Benchmark Blog 21: Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen
So I was excited to see this movie, like most of America. I thought that the first was good, but not the end all, be all. I expected a solid blockbuster movie with nothing special plot wise. I was disappointed, even though my expectations were moderate to low to begin with. Let me elaborate. There may be spoilers ahead, but I doubt that these are true plot spoilers, as there was no plot.
Problem 1: Lack of plot
In a summer blockbuster, I really don't expect much of a plot. Give me a little justification to tie the story together and I will go with it. Summer blockbusters are much like situational romances to me; they are escape fiction and need only the barest of stories to get me to the action sequences. Unfortunately, this movie did not even have that. The "story" of the Fallen had no good reason to tie Sam into it, much less Megan Fox's character. They send Sam to college and she is staying behind. Time to move on, people. Megan Fox has no reason to be in this movie. She is less than a minor character. She is here for eye candy purposes only. To the point that you see her painting upside down in a provacative outfit leaned over a motorcycle. Can we talk gratuitous pin-up shot? Completely pointless. I barely ask for a reason to have robots fight on Earth, but they failed to even give me that.
Problem 2: Stylized Robots
I read an article prior to seeing the movie that decried the "racist robot" caricatures. It was explained as two voice actors unscripted and that was the way that they had taken the characters. I figured that it was just Hollywood making a fuss over nothing. Boy was I wrong! While the voice actors may have taken the robots in a certain manner, the visual effects were over the top. Gold tooth robots, that were possibly wearing bling (I forget), unnecessarily pounding on each other. All Bay needed was them driving by and randomly shooting each other to complete the stereotype. It was appalling and I agree racist to put that in there. The worst part was that it was completely unnecessary to the story. Supposedly they were put in for the kids, but they were so inappropriate for kids that it was not even funny.
Problem 3: Humping
The movie opens and within the first few scenes, you see the two dogs humping. They are called down, but a few minutes later it cuts back to them again. It is completely pointless and unnecessary, not to mention making it at least questionably appropriate for children due to the unnecessary attention that is drawn to it. It is the lowest common denominator type humor.
Then Bay takes it a step further later and has a small Decepticon that Megan Fox has caught, jump out of the box and start humping her leg like a dog. At this point, I was just waiting for the movie to end and throughly disgusted with the unnecessary lewdness.
Problem 4: Robot Language
The stylized robots mentioned before cursed a lot, but they were not the only ones. Several scenes had the robots talking and cursing for no apparent reason. I understand some placement of curse words within a film for various reasons, but these were unnecessary and over the top. It was much like a 6th grader, cursing for the sake of cursing. Bay claimed to add things to make the movie more "kid-friendly", but adding in unnecessary language for no reason defeats the entire purpose.
Problem 5: Gratuitous Sexuality
Megan Fox has no reason to be in this movie. She is less than a minor character. She is here for eye candy purposes only. To the point that you see her painting upside down in a provacative outfit leaned over a motorcycle. Can we talk gratuitous pin-up shot? Completely pointless. They also have a college party where several attractive girls are and there is more sexuality. I understand trying to appeal to your demographic, but throwing in a random college party just detracts from the plot.
Problem 6: Movie Confusion
Apparently Michael Bay forgot which movie he was making in the middle of shooting. When did Tranformers become liquid metal just like Terminators? Another article detailed how Bay took the parts that America loved from the blockbusters and said, how would that be with robots? It was so cheesy.
Overall, this movie was awful. It got to the point, where I was waiting for it to be over. It was unredeemable. The worst part was the parts that he tried to make "kid-friendly", but it was so overrun with sex, language and racism that I am not remotely allowing my kids to watch it. Maybe when the YouTube version comes out that cuts out the pointless parts (like the one that eliminated Jar-Jar), then they can see it.
Grade: D- (It would have achieved an F, but the robots did fight and there was Josh Duhamel.)