I wish I could say that I noticed that the acronym for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen could also mean “Rolling On The Floor (laughing),” but it didn’t dawn on me until I read Howard Taylor’s review of the movie over at Schlock Mercenary.
Then again, Howard is completely awesome and I’m just a part-timer. So, there you go. Credit where credit is due.
I was going to write a review for Transformers: ROTF, but I can’t quite muster the venom for it that I was expressing a few days ago after seeing it in IMAX.
Let me just say this; Basically all the negative reviews you’ve been reading are true. The movie is crass, overlong and impossible to make sense of. Remember when people said that the robots were the best part of the first movie? Well, in the sequel, I didn’t even like the robots.
Much has been written about the racist caricature of African Americans with the inclusion of “The Twins,” Skids and Mudflap. I was peripherally aware of the controversy going in and didn’t think much of it at first. I was willing to give Michael Bay the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I’ve known dopey white guys in college who used Ebonic slang, so maybe he was making fun of that.
But the buck teeth and the gold tooth is hard to ignore. I was particularly amazed when one of the robots said they didn’t read.
In an interview with CHUD, Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have distanced themselves from the characters saying their look and vocal affectations were not their idea, but were the result of a decision made by director Michael Bay.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Bay doesn’t exactly denounce the idea that Skids and Mudflap are racial stereotypes and also does a little bit of passing the buck himself.
“…These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it.”
Bay said the parts “were kind of written but not really written, so the voice actors is when we started to really kind of come up with their characters.”
Ultimately, Bay says “I purely did it for kids. Young kids love these robots, because it makes it more accessible to them.”
So basically what Bay is saying is that Skids and Mudflap are the Jar Jar Binks of the Transformers universe…
Here’s the thing: I can’t remember which review I read that says this, but I have to agree with the sentiment – Bay is simply too egotistical to pitch this movie to it’s intended audience. He’s too bloated with self-esteem to realize this is a movie that SHOULD be for kids.
I was sitting next to a kid watching this movie. Wanna know what he thought every time Skids and Mudflap came on screen? “Every time those robots talk, they use bad words, Mommy.”
Bingo.
I mean, this is the guy that put a pair of testicles on Devastator, for crying out loud. Then again, how else are you going to top Bumblebee “peeing” on John Turturro from the first movie?
Something I find particularly egrigious about this movie is Bay flexing his connections in the Department of Defense. There is so much military hardware in this movie, so lovingly shot and beautifully lit, I can only imagine Bay looking over the footage and rubbing his nipples like Simon Cowell at the thought of it.
When I finished watching this movie on Wednesday, I sent the following update to Twitter: “Transformers 2: Never has a movie so loud been so boring.” The scenes shot in IMAX with Devastator at the pyramids was impressive, but the rest of the film was a twitching bore.
Has anyone else seen the film since it came out on Wednesday or are you waiting for the weekend to check it out? If you saw it, what did you think? If you haven’t seen it, have the bad reviews dissuaded you?
Leave your comments below!
...and that reminded me of the internet acronym "ROTF!"
ISN'T THAT CRAZY?
Because...
"ROTF means "Rolling On The Floor (laughing)" and because...
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is...
...laughably bad?
I don't get it: Are you a movie nerd or an internet nerd?
They can overlap.
Tom- I saw it with my family- including my 5 year old brother- when I went home for a visit. My Dad had to take him out of it because he couldnt understand why a wholesome, funny kiddies cartoon had swearing racist robots and a half naked slut in every seen. Don’t get me wrong- i appreciated these scenes…..but to market a film for children and expose them to a college slag-bot was ridiculous.
I meant “scene” of course- damn text speech is slipping into my grammar….
“I can only imagine Bay looking over the footage and rubbing his nipples like Simon Cowell at the thought of it.”
That is quite possibly one of the funniest things I have ever read.
I probably won’t see it till after it has come out on video. I haven’t even seen the first one yet. I do plan too eventually, it just isn’t one of those movies that I feel I HAVE to see.
Yeah I think this flick has managed to get into that realm of movies like Attack of the Clones where I pretty much refuse to pay to see it, in the theater or on DVD, and it’ll be up to someone else to make me watch it. I really didn’t like the first one, guess I’m just going to curl up with my new Transformers cartoon season 1 boxset and relive my childhood instead…
One review I read stated “watching Lebouf act is like watching a small kitten dieing.”
not to mention that the movie overall fell short.
I’m skipping this one.
