In this corner: director Michael Bay. The 2nd shittiest filmmaker, behind the atrocious Uwe Boll. The man who spawned the awful Armageddon, and two of the worst films of the decade: the insulting Pearl Harbor and the vile Bad Boys II. The egotistical, pompous hack who believes himself to be auteur in the film making world.
And in this corner, the movie critics and haters (I am one of them) who wish nothing more but to run his ass out of town by slamming his mindless action pieces, his laughable dialogue, and his over-the-top and misplaced dramatic moments.
And what better way to start but to bitch-slap his latest offering, Transformers? Like Bay's other shit movies, there's the mindless, big, loud and dumb action pieces between Optimus Prime and the Autobots vs. Megatron and his cronies, the Decepticons. There's the signature crap storyline that goes off with to many characters: High school student Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) buys a dented Camero that turns out to be an autobot, Bumblebee, that helps young Sam team up with hottie Mikaela (Meagan Fox) to find the Allspark, a device that if fallen into the wrong hands, grants unlimited power to that alien robots. The autobots seek it to rebuild their home world of Cybertron, the decepicons want it only to enslave the galaxy. Earlier on, U.S. soldiers stationed in Qatar break into a fight of one one of the deceptions that hacks the U.S. security system, leaving Capt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and his friend, Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson) out in the middle of the desert with a decepticon on their trails. And in a post 9/11 world, it wouldn't be anything but appropriate but to place a member of Dubaya's 'Axis of Evil' as a potential threat - North Korea.
Enough to crucify Bay's latest work yet again, right?
Sorry haters, but this time, Bay wins this round by way of knockout.
Bay haters who are reading this are wondering, 'Michael Bay made a good movie? How was this impossible feat accomplished?'
First off, nuts to Bay for doing what he's really bad at: filling in a weak story as an excuse to add in two hours and twenty-four minutes of implausible, mindless, robot-on-robot violence. From the transformations, to the loud, ear-deafening action-sequences, Bay works the excitement that puts Sam Rami's mediocre Spider-Man 3 and Gore Veberinski's bloated Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End to absolute shame.
Second, in hiring Steven Spielberg to co-produce the film instead of world record holder for longest charade of being a one-trick wonder producer, Jerry Bruckheimer. And third, for hiring LeBeouf to play the role of Sam. If Distrubia was his breakout performance, then Transformers is his vehicle to becoming a household name. Plus, he's the lone standout in a movie full of predictable cardboard cutout characters, which probably isn't saying much in a Michael Bay movie.
As predicted, critics are resuming the Michael Bay hate fest. Let em. In a summer full of mediocre sell-outs, Transformenrs will look like one of the few movies this summer that were fucked around with by human hands.
*** stars out of ****
1 comment:
I agree with you. People are slamming the lack of plot, yet they ignore the source material - an '80s cartoon, the sole purpose of which was to sell toys (like many cartoons of its era). I dusted off my Transformers DVDs and watched a bunch of episodes - the plots were predictable, and wafer-thin at best. The only purpose of the plot was to link together sequences of G-rated robot-on-robot violence.
Some have said that the humour is completely out of place. Whilst the cartoons didn't have much in the way of (intentional) sexual innuendo (however in my re-watching of classic Transformers, I did come across one Autobot exclaiming "Hold onto your crankshaft!"), I think that some of the humour was actually rather well executed, and dispels the notion that Michael Bay was in any way trying to make a serious film (at least, as serious as you can be when the subject matter is alien robots that transform into cars). I thought one of the funniest moments was when the Autobots were attempting to hide in Sam's backyard.
I walked out of the theater feeling like a young boy again, which is all I wanted this movie to do. It's by no means perfect, but it's still pretty good.
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