30Jul

A Tale of Two Doctors

Written by Derek Moreland. Posted in Articles

Doctor Who has reached a worldwide popularity that would be hard to quantify even if one was given all of space and time to do so. In England, that popularity has translated into a slate of further adventures for the Doctor and his companions – novel, magazines, comics, and even radio plays are all accepted and accessible additions to the character’s continuity. I find it strange, then, that such canonical expansion has not really gained a foothold here stateside. The comics in particular have gone through three publishers in the last nine years, with IDW recently passing on the license to Titan Comics. Titan came out swinging last week, debuting two new series – one featuring David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, written by Nick Abadzis with art by Elena Casagande; and Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor, written by top 2000 AD talent Al Ewing and Rob Williams with art by Simon Fraser. I skipped the IDW comics when they released, despite the fact that the Eleventh Doctor’s adventures were initially penned by Andy Diggle; in the spirit of the Doctor’s fiftieth anniversary, not to mention a fit of tremendous excitement about the new series debuting next month, I decided not to make the same mistake twice. I wanted to see how these new stories measured up.

DOCTOR WHO: THE TENTH DOCTOR #1

Written by: Nick Abadzis
Art By: Elena Casagande
Colored By: Arianna Florean
Published By: Titan Comics

The issue opens with an introduction to Gabriella Gonzalez, our most-likely new companion, working her family’s New York laundry shop in what appears to be the present day when odd events start happening. Gab’s family seems to be haunted – her grandmother believes she sees her dead husband in some kind of torment; her brother-in-law seems to have been visited by the Devil himself; and outside the family’s restaurant, a baby may or may not have been temporarily infected with sores. Thankfully, the good Doctor – still mourning Donna’s recent loss – is on hand, doing his best to tacitly (if not tactfully) locate the source of the strange occurrences. Oh, and it’s also the day before Halloween – or as it’s also known, Dios de los Muertos….

There’s a lot to like in this issue, the first of which is how well Abadzis nails Ten’s voice. The Doctor has a tendency to ramble, to think out loud, and to completely sidetrack himself with his own thoughts. It’s almost eerie how easy it is to hear Tennant’s sweetly manic (manically sweet?) voice when reading the dialogue.

Casagande also nails the likeness effortlessly. In fact, the art is really pretty fantastic as a whole, very fluid and kinetic without being overstuffed or hyper detailed. The pitfall a number of licensed comics fall into is to concentrate on one or two very specific character models to the detriment of the rest of the book; thankfully, that couldn’t be further from the case here. The art has a very clean line that makes good use of colors to keep the eye moving and concentrating on the story.

I’m also a fan of the setting – too often, writers fall back on using London (or England in general) as the point of departure for a Doctor Who adventure, even though he has the whole of Earth – hell, the whole of reality – to play within. Gabby is first generation American, with Latino parents who immigrated into this country and are still tied to the old world in a lot of ways. Unfortunately, that’s where the seams of this issue start to show.

Abadzis lays on Gabby’s situational dissatisfaction with a trowel and mortarpan. She’s a college-age woman who attends night school accounting classes instead of an actual university because she’s helping her father run the Laundromat and waitresses at the family restaurant, and her resentment is so crystalline I’m surprised her dialogue balloons aren’t see-through. Its clear Abadzis wants us to root for Gabby to get with the Doctor and away from this life, but it just comes across as clumsy and heavy handed. Otherwise, it’s a pretty solid first issue – I hope Abadzis can rein in his more histrionic tendencies, though.

DOCTOR WHO: THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR

Written By: Al Ewing and Rob Williams
Art by: Simon Fraser
Color by: Gary Caldwell
Published By: Titan Comics

WE GET TO SEE THE SWIMMING POOL IN THE TARDIS!!!

*Ahem*

Sorry. Bit of a nerd moment there.

Alice Obiefune just buried her mother, got served an eviction notice on her flat, and hates her job as a library assistant. So of course, she’s accosted by an emotion eating space dog and the charming young man in the big blue box trying to catch it.

Okay, full disclosure – I am completely in the tank for Al Ewing. His Zombo strips in 2000 AD may be the best comics of the 21st Century, and he and Rob Williams are two of the best Judge Dredd writers whose names are not John Wagner. So I approached this series with a lot less trepidation the one featuring Ten. But even my high expectations were surpassed; storywise, this is a near perfect continuation of Eleven’s adventures post Amy and Rory.

