Need for Speed

Ah, racing and car movies, my Kryptonite, right up there with westerns and heist movies. Yes, I love them all, from the Fast and the Furious movies to classic films like Bullitt. Need something to tide you over until the next Fast and the Furious movie next year? Okay, funny guy, even if you said 'No' here's a good, old-fashioned popcorn movie for you, 2014's Need for Speed.

A blue collar mechanic who owns a custom car shop (he inherited from his father) he runs with his friends, Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) has earned the shop quite a payday on building a Shelby Mustang, a rare muscle car, for a former friend turned rival and highly successful driver, Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper). In a three-racer race, Dino causes an accident that claims the life of one of Tobey's friends but denies his involvement, sending Tobey instead to jail for a two-year sentence. Serving his sentence, Tobey vows to exact his revenge on Dino the only way he knows how....racing. Tobey seeks entry into the hyped De Leon road race, highly dangerous, highly illegal, driving the Shelby Mustang, but first he's got to get across the country in 48 hours. With a car-knowledgable passenger, Julia (Imogen Poots), along for the ride, Tobey hits the road, Dino doing all he can to slow him up and maybe more.

So a movie with a video game background seems kinda ominous, right? I thought so, and that's as a fan of the Need for Speed video game series. Though there are issues here, its video game background has nothing to do with so any worries are unfounded. Maybe the biggest compliment you can give this movie is that it has a respect for car flicks and the genre movies that came before it. It's little things like showing Steve McQueen's Bullitt on a drive-in screen, shooting on location in San Francisco like Bullitt, including one familiar hotel location for fans of the 1968 movie. From Bullitt, Grand Prix, Vanishing Point, Death Race 2000, Gone in 60 Seconds and The Driver as the classics to more recent racing flicks like Fast and Furious, Drive, Death Proof, 'Speed' knows what audiences full of motorheads and car guys are looking for. Have no worries in that department. A little long at times at 130 minutes, it's still a lot of fun.

This is a movie about the racing. That's all. The in-between portions of the story are okay, sometimes fun, sometimes a tad awkward. Director Scott Waugh knows this is a movie about sexy, exotic, high-speed cars hauling ass down roads, highways and desert roads. Maybe that's why the movie's length is a little long in the tooth, there's simply non-stop racing sequences. We get an opening drag race, the deadly road race soon after, one sequence after another as Tobey and Julia gun it across the country, and the epic finale at the De Leon, six ridiculously cool, high-end cars going toe to toe for the win. What I liked was that these sequences let the cars do the talking for themselves. Composer Nathan Furst's score is good but kept in the background of the action. Let these cars with huge horsepower provide their own soundtrack, much like the iconic sequence in Bullitt. We see the cast doing some driving, the editing isn't too fast or choppy, and things never get tedious with a variety of sequences. Follow the racing formula and things will work out in the end.

Breaking Bad fans can rejoice, Jessie Pinkman himself gets a starring role here, and Aaron Paul doesn't disappoint. The Paul casting in a lead role was interesting because he isn't a prototypical action star and he's far from a bankable movie star. And you know what? Both those reasons end up being major positives. Paul comes in with little baggage so it's cool to see him step up and embrace a leading role. His Tobey is an everyman, a working man and blue collar kind of guy with a freaky ability to get the most out of every car he drives. He goes down familiar anti-hero routes, a man of few words who's loyal, tough as nails and is gonna get the girl at the end of the road. I liked Paul's on-screen presence, able to handle the intense scenes with his low, gravelly voice but also handling the lighter scenes with his friends that provide some comic relief. It seems like the future is bright for Paul in the movie business.

