directed by:
King Jeff written by: King Jeff genre: Sci-Fi, Action |
This might be the first time I felt like I objected to the soundtrack before the movie even started! Troubleshooters are blowin' up. To the point where they've got advertisements featured at graveyards now! Not even the Ghostbusters had that much goin' on. Apparently, the Rolling Stones didn't either, according to the person who is interviewing Troubleshooter Sandoval Wolf. I like this man. He seems like he's the kind of 'keep your head down & do the work' type of person, and he basically hates the fact that he's even doing the interview you see at the start of "Troubleshooters 2: Roachbots" – and I fully respect that. I would, too, if I had some sort of a higher calling. I don't, though – I'm just a critic. As far as Sandoval is concerned, he's got business saving the world & all, so an interview probably seems a little trite, and he's… probably not as informative or enthusiastic as most guests of 'Hero Talk with Patti Falk' would usually be. "Well, I think the most interesting assignment is the one that you're on at the time," he says. And that's a wrap, I say. We're about nine minutes in, and I'd love this movie to start.
I think this might be one of those careful what you wish for situations, though. As "Troubleshooters 2: Roachbots" got underway, we were quickly inundated with way more questions than there were answers. I'd say that you might need to see the original "Troubleshooters" to help sort that out, but I've already done that myself, and I'm pretty positive that it ain't gonna help ya all that much in figuring out what Writer/Director King Jeff is on about this time. There are things that I like about what I see – I dig a lot of what King Jeff chooses to shoot and the way that he shoots things…close-ups and whatnot, or using visual filters to symbolize special goggles he's wearing when searching around. He's got some neat ideas in that department, and when he's not getting too bogged down with the dialogue, you can appreciate the fact that his direction style tends to reveal a lot more strengths when showing us something rather than telling us about it. However, there ain't no hiding the budgetary issues in a film like this, but you can tell that has never slowed King Jeff down or stopped him from doing what he loves to do – and right on, man, all the more power to ya. I don't know that his methods are a recipe for commercial success…but that's not always everyone's goal either. In my opinion, you simply have to look at his films as a hobby that he has dedicated a lot of time to, but it's a way for him to have some fun in this world and bring forth some artistry, and who wouldn't want that? Credit where credit is due, he does manage to get this story from point A to point B, even if it seems to take a galactic country mile to get there. I don't want to say the end result is like a grown-ass man playing with toys, but…like…that IS kinda what we're doing here, is it not? We're launching a tiny team of small soldier robots to deal with the enemy battalion of roachbots, of which, when we meet them for the first time, they're basically just chillin' on a countertop minding their own damn business. Do we need all this technology to stop a bunch of inanimate paperweights? It really seems like Sandoval is going through a whole lot of effort for a perceived enemy that's only here to snack on some leftovers. From there, I like the effects that are being chosen, and what I assume is the use of stop motion to move these small soldier bots around to get Wolf some intel – that's cool to me. As I said, King Jeff has got some stellar ideas in terms of what he shows us and how he shows things to us – these are his strengths. When it comes to the substance and the material overall, He struggles a lot with the audio in conversations between humans, but when it comes to the Foley art, he excels & does a terrific job in adding in tons of tiny, unique details. I mean… there's work to be done here, and I'm sure King Jeff is aware of that. I'm also reasonably sure that he's not really too worried about it because not much really changed between the last time I reviewed his work and this time around. There are things like the audio work that could be vastly improved to make things more watchable – like the scene where the dude's in the hallway talking to Sandoval towards the beginning…to be honest with ya, it's barely audible, and we miss a lot of the dialogue as a result. As far as the dialogue itself is concerned, some of it is well-designed, some of it is over-informative, and then we've got a lot of details that don't necessarily matter or move the story along. From what I recall, these are a couple of the same issues as the original "Troubleshooters" encountered. As for the original soundtrack song, I voiced my opinion about that at the start of this review, so we'll leave it at that.
Then you've got spots, like towards the start of the film, where you've got random dudes in orange jumpsuits that just basically appear in Sandoval's house without any real justification or any kind of explanation as to why they're there. I understand that they're dropping off these anti-roachbot bot things…but…well…who are they and where did they come from, and do they know Sandoval to begin with, and if they do, do they know him so well that they just have a freakin' key to his HOUSE? Do you see what I'm saying? We get a lot of extraneous details, but King Jeff seems fairly content to skip over some other things that would be fairly important. At the very least, Sandoval does address some of this with the jumpsuit guys, which I appreciated – but it does still seem like the weird IT department just decided to drop in on him fully outta the blue. From there, we shift into a helicopter hovering over his backyard, giving him the all-clear to go & check out the garage, I'm guessing? King Jeff…my man…what exactly are we doin' here? What is that bullethole? Tape? You've got blood on the sock, but none anywhere else? Bro! C'mon man! How long are we gonna spend hiding in this room fixing it up and figuring out the next move? And why doesn't the wound seem like it hurts more than it does? You see what I'm saying here, and you get what I'm getting at – the attention to detail is applied in a very sporadic way that seems to prioritize some of the strangest things while glossing over arguably much more important stuff. We're gonna ask this rusted-ass bot about his English accent, only to find out that it can't even answer the question? Why include that at all – how does it serve the story? These are the kinds of things that are very similar to the things I pointed out in the original film. I feel like the main concern was that we never had a real reason to fear these roachbots. Don't get me wrong, I don't want a mechanical roach in my house any more than I would want an organic one to be there – but King Jeff has really missed an opportunity to show us why these creatures are such a threat that he needs to spend so much of his spare time eliminating them with his small army of rusty robots. I do like his use of the tubs towards the end of the film; I have those same ones at home, and man, I tell ya, they have come in handy for so many things throughout the years. Now, I know they can also be used as a 'trojan horse' to kill roachbots with, and that's probably sound advice I couldn't have possibly gotten anywhere other than from King Jeff directly. Look…I ain't trying to hate on some dude's passion for making independent films or having some fun in this lifetime…I support all that. However, in my opinion, he's got something here that's a very tough sell to the masses, but he is also showing a lot of strengths visually that he can build on going forward. Gotta have material to support it, though…stronger characters, dialogue, storyline ideas…all that. Right now, I gotta call things like I see 'em & go with two stars outta five, but I have some faith that King Jeff will keep on sharpening his filmmaking and building on his skillset. |
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