Senseless waste of potential | The Bad Movie Marathon

“Revenge is coming”

Directed by Michael Bay
Starring Shia LaBoeuf and Megan Fox, with the voices of Peter Cullen, Tony Todd and Hugo Weaving

Sam Witwicky is off to college and Bumblebee is jealous because freshmen can’t take cars with them! Hilarity ensues when Megatron’s master, the Fallen, tries to destroy the world.

What’s wrong with it?

Revenge of the Fallen takes every good thing about Transformers and jettisons it in favour of something dumb. The comedy scenes are louder and more grating, the people are more front and centre, the characters are little more than collections of stereotypes and much of the joy of the first film is lost. Minority characters – primarily blacks and women, but also the old as Jetfire farts parachutes – are sidelined or reduced to offensive caricatures. John Turturro’s Agent Simmons becomes a pure gag character, and even Megan Fox is downgraded from ‘I’ll drive, you shoot’ to weak support.

What’s right with it?

Aside from the farting, Jetfire is awesome; I am so sad that they killed him off.

How bad is it really?

Revenge of the Fallen is just a mess, with increasingly ludicrous comedy scenes intruding on the action as if a better Transformers film was being accidentally shot on the same sets and at the same time as a bawdy bedroom farce.

Best bit (if such there is)?

Whenever Optimus Prime makes one of his many last stands, the combination of Peter Cullen and a competent composer can’t fail to give a hint of something better than we actually have here.

What’s up with…?

Alice, the Decepticon sex bot? Seriously, the fuck?
Parachute farts?
Tiny Decepticons dry-humping Megan Fox’s leg?
The apparently irresistible comedy stylings of Sam’s parents’ descent into dribbling, surreal senility?
SEX BOT WTF?
The complete failure of the cold and pressure of the Laurentian Abyss to have any effect on Transformers whatsoever? Didn’t they run this plan past the Autobots?

Ratings

Production values – The effects are pretty much the same as in the first film, and two years on are not quite so hot. Moreover, they are even more cluttered and hard to follow. 9
Dialogue and performances – Everything about the film is dumber than the last one, and that was pretty dumb. Overall, the emphasis on visual splash hits the performances as well, and everyone looks worse here than they did in the last one. 15
Plot and execution – A messy retcon to the ending of the first film is coupled with some almost laughable historical revelations to produce a humdrum treasure hunt story. 13
Randomness – Seriously, this film scores almost full marks right out of the gate for the sex bot, but the disposable extras and horrible comedy intrusions crank it right the way up. 20
Waste of potential – Takes every potential lesson of the first film and throws them away to produce something with all the same problems, just a hundred times worse. 16

Overall 73%

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

“It’s time for a new kind of magic.”

Directed by Russell Mulcahy.
Starring Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen and Michael Ironside

In the sequel to 1984’s cult favourite, Highlander, the mysterious immortals from the first film turn out to be aliens exiled by the evil dictator, General Katana (Ironside), forced to fight for the right to either return to their home planet of Zeist or to become mortal and live out their days on Earth, as Connor McLeod (Lambert) has done.

In the future, an aging Connor recovers his powers and his youth when Katana – for no apparent reason – sends two giggling incompetents to kill him. Regenerated by their Quickening and motivated by bad movie sex, he then teams up with a resurrected Ramirez (Connery), and an ecoterrorist (Madsen) to bring down the ozone shield he helped to create and save the world.

The ‘Renegade’ Director’s Cut apparently makes more sense, but may be just a myth. I certainly know no one who has seen it.

What’s wrong with it?

This film is bad on so many levels. For starters, it bears little or no relation to the first film, in which the immortals were weird and mystical, with an unknown source. The degree to which the ‘sequel’ is not trying is indicated by the fact that the aliens were exiled over a thousand years after Ramirez was supposed to have been born in Egypt.

The playing is lacklustre – even Sean Connery and Michael Ironside seem to be phoning it in; the plot is incomprehensible in parts, and drivel in others. Even the sword fighting is minimal, to say the least, with only really two scenes which can even approximate to decent duels.

Yeah, and the continuity is poor.

Also, I don’t know what the female lead’s name is. I could probably look it up on IMDb, but seriously, I ought to know from watching the film.

What’s right with it?

Nothing really.

How bad is it really?

Truly appalling. As a sequel it doesn’t work, and it lacks the justification of being a watchable movie in its own right.

Best bit (if such there is)?

Umm…No.

What’s up with…?

In the bit when Ramirez uses his big burst of telekinesis, why does Amazing Grace play on the bagpipes? He’s an Egyptian, and an alien. And how come his katana is stuck in the floor beside him after Connor and the woman leave, yet later on Connor is carrying it instead of his naff little Zeistian sword?
How come Katana isn’t dead? He’s supposed to be a mortal on Zeist. And why can’t he get better help if he rules the whole planet with an iron hand? And why does he send them when Connor is about to kark it from old age anyway?
Why?
Why, God? Why?

Ratings:

Production values – Poor. The lighting is not just muted, in places it’s hardly there at all. The fight scenes are clunky and awkward, and the SFX is pretty rubbish (a few cheap-looking Quickening rushes and an ozone shield that looks like a Los Angeles sunrise). 14

Dialogue and performances – The dialogue is unbelievably bad, even by action-adventure standards, with the standout piece being the explanation of how the whole Zeist-Earth/Mortal-Immortal gig works between Connor and the ecoterrorist chick, which plays like a badly gaffed version of Who’s On First? 17

Plot – There is no plot; only Zool. Slay evil; destroy bad machine. Fire bad; tree pretty. 16

Randomness – For starters, there’s the issue of why it’s called Highlander II, given that with the alien timewarp and so forth it has next to no continuity with the first film. Move past that, and the question of why Katana bothers to go after Connor trips you up. Also, how come none of the stuff they do in this one comes up in the first? It’s pretty out there, and that’s where it needs to stay. 18

Waste of Potential – Maybe Highlander wasn’t Citizen Kane, but this isn’t even Jeffrey Archer’s Kane and Abel. 18