Oh, this movie is bad. It is one of the most aggressively unpleasant and disastrously awful movies I have seen in a very, very long time. It’s taken me a while to get a proper review down simply because my mind has been boggling over this movie. It is an unmitigated catastrophe; I don’t think I can even call it a movie, to be honest. It is a product that thrashes, writhes, and spasms on screen with great sound and fury. They should show this to film students as an example of how not to make a movie. It is, as Jim Emerson so eloquently stated, anti-movie. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Hey, it was filmed and it had actors and stuff happened on screen, it’s a movie!” unfortunately “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen” does not do anything that a movie – especially a summer blockbuster- is supposed to do. Simply put: it does not entertain, it does not engage the audiences’ imagination, it does not thrill, it has no legitimate or substantive narrative, etc. etc. It is not a movie. It is a product that the audience can simply watch, unengaged, as the pretty special effects and big ol’ Michael Baysplosions litter the screen. The characters? Idiots. There is not a single competent, likable, or respectable character in this movie. Not one. They are paper-thin crayon drawings whose sole purpose in the film is to watch as computer animated robots duke it out with no particular sense of consequence, importance, or dread.
For example, the films main baddie is known as the Fallen (Tony Todd), he’s an ancient Cybertronian conqueror who falls from the grace of his brothers, the Primes, when he decides that he wants to eradicate the human race for no particular reason. Apparently John Milton was actually talking about big ass alien robots and not angels and demons. At least that’s what I assume, since the Transformers apparently have their own vaguely implied theological system. I’ll get to that later; as I was saying, the Fallen decides to make his presence known to every country on the planet. He announces that he’s come to Earth and the planet will be in for it unless the human race surrenders Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf). Now, this reminded me of a similar scene from last year’s “The Dark Knight”. In the scene the Joker addresses Gotham city, saying that unless they kill some nebbish Waynecorp accountant, he’ll start blowing up hospitals. Understandably everyone in Gotham freaks the **** out and tries to hunt down this businessman. What does the population of the world do when confronted by the presence of an unspeakable alien menace? They basically go about their business and don’t even bother to hunt for Sam. In the next scene there are actually people standing around in a deli with Sam in full view, and none of them are even the slightest bit concerned about the days events. Such is the narrative structure of this film. Significant events are not fleshed out completely, they are established and then right as the film begins to run with them it moves on to something completely different! Eventually this is enough to fry ones brain, and I gave up trying to rationalize anything that was happening on screen.
Michael Bay displays his massive ego and utter incompetence in many other ways as well. Since this film is essentially a two and a half hour Michael Bay ego trip, I guess he figured that he didn’t have to bother making a proper movie. Want an example of why Michael Bay is an incompetent visual director? Look no further than the scene in the beginning of the film where Sam says goodbye to his improbably hot girlfriend Mikaela before going of to college. As they speak the camera circles around the back of one actors head, then the other, then back again, and repeats this cycle until it swirls all the way around both actors. Why did Michael Bay do this? What purpose does it serve other than to show off and make the audience dizzy? The only explanation I can think of is that Michael Bay and his DP decided that they would show off all the cool stuff they could do with the camera and make the entire audience incredibly conscious of the fact that there’s a cinematographer at work. The fact that they chose to do this during an ostensibly tender moment makes it even more bewildering. No doubt Bay’s rabid supporters will eat up this silly and disorienting technique and cite it as an example of Bay’s incredible visual prowess, but they’re the kind of people who are impressed with shiny things regardless of any actual quality or substance. Here’s another weird shot for you: during the big ol’ final battle in Egypt, Sam and Mikaela are hiding out in some dilapidated building (I assume an abandoned home). Sam looks through a hole in the wall to monitor the action going on outside, so we zoom through the hole to witness the action as well. Therefore, everything we see should be what Sam’s witnessing, since that was the purpose of the set up and the shot, right? As Lex Luthor would say, “WRONG!” We somehow end up on the other side of the building when we’re supposed to be done watching the action because the camera zooms back in through a keyhole that is directly behind Sam. Why do something like that? I guess because Michael Bay thought it would be super cool to have the camera zoom through a CG keyhole. Whee. Oh, did I forget to mention the cavemen? In the very beginning of the film, we learn that the transformer aliens first visited earth in prehistoric times. The Fallen and his brothers the Primes came to earth, and we see caveman stare in awe at their presence. Then we get some confusing – but unintentionally hilarious – slow motion shots of the cavemen, and we even get to see a closeup of one neanderthal’s pearly whites. That’s right, even in prehistoric times people had brilliantly white teeth. Do you have a headache yet? I did, and it was only about thirty seconds in at that point.
