Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Credentials: 7.0 out of 10 (Imdb.com)/37% Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com)/42 out of 100 (Metacritic.com)

Plot: Apparently that whole “space race” thing back in the day was just an excuse to investigate an alien robot ship that crash landed on the moon. Meanwhile in the present day, our unnecessary hero Sam (Shia “Beeftown” LaBeouf) is finding himself very unlucky on the job-hunting front. I’d like to feel sorry for him, I really would, expect inexplicably Beeftown has traded in his old gal pal and her horrible attitude (Megan Fox) for a newer, sexier and British-ier version (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). Anyway, eventually the good Transformers (Autobots) and the bad ones (Decepticons) hear tell of the ship on the moon so they all start hatching plans to claim its precious cargo.

Thoughts: There was one question I went into “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” hoping I would get an answer to. (Actually, there were two if you count: “Why am I doing this to myself?”)

                The question was: What in the blue hell happened to the word “side” and why isn’t it in the title of this movie?

                Sadly, I did not receive an answer.

                What I did end up getting, however, was mildly entertained.

                It looks like director Michael Bay and screenwriter Ehren Kruger put forth a little bit of effort this time.

                “Transformers: Dark (SIDE) of the Moon” is without a doubt the best of Bay’s three stabs at making a movie about warring robot aliens.

                The action scenes are loud and overlong in true Bay fashion, but I never got lost during a single one. I always knew who was fighting who and… even stranger… why.

                Bay pulls his camera back and lightens up on his usual frantic editing, and actually lets his audience see blow for blow robots fighting each other. And guess what? It’s a beautiful thing.

                This time around, Bay and his team spent some time designing their robot leads. Instead of a sea of greys and airplanes, the transformers manage to distinguish themselves. They do this despite the fact that very few of them, especially the bad ones, get to do much talking.

                So the action is solid, but as I said it goes on for too long. The hour plus climactic battle scene will likely tire out even the most hardcore fans. Seriously, you can only watch so many buildings blow up before the shine wears off.

                The story is… nearly intelligible. It gets sidetracked periodically, and is way too bloated but I think this one made the most sense of the three.

                Some advice for Michael Bay and company. I can’t tell you enough how little we care about these characters. We want to see robots fighting and hot girls. Everything else is just parsley on the plate. So please stop using so much parsley! A sprig will do just fine.

                I don’t understand how Bay can so affectionately embrace his image as Hollywood’s oldest teenager and yet still refuse to just skip the useless attempts at character development in the “Transformers” movies.

                Just stick to what you’re good at Bay, indiscriminately blowing stuff up. Leave the character stuff for the pros. And for the love of all that is holy STOP making three hour long movies! You could chop at least an hour off of “Dark of the Moon” and not lose anything of value.

                On to the acting. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has ratcheted it up to 11 in this one.

LaBeouf does his usual, goofy, Corey Matthews circa latter day “Boy Meets World” nonsense, but this time he’s not alone.

John Malkovich AND Ken Jeong are both in this movie. That is a whole lotta crazy. And the thing is: Bay doesn’t seem to have any interest in reining in either one. He turns them loose on an unsuspecting movie going public, and waits to see who can chew the most scenery in the shortest amount of screen time.

                Neither hangs around very long, but I think Jeong’s paranoid schizophrenic edged out Malkovich’s excessive tan and OCD. By a hair.

                Even the Transformers are hamming it up. Many now sport silly haircuts and have outrageous Monty Python accents.

                What about newcomer Rosie Huntington-Whitelely? Critics haven’t been kind to her, saying outrageous things like: “She makes Megan Fox look like Judy Dench.”

                The truth is Rosie is NOT a good actress. But the part doesn’t call for one. Heck, Fox did it for two movies. All you have to do is stand around, look hot, pout and occasionally react to stuff.

                Rosie pouts and reacts just fine and she’s way hotter than Megan Fox. Plus she doesn’t have a raging personality disorder. Good trade.

 “Transformers 3” has its fair share of laughs. It loses the robot balls, racism and animal humping from part two and goes back to some real, honest comic relief. Aside from the nonstop over-the-top performances, a few of the smaller Autobots provide some chuckles here and there.

Even better: Sam’s parents are kept mostly in the background.  

            Lastly, it only took three movies, but finally Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson get to do stuff!

            “Dark of the Moon” is the “Citizen Kane” of Bay’s “Transformer” movies. Granted, that’s not saying very much considering the quality of the other films in the series. It’s still not very good and I would never, EVER sit through it again, but it could be worse. It could be “Transformers.” Or it could be even worse and be “Revenge of the Fallen.”  

            One question remains: What did you people do to the word “side?????”

            Well, that and why in the good goddamn did you cast Hugo Weaving and then give him almost nothing to do for three whole movies?

             Bumblebee tuna.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Credentials: 5.9 out of 10 (imdb.com)/20% Certified Rotten (rottentomatoes.com)/35 out of 100 (metacritic.com)

                Nominated for 7 Razzie Awards: (Wins in BOLD) Worst Actress- Megan Fox (also for Jennifer's Body), Worst Supporting Actress- Julie White, Worst Screen Couple (Shia LaBeouf and either Fox or any Transformer) and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel, Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay.

Plot: Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is just a normal kid with normal kid problems. He’s going away to college, about to embark on a long distance relationship with his girlfriend and his parents just don’t understand. You know, the usual. Oh did I mention that he’s also a key figure in a war between two clans of alien robots (not sure why but he is), his girlfriend is Megan Fox and he uses more spray tan and hair gel than the entire cast of “Jersey Shore?” Just an average, run-of-the-mill kid. Nothing to see here.

Thoughts: “Transformers 2” is in some ways, an actual improvement on part one. But in so many other ways it is an atomic bomb-sized step backwards.

            Let’s start off with the good. The action scenes.

Yes, almost all the robot characters still mostly look the same, especially the Decepticons. But now instead of just rolling around in a big, formless metal blobs, the characters actually fight each other.

There’s punching, kicking, sword-play and enough shooting to satisfy even the most blood thirsty of America’s youth.

And we’re not just talking about fun-loving PG-13 violence either. The kind of stuff our forefathers talked about. No, some of this stuff is pretty intense. Optimus Prime rips another robot’s face of with his bare metal hands for god’s sake.

Heck, by the end I was almost able to keep track of which Depecticon was Megatron (aka their leader). Sadly, that wasn’t the case for the titular Fallen character, who amazingly enough was NOT the only bearded robot in the movie.  

The story in the first film was follow-able. It didn’t make a ton of sense and it was full of plot holes (what did the glasses do exactly, other than nothing?) but it never lost me.

                The same isn’t true of the wildly, manically unfocused sequel.

                We waste the first 40 minutes sending Shia off to college, then his mom gets high on a pot-brownie, his dog humps another dog. All sorts of mindless junk that doesn’t need to be there.

                And then we spend the last 40 minutes watching Egypt blow up in super slow motion.

                What got us from the first 40 to the last 40, well I can only speculate about that.

                The story gets too big. New characters keep getting introduced, old ones keep coming back. No one dies so the already bloated cast just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

                It’s all just too much. Advice: Cut the first 40 minutes out of the movie. No one cares about Sam, his girl trouble or his pain-in-the-ass, makes Jar-Jar Binks seem tolerable by comparison parents.

                Not surprisingly, the acting doesn’t get any better the second time around. Shia is still in Disney Channel mode, although now he’s got a spray tan to go with his over-the-top mannerisms. He’s like The Situation without the abs or the drinking problem.

                Megan Fox still pouts and runs in slow motion, but she’s a little bit naggier now than before.

The onscreen chemistry between Fox and LaBeef has about as much sizzle as bowl of soggy Cheerios. So imagine my surprise today when I hear LaBeef talking about how they had a fling during filming.

What?! You two were actually bumping uglies and you still couldn’t act like a couple? How is that possible?! Kevin James and Adam Sandler made a more convincing couple than you two!

Also, Megan, a word please. Ahem. You’re married to Brian Austin Green and you’re cheating on him with the Beef?!? What’s with this harem of losers? Is your personality so bad the best you can do are these two? Wow. Let that be a lesson, kids. Looks really aren’t everything.      

Moving on: If you thought Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson were along for the ride in “Transformers,” wait until you see the historic levels of nothing they get up to in part two.

All in all, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a catastrophe. The story is nonsense, the acting is a joke, the action scenes are watchable, but go on way too long. I’ve never been more bored by explosions than I was somewhere around the 38^th minute of the explosive Egyptian battle. All of the comic relief from part one is gone, replaced with lots of leg-humping jokes. Classy.

If you’re still not convinced this movie sucked, consider this: painful racial stereotypes AND robot balls. In one movie. Need I say more?
Bumblebee tuna.

Transformers Week: Day 1

Transformers (2007)

Credentials: 7.2 out of 10 (imdb.com)/57% Certified Rotten (rottentomatoes.com)/61 out of 100 (metacritic.com)

Plot: Two warring clans of alien robots travel to Earth to look for a cube that has the power to bring machines to life. Along the way they stumble across two of the world’s least interesting--- and certainly oldest-looking--- high school students: Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. With the two 10^th year seniors in tow, the good robots, or Autobots, prepare themselves for the final battle with their archrivals, the evil Decepticons.

The only thing less believable than Megan Fox falling for Shia the Beef is the word final in the previous sentence.

Thoughts: As you can tell by those credentials, the original “Transformers” held its own with critics way back in twenty aught seven. Of course, it was a simpler time then, almost primitive really and people were much easier to impress. Remember: This was PRE-“Dark Knight” after all. I’m not even sure we’d completely figured the wheel out back then.

                Another reason why “Transformers” didn’t get thrashed by critics the ways its sequel (“Revenge of the Fallen”) did in 2009?

 I think the film’s director Michael Bay had lowered expectations (Anyone remember “The Island”?) to the point that critics were stunned he could make something other than a crime against cinema.

   Make no mistake about it: “Transformers” is not good. It’s just not as bad as what we’d come to expect from Michael Bay at that point.       

                It’s a self-servingly long, bloated spectacle. Two hours and forty minutes for a movie based on kid's toys!?! Are you kidding me? Who green lit that idea?

                Now, look. I love the idea of robots fighting each other (I even liked “Terminator: Salvation”) and I have no problem with long movies. It’s just not every movie needs to push the three hour barrier.

                I’m going to skip over the actors for a second and go right to the special effects, because they are the real stars of “Transformers."

                I gotta say, maybe I’m just jaded but the effects didn’t blow me away like they did for some.

                The character designs for the extraterrestrial robotic leads were extremely lacking to the point where I had trouble telling who was who.

                All of the Decepticons were gray and two of them turned into airplanes, for god sakes. TWO! How in the world am I supposed to keep track of that?

                As for the Autobots, or as I knew them: Optimus Prime (red and blue with an irritating martyr complex), Bumblebee (yellow) and their neon colored sidekicks, things were a little better. At least I could pick two of them out of a police lineup.

                Can we talk about the fight scenes? It’s a bold move for an action movie to spend so little time on its action sequences. Sure, they’re big and loud and lots of stuff blows up, but very early on I discovered this pattern:

                Two robots run into each other, roll around in a shapeless metal blob for a bit, slam into a building, separate and repeat.

                That’s it. That’s all that happens. Once a fight starts, there’s no telling who is who, who’s winning or what’s going on. 
                It’s all very … boring. I can appreciate the spectacle of it all, but I just want a little more. Like, for example, to know what the heck it is I’m looking at.

                Sadly that brings us to the leading human element of the film.

                I’ve never been a Shia LaBeouf fan. His character, Sam, is an absolute chore. Sam’s not so much a real person as a Disney Channel interpretation of a real person. All of his quirks are ratcheted up to the nth degree. He’s an over the top dork who envisions himself as a ladies man. Sam would fit right in on an episode of “Hannah Montana,” as the annoying, but lovable cousin.

                Megan Fox pouts, bats her eyelashes and occasionally runs in slow motion. I think she had some lines in there somewhere, but I’m sure they weren’t of any consequence.

