Review of Tranformers:ROTF SPOILER ALERT

Copy and pasted from here

The worst summer in recent memory continues as Michael Bay brings his slow push-ins and Lazy Susan dolly shots back to the cineplex with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (hereafter Transformers 2), the ugliest, most hateful, most simple-minded and incomprehensible assault on art and decency since the last Michael Bay movie. It's bad (that goes without saying), and it's possible that even its fans will have the brute sense to recognize that it's bad--but it's bad in such a way that defies easy description. It's so bad, it's exasperating. The action, as you'd expect, is impossible to follow, with long stretches cascading in on one another without the slightest notion of who's winning, where, and to what end. But that's not why it's bad. It suggests that the evil robots have perfected Terminator technology in the manufacture of a gorgeous slut-bot (Isabel Lucas), who, before trying to kill the returning Sam (Shia LaBeouf) with her go-go-gadget tongue, is humiliated by having heroic Autobot Bumblebee money-shot robot semen all over her face. But that's not why it's bad, either. Ridiculously poor filmmaking and Bay's wearying misogyny aren't "bad," per se, so much as they're the tools of his auteur canon, of his absolute gold-standard grasp of what it is that prepubescent boys are into and his desire to, as fast as he can, create undercover hardcore porn to gratify those desires. What else to make of the weird girl issues--the entire co-ed Michael Bay U campus populated with hot bimbo chattel, Bay's camera leering obligingly? It's tough to make someone feel sorry for Megan Fox, yet the extent to which she's objectified in this flick has you looking for track marks, smeared mascara, and other evidence of bus-stop porn-star exploitation.

Neither is it bad because of an appalling racism that sees white actor Tom Kenny doing the voices of Mudflap and Skids, Amos & (gold-toothed) Andy robots who declare themselves to be illiterate after a film-long minstrel show. No, Transformers 2 is bad because it represents every single vile, puny thing that's wrong with the United States. It's ignorant, boorish, loud, and proud of it. It takes a moment to imply that Obama is a pussy for appointing some suit to run super-secret, massively-destructive human/Autobot strikeforce NEST, then expels said suit out the back of a cargo plane carrying a bunch of grunts who need to be told that a desert full of Egyptians are "friendlies." Unless we've been at war with Egypt, of course they're fucking friendlies--exactly whom is Bay educating? He's educating the audience assembled to watch Transformers 2, naturally, because said audience is packed to bursting with idiots on the one hand and people hoping against hope to recapture something of their lost youth on the other. The problem with Bay is that he hates you. He thinks you're a moron and then you go about proving him right by making his movies obscenely popular. He also hates the Transformers as a cultural relic, having them fart and piss and shit and, in a fairly embarrassing moment in an embarrassing film, sport a pair of giant testicles. Of minor interest is the fact that Bumblebee, unable to speak but in borrowed sound bites, favours Tom Hanks' heroic astronaut Jim Lovell and retarded Republican shrimp farmer Forrest Gump. It's proof positive that Bay is a smart guy, smart enough to understand that Hanks is the voice of the American everyman--meaning Bay isn't dangerous accidentally.

As if it matters, Sam is going to college when giant robots start fighting each other and his hot girlfriend dry-humps a motorcycle and runs in a halter top and slow-motion. Is it pointless? It's at least pointless. It's also cacophonous and bloated with testosterone, a loud picture of Michael Bay's tiny bicep inflated with ILM and THX sound, speckled with what he thinks is funny, like two little gay dogs fucking each other (and a tiny robot leg-humping Megan Fox), for instance, or those old standards of elder/bimbo/Stepin Fetchit humour. Transformers 2 is a dossier on Bay's shortcomings as a human being and, sadly, by extension it's a snapshot of how we scramble to indulge the worst things in our nature in the dark, in the company of others destined to be either victim or victimizer in their own sad dramas. It's a primer on how we learn to make war by falling in love with the weapons of war without assimilating the real message of Bay's films that all that firepower is the vehicle of male sexual frustration, insecurity, and inadequacy. This is without stopping to consider Bay's trademark collateral toll: hundreds in Shanghai; thousands as all hands go down with an American aircraft carrier; dozens and their camels in the Egyptian village; and the dignity of everyone involved. Running at around 140 minutes (with a good forty of those taken up by lacklustre flying-the-nest drama featuring Sam's parents), it's as much a dusty monument to the self as the pyramid Transformers 2 destroys at its conclusion--a futile grab at immortality, a collection of screamed performances and shooting at stuff that isn't damaged by shooting, and destined to be a gaudy testimonial to our humiliating, cyclical indulgence of bellicose policies and antiquated social attitudes. It's all so last administration.-Walter Chaw

vbangle said:

Copy and pasted from here

 

The worst summer in recent memory continues as Michael Bay brings his slow push-ins and Lazy Susan dolly shots back to the cineplex with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (hereafter Transformers 2), the ugliest, most hateful, most simple-minded and incomprehensible assault on art and decency since the last Michael Bay movie...

Walter Chaw

I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt, this Walter Chaw fellow is a complete retard. Why the hell would you go see a Michael Bay film, if you don't like Michael Bay? Michael Bay films suck. I don't like Michael Bay, I don't go see his films, and I live happily ever after. Walter Chaw is a retard if he was expecting anything more than more of the same. Pointlessness and explosions. It tickles the fancy of some, and it just pisses others off.

Mr. Chaw obviously fits into the later category, so seriously? Why is he even watching, let alone reviewing this film? Let's say I absolutely hate sci-fi of all sorts with an extreme passion, and I am sent to review sci-fi films. You can guess my reviews would always be rather negative and biased against the sci-fi films I am reviewing. They would be useless to sci-fi fans who want to know if the movie is worth a watch or not. And it would essentially be worthless to other sci-fi haters, though they would probably get off on it and enjoy it, not because it is informing them of anything, but because it is bashing something they enjoy bashing. 

Anyone who reads through Mr. Chaw's entire review is just wasting their time, unless they only desire to caress themselves while getting off on his hatred of this film. The first paragraph where he admits to hating Michael Bay and this film is all that is needed.

Also, I am getting really irritated with people calling bad movies an insult to the art of film making. There have always been bad movies, there will always be bad movies. Shall we get grossly offended everytime a 7 year old pulls out his water colors and paints an absolutely awful drawing? It's an insult to art! Poor Van Gogh is rolling in his grave right now! Clearly, seven year olds should not be allowed to paint! And lousy directors should not be allowed to make movies, even when those movies are what the masses demand and for some reason find very entertaining. Que sera sera. The fact that McDonald's exists is absolutely no determent to fine dining.

dark_jedi said:

I guess I am in the minority here,I friggin liked this movie a lot.

I haven't seen it myself yet...thought I'd post the review though.

The last one made tons of money despite critics hating it.  So far every big blockbuster this summer has been slammed by critics across the board except for star trek, including wolverine, terminator salvation and now of course transformers revenge of the fallen.

I really am not all suprised this is one of the worst films this summer according to top critics on rotten tomatoes hovering somewhere in the 20% range of positive reviews.

The last one was worth a single rental on dvd.  Seriously other than explosions, rock em sock em robots and megan fox, what are people actually expecting here?

I thought the first film was an abomination to the original film and cartoon.  But those who did'nt grow up back then love the new movie, and so don't those who do say "do not expect it to be a live action remake of G1."

Brainless summer american crap, not arthouse cinema and not worth seeing more than once.  Unless you are like 13 and buy the dvd to pause the megan fox parts or watch them over again.

Transformers is an example of what is exactly wrong with the movies at the moment.   An action spectacle with zero story and CGI all around.  Unfortunately George Lucas and Steven Spielberg started this with what were pretty good films.  in the seventies and eighties. 

The destruction of the movies is a byproduct of a certain movie that came out in 1977, which was way better than all these modern pieces of crap.  Which is the problem really.

Star Wars may have lead to a short term film renaisance but in the end lead to the destruction of the movies especially through the prequels and the advent of lazy filmaking and over use of cgi and digital everything.

The only thing i think they did right with these films is get Peter Cullen "the real optimus prime" to do ops voice. 

The previews and avertisements trailers are probably better than the finished movie.   They serve as a highlight of the film and are more than enough.  It would be hard to sit through 2 hours of that crap.  I hate Michael Bay films.  The only good film he ever made was the rock.  And the seems to have been a happy accident. Armageddon was ok.  Pearl Harbor was an abomination words cannot describe.

The romance in his films is written poorly and extremely sappy and laughable.  He must have attended the George Lucas school of writing.

The dialogue and the scripts of all these summer flicks including star trek are very very poorly written in the dialogue department and all have bad jokes.  Not really surprising Orci wrote trek and transformers.  He is like one of the worst screenwriters i have ever known of next to Akiva Goldsmen and David Koepp.

So is TF ROTF 2 hours of product placement like the last movie?  If so when it comes on DVD it belongs in the trash can. 

To enjoy films these days you must shut your brain off.  you are not allowed to think, if you do the suspension of disbelief is ruined and you are taken out of the films you are watching.  We the audience now have to do the work because the filmaker and writers are lazy and expect that.

I hated absolutely every big film this summer.  Even Trek barely got a passing grade from my standpoint.

Transformers on the other hand is based on a cartoon that was an elaborate commercial to sell toys.  And does not pretend to be other than what it is advertised as.  As a dumb action flick i can enjoy it quite a bit.

It is not trying to be something it is not.  like say Terminator Salvation, trying to be serious drama in the framework of an action film.

Transformers comes from the robot anime type of shows Japan had been making for years untold.  It is Anime.  Even though American fans who don't like anime and hate japan culture want it to be something else.

With the first, I could hardly tell what was going on during the action sequences. It was like a big wreck on the screen, but not in the way I think it was intended.

I'm not a big Transformers fan anyway, so I think I'll pass on this one.

Meh, I think I'll just bust out my DVD of "Transformers: The Movie" (you know, the one from the 80s) again instead.

Nifty side note: I took a screenwriting class about 3 years ago, and my professor was the guy who wrote that movie.

Octorox said:

skyjedi2005 said:

I hated absolutely every big film this summer.  Even Trek barely got a passing grade from my standpoint.

 

surely you didn't hate UP?

The Hangover wasn't too bad either.

Supposedly this movie has the most racist charicatures of an African American since Jar Jar in the Phantom Menace.  Seriously people even thought this movie should be banned because people like the reviewer on the top of the page think its a piece for bushies and is anti obama.

DO people even watch the movies they go to see, i mean the critics.

Or do they get so board they take things completely out of context, or their imaginations make stuff up because the films are so crappy.

I mean looking for a political subtext in a 2 hour toy commercial?  really.  These critics are either too politically correct, sensitive or a bunch of whiny babies.  

Transformers is not supossed to be a drama or a musical or poltical propaganda piece.

It is an action flick, too macho according to the reviewer and thinks America is great when it is dumb. 

Seriously this guy would be better off watching and commentating on a micheal moore movie.

Careful, Sky! It almost sounds like you are defending the new Transformers movie! ;)

I agree with you about that reviewer being a nut job, as evident from my long winded post that nearly rivals the length of that pointless review.

I loved it. I didn't watch it because I was a fan which i am not. I didn't watch it hoping it would dominate (for todays crappy movies this is a diamond in the ruff.)

Shank me and skin me I loved this movie. I laughed I was at the edge of my seat and I had to piss from about the 2nd quarter of the movie.

What is all this BS about being shanked for liking things around here. This is the second time I have read someone make a comment like that in the past several days.

No one is going to "shank" you, "lynch" you, or murder you by any other means for liking this. It is actually permitted to enjoy things around here.