close up and in full glorious HD colour and in 3D.  The humans have weapons that are basically real-world equivalents of the weapons in the original games, and the nerds acquit themselves well (who knew that they were practising for this all those years ago in the arcades every weekend).

The rest of the film is a series of games played in various cities - the Pacman in New York is a highlight for me - with the establishment giving them increasing support, and the love interest slowly warming to our hero.  As the situation with the aliens escalates, our heroes face greater challenges and receive greater adulation from the rest of the world.  Are you ready for Level 2?

I have to say that the treatment of women in this movie is a reflection of the treatment of women in 1980s computer games:  arcade games then were predominantly played by boys, and the characters in the games were almost always men. There are two main female characters:  Brenner's love interest, Lt Colonel Violet Van Patten (who we first meet having an emotional breakdown in her wardrobe), a senior military advisor to the president (played straight-laced but fragile), and later we also meet the love interest for Ludlow (one of Brenner's friends, played by Josh Gad).  Ludlow has been fantasising about a female character from one of the 1980s games, named "Lady Lucy".  Lady Lucy wears a revealing, bright red costume and wields two swords.  Sadly, I think she only wields two lines of dialogue in the whole film, too; this may be the 21st century, but the source material is definitely late 20th.


There are a few twists in the plot along the way - one of the nerds is exposed as a cheat - but as I said earlier, you're probably not going to watch this film for the main plot points (there are some, and they carry the story along well in between the various battles).  You'll be watching for the special effects; the re-interpretation of classic computer games on a huge scale.  Think Independence Day but with lasers on both sides.  

Pixels is a lot of fun - I honestly enjoy watching it, (the flaws in the film and the chronic stereotyping only really occurred to me after a few viewings) but watch it most for the visuals and to try and spot some more arcade game references.  If you're looking for a more thoughtful treatment of retro arcade games (and, to be fair, you probably won't find one that's less thoughtful), then I can recommend reading Ready Player One (there's a film in planning) or Armada by Ernest Cline, or even the Disney movie Wreck-It Ralph.  Ralph may not be any more intelligent, but it's more sensitive and has a moral that isn't "One day, playing computer games might save the planet and get you the girl", which is mostly what we have here.  I like Pixels - it's in-your-face, loud, bright and brash - but it could've been much better if it had been slightly more intelligently written.

Some of my other film reviews:
Cloverfield
Inception
The Green Hornet
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Transformers: Bumblebee
Transformers: One
Tron
Wing Commander

Film Review: Wing Commander

I only played Wing Commander on a PC once; maybe twice.  I didn't own the game, and played it on a friend's PC. First-person space shooters have never ever appealed to me, since I never understood the three-dimensional radar readouts, and if I should press Up or Down to catch the enemy.  As a result, I never got into the original game, or any of the subsequent Wing Commander series.

However, Wing Commander was widely recognised as a very good example of its genre, and had a working plot and back story, based around mankind's war against the feline-looking Kilrathi.  So, it was only a matter of time before a Wing Commander film was made.  I'm still waiting for a Command and Conquer film crossover, and I acknowledge my optimism on that score!

Coming from a generation where movies were made into computer games, I was interested to see how a computer game could be made into a movie. The DVD blurb describes the film as Starship Troopers meets Top Gun, and the film is a blend of sci-fi, testosterone and a large fistful of cliches.  And you'd better pay attention during the opening credits, as the voice-overs are going to give you all the back-story in case you've only played the Wing Commander game a few times.

The plot:  Earth's distant Vega outpost is attacked by the Kilrathi, and they break into the outpost and steal a Navcom AI unit.  This will enable them to carry out a series of hyperspace jumps to Earth.  I'm sure there's more to it than that, but that's the gist of it.  As far as back-stories go, Wing Commander has one, which was becoming the de facto standard for 90s computer games.

A security 'breech', and more serious than the breach of spelling.  Note Nokia's product placement - this IS the 1990s, after all.

Earth's battle fleet are too far away to prevent the impending attack on Earth, so it falls to one surviving battleship to save the day. The message is passed from Earth central command to the one surviving battleship in the area, the Tiger Claw, by a young hot shot pilot, Lieutenant Christopher Blair.  They relay the message, and one battleship is set to face-off against a vast and overwhelming Kilrathi army.  Who will win?  Is Earth safe?

Of course, Blain's father served with many of the Tiger Claw's senior staff (very Top Gun).  He's on board a carrier ship which is taking him out to active duty, and which is piloted by a crusty old captain who is secretly an expert in space combat, and is one of the "Pilgrims", a sort of human under-class with special space-faring abilities.  Are you counting the cliches yet?  And does Blair have some previously undiscovered special space-faring abilities as well?

To quote a conversation on the Tiger Claw:
"Lieutenant, you wouldn't be related to Arnold Blair, would you?"
"He was my father, sir."
"He married a Pilgrim woman, didn't he?"
"Pilgrims don't think like us."
"You won't have to worry sir, they're both dead."

