Burnoutsss Reviews

Logan (2017)

One Last Ride for 2 Amazing Actors in Iconic Roles

[9/10 · 4 March 2017]

After 17 Years debuting in the X-men Franchise, Hugh Jackman exits the role as Wolverine, a troubled loner with a heart of gold and claws of Adamantium.

In the future of 2029, Mutants have almost become extinct. Logan, living with a dementia ridden Professor Xavier and a mutant recluse named Caliban, turns his back on mutant kind, instead attempting to make a living as a limousine driver to retire to the ocean. However, Logan's fate is changed when she meets a young girl with mutant powers very similar to his own.

The Live Action X-Men franchise has often been accused of being disrespectful to the source material (or rather the more fantastical elements of said source material such as the Dinosaurs in present day of the Savage Land or the space opera adventures of the Starjammers), in an age where Marvel Studios explores space with Guardians of the Galaxy or the microscopic world with Ant-Man.

In Logan, that grounded reality works to the benefit of movie. Instead of visual spectacle and technicolor explosions, the action grim, grounded and folded to reality. Unlike other attempts to 'mature' the genre through simple additions of profanity and violence, Logan uses its R rating to tell a more character driven story, showing broken old men at the end of their ropes. After years of a PG-13 rating, the R rating doesn't simply add blood and gore, but a sense of melancholy and bleakness other films of the same genre do not have.

Logan has been described as the mainstream Superhero Western, a fair comparison since Superheroes have often been compared to the Western Boom of the 50's while scenes of 1953's Shane plays during a scene.

The actors are fully giving it their all in this picture. Hugh Jackman has always had incredible range as an actor, but his turn as Wolverine is the thing that made him a star. It's only with an actor of his caliber and the age of playing the role for so long that you can get a performance of this magnitude with the emotional weight it deserves. Just the same, the usually reserved Patrick Stewart completely subverts his role as the kindly understanding Professor Xavier to a rambling, cynical cranky old man with a form of Alzheimer's. But, Dafne Keen will ultimately come out as the highlight of the film. It's hard to get children actors to put out a role of this magnitude but Keen's Laura manages to be both convincing as a child who's exploring the world for the first time and a violent killer in other scenes.

The action set pieces are astounding. The fight choreography is stable, the edits manage to feel coherent and the amount of chopped limbs, be-headings and spilled blood makes for a gory good time.

It's unclear where the X-men Franchise can go from here. After the critical disappointment of X-Men: Apocalypse but the financial success of Deadpool, fans have been counting the days when 20th Century Fox will sell the film rights back to Marvel Studios so the Mutants can become part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But, for the payoff we received at the end, Logan is worth the 17 years worth of X-Men films (Some Good, Some Bad, Most Mediocre) to see two actors have one last ride in what was some of the iconic roles in Superhero film history.

See it!

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

A movie caught between a director and the studio

[7/10 · 15 December 2016]

Rogue One is a movie that wishes to tell the story of the Rebellion's darker side, the anti-heroes who don't care who gets caught in the crossfire be it Imperial or Civilian.

The story follows Jyn Erso, the daughter of Galen Erso, the lead scientist who created the Death Star. In a quest to find her father, she learns that Galen left a critical flaw in the Death Star's design. Jyn joins the Rebellion in hopes to fulfilling her father's wishes.

Director Gareth Edwards tends to focus more on characters rather than spectacle, as seen in his previous films of Godzilla and Monsters. Here, the reverse happens. While Edwards' mastery of scale is something to behold, the large cast of characters have barely a moment to flesh themselves out. The stand-out is Alan Tudyk's K-2SO, a reprogrammed Imperial Droid that can't help but say what's on his mind and Donnie Yen's Chirrut, a devout believer in the Force who cannot wield it.

The film reported a number of reshoots and they can't help but stick out. Just when Edwards wants to take an original turn in the Star Wars universe, a surprise cameo or two pops out of nowhere. Just as the film wishes to go darker, K-2SO says a funny one liner. It feels as though Disney is so afraid of fans disliking their film, they go the opposite direction and stuff it full of fan service, regardless of how it relates to the actual plot.

