First of all, I actually DO realize that TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN is a film about giant alien robots beating the crap out of each other. I get it – it’s not supposed to be CITIZEN KANE 2: ELECTRIC BUGALOO.
Even so, it is still a very bad film. Possibly a contender for worst of the year.
The “story” cannot be summed up or even partially described. In fact, I dare anyone – even members of the production itself – to describe the storyline of this film. Phrases like “incomprehensible” or “indecipherable” or “mercy kill me with a hatchet” spring to my pulverized mind. Even the Flying Spaghetti Monster would have difficulty touching a single plot point with his noodly appendage.
But it isn’t the fact that the film is just DUMB in terms of having giant robots fight each other. No, the film is DUMB in terms of basic filmmaking attributes like plot and character development, editing, and screenwriting. Let’s look at a couple of ridiculous moments to illustrate the point:
1. At the beginning of the film, our “hero” Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) grabs his old jacket from the first film, and a shard from the energy cube falls out and onto the floor … and then the shard immediately burns through two levels of his house! So apparently Sam has a special jacket that is able to contain the power of the shard. Interesting. It’s never explained at all.
2. At college, Sam is molested by a beautiful but predatorial classmate. During one of their kissing sessions, the girl turns into a Decepticon robot. Then she disappears. Of course, this makes no sense whatsoever, since the Transformers are machines that transform into other machines … they do not have flesh. The point quickly evaporates from the film without explanation.
3. There is a long, protracted “comedy” segment in the early part of this very bloated film involving Sam’s parents eating pot brownies and freaking out. It’s not funny, remotely realistic, or useful to the rest of the film. It’s what we call padding, something quite unnecessary for a film that runs for two and a half hours.
I could go on for days like this. This is sloppy filmmaking at its most incompetent. The script appears to be fashioned from three or four different screenplays, which was then assembled haphazardly by blind lepers in the darkest basement of the WGA. The film barely has a plot, yet it takes forever for the characters to start doing anything important. And once you get to the important plot points, you discover that they weren’t really all that important anyway. Characters speak in dialogue farts, coughing up information they could not possibly have in order to continuously explain the plot. It’s inexcusable laziness on the part of the THREE PROFESSIONAL SCREENWRITERS credited for this abortion. Incredible.
Even worse are the absolutely misguided attempts at humor throughout. Humping dogs (not once, but TWICE!!), Transformers with testicles, REEFER MADNESS-styled freak outs, and robots humping the leg of Megan Fox. I kept waiting for Optimus Prime to grab his nutsack and scream out: “Hey Megatron, suck my camshaft!” Maybe they’re saving that for the next film. Remember that sick feeling when you first saw Jar Jar Binks step in a pile of shit on Tatooine, and then have an animal fart in his face? This entire film causes that feeling again and again. It’s TRANSFORMERS by way of Skywalker Ranch.
Speaking of Jar Jar, this film might be the most racist abomination since that digital idiot from PHANTOM MENACE. In particular are two robots named Mudflap and Skids. They are two jive-talkin’ niggerbots, basically. One has a gold tooth! And neither of the robots can read! Isn’t that fucking HILARIOUS???? I love it when we can dump this kind of brainless, racist, gloriously-empty trash into the laps of twelve year-olds! MORE MORE MORE!!!
When archeologists wonder what happened to Western Civilization a thousand years from now, their collective answer will be two words: Michael Bay.
SPOILERS But the film really goes off the rails in the ludicrous finale. Following the millionth explosion, Sam falls down dead. Everyone crowds around his body, pleading with him to return to life. Then we go to Transformer heaven, where the soul of Sam stands in the clouds with a bunch of dead Transformers, who then tell him he must return to Earth to fulfill his destiny … so he comes back to life. It plays so badly onscreen that I fully expected people to walk out of the theater in disgust; of course they would have done so had their brains still functioned by this point. END SPOILERS.
I can almost hear the groan of fanboys … “But Ray, what about those awesome special effects?” Who gives a shit? We live in a day when almost anything can be realized with computer graphics. So why would anyone use that as an excuse to justify a film like this? I don’t care about realistic metal robots smashing into each other when the rest of the film is amateurish and intolerable garbage. What does it matter when the view of those flashy and very expensive special effects is obscured by director Michael Bay’s God-awful framing and sense of space?? You cannot tell what’s happening in each battle thanks to the terrible direction and similar design of each robot. If you want to save ten dollars on a movie ticket, throw a bunch of car parts into your dryer and watch them tumble around … you’ll get virtually the same effect, and the same amount of thrills.