So let's add 'orphan' to the list of cliches.  And while this scene is playing out, remember to have a go at "What have they been in since (or before)?" - there's David "Poirot" Suchet, and David Warner (Tron, Star Trek VI), and Hugh Quarshie (Holby City) just for starters.

Fortunately, Wing Commander does have a few novelties: the senior flying officer (played with a genuine British accent by Saffron Burrows) is female, and a slightly better-developed character; a few of the other fighter pilots are female too, so the film just manages to dodge much of the testosterone-laden dialogue that completely overwhelmed Top Gun.  This film is a PG, so it's all toned down.  The worst example here:  Blair, to the senior flying officer Lieutenant Commander Deveraux (I mean Wing Commander, of course I do),  "If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action," delivered with a smile that's wider than the Andromeda galaxy.  She puts him in his place with some witticisms, thankfully.  This forms the basis of the usual mistaken identity moment where "It turns out that the mechanic is actually the commanding officer," and you know as soon as Blair has demonstrated his immaturity and lack of flying experience to Deveraux that they'll be kissing before the final credits.  Predictable?  Absolutely.  

Wing Commander features the pilot hot shot rivalry that is par for the course with any military action film, but thankfully it only occurs in a couple of scenes, as Blair and his colleague have to find their places in the pecking order on the Tiger Claw.  A few cross words and a bit of fist waving, and it's all done and dusted.  That's a relief.

There is also the death of a colleague, which was a little surprising for a computer game crossover, but standard issue in Top Gun etc.  I should have seen it coming, I know.  The death of one of the characters requires more depth in the characters who should adjust to it, but the script and the story just don't have the extra dimension that's needed.  Subsequently, Matthew Lillard's character Todd Marshall comes off looking underwritten (or under-acted - I'll be honest, I can't decide).  The colleague's death is his fault, but by the end of the film he still looks as hot-headed and stupid as he did at the start.

Otherwise, it's a by-the-numbers shoot-em-up...  there are a few variations on the theme:  in Top Gun, it's "If you can't find somebody to fly on your wing, I will," whereas in Wing Commander, it goes like this:

Deveraus: "Let's make them bleed.  Mount up.  Blair, you'll take Hunter's wing."
Hunter: "Ma'am, I'd as soon you assign me another wingman."
Deveraux:  "You have a problem I should be aware of?"
Hunter: "Yes, ma'am, I do. I don't fly with Pilgrims."
Deveraux (to Blair): "You'll fly my wing."
Blair: "Are you sure?"
Deveraux:  "Did I give a suggestion or an order?"
Blair: "I got your wing, ma'am."

The space setting is used to good effect, with a nebula and a black hole (named Scylla and Charybdis) and massive 'distortions in space-time' (i.e. a very massive star) providing some mild jeopardy at the start of the film, and a way to defeat the Kilrathi battleship towards the end.  Although how the Kilrathi failed to see the very bright star just in front of them until it was too late is a mystery to me.  There's a good battle scene in an asteroid field, where the debate that Blair and Deveraux about fighting the enemy is enacted in real life.  Foreshadowing?  Predictability?  Not sure.

For me, the one major disappointment is the Kilrathi.  I know it's a strange disappointment, but I've always read, seen and understood from Wing Commander reviews, magazine articles and conversations that they were feline (or felinoid, to quote the Wing Commander wiki).  However, here, the costuming is way off, and they look like they're reptilian... or at best, bald cats.  They have no fur or hair; their faces look too unrealistic to be believable and they come off looking unintelligent.  They only get a few lines of dialogue too, spoken in Kilrathi and subtitled, so the end result is that they look like men in costumes that are so poorly designed that the actors inside them can't be heard properly.  And these are the villains of this piece:  some characterisation other than "bent on total intergalactic domination" would have been good.

So:  if you've played the game and understand the backstory, Wing Commander might be a good film to watch for the nostalgia value.  If you don't mind story-telling cliches and you enjoyed Top Gun, you'll like this (and it's rated PG too).  It's quite clear that the Wing Commander team were going for Top Gun in space, and they play up any possible connections or similarities.  Alternatively, if you're a little more selective about your sci-fi, and you've not yet seen any of the recent Battlestar Galactica TV series, I'd recommend them instead.

Film Review:Tron

"User requests are what computers are for."
"Doing our business is what computers are for!"
Walter, the voice of reason, and Dillinger, the megalomaniac's voice of capitalism.

