Thursday, October 08, 2009

Review for Transformers 2


It's been three or four months now so I guess I should post some kind of review for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I've been putting it off for some time, but it's been weighing on my mind and I can't continue posting about any other movies until I get this shitheap off my pile. It represents everything that is wrong in our society today. I couldn't even come up with a clever title for the post because there is nothing clever about this movie at all.


First of all let's be honest with ourselves. This is a sequel to a movie based on another movie based on a cartoon show based on a series of toys from the 80's; we're not exactly expecting Shakespeare here (Or for our younger audience, we're not exactly expecting whatever-fuckhead-whose-name-I-can't-be-bothered-to-look-up-who-wrote-those-stupid-Twilight-books here.). But as an avid movie-goer and a concerned citizen of at least average intelligence I expected some kind of substance, some... thing, some glue to hold the whole mess together. Instead what I got was what felt like several different stories kind of mashed together a shitload of special effects shoved down my throat, some of the most annoying computer-generated characters in the history of cinema (Totally in the running with Jar-Jar Binks), terrible dialogue, one-dimensional characters and some shots of Megan Fox's breasts and ass.


Let's start with the only (And I mean ONLY) good thing about this movie: the mind-blowing special effects. It is quite obvious that Transformers do indeed exist and that they are indeed on Michael Bay's payroll. That is the only explanation as to how realistic they look on the screen. They have to be real. Everything I know depends on it.


The rest of the movie I could easily have done without. It's like Bay sat back and thought "Hmmmmmm, I wonder what would happen if I took everything that was wrong with the first movie and multiplied it by a factor of fifty in the second movie..." Well wonder no more, because here it is. The annoying and pointless human characters are even more annoying and pointless. I wanted to kill Sam Witwicky's parents. That whole opening scene where they're moving him into college was excrutiating to watch and not funny in the least. Weed brownies? WTF were you thinking Bay, you glorious bastard. This scene is even worse than the "masturbation discussion" from the first film. The problem isn't with the weed or the masturbation, as I normally find these things quite amusing. The problem was they were completely out of context and did not fit in this film. Also they were completely and utterly surpurfluous to the (*insert sarcastic laugh here*) plot. Then they brought back John Turturro's character, who is completely useless and annoying as hell. There were a bunch of others, but who cares? I came to see a movie called Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen not Humans: Out of Two Billion Sperm This is the Best We Could Do?


And then there were the Transformers themselves. There must have been at least a hundred this time, so the film lost focus and I didn't know who was who, nor did I care. The film did not build any kind of empathy for any robotic characters. I know it's a summer blockbuster about giant robots, but there is still this little thing we like to call "good writing." Just small little character arcs or personality traits. This comes with the proviso that these personality traits are not racially offensive or just plain annoying. I'm not sure exactly how racially offensive the twins actually were not being as sensitive to that kind of stuff but I'm pretty sure some cultural groups were being stereotyped there in a terrible, terrible way. No nuance at all. I am, however, as my wife will attest to an expert in annoying, and the Twins were fucking annoying as hell. Every time they came on screen I couldn't help but cringe as I remembered that I actually paid ten dollars to be subjected to this shit. The next time I give Michael Bay ten dollars it had better be for a handjob and an apology. In that order. Then there was the tiny Decepticon humping Megan Fox's leg for some reason, and the old Decepticon Jetfire who had a beard and farted out parachutes for some reason. And of course the giant balls on Devastator which were both disturbing and erotic all at the same time. There were just too many transformers on screen, although it was kind of cool to see Soundwave -an old favourite of mine- show up and cause some shit, even if he wasn't a boombox.


Enough of that shit. Let's briefly examine the "story" of this film. First ehy bring Megatron back to life (of course) and we find out that he isn't even badass, he's just a puppet for this Fallen guy, which to me totally detracts from the strength of that character. Then there are Transformers that can FUCKING TRANSFORM INTO HUMANS!!!! And after it happens there is NO MENTION OF IT AGAIN IN THE REST IF THE MOVIE!!! To me this would be fucking mindblowing, seeing some girl I was trying to bang turn into a robot, but after they dispatch her, they never speak of her again, and this plot device is never used again. Why don't they send hundreds of these robots in disguise as humans to terminate any resistence... oh. Yeah I guess there's the whole ripping off of another franchise thing. But if you were a Decepticon wouldn't you send these infiltrator units to disrupt your enemy and kill them from the inside? Be deceptive if you will? I thought it was a huge thread to drop anyway. Then there's the death of Optimus Prime (Oh, did I forget that SPOILER ALERT again?) which you know must be totally bogus, and it turns out that it is. Then there's the backstory of the Primes and the Matrix of Leadership which all just seems so, not-well thought out. Then there's the convenient plot devices like Jetfire's ability to teleport for some reason, that's used once and never again. The symbols that Sam reads and fucks his brain up, which is also completely forgotten about even though it is the catalyst for the whole story. Not even a mention of it later in the movie. Then when Sam is near death he for some reason ends up in the Transformer's afterlife. So, if I befriend a bunch of strippers, when I die do I go to stripper heaven?


Alright I'm tired of talking about this. Long story short: amazing special effects, terrible everything else (Except for that first shot of Megan Fox's ass and maybe those gigantic robot balls...).

I give this movie a 3/10= One Evil Decepticon Head Being Crushed Between Giant Robotic Balls