Transformers 2: Less Than Meets the Eye
Film Review
The Transformers sequel is long and boring, and the extended action sequences were so over-stylized, the computer-generated special effects so intricate, reflective and bombarding, I really couldn’t make out what was going on.
Courtesy Photo
After withstanding the two-and-a-half hour sensory onslaught that is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I was squeezed in a crowd behind three eleven- or twelve-year-old boys filing out of the theater. There was a glow in their eyes as they discussed the intricacies of what we had all just seen: whose glowing heart power was ripped out when, what blow to which Decepticon ruptured what vital piece of computer-generated machinery to bring the bad guy down. I was a little worn out at this point. The Transformers sequel is long and boring, and the extended action sequences were so over-stylized, the computer-generated special effects so intricate, reflective and bombarding, I really couldn’t make out what was going on for much of the film. It is an ugly film, with a contrived plot and very few nail-biting, edge of your seat moments. The film lumbers like a wounded robot. But these young kids dug it. They likely have read the Marvel Transformers comics that were shuffled in my bins of comics at that age as well. They found VHS copies of the old cartoons I used to watch sitting on the floor of my parents’ bedroom after school. Surely they have the toys – the Transformers franchise, after all, was a merchandizing effort first, the storyline a second endeavor. And so for these kids, what we had just seen was exciting and memorable, the fodder for hours of nerdy conversations. It’s their film. I’m just the grumpy old guy who didn’t get it.
The comics of my youth – X-Men, Spiderman, Batman, Ironman, Transformers, and in a few months G.I. Joe – offer great material for studio blockbusters. They have proven stories and devoted fanbases. They potentially tap into new generations while sparking the curiosity of those who grew up with the stories and want to see them realized in a more visceral, transporting medium. Some of these comic-to-film stories have been able to access what are essentially solid stories – think X-Men and Batman – that both excite a child’s imagination and can sponge broader human themes. Transformers has that potential. It speaks to our anxieties about technology and the unknowns of the darks of the universe. It reads like a modern retelling of the Titans of ancient Greece, proto-gods whose battles, semi-gnostic struggles between the forces of good and evil, determine the fate of mankind. We live in an angst-ridden world, frightened by a sense of fate’s uncontrollability. Transformers is an apt fable.
But the new Transformers film doesn’t play to any of these themes. It’s just a action flick about a young guy starting college, Sam Witwicky, (Shia LaBeouf) who is buddies with the Autobots (the good guy Transformers), and has some sort of secret knowledge implanted in his brain that, he discovers, is a set of instructions to uncover a long-hidden tomb that contains a powerful energy (gnosticism’s appeal is in the accompanying adventure story). The Decepticons (the bad guy Transformers) want this energy because they can use it to power up a huge ray gun that destroys stars, and they want to destroy the sun (just because they’re bad guys), and with it, Planet Earth. That weapon is hidden in the pyramids (makes sense), and the final forty-five minutes of the movie are an action-packed showdown in the desert.
There are few tense moments, like when Sam and his bombshell girlfriend Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) are hiding out in a little clay shack and a tiny robotic critter creeps through a peep hole and discovers them moments before the roof of the shack is torn off by a huge Decepticon. That part was fun. And like he is in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, John Turturro is a bright spot as the fast-talking, neurotic, ousted CIA Agent Simmons.
But Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is remarkably ambitionless, a bang-bang, shoot-shoot film for young boys. If you are not a twelve-year-old boy, you’d do better dropping off the kids at the theater and renting an explosion flick that’s a little more inspired.
Being a huge TF fan and the dad of 3 boys we all we very excited for the film. We got to the movie and it took us quite some time to find a seat. The theature we were asighned was all booked up and it was only by chance that one theature had a pregnant woman that yelled at some people to move over so some little kids could watch a movie they have dreamed of for the last 5 months. As the movie progressed I found myself disipointed, which shocked me. I was extreamly dissipointed at the fact that the transformers were cussing. “Punk ass bitch” “Pussy” “Crazy Bitch”. Michal Bay I hope your ashamed of yourself. I told my three boys that if I herd them utter these words than I will swiftly remove all transformers merchindise from thier rooms. Transformers should never cuss, Yea spike did in the 86 film “O shit what are we gonna do now”, as did Ultra Magnus “Open Damnit open”. The first movie there were only two phrases uttered. “Whats cracklin little bitches” spoken by Jazz but it was so fast and garbled that my kids did not notice. And Frenzy in the end with the “O sit” when his head got choped in two. In hommage to the original movie Im sure. However, with this the movie lost me from the beginning. Ironhide…. for shame. Autobots… your advanced robots… why would you talk like that? I was disapointed. My kids loved the movie….. I was saddend. Oh well Gen 1 on DVD is comming out soon. Ill be happy with that.
I saw this movie last night with my friends, and it was awesome!
Very well made and incredible acting jobs for everyone!
26 June 2009 at 12:43 pm