The Hills Have Eyes II

1/2-a-star/****     THE HILLS HAVE EYES II (R)

The Hills Have Eyes was a 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s 1977 film of the same name. The movie, produced by Craven, followed a suburban American family traveling through the New Mexico desert on their way to California, only to be attacked by a group of deformed cannibals after their vehicle breaks down. The Hills Have Eyes grossed over $41 million, and led to the release of the sequel The Hills Have Eyes II in March of 2007.

A group of United States soldiers and scientists have been sent to Sector 16 in the New Mexico desert, where half of the Carter family was viciously murdered by the deformed cannibals who inhabit the area. While exploring the mining community and attempting to set up surveillance equipment, the soldiers and scientists find themselves brutally murdered at the hands of the same grotesque and violent mutants.

There bodies are discovered by a unit of National Guard trainees, who were in the midst of bringing supplies to those looking to install the monitoring systems in the desert. The trainees spot a distress signal coming from one of the hills, leading the National Guard team to embark on their first ever search and rescue mission. But the clan is unprepared for the vicious cannibals that they will have to encounter in order to survive.

A cheap and poorly constructed horror flick, The Hills Have Eyes II was rushed to theaters in an attempt to capitalize on the minimal success of the 2006 remake, and ends up disappointing in comparison by simply increasing the level of gore and violence, while forgoing any interesting storytelling. The film constantly tosses out cheap scare tactics and too many similar, improbable death scenarios that merely buy the filmmakers more screen-time before they have to deliver their highly predictable finish.

The movie, which is written by Craven (Pulse, The People Under the Stairs) and his son Jonathan, fails to create any compelling characters that the audience can sympathize with once the grisly attacks begin to occur. Unlike the 2006 flick which featured an innocent family who is misled into the desert and is forced to fight against the twisted group of beings they knew nothing about, this time around the characters come off as complete dolts by apparently having little knowledge and having been ill-prepared for the maniacal creatures they are attempting to spy on.

The first theatrical release for music video director Martin Weisz, The Hills Have Eyes II becomes the epitome of what is wrong with the horror movie genre: the film uses quick camera cuts and obnoxious music cues to wrongly set the mood or suspense for the picture, while also combining it with a generic premise, a ton of misplaced humor and an ensemble of third or fourth-tier level actors who are truly embarrassing to watch when trying to convey a sense of dread.

Another pointless and uninspired horror sequel, The Hills Have Eyes 2’s only true scare is the realization that the filmmakers have left the door open for a possible third film in the updated series.

The Host

 **/****     THE HOST (R)

South Korean film director Bong Joon-ho made his directorial debut in 2000 with Barking Dogs Never Bite, a dark comedy about a college professor who abuses and kidnaps barking dogs from his apartment complex. Joon-ho followed up that film with the 2003 flick Memories of Murder, which earned the filmmaker the Grand Bell Award for Best Director. His third and most successful film is The Host, which broke box-office records throughout its domestic run in South Korea in 2006. The monster movie then found its way overseas to the United States in 2007.

American military pathologists have disposed of numerous formaldehyde bottles in the South Korean sewer system, and this foolish action soon leads to the development of a large creature in the Han River. This mysterious monster sparks interest in locals, as a crowd soon gathers, and several spectators are eventually attacked by the creature once he emerges from the water. One of the onlookers who seemingly gets devoured is a young child named Hyun-seo.

Hyun-seo’s family grieves over the loss of the young schoolgirl and are quickly taken away by government representatives who fear for the safety of the rest of the family members who may have come into contact with the creature, who the government claims is the host of a deadly virus. But Hyun-seo manages to reach her father through his cell phone, leading her family on a chase from the government and to a sewer she and others are currently trapped in.

An enjoyable monster movie with some well-staged scenes, The Host loses some of its effectiveness by the use of entirely too much comic relief once the picture’s panic and adrenaline rush starts to kick in. Bong Joon-ho does a fine job establishing several tense and distressing moments, but the movie’s misplaced humor and its political satire jabs do detract from the film’s strongest elements and are never mixed together in a satisfying way.

The screenplay, written by Joon-ho and Baek Chul-hyun, is wonderfully detailed and filled with several complex characters, all of whom are deeply flawed. The storytelling delivers a sense of urgency and dread, and as an audience member you truly care about the well-defined family members on the search for Hyun-seo, but their is a ridiculousness that shines through because of the film’s witty banter, which truly serves no purpose to the heart of the movie.

