Men in Black II [2002] review

Most of the humor of this movie falls flat.  I think I maybe chuckled twice at two of J's lines and none of K's.  Tommy Lee Jones just looks tired in this movie as anyone would be who was forced out of retirement into the crazy world of aliens and other creatures.  

Lara Flynn Boyle and a two headed Johnny Knoxville add very little to the story and this movies' villain is very lack luster compared to the menacing bug of the original.

Rosario Dawson is cute, but clueless.  The final chase scene is hollow and a means to attempt to probably wake up the audience who has been asleep for the last hour.

This movie is not worth revisiting and I hope the writers of the next MiB take notes from this one on what not to do for their movie.  1 out of 5 stars.

Honorable mention:  Forgot about the Michael Jackson cameo and my wife questioning if it was really him.

Bumblebee [2018] review

I enjoyed Bumblebee, but it wasn't without its flaws.

While the first Transformers movie was supposed to be about "a boy and his car" according to Spielberg, this movie was definitely about "a girl and her car" almost to a fault. Hailee Steinfeld felt genuine and true to the character. Her overall arc was well done. I wish there was a little bit more meaning to her final "heroic" act instead of just the act itself.

As for the rest of the cast, they didn't get much development. It's not like I needed more about (Steinfeld) Charlie's family, but they seemed poorly written to almost non-existent. They were really only needed for one part towards the end. Thankfully they didn't have Michael Bay cringe-worthy dialogue, but some of that went to John Cena and the doctor character. The guys at Collider said John Cena was acting like he was in a Bay movie and I agree with them. I appreciated his effort, but he was a little too much. He did have one or two good one-liners. The boy neighbor and mean popular people weren't really needed and didn't add anything to the movie for me.

To echo the sentiments of other critics, the G1 stuff was great and there's no reason why we couldn't get that in the first place. If this was the first ever Transformers movie, people would have lost their mind. It's kind of like serving your guests burgers for the past 11 years when you have a fridge full of filet mignon the whole time.

As for the connectivity from this movie to other movies, there are some plot holes, but Bay's movies are so full of holes that this one kinda fits with them in that aspect unfortunately.

This movie was good for Travis Knight's first time and we'll see if he gets a second shot at it and where things go from here.