Reviews

So from a purely technical standpoint the movie is very strong. There is solid cinematography, great audio, well choreographed fight sequences, strong special effects, and very appropriate costume design.

The acting is a bit rigid and the character development gets lost quite a bit in the re-hashing of the previous Batman and Superman movies. Ben Afflek makes a good Batman, delivering the dark broodiness you expect, but as Bruce Wayne he just seems boring and unimpressive. Henry Cavill does the same, presenting a strong Superman character struggling to balance his "humanity" with the fact that he is not human, but as Clark Kent he seems flat and boring.

The film is also clearly rushed. Too much plot development is just cast aside in order to conveniently fit their narrow plot into the 2+ hours allotted for the film. There are large plot holes that make little sense but are there for convenience and they even seem to run trailers for other DC Super Hero movies in the middle of this movie, as if advertising "Yea, we know there could have been a lot more here, but we want to rush this story out first".

This film is a light-hearted comedic gem that received a rather unfair series of reviews by "professionals" who seem to be mostly interested only in content if it fits a cookie cutter slate for "Oscar Worthy". This is no Academy Award Winning movie, but it is entertaining, well done, and all around a joy to watch.

The overall premise about an unlucky fellow turning his luck around while still trying to do right by his wife is touching and delivered in a sincere fashion if not a serious one. While Jay Trotter (Richard Dreyfuss) may seem like a shallow, self-obsessed character it becomes evident through his actions and eventual decision to "Let it Ride" that he has a level of complexity to him. In the end it is a story about the underdog getting his due.

If you haven't seen this film and are on the fence I highly recommend you give it a try. The professional reviews about it are mainly the same dry "It won't win an Oscar" crud that you expect from professional reviewers watching a movie that was not meant for Oscar Candidacy anyway. Take it for what it is: a funny film about a man turning his life around with just a little bit of luck and a lot of perseverance.

The Transformers trend of getting a bit less desirable with each sequel continues in this fourth installment. The first film captured our attention, the over the top explosive directing style of Michael Bay was a great fit for the lovable goofiness of Shia LaBeouf and the sexiness of Megan Fox. The Second film did its best to continue this trend, but there wasn't anything really captivating about it. The second film was a sequel in every essence, simply another title in the chain. By the Third Film the audience was lost, and deservedly so. With the second film ending in its pivotal romance between Sam and Mikaela and their confession of love the audience was shocked to see the third movie open without Megan Fox (Mikaela). In fact they did not only make her absence glaringly obvious, they had the distastefulness to force another woman (by showing her in her panties in the opening shot) into the mix without any kind of explanation beyond "she dumped me". To add insult to injury for some reason Sam retained custody of Mikaela's dog. The entire third movie could stand quite well, or better, without the new girlfriend Carly. Which brings us to the Fourth movie in the franchise. The most utterly disappointing one to date. Basically all connection to the first 3 films is erased and we are given Mark Wahlberg as Cade Yeager, a struggling inventor and engineer. This film relies on the father daughter relationship as a crutch mostly to push the storyline forward, which it sorely needs. The movie starts dreadfully slow and then suffers enormous pacing problems at the end when the giant battle between Optimus and his enemies drags on for a seemingly endless amount of time. Most of the fighting is extraneous at best, all done as eye candy which by now the audience is quite tired with. In the end the movie is probably an hour longer than it should be thanks to these extra fight sequences that last far too long, the father daughter "surprise boyfriend" chemistry is boring at best, the plot seems unsure who is the bad guy: The humans or the alien robots, and there are no moments where you feel surprised or thrilled; its all the same material.

So I was just out of high school when this movie came out, I recall all the promoting and advertising they did for it (Taco Bell Cups and the like). At the time I had no interest, John Travolta was the guy from Face/Off, Broken Arrow, and Pulp Fiction. Seeing him in a sci-fi action title didn't interest me in the least. So fast forward 15 years later and I catch this gem on DVD at a garage sale for $0.15 and I have to buy it. Why? Mostly because buying it second hand this way ensures none of my money goes to Scientology, but mainly because I was dared once before to watch this movie a few years ago and couldn't find a legit copy anywhere. So now I figured I would take that $5 challenge to sit through the whole movie start to end without interruption. Needless to say I lost $5.15 that day. This film is abysmal and is the reason why there needs to be a 0 rating on IMDb. There is not a single redeeming feature to the entire production: the credits are crap, the music is terrible, the acting is bad, the dialogue is forced and uninteresting, the special effects are not that special (this movie came out 7 years AFTER Jurassic Park and the effects in that are 1000 times better), the costumes are just ridiculous Mad Max rip offs, and the plot makes no sense whatsoever. Avoid this film unless it is for ironic reasons or to torture someone. Even then be forewarned there is a strong possibility you will fall asleep while watching it (as I did).

Absolutely nothing redeeming about this title at all. The acting is bad, the dialogue is worse, the special effects are not special at all, the cinematography is lackluster, the costumes are like the kind you make as cosplayer, the sound was bad, the musical score basically non-existent, and to top it off the story is boring and uninteresting

If you watch the first 5 minutes you will immediately regret it. The main character is explaining their back story in this sci-fi futuristic action movie and they decided that adding scan lines to the video would make it more futuristic. And not well done scan lines that make the video seem like it might actually be a video...just a low transparency set of scan lines that a 12 year old would put into a video game they are programming because they saw the movie Aliens for the first time.

If you make it further than the abysmal intro you are sure to regret it. I had to force myself to finish it because I just wanted to see how bad it could really get and it gets really bad. Please if you have not watched this, do yourself a favor and don't. There is a reason it has such a low rating...if I could give it 0 I would, but 1 is the lowest possible score.