The Fallen

Public Service Announcement: The man on the right is not Michael Bay.

Though he has been posing as him for many years, recent evidence suggests that Michael Bay is really a 13-year-old boy who has hired the man on the right as his frontman.

Either that, or the guy on the right is Michael Bay and said man is really a 13-year-old boy who got a little frisky with a Zoltar machine on the Jersey shore.  Either way, that man is a 13-year-old boy.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  I have a feeling that this may end up being a rant about Michael Bay, so I’m going to sum up the movie first to save some time.

Megan Fox is hot.  The Beef is charismatic.  Josh Duhamel is dreamy.  Transforming robots are cool.  Michael Bay is dumb.

Seriously; that should go on the cover of the DVD.  I hereby issue permission to Hasbro to use that blurb on any of their future Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen marketing materials.

The problem with this movie is that there should be no problem with this movie.  It has all of the ingredients of perfection — it should be the pinnacle of modern day big-budget action movie-making.

It has a male lead who is funny, lovable, and charismatic.  It has a female lead with a face who could launch far more than a 1000 ships.  It has transforming robots brought to life by some of the best CG the world has ever seen.

It is relevant to today’s interests with 80s freaks now making the money and technology being the center of our lives.  It has explosions, exotic locales, and the potential to be really funny.

But the problem is that it is helmed by a 13-year-old boy who still thinks that dogs humping is the funniest thing on earth.  I’m really quite surprised we didn’t see a few kicks to the groin, because that’s always good for a laugh as well.

Seriously, is there no one in Michael Bay’s editing room that has the cajones to stand up and say, “Um, Mr. Bay, don’t you think 3 dog-humping scenes it taking it a little too far?”

I can only assume that someone associated with the film has the good sense to voice that opinion, and then I can only imagine that through tears of laughter Mr. Bay dismissed the critique because he is Michael Bay and I’m pretty sure he has decided that he is God.

I’m going to give Orci and Kurtzman the benefit of the doubt, and assume that Michael Bay desecrated what was probably a reasonably serviceable script given the subject matter.  And I’m going to give Steven Spielberg the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was somehow out of contact with civilization when this film was being edited.

Lest you think that I’m just anti-dog-humping, I want to make it clear that it is not specifically the dog-humping that is the problem.  It is that an otherwise awesome movie is burdened by the non-funny site gags and gross humor, some of which borders on obscene and/or rascist.

I have defended Michael Bay in the past, and I think his body of work clearly has flashes of brilliance.  Even this movie has a few of those moments.  But overall, the movie feels like that instead of movie by comittee (which I may have preferred in this case), it is a movie brought to you by one man who is wildly out of touch with reality.

It makes a great GM commercial, and an even better PSA for the US Military, and after seeing Megan Fox stay hot through numerous desert explosions I’m sure they can sell her make-up by the ton.

The movie is cool.  It really is.  The robots are slick.  Optimus Prime still has that chilling authority, and Starscream and Megatron are more interesting this time around.

Omitted from the first one, it is inspired to see Soundwave re-imagined as a satellite, even able to shoot little animal transformers to earth.  It is the Soundwave for today’s technology, and I’m glad they didn’t try to fit a walkman into the film.

Some reviewers have complained about the robots being too plentiful to differentiate from each other, but I had no such problem.  I could keep the robots straight, but I was disappointed to see some of them receive so little screen time (Ratchet, Arcee) and others receive far too much (the Twins; and by too much I mean any screen time at all).

Ratchet was especially perplexing because I think they literally forgot him until about halfway through the movie.  Ironhide was given a fair amount of attention, but Ratchet would just show up from time to time, and he was often absent in shots that you would expect him to be in.

This franchise isn’t dead, but this wasn’t a step forward.  The next movie needs to get back to the characters.  We need to learn more about the Transformers that matter and less about the ones that don’t.  Also, John Turturro needs to be let go.  Sorry man, you’re not funny.

I’m really conflicted about this movie because there are a lot of great things about it, but it is ruined by Michael Bay’s immaturity and lack of editing.  I hope that Spielberg cracks the whip and reigns Bay in for the next outing or else this giant robot franchise is going to end up at the bottom of the Laurentian Abyss.

Verdict: D- Tilt: C+