Tron could probably be described as the predecessor, or at least influential in, many films that we've seen since.  However, I haven't seen it until now.  For a so-called sci-fi fan, that's quite a confession, but it's true.  Courtesy of Lovefilm, however, that oversight has now been rectified, and I'm quite pleased with the result!  (It's now on Disney+, for those reading this blog in the 2020s, and not the 2010s)

Upon first inspection, Tron is dated, and shows its age; however, the storyline and the plot have managed to remain current - in fact, any 'over-powered computer gains sentience and takes control' story probably owes its existence to Tron, and Terminator's Skynet is a prime example.  Other derivatives include the Matrix, The Net, and Hackers, to name a few.


Tron is also a great film if, like me, you like to play "What have they been in?" with the actors.  Apart from Jeff Bridges (who went on to feature in Starman, among others), Tron also features Bruce Boxleitner (Bablyon 5's John Sheridan), a very young-looking Peter Jurasik (Londa Mollari from Babylon 5, already with that unmistakeable voice), and David Warner (I recognised him as Chancellor Gorkon from Star Trek 6, The Undiscovered Country, but according to IMDB he was also in Bablyon 5 as well).


My misunderstanding of Tron led me far enough to believe that the grid-based vehicle 'game' that the occupants are forced to play was Tron; in fact, the title goes to Bruce Boxleitner's character, a rogue program introduced to cause trouble in the mainframe computer.  Yes, it's 1980s computer-speak all the way.  Otherwise, it's a CGI-fest covering a fairly straightforward adventure story... kinda reminds me of the Matrix, or Star Wars Episode 1.  It is genre-defining, it's fresh and new (for its day) and makes much of the recent stuff look derivative.  Somebody - I wish I could recall who - said that watching the later instalments of the Matrix trilogy were a lot like watching somebody else play a computer game.  There are occasional moments of that here with Tron, but these are fairly infrequent.

Overall, I liked Tron.  Yes, it's a lot of CGI and pretty graphics, but there is a story - two in fact - to be told, and I have to say that the 'real world' story was at least as interesting as the virtual one... it certainly had the more three-dimensional characters!Some of my other film reviews:

Cloverfield
Inception
The Green Hornet
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Transformers: Bumblebee
Transformers: One
Wing Commander
Pixels

Film review: Cloverfield

Cloverfield

I've been considering add this to my Lovefilm list, although I was never completely convinced.  The trailer for the film made it look a lot like another Godzilla movie - and yes, I've enjoyed the Jurassic Park series, and I've watched bits of the new Godzilla film, but the genre has never really appealed to me.  However, when Cloverfield showed up on the TV listings, I set the recorder and figured I'd pick it up when there was nothing on the TV.  

Cloverfield goes for the innovative approach of filming everything from the first person, with a hand-held camcorder (or at least making it look that way).  The film starts steadily, as one night a huge monster starts ripping up a city.  Which city?  I'll give you a clue:  it's the main city in Independence Day, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Spiderman...  yes, once again, New York is the shortcut for 'any main Earth city'.  Normally, I'd include a summary of the plot in my review, but I'm going to struggle for this film.  There isn't much plot.  Monster rips up city; army arrives eventually; conventional weapons are utterly useless; government authorises use of nuclear weapons.  The remaining story revolves around a group of civilians (including our cameraman) who aren't intelligent enough to run away, and instead, insist on 'documenting' everything.  Their motivation for this isn't clear, and as I watched our characters head towards the danger, while crowds of intelligent people started felling, I lost any interest or sympathy for them.  

The other main character - the monster - had no character at all.  It was extremely difficult to feel anything for it - was it an evil enemy bent on destruction and conquest?  Was it from outer space or under the ground?  Was it - as one of the characters suggested - from under the sea?  Was it lost?  Was this a misunderstood first contact going badly wrong?  It was part - and an unfortunate part - of the film's set-up that it's almost entirely filmed from one perspective; perhaps the film was going for the idea of portraying the details of a monster attack (I refuse to call it an alien invasion) from an individual's point-of-view.  If it was, then it didn't work, for three key reasons:  the cameraman and his associates were not particularly well drawn as characters (despite the occasional flashbacks); they kept running towards trouble, instead of away from it, and the film failed to answer one question sufficiently for me:  why didn't he just ditch the camera, which was slowing him down and took up one of his hands, and run?

I know I'm slating this film, but, apart from the criticisms I've levelled against it already, there are a few good points.  There's a section in the film where our characters are walking along a tunnel to ... well, I think they were looking for a safe way to get closer to the monster to look at it; I don't think they were trying to escape.  I must have missed the line that explained this entry in their list of poor decisions.  Anyway, they're traipsing along in the dark, when suddenly, a couple of mini-aliens (looking like a smaller, dressed-down version of the bugs in Starship Troopers) start attacking them, snapping and biting and scratching and generally causing lots of trouble.  One of the cast suffers a scratch or a bite to her shoulder, and, when the team take a proper look at it, it's infected and looking decidedly alien.  I surmised at this point that she was going to turn into an alien (something like District 9), but I was wrong.  The team make their way back to the surface, and are found by the army, with one soldier delivering the best line of the film, "We're not sure what it is, but we know one thing: it's winning."  