                I’m don't know where Megan Fox got her A-list Hollywood attitude from, because she does nothing in this movie to even qualify for a SAG card. She’s basically the film’s throw pillow. She’s there to look nice and then get out of the way when stuff starts to go down.

                Though she does pretend to be attracted to Shia the Beef, so I guess that counts for something.   

                Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson play soldiers. There is literally nothing more to say about either one.
                The movie has its fair share of laughs, mostly supplied by its supporting cast. Bernie Mac's sleeze ball used car dealer and Anthony Anderson's bumbling hacker are the highlights.
                There's some fun to be had with "Transformers," but not enough to ever justify watching it more than once.

                So there you have it! Michael Bay’s “Transformers.” Stay tuned tomorrow as “Transformers” Week continues with 2009’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

                Bumblebee tuna.

Get ready for some explosions! 'Transformers' week kicks off on Monday!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011, my friends, will be a momentous day for followers of godawful cinema.

On that day, Michael Bay shall awaken from his two year long slumber and once again throttle moviegoers into a digital effects induced stupor with his unique brand of umm... "film making."

On that day, "Tranformers: Dark of the Moon" (actual title) explodes its way onto silver screens all across this little planet of ours.

And because I am a masochist, The Cheese List WILL be there to cover it... on Thursday! I'll be steering clear of movie theaters on Wednesday due to my crippling fear of people dressed up like giant shape-shifting robots. It's a real disease, look it up.

And what kind of party would it be if I didn't spend some time with the first two films in that epic saga.

That's why I present to you the...

 1st (and god willing last) Annual Cheese List

Transformers Week!

Here's what this ugly mess is going to look like:

• Monday, June 27- "Transformers" review posted
• Tuesday, June 28- "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" review posted
• Thursday, June 30- "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" review posted
• Friday, July 1- A very special edition of Five Low 

You can print that out and post it next to your bed if you'd like. I know that's what I'll be doing.

So there it is, an Earth-shattering announcement from your friends at The Cheese List. I'm not saying I just upstaged Flyers GM Paul Holmgren but... I pretty much just did. So unless Homer plans on trading Claude Giroux and James vanRiemsdyk for Rick Depietro, I think he can just consider himself thoroughly one-upped.

Tune in all week and hopefully I make it to Friday with my mind intact. You could literally be watching a daily update of my descent into madness. Should make for some compelling blogs, I'll tell you that.

Bumblebee tuna to all!

I Know Who Killed Me

Credentials: 7% Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com)/16 out of 100 (Metacritic.com)/3.6 out of 10 (Imdb.com)

Nominated for 9 Golden Raspberry Awards in 2007, won 8 (Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, Worst Director, Worst Screen Couple [Lohan and Lohan], Worst Remake or Rip-off, Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie, and two awards for Worst Actress, one for each of Lohan’s characters in the film)

Plot: A talented young writer and piano player (played by Lindsay Lohan... surprising choice, I know) falls into the hands of a sadistic serial killer. She manages to escape and returns home a few weeks later sans a few important body parts, but with a whole new memory. She claims to be a stripper who grew up in a crack house with her addict mom. Now that sounds like a Lindsay Lohan part to me. Is she suffering from a case of post-traumatic stress disorder after her run in with a maniac? Or is something else going on? Something far less believable?

Thoughts: I know what you’re thinking.

                No, I’m not psychic (or am I? 17, three of clubs and moon bounces, any of those things hit home?), but there's only one possible question that comes to mind when you’re talking about a movie like “I Know Who Killed Me.”

                Is this another one of those movies where the famous leading lady plays a stripper and somehow manages to keep her clothes on for the duration of the film? (Think: “Sin City,” “Closer,” ect.)

                The answer is yes, “IKWKM” is exactly that kind of movie.

                Imagine if you will, if Darren Aronofsky had applied this kind of thinking to “Requiem for a Dream:”

                “Alright, quiet on the set! Quiet down! Look, before we start filming I want to remind everyone that this is a movie about the horrors of drug abuse. That being said, I don’t want to see a single joint on screen at any time! I will not permit any depictions of drug abuse in my movie about drug abuse! Is that understood?”

