#you can't tell me the last moments of this film wasn't a climax

[thisshitisridiculous]

the real question at the heart of challengers - is it possible to edge a threesome for 13 years?

[video-gh0st]

So back in June I watched all the Ghostbusters films cause it was the anniversary of the original movie and I thought I'd do a quick bullet point review since it's been a bit since I watched them all together.

Ghostbusters (1984)

It's still a classic. Has memorable moments that will live on.

Fun scenes. Going after Slimer is always silly and chaotic.

Peter Venkman is a rough. I actually had a person tell me that Venkman is the reason why they never watched the first movie, and I don't blame them.

Wish there was a bit more build up to the confrontation with Gozer. Would be neat if they kept uncovering clues rather than just the moment they figured it out in the jail cell.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

I don't know why people dunk on this movie, it's great!

You can tell the cast and crew are having more fun and things are a bit more fleshed out.

Venkman actually has some good character growth and is not a total creep!

I actually like the build up to the climax on this one. Throughout the movie, there's a focus on the slime buildup in the city and the flow of the story feels good.

Some fun light scares.

I kinda don't like the whole "the ghosts just stop showing up" thing. It's a trope specifically for this franchise that's not really explained. Just "yeah nothing happened between the movies and people think, we're frauds again! Gotta do it all over again!"

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

This movie gets a lot of undeserved hate thrown towards it for being the female lead reboot. A bunch of misogynist trolls threw a fit and never gave it a shot the moment it was announced.

The cast was great tbh. Everyone seemed to gel with one another.

Chris Hemsworth plays a himbo and we see him with his shirt off.

I really like the main antagonist in this movie. I think his character could have been fleshed out a bit more, but still fun idea.

The gear looks really cool in this movie.

Some scenes do keep going a bit too long and has like not good Saturday Night Live skit energy. I think they relied a bit too much on improv.

How the fuck is Chris Hemsworth the funniest motherfucker alive and why is he so cute?

There's a teeny tiny bit a queerness in this story, but I also feel like there's themes of found family going on here too and I like that.

Chris Hemsworth plays a himbo and we see him with his shirt off.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Trailers do this movie a disservice by making it feel like it's going for a Stranger Things feel, kinda relying a bit too much on nostalgia or even doing the "wow kids these days." It just felt like they didn't have any confidence on the movie itself when marketing this tbh.

The tone is a bit more serious, but honestly I'm fine with it. Still has some funny moments, but it's leaning more into the horror part a bit more.

Watching Phoebe learn more about her grandfather is honestly fun. And this movie does a great job with handing things off to a new generation in a way that doesn't feel like it's disingenuous.

Literally cried at the end. Honestly that ending felt wonderful and it felt like a good tribute to Harold Ramis.

I don't know why, but my first watch of this last year wasn't as good as the second watch this year. I don't know what happened. But I remember the first time I watched this and felt like it was just ok but not my favorite. Maybe it was just a bit of frustration that the sequel to Answer the Call got cancelled before it could even get into full production.

I appreciate the movie using some practical effects. There are just certain elements that you can't mess with in Ghostbusters movie and they nailed it.

Muncher is my least favorite ghost tbh. Idk, there are people who love Muncher and I do like the tardigrade inspired design, but idk, they didn't appeal to me like the other ghosts did.

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

@ajcope12 you've triggered my Media Analysis button! Apologies for the long rant.

Season 1's production was incredibly cursed (in the original sense). You could tell me that the creators ticked off the Fair Folk and I'd go, "Yeah, checks out." I was spitting mad at all the cuts when I first started, but then I thought about all the insane restrictions the crew got slammed with and calmed down a lot. One really obvious example of this would be Rand and Moiraine going alone into the Blight rather than taking the whole party. It doesn't make sense much storywise, but the poor bastards were filming in the middle of a goddamn pandemic. Better a fictional story take a hit rather than a real life person get sick with the horrible new bug ruining everyone's lungs!

But for all the damage done by the pandemic and the short season and poor Barney Harris needing to leave, there are some terrible flaws that just can't be explained away. Let's do some role reversal here:

Say you're watching a fantasy TV show with an apocalypse plotline, complete with a prophecized Chosen One who beats up Fantasy Satan with kickass Chosen One powers. The cast is a group of young folks, and the driving mystery in the first season is which one of them is the Chosen One. At the climax of the season, one of the young women realizes that she's the Chosen One and confronts Fantasy Satan for the first time.