The action is intense, and despite a minimal film budget of around $10 million, Joon-ho and his special effects team have managed to create a monster that never crosses the threshold of being considered over-the-top, while the creature also manages to contain enough of a terrifying appearance and nature in order to avoid becoming campy, laughable and distracting like the giant crocodile Gustave in this year’s earlier flick Primeval.

A well-made and an exciting picture on some levels, The Host has enough extra baggage being drug along on the side that prevents it from becoming an easily recommendable film.

Slow Burn

*.5/****     SLOW BURN (R)

Award-winning Filipina-American screenwriter and novelist Sabina Murray received an Independent Spirit Award nomination in 2005 for the Vietnam related-drama she penned entitled The Beautiful Country. The movie is the lone screenplay from the successful author, but her novel “Slow Burn” was adapted by writer and director Wayne Beach (The Art of War, Murder at 1600) into a film that was produced and shot back in 2003. Nearly four years later, Slow Burn arrived in theaters in 2007.

District Attorney and mayoral candidate Ford Cole (Ray Liotta) and his assistant Nora Timmer (Jolene Blalock) have received a ton of admiration for cleaning up their city, and for being able to infiltrate some of the city’s largest gangs. But his office is soon expected to face a tremendous amount of scrutiny, after Timmer murders cabdriver Isaac Duperde (Mekhi Phifer) in self-defense, after she alleges the man entered her place intent on raping her.

Cole questions Timmer on her relationship with Duperde, after a friend of the deceased and former police officer named Luther Pinks (LL Cool J) arrives to the police station and informs Cole that Nora and Isaac have had an on again-off again relationship for several months. And as Cole begins to piece the puzzle together, he soon discovers that it is actually his office that has been infiltrated, and that he may have close ties to the city’s most notorious gang member.

A gang-related thriller occuring in one-days timeframe, Slow Burn contains several engaging moments, but never manages to develop any solid footing. The movie tries so hard to be a rehash of Brian Singer’s The Usual Suspects, that once this flick begins with its resolutions, Beach has decided to tack on so many convoluted contrivances and plot reversals that go far beyond absurd, it will leave its viewers shaking their heads.

And prior to the movie’s conclusion, Beach’s script is bogged down with an abundance of inane dialogue that serves more as exposition than actual conversation. The screenplay also enables most of the movie’s ensemble to tell their side of the story, which are loaded with cliches and simply strings the movie’s audience members along, while forgetting to complete numerous subplots and minor, yet interesting, character developments that manage to appear in the varying versions shown.

Liotta (Wild Hogs, Smokin’ Aces) delivers his finest performance since 2002’s Narc, while Blalock (TV’s Enterprise) does a decent job as the lone female castmember of any significance. LL Cool J (Last Holiday, Mindhunters), Phifer (Dawn of the Dead, TV’s E.R.) and Guy Torry (Runaway Jury, Don’t Say a Word) all turn in the type of performance you would expect, while the movies more talented actors Taye Diggs (Rent, TV’s Day Break) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Children of Men, Inside Man) are severely limited in their roles, and could have added a lot more to the picture.

Although it begins with an arousing start, Slow Burn is quickly brought down by its ineffective twists and turns that result in a heaping mess of an ending.

The Simpsons Movie

**.5/****     THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (PG-13)

The Simpsons is the longest running primetime animated television sitcom, having aired 400 episodes over the course of 18 seasons. The show, created by Emmy Award winning cartoonist Matt Groening and broadcasted on FOX, is a satire on Middle American families and set in the fictional town of Springfield. The show has garnered 23 Emmy Awards, 22 Annie Awards and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2000. In 2007 arrives the much rumored about and highly anticipated big-screen version, entitled The Simpsons Movie.

The Environmental Protection Agency has learned that Springfield is the most polluted city in the United States, after Homer Simpson (Dan Castellaneta) disposes of a newfound pig’s excrement in the town’s recently cleaned-up lake. To combat the pollution, Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks), the Head of the EPA, receives authorization from United States President Arnold Schwarzenneger (Harry Shearer) to seal off the entire town of Springfield with a giant-sized dome.

Homer and his family manage to escape the wrath of Springfield’s residents through a sinkhole in their backyard, which leads them outside of the dome and off to Alaska, where the family hopes for a new start. But a television advertisement featuring Tom Hanks promoting a new Grand Canyon to be located where Springfield presently sits leads the Simpsons clan back to Springfield, in an effort to save their hometown.

