Where's My Popcorn?

OVERALL

The best thing I can say about Michael Bay's "Transformers" is that it had a scene that I would have loved to have seen in a Transformers movie when I was 11.

This movie brought out the fan in me, making me geek out many times, and wondering how much of this movie Steven Speilberg actually directed... or at least helped Bay with.

The scene in question happened when our human protagonists were being chased by an evil cop car (a Transformer Decepticon named Barricade), and were saved by Bumblebee, the Autobot who was the protagonist boy's protector. It was something pulled directly out of a cartoon, and got rousing cheers from the audience having the same geek-out moment I had.

PRO vs. NO

PRO: The human story was great. It kind of started out like E.T., then morphed into Terminator 2 before ending with Megatron and Optimus Prime duking it out. Without going into who played who, the character Sam.. or Spike... was great. And although the girl was eye-candy, she had a nice little back story that was a flashback to the cartoons.

NO: There needed to be more of the Transformers, whether it be the good guys or bad guys. I would have liked to seen more character build-up to make you care more about them. There was a scene where one was being tortured, and although you cared a bit about the character, there could have been more. The movie could easily have been a half hour longer, and I wouldn't have minded.

SIX WORD FINISH
"One shall stand. One shall fall."
-- Optimus Prime to Megatron. I geeked out again.

FINAL BELL
-- 4.5 out of 5 -- I wanted to see this movie immediately after it was over. Just so I didn't have to pay closer attention to the plot (my main reason for going to any movie) and enjoy the rest of the action and the characters. A friend of mine said afterwards that he really enjoyed the fight between Optimus Prime and a Decepticon character whose name I don't remember. I remember the fights, but with so much going on I didn't get a chance to thoroughly enjoy them. So the next time I see it, I'm going to be 11 years old again.

WORTH THE PRICE OF ADMISSION?: Yes. This is one of those movies you'll be thankful you saw in the theatre.

IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/

OVERALL

This was going to be a tough movie to make no matter what. Especially since the book is the longest of the series, and while reading it makes the reader wonder how the hell they're going to make a movie out of it.

That's what I was thinking. There was no way they were going to be able to fit in all the plot points from the book into this movie and make it work. No way they could even make the movie less than 3, even 4 hours.

And then the director went ahead and decided to make it the SHORTEST Harry Potter movie, making me scratch my head.

So what was left out? Did it matter? Was it integral to the plot? I read that J.K. Rowling, author of the Potter books told the directors what needed to be introduced into certain movies. If there's a bit character that plays a major part in a later book, that character also needs to be in the movie.

Even though a lot of smaller plots from the book were left out... okay, Ron and Hermoine became prefects while Harry was passed over. Ron became the keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, which saddened me that it wasn't in the movie.

But everything else that MATTERED was in the movie. This wasn't a great/not great movie like Prisoner of Azkaban -- in which it was a great movie but a lot of plot was left out -- this was a movie that segued the series in a good way. You would have needed to see the previous FOUR movies in order to enjoy this one, and it made you want to see the next one.

Mainly because in this movie Harry became a young man. No longer were his eyes widened by little things around him, he became his own person. He talked back to others, he pressed issues, he wouldn't let certain things sit.

But did it work?

PRO vs. NO

PRO: They were calling this the darkest Harry Potter movie yet, and the first ten minutes showed you why. These were ten minutes you wouldn't expect in a Potter movie. It didn't even LOOK like a Potter movie. The director's style was very good, and the editing was done well. No more long gazing shots at the outskirts of Hogwart's School, this time the segue ways were done by spinning newspapers, continuing the storyline. And the final fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie were just as good as the final 15-20 of the last movie, which was probably the best in the entire series.

NO: One of the characters, Luna Lovegood, showed how certain things were cut from the movie. The character was good, and one of my favourites in the movie, but there was a major storyline in the book (in which her father's newspaper told Harry's story where the regular newspaper would not) that was cut. But otherwise, that's a minor "NO". One of the major ones dealt with the length of the movie. I would have liked to have seen it be at least a half hour longer to hash out certain scenes. Some scenes were short because they had to be, but the discussion between Dumbledore and Harry at the end was too short for my liking. Also, the ending sequence came out of nowhere, and I was left thinking "Whoa, we're at this part already?"

SIX WORD FINISH
"...and I feel sorry for you."
-- Harry, to Voldemort

FINAL BELL
-- 4.5 out of 5 -- I thought the makers of this movie did a much better job than those who made the Goblet of Fire, which (for some odd reason) didn't really work for me until the final half hour. It seemed in "Goblet" you were going to be promised so much, and then were told to use your imagination. However in "Phoenix", the director went back to using some of the old tricks Christopher Columbus used in the first two movies, and it seemed you were being reunited with some old friends.

WORTH THE PRICE OF ADMISSION?: Yes, even if you have read the book.

IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373889/