Transformers One

 And now for something pleasant.

After seven live-action movies, the Transformers roll-out in the animated prequel, Transformers One. This is the franchise's first animated movie since 1986, as well as one of its best ever. Let's transform and see why.

On the planet Cybertron, the robotic citizenry is divided between those born with "T-Cogs," which makes them Transformers, and those who aren't, which makes them miners. These miners dig for Energon, Cybertron's fuel, which has been scarce following the loss of the legendary Matrix of Leadership. In Iacon, the capital of Cybertron, Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) both wish to prove themselves more than miners. They end up crashing the Iacon 5000 race, which impresses Cybertron's leader Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), but not the brutish guard Darkwing (Isaac Singleton Jr). 

Our heroes are demoted underground, where they meet the peppy B-127 (Keegan Michael Key). They also uncover the location of Alpha Trion (Laurence Fishburne), the last survivor of the thirteen legendary Primes. With the reluctant assistance of their former supervisor, Elita-1 (played by Scarlett Johansson), they set out to find him. Trion not only gives them their own T-Cogs but tells them that Sentinel is More Than Meets the Eye. This tests Orion Pax and D-16's friendship, up until it finally breaks, and they become Optimus Prime and Megatron, respectively.

Yeah, pleasant.

Despite the forgone conclusion, director Josh Cooley and his writing team make a fresh path to that point. It's even morbid in hindsight when Orion Pax and D-16 proclaim themselves best friends early on. In fact, D-16's character development maybe the film's greatest spark. As voiced by Henry, he's quite a good bro bot for Orion Pax, which makes their friendship fun to watch. But when Sentinel is revealed to be a villain, D-16 is consumed with slow-boiling rage as he seeks vengeance on not only him, but anyone he sees in his way. It finally explodes with terrifying force when D-16 finally becomes Megatron. It's also quite interesting to see how Megatron restructures the former Cybertronian High Guard into the Decepticons, as it gives its commander Starscream (Steve Buscemi) a justifiable reason for his famous backstabbing.

That doesn't mean the future Autobots don't mean much here. Orion Pax is quite likable long before his climactic upgrade. His scheming is funny, but just as importantly, he proves his heroism when he saves miner and future Autobot Jazz (Evan Michael Lee) from a cave-in. His friendship-turned-enmity with Megatron culminates in a strong climactic battle. Meanwhile, B-127 (Bumblebee) is quite funny, Elita-1 is a good voice of reason, and Alpha Trion is a decent Obi-Wan type. I probably should make room for Sentinel Prime and Darkwing, even though they aren't heroes. Sentinel's nice guy act is quite believable, particularly when he praises our heroes for crashing the Iacon 5000. That just makes his true casual evilness all the more loathsome. Darkwing, meanwhile, is a typical bully, and his comeuppance is quite amusing.

Industrial Light and Magic animated this film just as they did the live-action movies. It's no surprise that everything about it, from the production design to the character designs, is amazing. Iacon is quite splendid, while the Cybertronian surface above it is quite fascinating. One of Iacon's most unique touches are the roads, which materialize as a bot drives through them. There are several franchise favorites among the massive crowd shots, and I'm sure you'll have fun spotting as many as possible. On an individual level, Airachnid (Vanessa Luguori), Sentinel Prime's right-hand bot, has an impressively creepy design. The sound effects are neat, but modulating Buscemi's voice into Starscream's famously scratchy one is a nice touch. All of it is accentuated with another great score by Brian Tyler, particularly its impressive opening theme.

I didn't think much of Transformers One when it was announced several years ago. Way to prove my skepticism wrong, movie. Its finale cements itself as not only one of the best films in the franchise, but one of the best prequels ever. I'm now intrigued for a possible Transformers Two to see how these Autobots and Decepticons brought their war to Earth. But that may only be possible if the box office picks up exponentially soon. Have the last few live-action Transformers film let you down? Give this animated film a try, it's more than meets the eye.

That's it for now.

The Substance

When The Thing was released in 1982, it was critically shredded for its grotesque imagery and was stranded in the box-office cold. I wonder how those same critics would react to The Substance, this year's Canne Film Festival sensation, and its grotesqueries? For this modern reviewer, writing about it and reading about it is a lot easier than watching it. Here's hoping I can describe it without the censors noticing.