Take a moment and think about what this moment means in the rhythm of the story. This is the first time the Chosen One steps up as the Chosen One and it's the climax of the season. Or to put it another way, it's the creators' first chance to really wow the audience with how powerful and extraordinary the Chosen One is. So you'd expect the Chosen One to manifest her cool Chosen One powers, or make a thrilling speech about how she'll always resist Fantasy Satan, or outwit Fantasy Satan. It's her debut! It's her time to shine!

But the Chosen One doesn't do anything like that. Instead she...talks about her boyfriend's dreams and aspirations. Not even about their mutual dreams, or she's able to stand up to Satan because he's got her back, or how their love can overcome anything. No, she just talks about what a wonderful guy her boyfriend is, how he dreams of being so much more than just a farm boy, how she'll always support his dreams even to the detriment of her own. And y'know, the boyfriend is a pretty great guy, and you are invested in his plotline, and you do want to see more of their romance...but this is the Chosen One's debut! Why is her big moment about her boyfriend, and not about HER?!

If you saw this TV show, you'd probably walk away thinking that this was a super-misogynistic scene. And you'd be right! But this is what happens at the climax of Season 1, only with the genders reversed.

If that fucking scene had been a onetime incident, I'd...well, I'd probably screech my way through it, but afterwards I'd go, "Well, the writers had to rewrite the last two episodes at the last minute to be quarantine-friendly, of course they've got some real stinkers. Shit happens, at least no one got sick." But it wasn't an isolated incident. Throughout the show the plot is rewritten in bizarre ways that don't make much sense, and somehow the male characters always seem to get pushed to the side to make way for the women.

It reeks of shallow feminism to me. See, there's a lot of feminist retellings of older stories where the focus is put on the female characters. Since so many old stories reduce their women to accessories, it's a great technique for making space for women's stories and perspectives where there used to be none. Having watched the TV series, I'm pretty sure the writers were trying to do something similar.

But the Wheel of Time never had this specific problem. Don't get me wrong, the books have their Issues with gender. However, the series is packed with complicated women with their own agency, and they come in all kinds of roles. They have their own plotlines and character arcs independent of the men, or interacting with them on an equal ground. And those plotlines are great! As a teen thirsting for powerful heroines in the aughts, following the adventures of Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, Birgitte, and Aviendha was like mana in the desert. It's definitely one of the reasons why I latched onto the series so hard.

So when the show alters the plot to give more spotlight to women, it's trying to fix a problem that isn't there. Instead, it does a disservice to the male characters, who also have compelling, complicated stories to tell, but get fewer and fewer chances to tell them. And these changes are applied so carelessly that they hurt the story rather than helping it. We don't start the series with a short, visceral scene depicting the madness of Lews Therin--we start with Moiraine giving a vague monologue that fucking victimblames the Hundred Companions for thinking they could seal the Dark One. But they did seal the Dark One! And Moiraine would know that! And why is she so hostile and dismissive?? This woman has spent her entire career searching for the Dragon Reborn, and will go on to become one of his first mentors and allies. Don't you think she'd have a better understanding of the attack on Shayol Ghul? Or even just some fucking empathy?

What makes this hurt so much is that the series did need some changes. Honestly, I was kinda glad when I heard that the TV adaptation was going to tweak the story a bit--like I said, the books have their Issues. The Red Ajah are so frequently reduced to queer-coded manhaters--wouldn't it be great if they got more complex characterization? Ebou Dari society is supposed to be matriarchal, but it's a pretty cringey version that was obviously written by a kinky dude--let's change that (and rewrite Tylin from scratch, yuck)! Why do we only see Aiel sworn sisters and not Aiel sworn brothers? And so on and so forth.

But we don't get any of that. Instead, we get one-size-fits-all feminism. Give more of the story to the women, and boom, your story is progressive! But that's not how feminism works and that's not how writing works. If you're going to rewrite a flawed-but-wonderful story, you need to think about how that story works, what makes it great, and what makes it flawed. Blindly copying what other people have done is just laziness.

