Guest post by 'Jenius McGee'

Dustin says: Today Canary Movie Reviews is graced with the talents of a comedian using the nombre de pluma “Jenius McGee.” He offers his take on the movie critics are calling “intriguing and unexpected” (Roth Cornet, IGN), Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Here’s J…

If you are like me, summer can suck it. It’s too hot to really enjoy outdoor activities. You get all sweaty and gross and it’s no fun at all. There are only three really good things about summer. No school, skimpy clothes and summer blockbusters. A great way to beat the heat is to sit in a cool dark room and watch a movie while your brain goes off. This exactly what the new Transformers movie was meant for.  I went to see this movie to basically beat the heat. It’s been given a lot of bad reviews and there is a lot of Michael Bay hate out there, so I went just to cool off and shut down my brain.

Maybe it was the lowered expectations, but I liked this movie. By no means is it quality cinema, but if you want to watch robots go “pew pew pew” for almost three hours, this is the way to go. Honestly, I don’t understand all the Michael Bay hate. I like Michael Bay movies. DON’T QUIT READING!! I know a lot of movie snobs think what I just said is pure heresy, but hear me out. Michael Bay knows what a lot of people like. They like to see shiny things go boom. He does what he does and he does it well. He makes no qualms about it. He knows he’s not making fine art. He’s The Boones Wine of movies.  Cheap, but gets the job done.

Transformers: Age of Extinction stars Mark Wahlberg as an inventor (lol) with a Boston accent in the middle of rural Texas (LOL). He’s down on his luck and broke. He can barely make ends meet and he’s about to lose his house. Cue the magic. He finds an old beat up truck and spends his last few dollars for it, much to the chagrin of his daughter, played by Nicola Peltz (Bates Motel), whose shorts seem to get shorter and shorter as the movie progresses. Well low and behold, this truck is not just a truck, but a Transformer, and not just a Transformer, but Optimus Prime, the leader of the good Transfomers. Now the fun can begin. It turns out that all Transformers and being hunted and destroyed by a shadowy CIA group led by character actor Titus Welliver and ran by Kelsey Grammer in full Boss/Sideshow Bob villain mode. Then: Explosions Explosions Explosions. Explanation of why Transformers are being hunted, not a good one, but OK. Transfomers being tortured and killed, so if you child is sensitive to this tell them to quit their bitching and grow up. It’s a movie and a robot for Chrissakes.

The movie says she's only 17.

Enter the two high points of the movie. No, not the daughter’s shorts, but the introduction of the two best characters in the movies. Stanley Tucci as a Steve Jobs-like character who starts off as a 2-Dimentional character, but due to the awesome power of The Tucci, grows to be well-liked and a loveable asshole. And the other high point of the movie is the Autobot named Hound, voiced by the amazing John Goodman.  This Autobot steals the scene every time his grizzled warrior robot self in on. His voice casting is perfect, and the way he is rendered, if John Goodman was really a 20-foot-tall robot who could turn into an ammunition truck, this is exactly what he would look like.

John Goodman as Hound.

Now this film is not without its many faults. The plot is kinda convoluted and hard to follow. While it’s a dumb movie, it tries to act smart which makes it even more dumb and hard to understand, like an annoying cousin with a mouth full of peanut butter trying to explain quantum physics. There is also a subplot of the daughter and the boyfriend and the dad all trying to get along, while sometimes it’s funny, it can wear a little thin. Especially when the boyfriend is supposed to be Irish, but the accent moves and changes so much, his vocal chords should be Transformers in themselves. The one big beef I have with this movie is the Dino bots.

Character/toy from this movie/toy commercial.

They are prominently displayed on all the advertisements, the commercials and trailers, and even the toys, but they are only in it for the last 20 minutes or so. What’s up with that? Yeah, they are cool, but they never really explained them. They just said they are ancient warriors. No shit, they are dinosaurs. Where did they come from and why didn't they help out in parts 1, 2 or 3 if they have been here for so long? They were cool to look at, but left a bad taste in my mouth, like the time I mixed marbles for gumballs.

