That sounded like a plan... so I looked around for a bit and was quickly met with one movie I had flat out refused to pay to see no matter what! Most movies that earn this distinction have involvement of some kind by one Michael Bay and this one was no exception... it was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, an incredibly expensive film that earned overwhelmingly negative reviews from every corner. This was only out-shadowed by the positive box office it earned.
How bad could this thing really be, though? Could it truly be every bit as bad as I had heard? Well, I'm happy to report that, no, it wasn't. It was fucking worse. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen sucks energon through a filthy, un-maintained Decepticon afterburner. Seriously! For those of you LUCKY fuckers who haven't seen this piece of vehicular carnage, imagine a big-budget science fiction film in which 80% of the characters are Jar Jar Binks. That, my friends, is me at my most kind. This second "fifty foot Robots hitting each other" flick has even more of the same old MBay clichés even less realism, even more explosions, even more monuments being destroyed, even stupider lines, even more offensive stereotypes, even more obvious product placement and even more indiscriminant destruction... of a franchise that has taken 25 years to build. In many ways Transformers 2 amounts to a high budget gay porn flick, seeing as how what we see on screen is 150 minutes of Michael Bay masturbating while Executive Producer Steven Spielberg (and the THIRTEEN other credited producers including Bay Of Crap himself) cheer him on! You wouldn't BELIEVE the indulgences that are haphazardly shoved in here like M&Ms in a Cold Stone Cone! Man... Speilberg should KNOW how to make a good movie. What in the name of Timothy Fuck happened to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? Two Hundred Million Dollars... for THIS? My biggest hope is that a great chunk of this money went to the incredibly hot actress Megan Fox for being vaguely convincing as she shows us that not only sharing the screen with but actually touching and kissing her (ha ha) "LEADING man" Shia The Cow is actually a desirable and positive thing to do. Hell, after not vomiting, she should be the highest paid actress in Hollywood. Seriously, folks, was this done to make the rest of the film more convincing? The whole Nerdy Guy with the Hot Girl not only REPEATS here, but is taken to the NTH DEGREE. Shia's undesirable character of Sam Witwicky has gone from picked-on nerd to the steady Beau of Foxy Fox's Mikaela Banes! To push our suspension of disbelief to inter-dimensional thresholds untested by the collective sciences on this or ANY OTHER planet, somehow she has had sex with him and is absolutely BEGGING for him to tell her he loves her... AND SHE HAS COMPETITION FROM OTHER HOT WOMEN... enough so that he stands her up on video dates. Folks, this is the TRUE meaning of Science Fiction. Megan Fox and Shia LeBeouf together! After that, the idea of Giant Robot Armies fighting and spouting lame, sanctimonious lines, transforming into vehicles, taking over NASA Satellites, being born from egg sacks on giant starships, building solar collectors in the Giza Pyramids in ancient times and devolving into human caricatures that actually make Jar Jar Binks look cool by comparison... well all of that seems remarkably plausible and realistic. Every time the film delves into something that any rational person would scream "BULLSHIT" at, Megan Fox shows up in tiny shorts and a tied off tight t-shirt and kisses Shia the Beef and suddenly everything else isn't so hard to believe anymore. Speaking of the unbelievable plot, Josh Duhamel's Major William Lennox Tyrese Gibson's Master Sergeant Epps return as members of the joint Earth/ Autobot task force that has devoted itself to weeding out and gangland-style executing every Decepticon Bay could shove into the mostly silly and quip-riddled battle sequences. This is only the beginning of Bay's target-urination all over the characters that many of us grew up with. As saga-damaging as the first hour is, this is nothing compared to the rapid re-dissing that goes on and on and on as we limp toward our prolonged fade-to-credits. OPTIMUS PRIME (Peter Cullen) is treated with a modicum of more dignity than the others, but still comes off as something of a parody from time to time but Bumblebee (played by nobody, because he's inexplicably mute again) is as much like the character that became so popular before as I am like Bilbo Baggins. That doesn't even get us started on the Decepticons like Frank Welker's Soundwave (amongst others). These baddies are working hard to re-collect the shards of "The All Spark" from Douchebag Sam (who, ahem, had a piece of it stuck to his sweatshirt) in order to resurrect Megatron (Hugo Weaving), who has been lying "only MOSTLY dead" at the bottom of the ocean. You see, Starscream (Charlie Adler) has teamed up with the truly ancient "First" Decepticon who fell millennia ago... appropriately named "The Fallen" who wants his Revenge! Herein lies one of the better things I can say out loud about this movie: They were wise enough to hire Tony Todd to portray the voice of The Fallen... something