After years of discussions and with eleven writers helping to contribute to the final product, The Simpsons Movie hits theaters as a full-length production sure to please longtime fans of the popular television series, but ultimately ends up feeling like an over-extending regular episode of the show. The movie provides constant laughs throughout the film’s first two acts, but the picture’s overall thin premise results in a formuliac and melodramatic ending, and no major finish.

Despite what it lacks in animation quality compared to today’s motion picture world, The Simpsons Movie makes up for it by delivering the pop culture jabs, irreverent characters and hilarious moments that so many animation films strive for, but rarely achieve in the same fresh and charming way that this movie manages to. And the movie’s PG-13 rating allows the flick’s writers and voice actors to get away with a little more radical and offensive behavior than the television version does, but it’s also nicely balanced and never goes too far.

The film’s biggest challenge is trying to pack too many stories and too many characters into such a short runtime, with jokes from several of the television show’s supporting cast constantly being bantered about, while numerous plotlines introduced are eventually either rushed or simply left in the dark. Individual storylines for each of the the Simpsons family members are brought to life, but entirely insignificant given the lack of detail and attention paid to them.

A clever and funny adaptation of the hit television show, The Simpsons Movie never quite takes off and won’t live up to exceedingly large expectations, but the film still has the appropriate amount of sight gags and slapstick humor that will appeal to its already established fan base.

Hairspray

**.5/****     HAIRSPRAY (PG)

In 1988, John Waters wrote and directed the cult film Hairspray. The movie, which was a musical set in 1962 and focused on a girl who dreams of dancing on a popular local television show which she ends up helping to racially integrate, starred Ricki Lake, Jerry Stiller and Harris Glenn Milstead in his drag persona, Divine. In 2002, the movie was adapted into a Tony Award winning Broadway Musical and later into a Las Vegas production at the Luxor Hotel. Now, an adaptation of both the Broadway Musical and the orginal movie of Hairspray arrives on the big-screen in 2007.

Teenagers Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) and Penny Pingleton (Amanda Bynes) are best-friends growing up in Baltimore, who rush home from school in order to watch a beloved local dance show called The Corny Collins Show. While watching the program, Link (Zac Efron), one of the show’s headliners, announces that one of their female performers is going on a nine-month hiatus, and television station WYZT and its station manager Velma von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer) are holding open auditions for all interested area girls.

Encouraged by her father Wilbur (Christopher Walken), Tracy tries out for the show and ends up impressing host Corny Collins (James Marsden), who invites her to join the cast. Soon, Tracy becomes one of the more popular performers on the program, and her controversial decision to protest WYZT’s decision to remove “Negro Day” from its station results in the challenging task of trying to make the The Corny Collins Show become fully integrated.

A bright movie jam-packed with a ton of energy, Hairspray doesn’t feel like a worthwhile adaptation, but watching this new cast tackle this classic tale isn’t any less enjoyable, either. And while there are slight differences between director Adam Shankman’s (Cheaper by the Dozen 2, The Pacifier) latest version and John Waters’s 1988 film, both still do a fine job at maintaining a silly, but irresistible presence, with delightful enough musical numbers to keep you immersed in the movie’s ongoings.

Newcomer Nikki Blonsky is a wonderful casting decision as Tracy, the likeable and plump youth with an amazing knack for singing and dancing. Blonsky never misses a beat when attempting to keep up with her beforementioned co-stars Bynes, Efron, Marsden, Pfeiffer and Walken, as well as Allison Janney, Elijah Kelley and Brittany Snow, in what is one of the best ensembles of 2007, to date.

But maybe the strongest cast member is Queen Latifah (Stranger than Fiction, Last Holiday), who earned a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for her work in the musical Chicago, and once again steals the show as Motormouth Maybelle, the owner of a nearby record shop and former host of the television station’s “Negro Day.” The weakest cast member is undoubtedly John Travolta (Wild Hogs, Be Cool), who is simply more distracting than entertaining in drag while portraying the role of Tracy’s mother Edna.

