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In a summer already filled with ill-conceived prologues, Revenge of the Fallen makes the biggest leap of all in reminding us of Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 B.C. That’s how long the Transformers have apparently been around on Earth, waiting in dormant for the moment when modern visual effects can finally do justice to their story. And when you can find someone to explain it to me, tell them to keep it to themselves. From what I can deduce from the jumbled histrionics on screen, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is headed to college and ready to leave megatron-hot mechanic girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox), behind. Before he leaves he gets a glimpse of the last shard of Spark cube that all the robots were after the first time and it leaves him with random visions of ancient symbols that make him write on the walls like a mental patient and create faces like a cartoon character who just laid their eyes on a Megan Fox.

The Decepticons want the shard to free their leader, Megatron, and proceed to hunt down Sam to find it. Their efforts include their apparent newfound technology to create a Whorebot in the guise of a horny frat party gal who, even in the world of Transformers, needs to be explained by the fanboys who ask us to take this crap seriously. You want me to believe an alien race of robots was spawned with the ability to disguise themselves as Earthbound technologies, using only their own moving parts and nothing else? Fine. What species on their planet was disguising themselves as a hot blonde to do anything but the necessary photo op on Bumblebee’s hood or serve as a silhouette for Optimus Prime’s mudflap? More plot is worked in including the government’s effort to limit the military’s co-habitation with the Autobots (which consists of one potshot after another against Barack Obama - including the knowledge that he's been whisked to a bunker once the country is under attack), the return of John Turturro’s disgraced government agent (complete with G-string action) and something or other involving a robot known as “The Fallen”. What serves as the screenplay co-written by Ehren Kruger and original writers Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman (who also penned this summer’s Star Trek) stops midway – in what must now be referred here on out as the “Old Spock Moment” – to explain the backstory to us and instead only muddles things further. Just minutes removed from each new introduction to the ever-revolving plotting, I could remember next-to-nothing about how each element related to anything.

What I will remember about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen are Mudflap and Skids, two Autobots who have been molded around the crudest of African-American stereotypes. It’s no joke that they are being referred to in some circles as Sambots. Voiced by Spongebob Squarepants himself (Tom Kelly), these annoying attempts at comic relief come complete with a single gold tooth, enough jive to rival the passengers from Airplane and a proclamation that they “don’t really do much reading.” Bay’s further destruction of a library with LaBeouf on hand seems like a direct counter to Spielberg’s theme of education that was so prevalent in last summer’s Crystal Skull. As always though, Bay is content to never limit his contempt for just one single demographic let alone literates. For those who didn’t get enough of the rat sex from Bad Boys II, Bay gives you two shots of dogs humping in this sequel, plus a tiny Transformer giving a little action to Megan Fox’s leg. Revenge of the Fallen puts guys at their superficial worst (and I’m no exception) as you’re liable to get a greater emotional reaction just staring at Fox in every scene she’s in (especially as a focal point of calm during the action sequences which are the worst Bay’s ever done – and that’s saying something.) Not a single female on campus is below model quality. The frat parties look like the inside of a Spearmint Rhino. Prior to the revelation of the Whoreicon’s true nature, Bumblebee (Sam’s mute robot car for the uninitiated) at one point taps into his inner fratboy by violently slamming her head into the dashboard for daring to make time with his faithful owner and, for good measure, spraying some gooey internal fluid into her face. Sam’s mom is also given extended screen time to run around campus high on pot brownies. Yes folks, watching Michael Bay stage comedy is like seeing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad perform at a Bar Mitzvah.

Action fans are here for the action though. With the exception of the first 20 minutes of the attack sequence in Pearl Harbor, Bay has never understood the concept of spacing, geography, time, planning or execution when it comes to his set pieces. Even worse, when his harshest critics call him on it all the time, its as if he comes back with an “I know better” swagger and just give us more extreme close-ups and no idea as to how to build excitement or a sense of what the motivation for each particular battle is all about. Most of us can put aside the idea that two unstoppable forces going mano-a-mano can still be exciting as long as the fight is good. (See the first three Terminator films.) I don’t know if even Spielberg or James Cameron could have provided the necessary personality to two giant CGI creations to make us care about the outcome, but I have enough faith in their abilities to believe we would at least know who was who when they are fighting. Can even the hardest core fans of the Transformers name ten of the robots on display here? Will they honestly be pleased by being able to do no more than point and say “hey, it’s tattooed jet - or pyramid pillager?” The film would have been better off dusting off Omar Sharif and his crushed car costume from Top Secret. More believable and his facial hair was real. Chase scenes start in one location and then mysteriously wind up completely in another such as a forest or the middle of a desert that all of a sudden becomes a police chase through an Egyptian town. For those who always wondered what Jumper might look like in the hands of Michael Bay, the film literally does just that halfway through to transport the action to the middle of Egypt. It wasn’t enough that he destroyed the Shantytowns of Cuba to climax Bad Boys II. Down with the pyramids goes Bay in the indecipherable final half-hour of this garbage.

Fanboys can come with their knives sharpened, sight unseen, to ginsu all of us for not seeing eye-to-eye on this unfathomably precious commodity. But if they are so easily able to dismiss all of the glaring flaws, poor taste and even poorer action on display then they are just as much a part of the problem with why this summer has been such a parade of crap on the blockbuster circuit. You need to demand more from films like this. Critics understand this isn’t Citizen Kane. We’ve heard your every line in trying to dismiss our opinions. But this isn’t even Megaforce. Yes it has good special effects, but so what? So did the first one. We’ve seen it. In fact, the couple new FX shots in the film (such as the Slutbot’s receding flesh and the Devastator’s sandsucking) are noticeably shoddy and cut down the argument that as a technical exercise it’s superior in some way. It is not. In no way imaginable. It’s stupid, offensive (it’s only missing a depiction of the mentally handicapped – though I suspect that was represented in the chair marked “Director”), overlong at two-and-a-half hours and boring. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is some action-packed extravaganza. Minutes 60-120 is nearly all exposition and what’s to come isn’t worth the wait. Turning Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen into a smash hit makes you all enablers. If you want to do your part to witness the saving of the human race, stop going to see Michael Bay films.

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originally posted: 06/24/09 14:00:00
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