However, despite one of the team being seriously wounded, and is desperate for treatment, the characters decide they still want to go and rescue their friend (they assume that she's as daft as they are, and hasn't made a run for it).  Not, "Please will you treat our friend's shoulder," but, "We know we're unarmed, but want to go risk our necks too, where's the way out?"  Fortunately (for the story, not for the characters), one of the medical staff in the army's triage centre spot the wound, and with a shout of, "Bite!" they whisk the female lead (now bleeding from the eyes) out behind a screen, where she dies a very swift and dramatic death.  Still undeterred, our characters (I'm not calling them heroes, sorry) manage to get back outside, with the promise of a helicopter pick-up in the following morning.  They find their friend's apartment block, toppled over and leaning on another adjacent tower.  Has the friend run away?  Has she died?  Do we care?  Do the characters?  No.  They decide that it makes sense to go up the adjacent block and then jump across.  Oh dear.

At least the army and military have the right idea, as we see fewer armoured vehicles on the ground, and more aircraft firing missiles and dropping bombs, as our characters go on their crazy mission.  

I think I can summarise my disappointment or dislike of this film with one of the final scenes; the crew enter the tower block, and try the lifts.  They don't work, so they decide to take the stairs, and I suddenly realised the stupidity of what I could be about to witness:  a trio of people climbing all the stairs of a skyscraper.  Fortunately for me, Mr Cameraman pressed the pause button a few times, to save me from total boredom (but highlighting how bored I was at this point) and during one conversation on the stairs, he and his friend say, "What are you talking about?" "I'm just talking.  I don't know why I'm talking."  Sadly, sir, you're the only narrative to this story.  Otherwise, if you don't know why you're talking, then, even more sadly, neither do I.
Some of my other film reviews:
Cloverfield
Inception
The Green Hornet
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Transformers: Bumblebee
Transformers: One
Tron

Film Review: Inception

A few months ago, I made a joke on Facebook that I was thinking about watching Inception but that the start didn't look very good (get it?).  However, Mr Lovefilm chose to send us Inception as our latest rental, and I sat down to watch it, although I couldn't recall when I actually added it to my selection.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this film, but I am pleased to say I was very pleasantly surprised by it, from its high-paced start, through its plot development, outline of the 'rules' of the story through to the execution of the final mission.  The plot, in a nutshell, is that our main character, Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) must recruit a team and work with them to plant an idea in the subconscious of a highly powerful businessman (Cillian Murphy, from Batman Begins) while he's asleep.  There's some clever exposition which is subtle but clear, about how the team can break into a person's subconscious and steer his thoughts through a dream.  There are some extremely impressive visual effects - the sight of the whole landscape being folded over in a dream, and watching the characters walk across a horizontal and then vertical surface was especially eye-catching.


I also enjoyed some of the later fight scenes; in particular, those that Arthur (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Cobb's right-hand-man had in the hotel sequence.  As the story develops, his world becomes one with zero gravity, and he has to fight one of the story's security guards in zero g.  The plot works well on a number of levels, cleverly identifying some of the strange effects we experience in our dreams - the sensation of falling, which wakes us up; the uncertainty of being in a dream or not; the difference in how quickly time passes in a dream, and being in a dream within a dream (waking up but still being in a dream).  It is these last two effects which provides the main structure for the story, as Cobb and his team sedate their victim and then get him to experience a dream within a dream, and then, within a dream again.  The story, script and visuals all help to make this complicated concept hold together extremely well, and even as the story becomes more complex (and the speed of the passage of time changes from level to level), I had no problem in keeping up with exactly what was going on.  The locations and scenes were all unmistakably different from each other, as the locations were lit and filmed in clear, distinct ways, each with their own sub-storylines.  The director deserves special credit for shooting the story in this way - it was consistent, logical and sensible.


The main plot - capture the businessman, infiltrate his dreams and plant an idea - is accompanied by a second plot, which is one of Cobb's own subconscious, as we discover that his wife has died, but that she's very much a part of his subconscious.  Through his guilt over her death, and her recurring presence in her dreams she becomes a real threat to their virtual plan. Cobb is called on this by Ariadne (Ellen Page, AKA Juno), the member of his team recruited to construct the dream landscapes that they use.  As the story develops, and Ariadne uncovers more and more of the truth behind the death of Cobb's wife, and how his memory's of her are affecting his subconscious, and, in turn, jeopardising the safety of the team.  The sight of a freight train ploughing through the middle of a busy city street is memorable, especially when it transpires that this isn't part of the 'victim's' mental defences.

The film, for me, was thoroughly enjoyable and highly engrossing.  There are strong Mission Impossible overtones throughout, and especially in the first half, as an action film.  It's got a strong psychological story (touching on the peculiar nature of dreams), and a character story (the development of Cobb and his layered character, and his inner troubles is well done without drowning the main story).  All-in-all, I would strongly recommend this film, although it will require (and reward) close concentration to fully grasp the story - I should know, I had to watch the first 15 minutes three times until I could see it uninterrupted, and it was worth it.

Some of my other film reviews:
Cloverfield
Inception
The Green Hornet
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Transformers: Bumblebee
Transformers: One
Tron
Wing Commander
Pixels
Wreck it Ralph

Film Review: The Day The Earth Stood Still

I think I can safely say that I've never seen a B-movie.  I've watched quite a few of the original series of Star Trek, Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica, but for me, that's where the history of science fiction begins.  However, our Lovefilm account needed to be topped up, so I threw a number of science fiction films into it, some of them based on Lovefilm's automated recommendations, and a few weeks ago, the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still came through.  I should say now, to make it perfectly clear:  I haven't seen the original.

I was very pleasantly surprised with how quickly the story got moving.  After a couple of scene-setters, where we discovered the main characters' backgrounds in a very quick and efficient way, the story whisked us straight off to New York for the alien spaceship landing.  I am going to mention this now, as it grated on me as soon as I saw it:  the scientists are gathered around their screens, tracking an object coming in at one-tenth the speed of light.  I was pleased that arrival was imminent, but a quick mention that the object was slowing down - and slowing down dramatically - would have been helpful, otherwise by the time it had been detected, its arrival would have been less 'imminent' and more like 'immediate'.  One scientist asks another, "Where is it due to hit?"  Where do you think?  Have you not seen Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow or any of other myriad sci-fi blockbusters?  It's going to land in America, and probably New York.  Surprise, surprise, it's Manhattan.  This European viewer rolls his eyes and yawns with the lack of ingenuity.


Anyway, the film carries on, we get the dramatic landing in Central Park, and the arrival of the alien life form and his 60-foot-tall metallic one-eyed guardian.  I know I said I've never seen any B-movies before, but I have a good idea of what the genre looks like, and it looks like this!  It's either a soldier or a police officer, but some trigger-happy American (and this is an unfortunate stereotype that is widely recognised) shoots the alien as it attempts to make first contact, and we have a good start to a paranoia movie.  The alien invasion is met with alarm, fear and lots of military hardware, while the smaller, gooey alien is rushed off to hospital where it starts to adapt alarmingly.  I was reminded of the throwaway line in the original Back to the Future, "It's mutated into human form!" and that's about right here.  Keanu Reeves plays the alien invader with a high degree of cool detachment, and very quickly develops an air of 'weird' and non-human, despite looking decidedly human!


The story doesn't have a long and complicated story - I suspect that's typical of the B-movie genre - as the 60-foot-tall metallic one-eyed guardian is attacked, defends himself, and is later boxed up and lowered into a very convenient and very deep vertical tunnel (with adjacent test lab).  From here, the guardian dissolves into thousands of tiny metallic insects (I wonder if GI Joe's nanobots came from here) that are capable of destroying any material - from diamond and metal to people.  It becomes a race against time to prevent this deadly swarm from completely destroying life on Earth. 


All life, that is, except for a selection of fish and animal life (and presumably some plants) that have been attracted into huge watery glowing spheres - "arks", as the secretary for defence concludes.  The appearance of these glowing spheres makes for some impressive visual effects, as they turn up all over the globe, attracting and absorbing the local animal life, and ominously foreshadowing "the flood".  The flood - or the swarm, as it turns out - is also shown with some very impressive visuals, as a stadium disintegrates, and people start to get caught up in it.


The plot - or the story - is simple:  convince the alien that humankind is worth saving, and to this end, I particularly enjoyed the role of John Cleese's character.  The alien's line, "Close.  But no," made me smile, before the prerequisite wiping of strange characters and rewriting with chalk on a blackboard.  For me, this was one of the best character scenes, and sent the story on its way to its obvious conclusion.  I didn't much like the son character - thought he was a bit contrived and his resistance bordered on obstinate, although I did like his lines to the unfortunate police officer who tried to stop the alien, "Please don't hurt him...   I wasn't talking to you."


In the end, disaster is averted, mankind is saved from the brink, as the alien sets off a massive electro-magnetic pulse that disables the swarm, and, at the same time, stops all electronic devices from working.  I think the whole earth suffered the effects of the EMP; all watches and clocks stop, hence the title: "The Day The Earth Stood Still."  It was all a bit cheesy for me, a bit predictable and overly heavy on the, "mankind is capable of great kindness" sentiments.  Ever since I first heard the title for this film, many years ago, I envisaged a problem where the Earth stopped spinning, one side getting ever hotter, and one side ever colder.  This film didn't live up to that title, which was a shame, and didn't live up to its own high-paced start, and that was a disappointment.

