This week on VOD, a legendary franchise makes its long-awaited return: Yes, the Transmorphers are back, along with a queer slasher movie, a trans coming-of-age drama, and one of Ed Asner\u2019s final film appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Transmorphers: Mech Beasts<\/em><\/strong> (VOD and select theaters June 30):<\/strong> Somehow the mockbuster specialists at The Asylum have resisted ripping off every installment in the Transformers<\/em> franchise, so this is the first Transmorphers<\/em> movie since 2009\u2019s Transmorphers: Fall of Man<\/em>. It\u2019s surprisingly dense with continuity, though, set 20 years after the first Transmorphers<\/em> in a post-apocalyptic world as humans attempt to rebuild society following the defeat of the alien robot invaders. A dormant failsafe creates a new transmorphing threat, robots that vaguely resemble lions, thus justifying the title. The CGI robots look almost passable when they appear onscreen, although most of the action involves characters pointing and yelling at things the audience can\u2019t see. Joe Roche\u2019s leaden screenplay is full of incomprehensible jargon, and the characters\u2019 struggle against the robots is nothing compared to top-billed star Tom Arnold\u2019s struggle against all the dialogue\u2019s techno-babble. The rest of the actors fare only slightly better, as they run around nondescript warehouse spaces shouting at each other about algorithms and servers. Grade: D<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Lola<\/em><\/strong> (Film Movement Plus June 30):<\/strong> It would have been easy for Belgian writer-director Laurent Micheli\u2019s drama to slip into clich\u00e9s about reconciliation between an intolerant parent and a rebellious teen, but Lola<\/em> is more nuanced than that, refusing to offer simple solutions to the conflict between the trans title character (Mya Bollaers) and her hostile father Philippe (Beno\u00eet Magimel). Philippe wants nothing to do with Lola, but when Lola\u2019s mother dies, she insists on accompanying her father to spread her mother\u2019s ashes at the family seaside vacation home. They have an entire road trip to bridge their differences, but Micheli doesn\u2019t pretend that problems like that can be solved over the course of a montage. Instead, he allows for moments of parent-child bonding without minimizing the impact of Philippe\u2019s rejection. Bollaers gives a sensitive performance as a character who is finally asserting her own identity, and a series of flashbacks elegantly illustrate how far she\u2019s come. The story beats are familiar, but they\u2019re handled with grace. Grade: B<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n South of Sanity<\/em><\/strong> (VOD July 1):<\/strong> If co-director\/co-writer\/star Shy Pilgreen\u2019s dysfunctional family comedy seems choppy and overlong, that\u2019s probably because it was cobbled together from episodes of a web series produced over the course of several years. Billed as \u201cbased on some real shit,\u201d Sanity<\/em> begins with Lacy (Pilgreen) fresh out of rehab and headed back to her rural Alabama family home. There, she stays with her brother Mike (co-director Robert Peters) and his wife Ila (Jennifer Pierce Mathus), helping them out with their flea market stand that serves as a cover for meth dealing. There\u2019s a somewhat amusing half-hour of Lacy\u2019s Alabama misadventures, along with her efforts to stay clean, but the next 90 minutes shift to a pandemic-era production largely over video chats, which is tedious, repetitive, and unfunny. Characters come and go haphazardly, plot points are raised and abruptly dropped, and the movie ends on a seemingly random note after dragging on for two hours. Grade: C-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n