Two years ago, I wrote a summer movie retrospective ("Autopsy") for the first issue of Low Standards for High Fives' Grandiloquent Vagaries & Other Miscellany. The print magazine, not the blog. The blog came after the magazine (bone up on your Grandiloquent history here.) The centerpiece of that feature was a review of Michael Bay's Transformers. I loved the toys and accompanying animated works, as a kid, so I was ideally placed to enjoy that movie. Even without this prior fondness, I can only imagine the movie's bubblegum charm would have won me over.
Two years later, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen arrives. It promises more action, more robots, more Megan Fox in various states of undress... more of everything that made the first such good, harmless fun. Returning director Michael Bay kept his word, but Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is awful all the same. Why? Because more and better aren't synonyms (I checked.) It's unwieldy, obnoxious, and easily my worst of the year, irrespective of expectation.
Last time around, naysayers bemoaned the human presence. This time would have been better spent, for them, watching irrelevant robot carnage. "Rock 'em, Sock 'em Robots: The Movie" as Kevin Smith put it. I disagreed then and I disagree now. Transformers succeeded as much because of the fish out of water shenanigans caused by the robots' presence on Earth as it did the SFX. Revenge of the Fallen fails because it brings nothing to the table but chronic indecision and stupidity.
Rather than reign in (and improve) the shaky, broad humour of the original, Bay lets it off the leash. Rather than settle on a clear, perfunctory concept that facilitates maximum good times (like the original), we're given a boring re-tread that refuses to step aside and let the fun in. It's one thing to look past a flimsy MacGuffin or two - "the Allspark", "the Matrix of Leadership" - but the lazy arrogance on show here is unacceptable. At one point, John Turturro's ex-Government agent yells at Jetfire - an elderly, bearded, British robot with a cane - to deliver exposition faster. If handled right, this could have been a winning little meta-moment. Having him essentially say "give us this information faster so we can go back to running around and screaming" is not handling this right. Especially, when the movie think it's cute.
For many, the stunning mech throw-downs of Transformers were a saving grace. By an hour or so into Revenge of the Fallen's inexcusably bloated 2 and a half hour run-time, even those become bland. With the exception of Optimus Prime beating lumps out of various Decepticons in the woodland battle, there's little here to rival the action of the first. The new-fangled human/Autobot alliance is an inviting opportunity for variety as well as excess. Like so much of the film, though, this is largely squandered. The climactic showdown in Egypt is surprisingly small-scale and, worse, overly familiar. Even those who last watched the original theatrically will feel like they've seen it all before in its predecessor's Middle Eastern sequence.
Watch it: because you think Sam is a name you just don't hear screamed enough in movies anymore.
Don't watch it: if you write McSweeney's style microfiction.
Ranking: 3/10 (Disgraced Cadet.)
--
Ian Pratt refuses to let Transformers' sudden franchise debacle mar his excitement for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
Two years later, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen arrives. It promises more action, more robots, more Megan Fox in various states of undress... more of everything that made the first such good, harmless fun. Returning director Michael Bay kept his word, but Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is awful all the same. Why? Because more and better aren't synonyms (I checked.) It's unwieldy, obnoxious, and easily my worst of the year, irrespective of expectation.
Last time around, naysayers bemoaned the human presence. This time would have been better spent, for them, watching irrelevant robot carnage. "Rock 'em, Sock 'em Robots: The Movie" as Kevin Smith put it. I disagreed then and I disagree now. Transformers succeeded as much because of the fish out of water shenanigans caused by the robots' presence on Earth as it did the SFX. Revenge of the Fallen fails because it brings nothing to the table but chronic indecision and stupidity.
Rather than reign in (and improve) the shaky, broad humour of the original, Bay lets it off the leash. Rather than settle on a clear, perfunctory concept that facilitates maximum good times (like the original), we're given a boring re-tread that refuses to step aside and let the fun in. It's one thing to look past a flimsy MacGuffin or two - "the Allspark", "the Matrix of Leadership" - but the lazy arrogance on show here is unacceptable. At one point, John Turturro's ex-Government agent yells at Jetfire - an elderly, bearded, British robot with a cane - to deliver exposition faster. If handled right, this could have been a winning little meta-moment. Having him essentially say "give us this information faster so we can go back to running around and screaming" is not handling this right. Especially, when the movie think it's cute.
For many, the stunning mech throw-downs of Transformers were a saving grace. By an hour or so into Revenge of the Fallen's inexcusably bloated 2 and a half hour run-time, even those become bland. With the exception of Optimus Prime beating lumps out of various Decepticons in the woodland battle, there's little here to rival the action of the first. The new-fangled human/Autobot alliance is an inviting opportunity for variety as well as excess. Like so much of the film, though, this is largely squandered. The climactic showdown in Egypt is surprisingly small-scale and, worse, overly familiar. Even those who last watched the original theatrically will feel like they've seen it all before in its predecessor's Middle Eastern sequence.
Watch it: because you think Sam is a name you just don't hear screamed enough in movies anymore.
Don't watch it: if you write McSweeney's style microfiction.
Ranking: 3/10 (Disgraced Cadet.)
--
Ian Pratt refuses to let Transformers' sudden franchise debacle mar his excitement for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
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