It's been a pretty slow week around The Rotten Office, which is good because most of my mental energy is being consumed focusing the U.S. game against Portugal. But movies persist and there is one on the docket today. The Transformers are back and hopefully not headed to extinction.
Just remember, I'm not reviewing these movies, but rather predicting where they'll end up on the Tomatometer. Let's take a look at what This Rotten Week has to offer.
Rotten Watch Prediction
My neighbor across the street has so much crap in his yard - machines, hollowed out old appliances, motors, etc. - that if he had a decommissioned Optimus Prime sitting back there on blocks I don’t think I’d be completely surprised. In fact, when I button this piece up it may be worth it to take a stroll over and "chat" about some stuff while taking a looksy to see if this is a reality. Having a Transformer in our neighborhood has to tick up those property values just a smidge I’d think.
Although judging by this trailer for Transformers: Age of Extinction, they do more harm than good. So probably better to leave sleeping alien technology lie:
Having not kept well abreast of the Transformers franchise, I can’t make a solid judgment about how well this flick holds true to those that came before (Hard to keep a straight face while writing that sentence). I suspect those who love the franchise come more for the bells and whistles than for the overall plot arcs and backstories. Could be wrong, but I doubt it. These are popcorn flicks through and through (I have seen the first two) and are meant to further Michael Bay’s particular niche of watching things go boom-boom in grand fashion. This isn’t a knock. We need this in our movies.
And while critics liked the first Transformers (57%) just fine, the subsequent Revenge of the Fallen (19%) and Dark of the Moon (36%) didn’t fair as well. Maybe they got LaBeouf’ed or maybe it was just too much transforming and not enough of everything else. But something about which there is no debate would the Transformers box office success as the franchise has grossed about $2.7 billion. Billion. Michael Bay cares not for your dinky little critical success meter. Nor should he. When this thing is essentially guaranteed about $400 million in domestic ticket sales, would you even spend one minute caring what a critic thought? Unless you were bored on your own private island or something and needed a good laugh? Me neither.
Honestly, from the trailer I think I’d see this movie. It looks fun. Mark Wahlberg is perfect for the franchise. Equal parts action star and timely comedic relief, he slots in nicely to a flick about more transforming alien cars and massive action fight scenes. I doubt it’s incredibly important the "why" behind the fighting. Someone’s attacking someone else and it’s up to Wahlberg, Optimus and all our Hasbro friends to save the day. I doubt critics will love it, but who cares? Now, off to see what my neighbor has in that garbage heap.
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Got Jersey Boys (Predicted: 62% Actual: 55%) pretty much correct, a win in the prediction resume. Reviews reflected what I thought would happen with the movie. It doesn’t appear to have broad, universal appeal and just judging by the trailer it looked pretty boring. Sean conveyed as much in his review calling the movie "dull" and "flavorless". It seems nothing much happens, but the music is good I guess. Clint Eastwood has lost his fastball (to be expected at an advanced age), his recent films underperforming compared to his earlier work.
Meanwhile, Think Like a Man Too (Predicted: 37% Actual: 22%) stunk. What threw me off here was how badly I missed on the original movie. I remember making a prediction for that one way on the low end and it came in close to the middle. That clouded my judgment this time as I went higher on my guess hedging that I missed something like I did the first time. Nope. It was bad, a typical Las Vegas cliche about stereotypes of men and women. Nice work Hollywood.
Next time around we get delivered from evil, Echo comes to Earth and Tammy makes an appearance. It’s going to be a Rotten Week!