I saw the movie Wednesday and I rather enjoyed it. The opening scene had me somewhat all pupmed up like I was going on a mission to take out some Decepticons. I laughed a lot, especially over Sam’s mom. I thought it felt kind of long and maybe some stuff could have been cut or trimmed but still wasn’t all that bad. I noticed the stereotypical black in those twins but don’t think it should be that big of a deal. I am a strong believer in everything is ok to make fun of or nothing is. You never watched a movie with black people making fun of whitey? Lastly, as far as who this movie is directed to, after the 4th humping scene and 5th time someone said shit, I leaned over to my girlfriend and asked “Isn’t Transformer made for little kids?” Walking out I looked at is as the movie was directed towards the kids who watched the original cartoon and played with the original toys. We are all grown up now and can handle stereotypes, foul language, and dogs and robots humping. At least, that’s how I see it!
Mike, the movie is not intended for men in their 30’s who grew up with the original cartoon. If it were, they wouldn’t be selling brightly colored toys and lunchboxes.
I agree that there are few taboos in comedy, but a film for children is not the context to “send up” racist stereotypes – if that’s what Bay was intending, which I don’t think he was. If anything, Bay is reinforcing those stereotypes, and that’s not cool.
I was going to see it tonight with my girlfriend. Then she started reading reviews and told me she would probably get angry and take it out on me.
So we’re just going to see The Hangover.
I was really looking forward to this movie. After being terribly disappointed by Wolverine, and having a tepid response to Terminator, I was really hoping this movie would carry on the excitement of Star Trek, both in the quality of film, and sci-fi genre.
But, well, it seems that Michael Bay has lived up to his reputation of being, well, awful.
Your girlfriend will thank you for seeing The Hangover. It’s by far the best movie this summer.
Well, that and Up. But Up isn’t quite as entertaining and leaves you a little emotionally drained.
If you HAVE to see Transformers, go with some buddies you can laugh with and don’t spend more than the price of a matinee ticket.
So far, it’s been an underwhelming summer at the movies with the exception of Star Trek and Up. Angels & Demons, blah! Wolverine? Feh! Pelham 123, Gah! Even comedies are awful this time with the Proposal and Year One getting tepid responses with the exception of the Hangover.
I have a feeling that G.I. Joe will be godawful and . Public Enemies and Harry Potter have potential not to suck, but at this point, I’m just keeping my expectations low. Except for Bruno – you just know that’s going to be awesome.
I’m seeing ROTF tonight, but am planning on making it a MST3K-esque evening with friends.
Hoping to see Transformers tonight. With friends of course so we can laugh at how bad the humor is.
I can tell you right now that G.I. Joe will be terrible. When you have a hard time identifying regular characters from the series the movie is based on, you’ve got a director who has just ignored the source material. Seriously, I think I recognized Snake Eyes and that was about it. At one point I thought it was a movie based on Crysis.
When a movie I don’t care about is poorly received and still makes bank, I feel… about the same, I guess. I am a little annoyed that a movie supposedly so terrible (CHUD is where I get my mian reviews, and Devin was especially hostile towards this one) makes more in a day than the probably-leagues-better Watchmen did opening weekend. Doesn’t speak well of the mainstream theater-going audience (but then again, what does?).
Luckily Public Enemies opens next week, so that will (hopefully) bring some quality back in.
I don’t understand why Watchmen’s box office failure is the measuring stick in this debate on quality. The potential audience for that film was minuscule from the get-go. It was a limited series comic book from over 20 years ago when NO ONE was reading comic books.
Transformers, on the other hand, was beamed directly into television sets around the world DAILY for almost a decade.
I help manage a movie theater, and I’ve found that being able to see any movie for free doesn’t make me see a lot more movies. If anything, I’ve become more selective. For example, I could have watched Angels & Demons, Wolverine, Pelham, or any number of other recent movies, but I’ve only sat through Star Trek (loved it) and The Proposal (wife loved it!) I’m probably not going to waste time watching Transformers, and unless G.I. Joe turns out to be absolutely AWESOME in the opinion of my employees I’m not going to see that either (can’t Dennis Quaid get a decent role these days?). Probably won’t bother with Bruno. Probably will watch Half-Blood Prince to see just what the filmmakers messed up in the translation to film (the first two were good, but after that they went downhill fast.) I might even finish watching Up soon, before Ice Age replaces it in our 3D houses.
I’d love to hear the views of other people who don’t have to pay for their movies (like movie theater workers) on recent and upcoming movies, and how not having to pay for movies has or hasn’t changed their movie going habits.
rofl you mean?
cause the internet never uses ROTF. That’s like ‘cnn/foxnew discovers the internet’ type of thing.
“KIDS SAY LAL BECAUSE IT MEANS LAUGHING AT LADIES, NEWS AT 11”
Eh, it really isn’t, I’m just complaing about nothing at this point.
