10 Reasons to see Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

The latest Transformers movie has been critically panned from virtually every corner. Danny Leigh off that BBC show with Claudia Winkleface is even calling for strike action to boycott the movie in The Guardian and thus send a message to studio execs. But outside elite film critics there must still be a demand for Michael Bay’s franchise. And I bet those of you that are glass half full kind of people, are crying out for some positivity. Wail no more optimistic readers.

1)      Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is based on a pretty sound and promising premise. It draws on one of the most historic moments in human civilization, the 1969 moon landing, to give a story about toys some narrative heft for the adults. The space race, we discover, was not just a competitive dash to the stars but a sprint for the wreckage of an Autobot ship, containing some alien tech with Godlike powers. But hang on the astronauts look round for a bit and then come home again rather uneventfully…

Aside from the idea there’s the title itself. I mean it’s pretty damn cool to make a film with the same name as a legendary Pink Floyd album! Oh wait, there’s a word missing. But they say Dark Side of the Moon in the movie? Maybe Michael Bay (or some lawyers) decided it was snappier to drop a word.

2)      Or perhaps no one wanted to limit this film to just the one “side”. There are at least three sides available because Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is out in 3D. In fact with the juggernaut of 3D films slowing, its supporters in the industry are said to be pinning their hopes on Bay’s blockbuster because his trademark CGI pyrotechnics look stunning via the magic shades. I saw it in 2D because I wasn’t keen on paying more for a film I didn’t really want to endure. But let’s stick with the positives.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen makes a case for being one of the worst films of all time. I haven’t even seen it (mostly because of the sheer force of the derision) but you know a film is bad when its director and star use words like “shit” and “crap” just seconds after they are no longer contractually obliged to promote it. The original Transformers was surprisingly good though and critical consensus is that this is substantially better than the sequel. The downside for Michael “Boom-Bang-Bam” Bay is that most reviewers are merely saying Transformers 3 is better to illustrate how atrociously bad the second instalment was.

3)      Damn I said I would stick with the positives didn’t I? Well there are always two big ticks alongside Michael Bay’s name. He is consistent and he always provides plenty of bangs for your buck. I saw the first Transformers by accident all those years ago and I was won over primarily by Bay’s competent handling of stuff frequently exploding into thousands of shards of glass and chunks of concrete. In Transformers 3, if you stick with it for over an hour, you get to see Chicago flattened. In one scene the human characters slide through a skyscraper as it collapses. Then they slide through it again. Then more stuff blows up. Then some more. Then there’s some slow mo. And a bit more. Something else goes bang. You lose interest.

4)      Alright there are some negatives. Like the constantly annoying and yelping Shia LaBeouf.

5)      But surely these are more than outweighed by the presence of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley? It was a big ask to find someone to replace Megan Fox’s assets but British lingerie model Rosie was named FHM’s sexiest woman of 2011. Physically she easily fills the implausibly hot girlfriend role. Bay knows he’s working with a thing of beauty, panning the camera down her body in the middle of action sequences.

Unfortunately her performance has been chewed, swallowed, digested and vomited onto a pile of steaming fresh elephant dung by every single critic. Surprisingly I thought her acting was worse when she was simply required to scream. We see her getting dressed from behind briefly at one point and in a couple of revealing dresses but not sufficiently unclothed to warrant the price of admission. Having said that Bay does his best to reduce every single female extra to eye candy by ordering them to strut about or look scared in something short.

6)      On the plus side! John Malkovich appears in what might be a mildly amusing but pointless cameo in a film that was at least an hour shorter.

7)      Ken Jeong also shows up as essentially his character from The Hangover, minus any of the sometimes funny rudeness. He is vital to one of the many baffling and needless sub plots. Which leads me to reason number eight…

8)      A glorious two and a half hour runtime may make any of the microscopically good things in this film meaningless but it has its beneficial effects as a sedative. You’ll be capable of falling into a sleep so deep that a succession of nuclear wars wouldn’t wake you after Bay has left you numbed and extremely bored by repetitive scenes of endless destruction.

