Cindy Prascik's Review of Fury

Dearest Blog, today it was off to the pictures to wage war with Brad Pitt's Fury.

Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you wouldn't know from the trailers.

As World War II draws to a close, an outmatched US tank crew undertakes a dangerous mission.

Well, dear reader(s), I'll be straight with you: my interest in Fury can best be described as "at least it's not that Nicholas Sparks thing." It looks like my kind of movie, and the cast is (mostly) terrific, but for some reason the trailers did nothing to excite me. Figuring I'm gonna need this one come awards time, though, I set out today hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

Fury is being lauded as an honest look at war, and that may well be, but it's otherwise a total dud.

The characters are broadly drawn caricatures, and the dialogue is so badly written it might as well be Twilight. Every incident, every encounter, every happening is more predictable than the last, straight out of the tear-your-heart-out War Movie Playbook.

The cast actually IS mostly solid and can't be faulted for the film's failings, with the notable exception of Shia LeBeouf.

A great actor inhabits a character so you forget whatever you might know of him, personally, but LeBeouf is so profoundly unlikable that whatever acting skill he possesses is nowhere near up to that task. Even Brad Pitt seems somehow diminished, following so quickly on the heels of Robert Downey, Jr.'s and Denzel Washington's most recent starring turns.

If Fury gets credit for putting the horrors of war on up-close-and-personal display, it also has to take the blame for dawdling overlong on just about everything, resulting in an excessive runtime that could and should have been trimmed by at least 20 minutes. If this mess makes a ripple come awards season, I shall fail to feel even the tiniest bit of shame for keeping I, Frankenstein on my year-end top ten list!

Fury clocks in at 134 minutes and is rated R for "strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout."

I never go into a movie set on hating it, and honestly expected to come out of Fury impressed despite myself, Instead, the only fury to be had was my own, for seven bucks and two hours I can't get back.

Of a possible nine Weasleys, Fury gets four.

Until next time..

You each owe me $1.40.

Movie Reviews: TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Movie Reviews: TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
IN THEATERS

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

The battle for Earth has ended but the battle for the universe has just begun. After returning to Cybertron, Starscream assumes command of the Decepticons, and has decided to return to Earth with force. The Autobots believing that peace was possible finds out that Megatron's dead body has been stolen from the US Military by Skorpinox and revives him using his own spark. Now Megatron is back seeking revenge and with Starscream and more Decepticon reinforcements on the way, the Autobots with reinforcements of their own, may have more to deal with then meets the eye.

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Kevin Dunn

Director: Michael Bay

Opens today June 24, 2009

Runtime: 2 hr. 30 min.

Rated PG-13 for brief drug material, intense seq. of sci-fi violence, intense seq. of sci-fi action, crude and sexual material and language

Genres: Sci-Fi Action, Action, Science Fiction

Review:

A simple way to gauge how much you’ll enjoy Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen is to ask yourself a few simple questions. First off, did you enjoy the first movie? Secondly, do you know what to expect from a Michael Bay film? If you answered yes to both you’ll probably enjoy this sequel for what it is, mindless popcorn fun which never attempts to evoke more than visceral sensory thrills. For the most part Bay successes in doing this giving the audience more Autobot Decepticon battles and massive set pieces which you can’t help but marvel at. Bay lenses this film with his usual hyper kinetic style and delivers an endless array of money shots after slow motion money shots. It can get a tad taxing with the films overlong run time and while the battles are cool to look at they rarely carry any emotional weight to them mainly due to an even more thread bare script than the first film. Some major drawbacks to the script are way too many bad sexual or crude jokes which feel forced throughout, if you thought the first film’s urinating gag was bad you’ll find plenty to dislike here. Also there are plenty of new transformer characters brought into the fold, some with great effect like Soundwave, Sideswipe and Arcee. Other like the Autobot twins Mudflap and Skids near Jar Jar Binks level of grating-ness. The script is a jumbled mess that contains way too may cringe inducing lines and the overall plot isn’t terribly clear with some conceits making more sense (The Fallen, The Matrix of Leadership, Space Bridges and Energon) if you’ve been a lifelong fan of the original animated series otherwise it’s all just mindless jargon. Character wise neither human or robot characters fare very well in terms of depth. Whatever the character was in the first film they are pretty much the same thing here. Shia LaBeouf delivers a few interesting character moments but mostly he’s pretty much doing what he did at the end of the first film, running away from Robots and explosions. Megan Fox suffers an equal fate and she not strong enough an actress to make something special with such little non screaming running time. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson return from the first installment but they could have easily been replaced by anyone or no one as they aren’t asked to do more than shoot and scream orders. Faring a little better are other returning supporting players John Turturro Kevin Dunn and Julie White, the latter returning as Sam’s parents. All three are good fun and bring some needed comic relief. Newcomer to the franchise Ramon Rodriguez, as Sam’s college roommate, is also goofy fun in his supporting role. These actors weren’t asked to do much and they don’t for the most part, something that becomes fairly apparent when there’s a lull in the action. That being said when the film closes and you’ve witness a final battle that rivals Bay’s own Bad Boys 2 ( his other nth level opus of destruction) in sheer size and length you’ll either find yourself utterly entertained or mostly empty or maybe even both.

C+