                What’s even more shocking is that Lindsay can’t seem to keep her clothes on in any other venue. The longest she’s ever gone without donning her birthday suit is the 90 minutes she plays a stripper in “IKWKM.”

                Now, let's switch gears to the movie itself.       

                “IKWKM” is basically what would happen if Eli Roth directed a Lifetime movie of the week.

                It’s full of insane, wholly unbelievable melodrama broken up by moments of stomach-churning gore shot in extreme close-up.

Shockingly, LiLo actually almost pulls off the good girl character early in the film. And then the whole killer angle comes into play and suddenly she's the aforementioned stripper for the majority of it.

Perhaps the stripper character is just too close to her real life persona, because LiLo can’t make it work. She just seems like a caricature.

                 As bad as Lohan is, she is very nearly out done by Julia Ormond, who plays her mom. Ormond is trying to act so hard in the movie you can almost see smoke coming out of her ears. She really, really wants to give a convincing performance, she just lacks talent.

                As for the movie’s script, well, it’s a half-baked mess.

                The serial killer subplot is so hastily thrown together that it seems like an afterthought. Sure, the angle is a driving force of the story, but why should you spend anytime developing it at all?

                I’m honestly not sure how Lohan’s character managed to unlock the mystery of the killer’s true identity. It seemed like she was just making wild, groundless assumptions that all turned out to be right.

                The killer’s motivations, which the movie spends maybe a tenth of a second of screen time on, are laughable, if you pay close enough attention to actually catch them.

                Then there’s the conclusion, which is so stupid and improbable that you almost feel bad for everyone involved. And where the heck did the town’s entire police force disappear to?

                Still, I’ll give the film’s screenwriter, Jeff Hammond, credit for actually managing to shoehorn the line: “I know who killed me” into the movie. Even though it makes zero sense in terms of either logic or story (no one had actually died when it was uttered).

                On to the film’s director: Chris Sivertson.

                Sivertson bathes his entire movies in blues and reds, depending on which character Lohan is playing. Blue for the good girl and a seductive red for the stripper. Clever.

At least it is until Sivertson loses his mind and starts putting blues and reds everywhere. He turns the movie into the world’s biggest paint-by-numbers game and he’s only got two numbers in his arsenal.

The whole color thing is meant to be stylish and cool, but it just becomes immensely distracting. Before long, I found myself tuning out the characters and trying to spot all of the unnatural uses of color in a given scene.

                The adventurous out there could probably make some kind of drinking game out of that, but proceed at your own risk. You’ve only got one liver and Sivertson loves him some blues and reds.

Breakdown 

:06-

You couldn't even cast a fluffy cat? Everything about this movie sucks already.

:30-

Hey everyone look over here! I'm acting! Come on watch!
Look, see how good I am?!

:48-

I'm sorry did I accidentally put on "Empire Strikes Back" or was prosthetic
 technology way more advanced in 2007 than I though?

1:02-

What a surprise, I never would expected to see that color scheme in this movie!

1:13-

I don't know. If I was going to put all my faith into a Youtube video,
I'd at least pick one with better graphics.

1:26-

We get it! Enough with the reds and blues already you lunatic!

1:38-



I was making this exact same face while watching "I Know Who Killed Me"

  

               So there it is, “I Know Who Killed Me.”

                Bumblebee tuna.

2010: Moby Dick

Credentials: 2.7 out of 10 (imdb.com)

Plot: (SPOILER ALERT!)The captain (Ahab, played by Barry Bostwick) of a nuclear submarine goes mental while hunting the gargantuan white whale (CGI) that stole his leg. He kidnaps a whale expert (Renee O’Connor) and the Navy bungles all efforts to try to rein him in. And then… huh. Well, actually I think that about sums it up. “Moby Dick” in the modern world. This ain’t your daddy’s white whale, buoys and gulls. You better watch out because stuff’s about to get… amphibious.

Thoughts: Yet another cheese-tastic piece of work from The Asylum. The same studio that bought us current Cheese List Champion “Titanic II,” as well as “mockbusters” such as “The Day the Earth Stopped,” “Transmorphers” and “Snakes on a Train.”  