9)      Actually there aren’t even 10 fake reasons to see it.

I have completely failed to live up to my nickname of Optimist Prime…

Angelina Jolie gets the boot for Tomb Raider resurrection

It seems certain that Angelina Jolie will not reprise the role of Lara Croft, the voluptuous pistol wielding archaeologist from the successful Tomb Raider video game franchise.

The writers behind the script for Iron Man, Mark Fergus and Hawk Otsby, are attached to a project to reboot the character with an origin story. Earlier this year GK Films acquired the rights to the series, with producer Graham King (The Departed) set to take charge for a 2013 release.

Despite proving a perfect fit physically for the role, almost precisely realising the impossibly busty  figure from the game to the delight of many, Jolie’s two films as the gun toting heroine left both cinemagoers and gamers cold. The new writers are aiming to put this right with something more than a passable action movie with appealing eye candy. In an interview with Variety they set out their high hopes for their reinterpretation of the character: “We aim to write an origin story for Lara Croft that solidifies her place alongside Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor in the pantheon of great female action heroes.”

The casting rumour mill is inevitably churning already. The writers may want to rework Lara’s colossal cleavage into a critically acclaimed cinematic icon but the filmmakers are unlikely to depart from the expectations of a seriously hot chick as the lead. Hence the whispers a while back of Megan Fox of Transformers fame taking over from the equally lusted after Jolie. Such a casting would stick to the current formula and guarantee a decent box office return, but given Fox’s performance record her casting would probably also tarnish the writers’ high minded vision.

Jolie’s English accent wasn’t exactly authentic during her time as Lara, prompting some to call for a young English actress to take over for the origin story. Harry Potter’s Emma Watson has been a surprise candidate mooted in some quarters, with other Brits speculated about including Rebecca Hall and Gemma Arterton. Of course there are the usual Hollywood names such as Scarlett Johansson in the mix too.

The casting of a relative unknown is a possibility, especially with the serious approach the writers appear to be taking. The Tomb Raider brand itself would give the film clout in theatres but it seems unlikely the production company would risk it without a big name star.

Whoever is picked for the role will need the flexibility to portray Lara’s transition from aristocratic, carefree heiress to globetrotting adventurer and adrenalin junkie. The plot is expected to draw on the plane crash that stranded the character in the Himalayan Mountains for two weeks and inspired her to give up a comfortable and luxurious existence.

Who do you think can step into Jolie’s shoes? Where can the franchise improve? And is this a film finally capable of giving the world a female action hero for the 21^st century?

Blooded

You are a mega-bucks banker, a liberated twenty-something, a first class slut. You’re a whistling milkman, a tearaway toddler, a grieving widow. You’re a freedom fighter utterly consumed by ideological struggle. You’re a madman, a gunman, a best man. You’re an axe wielding gamekeeper in deep, sensuous love with your ladylike employer. You’re a sophisticated stalker, leering like an aristocratic butcher at young girls you view as goddesses; cheap meaty chunks of divine beauty. You’re a prisoner that’s only ever known the reality of four bare walls. You are human.

You’re barely clothed, stripped of decency and alone in the wilderness. You’re unreasonably frightened; terrified merely by nature’s regular and natural breathing. You feel an irrepressible sense of panicky foreboding deep in the truth of your gut. The cold bites greedily at your bare skin, sinking you deep into inescapable agony. You’ve never known anything like it; the never-ending needles of pain, the relentless rattle of your rib cage, the fear. The pain and fear of the hunted as you run for your life. As you run like an animal.

As you read this in the comforting light of your computer screen, chances are you are none of these things. And yet we can all imagine, however slightly, what the existence of a freedom fighter or a widow might be like. We can never truly know until we have lived it, and even then no two individuals will share identical emotions. But as human beings empathy remains one of the handful of characteristics that truly sets us apart from animals and beasts. There’s nothing quite like the sadness of feeling someone else’s loss as if it were your own or the failure of someone close to you to understand your own melancholy. Some may argue in favour of other traits and skills, like language and pure intelligence. In many ways though, empathy is the foundation to all art, the essence and gateway to all storytelling.

