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Transformers (Paramount, directed by Michael Bay)
I knew where Transformers was going within one line:
“Before time began, there was the Cube.”
Fortified with cheap wine, however, I pressed on. No, it was not a good movie. Entertaining, though? Oh hell yes.
Say what you will about Michael Bay, he gives the people what they want. Explosions. Hot-as-sin females. Gigantic death-robots. Fighting. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the good ol’ fashioned Hitler-killing, bald eagle-shitting American kick ass-ness that we all still wished was a thing.
I’m not even going to go into the plot, because it’s completely irrelevant. You watch this movie to see Optimus Prime – in stunning high definition CGI – stab some other poor bastard through the face with a sword.
So, yeah, the awards…
Most Valuable Player
Bumblebee (as voiced by Mark Ryan) – If we weren’t as diligent as we are about handing out awards, we’d have probably given this one to Optimus Prime. After all, he does put a sword through some other dude’s face.But come on, even I could do some impressive shit if I had retractable sword hands. Bumblebee? Not even, like, a shank. Sure, he has cannons, but the only time he uses them is when his legs have been blown off. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a fair fight.
Bumblebee’s first bout of fisticuffs comes against Barricade, who breaks the rules slightly by having a mace. Bumblebee takes Barricade’s best shot with said mace, then bodyslams him through the roof of a house. And there was apparently more where that came from, because Sam and Mikaela return to the fight scene to see Bumblebee strolling around without a care in the god damn world.
Oh, did we not mention Sam and Mikaela? Because I think it goes without saying that fighting a death match with a gigantic war robot must be a pretty desperate experience, even if you didn’t have to keep two fleshy little meatsacks from getting squashed under your combined mechanical girths. (Cock joke? Probably.) Credit to the Camaro, though: Mission accomplished.
Then he, in order: Saves Sam and Mikaela from falling to their deaths, gets captured, tortured, gets released, doesn’t lose his shit, readies the Cube for transport, loses his legs while shielding friendlies from a missile attack, then still kills Devastator.
By the way, at the end of the movie, Sam and Mikaela bone on his hood. There are about six different instances in this plot line where I would have given up. Not Bumblebee, because that’s not what MVPs do.
Scout Earth? Check. Locate kid? Check. Protect kid? Check on the rep, yep, second to none. Who are we to disagree? The guy can do no wrong, and for that, we must reward him.
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Hook (Tristar, directed by Steven Spielberg)
Coming back to a movie you watched as a kid is always weird. Whether it’s coming to terms with Bambi’s mom getting shot or realizing that Sleeping Beauty is really just a simple cut-and-dried case of sexual assault, there’s always something that you understand as an adult that makes you wonder what pre-highschool you was even getting out of all of this.
So we’re not sure why we thought Hook was going to be any different, but we just did. Boy, were we wrong.
A quick rundown of things that got our attention:
- The beginning of the movie is really creepy and sad. Peter’s family hates him, he’s struggling in his work, and it’s further affecting his family life. Vicious cycle. And then there’s the kidnapping thing.
- Since when the fuck is Dustin Hoffman in this movie?
- Ditto for Phil Collins.
- Julia Roberts used to be hot.
- When I was a kid, I totally did not realize that the whores in this movie were whores.
- Apparently “bubble butt” was an insult in 1991. And apparently the phrase “mung tongue” was ok to use in kids’ movies.
Anyways, Hook is about a plot by the pirates of Neverland to kidnap Peter Pan’s kids in the real world. Except Peter’s forgotten that he’s the ultimate good guy. As a matter of fact, he’s spent the last 30 or so years being a lawyer and an accountant. But he comes round.
But if you haven’t seen the movie, then you probably never learned how to be happy or entertained and don’t read this blog anyways. So let’s dish out some awards…
P.S. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll assume that the events in the movie are real and are not caused by a demented, drunken dream. Which we acknowledge is possible. But that would require us to think, and we don’t like that.
Most Valuable Player
Tinkerbell (as played by Julia Roberts) – Peter Banning is screwed.His children just got captured by pirates from another dimension, and he has no way of getting them back. There’s literally nothing he can do.
Enter Tinkerbell. She swoops in to London, wraps Pete up in a sheet and literally carries him to Neverland.
Then he gets his dumb ass captured, proving that he really doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into. But just when Hook is about to get bored and kill both him and his kids, Tinkerbell picks up the dropped ball and negotiates a ceasefire.
Then she gets the Lost Boys to accept some old, fat lawyer as their leader. To top it off, she teaches him to fly again.
Oh, wait, that’s not the cherry on top, because Tink also prevents Captain Hook from putting his hook hand through Peter’s face at the end of the movie.
She’s stronger than seemingly everyone. She’s faster than everyone. She’s small, so she can go places other people can’t, and she is uncompromisingly loyal.
Sounds like an MVP to me. Congratulations, Tinkerbell, on earning what you’re owed.
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Casino Royale (Columbia, directed by Martin Campbell)
James Bond.
Yeah. Let it sink in. That feeling that you’re having right now is an orgasm. And it’s totally normal when encountering such awesomeness.
Anyways, this particular movie about our favorite British agent (person) revolves around a criminal banker who’s lost his investors’ money. To get it back, he holds a poker game, and Her Majesty’s government decides the best course of action is to buy in and try to make sure that he can’t recoup his losses.
(We’re positive that isn’t the best course they could have taken, but it’s still an awesome movie, so we’ll let it slide.)
So, the awards….
Most Valuable Player
James Bond (as played by Daniel Craig) – Nine kills.Two explosions.
One and a half seductions (we’re not sure about Vesper).
One wall with a James Bond-sized fucking hole in it.
Bond wins, and Casino Royale is somewhat jarring as a Bond flick precisely because the pithy hero that we’ve all come to love is portrayed with flaws for maybe the first time. That’s just a fancy way of saying he fucks up a lot, actually.
But he makes up for it in a big way by spearheading an operation to take down a big time money-lender to criminal organizations. Seriously, the amount of support he gets in this movie is negligible. And not only does he pull it off (with help from the US, so booyah), but he gets a lead to an even larger umbrella organization.
And to cap it all off, he gives us easily the best ending to a Bond movie ever by shooting Mr. White right in his fucking foot.
Yeah, it doesn’t matter that he makes mistakes. He’s still clearly the best player on the floor. And how do you not give James Bond the MVP?
