|
.jpg) “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a film that is bursting at its seams with arrogance and immaturity. It’s a sequel that is ill-conceived and the product of the director’s uncontrollable ego. What good will that might have been earned during the series’ first film is squashed within the opening minutes. “Revenge” is not just a step back for Michael Bay, but for blockbuster summer movies as a whole.
As the film opens, we learn that the robot wars have been going on in secret for a few years. How a series of 100 foot tall robots could be kept secret is amazing jump in logic that the film just barely covers. Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky is going off to college, leaving his guardian and first car, Bumblebee, at home. Before leaving for college, Sam discovers a shard of the ‘cube’ from the first film in his jacket. The shard transmits crazy imagery into Sam’s brain, leading to an epic meltdown during his first day of college classes.
Sam leaves his girlfriend, Mikaela (once again played by Megan Fox) in charge of the shard. Since Mikaela has the piece of the cube and Sam has the cube’s information in his brain, they are both targets of the Decepticons, who want the information to bring back their leader and beat the Autobots and, I guess, blow up the sun. There are so many plot threads that it’s hard to discern the Decepticons goals. It does lead to a lot of explosions, though; a lot of explosions.
Every moment of “Revenge” is evidence of a director that needs to be put on a short leash. Michael Bay’s earlier films, “Bad Boys” and “The Rock”, have shown that he can make capable and exciting action films. After the failure of “Pearl Harbor”, Bay went off the deep end; creating films that are over-the-top, loud and mindless. It’s as if Bay looked at the script to “Revenge” and devoted himself to making the movie “awesome.”
“Revenge” is easily one of the worst Bay films.
The first “Transformers” movie I found to be about 20 minutes too long. Subsequent viewings assured me of this as the army storyline in the first film is completely unnecessary. With “Revenge”, Bay uses the army with a better result. There are conflicts inside the military that pay off and are entertaining. I feel like Bay and company did a better job of working Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson’s characters into the fabric of the film this time around.
Having said that, this film is about an hour and twenty minutes too long. Bloated doesn’t begin to describe the film. We don’t get to the main thrust of the story until an hour into the movie, until then it’s nothing more than running and robots fighting. Sure, it can be entertaining, but there needs to be a purpose to the fighting.
“Revenge” is a visual representation of what’s going on inside Michael Bay’s head. From the immature humor to the robots fighting, I can’t help but wonder if Bay thinks that the celluloid horror he’s produced could ever be looked at as entertaining. It feels like a filmmaker out of control, a director who needs some serious oversight and director with great promise who is now bordering on becoming a parody of himself. Michael Bay needs an editor with an opinion and quickly.
Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman may have handed Bay an excellent script, but how the characters are rendered, how the action scenes are developed and the overall pacing is up to how Bay makes their script a reality. He brought their script to life by infusing it with stereotypes, fart jokes and explosions.
Bay seems to be amusing himself with robot bodily functions. Robots frequently unleash fiery farts for no reason. Sam’s car, Bumblebee, sprays yellow fluid all over the beautiful co-ed Alice, played by Isabel Lucas. Finally, we get a great look at one of the robot’s giant robotic testicles. Yes, this film has robot balls. It’s like a 12-year-old made the film. At one point, Bay has one of his robots hump the leg of Megan Fox. I wish I were joking. To the laughs of the characters around her, Fox’s leg is embraced and humped by a robot.
When the film isn’t obsessed with robotic fart jokes, it’s making the viewer into guests at Michael Bay’s house of voyeuristic female shots. Bay doesn’t make female characters, he makes them objects. We are re-introduced to Fox’s Mikaela as she’s bent over a motorcycle, presumably working on it. The camera shot reveals that Fox isn’t in the best position to be working on that particular part the bike. She’s positioned for the camera, not the job. Throughout the entire flick Mikaela is begging Sam to say that he loves her and when he refuses; Mikaela responds with more begging. Bay is dehumanizing her and making her into an empty soul without Sam’s love. Is Sam a character, or just a placeholder for Bay? Is it Bay that wants Fox to beg for his love? It’s not outside the realm of reason seeing that the camera lingers just a little too long on both Fox and Lucas. It’s Michael Bay’s fantasy and we’re all invited.
Throughout the movie, we are introduced to new robots, seemingly every few minutes. The most notable of the newbie bots are the twins, Mudflap and Skids (voiced by Reno Wilson and Tom Kenny). Some found these two to be racist stereotypes. I didn’t, but I did find them to be annoying. My favorite of the new bots was Wheelie (also voiced by Kenny). He’s a robot that is kidnapped by Sam and Mikaela. He was my favorite, until he started humping Megan Fox’s leg and then I was just as repulsed by Wheelie as I was the rest of the film.
The film continues to introduce new robots well into the third act. They could have titled the film “Transformers: Check out all of the Robots!” and it would have been more accurate. Some of the robots just show up for one scene. Most of the robots look the same and mix together by the end of the film, so the result of the final battle is robots you don’t know fighting robots you don’t know. Once the final battle arrived, I just tuned out. I had stopped caring and wanted it to end.
There is one bright point. There is a battle in the woods that is awesome. It’s well shot and showed the robots fighting at length, so I could see what was happening. But by the end, it was back to the same too-close shots and quick edits that plagued the battle scenes in the first film. The film meanders and changes its story and rules so much that by the final reel, I didn’t care about the characters and didn’t care who died and who lived. I just didn’t want to be in Michael Bay’s hellish landscape anymore.
|
.jpg){kind=small}
