Why, Robot?
Film
THE TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
Cert: 12A
THIS is the second instalment in the Michael Bray special effects paradise that is The Transformers. There is little point trying to work out what’s going on – the plot is utterly baffling, with new characters, monsters, machines and storylines unleashed every few minutes.
But to tax your mind over such trivial matters as a story is fruitless and not even necessary – this movie is all about the end of the world, a hot heroine and angry machine-gobbling robots. More specifically, the efforts of an elite unit called NEST (composed of autobots and the US military) to wipe out the Earth-destroying Decepticons is thwarted when a rogue bot wreaks havoc in Shanghai and hints at major trouble to come. This is in the form of a lethal entity called the Fallen.
Averting disaster comes down to the ingenuity and bravery of chosen one Sam (Shia Laboeuf) and his sexy biker girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) – both of whom have a special relationship with the helpful autobots and a shared history of robo-combat.
Sadly, Sam’s college career – and the only part of the film that it’s at all possible to follow – is cut short by needing to save the world. Mikaela (flown in from California “to save your life”), his highly excitable roommate and a raggedy ex-CIA agent who now works for his mother at a New York deli all set off on a dangerous mission to find Optimus Prime, a dead robot and the only power on earth capable of stopping the evil Decepticons.
The final denouement amid the pyramids and stone of Giza is a relentless slew of machine-gobbling robots destroying one of the great manmade beauties on earth. A bit depressing, but enthralling too. This film is a spectacle worth your money. It is also long, confusing and totally empty.
TELSTAR
Cert 15
If you’re a pop history nut, a particular fan of Sixties boy-bands, or even fascinated by the world in which the Beatles got their start, then this film will be of some interest to you. If you’re interested in the life and death of Joe Meek, the maverick 1960s pop music producer, then you’ll love it.
Unfortunately, most people probably won’t have heard of Joe Meek, played here by the high-voiced Con O’Neill. This is largely because he made a mess of pretty much everything by insisting on doing things his own way even when that involved the severe discomfort and alienation of everyone else.
Yes, it was his eccentric creativity that led to the first British hit to top the US charts, and which gives the film its name. But it was his self-absorption that led him to chuck a demo from a man called Brian Epstein in the bin without even listenProxy-Connection:keep-aliveCache-Control:max-age=0g, to become engulfed (financially and emotionally) by his affair with a toyboy to the detriment of everything else and finally, to succumb to paranoia and depression with murder and suicide.
Meek composed Telstar and subsequent hits in his little flat above a shop on the Holloway Road. The film evokes the atmosphere of energy and passion on a shoestring, with singers practicing in the toilet and oddballs united by their devotion to Meek and the music. But it’s such a brief interlude before things go horribly wrong that the film is mostly depressing. It lacks the background and fails to sell Meek the man enough to make sitting through the gloom worthwhil