Basically across the board, 'Speed' doesn't boast any star power. Like Paul's casting though, it works as we see some familiar faces if not hugely recognizable names. Poots grew on me, her character showing she's not just a pretty face with a hot British accent. Cooper's part as Dino is horrifically underwritten, Cooper getting by with some evil-looking glares. Michael Keaton overacts like his paycheck depended on it as the Monarch, the mysterious, rich organizer of the De Leon race. Toby's friends and fellow mechanics helping him get across the country include rapper Kid Cudi as Benny, able to fly anything and with a smart-ass comment ready for anything, Finn (Rami Malek), able to identify a car's problems in a snap, Peck (Ramon Rodriguez), the relatively normal guy who has cool facial hair, and Little Pete (Harrison Gilbertson), the ultra-confident youngest member of the group. Also look for Dakota Johnson as Pete's older sister, now dating Dino but who also has some epic sexual tension with Tobey.

There's plenty of questions here. How does Benny continuously acquire planes-helicopters-army transport? What exactly is Dino's deal? If he's a Nascar/Formula 1 driver, why the hell does he join the De Leon? Can a helicopter even hold a souped-up Mustang Shelby that drives off a cliff? Why is Dino so stupid? The movie really isn't interested in spelling too many things out. You'd think the police would commit more effort to tracking Tobey down after all the vehicular shenanigans he pulls, but nah! Oh, fast cars doing tricks! That's the movie. Enjoy it for what it is, one exciting driving sequence on top of another.

Need for Speed (2014): ***/****

Battle Los Angeles

It took me about the length of a trailer to figure out I wanted to see 2011's Battle Los Angeles. That's the beauty of trailers at their best. This specific one is one of the best I've ever seen, and I'll link to it later for your viewing pleasure. A trailer can convince you one way or another to go see a movie, but how often do you LOVE the actual trailer? I never got around to seeing it in theaters, but I'm glad I caught up with this summer.

Over maybe the last 10 years, it feels like the alien invasion movie has gone through a rebirth of sorts with waves of films hitting theaters. Think Cloverfield, Skyline, War of the Worlds, District 9, Signs, the Transformers movies, and even going back into the 1990s, Independence Day and Men in Black.  A lot of reviews talked that 'Battle' is more war movie with aliens as opposed to space invasion movie. Complaints are all over the place -- some fair, others not so much -- that it is a propaganda movie (sounds ridiculous to me), but my biggest issue would be that it is as cliche ridden as any movie I can think of. Is that a bad thing? No, not really, I revel in movie cliches. Just a warning as you head in.

After almost 20 years in the Marines, Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) has requested his retirement, the paperwork coming through quickly. Days removed from leaving the Marines though the planet is thrown into a worldwide battle for survival. Bizarre meteor showers are hitting off coastal cities all over the world, some extraterrestrial beings coming from the showers and proceeding to annihilate everything in their paths. Nantz is quickly transferred to a platoon of Marines commanded by the intelligent but inexperienced Lt. Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez). Like cities all over the world, Los Angeles is being torn to pieces, but Martinez, Nantz and their men are given a mission. Deep in the city is a hospital overrun by these attacking aliens. They must get into the city, rescue any survivors and get out before an air strike is called in on the whole coast. Can they do it in time, or is something else waiting for them?

In the midst of an alien invasion story, I was pleasantly surprised to see this story develop, that of the unit picture, a group of soldiers in an impossible situation trying desperately to hold on for survival.  Think as far back as 1934's The Lost Patrol or more recently with movies like 2003's Tears of the Sun or 2010's Predators. At times 'Battle' does play like a recruiting tool for the U.S. Marines more than just an action sci-fi movie with its penchant for Marine mythology and reputation. But for the most part, I liked it for the interesting alien storyline and a small group of specialists trying to maneuver through a war-torn city. There is something simple about mankind vs. aliens. There is good and bad, no cultural differences or race issues, just survival.

