Category: Reviews

Allow me to state upfront that I have now nor ever have been a fan of the Transformers. When they arrived, my tastes ran in other directions. That said, I have done some behind-the-scenes work with the franchise a few times in my career so have a good working knowledge. I’ve also seen the first Michael Bay and bits of the subsequent ones, enough to know these also aren’t to my taste.

I was therefore ready to outright reject the first solo film, Bumblebee, but the trailers hooked me. That and the arrival of Hailee Steinfeld, who I have enjoyed since True Grit. As a result, the film, out now on disc from Paramount Home Entertainment, is far more enjoyable than imagined.

By making this about a girl and her robot, a tried and true formula dating back decades (was Gigantor the first?), the film is smaller, needing only so much backstory to be plausible. Set in the film universe, it’s set in the past and therefore acts as a prequel to the overstuffed films that have ground the series into rust.

We get glimpses of the Cybertron civil war, with Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), the Autobot leader, ordering loyal B-127 (Dylan O’Brien) to seek safety on Earth. No sooner does he land than scared humans and vile Decipticons batter him, damaging his vocal synthesizer and sending him into hiding. That is, until he’s discovered by18-year-old Charlie Watson (Steinfeld). She’s emotionally damaged, having just lost her father, and they find one another in a series of charming scenes.

All that changes when Sector 7’s Jack Burns (John Cena) alerts the bad guys B-127 has been located, then the running, chasing, shooting, and exploding begins in earnest. By then, we’re emotionally invested in the pair and put up with the noise. At its core, the film is about people learning to find their voices and overcome adversity of all stripes, in order to stand tall and move forward. That’s a good message for the intended audience.

The film is out in a nice variety of formats including the 4K Ultra HD Combo and Blu-ray combo. The movie is said to have been shot at a resolution of 3.4K, and finished at 2K giving us a sharp, colorful, and detailed image. All the CGI looks particularly good in 4K. The Blu-ray 1080p transfer is equally good. The Dolby Atmos soundtrack provides an excellent companion to the visuals.

What’s lacking are excellent special features, delivering instead, the same old. We have

The best part of the package (both $k and Blu-ray) is the prequel mini-comic Sector 7 Adventures, which is nicely written and drawn and I wish the credits were provided although it was packaged by Avalanche Comics Entertainment, which produced a previous Transformers in-pack comic and know their stuff.

The special features include Sector 7 Archive: Agent Burns: Welcome to Sector 7 (0:50), Sector 7 Adventures: The Battle at Half Dome (9:19), a motion comic version of the ACE comic; Deleted and Extended Scenes (19:05) — Original Opening, Drive to Karate Class, Birthday Present, Car Wash and Beetle Breakdown, Charlie Drops Off Mona and Conan, Decepticons Inspect the Armory, Drive to Cliff, Sector 7, and Appliance War; Outtakes) — Burns Meets Bee, War Room, There’s a Door in My Way, Charlie in Trash, and Saved the World; Bee Vision: The Transformers Robots of Cybertron (3:56); Bringing Bumblebee to the Big Screen in five parts: The Story of Bumblebee (3:54), The Stars Align (7:04), Bumblebee Goes Back to G1 (10:02), Back to the Beetle (6:20), and California Cruisin’ Down Memory Lane (19:57).

Aquaman is wet and wild fun while not entirely holding together as well as it should. The film, the sixth in the in the loosely-connected DC Extended Universe, continues the momentum started with Wonder Woman. Director James Wan certainly makes the undersea world come to vivid life although I wish he spent a little more time on the world-building and character interrelationships.

We pick up a year after his appearance in the disappointing Justice League and Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) continues to reject his fate as a hero. While he opens the film by stopping a sub full of pirates, including the man who will become Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), it seems an infrequent activity. He’s quickly back to drinking and bar fighting, hoping the world will leave him alone.

Instead, forces are at work to make certain that never happens.

While hanging out with dad, Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison), he’s under attack and Mera (Amber Heard), whose relationship with him is never clearly established her or in JL, shows up to explain Atlantis is readying to make war on the surface world and this was just the beginning.

His half-brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), is scheming with Mera’s dad to either forge alliances with the various undersea kingdoms, or seize them, creating an unstoppable force.

Well, there’s one force: Arthur. He is convinced to claim his birthright and we get some lovely flashbacks about his origins so we see Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), an exiled queen, fall in love with the lonely lighthouse keeper until the day soldiers came crashing into their home to take her away. Young Arthur is trained by Vulko (Willem Dafoe), adviser to throne, and we watch his burgeoning telepathic command of sea life.

He challenges Orm, gets beaten, and goes on the run as the film shifts to a quest adventure to find the powerful trident of King Atlan, which will acknowledge his right to the throne. (Atlan was created by Peter David and Esteban Maroto for DC’s The Atlantis Chronicles which I edited and personally, couldn’t have been happier to see their names in the credits.)

