Monday

The astute amongst you may have noticed that I saw The Lady Vanishes and Transformers on the same day. This exercise, whilst entirely accidental, was quite revealing. Perhaps it's unfair to compare the two, but it did demonstrate to me how much more could be achieved with less, if you see what I mean. The Lady Vanishes is based around suspense and characterisation, where Transformers relies on special effects. There was, admittedly, a sense of humour in it, but I'd like to suggest it was a very unoriginal one. It has that ironical, self-reflexive, post-modern comedy that action movies have had for a while now. It's no longer funny or new. In fact, as this film shows, it's very easy to pull off. You see it frequently in remakes and sequels where they deconstruct the original franchise. Spider-Man, for instance, was brilliant at this. But that was five years ago. If Transformers had been made then, it would've been funny. As it is, it just comes off seeming repetitive. In The Lady Vanishes, of course, the humour is brilliant and sharp. And you are driven forward by the plot. The makers of Transformers could have easily done the same - the basic concept is entertaining - but they somehow managed to make it worse, rather than better. As I said, a revealing exercise.