"Transformers 2" is a horrible experience of unbearable leng

[sixpackshaker]

As it has been said multiple times. The action sequences (in this ACTION movie) were great. Straight up, they were awsome. The film was never boring. I never found a point where the film was dragging at all. While there were a few groaners and lowbrow jokes, I laughed many times throughout the movie.

This is my opinion, and quite frankly, I'm tired of trying to defend an opinion to people who haven't even seen the movie.

Thanks to folks like you we are officially on the way to having this be the future of cinema:

I love how you guys keep quoting this movie. You guys do know he did "Bevis and Butthead do America?" He even had an A-bomb level fart joke in there.

 

[Shegokigo]

I love how you guys keep quoting this movie. You guys do know he did "Bevis and Butthead do America?" He even had an A-bomb level fart joke in there.

Amazing how versitile he is to go from lowbrow to satire eh? Now only if Michael Bay could be more than a one trick pony?

 

[ElJuski]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjrtxt_gLLQ:2mlhca8x][/youtube:2mlhca8x]

A fart joke done right!

 

[Chazwozel]

As it has been said multiple times. The action sequences (in this ACTION movie) were great. Straight up, they were awsome. The film was never boring. I never found a point where the film was dragging at all. While there were a few groaners and lowbrow jokes, I laughed many times throughout the movie.

This is my opinion, and quite frankly, I'm tired of trying to defend an opinion to people who haven't even seen the movie.

Thanks to folks like you we are officially on the way to having this be the future of cinema:

I love how you guys keep quoting this movie. You guys do know he did "Bevis and Butthead do America?" He even had an A-bomb level fart joke in there.

You do realize Beavis and Butthead was Mike Judge's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," right? Dick and fart jokes are fun to do once in your career, but Michael Bay seriously tries to piece together a story and fails EVERYTIME; trying to mask his lack of creativity and intelligence with 'boom boom bang' and hoping the audience is as stupid as he is. That said, Beavis and Butthead ACTUALLY HAD A FUCKING PLOT THAT WAS BETTER THAN TRANSFORMERS 2!

 

[DarkAudit]

No arguing here, just posting this story for your perusal...

LOS ANGELES - After just five days, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is halfway to $400 million domestically, a box-office milestone only eight other movies have reached. If it climbs that high, the “Transformers” sequel will be by far the worst-reviewed movie ever to make the $400 million club.

Critics and mainstream crowds often disagree, but “Revenge of the Fallen” sets a new standard for the gulf between what reviewers and mass audiences like.

The movie pulled in $201.2 million since opening Wednesday, the second-best result for a movie in its first five days, just behind “The Dark Knight” with $203.8 million. Even after its whopping $60.6 million opening day, “Revenge of the Fallen” was packing theaters, a sign that unlike critics, who mostly hated the movie, audiences felt they were getting their money’s worth and were giving the flick good word of mouth.
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Critics “forget what the goal of the movie was. The goal of the movie is to entertain and have fun,” said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount, which is distributing “Transformers” for DreamWorks. “What the audience tells us is, ‘We couldn’t be more entertained and having more fun.’ They kind of roll their eyes at the critics and say, ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’ ”

According to Paramount’s exit polls, 91 percent of the audience thought the sequel was as good as or better than the first “Transformers,” which received far better reviews.

A new low
Most of Hollywood’s all-time biggest hits are accompanied by either good or at least passable reviews, and some can be among the year’s most-acclaimed, such as this year’s “Up” and “Star Trek” and last year’s “The Dark Knight,” “WALL-E” and “Iron Man.”

Not so for the new “Transformers.” On Rottentomatoes.com, a Web site that compiles critics’ opinions, the sequel had only 38 positive reviews out of 187, a lowly 20 percent rating usually reserved for box-office duds.

Many critics who liked the movie had reservations, praising the movie’s visual effects and relentless action but generally advising audiences to check their brains at the door.

The critical drubbing was a new low for “Transformers” director Michael Bay, never a favorite among professional movie reviewers. But he has long been a favorite among fans, scoring hits with the first “Transformers” and such flicks as “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Bad Boys II” and “The Rock.”

