TL;DR –.We explore the highs and lows, and lows, of the Transformers film series.
Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+/Amazon Prime services that viewed these films.
Transformers –
We might be in the era of nostalgia, but that does not mean that current films can capture what made those original properties soar. An excellent example of this is Transformers, a series that swings wildly in quality and in how it connects with the series it is based on, and now I have watched them all.
TL;DR – While it expertly builds tension and the world, it ends on a flat note of frustration
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Disclosure – I paid for the Prime Video service that viewed this show.
End Credit Scene – The final episode, The Creation of a Thousand Forests, has an end credit scene.
Warning – Some scenes may cause distress.
The Peripheral Review –
It has been a while since I have sat down to a good sci-fi mystery. One that makes you scratch your head and wonder how all the different parts connect. I think the last one that truly captured me like this was Westworld. Which is good timing because you can see those influences in the show we are looking at today.
So to set the scene, we open in London in 2099 as Wolf (Gary Carr) sits on a park bench as holographic galleons recreate a battle on the pond in front of him. As he watches a young girl Aelita (Sophia Ally), approaches the bench without shoes. She wants to save a world, not the one they are in now, that is lost, but another world, one that can still be saved. In the Blue Ridge Mountains in 2032, Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) is helping her sick mother, Ella (Melinda Page Hamilton), when she notices that her medicine is being cut by her no-good brother Burton (Jack Reynor). Confronting him, she instead gets dragged into helping some guys beat a level in a WW2 VR Video Game, something she is very good at. At work, she is given a package for her brother, a new VR machine that she can beta test, and get money for her family. But the immersive VR set in a future London is more real than anyone expected. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.
TL;DR – It does what you need to in a show like this and builds the world and the mystery from the start.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Disclosure – I paid for the Prime Video service that viewed this show.
Warning – Some scenes may cause distress.
The Peripheral Review –
It has been a while since I have sat down to a good sci-fi mystery. One that makes you scratch your head and wonder how all the different parts connect. I think the last one that truly captured me like this was Westworld. Which is good timing because you can see those influences in the show we are looking at today.
So to set the scene, we open in London in 2099 as Wolf (Gary Carr) sits on a park bench as holographic galleons recreate a battle on the pond in front of him. As he watches a young girl Aelita (Sophia Ally), approaches the bench without shoes. She wants to save a world, not the one they are in now, that is lost, but another world, one that can still be saved. In the Blue Ridge Mountains in 2032, Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) is helping her sick mother, Ella (Melinda Page Hamilton), when she notices that her medicine is being cut by her no-good brother Burton (Jack Reynor). Confronting him, she instead gets dragged into helping some guys beat a level in a WW2 VR Video Game, something she is very good at. At work, she is given a package for her brother, a new VR machine that she can beta test, and get money for her family. But the immersive VR set in a future London is more real than anyone expected. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.
TL;DR – An example of a great concept and acting, not quite working due to the format.
Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
As a fan of Science Fiction, I really enjoy seeing new ideas brought to the
screen, even if they don’t always work out as well as they hoped. Today we get
to look and just such a film that is filled with heart and some really
interesting ideas, but maybe a film was not the right format to properly
express it. With that in mind let’s delve into a story about a boy and his gun.
So to set the scene, we open in on Elijah “Eli” Solinski (Myles
Truitt) who lives in Detroit with his adopted father Hal (Dennis Quaid). Eli
has been struggling at school, he is a good kid but he has anger management
issues (well if kids were making fun of your dead mother, I would not be shocked
if you threw a punch or two). One day as Eli was stripping out some wiring from
an abandoned factory we stumble across the site of a battle between two alien
forces. On the ground are a number of corpses and on box shape gun that Eli
drops when one of the bodies move. Back home Hal lets him know to set another
plate for dinner because Eli’s older brother Jimmy (Jack Reynor) just got out
of prison, but Eli needs to be careful around Jimmy. Which is not an
unreasonable statement because what they don’t know is that Jimmy is in debt to
Balik (James Franco) a local gangster to the tune of $60,000 for protection
while he was in jail and soon Jimmy brings that damage into the house.
TL;DR – While at times this film has moments of technical brilliance, huge issues with tone, and a story we already know to death means that the film ends up being just dull.
Score – 2 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
There are warning signs in the industry that happens sometimes that lets you know a studio is not really confident with what they are about to release. This could be not screening it for critiques,or putting an embargo on reviews before release, or in this day and age it is a film suddenly disappearing from the cinema schedule and being sold off to Netflix. Now, this is not always a case of it being a bad film, just a case of the distributors not knowing what they have, see this year’s Annihilation(see review). However,today we look at a film that probably falls squarely into this category.
TL;DR – Brutal, heartbreaking, and unfortunately as relevant today as it was in the 1960s
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
Oh wow, I had no idea what to expect going into Detroit, only that it was taking a snapshot of the past event in the city. This was good in some respects because I came into the film with no preconceptions, but also I came into the film with zero preparation for what was about to come. I walked out of Detroit being completely emotionally drained, and I don’t mean that as a criticism, where so many other films like mother! (see review) have mishandled the use of tension, Detroit had me on the edge of my seat waiting for the moment when everything falls apart.
TL;DR Movie Reviews and Analysis 