So from the "unit picture" comes a list of stock characters that just about everyone is familiar with. Making the most of a very stereotypical, cliche-ridden character, Eckhart is the brightest star from the cast as he plays Sergeant Nantz, the veteran Marine dealing with emotional issues from his last tour overseas where some of his men were killed (how we don't know, but it was supposedly his fault). His lines reek of cheese and are way too over the top, but Eckhart has a way of making it believable and not painful to watch. Rodriguez too (who I thought was awful in Transformers 2) is surprisingly decent with the very recognizable young, inexperienced officer. Also look for Michelle Rodriguez as Santos, an Air Force survivor traveling with the platoon, Will Rothhaar as Cpl. Imlay, maybe the most capable soldier in the bunch, Cory Hardrict as Lockett, a Marine with a bone to pick with Nantz, Jim Parrack as Kerns, a vet from Iraq/Afghanistan trying to get back,  Gino Anthony Pesi as Stavrou, rapper/hip-hop artist Ne-Yo as Harris, and Adetokumboh M'Cormack as Adukwu, the medic, among others.

What can be fun about the alien invasion movies is the reasoning, the explanation, and of course, the visual of what the aliens look like. Part of the reason Cloverfield worked was because basically all those things were left unexplained. It's a weird, immense creature attacking New York City. That's all we need to know, and the movie was better for it. 'Battle' doesn't go overboard trying to piece things together, to rationalize why the aliens are attacking Earth. The reason does seem a little suspect, but it never dwells on it. The aliens -- in whatever form they are and for whatever reason -- are good bad guys here, boasting impressive futuristic technology that forces U.S. forces and the Marines to improvise as to how to beat them. They aren't invincible, and thankfully we don't defeat them by giving them a cold/flu bug.

Battle Los Angeles was made for a relatively cheap $70 million, a modest sum for an action movie.  For all the complaints of the cheap special effects, I thought the action was a major selling point. Scenes of the city being attack provide some nice scale, a nice comparison, because the rest of the action is on a smaller, more personal scale.  It is a handful of Marines running low on ammunition navigating through L.A. as aliens work their way through the city looking to kill them. Guilty at times of using too much handi-cam and ridiculously fast editing, director Jonathan Liebesman manages to find the right balance of the loud chaotic extremes of the fighting with the personal, terrifying moments of extreme fear together.

Especially now as I look back, I'm probably overrating the movie a bit. Through the cliches in characters and story and hammy, patriotic 'Go America!' speeches, I still liked this movie. It isn't ground-breaking or new in basically in any way. It's just a fun, exciting shoot 'em up alien invasion action movie. Enjoy the trailer below too. Also mostly because I forgot, look for Michael Pena and Bridget Moynahan in pointless supporting roles as civilians along for the ride.

Battle Los Angeles <---trailer (2011): ***/****   

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Where do you even start with a movie like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? I'm not one to pass up a midnight movie so I went and saw this last night with a sellout crowd. You know going in what you're getting, lots of action, explosions, crazy CGI, all the makeups of the classic summer blockbuster. I mildly liked the first movie so I went in with modest expectations at best for the sequel. Somehow though, it didn't even live up those low expectations, and I'm not even sure where to start.

A plot for a movie like this is about as unnecessary as it gets. It needs something to push the action forward and let the CGI take over from there. Here, even getting to that point is slow-going. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is off to college after saving the world from the Decepticons in the first movie with Optimus Prime and the Autobots. Life's pretty good for young Sam, he's got a gorgeous girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox), and things have settled in nicely. But as he's moving, Sam finds a piece of the cube from the 1st movie with the little splinter giving him these crazy hallucinations with weird symbols.

Things develop and next thing you know new Decepticon leader Starscream is leading a rescue effort for Megatron, buried deep in an ocean trench, all in the hopes of helping the Fallen, a disgraced Decepticon, get back to Earth and take over the planet. There's more going on there, but it doesn't matter. The story bounces along and around so much it's hard to keep track of what's going on. Suffice it to say, most moviegoers aren't plopping down $11 to see Transformers for its well-written script.