even The Final Destination failed miserably to do. Tony Todd RULES. It's just too bad that not even HE can save this mess. As if this isn't enough OVERBLOWN story to distract from the lack of actual substance, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are (for some reason) joined by Ehren Kruger to add on subplot after subplot after subplot in order to add convenience after contrivance after confabulation so that anything can happen (so long as it sells toys and General Motors automobiles)! To this end we get unnecessary inclusions like Presidential Advisor Galloway (John Benjamin Hickey) who wants to shut down NEST from under General Morshower (Glenn "what's my name" Morshower)! Then we get Sam's new nerd buddy Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), who seems to have been added to make Shia look slightly cooler (which failed) and Sam's new nerd professor Colan (Rainn Wilson), who seems to have been added to enforce the concept that in THIS universe out-of-shape geeks turn incredibly hot women on. This is clearly done not just for Shia's sake but for the target audience of Cheeto-munchin', parents-basement dwelling planetoid sized twits. Also returning are Sam's annoying parents Ron and Judy (Kevin Dunn and Julie White) and goofy Agent-cum-Deli-Butcher Simmons (John Turturro), a nerd who somehow never finds himself surrounded by beautiful women who desire him. Okay, that's ONE! Speaking of beautiful women, I'd like to give a big salute to Decepticon Pretender Alice (Isabel Lucas) who is hot enough to not only give Megan Fox a run for her honey, but also hot enough to make death-by-decepticon not seem like such a bad thing. The whole thing just barrels on and on until the overwrought and so packed it's comical final act that makes a vague form of sense when you turn off all the logic senses in your brain. And that's the truly sad thing about this film. Every once in a while a cool idea shined through that might have made for an interesting expansion of the saga. The bad script and horrible execution, not to mention the ridiculous subplots and geek-boy gimmies prevent any of these kernels of promise from ever fully forming or growing into anything worth taking seriously. For the most part Revenge of the Fallen is just a collection of bad jokes and expensive sight gags meant to temporarily tickle the tested audience out there. The real shock is just what a huge audience this film had. It's amazing what people will watch when the advertisements make the viewing seem obligatory. And this is only the beginning of just how very much is wrong with this bad movie. Don't get me wrong, there have been high profile bad films before from Armageddon to Dragon Wars but I've never seen so much effort go into making a movie so bad. Don't worry, if you can't follow the silly story, the score by Steve Jablonsky and (seriously) Linkin Park will give you the musical cues for when you should either cheer the plot on or roll your eyes! So much of the time Michael Bay seems to be this film's worst enemy. Bay seems to actually know better and is giggling down his sleeve as he takes every potentially cool element and twists it into something lame, demented and sad. Hell, on paper this film isn't NEARLY as bad as it turns out to be onscreen. While the travesties are too many and too huge to list here, I should say that what they ended up doing to Jetfire alone is worthy of prosecution, man! Through most every continuity Jetfire (or "Skyfire") is a former decepticon who chooses to become a hero. That's the case here as well. The difference is that here Jetfire awakens as a bearded, crotchety SR 71 Blackbird jet that hobbles around on a cane and speaks in Mark Ryan's most elderly voice complaining about everything and acting like a complete parody of the character he shares a name with. What the HELL? Is he Jetfire or "Mister White Christmas"? Why do this? He even farts. Folks, this is NOT funny. But that's what you get in Revenge of the Fallen... lots of scatological humor, big explosions, slapstick moments and cartoonish violence most carried out by gigantic CGI characters who, unfortunately, never look all that real (for all the thought put into their design). Resurrected names from previous continuities are meant to be appreciated Easter Eggs but feel more like travesties while the re-use of character names from 2007's Transformers for completely different characters meant the backers of this film didn't even care about their own continuity. Was Gregory Benford on the payroll? Kids, I'm not saying that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was ever going to be much more than a strictly POPCORN sequel, but to put this much effort and money into making a complete and total DOG??? Come ON, people! Two Hundred Million and NO STARS??? Why DOES Michael Bay get to keep on making movies? But, really, who cares? The movie has made well over four hundred million dollars back... and that was the whole point, wasn't it? This isn't a movie as an art form... it's product that Michael Bay moved for Paramount Pictures! And he'll piss on anything to keep that money flowing. I say fuck him. To the rest of you, I'll see you in the next reel. |
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