Empathy is at the heart of the intriguing central premise to Blooded, a British debut film out on the 1^st of April. The release date of April Fool’s Day is fitting given that Blooded is part of the modern phenomenon of “is it truth or is it fiction?” storytelling. It makes use of a documentary/reconstruction format to tell the tale of the kidnapping of a group of pro fox hunting campaigners by an extremist animal rights group in the picturesque, but barren, Highlands of Scotland. Empathy becomes crucial to the story when the mysterious kidnappers release their captives across the wilderness in their underwear, before pursuing them with guns to make them experience the horror of being hunted.  Presumably the horror the foxes feel seconds away from a mauling by the hounds.

It’s certainly a distinctive and controversial concept for a film. The narrative is presented in unfamiliar layers compared to your average feature. We’re introduced firstly to the idea that a group of pro-hunters were filmed by a group of anti-hunters in the Highlands and that the resulting video became an internet sensation. We then meet the “real” pro-hunter personalities that lived through the event in classic documentary interview style. These interviews continue throughout the film through both voiceovers and close-ups. We also have the majority of the action shown to us via a reconstruction of the “actual” events, with different actors than those playing the “real” people. All of this is confusing and disorientating at first. But not in a bad way.

Just because Blooded has an unusual structure and deals with politically sensitive issues, does not mean it’s destined to fail. In fact last year I loved Catfish, a film in a similar truth/fiction style that dealt with current and also potentially dull and alienating topics. The cocktail of unconventional storytelling and thought provoking subject matter can prove a potent and satisfying one indeed. It has the potential to really set a film apart as an original success. Sadly though it’s a difficult balance to strike and Blooded doesn’t quite find it.

It’s a critical cliché to say that a film has an “identity crisis”. But there is no better way of explaining why Blooded’s bold ideas and execution don’t quite come together. The film opens with a character talking about extremism and how it essentially boils down to two sides trying to outshout the other. Watching it initially I couldn’t decide if this speech was meant to have humorous undertones or comment seriously on the issue. This becomes Blooded’s main pitfall.

As the opening of the film developed, I began to think of Blooded as an incredibly subtle mockumentary. The selection of hunting as the central issue seemed to be a swipe at all the modern day life and death disagreements about ultimately trivial things. The self-important tone of the music in the background, coupled with the overly sincere acting at times and some sweeping shots of grand Highland scenery for the titles seemed to say, gently, “look at this sad bunch of tossers who got mixed up in such an odd ordeal over something as pompous as hunting as if it were life’s defining feature”.

The film walked the line so finely between a tone of mocking and seriousness that I thought Blooded had the makings of a truly brilliant comedy spoof during its steady opening segment. Even beautiful cinematography of the stunning Highlands shrouded in mist and fog and sunshine seemed hilarious when viewed in the right jokey light at times. There were some good funny moments which utilised both the reconstruction and interview format to excellent effect. Most notably, when an American girlfriend of the group has shot her first stag, the experienced hunter takes some blood from the creature and wipes it on her face. He assures us she didn’t seem to mind this “Blooding” ritual, only for her to immediately respond in her interview “I resented that immediately”.

As the film progresses however the laughs are increasingly unintentional, as the story morphs into some sort of horror/political comment hybrid. The problem is that the hazy humour hovers over the rest of the film so that none of the “scares” are shocking. The animal rights activists, whilst extreme and clearly nutty to pull off such a stunt, just have too much of a conscience to be truly horrific foes.

Far too much emphasis is placed on the political issue. After watching Blooded, I delved through production notes from the filmmakers about their intentions and witnessed the “is it real?” marketing campaign online drumming up substantial interest. The filmmakers insist Blooded has no political agenda. It’s a thriller in documentary form and is not intended as a mockumentary. Blooded is meant simply as a thought provoking thriller, shot in a distinctive way, with some vague allusions to modern extremism.

