Transformers 2: Michael Bay Sucks My Balls

June 27th, 2009 by cbwilkins | Posted in Picture blog, Video blog |

Well, my favorite director, Michael Bay strikes again, as he goes back to the well to once again destroy my favorite childhood cartoon, making a sequel to the first Transformers movie that’s actually worse, which is saying a lot. The first movie, like all of Bay’s cinematic abortions, was a mess of over-stylized color correction and tired camera moves (seriously guy, get a new trick) with a script that read like a seven year old with ADHD busted it out between episodes of Sponge Bob, completely devoid of even one genuine human emotion. But, if you were able to turn your brain off and ignore the everything but the parts where the Autobots and the Decepticons were in the act of fighting, it was at least watchable.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the new Transformers movie. Everything that was wrong with the original was made worse in this one. Here’s a clip that manages to encompass a ton of the problems:

The first thing you might notice is that there isn’t an Autobot in sight. Yep, the biggest problem with a movie called Transformers is that you hardly ever see the Transformers. The Autobots disappear for large stretches of the movie; in fact, you end up seeing more of the Decepticons, making it pretty easy to rrot for them, if only because their victory would mean another one of these terrible movies wouldn’t be made.

Next, you’ll notice that aside from a few lines at the beginning of the clip, all the characters emit are grunts, screams, and one word shouts, and, unfortunately, this is pretty indicative of the script. Even worse, when the characters do get to put together complete sentences, you wish they didn’t. Since the robots are almost never shown, the movie hinges on the real people, who are so fake and unbelievable, that it’s, well, unbelievable. The hyper-stylized tinge that Bay puts on all the colors of his movies, making them look cool, but completely unrealistic, extends to the characters. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese are back as robotic soldiers that have you praying for a case of friendly fire, John Tuturro continues to shame himself (it’s hard watching a good actor do this), Megan Fox continues to be hot but, once again, has nothing to say, and Shia LeBoeuf isn’t saying something that supposed to be serious but doesn’t make any sense, he’s yelling like a 3 year old. A new character, Leo, played by Ramon Rodriguez, is meant to be some kind of comedic relief, but ends up being loud and obnoxious, and just one more reason for the movie not to show the Transformers. The lack of characterization extends to the robots and none of them get more than 3 lines of dialogue, and they again decided to make Bumblebee, the most human of all the Autobots in the cartoon, a mute, making him unable to connect with the audience. But, the worst offenders of the movie are Kevin Dunn and Julie White, returning as Sam (Shia LeBouf)’s parents. They were completely useless and unentertaining in the first movie, so of course they’re in this one twice as much. I’m sorry, but having the mother eat a pot brownie and run around a college campus isn’t funny.

Another thing this clip shows is the utter lack of logical action and focus in the movie. The Decepticons want what’s in Sam’s brain (not a spoiler, it’s in the previews) so they kidnap him. But, in the process of this kidnapping, they do about 15 things that could kill him, or at the very least damage his brain. How does that car fall head on 15 stories and not one person in it has a scratch on them?!? Just more of the nonsensical mess that Bay pushes on us. The movie is riddled with stuff like this, and making matters worse, it’s freaking long. It runs something like 2 and a half hours, and without a plot and with the characters just running all over the place doing nothing (and without any freaking Autobots!) it gets very boring.

Everything wrong with the 2 movies is in their conception, and no place is it worse than in the actual appearance of the Transformers. What made them cool in the cartoon was how simple they looked. You could see how Optimus Prime could turn into a semi truck, how Iron Hide could turn into a van (that’s right, a van). No only were they simple, they were brightly colored. It was easy to tell Prime from Megatron, Starscream from Bumblebee. But, because they decided it would be cooler to make them look like a mess of parts held together by a giant glob of super glue, you can’t tell any of the Transformers apart, and the battle scenes are just giant amalgamations of fast moving parts that you eventually end up not caring about.

They introduce some new Transformers in the movie, but, of course, we don’t really get to see them for more than a second or two. The only ones who are remotely cool are Decepticons (see, I told you they come off better) Soundwave, who isn’t a boom box, but a satelite, which just makes him look cool, not that he actually does anything that great, and Rampage, the cat-like thing that was one of the cassettes that Soundwave shot out in the show.

The only two new characters we really get to know are the ones that take the move from just bad to racist, the Autobot twins, Mudflap and Skids.

Of the 2, only Skids appeared in the original cartoon, and then only in 2 episodes, barely speaking, so these new characters really have no basis in the history of Transformers. If you thought Jazz came off as a racist and offensive representation in the first one (and if you didn’t: really?) then you haven’t even begun to be offended. The “characters” call back to the minstrel shows of the good old days, when it was prefectly acceptable to be racially insensitive in every way. They proudly acknowledge that they don’t read! Of all the nonsense of this movie, Michael Bay owes an apology for this one. Of course, he just says “it’s good, old-fashioned fun”. Way to keep the douche streak alive.

So, at the end, the only thing worth seeing the movie for is Megan Fox, and really, you can go to any newsstand anywhere and find her onl the cover of about 15 magazines.

And sure, she’s ridiculously attractive. Like kill your best friend for 15 minutes with her attractive. But it’s an awful lot of hype for somebody who hasn’t done anything as an actor. She’s been in the 2 terrible Transformers movies and in How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, which she was good in, but playing a vacant movie star doesn’t seem like much of a stretch. There are plenty of equally ridiculously attractive female actors out there who have actually made some things worth watching, so, in order to forget this terrible movie, and remember a good actress, I submit Alexis Bledel: