QUEENSRYCHE – Operation: Mindcrime II (2006 Rhino)
10 years ago, when this project finally saw the light of day, a lot of fans were expecting it to be 1988 all over again. However, there were many reasons why they shouldn’t have.
1. Longtime guitarist/songwriter Chris DeGarmo, such an integral part of the original Mindcrime, had been out of the band for quite some time. 2. Geoff Tate’s voice didn’t have that high-note power it once had. 3. The band never intended to pretend it was still 1988. This album is a continuation, 18 years later, and as such the music has changed somewhat as well. The albums are meant to complement each other, not duplicate each other.
The story picks up with Nikki, the anti-hero from the original Mindcrime, finally being released from prison, 18 years after the events of the first album. He begins to piece together his memories of what happened. He decides to pay Dr. X a visit (“X marks the spot”, goes the lyric), who is deliciously played by the late Ronnie James Dio. For die-hard Dio followers, this was a real treat. Dio sings as if in a stage production, which I’ve never heard him do before. Pamela Moore reprises her role of Sister Mary, playing a larger role and appearing on more songs. She’s a great complement to Geoff Tate, who clearly revels in the chance to do something dramatic like this.
New second guitar player Mike Stone (ex-Criss) gels very nicely with Michael Wilton, playing dual guitar leads that Queensryche of old would have been proud of. At the same time, modern technology has creeped into the production in the form of sequencers and samples, to remind us that this was 2006. Still, Eddie Jackson’s bass had never been recorded this well before; he should be very proud of his rumble. Scott Rockenfield’s back to playing some serious metallic drumming as well, leaving behind some of his tribal influences for the moment.
So, the actual sound of Mindcrime II is amazing. The songs however are not up to the very high standards that Mindcrime I set. There is no “I Don’t Believe In Love” or “Eyes Of A Stranger”, although some songs like “The Hands” come pretty close, with an amazing metallic riff and great chorus. (Did anyone else notice a few bars of music from “I Don’t Believe In Love” within “The Hands”? Listen again.) “I’m American” is lyrically fantastic, and angrier than anything Queensryche has done since Q2K. “Chase” is the one featuring Dio, and the one I keep coming back to.
The thing about Queensryche albums is, they do tend to get better with time. Maybe they were always slightly ahead of the curve, or more likely they just take a few listens to absorb. It’s been a decade now, and few of the Mindcrime II songs remain lodged in the my brain. Meanwhile, I could hum any song from the first one. In particular, the second side of Mindcrime II really takes a drop. Tracks like “Fear City Slide” do not have the impact of “I Don’t Believe in Love”, and the closer “All the Promises” fails to deliver. It’s a concept album after all, and the last song is like the last scene in a movie. It should be memorable.
Will Mindcrime II ever become classic like the original? Doubtful. As soon as you name something with a “II” behind it, you’re painting yourself into a corner, but Queensryche have done about as good a job as the fans could have expected. It seems many fans have warmed up to it over the years, though it certainly cannot be considered equal with the original.
GETTING MORE TALE #483: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, Of the big lake they call gichi-gumi. The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead, When the skies of November turn gloomy. With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more, Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty, That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed. When the gales of November came early.
Living in Southern Ontario, we have easy access to three of the five Great Lakes. Many children spent time holidaying on Huron, Erie or Ontario. In school we learned to memorize the names of the Great Lakes with the acronym “HOMES”: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. The Ojibwe called Superior “gichi-gami” meaning “big sea”. When I was a kid we spent our summers at the cottage in Kincardine. Kincardine is located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, or as my dad used to call it when I was a toddler, “big water”. Some things are universal.
We are surrounded by nautical activity, from the great locks at Welland canal, to the legendary shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. Just a few kilometers south of Kincardine is Boiler Beach, so named because a few meters from the shore sits the boiler from an old steamer that exploded in 1883. The Erie Belle was a tug boat sent to rescue another ship that had blown aground after missing Kincardine harbour and attempting to turn around. It could not budge the freighter, and the Erie Belle’s boiler exploded when the engine overheated and seized. The piece of history is still sitting there partly due to the cold fresh waters of Huron. You can see it clearly even from the road. If that kind of sight doesn’t instil in a kid an interest in nautical Great Lakes history, nothing will. And then there are glass-bottom boats that do tours, and in clear waters to view shipwrecks.
We also weathered quite a few storms that rolled in off the lake, taking down hydro poles and trees. All you can do is sit tight and wait it out. We always kept several oil lamps at the cottage, ready to go, and we had to use them annually. It was easy to see how a even a huge ship could come to harm in such a storm.
Today, thanks to Gordon Lightfoot’s musical immortalization, the wreck of the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald is the most famous Great Lakes shipwreck of all time.
