This is just a quick housekeeping post. If you follow the blog, you might have noticed I have switched from giving stars to giving letter grades. The reason for this is that I have come to feel that letter grades better capture the subjective nature of rating movies. It doesn't make sense to compare Bringing Up Baby to Spotlight because they are doing completely unrelated things in every single sense. Instead, I am trying to rate them not just on how much I like them (which is still admittedly the biggest criteria) but take into consideration how well they do what they are trying to do. Spotlight is not trying to make you laugh until your sides hurt and it would be a complete failure if it did that. But it is not a failure but rather a triumph when Bringing Up Baby does this. Each of these would have gotten a 5 star rating from me but that would make it seem like they are on equal footing somehow. They would still both get top marks with an A+. But hopefully it will be more obvious that they are in completely different subjects.
Merry Christmas!
Friday, December 21, 2018
Bumblebee
I was supposed to go see Mortal Engines today with a friend but, at the last minute, we changed our minds and went and saw Bumblebee instead. I'm so glad that we did. I have to preface this with saying that I have never seen a Transformers movie before. I have seen clips from them though and those clips did not inspire confidence. But I was intrigued that Bumblebee was not directed by Michael Bay and the reviews have been positive. I certainly hope that future Transformers movies take notice.
The movie opens on a fight between two groups of giant robots which probably would be instantly recognizable to fans of the series. The good robots were losing pretty badly and Bumblebee is sent to Earth as a sort of scout or vanguard. Upon arrival, he is attacked by the military and a couple Decepticons. (Apparently they even call themselves this, which should be a red flag and even triggers a statement to that effect by one of the characters). In this fight (I promise this is not really a spoiler), his vocalizer part is ripped out and lost. This turns out to be a really good plot device because he has to spend the rest of the movie trying to communicate in creative ways that really lend charm to the story.
Anyway, to hide himself, he transforms into a VW Beetle and ends up in a junkyard. He is obtained by teenage Charlie, played by Hailee Steinfeld. Charlie is a typical rebellious teenager who is struggling with the death of her father and how her mother seems to have moved on with a new man. What makes Charlie stand out is her mechanical giftedness. When she brings the bug home, hoping to fix it up, she discovers that it is actually a Transformer. What follows is a great action movie that is much more focused on developing the characters and their relationships to each other.
Bumblebee is proof that less is often more. The Transformers franchise has often been ridiculed for the excess of explosions, unintelligible action sequences, and a penchant for ogling young actresses with the camera. Travis Knight has learned from all this and makes sure that none of this is present, except for the opening sequence on the robot planet. All of the fight scenes are shot so that you can clearly tell what is happening. Hailee Steinfeld is not overly sexualized as opposed to the infamous scenes with Megan Fox. And most importantly, Travis Knight has realized that Transformers is not meant to take itself so seriously.
As for the acting, Hailee Steinfeld was great as Charlie. I am definitely interested in what else she may be working on. John Cena was also well-cast as a cheesy, cliched soldier typical of 80s action movies. Bumblebee made good use of this cliche and Cena hammed it up and really made a good take on the stereotype. Speaking of the 80s, Bumblebee is jam-packed with 80s references, from the saturation of 80s music (I'm not going to give away one of the gimmicks that it effectively uses 80s music to accomplish.) But the music isn't all – there are plenty of references to 80s movies thrown in throughout. One of the most obvious is E.T., which provides a lot of the plot and also a noticeable scene spoofed by Bumblebee when everyone is out of the house.
One last thing – I really appreciated the cinematography. I get so tired of seeing action movies where it seems very intense, but you can't actually tell what is happening. For the most part, Bumblebee avoids this. This applies even to the little things. One that I noticed comes near the end, where two robots are fighting and Charlie is climbing a crane. At some point, her feet slip and she starts dangling. The camera zooms out, purportedly to better see her struggle but it actually shows the robots fight beneath her. It then cuts to the robot fight and then repeats the same technique of zooming out to show her hanging and cuts to her. The transition is so smooth and informs you of the spatial relationship of all the action. It would have been very easy to just cut from her to the robots and back to her. But instead, they took the time to think creatively about the transition and their hard work really pays off. I think one of the reasons for this is that Travis Knight has spent most of his career doing stop-motion animation where every single movement is a conscious decision. The resulting rigor of directing turns out to lend itself very well to live action.