Some of my other film reviews:
Cloverfield
Inception
The Green Hornet
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Transformers: Bumblebee
Transformers: One
Tron
Wing Commander

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

Having reviewed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen some time ago, I thought it was about time I reviewed the latest Transformers film.  I remained almost entirely spoiler-free before I saw the film, other than having inadvertantly seen a picture of Optimus pulling his trailer, and a picture of one of the characters who was being compared to one of the original G1 cartoon characters (I can't remember which).  Being spoiler free - in fact, I even avoided the trailers for the movie - meant that I approached the film completely open-minded, although a number of people who'd seen it told me that it was significantly better than the second.  I was very optimistic, and I wasn't disappointed.

There are various reasons that this film was better than the second:  the parents' roles and screen time were significantly scaled down, which is a double bonus; the film was intelligently tied in to a number of 'real life' events; the number of faceless Decepticons was reduced (in fact, there were vastly more in this film film than the second, but it didn't seem like it as they were handled with intelligence); and more time and care was taken to provide the Autobots and Decepticons with identities, vehicle modes, names and even a small dose of personality - to put it another way, they had character.  The film had a complicated but understandable plot with a number of twists (compared to the second film, which was boringly linear); killed off a number of characters, which I found very surprising and which developed interest in the story, especially with characters we care about; and a number of other surprises too (which you may or not predict in advance).

The plot begins with the Autobots' discovery of Cybertronian spacecraft technology in a building near the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine; then develops to the revelation of the humans' discovery of alien technology on the far side of the moon.  They refer to it in the film as 'the dark side of the moon', which is a bit of a misnomer - technically, the moon doesn't have a dark side because it turns on its axis in the same way as the Earth does, and the moon has days and nights as we do.  What they really mean is the far side of the moon (as seen from Earth), but hey, "Far of the moon" doesn't have any kind of ring to it.  Come to think of it, "Dark of the Moon" sounds like it's missing a word somewhere, but I suspect that Pink Floyd using "Dark Side of the Moon" in 1973 meant that Dreamworks had to leave well alone.  Or perhaps the Dark of the Moon was not just the spaceship, but all the villiany and subterfuge that came from it too.  Or maybe the title writers got lazy. 

Along the way, we see Optimus Prime's trailer put to good use (a scene that quite obviously screams, "New toy alert!") and a batch of new Autobots who get names (I wish I could remember them).  We get to see the Autobots walking on the moon, as they recover the body of Sentinel Prime - a very impressive character, voiced by the extremely impressive Leonard Nimoy.  Nimoy lends the film some sci-fi credibility (as does the appearance of Buzz Aldrin), as long-time fans will remember him voicing Galvatron and Unicron in the original "Transformers The Movie" from 1985, while Trekkies will appreciate his delivery of the line, "You never understood that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few!" towards the end of the film.  We also see robots in disguise.  There are at least two scenes where vehicles which were previously assumed to be Earth vehicles and nothing more suddenly transform and engage in battle - and this was a very welcome change from the second film where we saw robots that didn't transform at all.  This film definitely won on its ability to deliver surprises and shocks.

We also get some character development as Optimus and Sentinel discuss the leadership of the Autobots, and we also get to see a decrepit and suffering Megatron in another new vehicle form which befits his current situation (and again screams "New toy alert!").  The story unfolds from the discovery at Chernobyl, from Sentinel's reactivation and his change of heart, and the plot develops in dramatic and unexpected ways, as the Autobots are expelled from the Earth; the Decepticons bring in reinforcements from the Moon (and subsequently from further afield) and start their plan for world conquest.  


Quite a lot of the second half of the story feels a lot like a throwback to the G1 cartoon story "The Ultimate Doom!" - in fact, large parts of the story were almost completely pulled out of that script:  humans collaborate with Decepticons to build a space bridge to bring Cybertron into Earth orbit; human slaves who are co-erced into co-operating and so on.  I wish I could remember if Cybertron was completely destroyed by the aborted attempt to bring it to Earth; I just know it seemed to suffer considerable damage!

On the subject of borrowed material, I can safely say I didn't notice that at least two scenes in this film were ripped directly (and I mean taken wholesale frame by frame) from some of Michael Bay's previous films, namely The Island and Pearl Harbour.  It didn't affect my enjoyment, and even now I'm not bothered; seems like a clever way of reducing costs in order to put more robots on the screen for longer.  And there's no complaints there:  plenty of Autobots, transforming; plenty of new characters, with names and identities, vast numbers of explosions, action, fights and more explosions.