All and all I liked this movie. It got me out of the heat and entertained me for 3 hours. Not bad. I rate it 3 ½ stats out of five which basically translates as somewhere between “it’s OK” and “it’s not bad, pretty good.”  Don’t go expecting good cinema, go to enjoy a movie. Turn your brain off and let Michael Bay entertain you. Grab some popcorn, a large drink, or drinks if you’re like me, and enjoy a break from the heat.  So until next time “Turn off your damn phone in the theater.” Jenius, over and out.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Dustin: 1.5 of 5 stars Nick: 1.5 of 5 stars Average: 1.5 of 5 stars (Canary on life support)

Dustin: In Transformers: Age of Extinction, Marky Mark takes a break from committing hate crimes to help the leader of the good Transformers, Optimus Prime, escape from the evil CIA that will stop at nothing, including killing innocent underage civilians, to capture all Transformers (because that’s totally the kind of thing the CIA does). Meanwhile, the CIA, under the leadership of Dr. Frasier Crane, wants to get their hands on “the seed,” which turns all organic matter into Transformer metal. Frasier is assisted by a bad Transformer who wants to kill Optimus Prime for some reason. All this happens to give the audience the illusion this movie has a plot.

Nick: These films basically just have a Macguffin and everything goes from there. A Macguffin is a plot device (normally an object or goal) driving the protagonist forward. The term was coined by Alfred Hitchcock and seems to be the first thing written in to the Transformah’s scripts.

Dustin: This movie had a script? I got the feeling they were making it up as they went along. Where were the plants and payoffs? The dinosaur Transformers just appeared when they were convenient to the action. One of the good guys suddenly has a tow truck when he needs it. I don’t think there was anything other than an outline for this movie.

Nick: Disagreed! The whole script would be action scenes stating how the robots are hitting each other (BANG) and or being thrown into other large objects (KERPLUSH). The human characters is where I’d agree that they just have an outline and are told to over emote every feeling they possibly could possibly, like reality TV.

Dustin: I just found the script for the movie...

Nick: Just to make sure, are you saying “Defectocon” as a joke?

Dustin: I don’t know, I don’t know anything about the Transformers. Who gives a shit?

Nick: I can say one positive. This is my favorite Transformers film since the first one. Roger Ebert once stated there are about 10 films he has seen to which if somebody said they liked he would think less of them. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is one of those 10 for me. I forget if it was one for Ebert as well. With Transformers: Dark of the Moon I couldn’t make it past the first 10 minutes of the film. (Though I was on a plane watching it on my phone.) I chose to read a book instead. So the third one doesn’t count, I guess, but even Michael Bay came out and said that he didn’t like Transformers 3. If Bay doesn’t like a Bay movie then how could I force myself to like it?

Dustin: I haven’t seen any of the other Transformer movies, and I don’t think I’m missing much. It doesn’t make for much of an endorsement when you say reading a book is more interesting than a Transformers movie. I liked the toys as a kid, but I never got into the cartoon. It was just fun changing them from vehicles to robots and back. I don’t really “get” these movies. They’re robot aliens, but one of them looks and sounds Japanese. That doesn’t make any sense.

It also doesn't make sense that Marky Mark is a genius mechanical engineer, but can’t afford to send his daughter to any college.

I also had trouble suspending disbelief when the human good guys were falling through the air, and Optimus Prime would catch them with his clunky metal hands, crash through a building, and they’d come through unscathed.

Nick: I was obsessed with Transformers: Beast Wars when I was growing up. The episodes would play throughout the week early in the morning before I had to go to school. I recently purchased all of the Beast Wars seasons and tried watching them, but I couldn’t make it past the second of any season episode. Lesson here is just enjoy remembering loving something as a kid, but don’t go looking for it as an adult. It was the first 3-D animated show I recall seeing. The second being Reboot. I notice I’m hardly talking about the Transformers movie, which is probably because if you’ve seen the previous installments you’ve seen this one, and I can personally find more interesting things to talk about.

Dustin: “Lesson here is just enjoy remembering loving something as a kid, but don’t go looking for it as an adult.” Ditto new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

You mentioned to me in the parking lot after we saw Pain & Gain Michael Bay only casts hot women in his films. If an unattractive woman makes it in, it is for a joke (such as the fat, black realtor and the three old Chinese ladies). I found all the hot women distracting. Women working in the background of a laboratory don’t all have to be 10s. In real life, the only man who has a daughter as hot as Nicola Peltz is Nelson Peltz. Only using unattractive women as a joke is incredibly mean-spirited. This is a very ugly movie in that sense.