Like blockbuster maestro Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced many of Bay’s movies, the director aims to please audiences, not critics.

“He really had blinders on when it comes to what he believed the picture needs to be, and then he executed it,” said Brad Grey, Paramount chairman and chief executive officer. “He’s a director who is the definition of blockbuster at this point. His grosses speak for themselves.”

Bay’s previous worst score on Rottentomatoes was 23 percent for “Bad Boys II,” followed by 25 percent for “Pearl Harbor.” Even his commercial flop “The Island” rated well above the “Transformers” sequel, with 40 percent positive reviews.

Of the eight movies that have grossed more than $400 million domestically, four scored 90 percent or higher on Rottentomatoes: “The Dark Knight,” “Spider-Man,” “E.T. the Extra-terrestrial” and “Star Wars.” Two others, “Shrek 2” and “Titanic,” topped 80 percent.

The other two had mixed reviews but still came in far higher than “Revenge of the Fallen,” with “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” scoring 63 percent and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” rating 53 percent.

Back for more?
This year’s biggest hits so far had terrific scores, “Up” with 97 percent and “Star Trek” with 95 percent. Both movies have grossed about $250 million, a number the “Transformers” sequel will soar past by next weekend.

On Metacritic.com, a site that assigns ratings of zero to 100 based on movie reviews, “Revenge of the Fallen” received a 36, a lowly score barely above those given to recent box-office duds “Year One” and “Land of the Lost.”

Bay has said that if there is a third “Transformers” movie, he would like to come back for it. But his next project could be far quieter than the explosions and action for which he is known.

“I’ve got to take a little time off from the robot world,” Bay said before the movie opened. “I’ve got to do something totally different. It’s enough of this for right now. I keep saying I’m going to do my small movie. I’ve got one I want to do.”

 

[Shegokigo]

No arguing here, just posting this story for your perusal...

“I’ve got to take a little time off from the robot world,” Bay said before the movie opened. “I’ve got to do something totally different.

 

[Chazwozel]

That's it. That's fucking it.

I'm am seriously going to make a 90 minute movie depicting a giant ass farting and sell it to Hollywood. Time to get rich quick. Which shot should I go with?
Sex appeal?
A.

Crude Humor?
B.

C. Both?

I predict it'll gross over 500 million dollars in the first week.

 

[ScytheRexx]

If I could have just one thing in this thread, I'd really like those who liked the movie to articulate why they liked it rather than make excuses for why they didn't dislike it.

Really, it comes down to one term, one that you don't wish to accept. The movie was fun. However, since you asked, I will bite.

The action was well done this time around, and even with all the Michael Bay Military Masturbation, I actually got excited during much of it. One of the first scenes was Optimus Prime driving off a plane, transforming in air, doing a roll on the ground, and then seamlessly converting back into truck mode. It was probably one of the cooler visual scenes I have seen this year, and the fight in which Optimus Prime is killed really had me on the edge of my seat. Peter Cullen gives that little edge of nostalgia that made it even better.

The plot was cartoon silly, and that is not a bad thing. The plot had gaping plot holes, but if you go in realizing such plot holes are going to exist due to the cartoon nature of the movie, you just sit back and watch the movie for the ridiculous ride rather then trying to find out the hidden subtext to what is happening. The villains were downright Saturday morning worthy, the secondary protagonists silly in the same way Orko was ridiculous in He-Man, and even the action was often dumped down. I liked this, I didn't need to watch and listen how the Fallen was going this to prove the nature of the human condition, he was just the bad guy and the good guys, through a whole bunch of random circumstances, needed to bring back the main good guy to kill the bad guy. The end.

The jokes were salvageable. I actually laughed at a lot of them, as did most of the people in the theater. Yes, they are crude, but humor is not something that can always be sophisticated. I love my George Carlins just as much as my Bob Sagets, sometimes crude, silly humor can be funny too. I was rolling when Leo tasered himself, I am sorry but that was just comically slapstick.