The huge freighter was hauling iron from Duluth, Minnesota to steel mills in Detroit, Michigan. Its final destination of the season was the port of Cleveland. It was late in the year 1975, and the big ship had to traverse the entire length of Superior, the deepest and most northerly lake. From there, to the locks at Sault Ste. Marie, and then south down the entire length of Huron. The Edmund Fitzgerald was a sturdy ship, launched in 1958 as the largest on the lakes. She broke speed records, and then broke her own records. She was a favourite to crowds because of the charismatic “DJ Captain”, Captain Peter Pulcer. He enjoyed piping music in the loudspeakers, and entertaining crowds on the St. Clair and Detroit rivers with tales of the big ship. But it was Captain Ernest M. McSorley who was command that fateful night in November.
There was a storm on the radar, but the weather service predicted it would proceed harmlessly south of Lake Superior. The Edmund Fitzgerald departed on November 9, but by 7 pm that night, the weather reports suddenly changed. The storm was crossing the lake, and they sounded the warning for gale-force winds. Pounded by 60 mph winds and 10 foot waves, the Edmund Fitzgerald headed north for shelter.
When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck, Saying, “Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya.” At seven PM it grew dark, it was then, He said, “Fellas, it’s been good to know ya.” The captain wired in he had water comin’ in, And the good ship and crew was in peril. And later that night when her lights went out of sight, Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Gordon Lightfoot was fascinated by the story and wrote the famous song around the disaster. His storytelling ability made it legendary, never to be forgotten. It went to #1 on every relevant chart in Canada, and has been covered by artists as diverse as the Dandy Warhols and the Rhoestatics. And in honour of the 29 men who died on that ship, he has revised his old lyrics. Formerly the words went, “At seven PM a main hatchway caved in.” However this implies the hatchway was not secured properly, and investigations showed that there was no crew error in the disaster. With respect to history, Lightfoot changed the line to “At seven PM it grew dark, it was then…”
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings, In the rooms of her ice-water mansion. Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams, The islands and bays are for sportsmen. And farther below, Lake Ontario, Takes in what Lake Erie can send her. And the iron boats go as the mariners all know, With the gales of November remembered.
The Edmund Fitzgerald lies at the bottom today, 15 miles from the aptly named Deadman’s Cove, Ontario. It is now a protected site, but there are no conclusive answers to what happened in her final moments. The way Lightfoot worded it was appropriately vague: “And later that night when her lights went out of sight, Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” What is more important today, rather than the cause of the wreck, is the fact that the 29 people lost at sea are now immortal. Gordon Lightfoot ensured that.
In a rustic old hall in Detroit they prayed, In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral, The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times, For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Things have changed a lot since the last time I saw Blue Rodeo in the mid-2000’s. They have added a few more albums to the oeuvre, and a few more members to the band. The expansion of Blue Rodeo to a seven-piece band has made their live sound smoother, the rough edges sanded off. Due to Greg Keelor’s hearing loss, the singer and author of some of the most gonzo country-rock guitar solos north of the 47th was forced to unplug, and focus on the acoustic guitar instead. Colin Cripps (Crash Vegas), who had filled in before, was drafted full time to fill the guitar sound. With Kitchener resident Bob Egan on slide and various other stringed instruments, there are now four guitar players in Blue Rodeo. The newest member is Michael Boguski on various keyed instruments.
According to the band, one of the solutions to Greg’s hearing issues was changing over to in-ear monitors. There was a rough shake down period to get used to this setup, timid performances during which the band says they failed to take chances live. For Blue Rodeo to issue a new live album, one must assume these issues have been ironed out. Live at Massey Hall is the band’s first live album since 2008’s Blue Road. It is also their shortest live album with only one disc inside (Blue Road was more of a video album, with unique CD and DVD content).
Supporting the studio album In Our Nature, the Massey Hall album has a little bit of newer material, but is dominated by past hits. Most of the new songs are clumped together in the middle of the CD: “New Morning Sun”, “Tara’s Blues”, “Tell Me Again” and “When the Truth Comes Out”. There is no drop of quality during this four-song clump, in fact “New Morning Sun” almost sounds as if lifted from Blue Rodeo’s late-80’s heyday. The last of the new songs, “Paradise”, is left closer to the end, before the rousing finale of “5 Days in May” and “Lost Together”.
Plenty of hits abound, with only “Try” obviously absent. There are also a couple of surprise tracks: the rarely played “Girl of Mine” from Diamond Mine, and “Disappear” from Tremolo. The 8:04 “Disappear” is the album highlight, recalling the mighty feats of Blue Rodeo onstage in the 1990’s. It rivals “Diamond Mine” for drama and instrumental gold, but has a beautiful melancholy power.