I have heard season 2 was better. I was actually looking forward to it. But at this point I'm so depressed by what I've seen that I'm not sure that I can continue. Do the boys get the attention they deserve? Do the writers stop dumbing down the lore into nonsense? Do characters get to be flawed without having some dark, brooding past like a CW character? God don't get me started on all the dark and brooding pasts, that's a whole other rant. But yeah, if season 2 can meet those standards, I'll keep watching.

Those last two episodes in Season One were so bad they drove my boyfriend insane. And honestly, I'm halfway there myself. Not sure I have it in me to keep watching, and the boyfriend's definitely out.

On the brighter side of things, he's picked up The Eye of the World out of pure rage.

..........Is there a reason why this show is so bizarrely misandrist? That's not a term I use lightly, but uhhhhh I don't know how else to describe some of the shit I've seen.

[chaos0pikachu]

I was speculating a “second-first time” might be possible due to some of the general novel spoilers I read. BUT, it also seems pretty likely to me that since the content is, in general, rated 18+ they’re not gonna let folks under 18 in anyway with or without NC scenes lmao

Yeah, I don't think it's because there's going to be a sex scene, it's just that the content is 18+ so the audience must be 18+ as well, that isn't going to change just because they're at a cinema in person if that makes sense.

Personally, I think there's going to be too much plot (being in Vegas' house, and I don't think they'll be there for a couple of hours, it may be an entire day at least) and being on whatever mission they sent Porsche to do for there to be a chance for an NC scene.

Yeah I don't think a cinema viewing requiring ID proving your 18 for an 18+ show is any sort of signal or anything.

That said, who knows. Setting an entire hour long episode only in one location will drag. I saw people last week say that the forest arc in the novel is pretty long and speculate it would go on for at least two episodes, but then the actual episode was only that, a single episode.

The translation of adaptions is an interesting one. Like, take the pipeline of manga to anime. One chapter is not enough to make a full 25min episode. Most episodes are at least three to four chapters if not more. That's why shows rely on filler to allow the comics to progress further, as well as, padding an episode heavily with recaps, and filler scenes in between canon content.

I'm rewatching One Piece now and even before I picked up the comics I could tell when the show caught up. Similarly with video game movies, one factor in why they're so hard to adapt is a larger amount of the game time is doing game play. Which you can't translate into a film format. You see this a lot in book adaptions as well. An hour episode can and will cover several chapters b/c it'll cut internal narration - which takes up a lot of space in books.

From the novel spoilers I read, Porsche and Kinn at the hospital and all the cuddling was already a big chunk of an entire chapter. There's also obviously cutting some other moments from this upcoming arc b/c it doesn't fit with who Kinn or Porsche are as characters. Those cut novel bits are where I think they'll fill in with plot relevant to the show - what I'm speculating is the investigation of the minor family.

There's some other novel spoilers I saw that make me think a NC scene is possible, whether it's probable, eh now that I don't know. The show keeps surprising me. I wasn't expecting the final 10mins of last episode, nor the amount of character development they packed into one episode. The show has also done a good job of pacing the overall plot of the show. It's set up all the pieces, now it just has to pull the trigger.

Since we're officially half-way through the series - 7 out of 14 eps - we're at the rising action according to the Ficthtean Curve:

Or at closing in on the mid-point from Blake's Beat Sheet:

Honestly the mid-point is what can make or break a shows season. It's why 22 - 24 ep series have fallen out of style. It takes to damn long to get to the mid-point and then even longer to get to the final climax. It's exhausting.

For TV the climax doesn't have to be one episode either, it can be multiple episodes, building towards the final confrontation and then we can have the falling action followed by the resolution.

Sorry I'm getting way off base lol

My overall point is the show still has a LOT to cover for a show that's halfway completed, tick tock on the clock and all that. Like we have the interpersonal relationships that need resolution, along with the main plot resolution. Beyond Kinn and Porsche there's still a lot of story to deal with and cover (legit I'm wondering if they'll just cut the Time, Tay, Tem thing tbh). So I wouldn't be surprised if Kinn and Porsche pretty much resolve their relationship issues next episode either during or by the end leading into ep08 b/c we'll still need to break them apart for one final conflict by the end.

[whattodowithkpop]

Like a ticking clock (Seongwha)

Title: Like a ticking clock

Paring: Reader x Seongwha (ATEEZ)

Genre: Fluff, spice, slight angst but with a happy ending.

Word count: 2267

Writer: Kpopmadness (Ju)

A/N: @junquisite requested this from a Soulmates prompt. Letter T (Timer) soulmate AU with Seongwha. :D

The bell rang, jolting Seongwha from his daydream. The sound of the bell making him stop tracing patterns on his wrist. He sighed with relief that the day was finally over and he could go home. As he was putting away his books for the day he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder, making him glance to see who it was.

"You were rubbing your wrist again during class." His best friend said as she sat down in the chair opposite of him, Her long hair swooping over her shoulders and dancing along her backpack that she had placed on her lap as she stared intently at him.

Seongwha smiled shyly at her. Not sure what to say. "I can't help it. Ever since mine broke I have the weird feeling that I'm missing something. Even though I'm not really."

The thing that he was referring to was a small band about an inch wide with a small screen with dimly lit letters slayed across it. It wasn't a watch, it was nowhere near that simple. It was a countdown to meeting your soulmate.

It was something almost all young adults got by the time they were 13 years of age. Getting this soulmate watch, called Shadow, was the thing the world over agreed would lead to true happiness in people's love lives. Which did work, the divorce rates plummeted after Shadow was released. The cases of domestic abuse even went down. Because Shadow was designed to make people happy and find the one people were truly meant to be with.

Seongwha remembered going to the Shadow company with his parents when he was 13 to get his Shadow activated. Getting a Shadow was a choice made by all parents. But 95% of the worlds population had a Shadow. So his parents were one of those that decided to get him a Shadow. He didn't much care for knowing when he would meet his soulmate, but he went along for his parents. When it was placed on his wrist and the small screen glowed with life it read him his time.

9 years, 15 hours, 65 seconds

His mother glowed with excitement for him. He didn't quite know what to think of it. But he felt a small spark of joy light in his chest. That's why when he was 15 and he accidently broke his Shadow, he felt a strange sense of loss. His parents said they could replace it. But Seongwha didn't want to do that quite yet. Because he was unsure if he wanted to know if he even still had a soulmate now that he was in his last two months of high school. But ever since that day, he always rubbed his wrist. Reaching for the soft feel of the silicone band but never finding it there.

"You can just always get a new one, Seong." His best friend said softly, jolting him from his thoughts.

"I know I can." He said, standing up to throw his pack over his shoulder. "But you're one to talk about getting a Shadow, miss rebellious."

She smiled at his wit as they walked down the hall to the exit. "Some of us don't want a small device to tell us who we should be with."

Seongwha chuckled at her classic stubbornness. She was one of the few that never got a Shadow. Her parents had decided against it. And since it wasn't law that you were supposed to have a Shadow, she never had one. She swore she was happy without it. Which is something Seongwha admired about her a lot when they met when they were 11.

"Are we hanging out at my place later tonight?" She asked him, making him meet her eyes.

"Are we watching another horror film?" He whined, knowing how much she loved the classic horror movies. Especially the black and white films.

"No, its your turn to pick a movie tonight." She sassed back, playfully nudging his ribs with her elbow.

Seongwha let out a laugh. "I'll see you at 8 then?"

8:00 on Friday's being their stay up all night and watch movies routine since they were 16.