Nick: When you said Bay casts only hot women in his film, my mind went to how he loves to reboot cartoons we loved as children, which I then went to things considered old classics, and I thought of Michael Bay’s Schindler’s List. I have been laughing to myself for the past minute. He could still keep all of his women because they are all skinny enough. They make me look like I need to shed a pound, and I’ve been made fun of with the line, “What are those twigs comings out of your shoulders?” my entire life.

Dustin: The Last Psychiatrist’s interview with Not Michael Bay sheds some lights on his casting decisions: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/07/my_name_is_michael_bay_and_i_j.html

There were some aspects of the movie I enjoyed. The comic relief towards the beginning worked (although it outgrew its welcome after about 30 minutes). I’d say the first act had me going. There were neat sound effects--the kind of thing you take for granted in a movie. Otherwise, I found this movie obnoxious and kind of boring.

Nick: The film did a great job of casting comedians to fill small roles, like T.J. Miller and Tom Lennon. Though the latter was given nothing funny to do, which is a shame. My favorite casting would be Stanley Tucci. The man gives his all no matter what film he’s in. Tucci carried this film enough for me to finish it. To me the sound effects were lazy. Though when 2 hours of a 2 hour 40 MINUTE film are explosions, it would be hard to blame someone for being lazy and just reusing the same sounds throughout.

I noticed that I could use this review for every Michael Bay film that has been made in the last decade and just change the name of the film, characters and actors and it would probably be exactly how I felt. If Bay can be lazy and use the same shots, poses, and sequences in his films then can’t I be lazy with my reviews of Bay’s movies?

22 Jump Street

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3 of 5 stars Average: 3.25 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Dustin: 22 Jump Street is the sequel to a movie reboot of a 1980s TV series. It makes no pretense of not being the exact same film as the first, but with twice the budget. Only this time the 30-something-year-old cops are going undercover at college instead of high school.

Nick: The film felt more like a Funny or Die skit parodying the idea of sequels. The jokes in the film would work better in a skit than a feature length film.

Dustin: The film had a lot of self-referential jokes throughout. Most of them had to do with how sequels are usually larger-budget, rehashed versions of the first film. This came into play when they mentioned the new headquarters in an abandoned Vietnamese church at 22 Jump St. (across the street from their original headquarters--even the title is a meta joke) costed twice as much “for no reason,” and they go undercover in what is basically the same operation as the first film.

Nick: Don’t forget that the Vietnamese church is now being rebuilt at 23 Jump Str., opening next year.

Dustin: I liked the meta humor, but they sort of overdid it. The first film had it, but not to such an extent. This film relied on it for most of the jokes. After awhile I was like, “OK, I get it. This is a sequel and will follow the same formula as the first. Next joke, please.”

Nick: All the jokes in the film stemmed from three areas. Either they came from meta, how old they were (not unusual in college), or how every guy is subconsciously homosexual. All these jokes were funny at first, but all of the jokes come so fast it starts to wear thin they couldn’t write a subtle joke.

Dustin: I thought the jokes about the latent homosexuality were pretty good. They weren’t overdone. It was just how their professional relationship paralleled a gay relationship. Channing Tatum even takes a human sexuality course and learns sensitivity toward gays. One funny scene had them talking about “investigating other people” as if they were splitting up, and Jonah Hill’s body language is very insecure and feminine. This stuff worked for me. But the joke that they looked too old to be college freshmen was beaten to death.

Nick: The latent homosexuality comes from more than just the two main characters. Tat-yum’s relationship with his bro quarterback was a major one. I actually liked their relationship and was hoping they’d be gay. Hill’s character is always hooking up with some girl, but Tat-yums is always being fawned over by everyone. It would have been funny if he grabbed the bro quarterback at the end and kissed him. On to the college freshmen bit, Jillian Bell is one of the funniest women I have seen in a long time. On Workaholics she is my favorite part. Bell’s whole role in the film is to talk about how old Hill’s character looks and then have some awkward fight with him. Her old jokes happened quite often.