Old man time may have taken his toll on Greg’s hearing. Jim’s voice might be a little lower and huskier than it used to be. This band, surely one of the best live acts Canada has produced, survives on. The studio albums may no longer hit the charts like they used to, but Blue Rodeo have always seemed truly at home on the stage. With the addition of Cripps (helping out on backing vocals as well as guitar), the band are still able to do the big bold rock songs like “Lost Together” and “Diamond Mine” at full strength.
There was once a time when the music press questioned if Blue Rodeo could remain a vital force without original member Bobby Wiseman on keyboards. That was 1992. Not only have they remained just as challenging as ever, but they have continued to evolve and grow. Now it feels as if things have come full circle, back to that point in the mid-90’s when we realized the sky was the only limit for this band. We look forward to whatever Blue Rodeo produce next.
GETTING MORE TALE #482: Modified Listening Experiences
With modern music technology and software, it has never been easier to not only take your music anywhere, but now you can even modify the albums you buy. Using some simple tricks you can change aspects of the tracklist to make the album suit you. You have probably done this yourself. Many do regularly, by shuffling the track order. Let’s go a little deeper than that.
The first time I experienced the concept of modifying an album’s tracklist, I was just a kid. It was 1985, and I was recording the first W.A.S.P. cassette off my next door neighbour George (R.I.P.), from tape to tape.
“If you don’t like the song ‘Sleeping in the Fire’,” he said, “You can just push pause on this tape recorder. Then un-pause it when the song is over. Your copy won’t have ‘Sleeping in the Fire’ if that’s how you like it.”
Even then, I couldn’t imagine a reason to copy an entire album sans one song. I kept the tape running and never hit pause, but George’s advice kept tumbling around in my brain, for years. Over time I began experimenting with tracklist modification. Never to remove songs, mind you, always to add or improve.
Here are some examples of modified track lists in my library.
1. Adding bonus tracks
Single B-sides just kind of float around in most collections. Due to their short running time, I don’t often spin CD singles. On a PC hard drive they tend to get lost while full albums get more play. To give some of these B-sides a little more air time, in many cases I have chosen to add the songs as “bonus tracks”, at the end of the associated album. This works best when it’s just one or two tracks. More than that can extend an album listening experience too long.
Sometimes, different versions of albums will have unique bonus tracks. Perhaps there’s one on the vinyl version that is on nothing else. Japanese editions, deluxe versions, European editions, iTunes editions…there are usually lots of bonus tracks out there, but always on different versions of the disc. Why not take them all, and make your own “super deluxe edition” with all the bonus tracks in one spot? Listening to an album modified in this way can be a bit longer than the usual, but ultimately it’s rewarding to hear the entire body of work in one smooth sitting. My MP3 player is loaded with my complete version of Alice Cooper’s Welcome 2 My Nightmare, and it’s just 10 minutes shy of two hours long!
In extreme cases, there are so many bonus tracks out there that you may need to consider creating an entire “bonus disc” folder to house them all.
2. Removing gaps
The 1990’s were such a quaint time. Remember “hidden bonus tracks”? At the end of the album, instead of stopping, the CD would continue to play several minutes of silence. Then you would be surprised by a hidden unlisted song! A notable example is “Look at Your Game, Girl”, the infamous Charles Manson cover that Axl hid away at the end of The Spaghetti Incident. There was only a 10 second gap on that CD; still annoying but other albums had much longer pauses before the hidden track.
I use Audacity to remove the long gaps, or to isolate the hidden song to a track all its own. As much as I enjoy a “pure” listening experience the way the artist intended, these long gaps are pretty easy to sacrifice.
3. Restoring an intended song order
Rock and roll is full of stories about bands who couldn’t get their way when an album was released. W.A.S.P. for example wanted their song “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” to open their self titled album. Now you can add it there yourself! (W.A.S.P. also added the song to the start of the remastered version of the album.) You can even use Audacity to adjust the volume levels, so that everything matches.
A better example is Extreme’s III Sides to Every Story. The piano ballad “Don’t Leave Me Alone” was only on the cassette version of the album. The CD couldn’t contain all the songs without making it a double, so that one had to be left off. Now you can re-add it yourself, right where it belongs at the end of “side two” and before the big side three suite. Now you can hear the whole album as Extreme intended, seamlessly.
Pardon the pun, but I took an even more “extreme” approach to their second album, Pornograffitti. The instrumental track “Fight of the Wounded Bumblebee” was written as a longer piece with a slow bluesy coda. This second half was recorded solo by Nuno Bettencourt as “Bumble Bee (Crash Landing)” for a guitar compilation. Using Audacity, I combined both tracks to restore the song to its original full structure. This is about as close as we will ever get to hearing the tracks as written. I dropped the new longer track into the album tracklisting and voila! Still seamless, but now with a new darker mood before “He-Man Woman Hater”.
