Public Enemies

Directed by Michael Mann, Rated R, Released 2009. Based on real events.

Public Enemies is the based-on-a-true story version of the FBI's investigation and hunt for John Dillinger, a notorious bank robber of the 1930's. The two sides are represented by Christian Bale as the head agent of the FBI and Johnny Depp as John Dillinger. It is a fast paced, heavily plot driven story with dazzling gun fights, ingenious escapes, and masterfully performed strategies from both parties.

Public Enemies is a gangster movie, and it plays hard like a gangster movie. Guns blaze, cars are jumped on and fired out of in that iconic 1930's gangster way, and the women are classy and impeccable. John Dillinger and his gang are unstoppable bank robbers, but find some new competition in the agents of the newly formed FBI. J Edgar Hoover is up to his neck in bad publicity and desperately needs Mr. Melvin Purvis, Christian Bale, to take the Bureau to the next level by stopping Dillinger and his gang. The only problem is that the FBI is full of green-horns who can't keep up with the keen criminal minds of the gangsters.

Its give and take as we watch both sides play their hands, taking turns on both cruelty and sympathy. The gangsters do some expectedly heavy damage to the police and banking worlds, and Mr. Purvis is always playing in the periphery of his name's homophone, 'perverse,' though the other agents are usually the real culprits.

There is so much intrigueing and good about this film that its a real shame that I can't recommend it hands down, but there are two gray areas that I can't seem to get over.

Issue number one, this story is almost entirely plot driven. That's not a bad thing at all. However, we are thrown into the rich life of John Dillinger with none of his integral background given to us other than a title card at the beginning that says the 1930's were the 'golden age of bank robbing.' I feel that this is a mistake. Without crucial information on who this man is, we understand nothing for why we should care about him more than any murderer, which he was. Perhaps it is simply my own ignorance, almost certainly the case, but I will try to add some of the information I wish I had prior to watching this movie at the end of the review or in the comments section.

Issue number two, the hand-held cameras. The movie was going swimmingly, until the last 1/3 of it. Suddenly, in the middle of a gun fight, the cameras change to hand-helds. Not only do the cameras change, but the sound equipment as well. The guns no longer sound like the guns we have been hearing the whole movie, but instead sound like the stunt guns they are actually shooting on set. It starts to feel like a making-of DVD or a History Channel special. It really ruined it for me. It doesn't stop with that scene either, but continues interchanging with the regular camera work for the rest of the movie, making for some very awkward viewing. (update: 10 minutes after posting. http://www.examiner.com/x-3938-Houston-Movie-Examiner~y2009m7d3-Public-Enemies-review explains that what Mann did was use HD digital cameras, and that's why the picture changes. Its effect escaped me, but maybe it won't escape you.)

And that's it for hard complaints. I could disregard my first complaint with the context they give you throughout the movie, but the second one stuck with me. I wish I didn't have to say all of this, because I think it was a great movie, but there we are. If you know better why Mr. Mann chose to do the movie this way, please share, I'd love to be proven wrong. Heck, I'll even blame my local theater.

Rated R for violence (some of the images of gun wounds were pretty graphic), and some minor language.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Directed by Michael Bay, Released 2009, Rated PG-13.

There was a time when robots fighting was reward in itself. There was also a time when robot fighting lasted less time than the 4th quarter in an NBA game. I'm gonna have to say right away that this movie was not worth eight dollars, but for the matinee, its alright. The robot fighting was great, in fact it was the best robot fighting I've ever seen. However, it came at a terrible price. The price of the writers' wages.

Do you remember how The Power Rangers would change from the hip nineties teens scene to the poorly dubbed Japanese footage from the original show? They do that in this movie. Except the hip 2009 setting is even more sophomoric than the Power Rangers teens were, but I'll get to that later. All I'm saying right now is that giant killer robots don't talk to each other well. Or realistically. Or even coherently. Deceptacons are iconically hard to tell apart. Its in their nature to be ambiguous, I guess, but its hard to follow.

There was also a time when Muppets humping may have been entertaining. In fact, I'd probably still like that. Killer robot sex isn't quite as funny. I'll tell you what is funny, irresponsible robot parenting. Yes, I'm talking about robot babies. We visit a robot nursery. It may have been the children's unit at a robot hospital, since they talk about how many of the babies are dying. How do the robots have babies? Just how much of these metal creations is biological? I saw robots come together to make bigger robots at least twice in this film, but no one mentioned shared genes. I saw a host of robot phalli at one point, but that seemed to more like...well, I guess rape is rape, but it wasn't the same as the human exchange.

So, we enter a robot cave with jelly sacs filled with robot larvae. Like, the metal is developing, and its dying, too. Why? Because of lack of Spark. Who's fighting for the children? The Deceptacons. I suppose that the Robot Home World could be the house of the rest of the Transformer race, and that's why the Autobots aren't very concerned, but if I recall correctly, the Autobots and Deceptacons both left that world to look for spark. Which means Home World babies are dying, too. I suppose I'll just have to be happy with the fact that Deceptacon babies would only grow up to be terrorists. That doesn't really add up, though, does it?

I digress, the babies only lasted a scene, and is bound to be the set-up of part 3.

Back to my Power Rangers, if robot talking was hard to follow, its still a relief from the non-stop noise of the human world. They should offer you Ritalin at the theater doors beside the 3D glasses dispenser. This was a big problem I had with the first movie, the inane banter that just lasts like an energizer battery. Big Red gum couldn't compete. And I could understand if it was a kids movie that had to be constantly stimulating to the two senses cinema panders to, but it is decidedly not a kids movie. The language is, shall we say loose? They pushed their PG-13, I think. On top of being loose, it is wildly racist, with all the worst stereotypes, down the the Black robots being illiterate. Even the educated Black robot, you can tell because he speaks with a British accent, still talks like a thug. Yeah, just to mull that conglomeration of language over.

There is not a character with a conscience in this movie. Violently, they are cold hearted, vocally they are crass, and morally they don't question their actions.

Robot violence isn't suppose to make you cringe, but robots aren't supposed to have bodily fluids or human emotions. That really doesn't stop anyone from being just as cruel as you like, though. I have to admit it was pretty gnarly. the images are shocking, but really cool. It's war from beginning to end, and from what I hear the shortage of robots was what was wrong with the first movie. I thought it was Shia Labeouf's character, but some people tell me otherwise.

Well, what more can I say? For an action packed movie, full of explosions and violence, it was a whole lot of fun and only mildly irritating, but for a movie that expands literature in any way, it falls flat. I haven't even gotten to the actual story, but that would take pages you don't want to read and the time I spent on robot reproduction should give you the idea of how I felt the entire movie. Okay, I just have to say that ancient robot history doesn't make sense, that's all there is to it. Seriously, now, I'll let you find out the rest.

For the summary: Don't take your kids, and bring a lot of popcorn.