Friday, June 26, 2009

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen: The AMERICAN Movie

Michael Bay is going to make millions of dollars off of Transformers 2 and it’s all my fault. I went into the theatre knowing I wasn’t going to be entertained. Knowing I’d be upset. Knowing I had a good chance at being offended while at the same time being bored to tears. Transformers 2 might be the worst movie I’ve ever seen because of how little it aspires to be. At least Troll 2 was under the delusion they were bringing something good into the world. At least Jules and Jim made sense from a technical standpoint. Transformers 2 fails even to be something I’d consider a movie. The pace is gone, the acting boasts the level of talent expected from a kindergartner, the story feels like it might have been blocked out by a kindergartner, and the scenes where robots fight and shit blows up are confusing and overlong. Also, I have way more problems with it than that.


This movie is raaaacist. I thought I’d seen the worst I could see back in the days of Dumbo. When racism was kind of expected. This is 2009. Well into the 21st century. Having two overtly stereotypical uneducated black-like characters in a movie today sets us back a good 90 years. Oh, and there was a black deli worker with severe tooth-bucking yelling about money. And a suspiciously Eastern theme plays over a Chinese man eating noodles. And, why not, a mime in Paris butting into a family enjoying escargot. The line “we don’t do much readin’” should be spoken by a blind character, not a character built to offend. 


This movie has too much Megan Fox. “Too much Megan Fox? But Eric, she’s hot!” I will agree with you there, nameless stranger, when she doesn’t have that frighteningly steely look on her face she is able to be attractive in the bosom and backside regions, but Bay crams so much Fox into this movie that it starts to feel like a joke. Pandering as hard as he could to the audience Bay gave us a stumbling panty-flashing Megan Fox, a bra-less Megan Fox running down stairs, a Megan Fox letting it all hang out as she crawls around on the desert floor, and a Megan Fox splaying herself out across a motorcycle in Daisy Duke cut-offs. I swear a few of her lines were untranslatable, but execs must have said “screw it, she’s Megan Fox” and left them in. And a robot furiously humps her leg for a while. That’s the allegorical representation of your lust, Transformers audience.


This movie will not convince Michael Bay he is a bad bad filmmaker. He’s going to get as rich as a king off of it, and he’ll say to all of those who dismiss it as garbage: “It wasn’t meant to be more than a blockbuster smash, and I’m loaded because of it, so I win”. Then he’ll chuckle, or he’ll smirk, or he’ll stab you in the face, or swipe your legs out from under you, because he is a slimeball in the worst respects.


This movie has product placement as tall as a giant. I’d say Bay aims at some Godardian self-reference when he puts a giant poster for Bad Boys II in Shia LeBeouf’s dorm room, but it isn’t, it’s him being a smug asshole, and probably hoping it’ll remind a few slobs that it’s available to buy from the discount bin at any of their nearest supermarkets. And all the LG stuff I’m supposed to want to purchase now? And all the cars? Shia even name-drops State Farm Insurance. Let the products breathe for a second. Jeez.

This movie was written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. They also wrote Star Trek. I liked Star Trek. I hated this. Looks like these guys don’t have any bit of pull, and I’ll gladly wonder how much of what I liked about Star Trek is entirely indebted to J. J. Abrams, and how little the writers made it shine. Speaking of Abrams, I wonder if Bay decided to add a ton more lens flares after hearing how well Star Trek’s did. Sure, sure, they use lens flares in other movies, but there were a lot towards the beginning. Some didn’t even make sense. Anyway, not a real point, just suggesting.


This movie pretends a big dog getting humped by a small dog is funny. Then it begs you to think it’s funny for a second time. Then a robot humps Megan Fox. There’s also miserable attempts at clever innuendo. Ha. Sorry. I know it wasn’t trying to be clever. It was just trying to be innuendo. Which it was, but it wasn’t good, and it shouldn’t have been there, along with everything else in this movie. 


This movie is 2 and a half hours long. It feels like it lasts for days, but no, it’s only 2 and a half hours long. 2 and a half hours of Shia screeching “Bumblebee!”, and robots doing things that don’t make sense, and characters explaining things so that they’ll make less sense, and the military arming itself to basically contribute nothing to the battles aside from more explosions. It’s almost as long as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and that movie at least has Brad Pitt in it. This movie doesn’t have Brad Pitt. In fact:


This movie doesn’t have Brad Pitt. And it lasts for 2 and a half hours. 


This movie makes me spend too much time talking about it. I’ll hurry things up. the action is incomprehensible. Shouldn’t you know what’s going, and who is doing what for what reason, when there are actually sides fighting against each other? Most of the movie is exposition. Let’s say the whole movie was. The cinematography made me want to pick up a camera and reshoot the damn thing. They canted it sometimes. Canted. And it spun around and around and around, but for what? And one of the plot points is Shia not saying “I love you” to Megan Fox? Fuck that. Finally, who gives a shit about robots? They’re robots you almost can’t give a shit about, these robots. I hate they so much. John Tuturro and Rainn Wilson are in this. Bah. 


In closing, if you like this movie you are a terrible person. It did do one good thing for me: made me fantasize about better movies. Cloverfield poster in the background? Why yes, that was a better movie than this. Girl on guys crotch? That did remind me of Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm. Terrible action movie I couldn’t enjoy? That did remind me of when I enjoyed the terrible action movie Live Free or Die Hard. Fuck this movie.


 - Eric T. Voigt, Almost Couldn’t Finish This... I Still Feel Unclean

5 comments:

  1. The Mime scene is so very brief after the edit.
    I did not know it was to poke fun when the film was made.
    Mimes are rather incredible if they are good.
    Michael Jacksson was a friend and learned the moonwalk from my teacher Marcel Marceau
    The Mime has been mentioned in reveiews and blogs all over the world.

    I happen to be that MIME

    Google me

    Ted Borodaeff

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  2. Now I really really really want to see this. but being an American I will save my hard earned cash and find it online. Like, tonight.

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  3. Ted, if you are who you say you are, can we contact you? It'd be cool to hear about your experience on the set.

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  4. Kevin:
    I know the world is very bizarre, but I am most definitely the mime you saw. I was incredible on IMAX.. Big as life really.
    Check out The Senior Film:
    http://vimeo.com/5331996
    I am Monroe.. The fellow in The Dental Chair.
    More Shorts to be online shortly
    Kevin: Check it out. Also Google me.. Then IMDB me..Then Youtube me.

    Google who is the Mime In transformers 2...
    I would prefer you contact me first thru facebook or go to
    http://www.thecolonialtheatre.com/blobfest/
    Then special guests click my name go to the link and email me directly thru contact at
    www.agencyprotalent.com/tedborodaeff

    Feel free to email questions about on set.
    Where you from?
    Would have been nice to have the scene survive its full length.
    Maybe it will be on cut footage on THE DVD.
    WHAt else??

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  5. Well I know who I'll go to for all my mime-ing needs.

    ReplyDelete