"See you then." She said cheerfully as they parted ways.

``````````

4 years later;

"Seongwha, we are not watching that movie again."

"Why not?" He argued. "It's a good movie."

She shoots him a glare as she slumps onto his couch in his studio apartment. "You have picked that movie nearly every time on Friday nights since High School."

"And you have an obsession with black and white horror films and insist on picking them every time its your turn to pick." Seongwha shoots back.

"It is not an obsession!" She says as she throws a pillow at him, making him laugh.

"Fine, we'll both pick a new movie this time." He said, caving into her wishes. There was no point in arguing over it now after they had kept up their movie night ritual for years.

She smiled at him as he sat down on the couch beside her. Both of them going through their options of new movies and shows to start. They finally settled on a newer romantic movie and settled in to watch it. Her head rested on his shoulder like it almost always did. Their physical closeness nothing new to either one of them. It was comforting to them. As the movie progressed, Seongwha felt his fingers trace the spot of where his Shadow used to be. He still kept a mental timer of when he was supposed to meet his soulmate. But this was the year it was supposed to happen, and the year was half over and nothing had happened to him. And he had no way of knowing who it was or when they would enter his life.

Seongwha let out a sigh and let his hand fall away from tracing his wrist. He forced his attention back on the characters playing out on the screen. As he scooted down further into the couch, her head remained on his shoulder. Making him rest his head against hers with a content sigh. Even if he didn't have a soulmate, he knew he could always rely on her to be there.

The movie hit its climax for the couple on the screen. Leading to a passionate kissing scene between the two. Seongwha felt her tense beside him, knowing she got uncomfortable with these types of scenes. But his heartbeat went up when he fingers traced his wrist where his Shadow used to be. Her touches felt different in that moment somehow.

Heat coursed through him as she lifted her head slowly to meet his eyes. Their gaze lasting much longer than normal. Seongwha's eyes darted from her eyes to her mouth, unsure what to do. He had always viewed them as just friends. But in that moment he felt very differently.

He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by her lips crashing against his. He froze beneath her touch, his lips unwilling to move. But then as if by second nature his lips enclosed hers and his eyes drifted shut, letting every touch soak in completely. His hands drifted until he found her thighs and brought her onto his lap. Her hands sliding from his chest up to weave through his hair.

Seongwha placed a hand on the back of her neck and pulled her even closer to him, suddenly unable to get her close enough to him. He let his tongue run against hers, making her sigh out into his mouth and a rush of adrenaline course through his veins like fire.

She pressed her body closer to his, her teeth biting his lower lip until he could feel it had swollen slightly. His hands shook slightly as they found their way under her shirt, making her tense to his tracings down her spine.

She pulled away from his mouth only slightly to whisper, ''Can we take this to your room?" She asked between labored breaths.

Seongwha felt the words form in his throat, he could feel his arms carry her back to his room. But the words never left his mouth and the actions never followed through.

"I… we can't." He whispered, pulling his hands out from under her shirt.

She met his eyes, hurt and confusion lacing them. "Why?"

"Because… what if we aren't soulmates?" He asked quietly.

You didn't have to listen to what Shadow said about meeting your soulmate. Some never met their soulmate due to them passing away. That left them with the choice of going with someone that wasn't your soulmate, or never trying to replace the love you dreamed of getting from the one that was supposed to be made for you.

But Seongwha had seen it happen before. He had seen where two people fell in love that weren't soulmates. And it might have worked for awhile or right at first. But nothing hurts worse than one day seeing your real soulmate on the street and having the burning thought that you could've made all the right memories with that one. And from their any founded relationship rarely lasts.

She slides off his lap, sitting beside him. Her lips swollen and her eyes brimming with tears. "So you're saying you can’t be with me because you don't think we're meant to be together?"

Seongwha shook his head, trying to take her hands in his but only to have her shrink away from him.

"No, no, no that isn't what I'm saying. I'm just saying that I remember this was supposed to be the year I found my soulmate. And I can't put you through the pain of getting attached to me only to see who was really meant to be with me walk into my life."

She shook her head, tears starting to streak down her cheeks. "You have obsessed over that stupid device since we were kids, Seongwha. And I have loved you since we were 15. But maybe you're right. If you're so obsessed over finding your soulmate then, fine. Maybe we just need to call this off right now."

She stood to leave, quickly going to the door to put on her shoes and coat. Seongwha quickly stood up, his own heart beginning to ache and throb.

"That isn't what I meant and you know it." He snapped. "I don't want to hurt you. A soulmate can be a close friend but it rarely ever works out that way. And I never knew a kiss could mean as much to me as yours just did but I just don't want to hurt you later."

She opened the door and sighed, looking at him through bleary eyes. "Just save it." She whispered brokenly before shutting the door behind her. Leaving Seongwha in the dark.

A few days passed and they did manage to talk things out some. But things were awkward and they couldn't get around it. That's why when she got a job offer on the other side of the world Seongwha felt it was wrong to stop her from going. Wrong to stop her from being happy.

``````

2 years later;

Seongwha walked through the park with a mass of butterflies swirling in his stomach. He placed his fingers on his right wrist again to feel the soft silicone pressed against his skin. He had bought a new Shadow a year ago. He expected not to have a soulmate anymore since the year he was supposed to have one came and went. But that wasn't the case. It ticked and ticked until it got to this day. A day he was anxious for.

