Director: Michael Bay Released: 2009
Genre: Michael Bay Film
A few days ago I swore to myself that I would not financially support Michael Bay's newest project, Transformers 2. I thought the first Transformers was mediocre at best, and from what I saw on Rotten Tomatoes (which provides a fairly accurate rating of film quality), most critics reviled the sequel. But alas, last night I was itching to get out of the house and complete something, and so I was very tempted to go to my local Regal fortress and see the spectacle. My idiot neighbor's incessant blasting of Metallica's "Welcome Home Sanitarium" and "Orion" songs at maximum volume, coupled with the fact that I didn't really do any physical work yesterday, prompted me to walk up to the nearby rec center and work out while I contemplated my intended transgression. In the end, I decided to watch the 9:55 showing of Transformers 2 at Regal's Foothill Ranch Towne Centre 22.
Seeing as it was a Monday night, I figured few people would be in the theater, and decided to show up just in time to watch the movie and not that horrid collection of commercials and sneak peeks they show even before the previews. The previews themselves did not look promising... G.I. Joe, a wretched looking family film about Hamsters who are secret agents, and the unabashedly stupid 2012 are shaping up to be this summer's unfortunate highlights. What a way to finish an already lackluster decade, popular cinema.
Then the main feature began... the typical opening logos of production companies unfolded, set to an intriguing series of ambient, low frequency digital effects- effects I wish I could create on my Mac's Garageband program. I would say that hearing those sounds was the most satisfying part of the movie. Now, I understand that such a critical statement would lead you to believe that I absolutely abhorred the showing, but I will say this: Transformers 2 was not as embarassingly bad as I was led to believe.
Granted, it is still an unforgivably flawed film, jampacked with a huge number of theatrical elements so inconsistent with one another, I felt I was watching a direct to DVD Disney movie with a bunch of absurd robot sequences spliced in. But I didn't want to gouge my eyes out by the end, like I did with movies such as Daddy Day Camp and 300. Two and a half hours is certainly a stretch, though, but what made Transformers 2 more bearable than other Michael Bay films such as Armageddon was the fact that the average shot length lasted longer than 1.5 seconds. Of course, the unnecessary close ups of Megan Fox (to please the prepubescent boys who don't yet possess their own computer), headache inducing scenes involving the main character's parents, and robots with grating and nonsensical personalities nullified any chance of me actually liking the movie. And I understand why people are outraged by the stereotypes embodied by the two smaller robot characters, named "Skids" and "Mudflap"; the inherent level of racism and mockery depicted makes footage of civil rights riot hosings seem almost tolerable by comparison. They both take the shape of boxy GM vehicles when they're not fighting. It was enough to make me wonder about two things: was Michael Bay paying homage to Birth of a Nation in the worst way possible, and how on earth could GM approve of this? Our bailout money has indirectly supported a regressive stab at the African American community- given that such handouts were approved by our mixed heritage (and thus racially sensitive) President Obama, it is bitingly ironic. Maybe Ford should have been privy to such shameless ad placement instead.
Transformers 2 didn't make me laugh, didn't prompt me to shed a tear, didn't elicit any emotion from me whatsoever. The enthralling sound effects at the beginning were quickly replaced by the omnipresent, completely interchangable score that every blockbuster film seems to have. The same orchestral soundtrack could be set to Pirates of the Carribbean or any other franchise and people would still snatch it up on ITunes, claiming that it perfectly captures the mood of the film. If the mood they are referring to is the airbrushed visual overload that compliments the callyphygian characters and their witless banter, then sure, I guess it fits.
All things aside, I'm not sure why Transformers 2 has been the subject of such criticism... these films come out all the time now, why has this one become such a lightning rod for controversy? Surely the unbearably racist "gangsta/asshole" robots and destruction of a large number of historically significant ruins don't help, but I don't think the film is any worse than, say, The Hulk or the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Sill. Maybe everyone is mad because Transformers took $200 million to make, and all that came of it was a mash up of cutesie Disney and Americanized CG anime elements, rolled up into a vomitously overindulgent ball of excess and banality. If anything, Transformers 2 will certainly not age well. Within a decade we will look back at Mudflap saying "ding-a-ling, come out and get yo' ice cream" and wonder, "what were we thinking?"
I should pop in the first Transformers and remember the good ol' days, but I didn't bother to pick up the DVD.
1.25/4.00
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