Indeed, the possibilities are limitless. Steve Harris often complained that the Iron Maiden album No Prayer for the Dying should have had live crowd noise mixed in, like a live album. Now you can do that yourself. With a deft touch, you can even edit songs down yourself or extend them by looping sections.
With the advent of the computer as a listening device, the sky is now the limit. How would you modify your listening experiences?
On paper, it was genius. Teaming up the legendary drummer Carmine Appice with anyone will turn heads, but John Sykes, the ex-Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake guitar genius? Sign us up. Add in ex-Black Sabbath singer Ray Gillen, and the Firm’s Tony Franklin on bass, and that right there is an interesting combo. Two words were buzzing around the camp, and they were “blues” and “jams”. When the band did start jamming the blues, they realized that Ray Gillen didn’t have much to do during the long instrumental breaks they were producing. The decision was made to cut Ray and trim the band down to a classic power trio, with Sykes singing lead. The trio format was fairly unique among rock bands in the late 80’s. (Ray hooked up with another new blues-rock band, Jake E. Lee’s Badlands.)
Adding to the hype machine behind the new christened Blue Murder was the tapping of up and coming producer Bob Rock. Coming off of some hit albums by Kingdom Come and The Cult, it was assumed Rock would do the same for Blue Murder. They hiked up to Little Mountain Sound in Vancouver and recorded the album, dedicating it to Phil Lynott.
Unfortunately it was pretty clear after a few listens that despite the hype and big names, Blue Murder was not the supergroup debut that it should have been. Indeed, the lineup expired after one record.
Sykes’ singing was not the issue. His vocals on songs such as “Riot” and “Ptolemy” are more than adequate. Power and range were not an issue for Sykes. Perhaps his unique guitar stylings were too associated with the mega-selling Whitesnake 1987, because the sonic connections are obvious. Too much ‘Snake, not enough Lizzy. The songs are not all bad either, though many could use some minutes trimmed from them. At nine songs and 52 minutes, Blue Murder does have the instrumental chills that Sykes wanted to get across, but at the cost of diluting the impact with meandering rock songs. Other issues must fall at the feet of Bob Rock. Though Blue Murder earned the producer a nomination at the Juno awards in 1990, the muddy sound is very far indeed from what Rock can do. “Sex Child” is a perfect example of this. Rock strove to give Carmine a big drum sound, but there are also excessive keyboards and layers of vocals all occupying the same sonic space. This robs it of the groove. It’s a chore to finish the whole album in a sitting, due to some of these problems.
There are three album highlights that are possibly worth the expense to rock historians. They are the singles “Valley of the Kings” and “Jelly Roll”, and the epic “Ptolemy”. At 7:50, “Valley of the Kings” had to be severely edited down for a single/video. It has all the progressive rock qualities that you know these guys are capable of, and who isn’t a sucker for lyrics about pharoahs and pyramids? Must credit must also be given to Tony Franklin, who makes it sound as if the fretless bass is easy to play! You don’t hear enough fretless in hard rock, and Franklin is one of the world’s very best. Period.
Interestingly, “Valley of the Kings” was co-written by then-Black Sabbath singer Tony Martin. You can absolutely hear parallels to Sabbath’s Headless Cross released the same year – an album that also had some fretless bass on it thanks to Lawrence Cottle!
“Jelly Roll” was a music video, fitting the slot for some good time summer acoustic rock. Instead of going ballad, Blue Murder went to the bayou. The tricky slide licks recall Whitesnake, but unfortunately towards the end, the song sinks into typical ballad territory. It sounds like two songs melded together, but I like the first part best.
The final keeper is the progressive epic “Ptolemy”. Unfortunately the lyrics don’t have much to do with the actual mathematician and astronomer who lived almost 2000 years ago. Instead the song is about tomb robbing; unrelated to Ptolemy of Alexandria. This is a shame since they could have written about Ptolemy’s musical studies (Harmonics), or his influence on the concept of the universe of a series of spheres that create music. Fortunately the musical qualities of the song enable us to overlook the words.
There are also-rans worth checking out: particularly a track called “Billy” which is the most Thin Lizzy of all the tunes. You could imagine, if Phil had lived, that he could have recorded “Billy” for a mid-80’s Thin Lizzy album. Unfortunately most of the material resides in Whitesnake territory, especially the carbon-copy ballad “Out of Love”, and the closer “Black-Hearted Woman” which recycles Whitesnake riffs.
Too bad. Loads of potential, but blown in the delivery.
