Model Recall

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

As I stumbled out of the theater after a 150-minute cinematic bludgeoning at the hands of director Michael Bay, 30-foot robots and a leering, incoherent plot, I wondered to myself how a movie with so much money/popularity at stake could be so poorly executed. What went wrong? Why was it so long, so thoughtless, so…bad?

“Because it’s just. So. Stupid!” my fellow moviegoer exclaimed. A more accurate description there never was.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is nothing short of a big, loud, dumb disaster. You might wonder what I expected it to be. As a fan of the original, I thought I knew exactly what it would be – big, loud, dumb fun. Reckless and childlike, 2007’s Transformers was fueled by a youthful quest for simplistic imaginative fun, specifically in the form of talking, transforming robots, big action, playful banter and pretty girls. It nailed all those things, and it did so with unchecked exuberance.

Transformers 2 is what happens when that imagination remains unchecked, by reality, by growth, by boredom. What went wrong in the sequel? Maybe we should start with what didn’t.

The robot vs. robot action is better. Much better. America’s boy Shia LaBeouf is still likeable, if not any more grown up. And the girls are still pretty – Megan Fox is back, and Bay’s looking to start a similar sensation with new girl Isabel Lucas. And the visuals/sound are top of the line.

Everything else though…not so much. Whereas story logic was an acceptable causality in the first flick, the overcomplicated story here forces it front and center. The story itself is clumsy, manipulative and generally uninspired – props, settings, even characters appear and disappear whenever it’s necessary for them to. And the “twists” are just lazy reruns of better ideas. Everything from Terminator to Thundercats is ripped off here, not just in story event but in overall concept. It’s as if Bay and his writing team of Ehren Kruger and Roberto Orci (the latter so far removed from the splendor of Star Trek) simply ran out of ideas, so they threw a bunch of crap at a canvas and called it entertainment. The story in Transformers 2 is all splatter paint and papier-mâché, and it’s made for an ugly collage.

So it’s no surprise we don’t care about any of it. Why should we – Bay never needed us to care. He just wants us to ooh and ah at his fireworks, laugh at his passing characters and their passing remarks and leave wowed by the experience of it all. The problem is, we don’t. Sure, kids might enjoy this. But anybody with something resembling a matured attention span will take this in with a yawn, at best. At worst they’ll recognize it as a very cluttered, very expensive scrap heap. This isn’t a movie – it’s a compilation. And that’s not what we’re here for.

Bay seems to have a problem with sequels – Bad Boys II is somewhere on the list of Top 10 Worst Blockbusters ever. T2, meanwhile, finds itself near the bottom of our Summer Blockbuster Smackdown pigpile. Updated standings:

1. Star Trek
2. The Hangover
3. Up
4. Drag Me To Hell
5. The Taking of Pelham 123
6. Terminator Salvation
7. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
8. Angels & Demons
9. X-Men Origins: Wolverine