                Fun Fact: According to Wikipedia.org (so you know it’s true) no Asylum production has ever LOST money! Considering the crap they pump out several times a year, that is truly a remarkable and disturbing statement.

Basically, they make extremely cheap, stupid movies that no one expects to be any good, give them a punchy title and watch as the nickels and dimes trickle in.

What a formula!

Fortunately for me--- or unfortunately if you like seeing me suffer--- “Moby Dick” wasn’t as bad as “Titanic II.”

The pacing was ok, the basic story (boy meets whale, whale eats boy’s leg, boy tries to kill whale) was alright. That's not really any credit to the film, after all it’s essentially just a dumbed down, badly mangled version of the original “Moby Dick.” But still, we’re looking for positives.

But without a doubt the biggest thing going for new “Moby Dick” is a fantastically unhinged, scenery-chewing performance from Barry Bostwick. I’ve been a big fan of Double B since his run as the space case Mayor on one of my all-time favorite sitcoms: “Spin City.”

Bostwick looks like he’s having a blast depicting the tunnel-vision madness of Ahab. My only regret is that Bostwick wasn’t given enough room to go nuts. Too much time was spent on O’Connor’s dreadfully dull whale expert for my liking.

Hell, I could have done with less of the whale if it meant more Bostwick to go around.

See? Look at all those nice things I said. I’m feeling a little less miserable and curmudgeon-like this evening.

This love-fest is making me uncomfortable. Let’s get to the downside before Asylum tries to hire me as a PR rep or something.

Asylum’s signature hokey special effects are in full force in “2010.” The whale is utterly, utterly ridiculous. It looks like a big grey cucumber with teeth.

As I mentioned above, the main part of the story, the part Herman Melville wrote, isn’t bad. Problems arise when we get to the stuff Asylum came up with.

The Navy doesn’t come off too good here. Not only do they lose a nuclear submarine, but later on they can’t even tell the difference between that sub and a 500 foot long albino sperm whale. Very sad day for Village People fans everywhere.

And then it happens. The movie’s signature moment. SPOILER ALERT!

I normally steer clear of spoilers, but honestly you can’t talk about this movie without mentioning this scene: At one point the whale decides it’s had enough water for one day and heads up onto dry land to hang out for a bit.

THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS!

A whale crawling around happily on dry land. I tell you, you just haven’t lived until you’ve seen a thing like that.

And you know, it’s marginally entertaining. Not quite laugh-out-loud stuff because the effects are so poor, but sort of fun.

More stupid than anything else. I think The Asylum would benefit from spending a few bucks on some comedy writers. For God’s sake a giant whale crawls across dry land and not one of the characters has a witty one-liner or a humorous word? For realsy? That’s gotta be some kind of violation.

Plus, imagine what a skilled comedy writer could have given Bostwick to work with?

Breakdown

:05

Is it wrong that I feel badly for the whale? What does that say about me as a person?
 I'm on Team Whale! Go whale, eat those people!

:08

Melville is doing the dougie in his grave right now...

:16

Whale watching suuuuuucks. I wish a giant whale had come by and swallowed the boat I was on.
Would have been way more interesting. 

:37

I didn't realize Marines were allowed to have Bieber haircuts... Finally!

:45

If you see just one movie this year where a whale eats a helicopter... Make it "The King's Speech."
If you have time for two, give "2010: Moby Dick" a shot.

1:02

Best shot of the movie. Bostwick looks like an absolute lunatic.
This should have been the poster.

1:09

Do we really need the crotch shot here? We get it! He's got a fake hand. Move on!

1:14:

I'm tired of seafood. I'm gonna grab a pizza, you guys want anything?

 So the movie is not as much fun as it could be. The effects are bad and outside of Bostwick, the acting is a horrible mess. Still, it could be worse. It could be “Titanic II.”

Bumblebee tuna.