But nothing could have prepared him for the person he saw in the park. Standing by the railings over looking the river was his first kiss, his best friend, and now, with how his Shadow was blinking rapidly with a red heart dancing on the screen and how she looked down at her watch to see it doing the same, he knew she was going to be a lot more than all those things in the future.

When their eyes met across the small space between them, their eyes filled with tears. And Seongwha didn't fight it when she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. Her familiar scent filling his nose and soothing him.

"You got a Shadow after all." He lightly teased, his head still buried in her neck.

She let out a watery chuckle. "Because I got curious. And I always hoped it would be you on the other side of all this. Because I have missed you so much and I am so sorry about--"

Seongwha silenced her by taking her face in his hands and attaching his lips to hers. Joy sparking in his chest. She melted into his touch, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Slowly, Seongwha pulled away, smiling down at her as their noses brushed each other. "I missed you too." He whispered, making his smile up at him.

[revchainsaw]

Bumblebee (2018)

Good Evening worshippers, and welcome! Today the Cult of Cult goes a little more mainstream than usual. It's been a while since i've tackled a big Hollywood superhero film. But I do believe that these sorts of films will be remembered fondly my small groups of people in the future, especially the smaller films that are being overshadowed by the big bad MCU, films like 2018s Bumblebee.

The Messsage

Bumblebee was originally released as a prequel to the Transformers franchise that had started all the way back in 2007. However, reboots had really hit the market as a way to breath new life into struggling franchises, and the Transformers series had already gone to just about every absurd extreme you could imagine. No changes were made to the movie as it was released, but with it's more childish and heartfelt tone, and a new aesthetic that was softer, smoother, and all around just generally more pleasing to the eye, I think it was a wise choice to rebrand Bumblebee as a new beginning.

Our story is of two friends from two very different worlds and how they came together. Our first character is Bumblebee, then known as B- number sign/it doesn't really matter. Not yet Bumblebee is a soldier set with securing a safe location for the Autobots to regroup and make their home as they suffer a pretty serious defeat on cybertron at the hands of the tyrannical Decepticons. Optimus Prime, here again voiced by Peter Cullen and looking so much more like himself, assigns this task to Bumblebee promising him that they will meet him there when the time comes. Then Optimus fucks off for the rest of the run time making way for our little hero.

Bumblebee lands on Earth and is immediately set upon by John Cena and his military goon squad. It probably would have been wise for Bumblebee to avoid John Cena but in his defense, he couldn't see him. Hardy har har. In his attempt to flee his voice box is damaged, he seeks sanctuary by taking the form of a run down little VW bug, and suffers from amnesia.

Then we have Charlie. Charlie is not like other girls. She likes cars, all the retro music, which wasn't retro when the movie takes place, so I'm supposed to just think she's a rocker but it kinda seems like she'll listen to just about anything. I think in 2018 liking Motorhead and The Smiths (who are used ad nauseum in this movie) is perfectly common, but I feel like in the 80s that was a much different and much older attitude to take.

Anyway Charlie's poor family lives in a super fucking nice house and are poor because the dialogue keeps insisting they are so it must be true despite all the shit they have that actually poor people would sell blood and teeth to attain, but hell, this is Hollywood and Hollywood poor is like regular people upper middle class. Charlies family is so poor that instead of giving her a one time graduation/birthday present to buy a part for a car she already has, they just give her a moped, She also spends all her time at a pull apart where the manager (who might be her uncle that wasn't super clear) is willing to just give her a Volkswagen so I don't understand why she didn't already have the project car up and running. Whatever, it's a plot contrivance. All you need to know is that Charlie is tenacious and hard around the edges cuz her dad is dead and she's not yet mature enough to process that in a healthy way. Maybe her character arch will teach her to let others in, we'll have to find out.

There's also a wacky nerd named Memo, and some bad guys, and John Cena. They are all also pretty archetypal and contrived and don't really do anything of note that isn't just filling a beat that this kind of movie needs to walk. Charlie starts Bumblebee up, discovers he's a robot and the two begin to bond. Charlie learns to make a friend, and bumblebee is learning about himself. They get into hijinks and get revenge on a bully girl who makes Regina George look like a saint, she pretty much only picks on Charlie exclusively for having a dead dad.

