Robocrap

As far as I’m concerned, Michael Bay was on a bit of a roll with his last three films. I liked Bad Boys 2, and I thought The Island was pretty cool. And while I didn’t like the first Transformers all that much, it didn’t make me want to tear my face off while watching it, which had been my normal reaction to Bay films of the past.

I’m back to face-tearing mode after Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. With this movie, Bay officially reenters the Land of the Suck. It’s an effort that cements his place in Cinematic Dickwad Hell. This guy is the biggest dipshit to ever be handed the reigns of a $200 million movie.

First off, the thing totally screams “Rush job!” Dreamworks and Paramount needed a Summer 2009 tent pole, so they shot this thing into production and got it into theaters a mere two years after the original. I’m not sure if a longer incubation period would’ve birthed something a little less deformed, but at least it would’ve put off my suffering for another year.

Shia LeBeouf, who famously screwed up his hand during production, returns as college-bound Sam. He’s having trouble telling Mikaela (Megan “Strike a Pose” Fox) that he loves her because he’s a guy and all that. He also has a piece of the Cube from the first film left in his grimy sweatshirt, and that Cube shard should not be touched.

First, the shard births little Transformers that tear up his house. And touching the thing has caused a bunch of ancient symbols to flash around in Sam’s head. Apparently, these symbols mean something to the Decepticons (the bad Transformers), and the stuff in Sam’s head is crucial to taking over the world. Autobots (good Transformers) like Bumblebee and the legendary Optimus Prime must come to the rescue when Megatron is resurrected and ready to kick ass.

The nonsense jumps around from Sam’s hometown, to his college, to Paris, and then to Egypt, where the Transformers buried a doomsday machine. This lunacy leads to such visuals as John Turturro scrambling up the side of a Pyramid, and Fox running around in an Egyptian desert for seemingly forever before her white pants get dirty.

Bay returns to his patented formula of ADD editing. Don’t fall in love with any imagery in this movie because it’s going to switch to something else before you can really take it in. From the ancient pyramids of Egypt to Megan Fox’s hallowed ass, nothing is good enough to earn more than a few seconds of stationary shots. This bastard can’t stand still for more than 10 seconds. I think Michael Bay was sent to a lot of timeouts when he was a kid for acting all uppity.

All of the organic beings in this film are but pawns in the mostly CGI affair. LeBeouf, who had so much promise as an actor, is beginning to reveal himself as a one-trick pony, and his fast talking routine is wearing thin. Turturro, one of the things I truly liked about the original, strains for laughs with a mundane part. Fox looks good, or at least I think she did. Not sure if I got a long enough look at her to truly form an opinion. Goddamn Michael Bay and his screwy editors!

Will there be a third one? I’m thinking yes, for sure. While I hate this crap, the audience I viewed it with awarded it massive applause when it finished. All of the bad reviews in the world couldn’t stop a third one from arriving on our Earth, where it will make a lot of money and kill trillions of brain cells. Transformers … more than meets the eye … and liable to cause much critical misery for many years to come.