I don't know if Gareth Edwards' original cut of the film would've been any better, but get the feeling there wouldn't be so much tonal clash if it did. Still, the spectacle alone and the effects from ILM make this film something to enjoy in the theater.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Michael Bay makes a serviceable film. Dumb, but fun.

[7/10 · 24 June 2009]

Michael Bay.

Has any other name been as synonymous with big Hollywood productions besides Jerry Bruckheimer? He has been known for his legendary special effects as well as his utter lack of human traits in a film. If there was ever a classic example of preferring style over substance, look no further than Bay himself.

Thus, imagine the surprise many felt when they actually admitted to liking Bay's Transformers. While his critics were still present, he had actually received several praises from several thousand fan boys and was green-lit to do a sequel.

The plot starts off much later after the initial Decepticon encounter. Literally. Apparently at 17,000 B.C., there were also giant robots raging war with our ancestors. In the present, however, the U.S. military and the Autobots combine together to form NEST, a secret force made in order to defeat incoming Decepticons. However, after a messy battle, the military has had it. They want the Autobots to either cooperate or leave. Elsewhere, Sam Witwicky (Shia Lebeouf), leaves for college and tries to have a 'normal' life. Of course, when he accidentally touches a cube fragment, he sees symbols, thus destroying his wishes altogether.

To be honest, with the exception of the giant opening battle, I found the First Act a bit of a bore. It's ironic because in the first Transformers, I found the First Act the strongest. It really had a sort of human connection with me that struck me the right way. However here, it has all these messy subplots which I didn't really care about. Like Sam's relationship problems, for example. It's the typical long distance troubles and new hot girl that really didn't interest me. I also didn't particularly care for the in-fighting of the Autobots vs. the U.S. Government. It's sort of that expected feeling you get from a sequel.

Luckily, the rest of the movie follows up to what passes for an entertaining popcorn movie.

All the vices of Bay's film work are here: the shaky camera, the 360 camera, the explosions, the loud noises, the heavy editing and of course, boyish humor. And just like the last Transformers, Bay always had to refer to one of his earlier works.

What really brings the movie out are its actors. While the characters they play are a bit bland, they are given a lot of screen time and a lot of situations to express their acting range. Shia Lebeouf is as strong as ever as well as Peter Cullen as the infamous Optimus Prime. John Tanaturo is hilarious again, but credit should go to newcomer Ramon Rodriguez as Sam's roommate, Leo. He has some bright charm to him that compliments Shia's acting.

The robots in the film are given a similar treatment in the first film. While Bumblebee and Optimus are given sufficient screen time, the rest of the Autobots don't really have that luxury. Add in the fact, that there are even more Autobots than prior, and you have a problem.

An odd note I'd like to comment on is the Megatron/Starscream interaction. In the original cartoon, Starscream made it no secret that he wanted to overthrow Megatron and lead the Decepticons. Hell, he even tried to kill Megatron a couple of times. But in the movie, Starscreams kind of a coward, and begs at Megatron's feet. I kind of wished that Starscream would've back stabbed him, but oh well.

The action of the movie is intense. If you ever find yourself lacking a reason to go see a film, just go for pure eye-candy alone. The battles are on a large scale, and bigger than ever. Contrary to what a lot of people said, I could keep track with all the action on the screen. Perhaps it was the color scheme, but I found myself engaged with a lot of the battles, and knew who was winning and who was losing.

The humor is questionable to say the least. A large part of the movie is comedy and it comes from all directions. From speech to slapstick, there's humor to be found everywhere. Some of it works, such as slapstick from Rodrigez's part. Some of it is crass, like a robot dry humping Megan Fox. And some is just plain painful. There are two robots who are twins. Whether they are offensive Mexican Stereotypes or Black Stereotypes, doesn't matter to me. I just want them gone.