Dustin: Yeah, in pretty much every one of her scenes. But the part when they’re fighting and she keeps giving him lovey-dovey eyes and leaning in to kiss him were pretty funny.

Nick: The fact she seems disgusted with Hill’s looks throughout the film makes the fact she tried to hook up with him later more annoying for the fact I had to listen to all of her old jokes about him.

Dustin: Do you think the meta humor was sort of a cop-out? Like they knew the criticisms of the film beforehand and dismissed them humorously, but then went ahead with all the cliches anyway? I think saying, “Don’t blame us, we’re not REALLY trying,” is not an excuse to be lazy with the story.

Nick: I’m 100 percent sure! I read in interview with Hill and Tatum where they both stated having no interest in doing sequels, which is quite true looking at their resumes (Hill’s How to Train Your Dragon 2 came out this week, but his is a small role). Also, the directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) love meta humor and seemingly dislike sequels. While I like the idea, it could have been done with a little more grace.

The funniest scenes for me were Jonah Hill’s first walk of shame and Tatum’s reaction to Ice Cube finding out the identity of Hill’s girlfriend. Both scenes had fantastic camerawork and editing. Everything from close-ups to far shots and in the latter switching between characters, which brought out the most humor from the situation.

Dustin: This was a funny two hours spent, but it didn’t live up to the originality of the first film (because they didn’t really try).

Edge of Tomorrow

Dustin: 4.5 of 5 stars Nick: 4.5 of 5 stars Average: 4.5 of 5 stars (Tweety canary)

Dustin: Edge of Tomorrow begins after aliens have invaded the earth and humanity has combined forces to battle the tentacled monsters. Tom Cruise plays Major William Cage, an American military officer who serves as a PR flack for the global United Defense Forces and goes to great length to avoid actual combat. One day, he is thrown to the front lines in the war’s decisive battle, but quickly dies. He then wakes up the day before the battle, stuck in a personal time warp, forced to relive the same sequence of events over and over and over.

Dustin: So, Nick, what did you think of Groundhog Day 2: Edge of Tomorrow?

Nick: Matrix 4: Edge of Tomorrow was the most fun I’ve had in quite sometime at the movies watching a mega-budget Hollywood film.

Dustin: The movie was really well done. It starts with some B-roll of battles, war-torn Europe, government figures talking on TV, all with an alien invasion plot. I was thinking, This is the movie Ed Wood would make if he were alive today. But I was quickly found I had underestimated this movie. The film set the tone very well, the action scenes were well executed, and the special effects were quite lively.

Nick: Humor was alive and well too. This movie did a fantastic job of balancing light with dark, unlike many Hollywood films of the past few years. The editing is Oscar worthy! I have never said that about a film with this large of a budget.

Dustin: The humor made this movie a joy to watch. The humor is in the same vein as Groundhog Day. A man is stuck in a personal time warp, he knows everything that’s about to happen, and treats it all with a large dose of irony. Cruise also has a similar character arc as Bill Murray in Groundhog Day--a self-absorbed jerk who eventually begins to care about the people around him and learns a sense of duty.

Nick: Cruise was self-absorbed, but I disagree that he didn’t care. It only took him two times dying to try and save the fat guy (Tony Way, Ali G Indahouse) from a large plane landing on top of him. Edge of Tomorrow does a good job recycling material without ever getting old. The meaning behind the material always changes: either intimidating, funny, or (for Cruise) slightly annoying.

Dustin: The movie had a semi-sweet love subplot. It is pretty toned-down, which is good because it could easily weigh down this brisk, two-hour film. There’s a scene where he’s making coffee for his ally, Rita (Emily Blunt), a fierce sergeant who was once stuck in her own time warp and understands Cruise’s predicament. He knows precisely how much sugar she likes. The fact he knows that is such a deft way of showing his feelings without a word of mushy dialogue.

Nick: The film has some really dark elements as well. Rita probably kills Cage (Cruise) more times than the aliens, known as Mimics. She just pulls out a gun with no remorse and caps him in the head.  

Dustin: The movie masterfully foreshadowed her character. At the very beginning, Cage, while pushing for support for the war, mentions how one woman, with virtually no training, was able to kill 100 Mimics in her first day of battle using the bionic armor. Of course, he had no way of knowing she had lived that one day a thousand times. He only knew the results.

