Usually, while watching a movie, one's mind is on just that - the movie. That wasn't the case with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. While watching - or rather, while staring (the term "watching" implies a certain degree of active focus, which I'm not sure there was on my part) - I was compiling a mental list. It was a seemingly never-ending list, comprised of every mindless, utterly absurd concept that director Michael Bay presents in the film and, consequently, expects us to go for. I now present an abbreviated version of this list to you (chronologically, to eliminate the need to summarize its "plot"):
Michael Bay expects us to believe that:
- Transformers have been secretly inhabiting Earth since 17000 BC
- Transformers can smell other Transformers.
- Transformers can speak a variety of dialects that includes gangsta, Italian mobster and Scotsman, and use phrases like "punk-ass Decepticon."
- It would be a totally awesome idea to include two characters (the so-called "Twins") who are more racist than Jar Jar Binks, "Amos 'n' Andy" or even Michael Richards.
- Cutting to a scene of two dogs fucking is perfectly acceptable during an action sequence.
- Transformers can cry at the prospect of being left home when Shia LaBoeuf goes to college.
- Shia LaBoeuf can go to college.
- While at college, Shia LaBoeuf can maintain a long distance relationship with Megan Fox while using a web-cam.
- Megan Fox actually knows how to use a web-cam, or a computer for that matter.
- Shia LaBoeuf was ever able to win Megan Fox over in the first place.
- Shia LaBoeuf's room at college, randomly placed, would contain him and three computer hackers.
- Their dorm room can have a Mountain Dew machine in it.
- The presence of a "Bad Boys II" poster in the dorm room (and the subsequent zoom-in close enough for us to see the credit "Directed by Michael Bay") was purely coincidental.
- Anyone would ever own a "Bad Boys II" poster, much less display it.
- College parties play bad remixes of Talking Heads songs, and people actually enjoy them.
- Shia and the three computer hacker roommates would actually be allowed into a college party.
- Shia LaBoeuf's mother in the film isn't mentally retarded.
- Decepticons can pose as humans, and somehow manage to infiltrate a university as bodacious college girls to target Shia LaBoeuf.
- John Turturro posts on websites created by college-age hackers under the alias "RoboWarrior."
- The only job John Turturro could get after being dismissed from Sector 7 was working in a deli for his mother.
- Of all of the thousands of soldiers in the U.S. military, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson would once again be at the center of the Transformer battle.
- Despite having been fired from Sector 7, John Turturro still has a number of CIA and military numbers at his disposal, including, conveniently, Duhamel and Gibson.
- Turturro could actually convince Duhamel and Gibson to spearhead a military operation in northeast Egypt to rescue Shia LaBoeuf that defies orders from the President - and somehow keep it all a secret.
- The National Air and Space Museum is actually filled with old Decepticons.
- Decepticons can simply defect to the Autobot side.
- Decepticons, despite never having had the misfortune of encountering them in person, can automatically identify Shia LaBoeuf's parents and take them hostage to use as a trap.
- There is a machine that can destroy the sun hidden in one of Egypt's Great Pyramids.
- A group of Transformers destroying said pyramid and the surrounding villages could go virtually unnoticed by any of the world media.
- The key used to activate the machine can also revive a dead Transformer.
- Dead Transformers can be brought back to life.
- The idea of a Transformer humping Megan Fox's leg is utterly hilarious.
- Transformers have testicles.
- Transformers can absorb the parts of other Transformers and heal themselves in a matter of minutes.
- Shia LaBoeuf would actually want to lead the idiots that call themselves his parents to safety during a battle.
- Farm animals wouldn't want to lead themselves to safety during the same battle, despite the presence of soldiers, guns and, oh yeah, Transformers.
- There is a Transformer heaven.
- Shia LaBoeuf, a human, could go to Transformer heaven.
- Shia LaBoeuf can suddenly come back to life when Megan Fox says she loves him, but not after having been twice pumped by a defibrillator.
- Making a third movie in this franchise is a good idea.
But any good will he may have earned from the first movie has not only been pissed away - it's been pissed into a jar, sealed and punted to the bottom of the ocean. To call Revenge of the Fallen a bad movie would be being entirely too generous. It's too long, too loud and too clichéd in almost every aspect. It has an absolutely abysmal script and displays an overall level of incompetence that makes Heidi and Spencer seem like Rhodes scholars. There is not a single respectable filmmaking step taken throughout the entire 140-something minutes, while virtually every lamentable technique makes its way to the screen.
For example, look at the film's title: Revenge of the Fallen. Let's think of some possible questions you might ask going in. Who (or what) are the Fallen? What are they getting revenge for? And who are they getting revenge against?
So we sit back and watch, waiting for an explanation. More than an hour later, we still don't have any answers. And when we find out, we realize that it all has something to do with a brief ice age sequence Bay serves up at the beginning of the movie. It turns out the Fallen is just ONE Transformer, and he started a civil war between the Autobots and the Decepticons 17,000 years ago - during that same ice age. You start to wonder why Bay and writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci didn't give us any insight into this at the beginning, and then it hits you: had they done that, there wouldn't have been enough time to add another explosion or 5,000 into the mix. Or, more specifically, for Bay to be Bay.
What is Bay being Bay? More than just a KABOOM-tracker, this underlying technique manifests itself in a variety of different guises. In one form, he'll present an idea that's actually sort of interesting (like Decepticons that can disguise themselves as humans) and then abandon it altogether in favor of pushing ahead with several less-interesting concepts. In another incarnation, he'll dumb down the idea of comic relief to the point at which it becomes completely intolerable (for example, look at LaBoeuf's mother, who might be the single least amusing role in movie history). In another, it's giving Orci and Kurtzman the go-ahead on virtually any inane idea they put to paper - whether it's the introduction of the Twins or the idea to actually allow one of them to survive after nearly being eaten by the giant Transformer that almost looks ripped off from Cloverfield. Although, frankly, I'm pretty sure Bay could find some sort of distorted potential if the duo presented him a story about a talking puddle of vomit, as long as it contained the requisite number of explosions.
And what's really sad about all this is that, in watching the film, or attempting to, you get the idea that Bay's actually enjoying himself. Through all of this inanity, he clearly thinks he's made a good movie. You can tell because the formula hasn't changed a bit from the beginning of his career until now. From Pearl Harbor, to Bad Boys II to The Island and now, with Revenge of the Fallen, Michael Bay's modus operandi has waged this war on respectable entertainment. The more he enjoys his movies, the worse they get.
I'll ask you now to step back and think for a second. Think of something really, unbearably annoying - not horrible, but enough to drive you crazy if exposed to it for enough time. NASCAR racing, chalk scratching on a blackboard, Jon & Kate gossip, or maybe a neighbor mowing his lawn at 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning. You get the idea...
Now take all of the ideas you came up with and mash them together, and subject yourself to this new horror. Excruciating? Yes. Painful? Maybe. But no matter what you came up with, it's still better than sitting through this heaping pile of garbage. Worst film of the decade? More like one of the worst films ever made. You can quote me on it.