So where to start? Just like the first movie, I enjoyed parts of the sequel and hated others. I'll get the negatives out of the way first. At 147 minutes, it's way too long. The Sam-to-college intro takes far too long to develop and tries too hard to get laughs including Sam's extremely annoying mother buying 'special' brownies and downing a whole bag. It's the type of college that never really exists, frat parties with strobe lights, pounding bass, beautiful girls dancing on tabletops and of course...cake with a serving knife. Uh, yeah, right.

In general, the humor is just too much from start to finish. Some good one-liners are needed in a movie like this, but not every other line of dialogue. Sam's parents, Kevin Dunn and Julie White, serve no purpose at all and provide many of the more groan-inducing lines, the Mom more than the Dad. Two new Autobots have been added, Mudflap and Skids, and might be the two most stereotypically offensive, annoying characters ever. SPOILER I hope they died in the battle with the sand-eating Decepticon, but I couldn't tell for sure.

Now for the action, what people pay to see right? Some criticisms of the 1st movie said there wasn't enough robot vs. robot action. Well, Bay took that too heart and overdoes it here. I'll give props when they're due. The CGI in both movies is so ridiculously good that at times I believe there's actually an Optimus Prime fighting Megatron. It rarely looks fake like so many other big budget blockbusters. But the problem for me is that when it comes down to it, it's still 2 nameless robots beating the crap out of each other. They're so detailed it's hard to even tell what's happening until one or the other rips his opponent's arm or head off. The finale in Egypt goes on far too long as robots go to town on each other.

To the casting now, both the good and the bad. I didn't care for LaBeouf much in the first movie, thought his character almost ruined Indiana Jones 4, but came around some when I saw Eagle Eye. He's actually pretty good here, toning down some of his eccentricities from the first one. He still yells too much just to yell, but it was his storyline that kept me at least somewhat interested. That storyline is with smoking girlfriend Mikaela, the babely Megan Fox. By no means a great actor, she's believable here as Sam's girlfriend, their relationship in general is pretty believable. Bay of course know his audience and has Fox running in slow motion in a ton of shots as you can see above, I lost track after 7, and changing and undressing and posing on motorcycles. I am that audience so I'm not complaining, just pointing it out.

My favorite part of the first one was the soldiers, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese, dealing with the appearance of the Decepticons in the Middle East. It didn't seem as forced as the rest of the movie. Two years later in the sequel, they've been upgraded to the NEST program, a joint operation betwen U.S. forces and the Autobots to protect the Earth. Their characters aren't given much to do, but they're cool characters even if they talk in overused, well-known movie cliches like "This isn't going to end well" and "What the hell is that?"

John Turturro returns as Agent Simms and with new arrival Ramon Rodriguez as Leo, Sam's roommate, a conspiracy theorist, provide the most annoying pairing in the movie. Turturro, almost always dead on in his parts, provides most of the comic relief or at least attempts at it but is just too overdone to be enjoyed. Rodriguez is required to scream every few minutes and look worried before saying something stupid. Other than that, no big casting changes although Australian beauty Isabel Lucas is good in a small part as Alice, a fellow freshman with the hots for Sam.

That's the movie in a nutshell, well a big nutshell I guess. I realize that with summer blockbusters we're not looking for all-time classics, but I do want to be entertained. By the last 40 minutes or so, I was bored to tears hoping all the robots would just kill each other and be done with it. It felt to me like Michael Bay came up with all these great ideas, threw them in a blender and started filming. The movie's all over the place with no real sense of direction other than crazy, stupid action, and even Megan Fox's hotness can't save it although she tries her best. And brace yourself, there's a third one coming! GASP! Keep it in mind when we're supposed to think Sam's dead. Ooops, spoiler alert.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Asking movie fans about remakes can be a touchy subject. I tend to agree most of the time that remakes aren't necessary depending on the movie and studios should just come up with new, creative ideas instead of going back to the well repeatedly. On the other hand, I don't get it when fans are against ANY remake. If you don't want to see it, don't. I've rarely gone into a remake thinking, "Hey, I bet this is better than the original." I'm usually looking for an entertaining story with some alterations to the story, casting, whatever. I got that with the new The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.