Ewing and Williams dexterously capture The Eleventh Doctor’s empathy, showing us a man who can see his own sadness reflected in others and how assuaging their pain might alleviate his own to some degree. They also give us an absolute romp of an adventure, a done-in-one issue that uniquely introduces our new companion and the Doctor’s state of being. It’s very reminiscent of Martha Jones’ introduction, actually, though even more striking because Alice appears to be an older (or at least more mature) companion than Who fans might be accustomed too.

The art is at once visually striking and a little off-base. I adore the colors in this book – the Kharitite in particular is a sublimely goofy bit of madness, with colors to match his otherworldly design; the opening pages as well are unique in that they are done in gray scale, to reflect Alice’s mood – color is introduced only when the Doctor comes bounding in to save the day. My only real issue is, unlike the issue above, Simon Fraser apparently has no idea how to draw Matt Smith’s face. He walks around the whole comic looking dopey and unfocused. I would think he had a problem with human faces, but Alice is by contrast an incredibly well defined and singular character. Fraser almost makes up for it with the inventive design of the alien species we see, but every cut back to the Doctor is so jarring it almost draws me out of the story.

Oh well. We totally get to see the swimming pool in the TARDIS.

20Jul

SAGA. Because You Should Totally Be Reading SAGA

Written by Derek Moreland. Posted in Articles

SAGA. Because You Should Totally Be Reading SAGA

Every few years, a comic comes along that genuinely defies all expectations. It turns the established narrative of What Comic Readers Want on its ear, and categorically reshapes the industry and its expectations. Comics like these are the zeitgeist, capturing both the moment they are received and the future acclaim of generations. Lee and Kirby’s FANTASTIC FOUR. WATCHMEN. SANDMAN. PREACHER. These are names spoken in tones of awe and reverence, touchstones of geek culture as precious and immediate as any Bible, any Quran, any holy text of note to any number of the devoutly faithful. And yes, after just twenty issues, I’m prepared to say that SAGA, the best fucking comic on the stands today, will be spoken of with that same timbre of adoration. Are you reading SAGA? Because you really fucking need to be reading SAGA.

Ghost Babysitter photo SagaGhostBabysitter_zpsa9005dcb.jpg

Any attempt to summarize the plot of this series would by necessity skip a tremendous amount of the nuance and verve that so define the book, but for the uninitiated – SAGA is a science fiction/fantasy Romeo and Juliet, with two members of warring alien species (Marko from Wreath, whose inhabitants primarily work with magic; and Alana from Landfall, who are more militaristic) falling in love in spite of their upbringings and learned prejudices. The twist comes on page one, when it turns out the story is being narrated by their daughter, Hazel – and that it all starts with her birth. Of course, that barely begins to capture the sheer balls-out craziness this series has already brought, including but not limited to a ghost babysitter, a naked Cyclops, Robots with TV heads having graphic sexual intercourse, a Lying Cat (THE Character Find of Last Year) and a childbirth so graphic that it makes a similar scene from MIRACLEMAN seem Broadcast Standard Approved by comparison.

Nope, not that one. It’s also impossible to convey the level of sweetness, heart, and gut-punching sadness this comic evokes issue after issue. Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples have taken a truly fantastic alien universe and populated it with devastatingly human characters. It’s a terrible cliché, but in this case, it’s apt – Marko and Alana feel like real people, and their relationship reflects that reality. They have fights and misunderstandings and get stressed over the kid and that responsibility; they draw strength from one another and pull each other up and have wild, nasty sex when there’s a moment to spare. And it’s not just our protagonists who get the lion’s share of characterization; going into detail would mean spoiling some of the best surprises in the series, but it’s worth noting that there isn’t a single one-note character, stereotype, or archtype among the primary cast of SAGA. Not one.

The dialogue in SAGA is almost completely note-perfect, thanks to Vaughan’s magnificent wordsmithing. I admit, I’ve been in the tank for Vaughan for years – I was an early booster for Y: THE LAST MAN back in the day, and I’ve picked up more or less everything he’s done since (and a bit of his early work, too – man, his SWAMP THING comics are Not Very Good). Vaughan’s prior work relied pretty heavily on the pop culture references to keep the dialogue snappy – which was fine, because that work was set in the present day, with characters whose knowledge of that world made sense. Some critics were worried early on that Vaughan’s work wouldn’t read as smoothly without this particular crutch to fall back on; that the challenge of working without a quip net would capsize the series out of the gate. Vaughan himself seems to have been concerned about this as well – in the letters page for issue six, he jokingly confesses that if poor sales had led to a series’ cancellation, he’d planned to blow up the rocket Marko and Alana had just used to escape. Instead, Vaughan has proven how smart and sharp a writer he actually is; by focusing on the characters and their relationships, he maintains a quick, ebullient pace and infuses his cast with wit, soul, and passion. He’s also honed his last page cliffhangers, already so effective in Y, to a razor’s edge – each issue leaves the reader screaming for the next, cursing the wait (sometimes as long as three months) between issues.

photo sextillion-saga041_zps4e4afd6c.jpg

All of this should in no way downgrade or minimize Fiona Staples’ contribution to the series. Indeed, SAGA would be a very different, probably much duller book if any other artist were at the helm. I am not an artist, and I feel laughably unqualified to talk art and illustration with any kind of professional bearing. However, I can say that Staples has a command of form and facial expression that is almost unheard of in serial comics; her visuals articulate the emotion of the story so beautifully that sometimes Vaughan’s words are almost unnecessary. She combines this preternatural understanding of the human body with a color palate that is at once dazzling and unobtrusive – her often matte backgrounds draw the eye to the more vibrantly hued characters, giving them weight and substance while still defining the world they are set against, and reacting too.

It’s also worth noting that Staples has one of the most vivid imaginations in comics. Her talent for character design can simply not be overstated, and even when she’s working from Vaughan’s scripted descriptions, she creates something truly unique. SAGA is populated with any number of strange and bizarre creatures, each one beautifully rendered with Staples’ unmistakable skill. Her talent makes SAGA one of the most visually distinct and pleasingly individual books on the shelf every month.

SAGA is, hands down, the best comic currently in publication. Its success has led to the recent boom at Image, heralding a new age of creator-owned comics from those with a passion for the medium and the story they wish to tell. Three trades, collecting the first eighteen issues, are now available online or from your local book people, and issue twenty hit comic stores last month. Or hell, you can always just pick up the series digitally from Image.

10Jul

Dumbledore’s Army Reunites at Quidditch World Cup Final

Written by Tony. Posted in Articles

Nerds across the world are celebrating today because of the release of a new Harry Potter short story by J.K. Rowling. The newest entry to the Harry Potter franchise was released to Pottermore.com and coincides with the finals for the Quidditch World Cup. Fans will remember Rita Skeeter from the Harry Potter books, who now has an all new Gossip Column allowing fans to catch up what has been happening in the universe of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. J.K. Rowling has released additional content for the Harry Potter universe on Pottermore, previously however this is the first story to catch up with the heroes in our modern setting since “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows” which was released in July of 2007. We learn that Harry is now 34, and that the friendship that helped saved the world is still strong, years later. While the story hints that there is more content to come, J.K. Rowling’s publicist has said that this is not likely to happen. For many Potter Nerds this new story is a golden ray of light in their fandom.

As you read the following story, ask yourself, do we need to have this additional stories that follow the later years of Harry Potter? Should J.K. go back to our beloved universe once again to take us into the world of magic and wonder that is the Potter-verse? Judge for yourself and leave you thoughts in the comments.

via Pottermore.com

Dumbledore’s Army Reunites at Quidditch World Cup Final

By the Daily Prophet"s Gossip Correspondent, Rita Skeeter

There are celebrities – and then there are celebrities. We"ve seen many a famous face from the wizarding world grace the stands here in the Patagonian Desert – Ministers and Presidents, Celestina Warbeck, controversial American wizarding band The Bent-Winged Snitches – all have caused flurries of excitement, with crowd members scrambling for autographs and even casting Bridging Charms to reach the VIP boxes over the heads of the crowd.

But when word swept the campsite and stadium that a certain gang of infamous wizards (no longer the fresh-faced teenagers they were in their heyday, but nevertheless recognizable) had arrived for the final, excitement was beyond anything yet seen. As the crowd stampeded, tents were flattened and small children mown down. Fans from all corners of the globe stormed towards the area where members of Dumbledore"s Army were rumored to have been sighted, desperate above all else for a glimpse of the man they still call the Chosen One.

The Potter family and the rest of Dumbledore"s Army have been given accommodation in the VIP section of the campsite, which is protected by heavy charms and patrolled by Security Warlocks. Their presence has ensured large crowds along the cordoned area, all hoping for a glimpse of their heroes. At 3pm today they got their wish when, to the accompaniment of loud screams, Potter took his young sons James and Albus to visit the players" compound, where he introduced them to Bulgarian Seeker Viktor Krum.