A movie that never aims too high and doesn’t try to be anything more than what its predecessors already were, Hairspray is still an entertaining and joyful summer musical.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

*/****     I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY (PG-13)

Comedian and actor Adam Sandler founded Happy Madison Productions in 1999, with his production company’s name deriving from two of his earliest box-office hits, Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison. Sandler’s former Saturday Night Live pals Dana Carvey (Masters of Disguise), Rob Schneider (Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo) and David Spade (Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star) all headlined feature-film duds for Happy Madison Productions, while some of Sandler’s weaker efforts, like Anger Management, Eight Crazy Nights and Little Nicky, have also been produced by Happy Madison. But it’s Sandler’s latest feature I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry that gladly stands beside the worst of the worst.

Sandler stars as wise-cracking and womanizing New York firefighter Chuck Levine, who is best friends with his partner Larry Valentine (Kevin James). Valentine is a widowed father of two, who has been informed by his caseworker that he failed to change the primary beneficiary of his pension by the required deadline, following the passing of his wife. Seemingly out of options, Valentine decides to fake being a homosexual with his friend and co-worker Chuck, in order to name Levine as the caretaker of Larry’s children.

But Chuck and Larry’s domestic partnership begins to raise some eyebrows with those concerned that their apparent loving relationship is actually staged, in order for Valentine to receive the financial benefits he has recently attained. The two decide to seek out attorney Alex McDonough (Jessica Biel) to represent them against possible fraud charges, but a budding connection between Chuck and Alex soon threatens Levine’s friendship with Valentine, as well as the true secret behind their controversial partnership.

A run-of-the-mill comedy entirely short of laughs, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is a borderline offensive tale that attempts to mask its numerous homophobic and misogynistic jokes by adding a small dose of rhetoric geared specifically towards the politically correct crowd. Unlike Sandler’s 2006 comedy Click, this movie never quite makes the effort towards discovering its moral center, and ultimately fails to move past its goofiness in order to deliver its positive message about tolerance and acceptance that audiences would expect.

The film seems peculiarly similar to the 2004 Australian comedy Strange Bedfellows, starring Michael Caton and Paul Hogan as two straight-men who attempt to pass themselves off as a gay couple in order to take advantage of newly legislated tax laws. But unlike Strange Bedfellows, which was a charming, inoffensive comedy with its heart in the right place, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry spends more time enclosing itself in cheap jokes and objectionable stereotypes than locating the emotional punch of the story.

Sandler’s role in this flick has forced him to travel several years back to his frat-boy days in Billy Madison, which also feels like an incredible leap backwards in his career. Along with Sandler are several of his Happy Madison buddies, including Steve Buscemi (Art School Confidential, Mr. Deeds), Allen Covert (Grandma’s Boy, 50 First Dates) and Nicholas Turturro (World Trade Center, The Longest Yard), who all are distracting to watch as they simply mug for the camera, as opposed to adding to the story.

A movie that had some potential in the beginning, but that was all quickly squandered away, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is an uncomfortable and unfunny film experience.

The Abandoned

*.5/****     THE ABANDONED (R)

8 Films to Die For was a three-night horror film festival in nearly 500 theatres in the United State in November of 2006. The festival featured eight independent horror movies, each of which was produced by After Dark Films. Seven of the films from the festival were released together on DVD in March of this year, except for Spanish film director Nacho Cerda’s The Abandoned, which received a stand-alone theatrical release in 2007.

Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille) is an American film producer who, beginning at a young age, was raised by adoptive parents in the United States, and has now decided to return to her homeland of Russia to gain information on her biological parents. Jones discovers that her parents are deceased and they have left her a home in a remote wooded area. But despite being warned of a local superstition surrounding the decaying house, Jones elects to travel her family’s homestead to seek out more knowledge of the parents she barely knew.

But upon arrival, the warnings that Jones chose to disregard begin to take fruition, resulting in several strange and mysterious occurences. Jones is soon rescued in the house by Nicolai (Karel Roden), who claims to be her twin brother and also on a mission to acquire information on their parents. The two then become plagued by visions of ghosts, as time begins to move in reverse and history begins to replay itself.

More of a stylish supernatural thriller than a horror flick, The Abandoned is a slightly intriguing but heavily flawed movie. Featuring some strong cinematography work from Xavi Gimenez (The Machinist, Darkness) and a couple of solid tension-building sequences from director Cerda, the movie creates an engrossing atmosphere and tone that will surely peak your interest, but an incredibly slow start and too many tedious and drawn-out scenes make it extremely hard to get too deeply invested in the movie’s happenings.