Unfortunately for the filmmakers and director Ed Boase, Blooded fails as a thriller. I think it could have worked as very clever and subtle humour, had there been some more obvious signposts. Blooded ends up being controversial for the sake of it. It’s not enough to be simply thought provoking, especially when the entertainment is feeble and vague. The filmmakers must at least have an idea as to what sort of thoughts they want their audience to be thinking.

Watching Blooded with a friend of mine, neither of us could make sense of it. He said that the ending was “weak” as the film petered out and I agreed with him. As with so many films, Blooded tries to be several things at once, with the result that it does none of them well. My instinct on the one hand is to applaud Blooded for trying something different, but a much stronger voice of reason on the other is saying that the filmmakers needed to think harder about what it was they were trying to do.

Ed’s safe shadow cabinet of unity must not lose the fire of Opposition

Two Eds are better than one? Well perhaps not as Labour’s new leader opted not to make his namesake Ed Balls shadow chancellor, despite the weight of expertise, a strong leadership campaign and many votes in the shadow cabinet elections behind him. His wife Yvette Cooper then, who topped the poll of Labour MPs, would surely get the chance to carve Labour a new, distinctive position on the deficit in response to the Con-Dem’s cuts? No. 60 year old Alan Johnson, the earliest backer of Ed’s elder brother, was chosen by young Ed as his right hand man. Despite David’s choice to bow out from frontline politics, his shadows hangs heavy over his brother’s first team selection.

Of all the shadow cabinet roles assigned it was obviously that of shadow chancellor that carried the most importance and also Johnson’s appointment to that role which was the biggest shock. Ed Miliband has been either slammed for his caution or praised for his unifying skills and his courage to make the right choices regardless of popularity. I happen to think that making Johnson shadow chancellor is a missed opportunity for Labour’s new generation but there are some well selected roles in Ed’s team. Andy Burnham is a good match for the education brief, given his reasonably strong leadership campaign, working class background and accessible, relevant character traits such as his love of football. His ordinary accent will contrast well with Michael Gove’s nasal snobbery in the Commons. Likewise Jim Murphy seems a good choice to shadow the MOD and Liam Fox, with his dour Scots accent he shall be able to pour scorn on government defence cuts whilst emphasising the needs of the ordinary soldier and citizen. There is also no reason why Harriet Harman, Douglas Alexander and John Denham ought not to succeed in their new roles in International Development, Work and Pensions and Business respectively. Alexander and Denham in particular have their work cut out, with capable coalition opponents in Ian Duncan Smith and Vince Cable, but both are able ministers themselves.

However in my view Miliband has made a mistake in his handling of where exactly to place the popular and talented husband and wife team of Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper. Both are wasted at the Home and Foreign office. Those who support the leader’s decision say that it was unavoidable to maintain party unity and to avoid the mistakes of the Blair-Brown years. An economic policy handed to Balls, they say, would have conceded this ground to him permanently as Blair did for Brown, dividing the party again and sowing the seeds of future turmoil. My response to the argument of unity is that by appointing Balls Shadow Home Secretary Miliband has not necessarily pacified him. Balls will be gutted as it is to have missed out on his shot at the Treasury yet again; he made no secret of his desire for the job. To be so bluntly snubbed and given what many regard as the jinxed ministerial brief will not endear him to the younger Miliband. Besides there was no reason for Balls and Miliband to be enemies as Blair and Brown were, especially if Miliband had trusted Balls and rewarded with a job he had long coveted. If Miliband was uncomfortable handing his most important role to the volatile Balls though, he should have given it to his wife Cooper. Cooper won the shadow cabinet elections, and therefore had democratic legitimacy as well as the additional merits of youth (only 40 years old and part of the new generation), expertise (she was previously Work and Pensions secretary, a closely related role), intelligence (Harvard educated, a journalist at the Independent) and the fact that she is female. Appointing her to his top job would have sent exactly the right sort of modern, fair message but instead Miliband played it safe. Whilst being Foreign Secretary is an important, prestigious position, shadowing the area is less glamorous and less crucial to the argument defining British politics at the moment; how best to respond to the deficit.

