Theater Review: Transformers 3

I can hear the naysayers already. Why would you ever fork over the money to see this in the theaters?

Well, as much as I enjoy the Oscar-worthy films and the films with a lot of heart, story and dialogue, every once in a while I just love seeing a movie with amazing visual effects, fight scenes and stuff that blows up.

I know exactly what I am going to get with Transformers 3 and it honestly didn't disappoint me in that aspect.

A quick rundown of the film, it has been a few years since our last encounter and Sam (Shia LaBeouf) has graduated college and finds himself searching for a job. One of his complaints is he has saved the world twice and can't even land a job.

Gone is Sam's former girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox). It isn't exactly stated why they broke up, but they take plenty of shots at her (no doubt because of her feud with Michael Bay). However, don't cry for Sam because he somehow manages to snag another hottie in Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) - even though I felt she wasn't the best choice she fit in pretty well.

The main story goes a little something like this, during the first moon landing the United States located a crash on the moon of an Autobot ship that apparently contained Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) - on this ship are pillars that allow the transformers to open a portal and recreate their lost home of Cybertron.

Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and the other Autobots head to the moon to see if Sentinel Prime is still alive and still in possession of the pillars - and try to do so before they get into the wrong hands of Megatron (Hugo Weaving) and the other Decepticons.

That is pretty much the premise of the film and I have to admit it was much better than the second.

All of the major characters from the first two films return, including Lennox (Josh Duhamel), Simmons (John Turturro), Epps (Tyrese Gibs0n) and Sam's parents, Ron (Kevin Dunn) and Judy (Julie White).

New characters that played an important role were Dylan (Patrick Dempsey), Mearing (Frances McDormand), and Dutch (Alan Tudyk) - who in my opinion was hilarious. John Malkovich and Ken Jeong were also added, but in much smaller roles.

I felt the battle scenes in this film were far superior to any of the first two. The panned back a bit and allowed you to actually see the fights and who is actually fighting.

Overall, I got exactly what I was looking for - a great summer, popcorn flick. Plus, the story was a bit better than the second - which was a total bonus.

Grade:

37/50: Fargo

Have you ever seen a movie without actually seeing it?

I have never actually sat down to watch Fargo but it as like I had seen the entire film before.

Anyway, Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) has a money making idea, but needs a bunch of money to get it started - so he decides to have his wife kidnapped in order for his rich father-in-law to pay the fake ransom and therefore, front the money for his idea.

He hires a pair of crazy criminals, Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife - in return he would give them a small fee and a car.

Of course, everything goes wrong. The pair of criminals go on a sudden killing spree and all hell basically breaks loose.

Everything would be fine for the group of criminals if it wasn't for small-town cop Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), who takes it upon herself to solve the murders of the town, and leads her to Jerry and the kidnapping.

Like I said, I felt as if I had seen all of this before, I knew basically everything that was going to happen - but still it was great to finally see it.

Buscemi was, as always, amazing. And McDormand, who has never really resonated with me before, was brilliant in this role.

Grade:

Burn After Reading

Brad Pitt in a comedic role really had me wanting to watch this movie - and I have to say, Pitt was rather impressive in this role.

Burn After Reading is a bit of a roller coaster in terms of plot. There are tons of random characters that are thrust upon you - and you don't really understand where they all fit in until the movie picks up towards the middle and end.

I guess, technically, the movie revolves around Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), who quits his job at the CIA after his superiors think he should be demoted. After quitting, Cox decides to start penning his memoirs - which his wife steals as leverage as she begins the divorce process.

Cox's wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), is cheating on him with another married man, Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) - and decides to divorce Osbourne and encourages Harry to do the same with his wife so they could be together. Harry meanwhile is also having affairs with a slew of other women.

The action, and most of the laughs, pick up when we are introduced to Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) - a worker at Hardbodies Gym, an internet dater and someone who is looking for money to pay for four cosmetic surgeries. Pitt's character, Chad Feldheimer, is a co-worker friend of Litzke.

The pair of them find a lost CD, which holds Cox's memoirs (which they believe are government secrets) and Chad believes that if they return it, they should get some sort of reward. Litzke, however, decides to blackmail Cox in order to get the money for her surgeries.

The rest of the movie is pretty chaotic and fun - with some very odd suprises that I was not expecting, but I am not going to ruin it for you.

In the end, everything comes together and all the characters are connected in some way or another

I really enjoyed Pitt's character - and the small role of JK Simmons as a CIA higher up. His lines were very funny and pretty matter-of-factish.

Also pretty funny - the contraption that Harry was building in his basement. I never expected that and it almost floored me.

Grade: