I rock out with the fine people at Automattic, the team behind 
The last time I was speechless after a movie was back in January of 2008. Cloverfield was the culprit – truly one of the most inept, simple, and inane films of the past 20 years. A dumb and numb idea attached to an enticing trailer and marketing campaign. Beyond that, it was a mess in every way imaginable, and words did, in fact, escape me. I remember exchanging arguments with students in a class for which I was instructing the following Monday. I had much more to say at that point.
The Transformers series was truly a staple of my childhood. No matter where my life takes me, I will always remember watching the show, playing with the toys and trading them with my cousins, and wearing out the VHS of the original, 1984 movie. Even now, I have a Decepticon emblem on the rear window of my car.
When the first live-action film released in 2007, I was appalled, to say the least. Any attempt to respect the actual series was thrown to the wind. It was, actually, what I expected, so I guess I should have been content. But it’s difficult to watch something that you once loved so much be completely and utterly transformed (no pun intended, maybe) into a steaming pile of crap.
And back we are again, in 2009, with the second installment, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Hope? Not really. In fact, this was phenomenally worse than the first iteration and made me feel incredibly embarrassed for what The Transformers has become in light of the writers’ efforts. It’s sad, but it is what it is, I suppose.
After 150 minutes of pure hell, I have arrived at 10 of the most apparent things most wrong with the sequel. Here we go:
1) Devastator. In the film, he was basically a bunch of junkyard scrap metal combining to form a replica of the Cloverfield monster (or a scarab from Halo). Why was he not just a giant Decepticon formed by the combination of the Constructicons? And if you want to go the Cloverfield route, that’s fine (the movie would have sucked anyway), but don’t actually tag the thing Devastator. Anyway, in the first movie, they already used that name on a Decepticon. I guess somebody told them about the de facto origin of the moniker. Sad that this didn’t serve as redemption, however.
2) Devastator’s balls. Really? He has testicles? I don’t think many words are even required for the many obvious issues with this.
3) Desperate name dropping. It’s only natural that the writers understand that people like me (who actually enjoyed the original series) will see the movie. In an effort to appease these people (a crappy effort, mind you), the dialogue attempts to drop as many Transformer names as possible. The point is, if you remained true to the characters, none of this would even be needed. On second thought, the name dropping only occurs so that the toy boxes could be tagged accordingly. The writers caring about fans of the series? What was I thinking!?
4) Racist robots. The two robots – I don’t even remember their names – who did absolutely nothing other than serve as some sort of lame and racially-backed comic relief – are much worse than JarJar Binks (if you remember the accusations faced by George Lucas). One of the most amateurish and immature attempts at comedic relief. At least they didn’t represent actual characters from the original universe. I guess.
5) Plot. After 75 minutes, I even think the story itself had no idea where it was going. Convoluted in every which way, the majority of the plot elements were completely unnecessary, stupid, and simply annoying. If you need to explain everything via a flashback, you’re obviously not doing something right. By the time we got to the ‘destiny’ outer body experience, I gave up. And so did the plot. Good for it. One of the most unbearable mind rapes of cinematic history.
6) Human screen time. I thought it was a movie about robots from outer space, not moronic humans who feel the need to make a third-grade-level joke with every other line of dialogue. Titles can be deceiving, I guess.
7) The final battle. Throughout the entire movie, we hear how only a “Prime” can defeat The Fallen, so we know where this is going. You think, it has to lead up to something explosive, right? Like the greatest robotic battle in the history of robotic battles. How about a 90-second, one-sided fight! Yes!
8) Mysterious disappearance of Wheelie. You can bet that I hated the stupid little Decepticon-turned-Autobot, but does anybody know what happened to him? He led them to Jetfire, wound up in the desert, and was then gone. Maybe that was a good thing, but it further shows how poor the script actually is.
9) Running time. 150 minutes of pure, witless hell. About 95% of the movie can be removed, because 100% of it is unbearable crap.
10) The action. Yeah, you would think that would be the saving grace, right? It’s not. The action sequences are made up of terribly redundant and confusing robot clutter. I can’t tell the robots apart anyway, so seeing them just tackle each other is an exercise in bewilderment – and an utter waste of time.
I realized I wasn’t as speechless as I was after Cloverfield, and that’s because this movie was far worse. This is, without a doubt, the worst movie that I have ever seen. Its dialogue is mind-numbing, its action is redundant and lame, and its plot is baffling. And this is putting it incredibly lightly. I cannot think of enough bad things to say about it, and hopefully I never can. I would like to think that I hate the movie so much simply due to the fact that it makes a mockery of a series that I once so dearly loved. But – its unrelenting stupidity extends far beyond this.
Roger Ebert has offered the most appropriate description of the movie in his full review:
If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.
And that doesn’t cost $11.
Gabriel... 6:20 pm on June 29, 2009 Permalink |
Somehow your review came to me in a daydream about two months ago. I also cannot see the fascination producers have with Shia LeBlah. In a weird way he reminds me of Hayden Christensen… in a weird ‘can’t act or emote’ way.
Jar Jar wasn’t the only weirdly racist thing about Star Wars Ep. 1, there was also the two trade federation dudes launching the sneak attack against Jar Jar’s planet… their species had Japanese accents.
…I liked most of Cloverfield. It was the ending, where the beast was gratuitously revealed that mostly pissed me off.
todayisfire 9:13 pm on June 29, 2009 Permalink |
http://www.tinyurl.com/22zprp sums up Shia’s acting ability.
Gabriel... 1:05 am on July 1, 2009 Permalink |
That. Is. Fun. Knee. There’s a whole pack of people in movies today who don’t act, they just stand still while the camera moves around them. They’re perfect for the blockbuster movies. They’re like Harrison Ford clones… but with the charisma sucked out. So, like, everything from his Jack Ryan movies until now.
The Shia video reminded me of the Five Second Movie thing… this one’s Return Of The King: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ3A0B4f_QU
Anthony 9:05 pm on July 1, 2009 Permalink |
I tend to be okay with such actors as long as the movie is fun and they don’t annoy me. Unfortunately, both of those conditions were not met with Transformers: ROTF.