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a former Hollywood superstar, is now the host of a Daytime Aerobics show. That is, until her boss, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), fires her on her fiftieth birthday in favor of somebody younger. Elisabeth gets into a nasty wreck on her way home; afterwards, a mysterious nurse (Robin Greer) gives her a flash drive promoting The Substance. It's a self-cloning serum which will produce a younger clone with one injection. She'll have to switch her consciousness between the current and new hers every week (no exceptions). With her one injection, Sue (Margaret Qualley) is born.

As Sue, Elisabeth gets her show and superstardom back. But all that fame exasperates Elisabeth's feelings of self-hatred. "There is only one you," the mysterious inventor (Yann Bean) of The Substance explains, and both must co-exist. Sue, however, is determined to remain young and beautiful by any means. And things get much weirder and grosser, if they haven't been already.

Coralie Fargeat's second feature film is determined to unsettle you from minute one. Her cinematographer, Benjamin Kracun, films quite a bit of the movie in extreme close-ups. I'm sure many an appetite will be lost when they see Harvey stuff his face with shrimp up-close. In fact, most of Harvey's scenes are shot up-close, which only amplifies his unpleasantness exponentially. That's not getting into the actual body horror, which is just as disturbing on a visual and auditory level as The Thing. Sue/Elisabeth's refusal to switch personas causes Sue to literally fall apart, Elisabeth to rapidly age to absurdity, and results in a second clone, Monstro Elisasue, a misshapen mutant reminiscent of The Thing's most gruesome forms. Everyone following me so far?

To say that this film is overwhelming is an understatement. It's still strangely compelling, all things considered. A lot of it is due to Moore's performance, which lets us pity Elisabeth in any state. Late in the film, Elisabeth prepares for a date with an old classmate, only for her to be stuck doing her makeup again & again, until she finally crumbles from body dysmorphia. Moore specially makes Elisabeth pitiable underneath the most extreme of the film's fantastic makeup work. The finale gives her a very strange moment of happiness. Qualley, meanwhile, is quite formidable whether she's playing Sue as Elisabeth's younger self or her own person. She is also pitiable once she falls apart at the end. 

If body horror isn't your thing, then I advise you not to take The Substance. Those who are will not be disappointed. This is everything from a treatise on body dysmorphia to the world's most surreal anti-drug PSA. The bloody finale, in which Monstro makes her public debut, is so ridiculously over-the-top that it's kind of funny. It may be brutal, it may be overwhelming, but it certainly isn't forgettable. This will make for a great midnight movie, whether in theatres or on MUBI, the streaming platform distributing it now. See it soon if you want to see what I mean.

Next up, something pleasant.

The Killer's Game

Let's play America's new favorite game show, The Killer's Game! With your host, Jethro....

......................................

And there's nobody in the studio.

Oh well, let me tell you what this movie is all about.

Based on 1997 novel by Jay Bonansinga (several novels for The Walking Dead), this film spent decades in development hell, cycling in numerous directors and stars before J.J. Perry and Dave Bautista signed up. As a reminder of how old it is, one of its screenwriters is Rand Ravich, the director and writer of The Astronaut's Wife, and this is his first theatrical film since it bombed in 1999. Now for the main event.

Joe Flood (Bautista) is one of the world's best hitmen. He and his handler, Zvi (Ben Kingsley), take great pride in the fact that they kill only bad guys, such as some nobody during a modern dance performance. When another hitman shows up, there's a panic in the dance hall, and Joe ends up saving the lead dancer, Maize (Sofia Boutella), from a stampede. They quickly fall for each other, but Joe's chronic migraines get in the way.

Joe is soon diagnosed with the neurodegenerative Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and is given a prognosis of three months at best. Joe decides to get it over with by putting a hit out on himself. He consults with another handler, Marianna Antoinette (Pom Klementieff), for the unusual task. Antoinette, whose father was killed by Joe, is all too happy to put her assassins to work. As he awaits his end, Joe learns that he was misdiagnosed due to a clerical error, and that he's perfectly fine. Since Antoinette refuses to cancel the contract, Joe decides to prolong his life by taking on the murderer's row coming his way. He also has to protect Maize from becoming collateral damage. Easy, right?