I managed a screening two days before this came out in the states, a day before it was released here, took my 11 year old daughter along who loved the first film – personally I thought it was crap. She didn’t like all the swearing or the Twins, she thought they were dumb and added nothing to the story. I thought that was impossible cause there really isn’t a story to add to. I then foolishly made a video rant on youtube and was kind of shocked by the response – people defending this film to the death, one going so far as to say the film hasn’t got a plot but it doesn’t need one cause it’s Transformers. Are films really being made for people who have no idea about the need to tell a story, or who think robotic testicles are cool?
I bet I’ll like this film. So many people hated Star Wars Episode 2, I loved it. So many people hated Wolverine, I loved it. So many people think that the trailers for GI Joe suck, I love them. So many people hate the 3rd and 4th Terminator films, I love them. So, I’m on my own film criticism scale. I’ll prolly have to wait for dvd. But that’s cause I don’t have the $$, not because I don’t wanna see it in theater.
As someone who will freely admit I enjoyed the first one (in a shut down my brain kind of way) I was pretty excited for this one as well. I got tickets and went to the midnight showing Tuesday. Unfortunately, all I noticed in most of the scenes that had any action whatsoever was how shaky and jolting the camera movements were. I spent the entire 2nd half of the movie so nauseous I had to close my eyes at points to keep from throwing up. What I realized later was that I was actually sick (just stared feeling better this morning), so I consider my experience a complete waste, and since I can’t afford to see it a second time in the theater as I had to stretch to make the first time work, I’m just going to have to wait for the DVD.
I enjoyed transformers. it was whimsical, there were epic bad guys, stalwart heros, impossible situations to overcome, and characters that were well defined. I never saw/heard on robot and thought it was another, each has a clearly defined character. also, regardless of the intentions of those who made the movie, I do not believe the twins came off as sterotypical, they just seemed like children and it was kind of fun to see them on screen showing that all the autobots are not flawless, distant, and humorless
I don’t get you people… I understand websites are full of people who will agree just because he’s the author, but seriously… This movie was nowhere near that bad. It wasn’t even really bad. It was too long, there was too much comic relief, and the plot was meh… but I just DON’T CARE. It’s TRANSFORMERS for Christ’s sake… I wanted to see awesome robots in amazing fight scenes, and the movie was 2/3rds that. At the end of it I had exactly the feeling I wanted going in.
People who complain about plot, or logic in a Michael Bay film are stupid. You go see these movies for mindless, awesome action. You don’t worry about the fact that landing a spaceship on an asteroid with a bunch of oil drillers is stupid, you accept it and enjoy the ride.
Wow, Noodles. Tell us what you really think.
People who complain about Michael Bay movies are stupid and anyone who happens to agree with me as to the quality of Transformers 2 are sheep?
Apparently your only requirements for the movie to be successful is that it features robots who fight. Why should we take your opinion seriously when your standards are so incredibly low? Clearly you’re not objective.
There is a difference between turning off your brain for two hours and having a good time. It’s quite something else to be subjected as something as emotionally stunted and intellectually atrophied as Transformers 2.
Robots humping Megan Fox’s leg? A giant robot with testicles? HILARIOUS!
I already had tickets purchased for this for sunday before I saw the reviews, now considering the overwhelming negativity that most who’ve seen it seems to feel I’m kind of dreading it. If there weren’t other people wanting to go I might have decided to just eat the cost and skip it.
Goddamn was this movie annoying. I keep saying it wasn’t necessarily bad but I simply cannot get over how annoying it was, so maybe it was bad. The racist twins (I didn’t even realize they had names I was so uninterested) made me groan every time they came on screen (which was like every 5 seconds), along with the bearded pirate-like old plane (someone kill me), and the little toy truck that humped Megan Fox (not as funny as they thought it was).
I like the first movie, I mean it had some lame campy humor but it was pretty easy to filter out. The sequel? No. They refuse to let you ignore their stupid jokes because they keep using them over and over again. And the balls on the Devastator, really now? We’ve gone that low?
I wish it were just the stupid jokes but there were a billion more useless dialogue to muddle through. The speeches that Megatron, Starscream, the Fallen, the stereotypical smug bureaucrat, even Optimus Prime who is kinda famous for melodramatic speeches was way over the top and all around unnecessary and annoying. More than half of the things said in ROTF should never have been said, same goes for what was shown. Less is usually more in my book.
There was just too much Captain Exposition-ing, too much monologue for why people do what they do, too much random bickering, too much scenes dragging on and dying. They characters said more than ever but I still didn’t understand them a damn bit because it was all just so useless.