Rock fans are a fickle bunch, aren’t we? We will openly praise our rock heroes, placing them upon mighty pedestals. We will proclaim that our love for said bands trumps anyone else’s; we are truer fans than the average wannabe. Then at the drop of a hat, when our bands take an action we don’t approve of, we suddenly become the authority on what that band actually should have done. We’re the experts after all, right?
Most commonly, we are quick to judge when a band has passed its prime. We have all done it. “They need to hang it up and call it a day, go out with some dignity,” we proclaim, pretending that we actually have a clue of what goes on in their creative or financial headspaces.
Why do we think we know what’s best? Certainly, we are opinionated on what we like and what we don’t. Let’s say a certain band “jumps the shark” a little bit, to use the TV vernacular. For example, Aerosmith. A lot of fans, this one included, feel that Aerosmith’s best days are long behind them. As fans, we don’t want to see the band continue to sink further into a crapslide of mediocrity. Mediocrity, that is, defined by us.
Certainly, Aerosmith have no problems selling out arenas even after several patchy discs and gigs. Go and see them live and you will meet fans who have seen them dozens of times in their lives. They have a blast doing so, and they don’t care if Tyler can’t jump around like he used to. What makes one group of fans (the ones that cry “hang it up!”) right, but the others who will gladly go see them live again tomorrow, wrong?
Nothing. It’s all personal taste. You may fall on one side of fence with Aerosmith, but another side with the Stones, or the Who. Look, I love Kiss. I always have. I loved when they were great, and I loved when they were shit. Now that the original members are down to just Gene and Paul, and Paul’s struggling with his voice, do I think they should hang it up? Absolutely not. I still look forward to whatever Paul, Gene, Eric and Tommy have cooking next. But I don’t necessarily feel that way about Aerosmith, or even AC/DC.
I saw Gordon Lightfoot perform about 10 years ago. His voice is reduced to a quiet whisper now. Years take their toll, but Gordon and his band still played a set of unforgettable music. Was it a harsh reminder of the years gone by? Sure, but I can say I’ve seen Gordon Lightfoot now, an experience I wouldn’t trade in for a cash refund, no way.
To compare an artist to their younger selves is almost universally unfair. I can’t run the 100 meter dash like I used to. Ian Gillan can’t hit the high screams like 1969 either. That’s OK. Ageing is a part of life. It is also a part of music, even rock and roll. Rock music used to be about celebrating youth, but today it is a far more diverse field than it was in the golden years.
On the other hand, take a group like AC/DC. For all intents and purposes, they were still going very strong with the classic five members until very recently. Then Malcolm got sick – irreversibly so. Phil Rudd had his problems and was let go. Now Brian Johnson is gone and Axl Rose is in. At what point does a band become a parody of itself? More importantly, who gets to decide that? I’d prefer if AC/DC were able to continue with Brian; I don’t want to adjust to an AC/DC with yet another new singer. But I don’t get a say, do I?
But we do get to vote on this, in one way: the capitalist way. We vote democratically with our dollars. People who don’t want to see Axl Rose fronting AC/DC are offered full refunds, and by taking the refund, a fan can voice his or her displeasure. If the tour continues beyond these dates, we will still be able to vote with our wallets. There is no deception here. Surely anyone in the market for AC/DC tickets knows what’s going on now.
Speaking personally, I would go see Axl/DC. Who knows how long this aggregation will last? It’s a possible chance to see history in the making. Even if they suck absolutely (doubtful), I would still be able to say “I saw that. I was there.” So, given the chance, even if I don’t like the idea of Axl fronting AC/DC, I would still use my money to vote “yay”. Even just out of curiosity, it would be worth it.
The single instance that I feel is universally appropriate for a band to retire is the sad day they find themselves without any original members. Take Quiet Riot for example. Nobody currently in the band played on the first two Quiet Riot albums. Two of the members who did are now dead, and there is no connection at all to the earliest recordings of the group. In cases such as this, what separates a band from a mere tribute? Call it what it is, in my view.
Who do you think should hang it up? And if they do, how long before the reunion tour? Time will tell!
Rob Daniels was sick last week, so we had to postpone his show to this week. Tonight at midnight, catch me LIVE on Rob’s radio program VISIONS IN SOUND. Tune in locally on your FM dial to CKWR 98.5, or even easier, just click “listen live” via their website! The show runs from midnight to 2 am (ET). My energon this evening to keep me going will consist of the sweet sweet coffee.
The subject: the 30th anniversary of THE TRANSFORMERS movie! The soundtrack was recently re-released in a deluxe Record Store Day vinyl anniversary edition. Tonight I’ll be joining Rob as we spin music from the film, discussing its impact, and I’m certain we will be able to “touch” on the controversial killing off of kiddie favourite character Optimus Prime!
Don’t “Dare to be Stupid”, join us tonight for some “Prime” music!