Joe may have been misdiagnosed, but the film suffers a case of mood confusion. It can't seem to decide if it's a grounded romantic dramedy, or an over-the-top action comedy. For example, Joe breaks up with Maize, just before he learns of the misdiagnosis, and later composes a final voice message for her, in an overly melodramatic sequence amped up with Roque Banos's score. When Joe learns the "good news," just before the first hired guns show up, the mood becomes farcical. The hired guns are all outrageous stereotypes which include two sets of brothers, the first of whom fight with their motorcycles and the other being rowdy Scotsmen, and a flamenco dancer, who only show up just to fight Joe and get brutally killed. The confusion keeps on going up to the final battle.

The only hired gun with any development is Lovedahl (Terry Crews), the last man who takes up the job. That's only because he's kept on the sidelines throughout the film. He initially turns down the contract because the pay was too low for him. But once he gets going, he and his obnoxious assistant, Money (George Sommer), nab Maize and drive up to find Joe. He would have been a better rival for Joe if he showed up earlier and often. He's the only surviving hired gun, so there was some potential. As for Money, his best scenes were of him being a punching bag.

Bautista is as likable as a romantic lead as he is a cool hitman. He and Maize have a pretty likable relationship, even during the mood swings, and that likability doesn't diminish with each of his kills. The contrast between Joe's personal and professional lives is highlighted in an amusing montage. We're all for Joe when Maize is threatened late into the film. Maize finishing off the last hired gun somewhat makes up for her lack of screentime for much of the film. Amongst their supporting cast, Antoinette doesn't do much but gloat evilly; Zvi and his wife Sharon (Alex Kingston) are good mentor figures; the priest Father O'Brien (Dylan Moran) is actually quite funny.

The film's visual flair is pretty interesting. The hired guns get over-the-top intro scenes, while multiple scene transitions incorporate objects from the next scene. The CGI blood can be either jarringly out of place or perfectly in sync with the outrageousness. All the fake blood doesn't diminish how brutal the violence can get (such as a knockout punch for one hired gun). There's also some great location filming of Budapest by cinematographer Flavio Martínez Labiano for those who don't like blood. I didn't even realize that the Langos Brothers, aka the aforementioned biker brothers, were both played by the same actor (Miklós Szentváry-Lukács). I commend the visual trickery involved here. I also commend the sound design for helping us empathize with Joe during his migraines.

Is anyone going to play The Killer's Game a week later? Or are you all going to see what everyone else is offering? It maybe tonally confused, but I got to admit, it was interesting when it was over-the-top. A little fine tuning could have made it a great killer farce instead of an OK one. At least it's more enjoyable than some other recent films. It's time to prepare for some more big films in the next few months. And my weekend is packed with a few of them. Stay tuned.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

 Oh, now you've done it Jethro. You've almost hit the limit! On the title even!

Baxter, relax, haven't you listened to the musical? It has to be "three times in a row, spoken unbroken." So, as long as we don't reuse words a lot, we can say Beetlejuice as many times as we want. It's important for reviewing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

......

Nothing happened! Hey, you're right!

Anyway, let's see what ghoulish hijinks Tim Burton and his writers have come up with for the Ghost with the Most.

Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is now the host of her own talk show, Ghost House, where she investigates, well, ghost houses and interviews their mortal occupants. She's still haunted by visions of Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton); meanwhile, she has a strained relationship with her stepmother, Delia (Catherine O'Hara), and her daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is embarrassed to be associated with her. Lydia, Delia and Astrid all head back to Winter River, Connecticut, for the funeral of their patriarch, Charles (originated by Jeffrey Jones, whose legal troubles made it impossible for him to return). Her producer and boyfriend, Rory (Justin Theroux), even proposes right at the wake.

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice's (or Betelgeuse's) ex-wife, Delores (Monica Bellucci), pulls herself back together and goes on a soul-sucking beeline for His Ghostliness. Also, meanwhile, Astrid finds herself a new ghost boyfriend named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), who just wants to get his mortal green card stamped. Astrid agrees to help him, unaware that Jeremy is a murderer who wants to trade her life for his. When Lydia finds out about it, she calls up Beetlejuice to help her go after them. She agrees to marry the ghoul if it means getting Astrid back. It all leads to a bit of mayhem at a church.