This will make me sound like some sort of ignorant action snob but really, people don’t go to a Michael Bay movie for character analyzing speeches and jokes, they go for robot fights and explosions. He ruined what everyone was going for by interrupting it with his stupid dialogue.
I did not need that image of Michael Bay in my head.
I think why a lot of people are angry here, and why this seems to be so hotly contested, is because so many people are judging this movie on it’s merits as a FILM. Not that this is unfair or inaccurate; it’s just redundant. Of COURSE it’s a bad film. With Michael Bay attached to it, how could it not be? That’s why I didn’t go into the movie expecting to watch a decent movie; I simply went in hoping for more giant robot fights (which I felt the first movie didn’t have enough of, but maybe that’s just me). And it delivered on that front. Many people don’t like the way Bay films action, and I see where they’re coming from, but for one reason or another, it didn’t bug me. I was greatly entertained by the fights, so I left happy.
Yes, the acting is pretty bad. Yes, most of the jokes are lame, and the rest make you feel a little stupider for laughing at them. Yes, the dialogue is campy and mostly pointless. Yes, the aforementioned “Jar Jar Binks” robots are very annoying (although I have to admit, I never picked up on the alleged racism involved; I’d like to assume it’s something more innocent, but the evidence is pretty compelling). In short, yes, Transformers 2 is a very, very bad film, and I don’t think anybody could reasonably claim otherwise.
But, while Bay’s inability to decide on his audience may prevent the movie from succeeding in all it’s endeavours (romance, comedy, drama, etc.), I can honestly say that it succeeded in the one area that I cared about, the only reason I saw the film in the first place. The convoluted plot (which I think is being overstated somewhat) didn’t bother me because I wasn’t too concerned with following it; the annoying characters didn’t faze me because I simply ignored them. Basically, the flaws of the movie didn’t ruin the experience for me, because in the end, I saw plenty of what I wanted to see: Transformers kicking the shit out of each other. I ignored all the bad because the good was plenty good enough for me. Maybe I’m just an easy critic, and I certainly don’t begrudge any of you your complaints. I just think that, if it IS possible to ignore them, you probably would have had a better time.
My one real issue? You know the scene where all the robots are coming to life and destroying the kitchen? And then it cuts to the one dog humping the other for five seconds before switching back? That really bothered me, and not just because it’s terrible filmmaking. No, the reason it bothered me so much is because somebody got PAID to write that scene. Somebody got paid a decent sum of money to write “cut to dogs humping”. Not to mention somebody probably got paid to make those dogs start humping in the first place.
Just an FYI but Safari today just protected me from your site claiming Malware again. Your site was clean for over a week but looks like it’s a problem again.
I saw the movie Thursday morning- matinee prices, and they played it at 10AM so I was able to see it before going to bed (I work an overnight shift)
I enjoyed the movie, but I recognise that much of that came from the theater experience- when times were better I’d see three or more movies a week at the theater, butI haven’t been able to afford to see a movie in theaters since Taken (which was awesome). Overall, I had a good time, but there were lots of things about the movie I didn’t like. The Devastator balls thing I didn’t pay any attention to, but I’d like to discuss Skids and Mudflap: When they were first on screen, as the ice cream truck, I saw a Decepticon symbol, and when I heard the terrible trash talk, I was fine- it was a Decepticon. Then they get back to base and it turns out they’re Autobots? Now, personally, I never once thought of them as black stereotypes- I got more of a trailertrash/yokel vibe from them, I just thought they were crude, offensive, and entirely unneccessary. They contributed absolutely nothing to the plot (There actually was a plot in there) and I didn’t find any of their antics amusing. The other thing that really bothered was the total lack of respect the film paid to any of the source material. [Significant spoiler warning] The Primes created a device which destroys stars to convert them to energon, and they built it on Earth – ok, fine. Far fetched, but I can accept that. The device has a key that’s needed to make it operate – makes total sense. That key is called the Matrix of Leadership *record scratch noise* excuse me? Now, that didn’t make sense when it was said in the movie “The Primes created a doomsday machine, and the key required to start this machine was named the matrix of leadership” was the most jarring line of dialog in the whole movie for me, because I certainly wouldn’t name the key to my doomsday engine The Matrix of Leadership because that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever (any my doomsday engine has a push-button ignition). But beyong the cohesiveness of that concept is the feeling that they simply took the name from an artifact in the Transformers Universe and shoehorned it onto something in the movie. I can reason out an explanation that kind of makes the name make sense- only the leader has the right to activate the machine, or whatever, but The Matrix is a very specific artifact in Transformers.