On several occassions the film’s dialogue completely disappears, and the audience is stuck wandering around aimlessly through this haunted house with the picture’s puzzling characters. And once the dialogue rejoins the picture, it ends up missing the mark, never bothering to make any sense or provide any understanding to the events or relationships on the screen, and too many sections of the story are left ambiguous to the viewer.

And while certain technical and artistic merits are above-average for this genre of film in this day-and-age, the movie’s acting is noticeably subpar. During the flick’s beforementioned silent and lengthy moments, both Hille and Roden lack any chemistry or screen presence and end up taking you out of some of the more suspenseful experiences in the movie.

Containing an eerie atmosphere and a well-established tone, The Abandoned regrettably relies too much on its pervading mood to provide the slightest of tingles.

License to Wed

1/2-a-star/****     LICENSE TO WED (PG-13)

Arguably one of the greatest stand-up comedians of all-time, Robin Williams successfully transitioned from the stage into a favorable and critically-acclaimed film career, with a resume that includes the comedic hits Good Morning, Vietnam, Hook and Mrs. Doubtfire. But in recent years, Williams’s presence and roles in comedies has started to feel slightly outdated, including in his two busts in 2006, Man of the Year and R.V. That downward spiral continues in 2007, with the release of one of the more dreadful Robin Williams-led vehicles ever, License to Wed.

Ben Murphy (John Krasinski) and Sadie Jones (Mandy Moore) are a young couple in the midst of planning their wedding, which Sadie wants to take place at St. Augustine’s church where she and her family regularly attended when she was a child. But upon visiting the church, the two discover that the only open date on the church’s calendar for the next couple of years is actually in a couple of weeks, and that in order to be married at St. Augustine’s, they first must complete Reverend Frank’s (Williams) three-week marriage course.

Throughout the course, Ben and Sadie participate in several unusual classes and are asked to complete a series of odd homework assignments. And while the course is designed to offer the couple a look into the challenges of marriage, as well ensure that their union has a sound foundation, the irritating minister and his eccentric ways may actually end up damaging Ben and Sadie’s relationship, as opposed to bringing them closer together.

A predictable, formulaic and oftentimes boring flick, License to Wed’s biggest flaw is its script, written by newcomers Kim Barker and Tim Rasmussen. They make the initial mistake of blowing through the beginnings of Ben and Sadie’s relationship in mere moments, giving the audience very little backstory or a reason to care about the movie’s characters. It feels like Peyton Reed’s The Break-Up, only this time instead of viewing a couple in love and the demise of their already dismantled relationship, we spot a couple we know nothing about and who appear to have no desire for each other trying to make a relationship that seems to be dead-on-arrival work.

The rest of the movie seems like an endless series of skits, where outlandish scenarios are clearly going to end in disastrous results for the sweet, innocent and unsuspecting protagonist. This set-up encapsulates the majority of the picture, and will quickly wear on an audience member’s patience once you realize where the story is headed, and quietly begin wondering when it’s going to hurry and get there.

Considering the movie is directed by Ken Kwapis, who has been behind the camera for nine episodes of the NBC television series The Office, it’s no surprise that the best performance in the movie comes from The Office star Krasinski (Dreamgirls, The Holiday). But the role of Ben doesn’t allow for Krasinski to show much range, constantly playing the straight-man to all of the irrational ongoings around him. Williams is lame and stale as Reverend Frank, while Moore (Because I Said So, American Dreamz) unfortunately has hit a career low with this outing.

A highly humorless romantic comedy, License to Wed will be one of the biggest disappointments of 2007, considering most involved have already shown they are capable of much better work.

Waitress

***.5/****     WAITRESS (PG-13)

40-year old actress, director and screenwriter Adrienne Shelly was found dead in an apartment in the West Village section of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village in November of last year. What at first appeared to be a suicide, turned out to be a murder by a 19-year old illegal immigrant construction worker and neighbor of Shelly’s, who ended up making videotapes implicating himself in the murder. A life cut short, Shelly leaves us with her final work — the 2007 comedy Waitress, for which she starred, wrote and directed.

Jenna (Keri Russell) is poor Southern waitress with a gift for making delicious pies, but is presently trapped in an unhappy marriage with her abusive and controlling husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto). Jenna lacks a social life, confiding only in her co-workers Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Shelly), as well as the owner of the dinner in which she works, Joe (Andy Griffith). But Jenna begins to take on a new perspective for life, once she discovers that she is unexpectedly pregnant with Earl’s kid.