With Johnson’s appointment Miliband signalled that he is planning to stick largely to Alistair Darling’s failed election pledge to halve the deficit in four years. This is disappointing as frankly Labour need a new idea to be championed by their new generation. Ed Miliband needs his equivalent of David Cameron’s “Big Society” and he has an enormous opportunity if he can find his big idea, because voters refuse to buy into the Prime Minister’s. Appointing Johnson though is unlikely to lead to a distinctive, radical or inspiring position on the deficit with credible, imaginative solutions. Yes Johnson is a capable minister, having held high profile jobs as Home Secretary and Health Secretary amongst others, but he has always taken a back seat and kept a low profile. He has shown the capacity to be popular with ordinary voters; with his working class charm often talked about, but lacked the desire or courage to use it. In the past he has passed up opportunities for advancement and you wonder if he is genuinely enthused by the task set him by his new leader and the opportunities to make a real difference to fairness he has, or whether he is merely grimly descending to his task for the sake of previously mentioned, holy party unity.

Forging a successful, coherent and credible economic policy that is also electable is THE challenge facing Labour. The coalition is struggling over issues like universal benefit, tuition fees and the spending reviews. Tension is set to rise, with the NUS leading students to the streets on the 10^th November to highlight the backtracking of Lib Dems. The shadow chancellor should be the spearhead of Labour’s new generation, with new ideas gradually forming a fresh vision, one more accessible than Cameron’s “Big Society” and fairer too. He should be prepared to examine ideas like the Robin Hood tax, mansion tax and graduate tax, whilst also backing the more sensible reforms of the coalition, such as a standard benefit payment and lifting the income tax threshold, as long as they are carried out properly. Labour needs to propose ideas for a new sustainable economy that can support essential and modern public services, whilst always striving for growth. It should look at green taxes, green jobs and green industries and offer a new deal with concrete investment. It should be prepared to ring fence areas of spending the Conservatives are set to cripple, whilst being ready to remain credible and a force in the argument by suggesting alternative means of revenue. Labour has to offer the opportunities a modern day, liberal British society craves in a way that can be paid for and delivered on; not the idealistic, vague promises of Cameron’s individualistic rhetoric, which merely serves as a cover for a smaller state, no matter how well intentioned.

Unfortunately I fear that Miliband’s selections for his shadow cabinet and his chancellor in particular, will lead to half baked, over cautious policies that lack the passion for real change. Indeed an incoherent policy on the deficit will lead to policy clashes throughout the party that might give Labour’s new generation an identity crisis. Balls as shadow chancellor would have relished the chance to set out a genuine alternative to the coalition and Miliband would have had to rein him in at times when he was wrong. But ultimately I feel the dynamism glimpsed in the Labour leadership campaign would have been better channelled towards George Osborne than given a bitter, limited home in opposition to Theresa May. Balls is likely to propose tough, populist positions on crime, driven by his resentment at missing out, policies that could undermine his new leader’s courtship of liberal Britain. Cooper too could have been a far more effective weapon against Osborne than Johnson and shall be wasted in her standoff with Hague, on issues like Afghanistan where there is no real disagreement. She also could have been a far better symbol of the new party Miliband is trying to create. Ultimately I can only assume Miliband feared she would be the puppet of her husband and his appointment of an ensemble of women to less important ministerial positions shows that he may not be as pro-women as he likes to make out. His appointment of an unknown to his previous brief as Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary also shows a disappointing lack of regard for an issue he led supporters to believe was vital to him, but now may well have proved to be a mere rung on his career ladder. A high profile appointment to this area in his shadow cabinet could have been a signal of intent. Despite my criticisms though it’s possible that the team Ed has chosen, with its mix of his and his brother’s supporters, will offer a unified and passionate opposition. It is wrong to judge before they have set to work, after all the road to the election is a marathon not a sprint, it just might have been possible to set out at a faster pace.