One of the down-sides for me was the stupid mechanised earthworm that was featured at the start of the film, and extensively towards the end.  Does it transform?  No.  Does it belong in a film called Transformers?  No.  There is absolutely no precedent that I'm aware of in the Transformers universe for a robotic earthworm.  And if it's that destructive, why didn't it completely level the skyscraper that the humans were trying to climb?  Too big, too destructive, and yet somehow didn't manage to finish off the humans.  Also, I do think that the final sequence was overly long and could easily have been shortened.  In my view, the whole Decepticon aircraft vehicle thing, despite its jointed parts, was completely unnecessary.  Transformers don't fly aircraft; they transform into them!  And yet the story dictates that we have a rescue sequence that depends on Sam and Bumblebee piloting one of these vehicles:  this was not a high point for me.  Nor was Laserbeak's multitude of alternative forms:  throughout the story, he changes forms more often than I change my socks - really not a great part of the story for me (despite what I said about robots in disguise, this was a step too far).

The main high points, in my view, were:

*  Sam, arguing with the guards as he tries to enter the secret Autobot compound:  "Sir, what about your car?"  "That's not my car...  ... ... That's my car."
*  Ironhide's character arc.  Won't say any more, but I was genuinely surprised at how his character developed.
*  No more Megan Fox, and a fairly small amount of her replacement, who despite the wooden acting had a small but key part to play in the story, just towards the end.
*  Starscream's demise at the hands of... well, yes.  A very well-written set of scenes - I didn't see it coming (and neither did Starscream).

Overall - an excellent film, with outstanding special effects, good story and plot, understandable characters (and if they did just service the plot, I'm not complaining) and a body count that exceeds the previous two films put together.  It remains to be seen if the Decepticon remains are going to be blasted off into space, where they might meet up with Unicron and come back re-energised, but I for one will most certainly be looking forward to the next instalment!

Review of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

As the trailer for the new Transformers film has been launched today, it seems like a good time to look again at the previous film, Revenge of the Fallen.  After its release, a number of people asked me what I thought of it, and I wasn't really able to answer such people at length and explain exactly what my opinion is, or to say whether or not I really enjoyed watching it.

So, here goes - my first written film review. And it will be detailed, and will contain spoilers. I should explain that I am a very big fan of Transformers, have been since I was about 8 years old, and thoroughly enjoyed the first Transformers movie, in 2007 (and the one in 1985). I can recall when Sideswipe and Ironhide were red, while Jazz and Ratchet were white.

When I settled down to watch the film, I noticed all the credits at the start: Dreamworks this, and Steven Spielberg that, and Michael Bay etc etc, and Hasbro. "Oh yeah," I thought to myself, "The toys - it all started with the toys." And thought nothing more of it at the time. It has crossed my mind several times since.

The film starts with the Autobots tracking down Decepticon activity all over the globe, having formed an alliance with the humans. I had to learn in the first movie that human weapons are effective against Transformers - they certainly never used to be, but okay, we'll accept that they are now. Ironhide leads a team to track down some nameless Decepticon. Now, excuse me for asking, but why don't the Autobots speak when they're in vehicle mode? Or do anything sensible? We do get the full length, ten-second-long Ironhide transformation - we know we'll never see a transformation take that long again - and Ironhide finally starts speaking. (Compare this with the scene in the first movie, just after Starscream's airstrike on the city has taken out Bumblebee's legs... Sam has to tell Jazz, who's still in vehicle mode, to back off and reverse. I'll repeat my earlier question - why don't the Autobots do anything sensible in vehicle mode?).

And yes, it is some nameless Decepticon.  Sadly, this is something that I had to get used to, as it cropped up repeatedly.  I guess here is as good a place as any to cover the new characters in the film. There are loads. In fact, to be quite honest, it's the single greatest issue I have with this film. I loved the explosions, I loved the hardware and the storyline, but the number of new characters was overwhelming. On both sides, but especially the Decepticons. The Autobots - we see them in their hangar, an array of shiny sports cars and motorbikes, a couple of Japanese minicars and an ice cream van. No, I know very few of the names of these characters, and very few of them got personalities - just accents. The purple ice cream van rates as moderately annoying. The two Japanese minicars - one of them was called Skids, which was really disappointing considering the intelligence of the original character - were stupid. I think a professional film reviewer likened them to Jar Jar Binks, which is quite accurate - right down to the racial stereotyping. One Autobot I did pick out was Sideswipe, who was silver, instead of red. Now, he has no feet, just wheels. Nor does he have hands or forearms - just large spikes on his elbows. I was thoroughly unimpressed by this - it strikes me as lazy CGI and I was not happy. But anyways, it was only a fluke that I found out that this particular character was Sideswipe - he could have been anonymous if I'd not been listening closely.

