1 Razor

Less, Far Less, Than Meets the Eye

  • Title: Transformers
  • IMDb: link

As a kid I had Transformers toys, I watched the television series without fail, and collected the original Marvel Comics Transformers series (all 80 issues and those lame cross-over mini-series too!).  So the fanboy in me was ecstatic when I learned that a live-action film of the comics, television show, and toys I grew up with was going to be attempted.  But when I heard that Michael Bay was going to head the project I felt less than thrilled.  Remember, this is from the guy who defended The Island, but I still doubted whether Bay could translate the stories of my youth to the big screen.  I shouldn’t have worried because he didn’t even try.  There isn’t a single recognizable moment from the Transformers of my childhood other than you’ve got robots that transform into objects and vehicles.  I am deeply saddened that Bay and his writers didn’t trust the source material and the original character designs and mythology choosing instead to throw out over twenty-years of history to do it their own way.  The result is less, far less, than meets the eye.

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Another Philip K. Dick Flick?  Skip it, and wait for the NEXT one

  • Title: Next
  • IMDB: link

next-posterGreat idea, horrible execution.  That’s Next in a nutshell.  To start off with the film has much working against it.  First off, it’s based on the Philip K. Dick short story “The Golden Man,” and we all know that Hollywood has had mixed success translating his work on screen. 

Add to that a floundering Nicholas Cage (anyone remember Ghost Rider?) and the curse of Jessica Biel (see Blade Trinity, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Illusionist, Summer Catch, Elizabethtown, Rules of Attraction, and Stealth) and you have all manner of disasters just waiting to occur.

The film centers around lackluster magician Cris Johnson (Cage), working under the name Frank Cadillac – we don’t care why, but the film feels a need to explain the name, which is about the only thing it seems to give a straight explanation. 

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More Like Hell

  • Title: Haven
  • IMDB: link

haven-posterHaven is like watching a mediocre movie on cable television and switching the channel to a different mediocre movie every 30 minutes and occasionally going back to see if the others have gotten any better.  Well, it’s not quite that good.

The film begins with the story of successful business man Carl Ridley (Bill Paxton) and his teenage daughter Pippa (Agnes Bruckner), who flee the country to the Cayman Islands to avoid prosecution.  Carl has laundered money from some illegal activity (the film never explains what this was, or the limit to Carl’s involvement).

Once in the Islands, Pippa (what an awful name) rebels and hangs out with a local wannabe gangster (Victor Rasuk) who steals a car, takes her to a party, gets her high and then arrested.

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X3: The Lamest Stand

  • Title: X-Men: The Last Stand
  • IMDB: link

x-men-the-lamest-stand-posterI have this vision in my head of Brett Ratner and Bryan Singer.  Singer who directed the first two films was originally attached to this one and Ratner was scheduled to direct Superman Returns.  One left, then the other and then they were suddenly attached to each other’s films.  Here’s my thought – Ratner and Singer both in their new offices laughing hysterically to themselves that they’ve detached themselves from a horrible project and put the noose around the other guy’s neck while they have moved on to brighter pastures.  Then they each sit down in their new offices in their cushy chairs basking in their sense of accomplishment and read the script in front of them only upon finishing to exclaim, “Oh shit!”

The fallout from Alkaline Lake has left Cyclops (James Marsden) a broken man who is drawn back there after months by a voice in his head only to find his love Jean Grey (Famke Jensen) resurrected but not quite the same.  It seems Jean is the most powerful mutant on the planet and also has been schizophrenic since childhood; the repressed personality of the Phoenix is now in control.  Professor X (Patrick Stewart) had been keeping Jean’s mind together by caging the other personality deep within her mind but now it has been unleashed.

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Criminally Contrived Cinema

  • Title: Failure to Launch
  • IMDb: link

A man meets a woman through a wager, bet, or dare or has some secret that can’t be shared.  The two actually do fall for each other (these contrived film couples somehow always have 100% compatibility) but just as they are expressing their true love the reality of the bet, dare, or secret is exposed and the characters are forced to part for about 20 minutes of screen time when their mutual friends come up with a plan to trick them into getting back together.  It always works and the couple lives happily ever after.

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