In the end, I had fun during the movie, a concept you seem to be lost on. You can say I have bad taste in movies all you want, ignoring the fact that some of my favorites movies are Touch of Evil and Strangers On A Train, it does not matter, in the end I had fun and nothing anyone here can say to me will change that fact. If you feel the movie is insulting your intelligence, don't watch it, you have lost nothing.

Also, like I said before, I agree with the twinbots. They were downright horrible. Thankfully, unlike Jar Jar Binks, they only appeared a few small times, equaling maybe 3 minutes of the whole movie. Looking back, I even agree that they were more "Hillbilly" then "Black Face", but still Michael Bay could have done a better job if he just left them out. (Suck my Popsicle? Seriously?) They vanished at the end of the movie anyways, serving pretty much no purpose. Wheelie was also crossing that line for me, but he had little screentime and vanished when his use was played out.

I actually really liked Jetfire, even though his whole purpose was to be a stereotypical hunched over geriatric, only as a robot.

 

[Shegokigo]

Scytherexx, some people have FUN playing in traffic cause it's exciting, that make it any smarter?

You realized this was your description of why you had fun?

"The action was great"

"The plot had holes in it and didn't explain much, but that's what I expected from it in the first place, so its ok"

"The jokes weren't that funny, but it's what I expected from it in the first place so it's ok"

"The villains didnt explain much or act villainous, they were more silly, but that's what I expected from it in the first place so it's ok"

Pretty much what we've been saying the whole time. The only reason anyone has had for this thread.

"I enjoyed it, it was dumb, but that's ok cause I enjoyed it for being dumb".

 

[Charlie Don't Surf]

There are literally hundreds of movies more fun than Transformers that don't require lowered expectations.

 

[strawman]

Rotten tomato community gives it a 68%, rotten tomato critics give it a 21%. The gross is huge - even if you adjust for inflation. Keep in mind that theaters can't run the movie as many times a day as other movies, so the length of the film may also be hampering its sales. The economy may also be hampering its sales. Yet it's hard to believe that any other film will out-do it this year.

For better or worse, this is the definitive 2009 blockbuster film.

So... huge gulf between the critics and the public. Even the small poll I ran shows that it's a very divisive movie - very few people on the fence, you either love it or hate it.

I find it hard to believe that the gulf is due to intelligence, as some still seem to be suggesting in this thread.

-Adam

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

The economy may also be hampering its sales.

Typically a poor economy is a boon to the entertainment industry as people spend more on escapist entertainment. Ticket sales in general have been going up in the past few years as the economy has suffered more and more.

 

[Chazwozel]

The economy may also be hampering its sales.

Typically a poor economy is a boon to the entertainment industry as people spend more on escapist entertainment. Ticket sales in general have been going up in the past few years as the economy has suffered more and more.

I was about to say the same thing. I wonder how alcohol and MMO sales are doing...

 

[Shannow]

Alcohol is always doing well.

 

[ElJuski]

I find it hard to believe that the gulf is due to intelligence, as some still seem to be suggesting in this thread.

-Adam

Well, if most of these sales are, indeed, going to the tween and early teenager demographic, that case can still stand

 

[MindDetective]

It sort of seems like the key to really enjoying the film is having low expectations. If that's the case then I'm happy doing something else and waiting for it to show up on TV.

 

[Shegokigo]

I was about to say the same thing. I wonder how alcohol and MMO sales are doing...

Totally feels like that scene right now.

 

[ScytheRexx]

Curious what your point is Shego, so I liked it because it was cartoon dumb. I liked it for the same reason I liked the original show, the same reason I liked GI Joe, and other cartoons of old. The fact remains that you have the will to simply not watch the movie. Complaining about it on the internet is not going to make us like it any less, nor is it going to make it go away. You would have better luck getting a penny glued to the bottom of a jar using only your tongue.

There are literally hundreds of movies more fun than Transformers that don't require lowered expectations.

And I have watched most of them. Your point? Just because other movies exist does not mean I should automatically forget certain movies that interest me. I went to see the movie, I enjoyed it for what it was, end of the story. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

If you feel like my enjoyment of a movie is ruining your life, well, then I think the people who watch Transformers 2 are not the ones with the problems here.

 

[Shannow]

Curious what your point is Shego, so I liked it because it was cartoon dumb. I liked it for the same reason I liked the original show, the same reason I liked GI Joe, and other cartoons of old. The fact remains that you have the will to simply not watch the movie. Complaining about it on the internet is not going to make us like it any less, nor is it going to make it go away. You would have better luck getting a penny glued to the bottom of a jar using only your tongue.

But, to those on the fence whether to go spend money on it or not, the arguments heklp, as they see the faults with the film, and the....merits(?). Helping to stop the movie from getting more money is a start.

 

[Shegokigo]

The point, Scytherexx, as quite a few people have pointed out is easy:

Keep feeding Hollywood money for bad movies, and they'll get progressively worse till there's really no point to even try and make a good film, as it'll just flop vs the big money the dumbed down films will make.

 

[Fun Size]

I'm just here to see if Shego's going to try getting a penny glued to the bottom of a jar using only her tongue. I don't know what it means, but I really, really want to see that.

 

[Shegokigo]

I'm just here to see if Shego's going to try getting a penny glued to the bottom of a jar using only her tongue. I don't know what it means, but I really, really want to see that.

 

[Fun Size]

I am not disappointed.

 

[ScytheRexx]

But, to those on the fence whether to go spend money on it or not, the arguments heklp, as they see the faults with the film, and the....merits(?). Helping to stop the movie from getting more money is a start.

No one is on the fence here anymore. Most of us obviously either saw the movie and liked it, saw the movie and hated it, or didn't see the move at all. Considering the results of that poll in the other thread, you are a minority in this case, being one of the few people that saw it and hated it. Does this mean your opinion of the movie is wrong? No, you just have a different taste, a different set of expectations, and the movie was not for you in the end. That is perfectly fine.

My main objection to this entire thread is the idea that people should not go watch a simple movie because you don't like it. Dislike a movie, hate it, burn a DVD out of rage, it won't change how the people that enjoyed the movie feel when they walk out of that theater, and frankly, that is the most important thing.

Keep feeding Hollywood money for bad movies, and they'll get progressively worse till there's really no point to even try and make a good film, as it'll just flop vs the big money the dumbed down films will make.

Or you can realize that hollywood and television have been making popular dumb shit since they were created, and it has never caused a tidal wave of bad movies to suddenly overtake the good. It is always a balance, between the oscar loved movies and the popcorn throw away. They each have a niche, and they both will always exist. We are not dropping into a movie idiocracy because one extreme example of a popcorn movie did well at the box office. Sorry to disappoint you.

As I don't wish to argue the terms of what you guys deem should be enjoyable, I am going to bow out of this thread. I got my $7 worth, and that, in the end, is all that will matter to me. Good luck.

 

[Espy]

My main objection to this entire thread is the idea that people should not go watch a simple movie because you don't like it.

Ah, see now, that's entirely the problem here. No one is saying don't go see it because "I" don't like it. Rather, they are saying due to *insert any of the lists people have submitted giving reasons that this movie is blight on humanity* it should be avoided.
I realize some have made it personal in here.
It's not.
It's about the merits of the film.

 

[Shannow]

Truly, the merits of the film are why I am saying not to see it. And I do read posts here that say "I think I will wait on this one, see it for free, etc." So yes, there was a point to it.

 

[Krisken]

Truly, the merits of the film are why I am saying not to see it. And I do read posts here that say "I think I will wait on this one, see it for free, etc." So yes, there was a point to it.

If the point is to prevent people from putting money into the system that encourages bad movies being made, what's the harm in their seeing it for free then?

 

[Shannow]

I meant I would rather have them do that, than also give more money to fuel things like this.


Also, an interesting review at chud:


http://chud.com/articles/articles/19948 ... Page1.html

This isn't one of those negative reviews where the critic bemoans how stupid the big summer blockbuster is (although Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is stupid beyond belief. Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman claim that Michael Bay locked them in a hotel room for a month to write this movie; they obviously spent 29 and a half days watching pay per view porn and ordering room service); those kinds of pans are from sticks in the mud who either don't get blockbuster films or who are fighting a battle we lost back in 1985. No, this is one of those negative reviews that looks at a two and a half hour movie about giant robots fighting each other and asks just one question:

How can this movie be so fucking boring?