I still can't believe that I am doing this for a Transformers movie, but I strongly recommend that you check out Bumblebee. I'm hopeful this can be a shot in the arm for the franchise and that there will be more good things to come.
Grade: A
Caveat Spectator
There really is not much here. There is no sex or nudity whatsoever and very little swearing that I could notice. Most of the violence is between robots. There are a couple scenes where people are killed by instantly turning them to water.
The movie opens on a fight between two groups of giant robots which probably would be instantly recognizable to fans of the series. The good robots were losing pretty badly and Bumblebee is sent to Earth as a sort of scout or vanguard. Upon arrival, he is attacked by the military and a couple Decepticons. (Apparently they even call themselves this, which should be a red flag and even triggers a statement to that effect by one of the characters). In this fight (I promise this is not really a spoiler), his vocalizer part is ripped out and lost. This turns out to be a really good plot device because he has to spend the rest of the movie trying to communicate in creative ways that really lend charm to the story.Anyway, to hide himself, he transforms into a VW Beetle and ends up in a junkyard. He is obtained by teenage Charlie, played by Hailee Steinfeld. Charlie is a typical rebellious teenager who is struggling with the death of her father and how her mother seems to have moved on with a new man. What makes Charlie stand out is her mechanical giftedness. When she brings the bug home, hoping to fix it up, she discovers that it is actually a Transformer. What follows is a great action movie that is much more focused on developing the characters and their relationships to each other.
Bumblebee is proof that less is often more. The Transformers franchise has often been ridiculed for the excess of explosions, unintelligible action sequences, and a penchant for ogling young actresses with the camera. Travis Knight has learned from all this and makes sure that none of this is present, except for the opening sequence on the robot planet. All of the fight scenes are shot so that you can clearly tell what is happening. Hailee Steinfeld is not overly sexualized as opposed to the infamous scenes with Megan Fox. And most importantly, Travis Knight has realized that Transformers is not meant to take itself so seriously.
As for the acting, Hailee Steinfeld was great as Charlie. I am definitely interested in what else she may be working on. John Cena was also well-cast as a cheesy, cliched soldier typical of 80s action movies. Bumblebee made good use of this cliche and Cena hammed it up and really made a good take on the stereotype. Speaking of the 80s, Bumblebee is jam-packed with 80s references, from the saturation of 80s music (I'm not going to give away one of the gimmicks that it effectively uses 80s music to accomplish.) But the music isn't all – there are plenty of references to 80s movies thrown in throughout. One of the most obvious is E.T., which provides a lot of the plot and also a noticeable scene spoofed by Bumblebee when everyone is out of the house.
One last thing – I really appreciated the cinematography. I get so tired of seeing action movies where it seems very intense, but you can't actually tell what is happening. For the most part, Bumblebee avoids this. This applies even to the little things. One that I noticed comes near the end, where two robots are fighting and Charlie is climbing a crane. At some point, her feet slip and she starts dangling. The camera zooms out, purportedly to better see her struggle but it actually shows the robots fight beneath her. It then cuts to the robot fight and then repeats the same technique of zooming out to show her hanging and cuts to her. The transition is so smooth and informs you of the spatial relationship of all the action. It would have been very easy to just cut from her to the robots and back to her. But instead, they took the time to think creatively about the transition and their hard work really pays off. I think one of the reasons for this is that Travis Knight has spent most of his career doing stop-motion animation where every single movement is a conscious decision. The resulting rigor of directing turns out to lend itself very well to live action.
I still can't believe that I am doing this for a Transformers movie, but I strongly recommend that you check out Bumblebee. I'm hopeful this can be a shot in the arm for the franchise and that there will be more good things to come.
Grade: A
Caveat Spectator
There really is not much here. There is no sex or nudity whatsoever and very little swearing that I could notice. Most of the violence is between robots. There are a couple scenes where people are killed by instantly turning them to water.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)