That sure sounds like a lot. The film is only 105-minutes long, slightly longer than the first film, but the big hook of it all - Beetlejuice and Lydia's team-up - kicks off about an hour in. What other stuff is there? There's also some business with ghost cop Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe) and his squad of keystone ghost cops. Delores sucks a few souls during the film (including a janitor played by Danny DeVito), but she finally gets to Beetlejuice in the climax. Delia's obsession with the eccentric leads her to the last mistake of her life. Surprisingly, these subplots don't really overwhelm the film.

Lydia and Astrid's problems drive most of the film. Lydia's nightmares of Beetlejuice, nicely edited by Jay Prychidny, are as scary for her as they are for the audience. Just wait until you see the finale. Astrid spends the first half believing her mother a fraud, which makes it memorable when she discovers Jeremy's ethereal nature. Astrid and Jeremy are pretty likable together, at least, until we realize who Jeremy was. Astrid and Lydia also have pretty good chemistry together, in good times and in bad. Richard (Santiago Cabrera), Lydia's husband and Astrid's dad, only has about a few scenes in death. But they were pretty good ones. 

Meanwhile, Dafoe is clearly having a ball as Jackson, who is one of the funniest characters in the film. Delia's eccentricities are amusing, but her intuition into Lydia's relationships is impressive. We pity her once she realizes that she is among the recently deceased. Bellucci is fine as Delores, but she doesn't have much to do. Rory is quite tactless, domineering, and you'll realize he's a lot worse. He's still a lot more likable than Jeremy, that's for sure.

And who can forget Beetlejuice? He's just as tactless and manically charming as he was when he debuted in 1988. He has a few moments of decency, including giving Jeremy a nasty surprise, so he isn't that bad. But still, you'll understand Lydia's apprehension around him. Beetlejuice first appeared in full forty-seven minutes into the first film and had about seventeen minutes of screentime. This time, he appears quite earlier and seems like he has more screentime, but he never wears out his welcome.

Production Designer Mark Scruton and Costume Designer Colleen Atwood do a pretty good job recreating the visual aesthetics from the original film. The new locales, outfits and even lighting schemes are especially appealing. The makeup and hairstyling for both the living and dead are just as delightfully ghoulish as the first film's Oscar-winning work. The most ghoulish design maybe Charles Deetz's new look, though I'm positive CGI was involved. There's some good stop-motion to visualize Charles's death, as well as another old favorite, the Titan Sandworm. Danny Elfman's update of the first film's theme, as well as his new score, is outstanding. And yes, The Banana Boat Song makes a cameo, while Macarthur Park figures into this film's big musical number (I never realized how silly the lyrics were, but that's just me).

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a pretty good belated sequel to a dark comedy classic. It is significantly more macabre than its predecessor, but it has a compelling narrative about both the living and the dead learning to appreciate life. If Warner Brothers wants to remake the first film, they should do the decent thing and adapt the Broadway musical. Then again, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice does have some thematic overlap with the musical, so maybe they did. Burton credits this film with getting his filmmaking groove back; I await his next film more than ever.

Yeah, I can't wait for the inevitable Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice...

(It's Showtime!)

I walked into that one, didn't I?

That's it for now.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom

It turns out that The Primevals isn't the only movie with an epic production history. 

Mobile Suit Gundam was cut short after only 43 episodes during its 1979 run. It's now one of the staples of the anime world, with multiple spin-offs in every format imaginable. One of its most popular spin-offs, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, was supposed to have a movie as early as 2006, shortly after the run of its sequel series, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Unfortunately, series head writer Chiaki Morosawa was in constant poor health and ultimately passed away in 2016. A few years later, Morosawa's husband and series director Mitsuo Fukuda got her script together with the help of SEED novel writer Liu Goto.

This is the end result, which premiered in Japanese theatres in January, had a two-night US run in May, and is now on Netflix and Hulu.