[end significant spoiler warning]
I also hated that Soundwave spent the whole movie humping a satelite, but that’s just because he’s always been my favourite character, and seeing him in the movie but not doing anything bugged me.
The Fallen looked like a Lego Bionicle ™ guy, and never transformed, so on what grounds is he a Transformer?
Oh, and until he identified himself, I assumed “Wheelie” was Rumble, because that’s how Rumble talked in the original cartoon. Final gripe- the nameless, faceless Decepticons who never transformed into anything, and served no purpose but to give the humans something to defeat as their contribution to the battle. How are they going to turn them into toys?
Things I liked: Optimus’ dropping from the plane. Jetfire- it’s good to have an old curmudgeon, and I’ve loved the SR71 since I was 6. I also quite liked his cane. I liked that Optimus got a bit of a Power-Link going on, as that became a staple in later versions of the cartoon. I liked that there were fewer unneccessary human characters taking attention away from the giant robots. And mostly, I liked that it was a Transformers movie on the big screen.
I’m with the person who said they’d probably end up enjoying it. I also kind of agree with Noodles. It’s Transformers. it’s a summer movie. Summer movies don’t need plots or to even make any sense at all. They have explosions and all that jazz. You want plot and steady cam? Wait until December when your Kate Winslet movies come out. 😛 Also, I love how whenever a movie does good that the internet doesn’t like it’s because of the idiots and the people who obviously don’t know anything. I say, let people watch what they want to
Also, I was hyped to see The Hangover but in an odd case…the more people gush about how good it is the less I actually want to see it. I’ve been a fan of Zach Galifianakisgeezmylastnameislonganddifficulttospell for a couple of years so I’ve known about the awesomeness he provides. Now I see all these hipsters going around talking about how great it was and I’m starting to get the feeling that I’ve waited too long to enjoy this movie and soon the backlash will start.
One more thought…yeah…it’s ROFL. That’s why we have ROFLcopters and not ROTFcopters…sorry Tom.
I just really, really dislike the “logic” that because it’s a summer movie, it’s allowed to be bad. That’s such crap. You’re basically inviting the studios and producers of media to spit on your mind. It says less about the quality of their films and more about what you’re willing to accept. You’re basically saying “My standards are so low, I don’t care about dumb jokes, clunky dialogue and boring characters as long as you distract my with an explosion every few minutes.” It contributes to the dumbing down of America. You saw Idiocracy, didn’t you?
I’m not against entertainment that let’s me turn my brain off for a while, but a movie that insults my intelligence is not acceptable. That’s not what I pay money for.
Also ROTF is too an acronym. A variation of ROFL.
I get it. All film is art and all art should be great. But without the Transformers and the *Insert “bad” movie here* it would be meaningless to have “good” films such as *Insert “treasured” movie here*. It’s a necessary evil kind of thing that you’re fighting against. You can’t have good without evil and you can’t have good movies without bad ones. The dumbing down of America is and will continue to happen but it’s not exclusive to film it’s the internet, television…basically anything that we’ve convinced ourselves to believe that makes our lives easier but that’s a whole other rant that would seriously de-rail this whole comments section.
I just have to roll my eyes whenever people rage against films because they’re not as good as “Watchmen” or it’s not as great as “Up” or what have you. It’s all opinion and nobody is right or wrong in this instance. It just seems like complaining for the sake of complaining. I’m not any different than anyone else…I complain about movies and music and TV but still…the insistence(not entirely from you) that whoever liked this film is a moron or without taste seems a bit much.
oh…and Idiocracy sucked…hard. lol
Well, Idiocracy *did* suck. But the concept was right.
I understand where you’re coming from – that art is subjective and opinions pro or against art is unjustified. But there is also some truth to majority rule. If the majority of people have a problem with how the film communicates its ideas, whether it be through story, acting or editing… then the film can’t really be judged successful.
Of course, that’s a double-edged sword because there were more than enough people – myself included – who paid good money to MAKE the film successful. That is, if monetary achievement is what you use to measure success. The majority can also be profoundly dumb.
THAT is the purpose of criticism. One critic steps into the arena of art, uses their intellect and experience to judge if something is worth the effort to support for others. And it’s never one review that makes or breaks a critic. It’s a cumulative expression of thought that people either identify with and trust or reject entirely.
But to say that ALL of it is immaterial is not how the world works. Clearly you would not be spending so much time and effort trying to get your point across if you didn’t feel passionately about communicating your ideas to others.
For the record, I never called ANYONE stupid for liking Transformers. People are free to ignore my reviews and I don’t think the lesser of ANYONE for choosing what they choose to enjoy.
