Toy Story 3 is a great argument against objectivity in the cinema. How can we be objective, when everything that we take out of a movie is informed by who we are, and who we are is at least partially informed by what we see in the movies?
Toy Story 3 is an example to me of a perfect movie. It is not a perfect movie for everyone. I don't care about everyone and what they think of this movie, I care what I think of it. Does that make me a bad critic, even as an amateur? No, that is how the system works. A movie like Toy Story 3 is one that can be received as a personal gift from Pixar to the viewer, as I did. To take it any other way, to view it as "just another movieâ€, that's not my style at all.
Toy Story 3, to me, is love. It is the distillation of fifteen years of Pixar into a single wondrous movie. That is more than enough for me. If I didn't view ratings for movies as arbitrary and silly, I would give it full marks. There is no definitive review, but Toy Story 3 is a marvel in my eyes.
How great is GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra going to be? With my barely concealed distaste in this "summer†season (bearing in mind that Australians won't see Up until September), I'm going to take GI Joe's tagline to heart: "When all else fails, they don'tâ€.
Look at it this way: it’s bright and crisp. It looks like the special effects had enough of a budget to appear both special and effective. It doesn’t look like it takes itself too seriously, as evidenced by the villain being Christopher Eccleston (the Ninth Doctor!) eating scenery, combined with Joseph Gordon Levitt in fetish gear (although I don’t think that’s shown in this trailer).
I think that one of the many problems with Transformers is that it takes itself so damned seriously, and Michael Bay is convinced that he has made “art”. Shia LeBoeuf sees his character as so identifiable it’s scary.
Megan Fox, on the other hand, has been the only person publicly out of the machine, admitting that it’s not art, and that she needs hard liquor to fill the void in her soul created by watching the movie.
Imagine, if you will, that GI Joe was produced by a team of Megan Foxes. People who knew they weren’t making art, but were instead focused on having as much fun as they possibly could on the ultimate in ridiculously over-budgeted ($170 million!) bubblegum cinema.
It might not be the case here, but come on. We can only take so many terrible self important movies before we want to chew on a movie that is aware of what it is, of its limitations, and has decided to make us laugh, intentionally or not.
To be entirely honest, when I was at the cinema and I saw the submarines approaching the base at the trailer’s beginning, I was intrigued. Then I found out that it was GI Joe and my natural cynicism kicked in, but the trailer editor had done his job. I could no longer totally discount the piece.
GI Joe might not be good by any objective measure except one: it will be better than Revenge of the Fallen. Don’t let me down, Dennis Quaid. When all else fails, you don’t.
I don’t care much for Transformers, myself, and have only vague memories of an incursion into a Autobot melting plant that survives from my youth. I was more of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, always.
That said, this fellow is awesome:
Optimash Prime
Artoo-Potatoo is also pretty cool, and this is infinitely better than the fairly lame “Spider-Spud” that they’ve also got going on. “Peter Parker Potato”? Please! Only if it can brush its hair over its eyes and punch its red headed potato blackmailed ex-girlfriend in one of the most embarrassing scenes ever committed to celluloid!
I’m going to see Transformers for masochism value (and out of curiosity to see if Optimus Prime dies – everyone wants him to), and I almost bought this toy today. Key word is almost: I decided that I couldn’t really justify spending $25 on a novelty potato. The fact that such pointless artistry exists in this world warms my heart.
