Transformers 2

[J Diddy]

Love it or hate it. Seems there ain't now in between. For the post nazis:

Love it means you liked it/enjoyed the experience

Hate i means you didn't like it/would recommend it to others

[irishjayhawk]

Just got back from the movie.

There isn't one redeeming quality in the whole movie. My god where do I begin?

1) There were 2 confirmed Bay Moments (TM) in the movie. That was always a plus.
2) The plot - thin, if any - didn't make one iota of sense.

Spoiler!

He goes to speak with Optimus to tell him it's not his fight. So, to prolong the movie, he forgets that he has another piece of the allspark so all is not lost. Then, Optimus is killed and the Autobots escape. He could have mentioned that he has the allspark sliver and could go to the base and revive Optimus. But no, he doesn't do that. Instead, he tracks down an old robot who switched sides and wastes the allspark to revive him. Then that guy tells him to go get the key which is what the symbols point to. Follow? Oh, so then he goes and gets the key only it disintegrates upon touch. So he cries over it and decides pixie dust will do the job. So he runs through explosions (see last part of Transformers 1 and THE SAME EFFING SET THEY USED IN T1) and "dies" only to be resurrected in a Matrix-esque and Indiana Jones 4-like way with aliens talking to him telling him he's awesome and brave. And so he's revived only to use this key which is like THE EXACT FRIGIN THING HE STARTED OUT WITH (AKA ALLSPARK) to revive Optimus. And then, since it wasn't the Allspark, he wasn't fully energized so the guy they resurrected for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON kills himself to give Optimus an arsenal. He proceeds to kick ass and then the movie ends with another heart to heart only missing the Linkin Park song.

Makes zero sense. Does that even qualify as plot? I think the Hangover had more plot.
3) The humor was so over the top it killed most of it. The hash brownie mom sequence was atrocious. And the best funny moments were one-liners sprinkled in between action or downtime. Whenever there was a concentrated dose of humor it failed spectacularly.
4) The replacement human antagonist was pointless and unfunny.
5) It was 1 hour too long. Seriously. They could have chopped some of the battle scenes clean off. If they wanted to lengthen anything, I think Rainn Wilson as teacher could have used more than a quick peek.
6) There were times when stunt doubles were obvious. That's never good upon a first watch.
7) I will give credit where credit is due: the military presence was awesome. I would have killed to be on set (even if it was the same set).
8) The parent trap was puzzling. They take the parents and the audience gets the picture but they never tell Sam until they just show up and run towards each other and hide. Then trap over. WTF?
9) Did Josh Duhamel do anything but point a gun, wave his arm and yell? I mean in the first one he at least rode a motorcycle and did stunts....
10) Aaron Pierce > Jon Voight
11) Fight scenes in CGI were hard to watch. Not only were they somewhat confusing to see what exactly was happening at any given moment, but they followed a pattern: jump, slice, slow-mo shot of bad guy getting killed, resume action. Repeat so many times that the slow-mo became a joke.
12) Another credit to Bay: Isabel Lucas. He knows how to pimp his hoes, that for sure. She's sexy in the movie.

That's off the top of my head. I'd probably give it 1 star out of 4.

[irishjayhawk]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/first...3/-OM5teIO2rU/

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has raked in over $400 million worldwide. Double its budget. Almost $50 million more than Star Trek and loads more than Pixar's Up, the previous top two. It's a smash. A commercial juggernaut. And its been out just over a week. But to say I'm surprised just wouldn't be the truth. No matter how critically flayed ROTF was bound to be after the tepid response to its predecessor - sliced to bits by critics and dragged asunder by the very fanboys at which the film is aimed - it was destined to destroy. Even when the bile started to spew just before its release, I don't think there was ever any doubt.

We had to see it. We just had to. Everyone was doing it. And so we did. We all saw it. But I'm not here to write a review. To be honest, I wouldn't even know where to begin. (Charlie Jane Anders' satirical masterpiece probably comes closest to my experience.) Which is why I am here; I'm here to try and reconcile just what happened to me in those wee hours of Sunday morning. I'm here to do my best to explain just how Michael Bay does it. How he gets me every time.

