Terminator Salvation

It seems the trend for sequels is to not call them sequels anymore. I guess sticking a number on a movie title has a certain negative connotation, but for all intents and purposes, Terminator Salvation IS Terminator 4. That's actually a good thing for this movie: 3 films of back-story means it can almost entirely ignore establishing backstory... and oh does it ever. While i could rail against the over-used premise of the film, i'll try and judge it on it's own merits.

The movie stars christian bale as batman as john connor. I say it this way because it's clearly not a different character portrayal despite clearly being a different character. It's not that the characters are the same, they just feel the same - right down to that stupid raspy voice that sends shivers up and down my spine like nails on a chalkboard. I'm usually the type who has to look up actors' names (because i don't give a damn about remembering them), but in this case i knew immediately that that was the batman acting like john connor and not because of bale's fame.

Anyways, the movie starts "in the past" (ie, pre-Judgement Day) with marcus wright (sam worthington) on the verge of his execution for a triple homicide. Naturally, we know that he's (going to be) a good guy because he's so convinced he deserves to die. In a decade where villains are characterized by their inexplicable "love of evil", being anything but seems to be a writers way of telling the morons in the audience (aka, us) that a character's redeemable.

As it turns out, Marcus donates his body to science for the purpose of... curing cancer, i guess (the movie's kinda vague on this), but the real reason is more plot-device-y as he comes back later on "in the future" to serve as one of the main two protagonists the story will follow later on.

Now, believe it or not, the first half of the movie is actually not all that bad: there's some timely action sequences, a bit of story to play off of - though most of this is drawn from the 3 movie history - and even some suspense thrown into the mix.

But what's this? Something's missing! I know: it's the required-by-law love-story of course! But john connor, the main character of the series, is already married (don't worry, that's not a spoiler... it's so unimportant it's barely worth mentioning in the canonical story of the movie)! What's a writer to do? Cue the shallowest of shallow love interests - Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood). Blair is such a shallow character that the movie doesn't even try to hide this fact and the minute her usefulness has run out she's never heard from again.

Despite the movie trying to put in some romantic overtones between blair and marcus, their relationship never really goes anywhere and marcus ends up with a much stronger rapport with john connor - a man who starts off hating him and never really grows to trust him. In fact, all characters seem to have this intrinsic love of john connor, but it's mostly based on pre-movie stories that have set connor up as a prophetic savior of humanity. Did they all see the previous 3 movies or something?

The movie has its climax when the terminator himself shows up to face off against john and marcus in an epic final battle. That's right: Arnold Schwartzenegger reprises his role as the cold robotic terminator of the title, putting on an acting performance that not only wows the audience, but shows up his staunchest critics as he demonstrates that yes, he, too, can act!

Wait, that's not arnold... that's just a computer graphic! Oh my.

Well, it was still the coolest part of the movie.

Anyways, other than Arnold's no-show appearance, the film doesn't really offer much in the ways of impressiveness. The story is stupid and has a lot of holes that you'll find yourself thinking about during the movie... like, if the terminators are so dead-set on wiping out humanity, why are they rounding them up like cattle? And why do so many of the terminators fight without guns? And why do the ones with guns always MISS? They're ROBOTS for christ's sake!

Oh well, i'm sure there's much i could read into this that i really shouldn't. It is, after all, a movie - one i'm sure we'll see more of in the future.

I give Terminator Salvation 4 pointless character roles out of 7: D+.

Angels and Demons

The movie (Director Ron Howard), not the book (writer Dan Brown). And yes, they are different... so very, very different. Because the book is so widely read, i'll just assume that half of the one person reading this has read the book - ie, i'll refrain from ruining the plot. I'll still make references to specific plot elements (as always) but i'll ultimately refrain from giving anything away (Snape kills Dumbledore!).

Because Angels and Demons was written by high-school science flunky, Dan Brown, it's impossible for me (a (particle!!!) physicist (and writer)) to talk about it without at least mentioning the bad physics employed throughout. While i could write veritable books on how little Dan Brown knows about physics ("What he doesn't know could fill a warehouse!"), suffice it to say, most of it could pretty much be summed up with the following: "anti-matter does not work that way!". Thankfully, one, Ron Howard, decided to take some creative licence and promptly did away with some of the more embarrassingly bad physics; CERN's magic jet and Langdon's magic parachute are two of the casualties. Unfortunately, this still means we have to put up with the contrived anti-matter crap, since it's pretty much central to the fucking story! Thanks, Brown... seriously. Two seconds on the internet, 'k?

*ahem*

Anyway, 15 minutes of offensively bad physics later, the movie starts and we're on our way.

As i mentioned earlier, the first thing anyone who's read the book will notice is that there's been quite a bit of creative licence taken on the part of Ron Howard. Now, creative licence isn't necessarily a BAD thing: after all, Cider House Rules the movie is significantly different from the book, yet they're both competent (and good) stand alone pieces. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing, either. Angels and Demons has a(n un)fair mix of both.

On the "good" hand, along with much of the "bad physics" being axed, there's small edits that are done simply to keep the story "fresh", particularly for those who are familiar with it. A good example of this is the scene in which Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is locked in the archives: the resolution the readers of the audience expect is different enough from the actual resolution to maintain suspense in the story while not fundamentally altering the spirit of it. This was a welcomed change from Da Vinci Code, which followed the book so faithfully much of the suspense was simply lost since you'd already know exactly how things were going to end up and how they're going to get there. So kudos to Ron Howard for at least doing this.

Unfortunately, there are also a fair share of "bad" edits: edits that fundamentally change the story or characters for the worse. These are often done as "time saving" measures, but the gain is definitely not worth the expense. Angels and Demons is definitely over littered with these kinds of edits. It's as if Ron Howard only read the first half of the book and decided he could make up a better ending himself. Sadly, he can't.

The most egregious edits were in character roles. While the book has phony physicist Vittoria Vetra serve as a love interest, she at least seems to have importance in the story and the emotions that are invoked in the two characters (her and Langdon) seem at least genuine.

In the movie version, Vittoria (Ayelet Zurer) seems to be almost completely unnecessary. Besides acting as the resident plot-device of the story, she serves no purpose... including in the mandatory-by-law love story that tries (but not very hard) to exist in the movie. While the book establishes her much better as an integral part of the plot, in the movie she can literally be replaced by a (bogus) physics text with some italian-to-english phrases in the back and nobody would know the difference. Most of the time you as the viewer are just confused as to why this random nobody keeps inviting herself along on Langdon's adventure.

The other characters who get a considerable downgrade are the villains (i'll be delicate to avoid spoilers here). While the book makes a point of explaining the villains' motivations, the movie... just doesn't. Motivation is just pointless filler, right? Instead, we're treated to a half-assed explanation that leaves anyone who didn't read the book confused as to why they would go through the trouble they did (or how they did). It's even more confusing when it turns out one villain has back-stabbed the other (this doesn't happen in the book). The "how" and "why" are left completely unexplained, making the change from the novelization certainly not one of the "good edits".

Ultimately, while Ron Howard's creative licence should NOT be revoked, he should definitely have it renewed (see what i did there? I used a metaphor that doesn't even make sense: take THAT, Dan Brown!). Many edits are clearly in the nature of improving the suspense-related problems of The Da Vinci Code movie, but he goes way too far for some of the more important story-related issues - and that's simply unacceptable.

I give this movie 2 and a half scientists burning at the stake... out of 5 possible stakes. That's a C, but the science involved gets a solid F.

Monsters vs Aliens

As promised, here it is, something a little special: a guest reviewer. Enjoy (i command it!).