Story so far....
Too stupid to watch to the end....?
I've sat through my share of shitty movies. There are plenty of completely ridiculous summer blockbusters that shouldn't really be worth sticking through to the finalé for, but you hold out to the end you might get a sense of a story completed, and to get an eyefall of the big dragon/explosion/epiphany. This isn't a bad thing, we need a little shiny in our lives. Besides, blockbusters are the barometer of the nation's mood, etc...blah blah blah....
In which case, we're screwed.
This is not a fair review, as I haven't made it to the very end of 'Transformers: Revenge-of-the-long-turd-of-a-title'. I can only review what I've seen up the point where, er...what did happen exactly? I think that the nice robots, the 'Autobots' have been hunting down the evil 'Decepticons', in order to sell more toys and beautiful muscle cars. There are also some vaguely racist 'Autobot' characters who appear first to provide the comic relief, solely by having black people voices and saying 'this is whack' a lot. Worrying.
There's also Megan Fox in a tiny pair of shorts and a seriously repressed Shia Le-whatsit. Both reprise their roles as the boy and girlfriend who thwarted the last film's evilest-bot of them all, Megatron (voiced by Frank Welker, notable as the voice of Slimer from The Real Ghostbusters!) in the last film. The last film was OK, actually. It was dumb, but not excruciatingly so. Not as noticeably as this.
What's wrong with it? Well, so far, I'm about 45 minutes in and am horrified to see there's still about 90 minutes left. I've seen a lot of big CGI pixels bashing each other around whilst not really having a clue who is who, or why. Apparently, the pretty yellow Bumblebee-bot is a bit like an overprotective pet dog that wants to help you get laid. Apparently, colleges are entirely filled with geeks who are super-hackers, and supermodels who want to shag all the said geeks. Except if one of the supermodels is a Terminator 2 ripoff. Which makes no sense given that the robots are supposed to 'transform' into vehicles, not bazooka-Barbies with tongue-chain weapons. Not kidding. There's a lot more blowing up. It's very, VERY hard to give the slightest crap, and I've made it through Bad Boys 2 and Con Air. As I said, I'm not immune totally immune to glossy blockbuster charm - Iron Man 2, anyone? There is no excuse for the state of Transformers, though. It's just a big, greasy mess.
Is it wrong not to watch to the end before reviewing? It's only a film - one that feels ugly underneath, with nothing to offer except vacant girls and big muscley robots. I've seen that before and I think I've seen enough. I think it's actually worse than Van Helsing, which despite being a poor video-game wannabe won a couple points for a frequently shirtless Hugh Jackman (I'm only human), and the sarcastic gadget-producing monk he hung out with. I'm pretty sure that it's worth skipping the final 90 minutes (how are there still 90 mins? HOW?) of Transformers: Revenge of the Moron. Perhaps, if I ever get around to watching the end, I'll be masively surprised and charmed and by it all and feel very, very silly that I ever doubted Michael Bay's awesome directing skillz.
Or...perhaps not.
I might even watch it all, one day, if I'm, like, really ill and bedridden, and all my other films have been destroyed in a house fire, and the telly is stuck on this, and my remote-control finger is broken. Until then, I'm off to be sarcastic about something else, but for now I think I've had a lucky escape.
Finally, the best summary of reasons not to bother is this abridged script, a small work of genius.
Michael Bay makes his biggest mess yet, mistaking vague for hot, and robots for personalities.
2 comments:
I couldn't make my way through it either. It was AWFUL. I loved the abridged script though - that was hilarious.
Thanks - glad it wasn't just me!
It's total tosh, of the worst sort.
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