About to turn 34, there are a couple of threads of silver in the famous Auror"s black hair, but he continues to wear the distinctive round glasses that some might say are better suited to a style-deficient twelve-year-old. The famous lightning scar has company: Potter is sporting a nasty cut over his right cheekbone. Requests for information as to its provenance merely produced the usual response from the Ministry of Magic: ‘We do not comment on the top secret work of the Auror department, as we have told you no less than 514 times, Ms. Skeeter." So what are they hiding? Is the Chosen One embroiled in fresh mysteries that will one day explode upon us all, plunging us into a new age of terror and mayhem?

Or does his injury have a more humble origin, one that Potter is desperate to hide? Has his wife perhaps cursed him? Are cracks beginning to show in a union that the Potters are determined to promote as happy? Should we read anything into the fact that his wife Ginevra has been perfectly happy to leave her husband and children behind in London whilst reporting on this tournament? The jury is out on whether she really had the talent or experience to be sent to the Quidditch World Cup (jury"s back in – no!!!) but let"s face it, when your last name is Potter, doors open, international sporting bodies bow and scrape, and Daily Prophet editors hand you plum assignments.

As their devoted fans and followers will remember, Potter and Krum competed against each other in the controversial Triwizard Tournament, but apparently there are no hard feelings, as they embraced upon meeting (what really happened in that maze? Speculation is unlikely to be quelled by the warmth of their greeting). After half an hour"s chat, Potter and his sons returned to the campsite where they socialised with the rest of Dumbledore"s Army until the small hours.

In the next tent are Potter"s two closest associates, the ones who know everything about him and yet have always refused to talk to the press. Are they afraid of him, or is it their own secrets they are afraid will leak out, tarnishing the myth of He Who Could Not Be Named"s defeat? Now married, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger were with Potter almost every step of the way. Like the rest of Dumbledore"s Army, they fought in the Battle of Hogwarts and no doubt deserve the plaudits and awards for bravery heaped upon them by a grateful wizarding world.

In the immediate aftermath of the battle Weasley, whose famous ginger hair appears to be thinning slightly, entered into employment with the Ministry of Magic alongside Potter, but left only two years later to co-manage the highly successful wizarding joke emporium Weasleys" Wizard Wheezes. Was he, as he stated at the time, ‘delighted to assist my brother George with a business I"ve always loved"? Or had he had his fill of standing in Potter"s shadow? Was the work of the Auror Department too much for a man who has admitted that the destruction of He Who Could Not Be Named"s Horcruxes ‘took its toll" on him? He shows no obvious signs of mental illness from a distance, but the public is not allowed close enough to make a proper assessment. Is this suspicious?

Hermione Granger, of course, was always the femme fatale of the group. Press reports of the time revealed that as a teenager she toyed with the young Potter"s affections before being seduced away by the muscular Viktor Krum, finally settling for Potter"s faithful sidekick. After a meteoric rise to Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she is now tipped to go even higher within the Ministry, and is also mother to son, Hugo, and daughter, Rose. Does Hermione Granger prove that a witch really can have it all? (No – look at her hair.)

Then there are those members of Dumbledore"s Army who receive slightly less publicity than Potter, Weasley and Granger (are they resentful? Almost certainly). Neville Longbottom, now a popular Herbology teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is here in Patagonia with his wife Hannah. Until recently the pair lived above the Leaky Cauldron in London, but rumor has it that Hannah has not only retrained as a Healer, but is applying for the job of Matron at Hogwarts. Idle gossip suggests that she and her husband both enjoy a little more Ogden"s Old Firewhisky than most of us would expect from custodians of our children, but no doubt we all wish her the best of luck with her application.

Last of the ringleaders of Dumbledore"s Army is, of course, Luna Lovegood (now married to Rolf Scamander, swarthy grandson of celebrated Magizoologist Newt). Still delightfully eccentric, Luna has been sweeping around the VIP section in robes composed of the flags of all sixteen qualifying countries. Her twin sons are ‘at home with grandpa". Is this a euphemism for ‘too disturbed to be seen in public"? Surely only the unkindest would suggest so.

Sundry other members of the Army are here, but it is on these six that most interest is focused. Wherever there is a red head one may make an educated guess that it belongs to a Weasley, but it is difficult to tell whether it is George (wealthy co-manager of Weasleys" Wizard Wheezes), Charlie (dragon wrangler, still unmarried – why?) or Percy (Head of the Department of Magical Transportation – it"s his fault if the Floo Network"s too busy!). The only one who is easy to recognize is Bill who, poor man, is grievously scarred from an encounter with a werewolf and yet somehow (enchantment? Love potion? Blackmail? Kidnap?) married the undeniably beautiful (though doubtless empty-headed) Fleur Delacour.