The moment Bumblebee is woken back up, some technology goof em up that both he and Charlie are unaware of brings two Decepticon baddies into the picture. I don't remember their names, but since I love The Venture Brothers let's say they can be "Jet Boy and Jet Girl". Jet Boy and Jet Girl are sometimes cars, sometimes various flying military vehicles, and they make friends with the deep state and plan to get all the adrenochrome from all the orphans, or just to go find Bumblebee and beat his ass good cuz their bad guys. Let me tell y'all though, Jet Boy and Jet Girl are so bad that they don't even care that the government is listening when they reveal that they are planning on bringing a Decepticon Invasion and after they rough up Bumblebee real good they are going to destroy all life on this planet. So they start by killing a military scientist.

John Cena is after Bumblebee and he's homies with Jet Boy and Jet Girl until the military scientist butt dials him and he hears the evil plan. John Cena goes from heel to face and helps Bumblebee and Charlie save the day. It's a giant CG clusterfuck climax a la any superhero film in the last 10 years and I basically stopped watching. BumbleBee pulls a Hellraiser on Jet Boy, and then he hits Jet Girl with a freaking boat. Charlie uses her diving skills do dive down and save him, but he's a Giant Robot and he was okay and it was literally pointless for her to to except as a way to show that her character has completed her arch by doing the thing that was representative of her connection with her lost father.

Bumblebee turns into the Camaro from the first movie, meets up with Optimus prime, and the stage is set for this prequel to squeeze more prequels out. So it wasn't very creative, but was it bad? Let's find out.

Please Stand to receive the Benediction.

Best Aspect: Transform the Franchise

Bumblebee was directed by Travis Knight of Laika fame and it shows. This movie marks a stylistic change in the transformers franchise, as in it doesn't look like utter dog shit, but it also represents in many ways a tonal shift. It does hold on to a lot of gross sleaze that has unfortunately been forcibly jammed into the DNA of the franchise but it also attempts to be a more heartfelt entry. The characters of Bumblebee might all be sort of a waste of time, but at least they are doing something with emotions, even if the emotions of the characters are only explored as deeply as a children's cartoon I'm glad they are there. In the previous installments the only thing the characters did between running from action piece to seizure inducing action piece was drool over underage girls like a bunch of chimpanzees at the facility where they test experimental E.D. meds. It was nice to see that at least somewhat tampered. This transformers movie feels more like it's for kids and young teenagers, and strangely that more friendly tone makes for a much less juvenile product.

Worst Aspect: Remember I Love the 80s from the 2000s

I hope you really like Stranger Things. I do, but because Stranger Things was so successful it' s going to be everywhere. Not true Stranger Things just 80s nostalgia porn. This 80s nostalgia is going to be forced on you whether you like it or not, and it's not going to be fun. It's gonna be in your shows, in your music, in your Sunday like Bacon in 2010. It's that or Marvel Franchise Brand Whedonisms. Bumblebee is that brave movie that says, "Why not both?" It would seem fitting that a property as quintessentially 80s as Transformers should feel completely comfortable doing a period piece set in the 80's but it's so fucking half hearted it's depressing. It wasn't done to appreciate the roots of the IP, it was done to cash in on a trend and it feels it. All they did was throw up a date and insufferably force an 80s soundtrack down your throat as if that was enough to convince you that this movie needed to be set during this time. Other than that you could have told me this film was set in 2007 and I couldn't tell you any different.

Best Character: Charlie's an Angel

I liked Charlie. Sure her Arc is predictable, her taste is dumb, and she isn't exactly a master of her own destiny to any degree. But at least she is a woman in a transformers movie who's got something going on. Sure she's defined entirely by grief, but that sure is better than pretending that being able to work on cars is a feminist character trait instead of a weird fetish thing. They certainly do that thing with Charlie, but at least it's not the only thing they throw at the wall. Bumblebee is by no means out of the woods in this department, but it garners a lot of goodwill for trying. Like a racist uncle who just started his journey out of ignorance, but hasn't yet realized he has to stop asking mortifying questions to the barista at Starbucks. Okay, maybe that's an extreme metaphor. I'm saying that perhaps Charlie is not a great character but she's a great character for a Transfomers movie.

