Reviews

Sam Wittwicky is a high school kid with dreams of owning a vehicle in order to attract his crush (who is thankfully NOT a typical blonde). To buy said car, he's been Ebaying his Grandfather's belongings from an arctic expedition where he discovered an 'Iceman' (Megatron), who upon a slight touch, displayed his course-plot, which was accidentally burned into Grand-Dad Wittwicky's glasses.

The Decepticons arrive and begin to violently attack military targets in order to hack into top-secret files and the internet (of all things). They discover, through Ebay, that said glasses could lead them to the Earthly hiding spot of the 'All-Spark' (a cube of raw energy which brings life to anything mechanical). The Autobots send in BummbleBee as a classic Camaro to protect Sam. Sam see's the Camaro in a used car-lot and decides it is the one for him. In a hilarious scene, BummbleBee ensures that he is indeed the only car for Sam. Later, Sam watches his car drive away and follows it, thinking it's been stolen. BummbleBee eventually leads him to the arrival of Optimus Prime and the other Autobots. They have arrived to protect the Humans and retrieve the All-Spark before their enemies can. A simple enough plot and yet it is complicated by secret government agencies, high school bullies, military air-strikes and a boy's love for his new car.

This movie had just about everything. The film saves us from any sort of mushy-romantic scenes between Sam and his crush, allowing us to focus on the more important relationship between the humans and the Autobots. It was hilarious at times, mostly due to Sam's nervous ramblings and a few good one-liners from the Autobots. The Autobots were definite pride-surging heroes whenever they came on the screen, although they appeared more to be the muscle than the actual heroes of the film. The movie leaves the butt-kicking to the human element of the film, even when it comes to killing Megatron. It blends well, but if you were looking for space-battles and Autobot-on-Decepticon death matches, this film will disappoint.

Arthur is a cocky teen who's in-your-face poetry has caught the eye of Paul, a traditional French poet. When Arthur is invited to Paul's home to meet his family, they are shocked at the belching, thieving, insulting, insanity that is Arthur Rimbaud. However, Paul is enlivened by him and puts him up. Arthur shows no gratitude and makes a public spectacle by climbing to the roof stark naked and throwing his clothing into the street. Oddly, Paul is enchanted with Arthur's wild and unpredictable nature. They begin an oddly matched homosexual relationship over flowing with absinthe, violence, obscenity and even more insanity. They travel, urinate on other poet's works, eat hay from fields, beat each other, hate each other, love each other and eventually someone is shot. The movie is choppy, understandably jumping from scene to scene as the film is based on letters they exchanged. It's a bit hard to follow and a bumpy ride, and definitely a movie you'll love to hate.

OK, aside from the psychedelic background imagery, the info presented here was good. The music I could have done without (not that it was bad music, just that it didn't fit this film at all).

As for the content of the film, the director brings up the often-lacking Pagan perspective on Christ's existence and a startling comparison of the deeds and events of Christ's life vs. the lives of mythological figures/deities such as Mithra and Dionyses. Then he brings up the chronology of Christianity's origins and presents an 'ok' case, but not one that blew me away.

If the director had stuck with the facts and continued on with them, this film would have been good. However, at this point in the film, it disintegrates into a group of personally-gratifying attacks on Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" and a Christian private school which the director attended in his youth. During an interview with his old principal, (which during the course of, it comes to light that the director set up under false pretenses) I felt that the director was acting sort of childish. He was asking good questions but, like the film itself, the interview crumbled into an attack on this particular private school's rules, not Christianity.

All in all, if you're just interested in some info, watch the first 30 minutes or so and then shut it off.

Sad to say, I too was disappointed in the film. Perhaps I was expecting a better Pagan connection or more film of ritual. They needed to have someone sit down and explain the male's purposes on the island a bit better or have him see a few rituals (instead of maypoles and fertility rituals, we see 5 pregnant women pass him on a trail and we see a finished maypole in the school yard. The island operated more as a 'bee colony' than any sort of pagan or goddess-centered society.

I liked how they had a small tongue-in-cheek reference to the original film when Cage pops out of his room to ask if anyone has unpacked his things and we see a woman eating an apple.

However, I feel any dialog they tried to mimic from the original (the school room scene, for example) was inappropriate and out of place.

The only scary parts, excluding the crash as scary (it actually just disturbed and saddened me) are these dreams he has, or daydreams, such as finding the dead child under the dock. I found nothing of the film 'psychologically' frightening save for the breaking of Cage's legs to make him identical to a wingless drone. The society did not frighten me so much as tick me off. I was on Cage's side in this film, not the islanders (probably the point that disappointed me the most!) Anyway, this movie had a nice location, but again it made me think of a campground or lake-side cottage more than any sort of goddess/pagan-based society.

Go see it, judge for yourself. You may like it, it may work for you. I think for this to become a "good" movie in my standards I will have to watch it a few more times to see if anything grows on me.

This is an obviously low budget film that looks like it was made out of somebody's garage. The film has very stiff and emotionless actors who don't help matters by having horrible timing with their lines.

There doesn't seem to be much reason for anything that is happening in the plot. Yumi is this model, who ends up sleeping with Greg, the photographer, (and has a hard time with English). Eventually we gather that his wife has found out about her. Greg and his wife get into a shoving match over her within the first 5 minutes of the film and she falls, cracking her skull open. After cleaning up the blood and packing up her body, Greg sees a woman's reflection in the mirror. Spooked, he takes off to Black Lake. The flashbacks wherein I guess they were trying to portray his 'Love' for both women are all corny lines and makeout scenes. The next hour is Greg driving, Greg sweating, Greg smoking, Greg hearing things. Eventually there is a very out of place scene involving a man flashing his lights just to reach through the window and grab Greg's shirt and ask if he's feeling alright. There is NO need for this scene and I don't know anyone who would flash their lights at a car just to do this, nor do I know anyone who would lower their window more than a crack to talk to a creepy looking stranger. It's un-needed, un-realistic and unpractical moments like this that really sink this film.

If there is a good part to this movie, it's in the last 30 minutes, when the hauntings get semi acceptable. The two best are probably when Yumi, in a manner similar to 'The Ring's Samara, climbs up the driver's side window while the car is going 80mph. The other scene is when there is knocking from the trunk, he slams the brakes and the trunk opens and closes, then blood pours over the windows and the dead body flops it's un-shrouded head on the windshield.

The tagline may mention the occult and gruesome hauntings, but there is no such thing in this film. It's mainly Greg's paranoid trip to the lake to dump his wife's body. There are a few mundane threats, such as the cop who pulls him over for speeding. In the end, Greg's psychosis does him in when he throttles Yumi, thinking that she was the woman he saw in the mirror and that she "knows too much". He cuts her body up with a chain saw (behind closed doors). He's caught when two police men come to the door and instead of two men, he sees the ghosts of both women.

All in all, this was a bad movie, but would have made a nice episode of 'Tales from the Crypt' or some other ghost-story/urban legend TV show.