Word is that we shall see these and other members of Dumbledore"s Army in the VIP boxes at the final, adding to the glitz and razzmatazz of a gala occasion. Let us hope that the behavior of two of their younger hangers-on does not embarrass them, heaping shame on those who have previously brought honor to the name of wizard.

One always hesitates to invade the privacy of young people, but the fact is that anyone closely connected with Harry Potter reaps the benefits and must pay the penalty of public interest. No doubt Potter will be distressed to know that his sixteen-year-old godson Teddy Lupin – a lanky half-werewolf with bright blue hair – has been behaving in a way unbefitting of wizarding royalty since arriving on the VIP campsite. It might be asking too much that the always-busy Potter keep a tighter rein on this wild boy, who was entrusted to his care by his dying parents, but one shudders to think what will become of Master Lupin without urgent intervention. Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Bill Weasley might like to know that their beautiful, blonde daughter Victoire seems to be attracted to any dark corner where Master Lupin happens to be lurking. The good news is both of them seem to have invented a method of breathing through their ears. I can think of no other reason how they have survived such prolonged periods of what, in my young day, was called "snogging."

But let us not be severe. Harry Potter and his cohorts never claimed to be perfect! And for those who want to know exactly how imperfect they are, my new biography: Dumbledore"s Army: The Dark Side of the Demob will be available from Flourish and Blotts on July 31st.

08Jul

Windows 8: It’s Time to Quit Whining

Written by Sara. Posted in Articles

Windows 8 was designed for both tablet and PC alike, it has sparked many a heated debate, though not as bad as the old Apple v. Microsoft arguments that still linger like an unshowered cosplayer’s feet.(meaning you shouldn’t be having them anymore).

Recently I had an encounter with a few people who found out what I do and were very excited to tell me how much they hated Windows 8. Though I’ve been using it myself for some time, I found a lot of their complaints about as disappointing as a DC Superhero on CW. I’ll go over few key points here but I’m also going to be explaining to you why you’re wrong and how you should just relax.

The Start Button

The first complaint of Window 8 always seems to be the start button. Answer? Update you lazy fuck. Windows 8.1 put it back. Which always leads to the 2nd complaint.

The Metro Interface

The Metro interface has a bit more going on that you might want to pay attention to. Instead of a little menu that comes up where you click your mouse through like a good Neanderthal, you get to layout tiles as you need them, or if you don’t want to even bother, type the first couple of letters of the app you want and poof, it’s there. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, Windows 8 solved that. There’s a big ass down arrow which lays out every application you have installed for your blind thoughtless existence to peruse.

Windows 8 Apps

Now personally I’ve tried a few here and there and for the most part I have little use for them. There’s a few that are quite nice. I can simply hit my windows key, have a weather box setup and poof. Tons of access to weather (it’s cached too). So if for some reason you don’t have internet, which likely means you’re a T-Mobile user or on Verizon in a crowded city, then you can still get the information you need. If you work in an office this also negates the need for the usual Baby-Boomer to install WeatherBug. And even if you don’t use the Windows 8 apps, who cares? It’s not using system resources. Hard disk space you say? Oh you mean you might have to uninstall something? Because that’s never happened to you before. Unless you’ve installed OEM versions your entire life, you’ve always uninstalled unneeded stuff. At least you should have. Trial McAfee clearly is strong than your Kung Fu.

Swipe Screens

Just go into your Mouse options and disable it. Was that so hard? Because you have an option you don’t need the OS sucks? There’s an old expression that goes "throwing the baby out with the bath water". You kicked the little shit over to Deadpool to cut up before it went down the drain if this is your gripe. The swipe screens aren’t a big deal and even if Windows 8 didn’t come with them, if you had a tablet and you couldn’t swipe, you’d be crying.

Business Environments

This might not apply to all but seriously, it’s amazing. You mean I just lock out my users to really big tiles so they are only using what they need? Everything is right there for them? ……..I’ll wait till that sinks in. If you still have a complaint about Windows 8 in a work environment, I can only assume you don’t understand how it works with Active Directory. In which case, shhhh.

