THE QUICK
Never has so much movie been given to so many people for so very, very little story. I know Michael Bay has the emotional depth of a monster truck rally staged on an aircraft carrier while Raptors fly about firing missiles at Bigfoot and Gravedigger as they jump through metallic hoops of napalmed awesome. But did I have to pay 10 bucks for TRANSFORMERS 2 to confirm that he’s an asshole of the highest order?
In a mad attempt to prove he’s a more successful Uwe Boll, and by “successful” I mean ” people willingly put money on his movies every fucking time,” Michael Bay gave us TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. Two weeks and $200 million later, I’m pretty damn sure Bay will be given the keys to the outhouse and manage to crap out TRANSFORMERS 3.
*Sigh*
I can’t worry about that now. Today the focus is on ROTF.
What some would call spoilers but I call fair warning not to waste 10+ bucks follows:
THE GOOD
Transforming robots.
THE BAD
Blatantly racist robots. How racists are they? They have gold teeth, big ears, and “don’t read.” An entire alien race of robots and the only two who can’t read happen to have gangsta language voice boxes and the aforementioned characteristics. As I hear it, Orci and Kurtzman have pointed at Bay for infusing the robots in question with the stereotypical bullshit in question. Mudflap and Skids make Jar Jar Binks and all his Gungan kind look like ambassadors to all that is politically correct.
360 degree camera spin action meant to give emotional weight to people just standing around talking and not being awesome at all.
Michael Bay learned the effects of smoking pot from watching REEFER MADNESS. The 1930s version.
Blurry bot-on-bot action. Who fought whom? I could not tell you.
Megatron wants to fuck Shia LeBeouf. When you get your blu-ray extravaganza disc, fast forward to the bit when Megatron captures LeBeouf in the deserted warehouse. You’ll see. Don’t get me wrong, Megs has the right to screw whomever he feels. I just didn’t need that image in my head.
Wrecking balls masquerading as giant “brass balls.” This incredibly lazy gag comes from a man who couldn’t be bothered with explaining why there would be female transformers.
College geeks not brazen enough to have fully nude naked ladies plastering their dorm room secret geek lair.
Annoying roommate conspiracy theorist who was so terribly interesting that I forgot his name and can’t be bothered to look it up on IMDB.
Michael Bay’s inability to figure out how the US military works.
Bay’s profound ignorance on space museum geography.
Dead ancient robots telling you in a dream that the power was inside you all along, Dorthy.
Dropping Optimus’ dead body like it’s a 2-legged scrap heap. I thought you military guys liked that bot?
The Mega Big Bad who was pretty useless after everything’s added up.
Tiny German robot spiders. Falls under the blatant stereotype category listed above.
Thieving THE MATRIX tech(see: plot) in order to look inside Shia LeBeouf’s head.
Getting my hopes up that they were gonna cut off LeBeouf’s head and pick apart his brain.
Not enough bot-on-bot action. If you’re gonna have robots fighting wars on Earth just have robots fighting wars on Earth. Please drop all pretense of “story.” You’re like George Lucas writing about love. The sand just gets everywhere.
Pathetically forced humor.
No plot.
No story.
No heart.
Characters as plastic and brittle as the toys made in their likeness.
Boring as all hell.
Two and a half goddamn hours long.
Skids, or is it Mudflap, doesn’t stay eaten by Devastator.
Featuring a mega-sized BAD BOYS II poster in a contemporary college kid’s room in order to give the crappy sequel a bump in DVD sales.
Forgotten plot with hot human transforming girl with naughty tongue-ticle* action.
Sam wants a normal life. Why? Without the Autobots showing up, he’d still be that loser Megan Fox ignored for 2/3 their high school career.
Inspiring me to fuel the Internet Hate Machine by writing this review.
Like-Minded Individuals
Ok. I admit to being nitpicky on some of THE BAD. We’ll say a third of it was Internet Hate Machine fodder. But I’ve grown tired of fueling this hate machine. So I’ll let others pitch in for gas.
The House Next Door
“only an asshole could make this movie”
Roger Ebert is apparently being paid by the blog post on the disgusting horribleness of TRANSFORMERS 2.
Washington City Paper
” Michael Bay, as a filmmaker, is a fucking tool. ”
Movie Time: ABC Radio Naional
“I saw Revenge of the Fallen at Imax which is probably why I managed to stay awake in what for me was the world’s most boring movie.”
Rolling Stone
“Transformers: The Revenge of The Fallen is beyond bad, it carves out its own category of godawfulness.”
Rotten Tomatoes: Currently at 20% fresh.
Last but not least, the most creative/entertaining review that I’ve laid eyes on via Io9, “Michael Bay Finally Made An Art Movie“:
Since the days of Un Chien Andalou and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, filmmakers have reached beyond meaning. But with this summer’s biggest, loudest movie, Michael Bay takes us all the way inside Caligari’s cabinet. And once you enter, you can never emerge again. I saw this movie two days ago, and I’m still living inside it. Things are exploding wherever I look, household appliances are trying to kill me, and bizarre racial stereotypes are shouting at me.
[…]
And the true genius of Transformers: ROTF is that Bay has put all of this excess of imagery and random ideas at the service of the most pandering movie genre there is: the summer movie. ROTF is like twenty summer movies, with unrelated storylines, smushed together into one crazy whole. You try in vain to understand how the pieces fit, you stare into the cracks between the narrative strands, until the cracks become chasms and the chasms become an abyss into which you stare until it looks deep into your own soul, and then you go insane. You. Do. Not. Leave. The Cabinet.
*Many thanks to @rick_snee for the pun.