Let’s move on, shall we? Now I’ll address the most unpleasant and deplorable aspect of the film: it’s stabs at so called “humor”. Michael Bay proves that he has the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy when we first see Sam’s two dog’s humping each other. He proves that he has the sense of humor of 7 year old when he cuts back to the two dogs humping again for no reason whatsoever during a sequence that had absolutely nothing to do with them. He just thinks that two dogs humping is funny. Ha ha. Then there’s Skids and Mudflap (Tom Kenny and Reno Wilson, respectively). A lot has been said about these two already, so I’m not going in to very much detail about it. Although I will say this: it’s 2009 and Michael Bay still thinks minstrelsy is funny. A robo-minstrel show is fun for the whole family! Also, the robots use words like “*****” and “dumbass” and “*****”.
There’s lots of profanity and decidedly un-kid friendly material here. Michael Bay’s treatment of women in the film is no less deplorable. When Sam arrives at college, every single girl on campus looks like a Maxim super-****. They all act like ****es as well, especially during the icky scene where Rainn Wilson cameos as a sleazy college professor who hits on his female students with not-so-subtle innuendos. How do the Maxim super-****s respond? By licking their lips seductively, of course! Because in Michael Bay-land, all women are sleazy sex objects who exist solely to be eye candy for the men while they go off and do manly things. Predictably, Megan Fox’s boobs and ass are front and center for most of the film. I think it’s also worth noting that Michael Bay’s notorious love for shoot ‘em up warmongering has not diminished. Quite the opposite in fact; large portions of the film are essentially a glorified Army recruitment commercial. Bay also shameless rips off Terminator 2, the Matrix, and there are subtle undertones of freaky Cronenbergian body horror when Megatron (Hugo Weaving) tortures Sam by letting a creepy crawly Decepticon go through his nose and enter the soft tissue of his brain. More fun for the whole family! Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the creepy little Decepticon Wheelie humps Megan Fox’s leg, and she doesn’t mind at all! John Tuturro reprises his role from the first film, and when his character is paired with Sam’s roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) the two make up the most annoying duo in the history of motion pictures. Not only do we get to see John Tuturro’s ass, good ol’ Leo gets tazed in the testicles. And he cries, and whines, and shouts, and generally makes you wish he would get squashed by one of the robots at any moment. Speaking of testicles Devestator has giant, 2,000 pound robo-balls. Don’t ask me why. Oh, and Jetfire is so old that he has a beard and a cane. Don’t ask me how that’s possible, or why when his parachute ejects it makes a fart noise.
Is there any saving grace to this movie at all? Almost. Optimus Prime provides fleeting moments of what might be described as joy. Too bad he’s dead for two thirds of the ****ing movie. But he provides the one enjoyable moment in the movie (not scene, there is not a single good scene in the film) when he beats the **** out of Starscream while fighting him along with Megatron and some unidentified Decepticon apparently called Grindor. The movie doesn’t bother clarifying on a lot of things like the names of places and transformers. Just because you can look it up on Wikipedia doesn’t mean it was explained in the film, by the by. But yes, the only moment that made me smile even a little was that single fleeting one where Optimus got to be Optimus, kicking Decepticon ass and taking names. Yes, this movie is atrocious; it is an absolute, unquestionable failure devoid of structure or value. Did I mention that the acting is terrible? The acting is terrible. Especially from Megan Fox, who apparently was never taught how to make facial expressions besides “vacant stare” or “seductive look”. This movie is making and will make a **** ton of money because it’s easy and cheap and vulgar and stupid. The movie going public has proven that they would rather spend their ticket money on an unbearably long and boring piece of product rather than a movie. Whether this bloated monstrosity will mark the end of processed summer trash or the beginning of a new era of disgusting filmmaking waits to be seen. Until then, those of us left with taste and dignity must hold out with solidarity and hope that Hollywood will make more TDK’s and less ROTF(L).
0/10
SwordOfMorningSuper Moderator
Kahran RamsusSuper Moderator