Old review from the archives dug up for your enjoyment. With all apologies to the regular music readers, I decided to post my reviews of the first three Transformers movies, in reverse order. That’s the only way I could have saved the best for last!
J. from Resurrection Songs requested quite some time ago that I post this review. I decided that the only way to post my review of this movie, the first of the loathed “Bayverse” Transformers film, was to do it legit. I wrote up a review for my journal almost 10 years ago that has never been seen by anybody. Back then, I actually liked the movie, and the first is still the best of the series. Let’s look at this thing from the perspective of “then”. Things seemed wide open! Whatever was wrong with the movie could be fixed in the next one, right?
How wrong we were. Read on!
Date: 2007/07/23
TRANSFORMERS: Not actually much more than meets the eye!
I hate Michael Bay. Period. I hated him when I saw Armageddon, easily the worst excuse for science fiction I’d ever seen. I maintain that anyone seeing that movie is dumber for doing so. It kills brain cells like a shot of Absinthe, straight up. I was predisposed to hating Transformers since Michael Bay directed it, but surprisingly I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it either; it was infinitely flawed. But what I liked in the film, the stuff that they nailed perfectly, was killer.
So what did they mess up so badly that I was cringing? What did they get right? Where did they surprise me?
I am with most people who hated the robots speaking and acting “contemporary”. These are aliens after all, so why Optimus would say “My bad!” when stepping in a flower bed, or why Jazz would talk like Bill Cosby acting hip-hop, I have no idea. Bumblebee “peeing” on John Turturro irked me too. For the record, “peeing” occured twice in this masterpiece of film: Once when Bumblebee unloaded on Turturro’s Agent Simmons, and once when a puppy dog urinated on Ironhide’s foot. (I did like it when he said, “That’s going to rust!” though.) This kind of thing was stupid, juvenile, and out of place even as comedy relief. Granted we’re talking about a movie based on a toy line, but the kids who played with those toys are grown up and have kids of their own now. I would like to think that piss jokes in a science fiction movie are a little passe now. (Although I do own Jackass 1 and Number 2, so call me a hypocrite.)
The storyline was a little weak. The “Allspark” that the Transformers are seeking is nothing more than a McGuffin to drive the plot. Apparently in the hands of Megatron it can do infinite harm, in the hands of the Autobots, it can heal their homeworld of Cybertron. However, in the end, it’s just a box that robots chase each other around for, like a colossal game of Cybertron Football.
The human character of Sam Witwicky as played by Speilberg’s new protege Shia LaBouf was really funny. I don’t know if he had much more dimension than that, though. He’s an awkward teen who wants to get the girl, any girl, but Megan Fox just happens to be available at the right time. When Shia is ready to protect the Allspark with his life (“No sacrifice, no victory!”) it comes a little bit out of left field considering that he rarely showed any motivation beyond getting the girl and staying alive. However, his honest, humourous delivery will make him a star one day. This kid has yet to show what he can do. I am sure he will under Speilberg in Indy 4*. As for Megan “the” Fox, she did little other than live up to her name. She did that very well. However, she didn’t really generate any other feelings in the audience. Lots of gratuitous skin shots.
Bernie Mac had some funny lines, totally over the top. But that’s why they hired a guy like Bernie Mac to play a used car salesman. John Turturro was OK, but you can tell he just phoned in his performance. John Voight, give the man some credit, looked like he was trying. Shame his part was so generic. All the soldiers in the film were pretty much just Michael Bay Soldiers…the same, every film, every time.
The robots had no characters, aside from Optimus and Bumblebee. They could have been fleshed out a lot more, but at least they felt like characters. Megatron was completely wasted, just a really big, mean, bad guy. You couldn’t even tell it was Hugo Weaving voicing him. Peter Cullen did a great job as Optimus, of course. I’m glad about that casting choice.
There were many nods to the past. Most of the characters still transformed into similar forms. Optimus looked amazing. Bumblebee was pefect as a Camaro. Frenzy was no longer a cassette tape, but the basic gist of the robot was the same. Brawl (misnamed “Devastator” in the subtitles…will this be fixed on the DVD version?**) was still a tank. Starscream was no longer an F-15 Eagle, but now a F-22 Raptor…killer update! Scorponok looked amazing in scorpion mode, but had no character to speak of and wasn’t seen in robot mode at all. Shame, that. He was once one of the deepest characters of the old Marvel series.
There was even some dialogue from the past: Optimus says, “One shall live, and one shall fall!”, the same words he said before Megatron killed him in the 1986 Transformers movie. However, twice the words “more than meets the eye” were uttered, making everyone in the audience groan. (It was just as bad as James Cromwell saying, “And you guys are astronauts, on some kind of star trek?” in Star Trek: First Contact.)