This is why I will never be allowed to become a critic. There’s no way I can actively put so much negativity to one single medium while at the same time add a hint of bile. Maybe they are right and seeing this movie puts me in the stupid category. Which is the impression I seem to get from many reviews, webcomic or otherwise. If so then I guess I am stupid. Still seeing it with my special lady who laughed and even got a little teary (Big Optimus fan), makes the experience all the more worth it.
As we both agreed, we wanted to see a movie with giant robots beating each other up. So in that regard we loved it. Nothing else needed to be said.
Meh. I liked the movie. Plot was pretty straight forward “Good Robots over staying their welcome. Bad Robots want to destroy Sun. Key to finding the weapon happened to be part of a thing that kid was running around with for the whole last movie while he was getting shot at and jumping around so a piece broke off lil bit of a stretch but not as hard to believe as Alien Robots. So get the kid, and get the weapon and save the world.” They did over do the comic bits but everyone rags on the Twins being racist because of their appearance and speech. Their look was based on the Autobot’s symbol. I may have the names backwards but Skid’s face was the top half of the Autobot’s emblem, and Mudflap’s wasa the bottom. Just like one of them had a large left arm and eye while the other had a large right arm and eye. Dont’ really notice until they make the the “don’t read” comment and it zooms in on them side by side.
And I have to disagree on target audience. I went twice (not for enjoyment two different groups of friends and that’s all they were doing this weekend) and both times theater was packed and out of full screenings there were probably five kids in each. The target was the same target that every action movie has Teen Boys and Middle Age men. The people who actually buy tickets to summer action movies. The toy point you made, well Hasbro owns it. There are going to be toys of every movie that does even remotely well, regardless of audience (Terminator toys on the shelf next to Batman at Walmart (Dark Knight a movie that I wouldn’t dream of taking a young child to)). The toy’s are being sold because it’s an established brand like “Batman” and they can sell the toys. Movie just gives them a reason to make new varieties.
Not that you were necessarily directing this at me (or anybody in particular), Tom, but I don’t think enjoying the film necessarily implies that one has naturally low standards (not exactly what you were saying, but bear with me here).
In my specific case, I simply went into the movie with very specific (and yes, low) expectations. I didn’t think “oh, despite all these flaws, this is a good/successful movie” or “explosions are all I need to entertain me”. If I only watched/enjoyed movies that met my own standard of “good”, then no, I would not have watched/enjoyed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But I think it is possible to watch a movie that one thinks is “bad” as a whole, and yet still enjoy it for it’s positive aspects, so long as the negative can be ignored. Couldn’t ignore the bad stuff in the movie? That’s not unreasonable in the slightest; I’m just a very lenient critic, which is why I could never do it for a living. Of course, as a long-time lover of film, Tom, I imagine you might watch movies in a very different way, and for very different reasons, than I (and others) would.
I get that you’re loathe to call Transformers a success (at least, in terms of quality), and I’m with you on that one. Maybe it’s oxymoronical (is that a word?), but as much as I enjoyed the movie, I’d proudly stand with you as you shouted to the masses that it’s a terrible film. As a FILM, as art, the movie is not a success. But as a personal movie experience, for me, it was. The two are not mutually dependent.
And as for the person who likened good and bad movies to the dichotomy of good and evil…I don’t think it works that way. I don’t think we need bad movies to enjoy the good ones. I mean, even if I hadn’t seen terrible movies like Hitchcock, X3, or Elektra, I think Iron Man still would have been just as awesome.
I liked it. However, I think a large part of the reason was because I read the novelization. I also think they could have cut about half of it. The large part of the old series is in there, Decepticons go after something, Autobots try to stop them, there’s a setback, Autobots come from behind to win. It seems stunted by jokes instead of developing a side story with characterization.
Quote -“Much has been written about the racist caricature of African Americans with the inclusion of “The Twins,” Skids and Mudflap….But the buck teeth and the gold tooth is hard to ignore. I was particularly amazed when one of the robots said they didn’t’t read”
I was OUTRAGED at the depiction of black people in this film. There is not one single solitary African American in the history of the world ever to have buck teeth let alone a gold tooth. Who does Mr. Bay think he is to portray black people in such a way. As far as reading every one knows the black community has the highest level of readers in the USA, Reading Rainbow anyone? I think it’s obscene that black people be shown in any other light than the truth. Now had there ever been any instance in the past where black people were known to wear gold teeth or were poor readers then Mr.Bay would be well within his right to make a caricature of something pre-existing in society today. But everyone knows that jus aint da truth.