Look, I know you get used to your ways. You want it to perform as it always has and now that it looks different your first reaction is…. "That’s fucking dumb, Windows 8 sucks". Well welcome to becoming your parents. Time to move on. That said, we’re really looking forward to Windows 9, and maybe it can help you to move on.

01Jul

Transformers 4, why it’s a Fucking Masterpiece

Written by El J Hause. Posted in Articles, Reviews

Let me just start by saying, Transformers 4 is a fucking masterpiece, the must see hit of 2014.

It’s like every 5 minutes of it was written by a different crazy person and then that shit-show was directed, unedited, by the product of Super Baiyan Michael Bay doing the fusion dance with another Super Michael Bay and then that Michael Bay was bitten by a radioactive, even worse Michael Bay from some nightmarish future. Every dreadful thing about the other 3 movies was turned up to 15 in this one.

It felt like they told the cast where the explosions were going to happen and to just say and do whatever in front of them. The jokes were all either meandering ad-libbed exchanges with no punchline, or a series of random nonsense punchlines with no set-up at all. I’m going to carry on in bullet point now, my brain is too frantic and high on fuckin’ ‘Merica to make any kind of sense otherwise. SPOILERS to follow:

Marky Mark kills a grown man with a football.
Marky Mark parries a blow from a 40 foot tall robot using a broadsword.
There’s an Oreos robot now.
My favorite dialogue of the movie:
- Marky Mark: You can’t come in here, you don’t have a warrant!
- CIA Guy: -rips off his douchebag shades- My FACE is my warrant!
After another tedious emotional scene between Marky Mark and his daughter, my wife poked me in the ribs and then mimed beating off and jizzing at the screen.
Optimus Prime will not kill humans. Unless they’re in cars.
Fucking everything explodes. TJ Miller shows up and you think there may be a silver lining to this movie, and then he explodes.
Their design team needs to hire at least 3 times as many Asians. Everything is so douchey and crass and inelegant and made up of a thousand shitty looking pieces. Speaking of which, all of the Asians in this movie know martial arts. They meet a random Chinese guy in an elevator and he can do “Fist of The North Star” punches.
Most of the Transformers now have grotesque human faces, hair and/or beards, only made out of metal. It looks worse than I’m making it sound.

Transformers 4: The faces of Nicola Peltz

The many faces of Transformers 4 Actress, Nicola Peltz

The female lead in this movie is bafflingly, even less likable than Megan Fox. She is 70% spray tan, 30% tears and permanently looks like she’s about to blow somebody. Breathe through your fucking nose! Oh and her boyfriend literally carries a copy of a statutory rape loophole in his wallet. I’m not joking.
It’s the longest movie ever made. After the first 2 weeks of it, I asked my wife if it was ever going to end, or if we just lived here now.
Marky Mark makes a lot of speeches, every one of them a huge “Fuck You” to logic.
The Autobots fight their way into Stanley Tucci’s evil Steve Jobs factory to kill him, but then he’s mean to them, so they get sad and leave.
All of the Autobots are assholes now. Optimus Prime yells “I’ll kill you!” almost constantly and the Ken Watanabe one threatens to slit Bumblebee’s throat because he doesn’t like his eyes.
Decepticons are now flying clouds of re-configurable nanocubes made of…-sigh- “Transformium” (melted down Autobots). The cubes can change into a handgun, wireless Beats By Dre speakers and Rainbow Dash, but they spend most of their time as sports sedans.
Offensive Black Robot Jr. yells, “Free at last!” at one point.
Transformers 4 isn’t quite the 3 hour blowjob to the US Armed Forces that the other 3 were, but Optimus Prime does end the movie by saying that the humans are just trying to “Be all that they can be”. Again, I’m not joking.
As much as we enjoyed it though, there was a table with Michael Bay’s exact target audience sitting behind us that cracked up at every shitty gag in the movie. There’s a scene where Bumblebee loses his grip on something and says “Uh-oh!” as he starts to fall; this dude nearly pissed himself laughing. I didn’t actually see the guy, but I’m pretty confident he was wearing a Tapout hoodie over an Affliction t-shirt.
The Dinobots are legitimately badass, easily worth watching the movie for. There isn’t much of them, but there’s more of them than there is of Godzilla in Godzilla.

Now if you’ll excuse me, for some reason I feel the need to go pound some Bud Light and Red Bull in my American made car, eat some Oreos, take pictures of myself doing this on my Windows phone and rock out to some young people music on my Beats by Dre speakers, while wearing Oakley shades.
Transformers 4 on Rotten Tomatoes