While on the quest, the relationship between allies becomes something more, but they get interrupted by Black Manta, who is out for revenge since Arthur allowed his dad to die during the pre-credits sequence.

Everything builds to the all-out war between Aquaman and Meta versus Orm’s army. Lots of special effects, bombastic music, and special effects galore. Of course, once we reach the mid-point, the film stops surprising us and delivers every anticipated beat, robbing the film of being something above average.

The film is bloated but entertaining and with the backstory established, maybe the inevitable sequel (and unnecessary Trench spinoff) will go in fresh directions.

The movie is out in the usual assortment of packages, complete with retail exclusives. The Blu-ray combo was reviewed and the 1080p transfer looks sharp and brilliantly colorful. The aspect ratio is 2.40:1, with the IMAX-formatted scenes framed at 1.78:1. The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is actually superior with TrueHD 7.1 in the mix. The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix is adequate.

One would think that with Aquaman a staple of television since his animated debut in 1967, there’d be some special features about the character and his comic book origins, but no such luck. Instead, its all about the movie, ranging from interesting to boring to perfunctory.

We open with Going Deep Into the World of Aquaman (19:00); Becoming Aquaman (13:00); James Wan: World Builder (8:00); Aqua Tech (6:00), Atlantis Warfare (5:00), The Dark Depths of Black Manta (7:00), Heroines of Atlantis (6:00), Villainous Training (6:00), Kingdoms of the Seven Seas (7:00), Creating Undersea Creatures (7:00), A Match Made in Atlantis (3:00), and finally, Scene Study Breakdowns (11:00). There’s also a Shazam! Sneak Peek (3:00), with a scene from the following film in the series.

We’ve become accustomed to movies about American heroes to have grand moments that catch our breath, make our pulses race, and bring forth an audible cheer throughout the auditorium. So, when we’re presented with a film about a grand achievement that is fairly level in its intensity regardless of human or heroic moment, we’re somewhat nonplussed.

Damien Chazelle put heart and soul into La La Land and followed it with this past fall’s First Man, an intimate look at Neil Armstrong who went from test pilot to the first man on the moon. The real Armstrong, who died in 2012, was famously private, almost taciturn. He was unflappable whether he was watching his daughter die from a brain tumor to rescuing his family from a house fire (in a deleted scene) to crashing a test model of the lunar lander. It was those qualities that made him a standout in a field of brash, crew-cutted astronauts and why NASA easily chose him to command Apollo 11.

The movie, out today from Universal Home Entertainment, fills in a lot of information about Armstrong (Ryan Goslnig), his wife Janet (Claire Foy), and the NASA family, demonstrating there was a plan and little would derail it. Armstrong apparently bottled everything up, pouring himself into his work rather than express his emotions to anyone, even his wife, who wrestled with the relocation and requirements of being an astronaut’s wife. There’s a telling scene where she has to force him to sit their two young sons down and talk about the moon mission and the possibility he might not return.

The pacing and approach to the story matches Armstrong’s personality but robs you of the feeling of exhilaration I recall when I watched the grainy television broadcast on July 20, 1969. Yu want to cheer out loud but find yourself holding your breath. This even-handedness may be why the film failed to connect with audiences and prove a box office disappointment despite the story and stellar cast.

Writer Josh Singer tells the story in a series of snippets and scenes that don’t appear to connect but before you know it, you fele something for the friendship between Armstrong and Ed White (Jason Clarke) so perhaps the most emotional moment in the film is watching Armstrong receive the news of White’s death while testing Apollo 1.

Chazelle does a terrific job recreating NASA, the astronaut neighborhoods, and the grueling testing that had to happen prior to flying into space. The 1960s is well recreated and adds much to the overall feel of the film.

It’s a worthy story with some heart and soul but in need of adrenaline.

The film comes in the usual assortment of combinations including the Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD edition being reviewed. The 1080p transfer nicely captures the look and feel, the colors and textures of the film’s subject. There an equally strong Dolby Atmos track that captures all the nuance.

The Blu-ray comes with an assortment of features that adequately serve the film but could have been stronger. First up are the Deleted Scenes: Included are House Fire (3:37) and Apollo 8 Launch (0:37); Shooting for the Moon (3:40) with Chazelle talking about why he chose the film; Preparing to Launch (3:39), routine background on the making of the film; Giant Leap in One Small Step (4:31), all about Armstrong; Mission Gone Wrong (2:42), exploring the stunts; Putting You in the Seat (7:09), looking at the production design; Recreating the Moon Landing (6:01); Shooting at NASA (3:11); Astronaut Training (4:02); and, finally, Audio Commentary with Chazelle, Singer, and Editor Tim Cross, which offers some good insights to their thinking during production.