Loaded Couch Potatoes

I had a very complex emotional reaction to Transformers: Revenge of the Sith, or Transformers: Rise of the Lycans, or whatever this “movie” is called.  Yes, that’s right: a complex emotional reaction.  Because on the one hand, I was bored out of my skull (and more than a little insulted) by it, but on the other hand, I’m well aware that a lot of people are going to go see this and have an absolute blast, and what worries/confuses/angers/saddens/depresses me is the thought that I, too, could have had a great time watching this movie, if only I was … if only I was …

If only I was what?  What qualities am I lacking that make it possible for other people to love these movies, whereas I dislike them so entirely that I can’t even quite remember what the second one was about only a few hours after seeing it?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say that these are movies for stupid people.  But, really, that’s an asshole thing to say, isn’t it?  Yes, it is.  And it’s also not true.  I know perfectly intelligent people who dug the hell out of the first one, and I’d guess that most of them will dig the hell out of this one, too.  They’re not stupid at all; some of them are way smarter than I’ll ever think about being.

But I think they must be turning their brains off when they sit down to watch this movie.  Either that, or they are appreciating it on some level that I’m simply not privy to.  I know — or, at least, strongly suspect — that it’s not on a level of fidelity to the source material; I’ve heard from too many Transformers fans who feel that their franchise has been butchered almost beyond repair by these movies to believe that it’s because they’re just thrilled to see the characters on screen.

Is it because these movies represent a new industry standard for digital effects, or for on-screen action?  Well … maybe that’s what people think.  However, as somebody who has seen all the same movies these people would be using as points of comparison, I can categorically say that in no way do this movie’s effects or action scenes represent a new gold standard for the industry.  And neither did they in the first movie.

So what is it?  Just what the blue fuck is so great about these movies?

I’ll answer that question, for myself if for nobody else: not a god damned thing.

These movies suck.  It’s just that simple.  Revenge of the Fallen is one limp scene after another after another.  I thought this movie would never end.  It’s two and a half hours, and not since we invented the waiting room at a children’s cancer ward has two and a half hours seemed like such a long time to be in one place.

Nothing works in this movie, almost literally.

Shia LaBeouf, who was excellent in the first one, is mostly wasted in this one, despite being in what seemed like almost every scene.  He does a lot of running, and a lot of looking concerned, and not much else.  I’m glad he’s a star, and I hope he does better in the future.

Megan Fox … well, she’s Megan Fox.  If you dig her, then you’ll probably want to see this movie.  But I’ve got to say, I do not dig her, at least not in the Transformers movies.  She’s got a sort of vapidity to her that I simply cannot abide.  That, combined with her olive skin and over-ripe lips, would serve her well in movies that required her face to be ejaculated upon, but as far as I can tell, Fox has no innate personality.  And I know for damn sure that Michael Bay is incapable of imbuing her with one on film, so nearly every scene she is in is a complete and utter waste of time.  Sure, fellas, have at her; if I want to watch gorgeous in motion, an adjective made flesh, then I’ll go see the next Amy Adams movie, and let you have the Megan Foxes of the world all to yourself.

I’m being harsh on Fox, and I probably shouldn’t be.  I’ve never seen her in a movie that didn’t start with the syllable Trans-, and since neither of those movies required any acting of her, I have literally no idea whether or not she can act.  It could well be that she’s got tons of talent; I’ll get back to you on that once I’ve seen Jennifer’s Body and/or Jonah Hex, after which I will hopefully have gotten a look at a more interesting take on what she can do.  Michael Bay wants only to use her as a kewpie doll, and frankly, that offends me.  I know it’s hard for me to plausibly seem indignant over her underutilization here when I was just making jokes about her being better suited to taking facials on-screen, but Michael Bay is doing nothing to discourage those sorts of pornographic associations; he does nothing to directly encourage them, but there is simply no question that Mikaela exists only as safely sexualized eye-candy.  Baby, that shit don’t fly in 2009, and it baffles me that more women aren’t at least a little annoyed by it.

Speaking of shit that don’t fly in 2009, did I mention the ghettobots?  This movie has a couple of twin Autobots who speak in a ghetto dialect, have gold teeth, and apparently can’t read.  Coming from another kind of ghetto, one pint-sized Decepticon speaks in a Jersey-mafia-style Italianate.  I guess it’s supposed to be funny to hear that kind of stuff coming out of a robot; same goes for the ghettobots’ dialogue.  But I have to ask: why is it that the robots we’re supposed to laugh at, rather than marvel at, all have ethnic voices?  Maybe there’s one that doesn’t fit that bill, and I just don’t remember it … but I don’t think there is.  And I’ve got to say, that’s pretty damned offensive.  Maybe in the next movie, we can get one to be tight with money and constantly say “oy vey!”

The movie has way more problems than these, though.  The story … well, actually, I’m not in a position to comment much on the story.  I just watched the movie, but I’ll be damned if I can remember much about it.  It’s got something to do with Sam getting a big chunk of info downloaded into his brain.  This coincides with pieces of the Allspark being stolen by Decepticons so that they can revive Megatron, who can then be a part of the plot by The Fallen to finish the job he started eons previously of destroying the Earth.

