TRANSFORMERS

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Selling Disaster
Michael Bay Fetishizes War for Youth
By Cole Smithey

Stories of Michael Bay’s shouting fits during the filming of "Transformers" have spread around Hollywood, and the blockbuster director’s outsized sense of everything finds its level on-screen with massive machine ultra-violence that’s bloodless if not deafeningly loud.

Amid a plethora of shameless product placements for American car companies, and a certain toy manufacturer, lies a bare-bones story about high school junior Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) on a mission to get his first car and start dating hot chics, namely one Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). Sam realizes his Steven Spielberg-approved "upper-middle-class" dream and much more when he purchases a rusty ‘70s Camero that conceals a transforming alien robot called Bumblebee.

As fate would have it, Sam is hot on the alien robot go-to list as the great-grandson of an Arctic explorer who retrieved a frozen gigantic evil robot called Megatron (leader of the Decepticons) along with a cube of "raw power" called an "Allspark" that the bots badly want. Endless noisy chase sequences and city-leveling titan clashes attend the CGI masturbation between good and bad colossal robots, as if there were a difference.

"Transformers" is designed as an insider movie made to order for fans of the ’80s era cartoon, toys, videogames and comic books about Autobots and Decepticons, two opposing gangs of gnarly metal-morphing robots that expand exponentially from cars, planes and tractor trailers into massive metal gladiators. Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) is the good-guy leader of the Autobots, who speaks in a condescending God voice intoning theme-line ultimatums and platitudes that might impress 10-year-olds, but could send cringes through adults concerned about the potential brainwashing effect on their children.

Rhetorical sloganeering stems from a pro-war bent that’s supported by the film’s parallel subplot, set in Qatar where US military forces fight a losing battle against Decepticons concealed as helicopters or as giant reticulated metal scorpions capable of adapting the weapons being used against them. The familiar sports maxim "no pain, no gain" is changed into an often repeated "no sacrifice, no victory" adage that carries a higher grade of zealotry. When an armed fighter tells Sam, "You’re a soldier now," it’s agonizingly clear that the filmmakers are intent on gearing child audiences toward combat, although it’s unclear who or what they might be fighting.

As in "The Last Mimzy," an entire family is hauled off to the pokey by a Homeland Security-styled team. In this case, it’s Sam’s mom and dad that are aimlessly arrested by John Turturro as the goofball Agent Simmons. The film’s poster tagline, "Protect / Destroy" resonates with America’s oxymoronic national and foreign policy. And the story devolves into an urban battle climax where civilian causalities invisibly pile up beneath tons of rubble. For our trouble, we are anesthetized to the violence with plenty of bombastic music and a fusillade of crashing sounds albeit sans the screams of any wounded victims.

There are plenty of racist and sexist jabs interspersed throughout with dialogue about "Bros before hos," and Sam’s car freshener spelling out "Bee-otch." On Air Force One, a Bush-like President asks a female assistant to "wrangle him up some ding dongs." Jon Voight slums as a Secretary of Defense John Keller who wants us to know that the robots are "way too smart for the Iranians."

Even as a big spectacle popcorn movie, "Transformers" comes across as dumb-as-a-stump for all of its idiotic robot characterizations that make Jar Jar Binks ("Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace") sound like a genius by comparison. It’s a sickening force-feeding commercial frenzy to sell cars, toys and war in the same breath that it pawns itself off as "cinema." This is not cinema. This is acid kool-aid for children. Don’t drink it.

Rated PG-13. 140 mins.

ZERO STARS

TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE — CLASSIC FILM PICK

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Team America F**K Yeah
Matt Stone And Trey Parker Go After The Big Guns
By Cole Smithey

Geniuses of satire Matt Stone and Trey Parker bring big laughs to the big screen with a cast of square-jawed marionettes who  fight terror by way of North Korea's Kim Jong II in a relevantly childish reading of "freedom."

Inspired by the '60s British television series "Thunderbirds," Stone and Parker use Jerry Bruckheimer's action movie plot template to parody America's bullying military with one-third-scale puppets that give new meaning to "wooden acting."

The political ridicule hits a fever pitch anytime the comic duo's brilliantly phrased songs modify the puppet action sequences (you'll be chanting "Team America, F**k Yeah" for days).

Kim Jong II exploits the Film Actors Guild (including Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Samuel Jackson and Sean Penn) for his evil schemes while the Team America World Police recruit a Broadway actor to infiltrate an Iraqi terror cell. This all-out adult satire pulls no punches and takes no prisoners.

Sean Penn sent Matt Stone and Trey Parker a personal letter in which he berated them for encouraging young people not to vote if they don’t know anything about the issues or about the candidates. Some irony lies in the fact that Penn had not seen the movie before he sent off his missive that allegedly stated: "I remember several times getting a few giggles out of your humor.

I remember not being bothered as you traded on my name among others to appear witty, above it all, and likable to your crowd. I never mind being of service, in satire and silliness. I do mind when anybody who doesn’t have a child, doesn’t have a child at war, or isn’t or won’t be in harm’s way themselves, is encouraging that there’s no shame in not voting if you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ You guys are talented young guys but alas, primarily young guys. All best, and a sincere f*** you, Sean Penn.

A larger irony lies in Penn’s overstated defense of "children" before turning the tables on himself by attempting to insult Stone and Parker for being "primarily young guys." Upon close examination, you realize that Penn’s ham-fisted letter actually supports Stone and Parker’s assertion. Penn’s comment, about Stone and Parker not being in "harm’s way," ignores the endless personal attacks and threats that the purposefully non-glamorous duo have suffered as a result of their comic contributions.