Having mentioned the large number of Autobots, this is nothing compared to the Decepticons. At one point towards the end of the film, it almost literally starts raining Decepticons. A huge army of Decepticons arrives in the desert and start attacking our heroes, and as I watched this, I started to wonder why the existing Decepticons - those already introduced in the story, or even some already on Earth - didn't show up. I'm still not sure, but I think the answer is that Hasbro are named in the credits, and more figures (I can't call them characters - I don't think they have a line of dialogue between them) means more toys. Now, these fresh warriors all look pretty much the same, since they haven't adopted an earth-based vehicle mode. In other words - they don't transform. This is, above and beyond the number of new characters; the stupid accents; the nameless characters, the single most irritating part of this film. Transformers that don't transform? No. Big mistake. Wrong. And wrong from the perspective of the toy makers too. Surely Hasbro should keep in mind that the original series of toys were successful because they were robots and vehicles. I should mention at this point "The Fallen" who also doesn't transform... he could have been any sort of intergalactic weapon - tank, spacecraft - but no.

And if you want further evidence that this is a toy-maker's film, consider Starscream, who is one of the few Decepticons to make it from the first film. Ordinarily, Starscream version 1.0 would be sufficient for most kids, but no. To quote one of the soldiers (I can't recall which), describing Starscream in aircraft mode - "It's got some crazy alien graffiti all over it." That's right, kids, Starscream from the first film is out-of-date, time to go splash out on Starscream version 2.0. And if you thought the original Optimus would suffice... sadly not, as, towards the end, we get Japanese-armoured-style ultra super-powered Optimus with the armour of that poor unfortunate defecting Decepticon, Jetfire. I bet the armour in the toy version either (a) sticks on and doesn't come off, leading to a non-transforming Transformer, or (b) doesn't stay on when it's put on. I'm not sure which is worse.

That's covered most of my ranting about the robots, now let's turn to the humans.

Now - Megan Fox. Oh good grief... I'd heard that she was in the film almost exclusively as eye candy, but the first few scenes with her in, posing on the motorbike, were just too much. Perhaps I'm the wrong side of, say, 14 years old, but it was just a bit too obvious that she was just in the film for the teenage boys.

Sam's parents, who thoroughly annoyed me during the first film, were back on form. Why, why, why do the film makers insist on giving Sam's parents lines, or even screen time? They are the most unnecessary characters in a film that I've ever come across. The "Sam's special time" scene from the first film could have been cut in its entirety and the film would have been greatly improved. In this film, it was the scene where Sam's mum buys a 'herbal rememdy' from a student that could have been left on the cutting room floor. Many people have commented that this film was over-long... I think I've just solved the problem.  I'm with Ironhide, who in the first film commented, "Can't we terminate the humans?  The parents are very irritating."

Speaking of Sam's parents - shortly after (before?) the first Megan Fox scene, we come to the scene with the kitchen critters and Bumblebee blasting the house down. Yes, I enjoyed this one - and in particular the extremely cool kitchen critters (no lines of dialogue, no names) but why, oh why has Bumblebee been reduced to an overgrown guard dog in the garden, with his own kennel? And, okay, perhaps it's a plot contrivance that he's lost his voice, but when did he become an over-exuberant teenager? He used to be a no-messing warrior who protected Sam from Barricade (the police car) and an all-round fighter. A highlight of the film is the scene where Sam has to tell Bumblebee to grow up and remember who he really is.

Now? He can't wait to go to college with Sam? Okay, I'll let it go, but I did think it was particularly stupid that he lived in the garage like a dog. And yes, I thought some of the kitchen critters were cool, but it didn't dawn on me until a little later that they were obvious merchandise, and would probably be in my local Toys R Us store by the end of the movie.

One of the film's biggest redeeming features for me has to be the Sector Seven agent, Simmons. He is brilliant. I loved his archive of antiquated Transformers, Frenzy's head in his office, I liked his panicky but genuine character, and the way he ordered the naval barrage was inspired. I like this character, and hope to see him in the third film.

Finally - Alice, the human who turned out to be a Decepticon. She doesn't Transform... and Decepticons never, ever, took human form. Mind control, yes. Human form? No. "Decepticon Pretender".  Possibly.

Overall, I actually liked this movie. I thought the effects were amazing; the music was outstanding (most of it taken from the first movie, and I was nodding along at various points); the story was actually well written, if a little cheesy in places... the idea of Sam having the power of the Allspark in his head goes back to a comic-book story where Buster Witwicky (yes, that was his name) was given the Creation Matrix by Optimus for safekeeping. Yes, I thought, on the whole, it was enjoyable, possibly overlong but on the whole kept ticking along at a good pace. Did I want the DVD for Christmas? Yes please. Would I watch it repeatedly until I'd learned the script? Possibly.

I think I could some up my views on this film by considering if I would I watch it all the way through; the answer is probably. Although I can quite easily see myself skipping the boring bits (with the humans), there's enough pace to make it watchable, and I'll also like to find out all those Autobots' names!  Overall, I'd recommend watching the DVD with the subtitles turned on - that way, you'll get all the dialogue, character names and all the parts of the plot.

So, I'm looking forward to the new film, and I'll be posting a review here when I've seen it!