Transforminators 2 : Utter Bullshit


Transformers 2 – oh, I’d heard all about how bad this was – with the jive talking robots, the lack of a plot, the confusing CGI, the jump cuts, the round ass visuals and lingering shots of girls bottoms and I thought… it can’t be that bad.

Optimism is a curse.

Because it’s not just that bad, it’s actually worse. But I have an explanation.

Michael Bay is, at heart, a 10 year old boy, caught at the cusp with the first hairs on his pubis, filled with raging hormones, aware of the lure of girls, but with no real understanding of the female gender in anything but the most primitive manner. It’s a fleetingly short stage of life, where the body is kidnapped by unformed desire, where big explosions and primitive ideas are still amazingly cool, and a world where a shiny truck can actually be the leader of a mechanoid alien race.

To call this film emotionally retarded is .. well, it’s an insult. This film isn’t just emotionally challenged : it has the insight, depth, cohesion, logic, intelligence and sensitivity smaller than my pet rabbit.

Though there is an excuse, during The Writers Strike, the film still existed. Instead of piecing together a plot and finding a reason for it, “Revenge Of The Fallen” started with all the action setpieces carefully constructed but no plot, no dialogue, no reason. It was only after that a (presumably cheap) somewhat unemployed and incompetent writer was appointed to make sense of it all in a short timescale, put together the pieces, and try and create a narrative that explained what the dickens was going on. And he failed.

This film doesn’t make any sense. Not one iota. And not in a “2001” sense where what is happening is so obtuse that it is difficult to decipher. Transformers 2 is just… intellectually rancid and spiritually bankrupt.

At not one point did I care in the slightest what I was watching. I was watching stuff blow up, I was watching a bunch of 60 foot tall animated robot trucks fight about something hidden in a pyramid that would suck the Sun out of the sky. But I didn’t care. In some ways the end of all human life would be preferable to the Autocondeceptabots winning, because I was losing the will to live in this tale which isn’t worth telling.

I was having what you could call “The Shakes”. Within the first hour I had seen so much stuff explode – helicopters, aircraft carriers, cities, cars, lampposts, telephones – in fact anything and everything you can possibly blow up bites the dust. I just wanted the noise and colours to stop for a little while.

And, with too much screentime occupied by two borderline racist, misogynist, jive-talkin’, idiotic Deceptatwinbots, I started to feel myself getting stupider. Because maybe if I couldn’t think and was stupid, I might enjoy this more.

Well, some stuff blows up, there’s some loud stuff, a few explosions, some shots of Megan Fox’s backside, and ultimately a few hundred million pounds are wasted in generating some popcorn sales. But none of means anything. I cared more about what I’m having for dinner, which I will forget in 8 hours, than anything in this film. It’s ultimately utterly forgettable, with no context – the events of the film are fading from memory before the end credits, because the narrative smoke has the substance – and weight – of a cloud.

When the Apocalypse comes, and Mankind is asked to justify its existence, for heavens sake, don’t show this film to the judge. We’ll be judged guilty.

Don’t see this, and don’t pay for it. All you are doing is encouraging them to make more films like this. And believe me, humanity does not need that on it’s conscience.
- posted by Mark @ 8:14 pm