There were many nods to the creators. “This is way better than Armageddon!” one character says, with Michael Bay’s penis firmly in mouth. Someone mentioned E.T. in honour of Señor Spielbergo. There were also a small number of original series Star Trek soundbites, since the same dudes who wrote this are also working on Star Trek XI, an original series-era movie.*** (Interestingly, Michael Bay’s cousin Susan is married to Leonard Nimoy.) Some of these things were cool, some were not.
Michael Bay’s directing, as always, was suck-ass. Just for fun I watched Team America a few days before going to see Transformers. All that stuff that is made fun of in that film was in Transformers, in spades! As soon as we hit the desert in Qatar, there’s a piece of “Arabic” music that sounded right out of Team America. All the slow-mo shots interspersed with high-speed action, all the cheesy dialogue, all those over-dramatic camera angles and lighting effects…Michael Bay threw in the kitchen sink, every trick he knew.
I think the coolest thing about Transformers was that it opens up wide what can happen in 2 and 3 (Peter Cullen, Megan Fox, and Shia LaBouf have signed on for two more). Michael Bay isn’t necessarily doing the sequels, so maybe someone with a lighter hand can take over. Slow things down a bit. Let us actually see the robots. The action was mostly so fast and white-washed with explosions and debris that you couldn’t see the robots.
Speaking of the robots, much has been made of their look: People whine that Optimus shouldn’t have flames, the Megatron should transform into a gun, that Bumblebee should have been a VW Beetle. I say, stop whining. These robots look amazing. I’m sure Megatron will look different in the next film anyway.**^
Speaking of the next film: Storywise, it’s already been said that the Dinobots, Constructicons and Soundwave are potential characters for the sequel, opening up story possibilities big time. I’d like to see Grimlock and Optimus clash over leadership direction a little bit like in the old Marvel series. Megatron and Starscream too…their conflict was hinted at. The ending was left wide open for sequels. (Why did the stupid humans believe that Megatron could be disposed of in such an easy way? Foolhardy!)
So there you go. Go get a Coke and a huge tub of popcorn. Enjoy and most importantly, enjoy discussing afterwards with all your geek and nerd friends like I am.
3/5 stars
*He did not.
**It was not. Even though Bay introduced the actual character of Devastator in the next film.
Old review from the archives dug up for your enjoyment. Apologies to the regular music readers, I’ve decided to post my reviews for the first three Transformers movies…but in reverse order. Because fuck these movies.
TRANSFORMERS – Revenge of the Fallen (2009 Paramount)
Directed by Michael Bay
This is a movie to make you say “wow”! Not because it’s great, or the because the CGI effects are any good (they’re not) — just because Transformers 2 mucks things up even more than the first one did.
For example, the robot dialogue is geared towards kiddies, just like the old cartoon was. Then, mixed in the middle of all that kiddie dialogue, is Megan Fox wearing a tank top, then Megan Fox wearing leather chaps, then Megan Fox stripping off those chaps…just who is this movie for? It’s either geared for kids with no consideration at all for throwing all this sexual imagery at you, or it’s geared for adults (males) and really dumbed down.
All that could be forgivable if this movie had a plot, or characters, or even decent visuals. The effects were so bad; clearly the crew only had so much time and budget to finish. So when you see a robot called “The Doctor” manipulate Sam’s (Shia Labouf) face, it looks like something out of Roger Rabbit, or Star Wars Episode I. When robots are getting blown apart, you see little pieces of junk flying off them, but they don’t look real at all — it looks like little cartoon pieces of junk. Everything looks completely fake, except the explosions. Those look real (because they were real) and there are a lot of them, because BOOM Michael Bay BOOM!
So many opportunities here are squandered. The death of a beloved character has no emotion to it; even the pathetic 1986 cartoon movie had more emotion to the scene in question. The Fallen — one of the all time great Transformers villains — is just another bad guy, not the awe inspiring menace he should be. And don’t get me started on the hip-hop-bots. Why does Devastator have genitalia again? Was that really necessary? Like the prior film, the humour was awfully juvenile — Sam’s parents are more annoying than ever, especially his mother (who gets high accidentally) and his roommate is one character that either should never have been written, or killed off in Act 2.
There are some minor shining lights in this movie. John Turturro, as Simmons, is better and funnier than before. There are also lots more robots — dozens. I couldn’t keep them straight!
