2 Dollar Productions

Worth Full-Price, Matinee or Rental: '500 Days of Summer': Matinee or possibly full price if your wife/fiance/girlfriend would make you see another romantic comedy like 'The Ugly Truth' instead of this one, which is several cuts above most projects in this genre.

'Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen': Matinee. Unless you're paying per explosion - in which case you could easily justify payiing full price - then you might not be too disappointed with paying matinee prices even though this is a long, loud and fairly dumb exercise in summer movie-making.

Will I Own It On DVD: '500 Days of Summer': Possibly. If the price comes down on this one ($15 or under), then it might be worth owning one day.

'Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen': No. It might be worth one more viewing (though probably not) to watch Megan Fox and the fairly nifty special effects, however, it is not worth owning.




1) '500 Days of Summer' was a buzzed-about project from this past Sundance film festival, and it generally earns the praise that was heaped upon it because it soars above most romantic comedies thanks to a story that is frequently more tart than sweet, and above all, realistic versus merely a stylized pairing of actors. A narrator (one slightly irritating part of the film) warns viewers from the start that '500 Days' is not a love story, but that is not true, it's simply not a neatly presented one, which makes it more believable.


2) The other trick that the film uses effectively is time sequencing as the title refers to 500 days in the relationship between Gordon Joseph-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, a narrative device that skips all over the place during its running time, so you might see an early blosomming relationship vignette followed by another where things are becoming strained. This is not as gimmicky as it sounds, and to its credit, the film tends to focus on the in-between points of a relationship instead of the standard arc that most rom-coms adhere to with a fierce devotion.

3) At the end of the day, however, these kinds of films rely heavily on the chemistry (or lack thereof) of the lead characters. In '500 Days,' both Gordon-Levit and Deschanel give fully realized performances both individually as well as when they are developing their relationship. This allows the audience to pull for both characters even though neither is wholly guily or innocent as things start to unravel, and it is a testament to both actors skill that they don't allow anyone to turn into an audience scapegoat.



4) I only saw the first ‘Transformers’ movie a month or two ago mainly because from the first preview and description of the idea, I thought I would absolutely loathe everything about the project outside of Megan Fox. But it turned out to be perversely entertaining – if far too long – mostly because it didn’t take itself too seriously, had some cool special effects, a less irritating turn by Shia LeBeouf than I figured and also had a fun performance by John Turturro as well as the aforementioned Fox, who director Michael Bay liked to film with an unseen wind machine constantly blowing her hair around like a soft-core porn video.


5) Unfortunately, ‘Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen’ is louder, longer and dumber than the original and even seeing it on an IMAX screen (which was semi-cool) couldn’t enhance the material enough to even recommend it as a guilty pleasure. I guess if all you want is 2 ½ hours of bombastic explosions and people yelling ‘Run,’ then you’ll probably like the movie, but for me, this got tiresome fairly quickly. That being said, the special effects are even more impressive this time around, although that also means new robots, the majority of which range from mediocre to irritating to borderline racist.


6) ‘Transformers’ is not a franchise overly concerned with acting, so it’s hard to rate performances when the majority of screen time is spent running with sweat dripping off your face (Shia LeBeouf) or with a heaving bosom (Megan Fox). But nobody really stands out in this sequel as everyone is adequate (even Turturro isn’t quite as fun as the original), but the law of diminishing returns has definitely set in, which is unfortunate because the movie sets itself up for another entry and based on the vast sums of money this one is raking in, it seems like a foregone conclusion that a 3rd film is inevitable.

-BDS