It's astonishing. Coming off of the very successful (and highly entertaining) Transformers, Michael Bay had the opportunity to make a movie that delivered chaos and destruction to his heart's delight. Instead he reveals a fetish for comic relief characters (there are SEVEN OR EIGHT comic relief characters in this film, many of whom spend most of the running time hanging out together) and a profound inability to create any sense of pacing. Sitting through Revenge of the Fallen is a tedious experience, a slog through absolutely meaningless bullshit to get to action scenes that are so sloppy that they seem to have been improv'ed on the spot. If the action scenes in the first film struck you as hard to follow you'll likely have no idea what's going on in the action scenes in this film. ILM has created photo-real giant robots that are fantastically detailed with thousands of moving parts and then failed to come up with any way to let the audience tell them apart. There are scenes in the final battle where I had literally - without hyperbole - no idea if the one robot hitting the other robot was a good guy or bad guy, let alone which character was which. The action scenes become semi-impressionistic melanges of metalic parts and explosions. Fights take place in featureless landscapes to hide the fact that not even the director has a single clue who is doing what in relation to which characters.

It seems so simple: deliver more and bigger robot action. But Bay keeps coming back to the human characters, not a single one of which are interesting or otherwise diverting. The film sidelines the Autobots (who are now working closely with the US military) for nearly the entire running time, and instead we're forced to hang out with a team of unfunny, irritating misfits. When John Turturro's returning Sector Seven agent is your most nuanced character you know you've really shit the bed.

And the action, when it's decipherable, offers nothing new. There's not a moment in this movie that threatens to even come close to the set pieces in the first, forget about topping them. In fact the lengthy final battle (which is like a fractal element of the entire film, as it is stuffed with filler and irritating comedy) appears to completely recycle the location of the Scorponok scene in the first movie. There's a fight in a forest that could have offered up some exciting possibilities, but besides the obvious pummeling with trees, the scene is forgettable. Walking into a movie like Transformers you must have your expectations lowered, but the one place that you hope to be impressed is with spectacle. Michael Bay fails at this, the most basic part of his job as a junk food director.

I never want to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen again, but if I did, I would like to bring a stopwatch. I would want to time the interminable filler scenes to see if they are as long as they feel. Does the scene where Shia's mom accidentally eats pot brownies and freaks out (which in no way, shape or form advances the story OR the characters. It's the actual definition of filler) really go on for as long as it seems? Does the movie really take an almost hour long break from any action to have the characters sneak into the Smithsonian and get an exposition dump from a robot before wandering in the desert for a while? The middle of the movie, about an hour where the film simply treads water, is the cinematic equivalent of the event horizon of a black hole, where time just slows down and a second lasts an eternity.

Critiquing the actors in this film is almost a waste of time. Shia LaBeouf is given nothing that even approximates a character; at the junket Orci and Kurtzman gave some lip service to this being his character's Refusal of the Call story (any time a writer references the Monomyth, tell them to fuck off), but that's not present in the movie. There's nothing in the movie; the character of Sam Witwicky simply moves from location to location and from scene to scene as... well, I was going to say as the story dictates, but Revenge of the Fallen has almost no story at all. It's simply a series of events that are interconnected but never really add up to anything. I know that saying an action movie 'has no story' is pretty cliche by now, but I think Revenge of the Fallen is almost literally plotless; there are a couple of vague ideas about plot - the Fallen wants revenge and Sam has info in his brain that he wants - but that's just about it. It's like a movie based on a TV Guide description.

Everybody else ranges from servicable to horrifyingly bad. Ramon Rodriguez, who plays Shia's new (comic relief) roommate (who could be erased from the film without altering one single tiny piece of the story. At all. The character embodies uselessness), should never again be allowed to act. Or at least he should never be allowed to start acting, since the hideous mugging he does in this film shares no DNA with what we know as acting. Megan Fox remains attractive but as long as Michael Bay is her director we'll never know if she's capable of anything else. And everyone else: most embarrass themselves and their families, but they have paychecks to comfort them. Tyrese Gibson and Josh Duhamel have such small roles in this film that they come across as master thespians in their few moments of screentime.