Worst Character: It's JOOOOHHHNNNN CEEEENA!!!!

Why is John Cena in this movie? I don't hate the guy, but his character seems pointless. You could remove him from the movie completely and replace him with any one of the random military goons at any point and it changes nothing. What was with that dumb salute at the end? It seems like they put him in this movie in post and it was just to pump up cast list. I wish he was given anything to work with. I can't remember his characters name, and it's not like John Cena did a bad job, I was just annoyed every time they kept giving him hero shots. I felt like I was watching a trailer for a different movie.

Best Actor: Optimal Primo!

Every time Peter Cullen speaks I want to listen. There's a reason they haven't had Chris Pratt or somebody with a bigger name come in and take over the role at this point. He's why the audience keep coming back. Peter Cullen IS Optimus Prime, and there's no changing that. He also wins twice. He's the best actor in the movie AND he's barely in the movie. Good call Peter.

Worst Actor: Mean Girls 2, Meaner and Girlier

I don't want to be cruel so I'm not going to go into to much detail, but there's an actress in this film who's performance is so mustache twirlingly evil and stupid that it ruined my suspension of disbelief when i knew going in that i was about to endure a 2 hour toy commercial about robots that turn into cars. Beldar Conehead was a more convincing human being than Tina.

Best Effect: Goo Be Gone

I really appreciated when the bad guys shot the government nerd into a blast of snot. That was pretty fun for me. Best part of the movie hands down.

Worst Effect: Live Action?

Bumblebee is a cartoon. It's a great looking cartoon but it doesn't sell itself that way. If we were doing a Roger Rabbit thing I'd have no gripes. However, I think CG is just getting worse. I'm criticizing this and it's still lightyears better than the previous entry's on the franchise. No transformation or fight sequence in Bumble Bee had me straining to make sense of what I was looking at. I think it was a great idea to start using some basic shapes and outlines to these characters, and return somewhat to their 80s designs. But at certain points, especially when there were no humans in the shot, i was pretty convinced I was watching Clone Wars. There may not be anyway around this, as the Transformers concept might not be able to be pulled off in any more effective manner. It's a minor gripe, but I just didn't think it looked like anything other than a very expensive cartoon, and in this franchise that's a compliment, because it least it looked like SOMETHING!

Best Scene: Space Opera

I am not a Transformers fan. I missed the boat on the cartoon as a kid. I would sometimes catch it at friends houses but I was more into Batman, Star Wars, and Ninja Turtles. By the time I came onto the scene the world had moved on to Beast Wars. I did one day arbitrarily decide that my favorite Transformer was Sound Wave. He looked great in this. I am a big fan of the return to form with a lot of the character designs in this. They really did keep the things that worked from the other adaptations, and they are steadily removing the things that didn't. For this reason, the scenes on Cybertron, particularly the battle with Soundwave (i prefer for personal reasons) looked great and were exciting to watch. I remember thinking Cybertron used to look like a Marilyn Manson shot a music video from inside to dumpster. This is so much better.

Worst Scene: Blocking the Box

There's a scene in Bumblebee where Charlie's family decides the best way to save their daughter was to cause a pile up of vehicles in an intersection, and it's pure contrived writing that saved any character in that sequence from being killed in a horrific traffic accident. It was stupid, played for laughs, and it wasn't exciting as much as it was anxiety inducing. I also thought that there was no reason the covert military group covering up extraterrestrial life wouldn't just disappear this family of fucking morons in their little piece of shit car. The logic of the scene was just so childish like, "No they won't hit me, I'm a good person."

Summary

Bumblebee may be remembered fondly in a decade. I think especially if the Transformers franchise were to end here. It didn't get the publicity of the other films, and that really is a shame. For my money, this was the best Transformers movie so far. I was very tempted to give Bumblebee a C, it does just enough to right what was wrong from the other movies to make me appreciate all that work. This movie has heart, and if you are at all into Transformers then l think you should see it. It's still pretty stupid, and pretty basic. It's not offering anything new to the genre, and it feels like a commercial for more movies. I really wish we could just get movies that want to tell a story. I thought it over and decided that it wasn't fair not to grade Bumblebee on it's own merits. Bumblebee is substantially better than the films that preceded it, but that's not saying a lot, when the films that preceded it are joyless exercises in self abuse.

Overall Grade: D