Nick: Bill Paxton continues being awesome in every movie I’ve ever seen him in! His delivery of lines as Master Sergeant Farell is impeccable. Every one (even when repeated) made me laugh.

THE FOLLOWING SECTION CONTAINS SPOILERS

Dustin: Do you have any criticisms of this film?

Nick: I saw the film less than 24 hours ago, so there has not been much time to think on the ending. But after first viewing, it left me with a sour taste. Obviously not to the extent of some other endings as I still rate it high, but that ending will take away from the film (in my opinion) on future viewings.  All the weight and importance of the plot is somewhat taken away by that ending. Right before the end, Cage swims deep underwater to drop a load of grenades into the Omega, which is the collective brain that controls all the Mimics. Cage shows the Alpha Mimic he has all the pins from the grenades as the grenades float down toward the Omega, and I rolled my eyes. The film had been so unique and clever up to that point. The shot of him letting go of the pins and the Alpha’s reaction plays as somewhat ridiculous. Edge of Tomorrow was on the verge of being an all time great Hollywood film, but the last 10 minutes has me rethinking.  

Dustin: I had a problem with the epilogue. I wanted the heroes to live, but I didn’t quite understand it. After he destroyed the Omega, the day started over again, but without the Omega. This made sense, but why did the day start differently for Cruise? This time, it had him properly reporting for duty, rather than packed in the luggage in handcuffs as the day had always started previously. Did resetting the day also change the outcome of the previous day? Couldn’t quite figure that out. Maybe Cruise inherited the Omega’s ability to master time, and went back even further. But this wasn’t established, and it didn’t seem to be what happened. (I was just trying to explain a plot hole.)

Nick: When I say the last 10 minutes, I was including the epilogue in that. Right when Cruise pulls the pins and on left me unsatisfied and slightly confused. I don’t mind heroes living, but the way it was done felt silly to me. As well with the pop song that plays with the credits, which starts immediately after Cruise smiles in the last shot. Ending with that made the film mean so much less. For the first time during the film it actually felt like a crowd pleasing Hollywood film that wants to leave people feeling chipper! It occurs to me that maybe the creators were forced to make the characters live.

Dustin: It’s based on the Japanese book All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. I haven’t read it, but I’d be interested to know if the source material ended the same way.

I don’t think the epilogue detracted from what came before it per se, but it just left me confused to the logistics. It appears to me to be a plot hole.

END OF SPOILERS

Nick: Edge of Tomorrow is a fantastic film that will please sci-fi fans as well as anybody that might have some hang ups about Tom Cruise.

Dustin: And if you don’t like Tom Cruise, in this film you can see him get shot in the head a hundred times. Everyone wins!

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Dustin: 1 of 5 stars Nick: 2.5 of 5 stars Average: 1.75 of 5 stars (Canary on life support)

Dustin: A Million Ways to Die in the West is a long, tiresome *ahem* comedy in which Seth MacFarlane deconstructs the Western genre with subversive, ironic humor (ha!).

MacFarlane (Family Guy) is Albert Stark, a sheep herder hurting after a breakup with his girlfriend, Louise (yawn). Louise is now involved with the owner of a mustache-grooming shop, Foy (Neil Patrick Harris, Starship Troopers). However, Albert soon finds a more compatible partner in Anna (Charlize Theron). Only problem is her husband, Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson, Schindler's List), is a big-time baddie who is riding into town for some reason the movie didn’t care enough to explain.

Nick, what did you think of A Million Ways to Not Give a Flying F***?

Nick: Is there anything worth applauding about this movie? No! Though I found myself laughing more than in the somewhat respectable Neighbors. Once again the most important thing about a comedy is that it makes you laugh, whether or not the film is absolutely dreadful.

Dustin: There were some one-liners that made me laugh, and a few jokes out of left-field I found funny (the best of which were already in the trailer), but for every laugh (none of which were huge), there were two or three jokes that fell flat. And given the movie was almost two hours with a throwaway plot, I found myself getting increasingly bored as this movie dragged on.