The original Pelham One Two Three is a cult classic in its own right with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw as the two leads with one big claim to fame, providing inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. So the remake, with bigger names headlining, still had some pretty big shoes to fill. Is it as good as the original? I'll have to think about that, but gut reaction, close but not as good.

The story is the same with a few slight changes. On a New York subway train, Pelham 123, four men led by Ryder (John Travolta) hijack a single car with its 18 passengers. Getting in contact with the Metro Transit Authority headquarters, they make their demands. They want $10 million in one hour or else they will start shooting a passenger for every minute they're late. At the other end of the radio at MTA HQ is Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), a former supervisor demoted to a desk job while under investigation for supposedly taking a bribe. What follows is a cat and mouse game as Ryder and Garber talk back and forth while NY desperately tries to put together the $10 million ransom.

The heist-like premise is a good one that quickly brings up interesting questions. They've hijacked a train, but how will they escape once they get the money? They're underground after all. It's a tense movie as Ryder, either the sanest villain ever or the craziest, I just can't decide, plays mind games with Garber and hostage negotiator Camonetti (John Turturro, good as always). A SWAT team waits at either end of the single car waiting for the order to take down the hijackers while inside the quartet are one push away from blowing away the hostages.

Enough has been changed that director Tony Scott left his mark on the movie to set it apart from the original. There's an element of technology added to the heist as Ryder has a wireless connection to Google his counterpart on the other end of the radio, and the aspect of the stock market comes up. The heist isn't as straightforward as the original with bigger plans at work, but with a reveal of Ryder's identity late in the movie the additions work. Scott's movies are often more known for their style and flash than story, and that's true here to a point, lots of slow motion blurry shots, quick cuts that can be hard to keep up with, but the director doesn't go too far with it.

There's a natural tension in the story that would be hard to mess up from the director's chair. An hour is not a long time, especially when talking about getting $10 million from a bank and then driving it through NY traffic with the time remaining. The mayor (James Gandolfini in a great part) does question at some point, "Why didn't we just use a helicopter?" Because Mr. Mayor, then we couldn't have the cool race through Manhattan as a squad car with motorcycle escort weaves through traffic.

Working with Scott for the fourth time, Washington is the heart of the movie. His Garber character is an everyman, John Smith trying to care for his family, go to work and pay his mortgage and his kids' tuition. It's the type of part that Washington could do with his eyes closed, and he doesn't disappoint. Most of the running time, all Garber can do is talk, desperately trying to stop Ryder or at least slow him down. There's a twist that works to a fault and does come as a surprise because well....he's Denzel Washington. Hamming it up as the villain, Travolta goes too far at times, but for the character his theatrics are appropriate. He's the bad guy you love to hate but can laugh at too with how off the wall some of his comments can be.

'Pelham' is Washington's and Travolta's movie. The rest of the cast makes the most of smaller parts, especially Turturro and Gandolfini, but other than those two parts no one stands out. One of my favorite character actors Luis Guzman is criminally underused in his part as Ramos, one of the four hijackers. The other two hijackers, Victor Gojcaj and Robert Vataj, are intimidating, but I don't even recall hearing their names. The two are characters with automatic weapons, and that's it, but I guess that is what the script called for. Michael Rispoli and Ramon Rodriguez are good in smaller roles as two members of MTA headquarters.

I didn't love the remake like I wanted to, but I did enjoy it. I can chalk up a lot of that to the trailer which really convinced me to see it. The ending is forced a little too much for me, but the build-up makes up for that. So overall, it lived up to my expectations of a remake. Good but not great, and worth a watch. I do recommend seeing the original, if for nothing else than to compare the two. Go see the Pelham remake, if for nothing else than Washington in a great part going toe to toe with villainous Travolta.