I paid an exorbitant amount of money to see ROTF in IMAX - $19, to be exact. For one ticket. I didn't have to, I wasn't forced to, but I wanted the purest high I could get. And seeing a Michael Bay film in IMAX is, for me, just about equivalent to slamming a gram and a half of cut crystal straight into my median cubital. It's a cinematic rush. A rush that drew in an inexplicable sold-out crowd to Los Angeles' The Bridge Cinema De Lux at 1:15 in the morning. We all knew full well that we'd be stepping out of the theatre barely an hour before the Sunday faithful awoke for early mass, but we were there, regardless. And when the movie started, we knew why. With that first sweeping pan, the first glint of sun reflected off a Transformer's exoskeleton, the first glistening female body, we knew.

Then it ended, two and a half bloated, bombastic hours later. And I felt… dirty. Used up. Spent. And most of all, conflicted. Now, I've seen every Michael Bay film. I'm a self-proclaimed Michael Bay apologist. I own both The Rock and Armageddon as Criterion Collection DVDs. I know exactly what the man is. I know exactly what I'm going to get when I come across Bad Boys II or The Island on HBO. And there's something about that that I really love. The man can direct action. Every one of his films are just beautiful. Visually dynamic (sometimes - ahem, Pearl Harbor - to a fault) and always packed with adrenaline. Sure, his sense of story may as well not exist. His sense of pacing (as of late) may as well be a belt sander, cranked up to 11, grinding away at my eye balls. But Michael Bay is a drug with predictable side effects. Well, at least he was.

It's with ROTF that I think I may have OD'ed. No, I know I OD'ed. Todd Gilchrist of Cinematical says "this must be the most movie I have ever experienced." I'll take that a step further - ROTF is the most movie I ever want to experience. It's completely, utterly, unapologetically Michael Bay. It's everything that I expected (and my expectations were subterranean). The film hit every beat, showed every explosion, panned around every inch of Megan Fox, but it just did it too much. And that's why I just can't wrap my head around this damned movie.

I should just be able to accept it and move on. Just think to myself quietly as I walk out of the theatre, "Great action. It's not Summer without Michael Bay," and then continue whatever conversation I was having before the lights dimmed and the previews started to roll. But for days now, it's like Optimus Prime is tearing at my brain. Skids and Mudflap make me hate the movie - a lot. The "forest fight" makes me love it - perhaps the most redeeming factor for the film was this scene viewed in IMAX. John Turturro, Orci and Kurtzman, and that Cylon-wannabe make me hate it again. The Fallen on top of the Great Pyramid make me love it and hate it, but by that time I'd had too much, I didn't care, I was overwhelmed and tired. And Megan Fox — well, she makes me love it and hate it to such a degree that my eyes go blue and I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del myself back to consciousness. Are you seeing the dilemma here?

Michael Bay has always been a drug; the allure of escapist, illusory cinema, explosions and jokes that people 8 to 88 can enjoy together, a high that shoots squarely for the middle and never pushes beyond that demographic. But Michael Bay has become dangerous. This mainlined, über-purified, 'roided version of himself as seen in ROTF is just too ****ing much. It's everything wrong with American blockbuster cinema. Hell, it's everything wrong with America - obese with arteries so clogged we're about to pop. You know that economic crisis we're all undergoing here in the States - ROTF may as well be its thesis. Excess and unconditional balances. Spending without qualms and out of entitlement. It's bankrupted us. I can only hope Michael Bay and ROTF has bankrupted (at least, figuratively) American film and how it's thought of, how it's presented.

Because Michael Bay should now be considered dangerous to us all, but especially to our children, the young minds that his hallucinatory forays effect most, we must all turn our eyes away and refuse the next ocular injection coming in two years' time. Just say no. I know it feels good. In a darkened theatre, the subwoofers rumbling your very core, metal on metal laced with ILM, hot chicks and hulking guys glowing underneath the ever-noon sun. The kind of world where every person who steps out of a car is as regal as a king, just you and the sky — but, please, just say no. 'Cause even though I still can't express what actually happened to me in that theater, it just may have been a spiritual awakening. A cleansing of the soul.

My name is Brandon, and I've been sober for four days now. And, you know, a locked-off shot and some subtitles - they're not that bad. Not bad at all.

[Mr Luzcious]

I thought it was... ok. At least somewhat entertaining. IJ's post makes me like it less though.

[007]

Well, it's official. I hated it. Even more than the first one. But my son is happy. Guess that is what matters.

[007]

I second IJ's post.