Tag Archives: good

‘Transcendence’ Nothing Special or New

Transcendence2014Poster            You know those movies that leave the audience with burning questions about real life issues? Yeah, “Transcendence” isn’t one of those movies.

Directed by cinematographer Wally Pfister in his directorial debut, the film stars Johnny Depp as an artificial intelligence researcher who is mortally wounded by a radical anti-technology group. Before he dies, however, his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) uploads his consciousness to a computer. As the radical group approaches to finish what they started, Evelyn must decide if the intelligence claiming to be her deceased husband is who it says it is. Sound confusing? Yeah, you’re telling me.

This film features a rookie director, a rookie screenwriter and an ensemble cast. All three were red flags before the title card in “Transcendence” even showed up on the screen. Pfister is a fantastic cinematographer (he won an Oscar for “Inception”) but maybe he should not quit his day job anytime soon. His first time in the director’s chair, Pfister heads a film with pacing issues and a narrative that ranges from awkward to just plain non-existent. Oh, and the movie really doesn’t know what it wants to be or what messages it wants to send, either.

In the film’s opening act there is a decently thought provoking line about whether man creating artificial intelligence and “playing God” is any different than mankind “making up gods” throughout history. Then they drop that possible storyline for the whole “anti-technology” group. Then yet again the film decides that angle isn’t interesting enough so it goes into whether A.I. is capable of comparing to humans. If you haven’t figured it out yet, allow me to clarify: the film is a mess.

There are some redeeming qualities to the film. Obviously with Pfister being an award winning cinematographer, the movie is shot beautifully; even if half of the cool shots are completely irrelevant to the scene. For example the very first shot of the film shows rain on a window and car headlights blurred in the background. The movie then cuts to a completely unrelated scene and starts the actual story. Was the shot cool to look at? Sure. Was it confusing and irrelevant? You betcha.

The movie does make a couple interesting points about where we’re going and how we may be letting technology get the best of us, but these aren’t things that you haven’t read about or pondered before; go to any website and they’ll tell you to put down your phone and go play outside. You don’t need to pay $10 to have the voice of Johnny Depp tell you.

For what it was striving to accomplish, “Transcendence” fails. It went for broke and came up short, but not horrifically. There are a few interesting parts and for about five seconds you actually wonder if Johnny Depp’s A.I. is good or evil, but in the long run this is a very forgettable film. I guess you could say that “Transcendence” transcends the definition of an average film [I’ll pause so you can laugh].

Critics Rating: 5/10

‘Sabotage’ is Messy, but Very Fun

sabotageWhat do you get when you combine Arnold Schwarzenegger, “End of Watch” and “A Good Day to Die Hard”? The answer is “Sabotage”, the new Arnie movie from the director of “Watch” David Ayer, and the writer of “Good Day”, Skip Woods. Schwarzenegger stars as the leader of an elite DEA task force who must find out who is killing the members of his team after they bust a cartel safe house. Ayer directs.

The commercials for “Sabotage” have been a little misleading in that it brags it is “from the writer of Training Day”. While this is true, Ayer did write “Training Day”, he merely did touchups on “Sabotage”. The true screenwriter is Skip Woods, who wrote such gems as “Die Hard 5”, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “Hitman” (in case you are unfamiliar with those films they’re all awful, and I was being sarcastic). If you want your films to feature a organized plot, characters with depth, or sentences that make sense, then Woods probably isn’t high on your radar.

Besides being a poor screenwriter, no one knows anything about Woods. I kid you not, Google him. There are no pictures or any biographical information on him. There is even a conspiracy on whether the guy actually exists. The one thing that is known is he has not written a good movie.

So at face value “Sabotage” shouldn’t work. It was written by the genius of awful Woods, and stars Schwarzenegger, who has never been a fantastic actor, as well as a bunch of other actors who you probably recognize but could not name. But thanks to steady direction from Ayer, I found myself enjoying the majority of the film.

When characters have guns in their hands, “Sabotage” is immensely entertaining and very well shot. Much like the other films he has directed like “Street Kings” and “End of Watch”, Ayer knows where to creatively put a camera in order to place the audience in the action, and you get your money’s worth.

Schwarzenegger doesn’t do a bad job, either. He plays a man who is out for revenge after the Mexican cartel kidnapped his wife and kid, as well as trying to evade whoever is taking out the members of his team. He has his share of chuckle inducing one-liners, as well as his signature cigar smoking (in practically every scene).

The largest issues with “Sabotage” lay mostly with its script. Aside from Arnold, none of the characters are likable. They all are angry, selfish and ignorant individuals, as well as underdeveloped, so when they begin to get killed by the cartel you simply don’t care. Like at all. The movie also tries to have a big plot twist ending but then makes no effort whatsoever in explaining how or why what just happened in fact happened.

There are also two scenes that are very awkwardly edited. In one, you see Arnold and his partner approaching a house, guns drawn, and then see the man they’re looking for gunned down by assailants. Then suddenly it cuts back to Arnold finding the dead man, and apparently the man had been killed several days prior. It took me out of the movie and came off as somewhat lazy.

With a film like “Sabotage” you have to take the good with the bad. When guns are going off, the film is fun, exciting and very well made. The problem is the other half of the movie is a wannabe political thriller involving the DEA and internal affairs and who knows what else (Skip Woods certainly didn’t know, and he wrote it).

Usually I criticize action films for being nothing more than shoot-em-ups, but there was something about “Sabotage” that made me enjoy the film, much more than I’m sure it had any right to be liked.

Critics Rating: 6/10