The greatest gift that Matt Stone and Trey Parker possess is their inexhaustibly childish and brash approach to big issues. Although they’ve said in interviews that "Team America: World Police" mocks terrorists rather than the war on terror, the film rightfully does off-handedly ridicule Bush’s "war on terror." It slyly acknowledges the truth of multinational global corporate oppression: that there is no and can be no such thing as a war on terror, just as there can be no war on the desperation that drives ostracized people from committing any act of abysmal desperation.

When our puppet commandos kick off "Team America" by killing a group of Muslim terrorists in Paris, they consequently destroy the Louvre killing French civilians like so much inevitable collateral damage. It’s no accident that the French are the first to suffer at the hand of America’s fraternity-minded group of mercenary heroes, complete with ammo belts hung across their chests to preclude any confusion about the heroes’ agenda.

The liberal doses of crude vulgarity that Stone and Parker smear over everything they do is a keen equalizer that goes much deeper than party lines or class striations. The purely filthy satire enters your central nervous system in coded systems of pop culture references that expand in your sub conscious. It’s a thoroughly integrated brand of intoxicating anti-propaganda that sparks from everything you already know on an intrinsic level. Think of it as comedy by osmosis.

No quarter is given to corporate shills like George Bush or John Kerry, or to puppet enemies like Osama or Hussein. Instead the filmmakers go right for the jugular of North Korea’s Kim Jong Il as a lonely dictator baddie who feeds UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix to a shark. That scene won’t stick in your memory as much as the much-debated hilarious puppet sex scene, but the film’s final explanation of the world’s problems as based on assh*les, Puss**s, and di*ks, surely will.

(Warner Brothers) Rated R. 98 mins.

TROY

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Blood And Sand
Hollywood Makes Status Quo Sword-And-Sandal Epic
By Cole Smithey

Hollywood’s historic sword-and-sandal epic genre gathers no fresh momentum in director Wolfgang Petersen’s lukewarm production of David Benioff’s acutely imperfect script.

Inspired by Homer’s "The Iliad" the 1200 B.C. story straddles a line between history and myth with Brad Pitt portraying the Greek god-like Achilles, the world’s greatest mercenary. Achilles is interested in immortality by securing his name in history.

Paris (Orlando Bloom), prince of Troy, steals Helen (Diane Kruger), Queen of Sparta, away from Spartan King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) during a peace negotiation. The action incites the Trojan War in which Achilles is called upon to lead Greece’s soldiers.

Brad Pitt’s impressive mano y mano battle scenes are exquisitely executed, but don’t resonate with any thematic license due to lacking subtext in his beefcake characterization. The story’s inherent romance and lust are mere set dressings to the impotent spectacle of tame battles and repetitive dialogue.

"Troy" delivers the price of admission in its first battle between dueling warriors. Achilles and an enormous gladiator, who looks strong enough to kill Achilles just by pinching him, face off in front of their respective armies for a decisive fight. When Achilles takes a running start at his gigantic opponent, we discover the trick of his trade.

With a magnificent side-twisting leap, Achilles plants his sword deep in his enemy’s shoulder blade, killing him in a single stroke of well-rehearsed combat precision (the move was created by stunt coordinator Simon Crane). But this singular moment encompasses all that we will learn about Brad Pitt’s egotistic character throughout the movie.

This Achilles is a solitary specialist in combat who has refined the art of sword-and-shield battle to allow him a rarefied brand of exemption from civilian concerns. At heart, Achilles is an conceited anarchist. There’s no love loss between Achilles and the Mycenaean King Agamemnon (Brian Cox). Their strained relationship does more to inflame the movie than does the doomed love affair between Paris and Helen.

Orlando Bloom stands out as "Troy’s" greatest casting liability. Paris is a naïve dog with a loud bark and no ability to bite. Orlando Bloom reduces the role to an effete boy/man disguising his subordinate sexuality and lacking combat skills with a bluster that is tedious to endure. Bloom brings no depth or surprise to a primary role that brims with possibilities.

In fairness, Bloom gets little support from Diane Kruger’s limply sexual Helen. Again the filmmakers forfeit an opportunity to cast an actor capable of bringing layers of complexity to a principal role. For the face that "launched a thousand ships" "Troy" needed an exotic and knowing beauty more like Eva Green ("The Dreamers") to command Helen’s insurgent comeliness.

Still, "Troy" has moments of spectacle that, however reminiscent of the Hollywood epics that your parents adored, capture your imagination. The most notable is the fabled Trojan horse that enables the Greeks to invade Troy at the climax of the story. Petersen’s Trojan horse is a ramshackle affair made of ragged pieces of dried wood that you might pay a removal service to transport away. But the strange object’s curiosity factor is tangible. The moment when Greek soldiers begin crawling out of the monstrosity in the dead of night rings with the mythic proportions of the story.

Peter O’Toole’s brief portrayal as Troy’s King Priam imbues the movie with its most dramatically powerful moments. O’toole knows the epic form far better than most actors from his memorable work in "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Last Emperor."

He steals the movie when King Priam goes to Achilles to beg that he be allowed to bury his son’s body. The pathos of the scene is hair-raising and gives a potent glimpse at the overall dramatic potential of the story. "Troy" is not be the summer blockbuster that audiences have hoped for, but if you go expecting to be bored for most of the movie then you’ll be rewarded with a few fleeting moments of pure magic.

 Rated R. 165 mins.