In the end, you go in hating this film, you'll hate this film. If you go in liking this film, you'll like it. It's just another one of Bay's works that will appeal to a certain audience. The plot is serviceable enough, though with plenty of holes, to get us through and there are good moments as well as painful moments. In the end, I liked it just fine.

Verdict: Go see it.

Sit Down, Shut Up (2009)

Arrested Development the animated series sans the Voice Over and Wit

[5/10 · 20 April 2009]

It's no surprise that FOX broadcasting has somewhat lowered the bar for the standards of television. Face it; this channel has somewhat thrived upon "trash TV" and has built a reputation on it. However, when it comes to Primetime animation, FOX currently holds several juggernauts including Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy, Mike Judge's King of the Hill and of course, the classic, The Simpsons. So when a new animated series called Sit Down, Shut Up premieres between two of these audience bringers, expectations are somewhat higher.

Sit Down, Shut Up follows a staff of teachers at a dysfunctional school in an attempt to hold things together during hard economic times. Such teachers include Ennis Hofftard who is an essential meat head teaching English, Larry LittleJunk as the lovable P.E. coach who just can't quite woo the girl of his dreams without insulting her, and Stuart Proszakian, a somewhat drugged out Assistant Principal (or in this case the Ass. Principal) who is constantly happy and constantly unaware of the present situation. This week's episode: the school must find a way to raise money or they must fire one of their staff members.

Since the series was created of Mitch Hurwitz (who also created Arrested Development), a series of subplots concerning the misfit teachers take place. Can the German teacher effectively hide his pornography? Will the plan to subject students to steroids work? Can the Librarian find the missing bottle of '93 champagne work hundreds? Also adhering to Arrested Development's structure, all the subplots wind down to a chaotic, no holds bar conclusion. Unfortunately, that's all Sit Down, Shut Up takes from Arrested Development.

One of the major problems is the format. So much plotting and details are shot at rapid pace, that multiple viewings are required. (Though whether it's worth the effort is questionable). However, without an omniscient voice over (such as the one provided by Ron Howard in Arrested Development) to keep the program coherent and accessible, the show becomes very confusing very quickly. This leads to an altogether other problem: whether the show is actually aware that it's an animated series, or whether it's not.

Several hints were thrown revealing that some characters know more than they're supposed to. For example, Larry Littlejunk makes an obscure reference and when no flashback comes up (somewhat insulting the format of Family Guy), Larry asks "Mitch" if they're going to show it. Likewise, Assistant Principal Proszakian has the catchphrase, "I need a catchphrase" to add to the lampooning. However, if the characters are somewhat omniscient, why do they also seem unaware at times, such as when Larry Littlejunk tries to woo Miracle Grohe when he knows he will fail. The reason the Voice Over was so important was because while the narrator could be omniscient, the characters were free to wallow around in their dysfunction, unaware anyone was watching them. However, without one, confusion follows.

One of the saving graces of the series is the voice cast. While I could go on about Kennen Thompson's role as the acting principal and Will Forte's exquisite role as Stuart Proszakian, real credit goes to Will Arnet. Arnet's role is so perfectly defined as the meat head jock, that he essentially steals the show. There's a scene where he's essentially showing a threesome in a porno to a group of students while confusing it with a cheese magazine. He quickly debunks it with "That's not cheese, that's a three way." A few moment's do work besides Arnet's performance. For example there is a great winking bit where everyone winks to each other and the Assistant principal winks in an attempt to fit in. Of course, he never realizes the joke's on him since they are plotting about him, so he continues to wink.

The animation is somewhat lackluster. While it is interesting to see real life backgrounds spliced together with animation, the end result is more a study of effective animation rather than entertainment.

The real problem is that Sit Down Shut Up doesn't reach as high (or perhaps in FOX's standard) or as low enough to warrant it as a classic. After first impressions, it comes off as sort of bland and forgettable. It's not unwatchable, but there's no reason for a second viewing to buy the DVD's. Perhaps Sit Down Shut Up will step up its game after a mediocre pilot and make a home run for its scheduled run, or be rescheduled to a less popular time block. That being said, the end result shows more missed opportunities than classic examples.