The worst part of this movie is when telling my friends about it and mentioning that this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen in a theater, they brought up Batman and Robin. Thank you ROTF for Shumachering me.
Does anyone remember what happens to the Twins? They were fighting Devistator and then they were gone. I don’t remember what happened to them – but then again my mind was preoccupied envying Michael Jackson.
Anyone else think the special effects were horrible? Skidmark and Mudflap’s faces looked like something out of the Clone Wars movies – overly cartoonish rather than the sleek CGI of everyone else. When the humans and transformers interacted (Megatron holding down Sam/Sam and Bumblebee in the garage) was about as realistic as Luke Skywalker and the Rancor. The Rancor/Robot looked real. Luke/Sam looked real. When the two got together . . . not so much.
One more comment – when Shia went crazy, was he channeling Ben Stiller’s ‘Simple Jack’ character from Tropic Thunder?
I’m not going to see this movie… I’m also going to pass on GI Joe. I just don’t feel like paying for mediocraty.
the way I see it Bay is like Rob Leifeld. If he has someone holding the reins he can produse a good action flick (The Rock) but let him lose and it’s Pearl Harbour.
I just think my time would’ve been better spent staying at home watching the original cartoon movie, which I still watch every now and again. Also, why is it that Optimus sent out a message to the Autobots in the universe and Ultra Magnus didn’t show up? They’re old friends. Two trucks would’ve been excessive? Kind of as excessive as two hickerbilly robots whose very presence on screen makes the viewer want to punch a small child in the face. I would’ve forgiven them all of that if they would’ve just had one single Dinobot. The only way I’ll see the third is if they have Galvatron and Hot Rod. . .but I’d hate to see Bay defile my two favorite characters.
Really enjoyed the first 2/3rds of the movies, felt it ran a bit long but otherwise it was entertaining. Went in with pretty low expectations after hearing a few reviews and had fun watching it.
There are a lot of things that I could complain about (Megan Fox’s lack of acting ability, the fact that there were so many Transformers it started to get a bit difficult to keep track, etc) but in the end it was a Michael Bay movie about a bunch of giant robots, I was expecting lots of fighting, some stupid humor (which was funnier then I expected) and a decent amount of gratuitous Megan Fox…and thats pretty much what I got. Turned off my brain and enjoyed it.
@joshua They ran a big poll to pick the new robots for the film. And there was a lot of debate about the dinobots, they Orcie kept trying to write them in, but they didn’t feel like they could work it in to “this” movie because only a few of them were polling high. So they’re on the table as a main point to the third movie. Soundwave and the constructibots won the poll for this movie.
And I still wanna defend the twins. My friends and I never got the racist vibe everyone talks about until we came out and read everyone complaining about it online. We grew up in SE Kentucky, the way those two were acting could have been any number of kids (black and white) that we grew up around. We just thought they were dumb robots. And the thing about everyone getting cheated on lines, except the two stupid robots.Well, Mudflap, Skid, and Bumble Bee are the smallest and least stand-outish so they were the ones with the humans. Meaning for most of the movie the only robots on screen were the twins, the truck, and the robot who couldn’t talk. So, of course all the lines went to the ones who could actually speak.
I don’t mean to come off as over-defensive of the movie (wasn’t that good) but I just get the vibe that everyone wants to dislike the movie because of the way the robots look, or because of who the director is, and thats kind of silly.
I managed to catch the midnight premier of this movie and I can safely say that if I didn’t pay 12 dollars for the ticket I would have walked out half way through the film. I absolutely loved the first movie and I thought that the sequel would be more of the same. I have to agree with your views, Tom. It was absolutely not what transformers should have been. Especially how they crammed in new Autobots and Decepticons without giving them any story. Does anybody even know what the Corvette’s name was? I wanted so badly to be excited about the action scenes but I found that they were few and far between the ages of stupid jokes and endless stuttering. I thought they could have done the movie with about 10 less human characters. Also, *Spoiler alert here*
I wanted so badly for the twins to die. The only time I was genuinely excited by the end of the movie is when the red one got eaten. Then, disappointment when he survived. In the end I was sorely disappointed with this movie and I think that Michael Bay should invest in a little consumer surveying before making any more films. 4 thumbs down.
We saw it and actually enjoyed it. Laughed at all the stupid humor, and it was stupid. Your comment Tom about it being aimed at kids kept running through my mind though. Watching the movie it didn’t seem to be aimed at kids, but yet there are brightly colored toys made for it. Some of the stuff in it bothered me too, specially considering my 6 year old nephew had already seen the movie. Fortunately I doubt he caught on to the problems, probably didn’t even understand the humping dogs/robots.