Why is he doing this?  It’s got something to do with needing the sun’s energy.  I think.  Why Megatron was vital to this plot, I do not know.  Why The Fallen was just sitting there on his ass all those millennia rather than invading Earth and finishing the job, I also do not know.  I don’t know why the Autobots would just keep the shards of the Allspark on Earth if they knew they were that dangerous; these fuckers can fly in space, so why wouldn’t they have just gathered the pieces up and sailed ‘em into the fucking sun?

It could well be that some of these things make sense if you’re paying close enough attention.  I wouldn’t know about that.  If light can be shed on my poor brain, then please, feel free to do so.  Until somebody does so persuasively, I’m going to continue to believe that the story is garbage.

The screenplay was written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, returning from the “triumph” of the first film.  They had better luck with their revamped Star Trek, but I feel safe in saying that J.J. Abrams had a lot to do with that, and Michael Bay is no J.J. Abrams.  He seems to have encouraged the writers to wedge in even more “hilarious” comedic scenes than the first movie had.  Didja ever wonder what Sam’s mom might be like if she got stoned?  This movie’s got you covered.  Did you ever wonder how a King Kong-sized robot would fart?  This movie’s got you covered on that topic, too.  Robotic testicles?  Yep.  A leg-humping mini-Decepticon?  You bet, pal; comin’ right up.  Loved John Turturro in the first movie?  Well, he’s got an even bigger part in this one (and, happily, he’s at least watchable in the sequel, whereas in the first one his mere presence was execrable, almost as Bay’d wanted Rob Schneider but couldn’t get him).

The movie sends Sam off to college, but it does so for no real reason (yawn-inducingly, it’s supposed to introduce “character”-based “tension” into the “story” of Sam’s “romance” with Mikaela).  It gets him off campus again in about ten minutes.  In that time: his mother eats some special brownies; he goes to a frat party; he gets tempted by a supposedly hot girl (played by an unappealing actress so skinny she makes Megan Fox look like Danny McBride); he gets a roommate who just so happens to run a website (utterly irrelevant to the plot) about the coverup of alien robots on Earth; he freaks out in a class taught by Professor Dwight Schrute; and so forth.  It’s like a Rodney Dangerfield movie for a few minutes there, only without any laughs.

The whole movie goes like that.  An element is introduced, and then discarded, and another element is brought forth as a replacement.  I’d call it episodic, but the episode would be too lengthy a measurement for this movie’s attention span.  This thing is like a loosely connected series of webisodes.  Now, I know attention spans aren’t what they used to be, but this is ridiculous even by 2009 standards.

Thing is, that approach can work: witness Star Trek, which bounces from one thing to the next at roughly the same speed, but manages to do so with consistent throughlines in its themes and performances.  Again, this is where J.J. Abrams reveals himself to be a vastly superior director to Michael Bay.  Bay will win the battle at the box office, but he doesn’t deserve to; it’s like when Crash won the Oscar all over again, just naked injustice.

So, Honk, the effects are awesome, though, right?

Wrong, muthafucka.  They are not awesome.  They’re occasionally good, but all too often, nothing seems to have any weight.  In about 95% of the shots, the effects may look kinda real, but they do not feel real in that undefinable way that truly great effects do.

The effects themselves are not to blame.  Again, that’s Bay at work.  He creates an air that simply does not allow for anything resembling a genuine emotion.  People buy into effects — which often depict something patently unreal — because they form an emotional attachment to a character or situation, and that attachment briefly cons their minds into accepting as reality something which does not exist.  It’s a magic trick, pure sleight of hand … a moment in which you realize you have no idea which shell the marble is beneath.

Michael Bay has no magic in his approach.  None whatsoever.  He doesn’t care if you’re wondering which shell the marble is under; he’s too busy kicking over the table and screaming in your face, “IT’S UNDER THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE!”  Because of that, while the effects might be significant technological achievements, as artistic achievements they are merely mediocre.

If you think otherwise, compare literally anything in this movie with the shot of the metallic skeleton rising from the flames toward the end of The Terminator.  Compare it to King Kong on the Empire State Building in either the original or the Peter Jackson version of King Kong.  Compare it to The Thing’s head stretching off of the rest of its body, snapping off, and turning into a spider-legged abomination in Carpenter’s The Thing.

The fact of the matter is that people only love movies because they form connections to them, and through movies, they form connections to other people, if they’re doing it right.  And at the end of the day, or at the beginning of it or in the middle, I cannot imagine why anybody would form an attachment to this movie.  It has no soul.  It has no spark of life, of meaning, of philosophy; it has no logic, it has no wit, it has no romance, or mystery, or sentiment; it has no empathy for or understanding of what it means to be a human, or even of what it might mean to be a robot.

This is a movie made by a charlatan for people whom I can only describe as cinematically illiterate.  If that offends you, then I don’t apologize; instead, I point you toward the truly great popcorn flicks: movies like Star Wars, The Dark Knight, Lethal Weapon, Predator, Terminator 2, The Wrath of Khan, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lord of the Rings, Casino Royale, Aliens, Jaws, and so many more.  Movies like Transformers need not end up being movies like Transformers; it’s entirely possible for them to be something better and more meaningful.

You deserve those better movies, and so do I.

And when this much money is spent making a movie, call me crazy, but maybe a little of it ought to have been set aside to make sure that a better movie was the result.  Instead, we get this.  A pile of frozen cat turds with a note that says “Fudge — Enjoy!”

I, for one, ain’t buying it.