Love Jeffrey Wells, he always cracks us up. He says of “Transformers 2: The Revenge Of The Fallen,” essentially: “the mentality is aimed at mall monkeys.”Amen. Reviews are in, and the pluses are surely negative to some and vice versa. What does seem apparent, is that it’s far too long for everyone and that fanboys will love it, it should haul in a ton of dough, but it’s probably just more mindless spectacle.
Variety’s review suggests the same and basically says, if you love it loud, overkill-ish and cranked up to 11, you’re going to love the film, but check your brain at the door. “With machines that are impressively more lifelike, and characters that are more and more like machines, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” takes the franchise to a vastly superior level of artificial intelligence. As for human intelligence, it’s primarily at the service of an enhanced arsenal of special effects, which helmer Michael Bay deploys like a general launching his very own shock-and-awe campaign on the senses. Otherwise, little seems new compared to the first installment, except that this version is longer, louder, and perhaps ‘more than your eye can meet’ in one sitting. It will reap similar B.O. rewards worldwide.”
The Hollywood Reporter doesn’t think much more of it, though do say the pleebs and nerds will connect with it. “With its intelligence at the level of the simple-minded, however, the film is not likely to attract moviegoers who seek something more than a screen filled with kaleidoscopes of colored metal. Fan boys will no doubt love it, but for the uninitiated it’s loud, tedious and, at 147 minutes, way too long.”
Even geeks like IGN aren’t totally down with it, possibly calling it overwrought. “It’s just too bloody big. Epic, spectacular but unfortunately far, far too long; the film proves that when it comes to Michael Bay blockbuster movies, you can have too much of a good thing.”
News of the World gives it a thumbs up, but it doesn’t leave folks like us asking for a tiny bit more much confidence, “It’s bigger. Badder. Boobier. And many other words beginning with B, including boneheadedly brilliant….Rest assured if you enjoyed the original, as I did, you’ll love the hell out of this.”
The Daily Mirror suggest it’s fun, but again, for the arrested man-children. “Star Trek might have had more spaceships and aliens and Terminator: Salvation more grim-faced robots, but this Michael Bay summer blockbuster is pure mindless adventure mayhem that sticks firm and hard to its winning formula. In truth, it is a film for teen boys – and a bloomin’ long one at that – but is also a guaranteed multiplex crowd pleaser. Saying that, for the most part it is also a complex lumbering mess of a movie that is long on turgid backstory and short on tension, laughs and subtle acting.”
Total Films loves it, but that’s to be expected. Honestly, if people in the middle like THR or Variety raved, we’d probably be more curious, but fanboy sites are obviously automatically in the tank. More loud and dumb Michael Bay it seems, but a lot of people love that, so it probably makes a trillion dollars regardless.
there's an arrested man-children in all of us! Or more specifically, the little kid who used to play-fight his robot toys! Anybody? Nobody?
I agree with that and enjoy these films to a degree for what they're worth, but they're so intellectually and artistically bankrupt on every level and people go nuts for them it kinda makes me ill. People who should know better also froth over them as well.
If you're over fifteen and excited about this movie, shoot yourself. If you are close to New York City and lack the stones, I have no problem being your designated gunman.
I didn't know a movie could be "boobier." By that standard I think the Reader was pretty boobie.
Not completely devoid. Besides the "alpha male" feel TF'07 and any Bay film has, Bay really seems nobly aiming for nostalgia and childhood freedom.
1. The robot battles are done exactly the way a child plays with his toys. The minute Blackout(helicopter) got back up for the millionth time after being hit, I realized that this is exactly what I did with my toys. You DON'T WANT the bad guy to die, he's too cool, you pick him back up and you're like "Oh man he's so strong he doesn't die!" It runs miles in a kid's head.
2. That childhood freedom. I noticed 2 things(things I believe Bay always does but it seems to have more meaning here). Several times the camera is angled UP to the robots as if they're so fearsome that we have to look up to them. Also that we keep looking at the robots through bystander's perspective, mainly adults. These 2 things build the motif that your childhood toys ARE as big and important as you used to feel they were when you played with them, so important and fearsome that adults with all their rigid way of life must stop in their tracks, stop all their so important "work" and responsibilities and crap, and can no longer ignore those robots they considered child's play. The scene that I believe was intentionally meant to exude this feeling was the bridge scene boncrusher and optimus fight. The kid in the car expresses his childhood naivete and purity by going "cool mom!", while mom restrains him and reminds him of all that danger and precaution needed to stay alive, if one calls that "living".
This franchise is geniunely for children and those who can remember being children.
Trippman, congratulations into putting more thought into a Michael Bay film than Michael Bay ever has. 😉
Trippman, I would have no problem with the idea that these films for kids. Except for the foul language, casual misogyny, hatefully exclusionary sense of humor and vulgar scatology featured in the first film that I hear is also in the newest one. Which, coupled with the incessant product placement, is just deeply insulting.