This is the worst movie experience I have had since that horrible HALLOWEEN remake a few years back, if not ever. Frankly, something like this makes me hate movies altogether, as well as the people who make and support them. I imagine that, if THE MATRIX was real, it would use horrific and mind-numbing shit like this to lull the people into a catatonic state.
It’s time for movie fans to stop giving Bay and his minions so much slack. This is pathetic, lazy, stupid, and incompetent filmmaking on every non-technical level. A film fan who admits to enjoying this abomination is openly admitting that they are the moronic offspring of their father’s yellowest and chunkiest ejaculate. This is easily one of the worst films of this year, and anyone who disagrees simply knows nothing about film. Period.
24 Comments
So you’d recommend it then?
Terrific read, Ray, as always!
I’ve been going back and forth on this, deciding whether or not I need to see it “just so that I’m informed” in my hate for All Things Bay®. But I just can’t stand the idea of spending precious time and money on this, based on everything I’ve read. It simply sounds like there’s nothing worth the experience of seeing it.
And I find it fascinating that any quasi-positive review – and there aren’t many – comes at it from the angle of “Sure, the story is awful, BUT…” or “This is the BIGGEST MOVIE you’ll ever see, even though…” – everything is qualified, put into some ridiculous context, because even the oddballs who seem to like it need to justify somehow to their readers that they’re not drooling idiots.
It’ll still open huge, unfortunately – but will word of mouth kill it off?
I’m sick of people telling that its just a fun blockbuster movie, and that you could shut down your brain and just enjoy 2 hours of meaningless action…
Or that it doesn’t matter if the story/jokes/editing/acting sucks…. YOU GET TO SEE BIG FUCKING ROBOTS FIGHTING!!!… and the FXs are great, and that you shouldn’t expect more from a “fun action movie”
I DO EXPECT MORE!
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2544/graphic11280.jpg
The sad thinks is that I’m undecided… this movie sounds really bad, but I like to be informed and to know if I’m gonna like or dislike this film its because I saw it and make my own decision and not because other people hate it…
one way or another I think Hollywood its gonna get my money…
I enjoyed the first Transformers for what it was. Just fun; nothing else. But it seems like this one is going to be pretty bad even by those standards.
Great to see Unfiltered Lens back rolling again. I made my mind up a while ago that i wasnt gonna waste my money on bayformers. Glad i stuck to my guns. Il get my Megan Fox fix elsewhere.
@ Barn – LOL sure … go right ahead and see it … yeah ….
@ Burbanked – I don’t know if word of mouth can ever be poisonous to kill the box office receipts provided by the mouth-breathing, unwashed masses of cattle. Yikes … I sound like Jeffrey Wells there …
@ Comic Fan – EXACTLY!!!
@ lee – It is much worse than that film … and that’s saying something.
@ Mark – Megan Fox should be nothing but whack-off material … that’s it.
@ Ray – Thats what i ment. Id walk over broken glass just to whack-off in her shadow.
@ Mark – Get help.
Actually, seeing this movie might help. She is so damned bad in it that even her looks cannot remain untarnished.
Wow! I could not believe the jivebots. Way to go on your portrayal of black people. Where was the landscaping mexican autobot or the white trailer trash decepticon michael? I can’t believe hasbro was o.k. with this. P.S. michael, your slow motion action scenes suck assticon!
you are so on the money in this review! the movie was so mind-numbingly terrible. i wasn’t expecting a well told story or character development but this shit is a fucking abomination! you know its bad when the actors are half-apologizing for it on promotional tours. i didn’t realize how bad of an actress megan fox is! she was literally posing throughout the whole movie! come on lady ur hot and everything but this is not a maxim photo shoot! there’s a camera rolling ya know. oh boy, the worst part is that some of my friends are saying that it delivered, um…. what did it deliver? farts? i felt like i was farted on!
by the end of the movie i was so over it that i went to the bathroom during the supposed epic final battle scene. i just didn’t care!
p.s: you know that rivalry between McG and Bay? McG so fucking won! terminator salvation was raging fucking bull compared to this horseshit!
@ ampac – Hate to admit it, but you’re absolutely right … TERMINATOR was a much better movie than this. Of course it’s almost like judging which coma patient is in better shape, but …
I saw this the other night. About half way though, which already felt like i was there for 4 hours, I said to my freind “Kill me now and make it fast!!”
Great review, very entertaining read ha! Exactly what I was expecting from this movie.
I’m defintely going to see this Ray!!!!!!!!
Could not agree more, you hit it right on the head. Thank you for this cathartic review!
Good to see you back, Ray.