And I’m gonna side with everyone about Michael Bay films…and I think the robot chicken guys said it best anyways:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?oid=6287271854&v=34808506532
Billy, I’m kinda baffled by your comment. You mention too many human characters and too much time between action sequences…which, to me, sounds a lot like the first movie. I’m not sure which movie you saw, but the movie I saw had less human characters and a lot more action sequences.
As for not giving the new robots enough development/story…ehn. I mean, it’s a fair point, but do you really care that much? I’m not as big a fan of the classic Transformers as most die-hard fans, but the way I see it, complex characterization and deep, involved backstory has never been a staple of the franchise. Some may debate that, which is fine, but either way, I hardly think it should be a serious point of contention. No, the Corvette didn’t have a name, but would have cared it it did? Did you really care which Decepticon *SPOILER* got it’s head ripped in half? *END SPOILER* Moreover, did you go in expecting such characterization & development in the first place?
well i just came back from a showing of the movie, and to be honest, the giant robot fighting was great, they did that very well, but when it came to the scenes with the actors….”acting”, it just got really stupid, if anything, the only redeeming parts of the film with actors was actually the military portions of the film cause as stated before with bay, hes a nut for this kinda stuff and gave it all the attention he could to those parts of the film. and while i was sitting there when it was the last battle of the film, both me and my girlfriend noticed that the quality of the cgi work kinda slumped, like it was rushed just a bit, or they ran out of money to properly finish it. and the weed brownies, ive hung out with plenty of stoners, and i dont think they ever tried to tackle a person with such force, usually they just hang around and watch movies, ok im rambling, but this movie was a far cry from the first film, and i was just really dissapointed, not what i was hoping to get……espcially decepticon nutsack, just wrong ya know.
Oh hell that movie sucked… I really liked the first one despite it’s flaws but this one is just bad. It feels like someone was brainstorming and instead of pick something they just included EVERY SINGLE THING.
Though I didn’t see Transformers 2, I have to comment on the whole “it doesn’t have to be good” thing. At what point did a movie having good acting, a good plot, great explosions, etc, become mutually exclusive types of filmmaking? What about flicks The Lost Ark, Jaws, The Dark Knight, Robocop, Ghostbusters, and Back to the Future? Also, that phrase, turn-your-brain-off kills me. It sounds like people use it as a defense for enjoying stupid things, when it really is the definition of stupidity.
I’m not saying people are stupid for enjoying Transformers 2, I just think it’s lame to have to make excuses for liking something.
While I can see the merit of the arguments out there regarding this movie I actually found it enjoying. The “Twins” were annoying to me and they didn’t really add anything to the story or the movie (see Venom from Spiderman 3). Bay could have left them out and the movie wouldn’t have missed anything.
I got exactly what I expected from this movie and nothing more, I got a mediocre story some mediocre laughs and exemplary action sequences. Transformers is not the pinnacle of movie making it’s a popcorn movie, you don’t have to expect anything but to be entertained by it.
Although it could have been about a half hour less in running time that’s ok with me.
Could the story have been better? Sure, they could have developed ‘The Fallen” more and the Matrix thing more (which I found a little confusing). Could they have cut out somethings? Yup, they could have left out “The Twins” and probably devastator (and his gigantic metal balls).
On a scale of 1-10 I would give it a 6.5-7, it’s not good nor as bad as everyone is pegging it but it’s certainly not the worst movie out there. I found it a good waste of 2.5 hours
Wow, I didn’t read all these comments, but skimmed a few and read Tom’s. The same thing always happens when the topic comes up in a group of people I’m with too; Isn’t it amazing what heated emotions the Transformer movies get going in some people! I mean WOW… something as ridiculous as Transformers (I disliked the first one and will not bother seeing the second) starting up this hot of a debate? It’s really kind of mind boggling for me. Multiple times I’d be talking to an acquaintance who really liked Transformers, and he asked me what I thought of the movie. I told him “I thought it was horrible”. The majority of people who liked the movie will intensely demand to know why, and when you explain their reply is always “but it’s Transformers!”
I graduated college a while ago, but for any of you here that might need a topic for a senior thesis paper, I’m thinking there’s a lot under the surface on this one. A movie as empty as this holds nothing on its own to power such feelings, so its obviously the whole topic of “the dumbing down of America” (as Tom said) that’s driving this or something. Perhaps I could open my own psychology therapy clinic, and with every customer I would start “what are your thoughts on Transformers?”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are those that take it for the garbage it is but enjoy the giant robots, but I’m talking about the people that seriously defend the movie when you say you didn’t like it… which seems to be 95% of the time.