Except for the foul language, casual misogyny, hatefully exclusionary sense of humor and vulgar scatology
But that's perfect. Kids don't want kid movies. My fav movies as a kid were Robocop and Terminator. What kids like alot is when the ADULTS NEXT to them are having fun too. It gives you a rush. I remember how much I enjoyed Lion King so much more that my family next to me were genuinely enthralled. I'm sure you've watched something really cool on tv with a child, don't they look at you to see your reaction to the cool thing? They like when you enjoy it. Notice how all the vulgarity is always used for humor and nothing else. It's always made to be funny. Get it?
Also I pretty much friggin LOVE the marketing. I just love how obnoxious it is. I never knew you could market something in so many places. I mean damn look a this:
http://is.gd/14Jfy
The people who buy the DVD don't care about transformers, but they'll be playing with it and think "hey what's that?" And BOOYA you got a customer.
more:
http://is.gd/14Je3 (4:30)
Trippman, your comparison is not apt. The ultraviolence in Robocop is satire, and the original Terminator the violence is scary- in both cases, they are more difficult but more effective, and far less offensive to children, because they are based in characters. They happen to characters. Transformers' brand of ugliness is inhuman, moreso in regards to what happens to the stick-thin characters. Michael Bay's protagonists are always obliviously immoral, disgusting people, so there's nothing to contrast the occasional villain vulgarity, either. An adult who enjoys the vulgarities in Transformers has a lot of growing up to do.
The ultraviolence in Robocop is satire, and the original Terminator the violence is scary- in both cases, they are more difficult but more effective, and far less offensive to children, because they are based in characters. They happen to characters. Transformers' brand of ugliness is inhuman, moreso in regards to what happens to the stick-thin characters
I'd like it better if you made sense. The violence is effective as violence but yet not offensive to children? Those movies are actually not for children AT ALL. And I like how you expect CHILDREN to get the satire in robocop, when even alot of adults don't.
Michael Bay's protagonists are always obliviously immoral, disgusting people, so there's nothing to contrast the occasional villain vulgarity
hmmm there' seems to be a certain Shia leboof who's the MAIN character in the film that many call too sissy(nice) and annoying. Also a certain optimus prime who's just over the top with his hero-ness.
Bottom line, Bay knows he's making something for kids and he knows kids don't like kid movies, hence the crude humor for the parents next to them, making it the ultimate kid's movie.
I don't recall what I was trying to explain there, Tripp (drunk?) but I will say this- stuff like "Robocop" and "Terminator" were not misanthropic, and if they were, they had a sarcastic sense of humor. Out of all the people who watched the near-perfect Robocop as a child, I'd wager 75% of them didn't come away with the film's desired intent because they are jackasses who don't deserve it. Comparing Transformers to those movies is such folly- to act like they're in the same league to kids as Transformers does a huge disservice to what kids can learn and grow from.
And you're just talking out of your ass with this Shia-being-too-sissy thing that approximately zero people have discussed. His character is a one-dimensional everykid who, upon meeting Megan Fox, accidentally makes a joke about her being a prostitute, while feeding drugs to his dog and bitching and moaning about getting a new car. Not necessarily sissy or badass, but not exactly a paragon of virtue. Which would be ok if this film weren't some one dimensional light show.
And one of the galling things about Optimus Prime in the movie is that he's NOT heroic. The Autobots engage in pratfalls and shenanigans, destroy entire swaths of heavily-populated areas, all to regain the AllSpark and save themselves. That's not heroic, that's self-preservation. Peter Cullen's voice in the original film is the best thing about it, but like in all of Bay's movies, his heroes are never all that heroic, and their flaws never register as interesting traits, only signs of a sleeping screenwriter.
Fuck these movies.
You know this isn't a verbal conversation where you can't scroll up to recall what you were saying. And again, it's utterly stupefying that you expect children to understand the sarcastic VIOLENCE in Robocop.
And you're just talking out of your ass with this Shia-being-too-sissy
Hey I remember people saying that around TF07, and the annoying bit you cannot deny. But it's funny how you refute your own assertion that he's "disgusting", by now calling him an every-man.
But see, the violence is more explicit in Robocop, but its far less damaging because it is weightier, more excessive, more vivid. As a kid, it's certainly a sight. The violence in Transformers is listless, overheated and mostly at random. The violence is not really a problem in something like Transformers anyway, not sure how we got onto this discussion- the soulless emptiness of the endeavor is the real issue. Are you really still hitching your wagon to Transformers not being something you should be embarrassed to watch?
And I was being sarcastic about Shia's "everyman" status, since Michael Bay has never shown any interest in an everyman character, and Shia's character is Bay's asshole idea of an everyman. Didn't think I needed the fake quotations.
I'm trying to understand why Seymour tells Leo to "Tighten your sphincter" and then why in the next scene, Leo is seen hopping around without his pants in the Smithsonian Museum? Is this because Leo was supposed to pretend he defecated and was in need of toilet paper, to serve as a distraction? This is really bothering me.
I'm trying to understand why Seymour tells Leo to "Tighten your sphincter" and then why in the next scene, Leo is seen hopping around without his pants in the Smithsonian Museum? Is this because Leo was supposed to pretend he defecated and was in need of toilet paper, to serve as a distraction? This is really bothering me.