Ack! I’m about twenty posts behind here, regarding things I plan to blog about. Surprisingly, I’ve not been blogging because I’ve actually been doing work. But last Sunday I encountered a tragedy so great that it had to jump the queue and spill forth as soon as possible.
Against, perhaps, my better judgement, I went to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, some trusty friends in tow. I had found the last movie passably entertaining, if forgettable, in that it featured giant robots blowing stuff up, and Megan Fox was hot. I didn’t find the first one very accurate to any of the various Transformers mythologies, or even all that sensible, but, like I said: giant robots blowing stuff up.
Clearly, I have pretty low standards when it comes to enjoying movies—especially summer blockbuster action movies. And so, despite all the overwhelmingly negative reviews, I figured there was no way Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen could fail to be acceptably entertaining—after all, it featured more giant robots and bigger explosions. I mean, any movie with robots and explosions has to entertain, right?
No. No it does not. This revalation was like discovering incontrovertible proof that there is no God.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a boring, long, pointless movie that I cared absolutely nothing about. Even Megan Fox couldn’t make this watchable. It was like Michael Bay took a can opener, cracked open my skull, scooped out my brain, and took a dump so he could leave a steaming turd where it used to be.
Apart from the many plot problems, the movie just didn’t work on any level. They introduced a boatload of additional Transformers, but it didn’t matter, because you couldn’t tell any of them apart, or even the difference between the Autobots and Decepticons. All the action sequences with the robots were blurry, poorly choreographed, shaky-cam style affairs that meant you couldn’t really see what was going on. So little time was spent with the characters that you didn’t care when they died, and, in fact, you hoped some of them stayed dead (but alas, no, they didn’t). Comic relief was very poorly shoehorned into the movie, leaving it unfunny and awkward, and the supporting cast was entirely pointless. I honestly cannot thing of a single redeeming quality of this movie.
Again, let me reiterate the generally low standards I have for movies. I loved the near-universally panned Speed Racer (though I think that is a very misunderstood film). I enjoyed the Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt movie The Tuxedo. I even managed to enjoy the awful Jackie Chan flick The Medallion more than this. Hell, American Pie Presents: Band Camp is on TV as I write this, and I’m enjoying that more than I enjoyed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
I did not like this movie.
At all.