t13monkeys's Full Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Like some kind of fly drawn to his own burning death, I decided to watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, having my expectations already smashed to death by the critics before me, including a scathing Rolling Stones review that described it “beyond bad, it carves out its own category of godawfulness”. After the 150 min combination of explosions, women and crude jokes, I came to a former conclusion of mine- Michael Bay is a no-talent hack. Beyond his short stint directing playboy films, his best work included Bad Boys and The Rock, but his remaining work since has been a series of big-budget explosion films like Pearl Harbor that have oddly enough cemented his career.
The first Transformers grew thankfully out of a decent attempt to resurrect something good and old and still had a plausible script with jokes that weren’t atrocious. For Transformers 2 it seemed, Bay decided that he would take everything he deemed a success from the first and replicate it in the second, but then cut out the coherent story for cheap laughs. He also knew he had to get a PG-13 rating so that the kids could see it and took appropriate steps to cut out sex appeal and violence. - So if you were looking forward to see Megan Fox bounce around, well don’t. The most provocative pose she’s got was the one in the trailer with her hunched over the bike, and beyond the infamous robot humping her leg scene, there’s not much more. Realizing to probably his grim pleasure that robot maiming doesn’t constitute as graphic violence for the MPAA, Bay also seemed to go ahead with every form of robot bashing he could think of, stabbing a robot in the eye, decapitating another with a rocket, and so forth, simply because he could.
The plot summary is a tough one because for whatever reason, Sam Witwicky’s destiny ends up the reason why impossible things occur in this film, and it becomes a continual excuse for the overwhelming string of impossible events. The raw nonsense is something like what the trailer features and partly filled in by nostalgia and imagination- the Decepticons are hatching another evil plot in space to capture the Matrix- an ancient source of power that would give them an edge over the war against the humans and Autobots. Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf), because of his destiny, touches a fragment of AllSpark and starts having all these crazy visions during his first week of college. There are a few antics to attempt humor, a robotic girl waiting to kill him, because again, it’s his destiny, and some expectedly shallow girlfriend drama (“you stood me up on our first webcam date”) involving Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). Thanks to the powers of destiny too, Sam ends up the key to finding The Matrix in the middle of Egypt while managing to avoid getting smushed by a team of Decepticons out to get him so that he can resurrect Optimus Prime (who gets beaten to a bloody robotic pulp on the trailer).
A few things that one should never ever do in film were done with Transformers (WARNING- SPOILERS AHEAD):
Don’t Fake-Kill Characters that Should Die Maybe not everyone hates Sam as much as I do, but in this iteration I found his presence simply nauseating. They took away any boyish innocence he had from the first, and replaced it with that smug, cocky sense of destiny. He bosses around everyone, his parents, his girlfriend and especially Bumblebee, who he chides back into the garage like a mangy mutt. What writers Roberto Orci and Ehren Kruger might have been funny in some kind of a 12-yr old, “I do what I want” fantasy, but the privileged sense of entitlement, all without the hard work, I think has become a distortion of an older American value. Like a Bad Taste in the Back of Your Throat The plot involving mystic symbols to get an ancient source of power reminded me a touch too much of Indy 4 with Shia LaBeouf. Now granted, his career isn’t total muck (Eagle Eye for one), but he just tends to get cast in similar roles, and produce similar disappointing results. Maybe if he realizes his own self-worth at some point, his agent will negotiate for better roles, but so long as he continues this never-ending train wreck of ruining my nostalgic childhood (soon to be starring in a Wall Street movie sequel), he will be on my black book.
Devastator’s Big Balls – “I am directly below enemy scrotum.” Yeah, I think that’s all that needs to be said about that.
Selling Megan Fox – Hot as she is, her popularity went total reverse after folks watched the film- and even with the subsequent film, Jennifer’s Body it only seems to highlight her total lack of talent as an actress.
Transformers 2 is total junk but somehow enough of us watched it anyway because its total gross of $400 million is otherwise confounding. So, even while it cost $200 million to make, there’s still another $200 million pocketed away for the studios to continue to make Transformers 3. And that pretty much sums up well everything wrong with Hollywood lately as great flicks like The Hurt Locker end up being total duds- the marketing machines do work, the trailers and star attraction will appeal, and one can never underestimate the 12-yr old boys who can drive this nation’s economy. Harrumph.
With the success of the live-action film TRANSFORMERS the robots in disguise proved that there was too much action for just one film. This sequel prom...More at Family Video
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