Bad Teacher
(Starring Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Lucy Punch, Jason Segal)
We know some teachers have sex with their students. Others put forth Herculean effort, teaching in underprivileged districts. In between is a whole cadre of educators, good and bad. They all suffer under governments trying to force them to deliver the goods within ridiculous budget constraints and without the proper equipment.
America's education crisis means that there were tons of angles Bad Teacher could've taken. Given the talent, it still would have been entertaining, but more importantly, meaningful. Instead this dark comedy merely shoots for crude and hollow.
Diaz is both funny and frustrating as a gold-digger disinterested in her job. She wants a rich husband, or at least enough money for a killer boob job. Diaz only shows up to work because she has the hots for nerdy substitute teacher Timberlake (Diaz's actual ex). She doesn't even teach. She shows students films like Stand and Deliver. She also smokes pot, lies, cheats, and slings slurs left and right.
This teacher starts out so vapid and despicable that terrible things should happen. Instead, she's merely allowed to be nasty and selfish. It's very amusing at first, but it gets old. The film never gives depth to Diaz. Why is she this way? The other actors are underutilized. Though often comical, Bad Teacher is also pointlessly cruel and wan, set in a school where kids obviously get a lousy education. How hilarious is that?
Green Lantern
(Starring Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Robbins)
This summer, green may be the color of courage, as well as the color of moneyâ┚¬â€Âbuckets and scads of blockbuster cash. Green certainly isn't the color of complex, interesting conflicts or genuine tension. Thematically, this movie is a flat, lifeless shade, without much variance.
Ryan Reynolds is a hotdog fighter pilot who finds a dying alien on a beach. (Don't ask why the rest of our planet doesn't spot a spaceship crash.) The alien gives Reynolds a chunky green ring, and the hunky pilot gains a skin-tight suit (yay!) and the ability to bring to life anything he imagines. He's now a Green Lantern, an intergalactic space cop using Will to fight Fear. Just in time, too, because Fear is a giant space cloud that gobbles planets and infects geeky, hideous Peter Skarsgaard to do his earthly bidding.
The special effects are ginormous and cool. The story skates from earth to space to foreign planets with graphic glee. Everything else is dull. The love triangle and Reynolds' back-story are distressingly common. Evil is hideously ugly, and good is either handsome or fascinating. Right and wrongâ┚¬â€Âaka Will and Fearâ┚¬â€Âare rendered with childish simplicity.
The most frustrating thing is Green Lantern spent millions on the effects and $1.98 on the pedestrian story. This only impresses 12-year-olds and audience who don't know better. The rest of us know that difficult and mortal stories can be told, even using superheroes.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
(Starring Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, John Turturro, Frances McDormand, Patrick Dempsey, John Malkovich, Chris Siebert, Josh Duhamel, Bill O'Reilly, Buzz Aldrin)
Notice this list of stars? Absolutely everyone is cashing in on this silly, obnoxiously three-quel. Too bad the film sounds like a half dozen shot glasses pureed in a blender for nearly three hours. It only might be funny if you drank whatever was in the shot glasses first.
Even Bill O'Reilly and Buzz Aldrin got a check?!
Those transforming robots are still doing a crappy job hiding on Earth. Maybe it's because they crashed a ship on the dark side of the moon. They know the ship has a nifty technology that can bring their doomed planet to earth. The evil robots' plan is to enslave humanity to rebuild planet Unicron.
Never mind the physics. It's all about noise and visual assault. Whole cities get pillaged; the filmmakers even call to mind 9/11 and the Challenger disasters in the most tasteless ways possible.
The story is related in ADHD-friendly snippets loaded with clichés and short on common sense. If these robots can do so much, why didn't they enslave us a long time ago? Why do the good robots fight to protect usâ┚¬â€Âjust because they're noble? Finally, though the visual effects are better this go-round, the battles are overlongâ┚¬â€Âyou'll start out enjoying it and end up all headachy.