Nick: I recall Roger Ebert stating a comedy is better when the jokes exist within its constructed universe. My biggest problem with A Million Ways to Die in the West is that our main character seemed to be the only one who did not exist within the film’s universe. MacFarlane constantly makes jokes that could not have existed during that time, and all the other characters react as if he is nuts. This happens throughout the film and only Anna seems to get his jokes.

Dustin: A lot of jokes in this movie were based on “breaking the fourth wall,” much like Mel Brooks does in his films. The reason this movie fails is because even with all its raunchy humor, it never feels subversive, as Blazing Saddles did in the 1970s. This movie is just obnoxious. The jokes that don’t involve breaking the fourth wall are usually someone farting. The rest are about poop or pee.

A movie can be funny with a character existing outside the “constructed universe” if the humor is wry or detached. Think of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day or Lost In Translation.

Nick: In Blazing Saddles everyone character is in on the premise that these jokes were anachronistic. In A Million Ways to Die in the West, only MacFarlane seems to understand himself.

Dustin: Maybe MacFarlane should have played a time traveler stuck in the Wild West. This would have at least given his jokes a reason to exist. His character is detached from the setting, but the humor goes for gross-outs rather than irony. This is really a lowest-common-denominator comedy in the same vein as MacFarlane’s animated shows.

Nick: While there is no arguing for Family Guy, American Dad! (after first season) has become a pretty phenomenal cartoon. Just check out the episode “Toy Whorey” (season eight, episode 18) to see what I mean. Anywho, with all of MacFarlane’s background in musical theater, I’m shocked he doesn’t make a musical. He has a solid voice and his songwriting is good as well. I’d enjoy a comedy musical.

Dustin: MacFarlane does have a certain charm with his voice and clean-cut looks. I might enjoy a musical comedy if he did one, but given he pretty much has carte blanche on his projects, I don’t see him putting in that kind of effort (musicals and comedies are the two most difficult genres to write).

Nick: MacFarlane should either act in movies written by other people or direct and write movies where he leaves the acting to another (Ted). This movie fails in that he is the writer, director and star. When MacFarlane goes on his rants in the movie (it happens a lot) it’s obvious he wrote those words and is delivering them as if he is having a drunken conversation in a bar in 2014, but talking about the Old West. They also call the West, “THE WEST,” quite too often. For all the talking about THE WEST its shocking THE EAST never comes into play. Maybe Neil Patrick Harrison’s character could have recently arrived from THE EAST to where people living in the shitty West (including MacFarlane) would fawn over him while he betrays the town with plans to knock it all down in some devious money-making scheme. As is all the plots from Westerns.

Dustin: This movie avoided some of the cliches of the Western genre in that it didn’t have some greedy baron forcing people of their land like Shane or Once Upon a Time in the West. That probably would have made the movie better, though. He could have parodied the cliches of the genre. Instead, we have some story about a guy dumped by his girlfriend and falling for another girl while trying to make his ex jealous. It isn’t even a plot, really.

Nick: The film never focuses on that plot either. Though I found that kind of realistic. Real life doesn’t have plots, things just happen. So while the film had motivation, it never really had a plot.  Since the film isn’t a character study (film with no plot) nor a drama, the film needed a plot in order for the film to move forward in a somewhat organized manner. Though organization is not MacFarlane’s strong suit.

Dustin: I think all films need a plot, even if they are character studies. Why would I pay good money to watch real life when I can see real life through my window? If I wanted to watch real life on film, I would see The Real Cancun.

Nick: Not all films are plot-driven, instead they are driven by motivation. Martin Scorsese's films are known to be more motivated by characters than plot based until The Departed. Most indie films are more driven by characters than plot.

Dustin: I find it funny we’ve gone off topic and started talking about good movies. I think further highlighting how crappy this movie was is that it was filmed in Monument Valley, where John Ford filmed a lot of his Westerns. Just looking at the stone formations, you think of The Searchers, which reminds you of what an actual movie should be.

Was there anything you liked about this film?

Nick: Harris played his character spectacularly, and Theron proves that even in a bad film she tries her hardest to make it that much better. The Old Prospector was good too.

Dustin: I’d recommend this film to anyone who likes to sit in a theater with a bunch of morons forcing themselves to laugh at every joke, saying, “That’s so wrong!”