In a typical Gundam series, humans have established space colonies and often wage war on Earth and in space using humanoid mobile suits. The protagonists, including SEED's Kira Yamato, have super-special mobile suits called Gundams. A few years after Destiny, Kira leads a team of mobile suit pilots, which includes Destiny's protagonist Shinn Asuka, to defend world peace on behalf of the peacekeeping organization COMPASS. In the SEED universe, war has been waging between genetically-modified Coordinators and the aptly-named Naturals. Kira, himself a Coordinator, is naturally sick of it all.

The Empire of Foundation allies with COMPASS to deal with the terrorist group Blue Cosmos. Unfortunately, Foundation's Prime Minister Orphee Lam Tao sets up COMPASS for a False Flag Operation during the pivotal sortie. Tao is a Coordinator, as is most of Foundation's leadership, and they want to implement a new world order based on their genetic superiority. He even wants fellow Coordinator and COMPASS president Lacus Clyne, who is also Kira's love interest, to love him or else. Kira and his friends have to get it together to stop Tao before he nukes the world into submission with his Requiem space laser.

Did everybody get all that?

Once again, this is an anime film that requires you to have kept up with the story thus far. Those who have never watched the TV show, or even finished either of its seasons, will certainly be lost. There's a tangible amount of understandable material, such as the "Destiny Project" that the namesake season's Big Bad Durandal wanted to implement, and this movie's villains want to finish. A lot of the new characters are actually cases of "remember the new guy?" syndrome. Col. Michael, the leader of Blue Cosmos, is spoken of like a holdover villain from the TV show. But he's actually a Living MacGuffin that was introduced in this film; he doesn't even fight the heroes. 

Those unfamiliar with either TV season will find the heroes decently compelling. Kira and Lacus get some nice romantic moments in the first act, some surprisingly decent melodrama when new character Agnes tries to get in between them, and they share a Gundam together in the final battle. Lacus gets her best solo moment when she repeatedly resists Tao's literally hypnotic charm. Kira also confronts his former rival turned friend, Athrun Zala, in a gloriously over-the-top act two punch out which sees Shinn clobbered when he tries to stop them. The secondary couple, Captain Murrue Ramius (also the film's narrator) and hotshot pilot Mu La Flaga, have a few nice moments too. It was funny to see Team Kira hijack Murrue's ship, Millenium, while several armadas openly fail to stop them.

Now for the villains. Tao's nice guy act is very convincing, especially when he feigns indignation over COMPASS's alleged betrayal. Eventually, we realize how much of an entitled creep he is. Lacus showing sympathy for him in his last moments is a bit excessive, but that's validated by one last moment between him and his lieutenant, Ingrid. Aura, the seemingly young Queen of Foundation, turns out to be older and crueler than she looks. Amongst the Black Knights, Foundation's Royal Guard, we have the smug snake Shura Serpentine and the obnoxious Redelard Tradoll. Neither of them will be missed. Finally, we have Agnes, who turns to their side for selfish reasons. Still, you'll want to pity her a bit more than Tao.

What else does it have? The film has about three extended battle scenes. The opening battle is a good way to show Team Kira do what they do best. The anti-Blue Cosmos operation gets really scary when Shura mentally attacks Kira and drives him to cross a Demarcation Line. It gets especially nightmarish when nukes get involved, and the film doesn't shy away from showing civilians and soldiers getting flash-fried by either the nukes or Requiem. The final battle was pretty cool, but it was a bit incomprehensible as nearly all of Team Kira's Gundams adopted the same color scheme. Which was which? That aside, the Mobile Suit animation was pretty well done. Series composer Toshihiko Sahashi provides a decent score for this outing, though it was surprisingly hard to hear it properly at times. 

This is not an easy entry point into the "Cosmic Era" of Gundam lore. Fortunately, both seasons of the anime are ready to watch on Netflix if you want to get in there. I never watched anything past SEED's first half, largely due to its initial timeslot getting messed up, but I still had memories of what I saw. I was still invested in this film's central drama even amongst the piling up subplots and massive cast. I even got used to the newer dub cast's* performances pretty quickly. All in all, I found Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom a good finale for this part of the franchise. Do come prepared, though.

* For those interested, the series was initially dubbed in Canada, while a new American cast took over for the HD Remastered Edition a few years ago.