I hated this movie. Despised it. During the screening I turned to Aint It Cool News' Mr. Beaks and said 'This is grueling.' He checked his watch and less than an hour had gone by - and we hadn't even gotten to the real filler yet (there is enough filler in this movie to provide the entire runtime of another film. There's about 90 minutes of absolute nothing smack dab in the center of Revenge of the Fallen). And we hadn't even gotten to the point where it became obvious that no one involved in the film cared enough to craft even the most rudimentary of stories or to be concerned about even the most simple of continuity: at one point the characters walk out of the back door of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and end up blatantly in Arizona at the Sorona Desert Airplane Graveyard. It's a breathtaking moment of not giving a shit, one that gives you an idea of how little thought and care went into the construction of the film.

What bums me out is that there's not even much to laugh at in this movie. There's a scene at the end where Shia dies and goes to robot heaven (and I am not making this up), but that's too little too late. If the rest of the movie had featured that kind of inane absurdity I might have been able to take the ride, but the rest of the movie is just dull.

The thing about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is that it's an objectively bad film. The comedy doesn't work (and there's oh so fucking much of it), the characters are so flat you can't see them from the side, the plot has so many holes you begin to think surrealism was the point, the actors are bored, the action scenes are incoherent, the finale is a staggering anti-climax, the villain makes cyphers seem fully rounded, the pacing perfectly replicates the concept of 'death march'... there's nothing that works in this film. The fact that the illusion of movement is created onscreen may be Michael Bay's greatest and only triumph in this movie. Terry Schiavo would have been bored by this bloated, ponderous piece of shit.

Note: I saw the film in IMAX. Only a few minutes of the film are shot in true IMAX, and those minutes are not complete sequences. Random shots will appear in IMAX, meaning that the aspect ratio for one shot will change. Take into account how quick your average Michael Bay shot is and you'll understand how bizarre this decision was. Another sign that nobody making the movie gave a shit.


1 out of 10

 

[Espy]

at one point the characters walk out of the back door of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and end up blatantly in Arizona at the Sorona Desert Airplane Graveyard. It's a breathtaking moment of not giving a shit, one that gives you an idea of how little thought and care went into the construction of the film.

THAT scene blew my mind. It's when I realized, for sure, 100% that no one cared at all about this movie when they made it.

 

[strawman]

-Adam

 

[Shannow]

at one point the characters walk out of the back door of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and end up blatantly in Arizona at the Sorona Desert Airplane Graveyard. It's a breathtaking moment of not giving a poop, one that gives you an idea of how little thought and care went into the construction of the film.

THAT scene blew my mind. It's when I realized, for sure, 100% that no one cared at all about this movie when they made it.

Yeah, I turned to my friend at that scene and went "What the flying fuck? Where the fuck in DC does it look like that!?"

The reply was a dumbfounded shake of the head, and a look of sorrow for the movie.

 

[Krisken]

at one point the characters walk out of the back door of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and end up blatantly in Arizona at the Sorona Desert Airplane Graveyard. It's a breathtaking moment of not giving a poop, one that gives you an idea of how little thought and care went into the construction of the film.

THAT scene blew my mind. It's when I realized, for sure, 100% that no one cared at all about this movie when they made it.

Yeah, I turned to my friend at that scene and went "What the flying smurf? Where the smurf in DC does it look like that!?"

The reply was a dumbfounded shake of the head, and a look of sorrow for the movie.

Another moment where my brother-in-law looked at me with a "WTF?" look and I just shrugged in confusion.

 

[Gusto]

(there is enough filler in this movie to provide the entire runtime of another film. There's about 90 minutes of absolute nothing smack dab in the center of Revenge of the Fallen)

 

[Batdan]

I liked it.

 

[Krisken]

I liked it.

Sssshh, not so loud! You'll attract... Them.

If it wasn't for my scroll mouse being able to just spin, I'd never get to the end of this page.