Good review.
One thing that puzzles me is that, no matter how bad the reviews, this flick will make a ton of money. Why?
The reviews, fanboys to professionals, are uniformly bad. Yet people will go. Thus green-lighting more, equally bad, movies.
Mike Judge was right.
Mark
Thanks, guys!
@ MEDavidson – I was just talking with a friend about that very thing a few days ago! I told him that IDIOCRACY got it completely right, except that it got the date wrong – it will happen loooong before the year 3000. Entertainment has already been reduced to a giant show of KICK IN THE BALLS.
Ray I rarely agree with you but you are right (although you shouldn’t waste so much energy at Bay’s crap ;) ). Slashfilm review pointed I think the greatest plot hole with the museum where you enter in dc and leave in the desert.
The first plotless part feels slower than watching the beautiful country in slomo (and I don’t mean the shots are that good) and the part with the action scenes feels like they were trying to imitate Bourne hand shot sequences while being on acid. I also at the end couldn’t differenciate between autobots and decepticons. Total Chaos. I only stayed to the end because I paid for IMAX and hoped that there will be something to reward me in the end…
Michael Bay is a good producer but he should stop at that. In terms of directing he’s on par with Ratner and Boll.
Ray, just this once…YOU ARE A GOD! I totally agree with every, syllable of your review.
Michael Bay, and his movies, are the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion of cinema. They’ve got no heart, no brains and no balls.
I am LOVING the backlash against his feckless horseshit that is finally coming to a boil. Bayformers may make a profit, but I think it will underperform, as well it should!
Because Bayformers marks a new low in cinema.
And just in case any of Bay’s admirers on here are thinking of trying to change the subject by pretending to be “offended” by Ray’s use of the term “niggerbots,” DON’T even try it!
I’ve had PLENTY of fights on here with Ray about race, and this is the FIRST time when he said exactly that I was thinking.
Ray called it exactly what it was. Michael Bay thinks hanging out with Will Smith –and occasionally Michael Clarke Duncan– gives him some sort of right to do this shit. He knew better in Bayformers1 than to have Jazz come out saying, “What’s crackin’ bitches!” Bay’s crossed the line into DW Griffith terriroty here, and I’m glad somebody had the balls to call him on it.
The last paragraph of this review BEAUTIFULLY sums up my feelings about the morons who are always trying to make excuses for Bay’s turds that he calls movies. So many people who BRAG about how they don’t want smart movies.
Hell, you might has well make your screenname InbredJed!
Not just a great review, but a nice bit of pop culture commentary. I tip my hat to you Ray….just this once.
@ Norbert and JaySmack – Holy shit! Thanks for the once-in-a-lifetime support!! LOL
I wasn’t sure how the whole “niggerbots” comment would fly with everybody, and I almost altered it. In the end, I just felt that it needed to be said.
Never in my life would I ever think I’d read the phrase…”jive-talkin’ nigger bots”. I’m still laughing because I saw other reviews online that wanted to say something along those lines but didn’t have the balls to. Kudos.
KICK ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SS
Ray,
Sorry I’m late to the party, I’ve been a bit busy with whatnot.
I have managed to avoid this movie thus far due to a heavy travel schedule – meaning I haven’t been in town with my son long enough for him to ask me to take him. With the 4th coming up this weekend, I can only hope that there’s a better summer blockbuster I can divert his attention to.
I can only imagine that your review is spot on. Whenever someone says that the first Transformers was fun I always respond with “a giant robot pissed oil on a guy’s head.” No one really argues with me after that.
I read another review of this film and read a great line. Something like “my inner child is not an idiot child” obviously speaking to the idea that watching great entertainment means you need to sacrifice a lot.
I’m sure if my son does drag me to this, I will be coming back to spew more venom about this.
But it really does sadden me to hear all the money this movie is making.
Mindless rantings of a madmen, and lamentics of sad weak minded persons always amazes me. To see so many with so much to say, that has so little content but to regurgitate the same useless drivel over and over again is so drool. I don’t understand were so many persons of such limited intelligence are able to hide while they are growing to adulthood. One must wonder if they ever got anything they wanted in life, or if they must whine over and over again like…well anyways I digress. Grow up all whom are reading this. None of those whom are fans of the old school transformers will care too much. We are use to the weak plots…hell we got enough of them as children. IF, you can’t understand this, then please feel free to go find a 3 year old and they will explain it to you. It isn’t about the damned story line. It is about a childhood hero coming to life. If you don’t like the truth don’t ask the question and i realize that i will most likely be deleted but at least one person will have read this.