Disturbia

The verdict: Polished thriller with plenty of smarts that will certainly launch Shia LaBoeuf's career, and provide large audiences with above average multiplex fodder. It's not great though.

The rating: 6/10

Essentially a remake, or perhaps more accurately a 'modern updating' of Hitchcock's masterpiece Rear Window, 'Disturbia' tells the story of troubled teen Kale, played by Shia LaBoeuf. Wheile Jimmy Stewart's broken leg meant he was immobile during a New York City heatwave, Kale is made housebound for the summer with an electronic tag after he punches his Spanish teacher in the face.

The story is similar enough to Rear Window, in that during his forced retreat from the outside world, our protagonist takes to observing his neighbours, and becomes increasingly suspicious of a neighbour who may or may not be a murderer. However, this being a 'fresh' modern updating of the story, our protagonist here is a teen suburban subscriber to X-Box live and iTunes, who takes to watching his extremely hot neighbour Ashley (Sarah Roemer) taking afternoon swims when his subscriptions to said services are withdrawn by his mom.

The movie is better than your average teen schlock fare, with the first hour building nicely and providing a few genuinely tense moments. LaBoeuf is a very capable lead, and if I was the E! Channel, I'd be describing him as 'so hot right now', with 'Transformers' still doing great business for him, and 'Disturbia' already having hit the top spot in the U.S. He's even doing voices for kids' animated movies for chrissakes, and Steven Spielberg has seen fit to cast him alongside Harrison Ford in the next Indiana Jones.... so he's doing alright for himself!

The supporting cast are all likeable, with Aaron Yoo turning in a great performance as Kale's funny mate who, somewhat unfortunately for him, does all the donkey work for his house-bound buddy when the killer's house needs to be investigated. Sarah Roemer fills the screen marvellously well, and is very capable to boot, while Carrie-Anne Moss and David Morse provide more than adequate support as Kale's mom and the suspected slasher respectively. Morse in particular is nicely dark, and adds a sinister atmosphere to proceedings in each of his scenes, without hamming it up too much.

It's well written, and director D.J. Caruso certainly delivers a polished thriller with plenty of frights and tense moments. Unfortunately, in the third act of 'Disturbia', things take a far more macabre and chaotic turn than in hitchcock's movie, where the suggestion of dodgy goings-on was used as a means to create tension, and where we were never permitted entry into the prime suspect's residence. In this version, we are shown all the grisly details, and somehow the movie loses a lot of the tension it had built in the previous hour, where it just becomes a bit of a chase, derivative of 'Scream', and perhaps influenced by 'Saw'.

In terms of what to expect with this movie, think 'Final Destination'. When I saw that one first, I remember thinking, "hey, that isn't a bad idea.." Perhaps because I was surprised to see an idea so good in a film that I expected to be mediocre, I enjoyed that movie all the more. The thing is, the idea in 'Disturbia' isn't original - Hitchcock did it better about forty years ago. Also, the third act lets it down more than a little. It's thoroughly inoffensive, if a little predictable, but it's a lot better than some of the rubbish you'll see in the multiplexes this year.

In short, 'Disturbia' will provide some decent popcorn entertainment, but it certainly won't live long in the memory.

Transformers

The verdict: The first half hour almost hints at likeable characters, a story.. you know... stuff like that, but the admittedly impressive CGI soon takes over. This is not a good movie in disguise.

The rating: 5/10.

I have a confession to make: I went to see 'Armageddon' in the cinema. Please, please, contain your abuse, there were mitigating circumstances... ahem, ok, so it was a date, she wanted to see 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', I wanted to see something else... so... we compromised and ended up seeing something neither of us wanted to watch... This is when I learned that a true compromise is a situation where both parties lose. Yes folks, with 'Armageddon', Michael Bay certainly taught me a life lesson.

When it came to the build-up to this movie, my brain may have attempted to remind me of my Michael Bay-related lesson, but I was busy with my fingers in my ears, metaphorically going 'la-la-la-la-laaa'. You see, there is definitely the potential for a really good 'Transformers' movie, if a hungry, talented young director, like a Christopher Nolan, a Len Wiseman or the Wachowski brothers (ten years ago) got their hands on it... instead (sigh), Hollywood gave the man who lost them a cool $100 million dollars with 'The Island' his chance for redemption. And the money men might just have made the right choice from their point of view, considering the business this movie has done. Only one week on release in the US, and its already turning a profit.. not bad for a $135 million dollar flick about toy robots.

So, is it actually any good? Well... to be honest, it's bad, but not 'Armageddon' bad. First, in case you missed it: 'Transformers' is a Michael Bay movie. To explain, 'Armageddon' was a movie where Liv Tyler's 'character' consisted mostly of wordlessly staring, yearning towards the sunset, with the American flag billowing in the wind behind her, while a crew of oil riggers, captained by her daddy (Bruce Willis, not that Aerosmith fella) attempted to save the earth from an oncoming meteor... you couldn't make it up, really. 'Armageddon' sucked in an offensive way, but happily, 'Transformers' isn't nearly that bad.

However, as with other Michael Bay movies, little time is wasted with stuff like character, motivation or (pshaw) conversations. Dialogue is first about setting up the initial explosion, then as a device to move characters from one explosion to the next. In terms of characters, if they can't be understood in one sentence, then they're likely to die rather quickly. We are introduced to Sam (Shia LaBoeuf) who wants a car and a girl and Michaela (Megan Fox) who is hot. That's all. Oh, and then there's Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) who just wants to finish his tour in the army and get back to his wife and kid, and the minister of Defence (Jon Voight) who needs to control this mess, and maybe leer a bit...

... ok, ok, so you don't watch 'Transformers' for the characters, I get it. Anyway, the two main leads are more than likeable, so, as long as the robots are cool and have cool fights where stuff gets trashed, who cares, right? Well, I'm happy to say the robots are certainly very well done. The special effects in this one are off the scale, really pushing things to another level. I would have a gripe about the leader of the baddies not being in it nearly enough though. He could have had an awful lot more to smash, given the opportunity.

The story though, is just silly, and possibly ripped off from an episode of the transformers kids cartoon (which was made by a toy manufacturer, incidentally). I've just forced myself to delete a sentence describing the storyline of the movie, for risk of spoilers, because it summed up the entire plot in about sixteen words. Two of those words were 'goodies' and 'baddies'.

Ok, so transformers is for kids then? Well, not quite. There is grown up humour in here, of the 'American Pie' variety, and the action is not light enough for young kids who might otherwise be watching 'Shrek the Third'. About forty five minutes of this movie is crammed with nonsensically fast-moving cameras zooming back and forth around giant robots, with human characters flitting about between their feet/wheels/other mechanical parts. The need for this comparitive scale makes many of the scenes featuring the robots quite difficult to follow. In particular, the last battle scenes are totally chaotic and very difficult for a 29-year-old codger like me to follow, my abnormally short attention span notwithstanding.

If it wasn't so silly and chaotic and two-dimensional, the robots might have saved it, but unfortunately, 'Transformers' just isn't a very good film. The action in 'Die Hard 4.0' was completely over the top, but it was packaged brilliantly. Michael Bay is more like a spoiled neighbour kid at Christmas. He's just got all these toys and, unsure which one to show us first, just shoves three of them in our faces, obscuring any clear view we might have otherwise had, and detracting from any potential sense of wonder. Shame really, but hey, don't worry, he'll probably have another shot, 'Transformers 2' can't be too far off.