Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky
Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes
Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime
Hugo Weaving as Megatron
My friends, I come to you a crestfallen, broken man. I can think of few others who needed this film not to suck as badly as I did. Frankly, it has been a dark year, full of celebrity death and personal loss. I welcomed the distraction of explosions, sight-gags, and potty-humor that typically accompany a Michael Bay film. Since his style seemed to be a decent vehicle for the first Transformer film, I assumed this one would be watchable as well… but I never imagined the bar would be set so low.
The preceding paragraph sounds best when said while imitating Optimus Prime’s voice. Sadly, not even the voice-over talent of the Great Peter Cullen could carry the festering carcass of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen anywhere other than its funeral pyre.
I can still recall my initial reaction at the film’s end. Minutes after the credits rolled, the lights came on, and as the crowd exited, I sat in stunned silence -- with possibly the same thousand-yard stare I had during and after Superbowl XLI, upon slowly realizing that placing the fate of my Chicago Bears into the hands of Rex Grossman was a terrible idea.
What can I say about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that hasn’t already been said about anthrax or mad-cow burgers? It is arguably one of the world’s most dangerous films ever created, and prolonged exposure to it could result in convulsions and brain-damage. It shook my belief system to the core, shattered my faith in humanity, and nearly obliterated my desire to communicate in written form ever again. The fact that both, film critics, and devoted, nerdy fan-boys of the Transformers universe stood in unified disgust over this celluloid abortion-of-taste was utterly astounding. But that was easily trumped by the bewildering scene of millions of mainstream Americans gleefully enjoying this polished turd, despite its glaring deficiencies.
Unlike my HDFest colleague, Alan, I normally don’t place much emphasis on box office numbers. But in this case, I’ll make an exception. At this moment, T:ROTF is flirting with earning a 400 million dollar domestic gross.
That’s right. Four-hundred million dollars.
As a man of upper-average intellect, it is difficult for me to reconcile the fact that this film -- that included a farting robot, another robot creepily humping the leg of a human female, a giant robot “wrecking ball” scrotum, and two more illiterate robots with gold teeth and a jarringly racist ghetto vernacular -- is now breaking box office records and making several rich, soulless, talentless douchebags even richer. It’s like the beginning of Ryan Seacrest’s career, but on a near-apocalyptic scale.
I flirted with the notion that maybe, just maybe… I was the crazy one after all. With numerous film critics and nerdy fan-sites already crying foul, and the masses gleefully ignoring their warnings, it seemed that the world didn’t need another film review skewering this tapestry of suck.
And yet, I simply couldn’t get this travesty out of my head. It became nearly impossible for me to function in society. At social events, I would introduce myself to strangers by saying, “Hi, my name is Barry, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was the shittiest film I’ve seen since 10,000 B.C.” As comedian Lewis Black pointed out -- after years of glaring at the nation’s capital and screaming, “EFF YOU!” -- that’s no way to live.
I debated quitting my job, growing a uni-bomber beard, and working on an Alaskan crab-fishing boat until the chill of the Bearing Sea purged from my frost-bitten cranium the unneeded, unwanted, and utterly ridiculous plot of Sam Witwicky leaving for college and a “normal life” in lieu of hanging-out with giant alien robot protectors who revered him for some unfathomable reason. Yeah, Sam, who needs a bunch of mechanized ass-kicking bodyguards hanging on your every word like Labrador retrievers and screwing up your Political Science lectures? Douche.
I pondered making a pilgrimage to a Shaolin Monastery in China to learn Buddhist meditation techniques in an effort to understand the dualistic nature of good and evil, and therefore find meaning in the writers changing of heroic Autobot leader Optimus Prime into a cold-blooded killer of unarmed, defenseless foes (as well as converting the evil, ambitious, powerful Decepticon leader Megatron into a mere step-n-fetching, lap-dogging foot soldier.) It was as if the writers were trying to create an alternate reality where down is up, left is right, bad is good, Shia LaBeouf is bearable even in huge doses, and Megan Fox’s “talent” somehow exceeds her physical attractiveness.
I thought about travelling to Amsterdam, where marijuana is legal, to see how many metric tons of weed would it take for me to grasp the reason why someone felt compelled to waste fifteen minutes of my life watching Sam’s mom approach a pot-brownie as if she were from the nineteenth century, and upon eating it, reacting as if someone had injected LSD directly into her skull. And why waste 15 minutes on this plot wasteland in the first place? I think we’ll find Jimmy Hoffa dancing a tango with Bigfoot in the Oregon wilderness before we find a solution to this mystery. As I stared blankly at Sam and his parent’s campus shenanigans, I thought to myself, “That’s amazing! Fifteen minutes, and I don’t care about any of this shit! How did they pull that off? And more importantly, why?”
And so I snapped. I hit rock-bottom when I couldn’t listen to Peter Cullen’s voice-over work in Coors Light commercials without sobbing uncontrollably for twenty minutes. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I decided that it doesn’t matter that this film sucks ass or that mainstream America loved it anyway. I realize now that the only way I can move on with my life is to confront this abomination, and purge myself of its venom.
I acknowledge that this review has the relevance of someone warning their best friend that the hot chick he’s been dating for two months has an active profile on herpes friend finder.com.
But this is more for my sanity than anything else.
I had to write this review. I just had to. That’s all.
I’d go into the plot, but there’s really no point in it. Well… yes… the plot has no real, concrete point, but that’s not what I meant. Everyone that’s going to see it has already seen it, so rehashing it is moot. Besides, every time I try to do a plot analysis of this film, I have to fight the urge of bathing in the tub with my wife’s plugged-in curling iron until I start lactating lighting. Let’s just get right to the grades.
The Grades
Story: Was there a story? Let’s see…
Sam is the key to… something. The Autobots protect him for… some reason. The heroic Autobots hunt and kill evil Decepticons because they’re… up… to something? The Decepticons need shards of something called the allspark to revive evil Megatron so he can get this stuff out of Sam’s head that is the key to… shit… your guess is as good as mine. Megatron, the baddest bad-guy in the film, defers to the Fallen, an even badder (worse?) guy whose reign of terror cannot begin until Megatron kills Optimus Prime for him, even though the Fallen is supposed to be a badder bad guy than Megatron. The fate of the world rests in an ancient seeker named Jetfire, who immediately shows he got his name by violently passing gas several minutes into his WWE-styled monologue. Oh, and they used the last allspark shard to revive Jetfire instead of Optimus, who was killed by Megatron. But no worries, Sam wished Optimus back to life when the Primes of Robot Heaven deemed him worthy…
What’s that, Mr. Curling Iron? I should stop right here to preserve my sanity? As you wish.
Clearly, or rather unclearly, this film is a patchwork of half-cocked ideas thrown together with no apparent rhyme or reason, except to get to the part where consumers buy merchandise. In that regard, it is somewhat similar to the first flawed, but guiltily-entertaining Transformers film. But unlike the first film, by the time the explosions began in T:ROTF, I had long stopped caring. Grade: F-
Acting: Shia LaBeouf reprises his role of Sam with the skill and effort of someone paid millions of dollars to talk and interact with imaginary friends (the Autobots) and inanimate objects (Megan Fox). I still don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, though I could’ve used a lot less of him, and a lot more robo-ass-kicking.
As for Megan, I don’t really care that she sucks at acting. She walks around a lot in skimpy outfits, blinks with her delicious eyelids briefly concealing her doe-eyes, and says stuff with her pretty mouth. I can’t blame the tiny robot too much for humping her leg. Even though she may have single-handedly set the women’s liberation movement back about six months, her individual “effort” was at least good enough for honorable mention.
As for the folks playing his parents, I don’t care about them. You hear me, Michael Bay? I don’t freakin care. It is virtually impossible to judge the quality of something that I really didn’t pay to see. I paid to see Megatron trade barbs with Starscream and engage Optimus Prime in a battle of brawn and wits. Let me write this clearly and plainly; I don’t give a flying frog’s ass about Sam’s parents. They could have been written out of the script for all I care. Megatron please kill them in Transformers 3: Return of the Cash Grab. Grade: C-
Visuals: Explosions! Yay! Shiny cars! Sweet! Laser guns! Awesome! Megan Fox! Delicious! Ravage the cyber-panther infiltrating the base! Totally badass!! Stupid, illiterate Ghetto-bots with gold teeth? Probably should’ve quit while they were breaking even. Grade: C-
Originality/Innovation: Everything that was original about this film was also responsible for it sucking so badly that I almost ran away from home. Did I mention that this film included stupid, illiterate Ghetto-bots with gold teeth? Grade: F-
Enjoyability Grade: I didn’t go into this expecting Godfather 2. Hell… I wasn’t even expecting Die Hard 2. But Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will remain the worst sequel ever made, narrowly edging Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, which featured an aged, potbellied Christopher Reeve as Superman ridding the world of nuclear weapons and taking the planet disturbingly closer to his fascist, utopian vision. The bar has been set so low that the only way to go lower would be to find someone stupid enough to green-light a sequel to the live-action Chipmunks movie (What? Someone actually did make a Chipmunks sequel? Well of course they did.) Grade: F-
Date Material: Not even if your date can transform into a six-pack and a pizza. Grade: F-
Contemporary Element (Will it be watchable two decades from now?): It wasn’t watchable while I was watching it. Grade: F-
Redeeming Quality: At least I wasn’t constipated, or suffering from irritable bowel syndrome while watching this film. Grade: F
Overall Grade: F
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