Despiser

Credentials: 3.8 out 10 (imdb.com)

Plot: Once upon a time Bruce Campbell and Mr. Peterman of “Seinfeld” got together and had a baby named Gordon (Mark Redfield). Gordon, who seems to possess none of the charm or whit of his parents, grows up to become a struggling artist and deadbeat husband. One freak car accident later, Gordon finds himself trapped in Purgatory. Before long, Gordon turns into Neo from “The Matrix” and ends up doing battle with some diabolical forces headed by an evil being known as the Despiser. Along with “an eccentric band of freedom fighters," (freedom fighters in Purgatory? Really?) Gordon has to stop the Despiser from forcing his way into the real world.

Thoughts: I know what you’re thinking. With a concept like that, “Despiser” must have cost a fortune.

             Well, let me assure you no piggy banks were harmed in the creation of this movie.

 I can’t say for sure whether or not that message appeared in the end credits, but come on! Who needs some silly scrolling words when the evidence is all over the screen for 90 minutes?

The film’s take on Purgatory seems to have been created by a misguided freshman graphic design student who will probably graduate with a degree in accounting. Or sports management. Anything BUT graphic design.

How bad are the graphics in “Despiser?” Let’s see. Do you remember that old Nickelodeon show from the 90’s called “Nick Arcade?”

Here’s some screen caps if you don’t.

The effects in the “Despiser” are about the same. Of course, “Despiser” came out a decade later, so that statement is really quite sad.

And for some godforsaken reason, the not-so-special computer effects aren’t just limited to the Purgatory world. They start bleeding into the movie's “real” world at the oddest times.

Example: Gordon is driving down an empty road at night.

The road is CG.

Keep in mind, this isn’t a road paved in diamonds and gold, surrounded on all sides by T-Rexes, aliens and dragons.

No, it’s just a regular road. Shot at night. Was it so hard to drag a stinking camera outside and point it at some asphalt??!?! Why waste the time CG’ing something so mundane?

            This happens more than once. When writer/director/producer/effects guy/voice actor/editor/ect.(remember: when the number of titles goes up, quality goes down) Philip Cook can’t be bothered to shoot the exterior of a building, out come the effects.

            Apparently, humdrum-looking apartment buildings aren’t that easy to find these days.

            Lazy isn’t the right word because I feel like he just created more work for himself by doing all this.

             Stupid. That’s the one I’m looking for.

             So the movie looks horrible. Check.

             The story, however, is surprisingly not a disaster. It’s ambitious and even sort of clever at times. Sure, it borrows liberally from “The Matrix,” but still. Credit where credit is due.

It does have its fair share of gaping plot holes though, like why everyone in Purgatory is armed to the teeth with the latest in weapons technology.

The dialogue? Not so much. But hey, lots of filmmakers have had successful careers without having a clue how real people interact with each other. Just look at M. Night Shyamalan.

            And then there’s the acting, which is across the board terrible except for one man: Doug Brown, who looks a little like Carl from “Family Matters” and ironically plays someone named Carl in this movie. He’s pretty good as the leader of the eccentric rabble Gordon helps. He comes across as very likable, no small feat given the material.

You end up wishing there was much more of him and way less of Redfield, who just has nothing going on in the charisma department. A leading man, he is not.

But Redfield isn’t quite the bottom of the barrel. No, that honor is reserved for the multitude of actors who play the last “shadowman” (think elves to the Despiser’s Santa) and Tara Bilkens who adopts a ridiculous British accent to play a freedom fighter named Charlie.

Breakdown

:00-  

It looks so real... wait what year was this movie made? Dear God! My eyes! 

:12-

Yeah, never could have found a place like this. Definitely needed to be CG'd...

:22-

The great Doug Brown! And he never acted again after this mess. Shame.

Take on me... take me on... I'll be gone... In a day or two!

:36-

I need a plain-looking apartment building. Locations? Ha! Get me my laptop!

:40-

You ever see "Evil Dead?" What about "Seinfeld?" "Dancing with the Stars?"
Have you or anyone you loved ever used Old Spice?

1:33-

Honey, I fell in the water, but don't worry! My hair and clothes are bone dry!

1:42-

Good to see Vin's brother is keeping busy.

“Despiser” isn’t a good movie by any stretch, but Cook sticks to his creative guns, refusing to let a lack of funds or talent sidetrack his vision. An admirable quality to be sure. Also, delusional, but admirable nonetheless.

Bumblebee tuna.