However that is part of Michael Bay’s problem. His design team makes the robots essentially all look the same, particularly the Decepticons. There are a group of “protoform” Decepticons who arrive on Earth. Since they are “protoforms”, they are actually all identical with the exact same design. Budget wise, you can see how using the same animation model for a whole bunch of ‘Cons makes sense. Visually, it reduced the film to an onscreen mess of flying shit. Oh sure, there were Constructicons, and Insecticons…so what? They didn’t do anything important. The humans, in fact, do all the thinking, talking, leading, and everything else in this movie. The plot only moves forward when the puny humans decide to do something. That isn’t what the original Marvel series envisioned by Bob Budianski and Simon Furman was about. That isn’t even what the cartoon was about. Transformers is about the robots, and yes, they should have some characterization! If the comic book did, surely they can do it in a multi-million dollar movie. But no; either nobody thought to write interesting characters for classic robots like Sideswipe, Arcee, and Ratchet, or they just didn’t have the time to do them properly. Sad.
Plot holes big enough to drive a Peterbilt truck through:
1. A bunch of mini-bots attack Sam in his kitchen, requiring Bumblebee to barely save him. Two minutes later, Sam is telling Bee that he’s all grown up and doesn’t need his protection anymore. Then, just 20 minutes later, Sam does need protection and Bee comes to save Sam from a Decepticon Pretender…but doesn’t actually do anything! He lets the Pretender into the car, and then he just plays annoying songs on his radio and sprays the Pretender with lubricant instead of…I dunno…driving off? Seriously.
2.The tomb of the Primes! Woah! But…as Jetfire explains it, the original Primes sacrificed themselves to create a tomb out of their bodies. Then he continues to exposit, “Only a Prime can defeat the Fallen.” Well, maybe they shouldn’t have sacrificed themselves?
3. The tomb that they sacrificed their bodies to create doesn’t actually do anything. It’s opened with one simple blast.
4.And yes, “Only a Prime can defeat the Fallen,” according to Jetfire. We are not sure why. When the two finally clash they just have a normal-type robot brawl. Nothing special here that any other ‘bot couldn’t do, and Prime needed all of Jetfire’s parts (seriously!) to help him do it!
Since people are going to buy this movie no matter what I say, I’ll draw this review to a close. I have only scratched the surface of the issues with Revenge of the Fallen. Proceed at your own risk. This is a turd.
Old review from the archives dug up for your enjoyment. Apologies to the regular music readers, but I’ve decided to post my reviews for the first three Transformers movies…but in reverse order. Because fuck these movies.
TRANSFORMERS – Dark of the Moon(2011 Paramount)
Directed by Michael Bay
As I sat there finishing the third Transformers movie, I thought to myself, “Does Michael Bay ever take himself seriously?” I mean, the dialogue here is so juvenile and stupid, the characters are more one-dimensional than ever (how is that even possible?), and every inch of film is so stupidly overblown, it’s beyond ridiculous. It’s like giving very expensive movie making equipment to a child with a Bart Simpson streak. Welcome to the Bay-verse, where one can walk away from a flaming car wreck with no injuries, and no idea what the hell the story is!
The plot, such as it is, revolves around the discovery of Sentinel Prime (voice of Leonard Nimoy and Autobot mentor to Optimus) on our moon by Neil Armstrong and the crew of the Apollo 11. Sentinel has something (yet another “McGuffin” in this series – a generic object that the protagonists and antagonists seek) that can save Cybertron (again). But there’s more than meets the eye and things are not always what they seem! Funny though how Earth always seems to be the epicentre of all Transformers plots and schemes. Are we a magnet for alien assholes?
Though it is the worst of the first three in the series, Dark of the Moon was a marginal improvement in some minor ways. Many of the most annoying characters (Sam’s annoying parents, the hip-hop-bots) are toned down in movie #3. The plot is still a confounding mess in a universe that defies all logic and physics. It’s all there to support a massive end battle that takes up almost half of the movie. Is that battle spectacular to watch? Oh, sure, I guess so. Can it hold your attention? No. After about half of the end battle had transpired, I was begging for this movie to please just fucking end.
I have to say though, Rosie Huntington-Whitely is an upgrade over Megan Fox. Something about British accents. Bad British acting always trumps bad American acting. The cast is rounding out by Frances McDormand (also wasted here), John Malkovich (criminally wasted), Patrick Dempsey (meh) and of course John Turturro who always should have more screen time.
A thudding end to a disappointing trilogy.
1.5/5 stars
Oh, and by the by — no special features! On the Blu-ray! You suck, Bay!
The story picks up with Nikki, the anti-hero from the original Mindcrime, finally being released from prison, 18 years after the events of the first album. He begins to piece together his memories of what happened. He decides to pay Dr. X a visit (“X marks the spot”, goes the lyric), who is deliciously played by the late Ronnie James Dio. For die-hard Dio followers, this was a real treat. Dio sings as if in a stage production, which I’ve never heard him do before. Pamela Moore reprises her role of Sister Mary, playing a larger role and appearing on more songs. She’s a great complement to Geoff Tate, who clearly revels in the chance to do something dramatic like this.
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