Jenna visits her town’s new gynecologist Dr. Jim Pomatter (Nathan Fillion), but she becomes much more than a regular patient, sparking a passionate, yet meaningful affair with the small-town doctor. But while Jenna decides to carry out the pregnancy of her and Earl’s child, her biggest challenge is deciding whether she should flee the town with her married gynecologist or remain ensnared in her problematic marriage.

A humorous and endearing independent film, Waitress is a wonderful movie built around quirky and distinct scenarios and characters, but still told in an honest and relatable way. While the picture does contain some typical romantic comedy-like tendencies, the flick manages to add several layers of depth and drama to it that are balanced extraordinarily well in order to make this a heartwarming and heartbreaking film.

Shelly’s (I’ll Take You There, Sudden Manhattan) screenplay is good-natured and clever, making sure the audience leaves with a genuine smile on their faces. Shelly’s script also does a tremendous job in developing strong leading characters, as well as offering up several memorable moments from the movie’s off-beat and wacky supporting players. It’s a joy to watch so many distinguishable characters with well-defined stories, personalities and qualities on-screen, all of which are acted out exceptionally well.

Russell (Mission: Impossible III, The Upside of Anger) gives the best performance of her career, remarkably enveloping herself into the role of the small-town waitress with hopes and dreams, but a lack of confidence to escape the confines of her miserable life. Fillion (Slither, TV’s Drive) and Griffith (TV’s Matlock, TV’s The Andy Griffith Show) both create an enthralling on-screen chemistry with Russell, while Hines (Keeping Up With the Steins, R.V.) and Shelly do a decent job in their roles, but their subplots end up taking us away from the movie’s strongest character and story.

A complete and blissful low-budget movie, Waitress strikes a real comedic and emotional chord, becoming one of 2007’s best films.

Transformers

**/****     TRANSFORMERS (PG-13)

The Transformers are a line of robot toys that are able to to transform, or reconstruct themselves, into a common and innocuous form. The Transformers toyline was developed by Hasbro in the United States, and its spin-offs include a Marvel comic book series, an animated television series and the 1986 animated film The Transformers: The Movie. Now, big-budget director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg have once again brought the robots back to the pop-culture landscape through this year’s live-action flick Transformers.

High school student Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) has recently purchased his first car, but is unaware that his 1977 Chevy Camaro is actually an autonomous robotic life form in disguise. Sam has constant struggles with his vehicle and soon discovers that his Camaro has a mind of its own, as it transforms into its natural giant-sized, robotic state in order to fend off one of the members of the villanous group The Decepticons.

It turns out that the Camaro, named Bumblebee, and the rest of The Autobots — Optimus Prime, Jazz, Ironhead and Ratchet — are trying to find a magical cube called the AllSpark, which if found, could grant either The Autobots or The Decepticons power over mechanical life. The Autobots need Sam’s help in finding the eye glasses of his relative Captain Archibald Witwicky, which has a map imprinted on them with the location of the AllSpark.

A loud, visual and overloaded summer spectacle, Transformers seems like a film that is perfectly suited for director Bay (The Island, Bad Boys II), but much like his previous blockbuster outings of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, the only true compelling part of the film is its astonishing special effects. The visual effects are top-notch and will certainly rank as some of the best CGI-work in film this year. Along with the visual effects, the movie’s incredible sound design and the strong action sequences also manage to keep you involved in the film.

But in the end, the movie is entirely misguided and never able to find a satisfying place between its drawn-out action scenes, its insulting use of exposition for dialogue and its numerous moments of forced sitcom gags. The narrative is sprawled across several uninvolving subplots with one-note characters that become too much to take in, and with all of the stories still underdeveloped in what is a two hour and 24-minute movie.

It’s entirely impossible to take movies like Transformers seriously, which is why the film faulters amidst stories of destroyed military bases in Qatar and super secret government agencies, and why the film succeeds when placed in the hands of the talented and witty LaBeouf (Surf’s Up, Bobby). Much like this year’s earlier film Disturbia, it’s LaBeouf’s charisma, delivery and overall presence that keeps you invested in the preposterous and sometimes droll ongoings of the picture.

A shining technical achievement that has its share of fun and exciting elements, Transformers still possesses way too many over-the-top and redundant moments to make it truly stand-out from the rest of the typical summer fare.